The car was still swaying, but not so frantically. Tim returned to awareness to see the darkened windows. No, it was night. Pinprick stars shone through his own dim reflection in the glass. In a moment of dim misperception he saw it as a long fall before shaking it off.
The rate at which objects passed outside told him the car was still traveling at a high rate of speed. He looked down and started feeling about for Buk's container. Nothing. Panicked, he looked about, and then saw that it apparently had crawled back onto the dashboard. Its compact form told him it was in audio delivery mode - it had to be slightly denser to emit sound. Startled, he heard his own voice come out of it.
"When in the course. Swim with the current. Under all circumstances."
He wasn't sure, but they sounded like snippets of presidential quotes. Buk was a Bible, though. Where would it get non-biblical quotes. Well, his father had said it was special. Why was it talking though?
"Buk?"
The faceless blob somehow indicated its attention was now on him - a bizarre linear branched flashing symbol blinked patiently. How special was Buk?
"Buk - association. Explain long form."
The almost gelatinous mass remained quietly blinking. Finally, it began to spread out apparently choosing text over voice.
"Father. Danger. Past. Buk."
This was odd. He looked around in the now dark evening and didn't see any other lights. Did it mean they were safe from that bizarre reckless driver? Tim did not even think to check to see if the incident had been reported. All automobiles contained such automatic systems. He assumed the other driver had been stopped and that his automobile had continued on the last system override command.
"Buk" Tim began, but shockingly it interrupted.
"Father. Danger. Job."
What? What did his father have to do with danger and the book of Job?
"Father is resting, Buk. He's not in danger. He's buried but quiescent. He's safe." Tim paused, not sure if this was worth conveying. "And he's not suffering." Maybe that was the reference. He wasn't sure he was thinking clearly. Nearly being involved in an accident and being suddenly unconscious were disturbing enough without a confused book.
It was his father's book after all, and seemed to share his bizarrely disjointed way of getting to the subject. His father said that he wanted him to have it, and that other people might get jealous or try and include it in the estate tax burden. He wasn't sure of its worth, he said, so he wanted to keep it from being sold and the proceeds divided.
Buk blinked and became painfully bright, getting Tim's attention again.
"Job. Mission. Accomplish. Secret."
Tim scowled again. Secret mission? What kind of Bible was this? Tim quietly reached for his own library, thinking that he could distract himself from this and contact the authorities after a night's sleep. Ah, Gulliver's Travels. A classic. This book wouldn't be so confusing.
He poured it out into the palm of his hand and waited. It pooled and quietly began with a prompt. "Begin?" it asked softly, fading in a most pleasing manner from a deep navy to a sky blue. "Yes..." Tim started, but then pulled back, startled.
Buk was there. Its pseudopods flung like a net across Gulliver, and as Tim watched Buk ate Gulliver. This wasn't supposed to be possible. The squirming mass slipped from his hands. Books were imiscable, they couldn't be mixed - only divided and reconstituted. Their actual content was impossibly small - their bulk was made up of a soup of self-assembling sensors, photon absorbers and emitters of various kinds. But Gulliver was dissolving into Buk. Tim weakly tried to pull Buk away but it came apart in his fingers, and he watched in a kind of fascinated horror as the combined fluid took on Buk's deep mahogany color.
"After the fashion of the country." it began. "They murder two or three dozen of the natives. By force, for a sample, return home. "
It was talking in disjointed associations again. It was clearly very defective, and he clutched the rest of his library against this new terror. What else could Buk eat?
"In point of prudence and self-preservation." Buk blinked earnestly. It waited now, or paused in its mechanical insanity, Tim wasn't sure.
The pause stretched into minutes, and Tim felt his heart rate slow again. He wasn't in danger of being eaten, apparently, though this primal fear had reared mirroring the old urban legends of grey goo. Humanity was still afraid of nanomechanics, to be sure. Wary creators had put all sorts of safeguards and self-limiters into every facet of self-assembling and reconfiguring machinima. Any recall was greeted with rumors of people injured or disassembled and constituted into a new piece of reconfigurable furniture.
Tim slowly spoke again. "Buk. Why did you... eat... Gulliver's Travels?" It was a stupid question, and Buk was not a Turing-capable machinima, so he wasn't sure how that would parse.
Buk waited, apparently thinking, or perhaps sensing Tim's fear and trepidation.
"Needed. More. Phrases." it displayed finally.
Tim dropped his library in surprise.
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