Means of Escape (Spinward Book 1)

by Rupert Segar

  Yelena was now certain that the first voice had come from the ovoid strapped on her stomach.

  “Ship, what am I carrying?” asked Yelena sharing a look with the ever sceptical Art who was privy to the conversation.

  “It is me, Yelena, the entity from the ship.”

  “Well who is in orbit with Bhuna then?” interjected Art abruptly.

  There was a silent pause as Yelena and Art waited for a reply. They looked at each other worried.

  “It is me too, Art, the ship,” this time the voice had some slight static overlaid on it as if to suggest the vast distance from the library to the ship in orbit.

  “How in Einstein’s name can you be in two places at once,” said Art, his sub-vocal shout was so loud it was almost audible to the security guards nearby, who gave him a momentary glance.

  “It is complicated,” said the first voice clearly and quietly.

  +

  Lea Whey, the Librarian, sat before the committee, surprised and perplexed to be there. Before him were five head archivists, five dali lamas, two chief explorers and the vice chancellor, Li Wang. They perched on large winged black leather chairs, wearing thick velveteen robes in various shades of purple. All together they made up the government of Willow.

  Lea had only ever been in the presence of the assembled dignitaries once before, when he had received his Librarians robe and cowl. In fact, now he recalled, on his investiture day, two of the dali lamas had been away on missionary work and one of the chief explorer positions had been vacant.

  Today, whatever they were debating was clearly important as they were all present. Lea sat miserably behind the privacy field that cut off all sound of the discussion. The vice chancellor, Li Wang, was clearly in charge. Her large flabby body wobbled as her chubby arms swung one way then the next. The other great leaders seemed to concede to her every demand. The vice chancellor stood as did all the dali lamas and the two chief explorers. They all bowed to the vice chancellor and continued bowing as they walked backwards out of the chamber.

  The young librarian recalled that the vice chancellor, Li Wang had been the previous head archivist at the Quintox Library. She had a fearsome reputation for cruel efficiency.

  The vice chancellor turned to Lea. There was an audible pop as the privacy field disappeared. The vice chancellor’s triple chins quivered but her stare was straight and steady. Lea stood and bowed his head.

  “Librarian Whey,” said Vice Chancellor. “You have been summoned to appear before the committee of head archivists to answer charges of sedition against the Library.”

  +

  The giant reading room occupied the central three layers of the Quintox Library. The thirty metre high vaulted ceiling spanned a pentagonal floor, which housed five large groups of desks and benches. The centre of the room was dominated by a raised platform ten metres across, also in the shape of a pentagon. The room was crowded with scholars, researchers, and explorers. A host of junior archivists glided silently to and fro on grav-sledges carrying volumes of books from depository to desk and back again.

  Yelena and Art occupied one of the small cubicles that lined all five walls of the reading room. Art had told the attendant his heavily pregnant wife needed somewhere more comfortable and less public than the hard benches and small desks. Art had also given him a twenty credit token which was half a week’s salary for a low grade archive assistant.

  The study had an open doorway which faced the reading room, designed so the occupant could be observed casually by passers-by. There were two cameras pointing at the computer console and reading desk. Yelena and Art sat at the console with their backs to the doorway and started to view the archive lists. Most of the libraries vast collection of book had been digitally stored in the computer core. Yelena wondered why the scholars bothered with books when they could have instant access via a vid-screen. Then she recalled the briefing they had been given on the docking station in orbit about the second moon. Books were still venerated by the people of Willow who, like Art, had a justifiable prejudice against machines with too much knowledge.

  “Keep looking at the screen for another 30 second, please Yelena,” said the mechanical voice in her ear.

  Art had heard the instruction too because now he looked awkward and self-conscious.

  “Just relax, Art,” said Yelena. “You look like a shop dummy.”

  On the wall in front of the console two small pictures blinked on. They were the views from the two security cameras. Typically, the ship had cleverly edited the image of the pictures within the pictures. As they watched themselves watching the images on the wall, they seemed to be looking at a succession of entries and extracts from different library sources. The images were on a loop but each time round the pictures changed.

  “Anyone monitoring the security cameras will just see two off-worlders doing some innocent research,” said the ship’s proxy hidden under Yelena’s artificial abdomen.

  “Now, what is it you want us to research?” asked Yelena her fingers poised on the controls.

  “If you do not mind, Yelena it might be quicker if I take over,” said the mechanical voice in her ear.

  Lights danced across the console and a series of brief images flicked across the wall in front of them.

  +

  Lea Whey’s brow was covered in perspiration. The round of questioning had gone on for over half an hour. The committee seemed intent on shredding his thesis on the history of galactic exploration: the thesis which had only months previously seen him elevated from promising scholar to the youngest librarian of his generation.

  “Do you, in any way, consider the democratic state of 22nd century China on Old Earth to be superior to our own society?” asked Chung, the head librarian of the Quintox Library.

  Lea had always suspected his immediate superior, Chung, had felt intellectually threatened by Lea’s success and fame among younger scholars. Although nepotism was officially frowned on, Chung Wang had more or less inherited his position from his mother, the vice chancellor. Even under pressure, Lea made a succinct assessment of his boss: he’s not stupid just dull and uninspired, he thought.

  “I meant no criticism of the venerable committee, or of the government, or of our society,” said Lea staring intently at a spot on the floor a metre in front of him.

  “Your whole thesis is a subversive tract extolling the virtues of democracy over other forms of government,” spat out Chung.

  “My thesis is the history of man’s earliest expansion into the galaxy,” replied Lea, trying to sound apologetic. “The first wave of hyper flight colonisation was mostly due to the efforts of the Chinese super state.”

  “We know that, young man,” snapped the vice chancellor. “We are not here to be given a schoolboy lesson in early history.”

  “Yes, mam,” said Lea, now looking at a spot on the floor between his feet. He was not being given a chance to answer the charges laid against him.

  “Your seditious flirting with the antiquated forms of government called democracy might be excused as the unrealistic and romantic infatuation of a young man but it is not worthy as a field of study for a librarian.” said the Vice Chancellor. “However, it is your obsession with the myth of forbidden planets which has brought the work of scholars and librarians alike into disrepute.”

  “The Quintox Library is the hallowed repository of all humankind’s knowledge,” intoned the vice chancellor’s son, Chung. “It is not fitting that you seek to poison our fountains of knowledge with made up accounts about non-existent alien worlds. “

  “Worse still, these fairy stories have infected the minds of countless younger scholars. Even now,” said the Head librarian tapping at the keys inlaid into the committee table in front of him, “at this very minute, twenty one scholars are reading your puerile nonsense about these worlds, Worlds that do not exist.”

  Lea realised he was being punished for being popular. He knew his thesis had a wide readership. That was one of the reasons he had
been made a librarian so early in his career. Now, it seemed, his glittering career was about to end.

  +

  In their alcove, Yelena and Art watched a series of pictures and texts flash up on the wall in from of them. They were coming faster and faster until they were a blur of images. Occasionally, one text or index would shift across the wall and remain static for a few seconds, then another would move over it, then another.

  “This is too slow,” said the mechanical voice. “Yelena, please remain completely still.”

  At that, Yelena’s prosthetic abdomen opened and two small claws on tubular metal joints sprang out of Yelena’s false tummy and buried themselves in the keyboard.

  “Ah, that’s better,” said the machine. “Art, it may be prudent for you to keep watch over the doorway.”

  +

  “The verdict of this committee is that you, Lea Whey, have intentionally sought to pervert the values of the great Libraries of Willow,” said the vice chancellor in her gravest tone. “You have sought to promulgate seditious ideas undermining the truths we, as scholars, all aspire to defend and preserve.”

  “You are hereby stripped of your librarian’s robe and cowl. You are no longer to be allowed access to the main archives of Willow. Instead, tomorrow, you will travel to the northern province of Sushwea where you will be an assistant librarian in the mining town of Kabul.

  “At midnight tonight, your thesis will be expunged from the computer core here at the Quintox Library and at the other libraries on Willow. I have already ordered all paper copies to be burned and they are en route to the furnaces, as I speak.”

  “You have thirty minutes to clear your study and leave the library.”

  The Vice Chancellor turned back to the table and the privacy screen popped back into existence. Bowing, Lea left the room.

  +

  “At last,” said the mechanical voice in Yelena’s and Art’s ears. “I have found the records we need.”

  Art was far from convinced he needed the information the machine was seeking. However, Yelena had convinced him that assisting the entity could benefit humanity and might, along the way, help them find a way out of the mess they were in.

  The clutter on the vid wall was cleared away and the title page of a single document appeared.

  Early Galactic Exploration and the Myth of the Forbidden Planet

  by

  Scholar Lea Whey

  “Have a read for yourselves,” said the ship’s proxy. “I need to cross index all of the author’s references and sources. Hold on.”

  Six typed pages from the report unfolded on the wall. Yelena began to read and Art joined her, abandoning his post as lookout.

  +

  Lea sat for a few moments at his desk. His hand caressed the keyboard in fond farewell. He noticed that there were now forty two people looking at his thesis via the computer but the most recent reader was doing something odd. The computer vid-screen was doing something unusual as well. On the vid-screen was a meter registering the amount of data being transferred to one of the library consoles. He had never seen an icon like that before. This puzzled Lea even more as he had no idea his computer was capable of monitoring remote desks. As he looked, he could see the scholar in study section 4-106 was accessing huge amounts of data, more than he thought possible.

  +

  “Look, here he says he found forty six different planets where they believed that an alien world was hidden in a nearby nebula,” said Art.

  “Yes, same myth but different nebulas,” said the machine. “The forty six planets are spread over a quarter of the galaxy. I have plotted each one and found the original references.”

  “How much longer is this going to take?” asked Yelena anxiously. She felt vulnerable because she was physically attached by cables to the library keyboard. Especially because a super computer strapped to her stomach, was illegally hacking into the data archives of reputedly the biggest library in the galaxy.

  “The library computer barely deserves the name,” said the machine. “It is mostly a huge archive of unprocessed digitised materials with barely any programs to manage the data.”

  “Can’t you just read it all?” asked Art.

  “No, even I do not have that capacity,” said the entity with a hint of a sigh. “I have to find all the references, find the corresponding sources and copy them. The last bit takes virtually no time at all, but locating all the materials I need is difficult because this primitive computer is more like a series of locked rooms joined by a maze of corridors with a jailer who only has some of the keys.”

  “Hey, the author of this report has found over a hundred worlds where legend says the crews of exploration ships have been kidnapped after entering neighbouring stellar systems,” said Yelena who had been ignoring the machine’s technical talk.

  “Look, he lists fifteen possible reasons for the disappearances. Wow, I didn’t know Kyrillian radiation dissolves flesh and bones. Yuk.”

  “This guy really knows his stuff,” said Art.

  “Why, thank you,” said a voice from the doorway. “I am, or was, Librarian Lea Whey, the author of the report.”

  Art having remembered his lookout duty too late, jumped up, with a reassuring smile on his face. Yelena hunched forward trying to conceal the evidence of their crimes.

  “He’s just been fired on trumped up charges,” said the ship’s proxy in Art’s and Yelena’s ear pieces. “It’s all over the library comms-link network.”

  “How do you do?” said Art to the ex-librarian, stalling for time. “A privilege to meet you. Your thesis is … fascinating”

  The ship’s proxy continued talking to Art and Yelena. “This thesis, which incidentally is one of the most popular publications among scholars on this planet, is going to be deleted from the library’s records at midnight. We need this man.”

  The ex-librarian moved forward.

  “Can I ask-” said Lea who stopped talking abruptly as he caught sight of the leads running from the keyboard to Yelena’s abdomen. “What are you doing? Have you brought a data scanning device into the library? This is against the rules. I must-”

  “Your thesis is one of the reasons we came to the library,” said Art interrupting the ex-librarian in an attempt to placate him. “We want to preserve your work, not delete it.”

  “How do you know-” began Lea. “By Quintox himself, you’re tapping into the library’s computer. I must call security.”

  “No, you won’t” said Yelena quietly but with a tone of command that made both men look towards her. Yelena was still sat facing the wall screen which now showed a stellar map of their quadrant of the galaxy. A diagram overlaid the stars.

  “Lea Whey, do you recognise these systems? They are the two hundred and forty seven possible locations of forbidden planets mentioned in your thesis.”

  “Yes, perhaps” said Lea Whey slightly hesitantly. “I recognise some of the regions and systems but I did not produce this diagram. Where has it come from?”

  “Let us remove the obvious copycat legends,” said Yelena as many of the glowing lights went out. “Let’s get rid of the systems that cannot support human, or near human life. Then there are the uncorroborated legends; the tales that were identified by yourself as being inconsistent. Remove the regions were interstellar travel is near impossible because of nebula radiation or dust zones. Now, of what is left, remove any with less than a 40 percent chance of being true, a filter we have put in place.”

  Nearly all the lights had been extinguished leaving just a handful and all in the same small region of the galaxy.

  “These are all in the Chimera sector,” said Lea Whey pointing at the seven nodules still glowing.

  “We are going there,” said Art. “And we want you to come with us.”

  “You are going nowhere, sub-assistant librarian Whey,” crowed a voice from the doorway behind them. Standing there was the head librarian, Chung Wang, flanked by two security guards each wearing combat goggles and
holding a stun gun.

  “I know you despise our society, Whey,” continued the Head librarian. “However, I did not think your subversive tendencies would extend to the illegal appropriation of library data. I have just come from your office, sub-assistant, where I saw for myself on your computer screen the zettabytes of data being stolen from the library’s memory cores.”

  “But Head librarian,” protested Lea. “I came here because I saw that too. These two people are hacking into the library.”

  “You must be part of this,” snarled Wang. “How else would you have a link in your office with this station?”

  “But I…” spluttered Lea as the entire library was plunged into darkness. In the background there were shouts of alarm.

  “Art, go to your left and stand by the wall next to the entrance,” said the mechanical voice in Art’s ear.

  “But the guards have goggles that let them see in the dark,” said Art subvocally.

  “No, they have goggles that let them see what I want them to see,” said the ship’s proxy.

  “Stand still or I will fire,” came the gruff voice of one of the security guards.

  “Guards, fire!” commanded the head librarian.

  “Stay behind us, head librarian,” requested the second guard.

  “This is your last warning,” ordered the gruff voice that now had an edge of panic in it.

  There was a staccato click and a beam of violet light splayed across a man’s chest and disappeared. Art and Yelena heard the man fall to the ground.

  “Stand still!” “There’s more of ‘em.” “Stand back, no closer.” “Where are they coming from?”

  The two guards appeared to be confused and uncertain. They had moved into the room. The ship’s proxy whispered to Art and Yelena telling them to remain still.

  The two guards shouted simultaneously, a loud guttural cry of fear and dismay, and then they shot each other.

  The lights in the library came back on to reveal both guards lying twitching on the floor alongside the head librarian. Lea Whey stood fixed to a spot just by Yelena’s chair.