by E. M. Foner
“Once upon a time,” the bunny shot back facetiously.
“I know that. I meant the next part.”
“It’s a close battle between ‘Three children were lost in the woods, when a witch,’ and ‘Three children were lost in space, when a witch,’ but, hang on. There’s a new one coming up that’s getting billions, no, trillions of votes. That shouldn’t happen.”
“What is it?” Aisha demanded.
“No time,” the bunny said, pointing urgently at his ear. “We’re live in three. Two. One.”
“And welcome back to ‘Let’s Make Friends,’” Aisha announced smoothly when the status light went hot. “Our cast members are all two years older than when they first started on the show, almost two and a half years, really, and I want to give them the opportunity to show how grown-up they’ve become. So after I read them the first line for Storytellers, I’m going to go sit in the audience and let them use their imaginations without interruption.”
The children all nudged each other excitedly, and there were some low whistles, foot-tapping, and the rumble of belly-patting from the audience. One of the numerous young Grenouthians related to the producer hopped onto the set and brought Aisha a tab with some text on it.
“And Storytellers will begin with—Once upon…”
“A TIME!” the children shouted.
“There was a brave Dollnick colony ship named Flower who lowered herself to work with humans.” Aisha’s voice trailed off at the end of the line, which struck her as a veritable minefield for storytelling and not a little insulting, but the die was cast, and she stepped down from the stage. The cameras followed as she found her seat next to Fenna and took her baby boy into her lap.
“You first,” Pluck nudged Mike.
“We agreed on Vzar,” the boy protested in a whisper.
“But it’s about Humans,” Vzar said. “And I can’t think of anything.”
“My father says that Flower isn’t normal,” Clume contributed. “She doesn’t listen.”
“Somebody has to go,” Orsilla pointed out.
“I’ll do it,” Spinner announced, and launched into the story. “Flower liked to travel through space assisting people in need, and she came to Union Station to get ready for her new job. All of the species offered to help her prepare.”
Aisha felt the tension easing from her shoulders as the young Stryx opened the story. She had been worried that the first child would start by equipping Flower with weapons to become a pirate ship.
“And the Frunge helped plant Earth-trees on Flower’s ag deck so the Humans wouldn’t be lonely,” Vzar offered, and then pointed at Orsilla, who was next in the order they had agreed upon backstage.
“The Hortens taught Flower games she could play with the Humans so they wouldn’t be bored and get up to mischief,” the Horten girl suggested, and pointed at Pluck, who had had a little time to think.
“And Flower told the Humans they could go anywhere on the ship, but not to open the blue door,” the Drazen boy said, lowering his voice as he gave the warning.
Aisha leaned forward in her chair, willing the Verlock girl to steer the story back on track to a happy ending.
“One day,” the bulky alien pronounced slowly, “a little boy told his friends in Flower’s school that he was going to look behind the blue door. The next day, he didn’t come to class.” She nodded to Mike.
“And the boy’s best friend went to look for him after school. She slowly opened the blue door to peek inside, but she couldn’t see anything,” he added, and pointed at Clume.
“So the girl asked Flower to turn on the lights in the room, but instead, the corridor lights went out. Then the girl thought she heard somebody moving inside.”
Aisha held her breath while she waited to see if Spinner would pull the story back from child-eating monsters, but the young Stryx was caught up in the group-telling.
“And when she went inside, the girl found it wasn’t a room at all, but a magical forest. Before she could go back, a witch grabbed her and stuffed her in a sack with the little boy.”
“Oooh, this is a good one,” Fenna whispered to her mother. “Spinner really learned how to use his imagination.”
“And the sack was bigger on the inside than the outside, and it was full of children from all over the galaxy,” Vzar picked up on the familiar theme. “The witch was saving up until she had enough children to make soup for her friends.”
“But the little Horten girl had her sewing kit with her, and she used her scissors to cut a hole in the sack,” Orsilla said, taking advantage of the fact that none of the earlier tellers had assigned the girl a species.
“And a brave Drazen boy reached through the hole with his tentacle and grabbed the witch’s ankles. And she fell over and hit her head and went to sleep,” Pluck said, as proudly as if he were the boy in the sack.
“Then the children all crawled out of the sack and they called for Flower to open the door,” the Verlock girl added, leaving the final line to Mike.
The boy peered reluctantly out at the audience where Aisha was sitting with the fingers on both of her hands crossed, and he wrapped up the story with, “And Flower let the children out for ten centees each.”
The assistant director gestured to Aisha to return as the network went to commercial.
“I really thought they were going to get the children all the way into the cookpot for a change,” the Grenouthian grumbled. “Kids these days have no imagination.”
“I don’t understand how we ended up with an opening line about EarthCent’s Dollnick colony ship,” Aisha said, smiling happily at the children who had brought Storytellers into a safe harbor without her riding herd.
“The booth already ran it down and we’ll have to patch that particular hole if we ever do audience call-in again. Nobody was expecting an AI to take an interest in the first line for a Storytellers episode, so it was easy for Flower to hijack the voting.”
Twelve
“Are you feeling better yet?” Kevin asked Dorothy. “I know that three days from Union Station to Earth was pushing it, but the Stryx offered it as an option, and I figure the less time you spend in Zero-G the better.”
“I’m fine in Zero-G, the problem was you cutting my Farling medicine patches in quarters. If I ever find out that you were lying about bringing just enough for the round trip, the marriage is off.”
“We’re already married and you can’t divorce me, the Frunge don’t recognize it. The best you can do is to get a waiver that allows you to take a second husband.”
“Watch where you’re going!” Dorothy shouted as the floater narrowly missed an abandoned box truck on the broken-up highway.
“I’m not driving this thing, it’s on autopilot. Weren’t you listening when your grandmother explained how it all worked?”
“I didn’t feel well, and besides, I thought you just talked to it.”
“You have to know what to say. It’s an autopilot, not an AI.”
“Where’s this place we’re going again?”
“One of those universities that couldn’t find enough students or funding to keep going after the Stryx opened Earth. Your mom got a whole list of them from the president’s people, but this one is near the place with the carnival equipment.”
“But that was like a hundred years ago. Are you sure they have any books left?”
“I’m just going by what the EarthCent people told us. It’s not a hundred years either, more like eighty, and the university didn’t close immediately. It took decades to ferry all those people off Earth back before the elevator was built. The alien labor contractors had to do it with big shuttles.”
“Like the ones Flower has on her colony ship?”
“Those are for moving people who are awake. I watched a Grenouthian documentary about how the aliens recruited whole towns from Earth for contracts, and they used specialty transports where everybody except for the crew was put in stasis. Some of the big ones could carry a hundred thous
and people in one go, and it saves a ton of space when you don’t need to feed all those people or give them room to move around. They just stack them in like cargo.”
“What difference does it make if the university shut down forty years ago rather than eighty? My dad says that you can’t leave buildings alone for more than a couple of years on Earth or they’ll have trees growing out of them.”
“I don’t remember all the details, but the campus was sold off to somebody, maybe a religious group.”
“Why didn’t they sell all of the books?”
“I don’t know, Dorothy. Maybe something to do with their religion. There was a note from Hildy Gruen, the president’s girlfriend, to be careful about what we say to them.”
“Arriving at Haven in one minute,” the floater informed them.
“Wow, look at all those tall buildings,” Dorothy said. “They remind me of hotels.”
“Probably student housing. These universities were supposedly like self-contained cities, with their own police force and everything.”
The floater slowed as it approached the gated entrance, and then came to a complete stop next to the guard shack window when the barrier failed to rise out of the way.
“Why don’t we just float over it?” Dorothy demanded.
“I’m not driving,” he reminded her. “Hopefully the autopilot knows what it’s doing.”
The door of the shack banged open, and a bored looking guard approached the floater. “You here to see the nutcases?” he asked.
“We’re here about the library,” Kevin said. “The EarthCent president’s office arranged a meeting for us.”
“Those freaks didn’t bother telling me,” the guard said, gesturing in the direction of the campus. “Alright, I’m recording now,” he announced in a bored voice, thumbing on a device with a lens hanging from a lanyard around his neck. “I’m required by law to read you these conditions, and if you want to get in, you have to state your verbal agreement to each one. First, do you agree to hold Triple A Security harmless in the case of any damage to your vehicle or your person inside these gates?”
“I do,” Kevin said, shrugging at Dorothy.
“I do too,” she confirmed, “and that’s more than anybody asked me before claiming I was married.”
The guard raised an eyebrow at her remark, but continued.
“Second. Do you agree not to speak about aliens or artificial intelligence inside, even if you are directly questioned about their existence?”
“I do,” Kevin replied automatically.
“That’s ridiculous,” Dorothy said. “My best friends are AI and aliens.”
“So don’t go in,” the guard responded, and began to turn away.
“Come on, Dorothy. You can just pretend that you’re mad and that you’re giving everybody inside the silent treatment.”
“All right. I do too.”
“Third. Do you agree not to make reference to the space elevator, the tunnel network, or any other manifestations of the false reality outside of these gates.”
“I do,” Kevin said.
“Whatever,” Dorothy grunted, looking fierce.
“That’s not good enough,” the guard said, tapping his fingers on the floater.
“Alright, alright. I do.”
“Thank you. Enjoy your visit to Haven and try not to get stoned.”
“They’re going to push drugs on us?” Kevin asked the guard, glancing at Dorothy, who gave him a withering look in return.
“Stoned in the biblical sense,” the guard said, leaning in through the window of the shack and activating the gate mechanism. “It’s a bad thing. Trust me.”
“I guess Haven must be set up for rejectionists,” Kevin told Dorothy as the floater began moving forward without further instructions. “I don’t like the sound of that stoning business, so please let me do the talking.”
“But grandma pointed out to me how you can see the elevator hub at night from all around here as long as it’s not cloudy,” the girl exploded. “These people must be nuts.”
“Just keep it bottled up until we’re outside the gates,” he warned her. “In fact, maybe we should go back and I’ll leave you with the guard.”
“No, no. I’ll be good. But how are they going to explain the floater?”
“They probably believe it was invented by humans,” Kevin speculated as the floater came to a halt in front of a brutal looking concrete building.
“Library,” the autopilot announced, and fell silent.
“Let’s not stay any longer than we have to,” Dorothy said, as they stepped out of the vehicle and started up the broad stairs littered with small stones. “It doesn’t even look open.”
“Those metal shutters aren’t original. I’ll bet they replaced the whole entrance at some point. Look, there’s a little door over there at the right with a ‘Visitors’ sign.”
Dorothy marched boldly up to the door and raised the knocker, prepared to take out her frustration by doing her best to put a dent in the metal, but the door opened inwards before she could carry through with the motion.
“Welcome, I’ve been watching for you.” The speaker was a small man wearing a little round hat and an ancient tweed suit coat with patches on the elbows. “I’m Peter, and if you’ll come in, that’s right, it’s safe to talk in here. I only visit Haven when I have to, but it’s on my circuit, so there you have it.”
“Your circuit?” Kevin asked.
“I’m a library circuit rider. I’m responsible for thirty-nine former municipal and educational libraries in this part of the state, or what’s left of it. Our goal is conservatorship, which in practice means trying to save as many books as possible from water damage or biomass conversion.”
“What’s that?”
“Burning.” The librarian’s voice cracked as he pronounced the word, and he gestured for them to follow him as he began walking. “When I first joined the library movement in the youth auxiliary, I remember how easy it was to get people to agree that books are a treasure to be preserved, and we even collected plenty of cash donations. But when it came to finding people willing to give a good home to a few thousand volumes, all of a sudden nobody has any room.” He sighed. “My own house is stuffed with books, and when I die, I have no doubt about where they’re headed.”
“Who owns the books in this library?” Kevin asked.
“Ironically, they still belong to the state,” the librarian said, leading them into the stacks. “When the campus was sold to the Haven cult, the library was specifically excluded because it also serves as a federal repository for government publications. Since that time, things have loosened up and nobody asks questions about who owns what books. Our group has been able to preserve the library buildings by selling off rare books to collectors and, uh, various other fundraising. But the core problem of what to do with millions of books when nobody is reading them remains.”
“Why isn’t anybody reading them?” Dorothy demanded.
“Well, admittedly, a great number of the volumes in educational libraries are monographs, like these here.”
“What’s a monograph?”
“Two centees, I can’t go any higher.”
“I didn’t mean what do they cost. I meant, what are they?”
“Generally academic studies of a single subject, hence the title, and in practice, many were published for the sake of credentialing.”
“What did you mean you can’t go any higher?” Kevin asked, thinking that the man was bargaining backwards.
“That’s what I can pay you to take them,” the man said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“I’m just doing a favor for my mother-in-law, the EarthCent Ambassador to Union Station,” Kevin explained. “They’re planning on outfitting a Dollnick colony ship with a library and taking it around to human communities.”
“Then forget the monographs,” the little librarian said, growing visibly excited. “Do you mean that EarthCent is planning to fil
l a ship with books to make them available to humans all through the galaxy?”
“Well, it’s an awfully big ship and it’s going to be used for a lot of other things as well.”
“I can get you all the real books you want, but you’ll have to arrange for shipping.”
“You mean for free?”
“Of course for free. Nobody pays for old books unless they’re rare or collectible for some reason. Tell me, do you know if the ambassador is interested in hiring librarians? I’m available, and I know a number of us who would be willing to go along with their books. I’ll work for room and board.”
“I’ll check with my mom about the job,” Dorothy promised. “But how are we going to move whole libraries full of books to Union Station?”
“Minus the monographs and federal collection,” the librarian reminded them.
“We’ll have to get a whole bunch of standard elevator shipping containers sent out here and find people to pack them,” Kevin said. “I don’t think EarthCent, or maybe it’s Eccentric Enterprises, will have any issue paying for transport. Once the containers are all in orbit, they can wait until Flower comes to pick them up.”
“I can hire the Havenites cheap to pack the books,” Peter said. “Their economy is understandably depressed, and they would have starved out years ago without charitable donations from the large food packing plant nearby.”
“Drazen Foods?” Dorothy asked. “We’re going to visit the plant later, the owner knows my family. In fact, Eccentric has been using them to handle all sorts of shipping from Earth because they do so much of it.”
“That’s perfect. The Havenites have convinced themselves that the Drazens are actually humans who were mutated over a couple of generations by drinking polluted well water in a local town. If you can get me the authorization I can handle all of the arrangements. Moving these books off of Earth to where people will read them is like a dream come true.”
Dorothy and Kevin left the reborn librarian planning up a storm, and following Peter’s advice, got right back into the floater and departed Haven without sightseeing. They broke out the bag lunches Marge had insisted on packing and ate as the floater shot over the countryside at an insane rate of speed.