The Library of Ever

by Zeno Alexander

  “Tell them the library needs their help!” called Lenora, and Cinnamon, leaning out, sent her message into the winds, a message that smelled like plowed earth and burnt rubber and a basket of dried apples: Librarian needs assistance!

  And the message worked, Lenora could see, when she and Cinnamon raced back down the tower, because dozens of ants had dropped everything and assembled below in long, orderly ranks. Soon Lenora found herself a general at the head of an army.

  “Onward!” she ordered, and the columns marched rapidly through the streets and tunnels and out through the ANT CITY arch into the library proper.

  “Watch out for anyone in an overcoat and bowler hat!” she called, pointing the way to the Unshrinking Room as the army hurried across the floor.

  “Everybody in!” she cried, and her army rushed across the threshold.

  In moments Lenora was back to her normal size. And the room was filling up with human-size ants. They raced out into the corridor to make room as one after another unshrank. (Was it really unshrinking if they were small to begin with? Lenora decided to leave that question for another day.) Soon the ants were all rushing through the halls as startled patrons leapt out of the way.

  “Sorry!” cried Lenora over and over. “Important library business!”

  Traveling by ant was proving to be even faster than by Tube. In hardly any time at all, Lenora was back in her Unknown section. She installed herself near the desk and continued giving orders. Ants dashed around in all directions, stacking and shelving and organizing and straightening. They brought Lenora books and she told them where to put them. And it was exactly as she had suspected—with books on space travel and tardigrades and radiation and extreme cold, there was no doubt that she was in the Tardigrades section. She ran into the hallway and confirmed that TARDIGRADES now appeared above the entrance.

  When everything was done and the Tardigrades section was looking thoroughly professional and organized, Lenora asked the helpful ants to gather books on orbital mechanics and features of the solar system and beyond. “Oh, and bring the MOOSE, too,” she told them. She never knew what might come in handy.

  She climbed aboard Cinnamon for the journey back to the Shrinking Room. Lenora soon found herself standing in front of the tardigrade. “Will these do?” she asked, showing her the books.

  “Oh yes!” said the tardigrade, clapping six claws together. “Precisely what I need. And just in time, as my spaceship is complete.” The tardigrade gathered up all the books and clambered up into her ship. “Bon voyage! And do get some distance away, if you don’t mind. When these rockets go off, it will get quite hot in here.”

  The ants hurried away. And then it hit Lenora:

  The multiple star system of Alpha Centauri was more than four light-years away.

  However would the library get those books back?

  Lenora ran to the ship, up the ladder, and through the open door. There in the control room squatted the tardigrade in front of a control panel. Lenora’s eyes widened as one of the tardigrade’s claws pushed a button labeled LAUNCH.

  The hatch behind her slammed shut and the floor shuddered and trembled. The words ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY ENABLED flashed on a computer screen.

  “No!” shouted Lenora. But it was too late. Outside the windows, Lenora could see the dome’s ceiling rushing past, then open sky. They were headed for outer space.

  “Abort!” Lenora cried. “Abort!”

  The tardigrade’s eyes widened as it turned to face Lenora. “Sorry, but once I’ve launched there’s no way back. You’re just going to have to come with me to Alpha Centauri. Don’t worry, you’re more than welcome, and it will be a very exciting trip!”

  Under different circumstances, Lenora would have been thrilled to join the voyage. She had always considered herself a potential space traveler, and she would so like to see the planet Pluto and its beautiful heart-shaped plain close up. But she dearly loved her job at the library … There simply had to be some way home.

  Then she remembered—the MOOSE! She grabbed its suitcase. “What about this? It says something about leaping from outer space.”

  “My goodness,” said the tardigrade. “Is that a MOOSE?” She waved some claws excitedly. “That might help. MOOSEs were made for astronauts in the 1960s in case they had to jump out of their spaceships and parachute to Earth.”

  “They could do that?”

  “Of course!” said the tardigrade. “Probably. They only tested it off bridges, actually. But I’m sure it would have been fine.” She opened the suitcase and removed the MOOSE, which looked something like a beanbag and nothing like anything you would want to jump from space in.

  “I don’t know,” said Lenora dubiously.

  “Never fear,” said the tardigrade. “I can fix this up so it will work perfectly. Once activated, you’ll be surrounded by foam to cushion your landing, and this foldable heat shield will protect you during reentry. And in your shrunken state, you weigh so much less than a normal astronaut!” She grabbed a wrench and made several quick adjustments. “Now the rockets should direct you straight back to the library. Well?”

  Lenora was torn. The box said clearly that the MOOSE was not to be used to jump from space. But the wise and experienced tardigrade had built a working spaceship in less than a day, after all. She looked out the window. They were now in space, and she could see the blue Earth below, and a glimpse of the stars she so longed to travel among …

  “Best choose now,” said the tardigrade. “If we fly much farther, you won’t be able to get back by MOOSE.”

  With an ache of regret, Lenora gestured for the MOOSE. The tardigrade worked quickly, fastening straps and buckles until Lenora was blanketed, sleeping bag–like, with something hard against her back and a visor she could see through. The tardigrade waved goodbye, opened a door, and tossed her out into space.

  The MOOSE spun end over end. First Lenora saw the long arc of the Earth’s horizon, and all along the edge of its impossibly thin atmosphere—was there really so little air for such a big planet?—rippled shimmering puddles of yellows and greens, and she hardly had time to think, The northern lights! Or possibly southern … before she felt the rumble of rockets firing all around, positioning the heat shields behind her for descent. Her view swung away from Earth and she was looking straight out at a whole galaxy hanging there like pictures she had seen of the Milky Way … which she had never seen because she’d grown up in the city with bright lights that burned all night … but there was the Milky Way blazing across the cosmos like a silver river packed with floating gemstones, filling the void in their millions with all the colors that could ever be, the stars, the stars … Lenora reached out for them …

  But then she was falling back into the atmosphere.

  The sky faded to its normal blue just as the rockets switched off. Lenora, snug in the MOOSE, plunged back to Earth. Soon a parachute deployed, and she gently drifted to the ground. She allowed herself a last moment of heartsickness for what she had left behind, then found a handle and pulled. The MOOSE fell open, foam spilling everywhere. As Lenora stood, she felt a humming, and she looked down at her badge:

  LENORA

  FIRST ASSISTANT APPRENTICE LIBRARIAN

  OFFICIAL COURT LIBRARIAN OF THE KINGDOM OF STARPOINT SEVENTEEN

  HONORARY QUEEN OF THE PENGUINS

  MOOSE PIONEER

  She was in a tiny courtyard, surrounded by little columns. Far above, tall blades of grass, like skyscrapers to Lenora, waved in the gentle breeze. This seemed to be a miniature reading space for miniature readers, as books and comfortable chairs were scattered everywhere. And in front of her stood Malachi.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Lenora and the Enemy

  “It was the Tardigrade section!” declared Lenora, brushing off bits of stray foam. Quickly, she explained everything to Malachi about the spaceship and Cinnamon.

  “Ah, of course,” Malachi mused. “When I was a girl in Egypt, several tardigrades were among my
most cherished playmates. They are very complex and interesting animals and entirely worthy of their own section of the library.”

  “Cinnamon must have already known that, or she wouldn’t have come to that section for help,” Lenora said. “However did she know?”

  “Oh, ants helped build many parts of the library, long ago,” Malachi said. “They know it, perhaps, better than anyone.”

  Lenora could easily imagine that, considering the wonders of the vast ant metropolis. She resolved, if there were ever another Unknown section, to simply ask the nearest ant. “So what is my next assignment?” she asked.

  “Hmm,” replied Malachi, putting a finger alongside her sharp nose. “I don’t think I’ll give you one.”

  “What?!” Lenora exclaimed, feeling her heart plunge in her chest. “Is it because I forgot the books? I’m so sorry! I’ll get them back. I’ll build a spaceship. Here, let me go look up some plans.” She turned to rush back to the Tardigrades section, where she was sure spaceship blueprints could be found.

  “Don’t be silly, Lenora,” said Malachi. “It’s not that at all. True, you made one mistake, but try to look at the big picture—you also reorganized a section in hours that would have otherwise taken months. Not to mention demonstrating the practicality of bailout reentry to Earth from space while you were at it. Don’t let one minor setback throw you off track. No one is perfect.”

  Lenora disagreed. Malachi seemed perfect through and through. But she didn’t argue. “Still—the books—it’s my responsibility to get them back.”

  “Yes. So put in a request to have the librarians on Proxima Centauri b return them. I’m sure you can find the Transfers division yourself.”

  Everything did seem quite wrapped up. “Then why aren’t you giving me another assignment?” She had thought of asking Malachi about the people in the bowler hats, then decided no, she wanted to solve her problems herself.

  “You are a First Assistant Apprentice Librarian now, Lenora. It is time for you to choose your own assignments.”

  Joy enveloped Lenora.

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She could smell books, and even more, possibility. The choices were infinite. What did she want? From here, she could go anywhere.

  When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in a tiny courtyard amid towering blades of grass, but standing on that grass, in a much larger courtyard. Malachi, also normal-size—if you could describe a ten-foot-tall Chief Answerer that way—was also standing there, and beginning to look a bit impatient.

  Lenora did not bother to ask how they had unshrunk. With Malachi around, she was sure the Shrinking and Unshrinking Rooms weren’t needed.

  She heard a girl’s cry: “Mommy! Hurry up!” Lenora turned to see a small girl with black pigtails and a smattering of freckles hauling on her mother’s arm. The mother was gazing longingly down a hallway that was not in the direction her daughter was pulling. A sign with an arrow pointed down that hall:

  NEW DIORAMA! BUBASTIS, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CITY OF CATS!

  There were some pamphlets next to the sign, and Lenora snatched one up as the mother tried to redirect the daughter. “Look, dear, a new diorama! Wouldn’t you like to—”

  “Mommy, come on!” the girl cried. “I have so many questions!” Dropping her mother’s arm, she raced away down the opposite corridor. With a sigh, the mother hurried after her.

  Lenora decided. “I would like to work wherever that girl is going,” she said to Malachi, or would have said to Malachi, if Malachi were still there. Which she was not.

  When Lenora had first come to the library, she was fazed by the Chief Answerer’s sudden disappearances, but no longer. She ran after the mother and daughter. And as she went, she thought about the millions of stars in the Milky Way, gleaming against the void, and she wondered again about the words Knowledge Is a Light, and if they meant that knowledge was like the stars, seeming very close but actually far away, because you can’t know everything (though she wondered about Malachi). But no, that didn’t seem quite right somehow …

  They came to a wide, steep stairway. On both sides there were ornate banisters, and Lenora was glad of these, because the height of the stairway looked rather uncomfortable. The freckled girl began to run up the stairs as fast as she could, leaving her distressed mother plodding behind. Lenora ran, too, thinking this energetic girl might need keeping an eye on.

  The library fell away on both sides as the stairs went up and up. And up. And up some more. Lenora was beginning to wonder if the steps would ever lead anywhere, when at last they approached a majestic archway, above which HISTORY OF SCIENCE was chiseled in large, glorious letters.

  The section was not particularly big, as Lenora had expected for such a grandiose topic. It was not that much bigger than Calendars, in fact. But while the section lacked in size, its books didn’t. The suffering shelves groaned and sagged under the weight of the biggest books Lenora had ever seen. A few of them were sitting on wheeled carts, which Lenora imagined must be the only way you could move such heavy volumes.

  There were other things, too, like a ceiling that was mostly a skylight through which the sun shone (leaving the whole section comfortably warm). And there was the Help Desk, which was covered in tools Lenora recognized, like rulers and compasses and microscopes, and tools she didn’t recognize, like sextants and calipers and anemometers (she would look those up later). But there was little time to notice anything else, because the energetic girl was racing around the section in all directions, and patrons sitting at stone tables reading enormous books were casting annoyed glances in her direction.

  Lenora went straight to the girl, hoping a book would be just the thing to calm her down. “Hello,” she said. “How may I help you?”

  “Oh, a librarian!” said the girl, stopping her racing for just a moment. “I want the biggest book you have. I have so many questions!”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Lenora. “Why don’t you sit still for just a moment while I find it?”

  The small girl handed over her library card and plopped obediently onto a nearby chair, beaming with contentment, as Lenora hurried away, wanting to find that book before the girl darted off again.

  Lenora did not have to search long. In the middle of the stacks was a pedestal, and on that pedestal stood a book that was taller than Lenora, and certainly thicker, too. It was a colossal specimen of a book. If only it could float, Lenora would have been able to sail the seven seas upon this tome.

  It was a struggle to get it onto a cart. Lenora had to shove until the book toppled off the pedestal and onto the cart, and then push with all her might to wheel it back to the waiting girl. But the girl seemed pleased with this copy of The Entire Scientific History of the Universe from the Planck Epoch to Now. Lenora wondered however the girl would take it with her, until the girl plucked it up with ease and danced away happily, waving it over her head.

  Lenora sighed, wondering if this section required a rather larger and more muscular librarian. She sat in her place at the section’s Help Desk and began to read the pamphlet about the new Bubastis diorama. But soon her reading was interrupted by something odd.

  She was shivering just a little. She looked down at her arm and saw goose bumps.

  She looked up at the skylight. She thought the sun would keep the room comfortable. But the sun didn’t seem to be shining anymore. In fact, out of nowhere, dark clouds had gathered high in the sky.

  That still didn’t explain the cold, which was getting worse by the second. Patrons were beginning to look around with concern, muttering about the temperature.

  Lenora thought perhaps she could find a thermostat somewhere and turn up the heat. She peered beneath the desk.

  And then she heard something.

  A muffled crash, far away among the stacks.

  And she thought:

  Something fell.

  Other than that crash, everything was quiet. The usual busy library sounds had gone dead silent.

  I
n the midst of this heavy silence, Lenora heard a sharp rapping, like a cane tapping angrily on the floor. Coming closer.

  She raised her head back above the desk—and there stood a man.

  It was a man in a bowler hat.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lenora and the Dark

  “Hello,” said Lenora, and she almost added How may I help you? But she knew the man in the bowler hat was not here for help. She had seen this one before—the one with the purplish, angry face and the too-tight overcoat, who had tried to keep the little boy out of the Astrophysics section before Lenora had become an official librarian. Her pulse quickened, and for an instant she wanted to bolt—but no, she would not let this man frighten her from her desk.

  Instead she said quite calmly, proud to hear not the least tremor in her voice, “What do you want?”

  The man scowled down at her from across the Help Desk. “I would like to make a complaint.” His voice had a wet, heavy sound.

  “This isn’t the Complaints Desk,” said Lenora shortly. “The Complaints Desk is down the stairs, across the hall, over the bridge, past the waterfall, then you take the fifth left after the third right and straight on ’til morning.” Lenora had no idea if there was a Complaints Desk. “You’ll also need ice skates.”

  The man chuckled nastily. He laid his walking stick across the Help Desk. The gesture felt too personal. Lenora barely stopped herself from brushing the cane off the desk and onto the floor.

  “Oh, I don’t wish to make a general complaint,” he said. “My complaint is specific to you.” He leaned forward, his thick, purplish fingers gripping the edge of the desk. Lenora pulled away in disgust. Everything about this man was odious, even the sweet scent wafting from him, which smelled like something that had been slathered on to mask some other, unpleasant odor.

  Lenora was just about to respond when she heard another muffled crash, just like the first, coming from far away, back in the stacks somewhere. When she turned toward the sound, a second man in a bowler hat was standing there.