2: Library Morning
WE had planned for every biological necessity, in my estimation providing sufficient choice in transport, seating, lighting, atmosphere, and access nodes to handle any sort of being who came to the Library. Well-tested choices at that; I’d enjoyed my many varied selves.
Paul oversaw the precious growing collection, datasets constantly refreshed by sources that would multiply as the Group checked clearances and motivations. We didn’t need what was readily available, though we’d the usual links to those. Our clients—the ones who mattered most to us—were after what they couldn’t find elsewhere.
As was I. The Web of Ersh had contained six: Ersh, Eldest and First, Lesy, Ansky, Mixs, Skalet, and me, Youngest by millennia, as they’d regularly remind me. While the others had traveled, listening, watching, and above all, remembering, I’d stayed home.
Other than a few excursions with Lesy to the Portula Colony, set to drift alongside the Jeopardy Nebula. The colony had had such a wonderful pool—
The point was, through Ersh, Senior Assimilator, we’d shared the memories in one another’s flesh, informed of changes in what we called “ephemeral” species. It made it possible, at whim or need, to cycle into each species and blend in with the current culture.
Our camouflage, not our purpose.
For the Web of Ersh recorded in our flesh the accomplishments of ephemeral species, determined those would never be lost, the species themselves going extinct with distressing regularity.
Along with keeping nonextinct intelligent species safe from another incursion by the non-intelligent version of my own, the Web of Esen continued what Ersh had begun. To remember the lost.
Other than Skalet, only Paul, of my Web if not our flesh, knew. In our early years together, he’d ask me to show him the beauty of an Ompu, or to sing with the haunting voice of a Jarsh, seeming to take delight in what no one else ever would again.
Then he stopped asking. If Paul had realized the time would come when what was Human would be extinct and lost, except to me and mine, he didn’t say, nor would I ask.
The other reason to collect data, to help me—and Skalet—blend unobtrusively in any form and so keep our existence secret, appeared sufficient.
Besides, Paul and I had a new, vital purpose: to share knowledge in order to prevent ignorance-based conflict and, hopefully, stave off premature extinctions. Hence the All Species’ Library of Linguistics and Culture. Our hope? That before tensions grew out of control, someone would come to us and ask the right question.
A question I was more than happy to modify and interpret, as required.
Ersh would not approve.
Skalet did, which troubled me. She shouldn’t have, other than to value what she could assimilate from me, and I had to agree with Paul. He suspected her Kraal-self enjoyed being the first to know about pending conflicts, perhaps to take what advantage she could. Making it necessary to assess which such information to share with her, as if being her Senior Assimilator while Youngest wasn’t complicated enough.
“Family,” I grumbled to myself.
“I thought we were going to lunch,” Celi protested, skipping to keep up with me.
Not to myself, then. “We’re keeping you out of the Garden,” I whispered back, ears flat in disapproval.
I’d brought the Anata through the field portal without a problem, the entrance into the Library necessarily coded to be more lenient about alien tissue, a trifling accommodation we hadn’t felt like sharing with the Botharans. After all, the Garden was for our clients. And me, but mostly for our clients, to provide a calming refuge.
Over the past half year, our clients had come to us out of curiosity or scholarship, even some to challenge the Library’s claim to being the largest repository of cross-species’ information in the Commonwealth. Especially the weird stuff.
Yet to arrive? Those who faced a crisis they couldn’t understand, be it because of lack of knowledge, or the wrong sense organs. Paul and I knew they were out there. We’d seen it for ourselves. The Tumblers, robbed of their children by those who couldn’t comprehend their language or biology. The Feneden and Iftsen, the former unable to believe the other existed. Ganthor, their instincts abused and twisted by those seeking to use force first, understand later—
“Lunch?”
And wasn’t understanding to start here? Poor Celi. I relaxed my jaw in a grin. “Lunch. C’mon.”
Only one place in the Library supplied food, though in the interests of not having researchers expire from dehydration there were beverage dispensers in each zone a prudent distance from its access node. You could make your tech slime-proof, but life found a way to spill.
I led my unwanted guest along the still-empty corridor, with its smooth white curves, then stopped at the door, also curved.
To most Botharans, the Library represented a pinnacle of exotic architecture, alien yet efficient and, above all, envied. Unsurprising given the most urban area on this planet remained stuck in that stage of Human planet settlement I referred to as “rock and tree” when Paul couldn’t hear me.
In contrast, the Library’s exterior was smooth and white, its arms embracing the low hills of what had been the Ragem family farm, plus a few others, as well as plunging below ground to form a modest two-floor basement. The construction material was a mix of dirt and minerals dug from what would be the basement, subjected to a process to produce a slop our offworld contractor called “dynamic slurry.” Extruded from the right machines, also from offworld, and flung over a deceptively flimsy-looking framework, the slurry quickly set into its stipulated shape, the result proof against the harshest environments.
In other words, the Library was an oversized Commonwealth Survey emergency survival shelter. Human tech. Capable of absorbing solar energy, or geothermal if you preferred, with any portion of the exterior walls varying from opaque to translucent on command.
Being an honest person, Paul looked uncomfortable whenever the Botharans sent another aircar full of design students overhead. One day he’d give in and tell them.
Wouldn’t hurt. While it’d cost the Library its standing as wildly creative, I applauded anything that kept our neighbors believing we operated on a tight budget, albeit a large one.
We couldn’t risk anyone outside my Web becoming aware of the extent of our resources. Ersh had grasped the importance of local economies before most present-day species had one. She’d taken the acquisition of wealth as a tenet of survival—and a pleasant hobby akin to collecting small utensils, not that she’d admit it. I could, if I wanted, buy this planet without making a dent.
Not that I’d want to—Web-beings didn’t view physical objects the same way as ephemerals. It might be the lack of hands—what mattered was that excessive wealth attracted attention, dangerous attention. Ersh, ever-vigilant, had spent centuries burying and disguising the Web’s resources.
Where Paul and I spent the most? Other than the tariffs for my Garden, fees to the coffers of government, and making payments toward the landing field, plus taxes to the joy of all? Inside the Library, hiring only Botharans, using only Botharan materials. My Lanivarian-self had traveled to Grandine, the planetary capital, to lure the finest general contractor on this world to build the Library. Duggs Pouncey had been too busy for us until she’d noticed the varied habitat zones in our proposal, reluctant to commit until we’d offered her final authority on structural issues, and only truly willing once she’d heard about local sources where possible.
She hadn’t left the Library since, proudly and profanely informing us this was the project of a lifetime and when were we expanding?
“Lunch?”
I put my paw on the control, waited that essential reverent moment despite the rumble from Celi’s empty revis . . .
Then opened the door to the Library.
Inside was a world of light and color, movement and noise, all with a ripe undertone of smelly alien feet to make my Lanivarian-self inclined to drool, but that’d hardly be polite. While there were elegant, hushed main entrances to public buildings across known space, this, to my unending pride, wasn’t one of them.
After all, as I’d told Paul, in a climate where it did rain, and yes, did snow—we’d made paths, but who’d stick to them—racks for soggy outerwear and boots were essential, and after a space journey of however long, plus the slightly longer than envisioned transit ride through the hills, everyone wanted in without delay, meaning each train unloaded in thirty-being stampedes.
Precluding Skalet’s vision of tediously thorough checkpoints, body cavity searches, and the sampling of genetic material whether permitted or not.
Well, we did the last part, but more discreetly, having outerwear and boots lined up and waiting on those handy racks. As Ersh taught us, you couldn’t cycle into a form unless you’d tasted it first.
No one, I thought contentedly, would notice another alien here, even one who’d supposedly left days ago.
The bedlam was more organized than the participants knew. Textures flowing across the floor looked like art, but were actually preference passages, designed to separate those who liked shaggy and soft underfoot from those who’d trip on anything less than mirror flat, and variations between. Past that, the walkways presented other subtle and less so choices as you moved deeper into the Library. We’d had a curious Ket wander into the habitat zone meant for Iftsen; the feel changed her mind immediately.
Aquatics and non-oxy breathers entered with the rest, doubtless resigned to having to stay in their species-appropriate suits, grav carts, or bags over the shoulders of hired help. I did enjoy their expressions when they learned they could safely strip.
Leaving their protective gear, and genetic information, in handy racks.
Why, there was an Oieta now, poling along in a very snappy exo-suit—
Someone stepped on my tail. “Ow,” I exclaimed, the word becoming a snarl.
“Sorry, Esen,” Celi said weakly, flaps a distressed pink. “Getting a little desperate here.”
To risk stepping on my tail he must be, Anatae wary of any form that, while civilized, was not herbivorous and could, in a famine because those happened all the time, forget who not to bite.
I threw an arm around what passed for his shoulders. “Let’s take care of that right now,” I promised.
Having more practice than anyone, I slipped us through the eddies of incoming clients; this early, there were none outgoing to complicate the flow. I leaped over a prickly strip of passage that didn’t bother Celi at all, then helped him avoid one to attract the more cold-blooded among us. Some liked it hot.
He twisted to look over his shoulder and down, showing off a nonarticulated yet robust spine, then back to me. “What’s with the floor?”
So few ever asked. “Later,” I told him, having spotted an excellent reason to move faster.
Lionel Kearn was among the new arrivals.
Lionel and I had history. He’d been among the first Humans I’d encountered, at the time being Paul’s immediate superior on the Survey ship Rigus, then its acting captain. Mind you, I wasn’t supposed to encounter Humans on my first assignment from Ersh, who’d selected Kraos as safely pre-contact and uncomplicated. No one having told the Commonwealth, they’d sent their eager First Contact Team to a planet that not only wasn’t pre-contact, to my dismay, but firmly intended to stay that way. The Kraosians murdered, then buried any alien visitors. They prepared to do the same to the Humans.
Ersh sent me to observe and do nothing.
I couldn’t. I broke Paul Ragem out of a Kraosian dungeon and made the rest up as I went. While I did save the Humans, Ersh was not impressed. I’d revealed my nature to Paul, who became my first friend—and the only being outside the Web of Ersh to learn our secret.
As first assignments went, at least mine had been memorable.
Trusting Paul to keep that secret, I ran home to Ersh and all could have been fine, give or take another century before Ersh sent me out again—except for Death.
You see, the Web of Ersh existed because—not that she ever admitted it—Ersh grew lonely, having become the first of our kind to think, rather than simply respond to appetite. Instead of spending excess mass to travel in space, or shed it, the moment came when she kept it. Let herself grow.
Let herself split.
It wasn’t as simple as that, web-flesh being full of memory and the essential “who” of us. Ersh chose what to share, what to keep to herself, and though she’d never admitted that either, what she excised from herself. She valiantly resisted the instinct to gobble up her other bit and Lesy was “born.”
Ersh might have developed a belated conscience, but she’d all the emotional capacity of an asteroid. Lesy was—gentle. Creative. A dreamer. Ersh, once over the shock, tried again every so often, budding off Ansky, Mixs, and Skalet—all of whom were more Ersh-like than not.
My arrival being a surprise, there was no presorting of me. As Ersh often said, and no guessing what I’d do next.
Death was the original, base version of a Web-being. Sans intellect, sans feeling, at first nothing more than a living hunger in pursuit of the sweetest flesh of all—ours—while cracking starships and habitat domes and generally being everything we were not.
It didn’t take long for such behavior to attract attention of the worst sort.
Kearn, already nervous about Paul Ragem’s mysterious friend—I’d blown up in his office, but it hadn’t been my fault—seized upon the evidence and leaped to the stunningly inconvenient conclusion that Death was a monster named Esen-alit-Quar and the Enemy.
Paul, associated with me, became his enemy, too.
Many underestimated Lionel Kearn. Granted, in person, Lionel came across as a humorless, easily offended wisp of a scholar with the management skills of a Queeb. However, he was also brilliant, obsessive, and determined to end me for the good of all. Even as Death, ironically, was ended by me, with Paul’s help, Lionel came close to an unfortunate success.
To escape, we’d faked Paul’s death and I faked mine—though I didn’t fool Paul as I’d intended. I rarely could.
Unconvinced, Lionel spent the next fifty standard years crisscrossing known space after his Enemy, wearing down his opponents with charts and facts, infecting followers with his paranoia.
Meanwhile, Paul and I, reunited and under new names—and, in my case, a new shape as the Lishcyn Esolesy Ki—lived happily on Minas XII, running Cameron & Ki Imports. Paul took a temp-partner, Char Largas, and to my delight they produced offspring. I enjoyed the twins’ growth to adulthood, gaining yet another personal reason to keep watch in case another Death crossed into this part of space.
Paul, though I didn’t know it till later, organized his Group to watch over me and keep an eye on Lionel Kearn.
I’d pitied Lionel, trapped in a life ruled by pointless fear, almost as much as I resented what he’d done to Paul. My friend had sacrificed his own family and friends, letting them believe he’d died in order to hide me. To be all I had, for I believed myself the last of my kind.
Until Skalet showed up, not dead and thoroughly aggrieved I’d some of Ersh she didn’t. She used poor Lionel and anyone else she could influence to flush us from hiding, not that I knew it was her then. In the process, innocents died, Paul was tortured—though not by Skalet—and two species almost went to war.
Lionel Kearn had stopped it. With a little help. I’d risked revealing myself to him, tired of being his Enemy, and then, on impulse, sent him a message with the key to resolving the crisis. I even gave him my name. He hadn’t believed in me at first. It was a measure of his character that he sought the truth in his own way.
When Skalet finally revealed herself to me, it hadn’t been a warm family reunion. She poisoned Paul, damaged me, then tried to rob Ersh’s tomb.
As families do, Skalet and I resolved our differences; being what we are, we did it in dust and blood. She would be of the Web of Esen, I its Senior Assimilator, and I would never give her what she’d only thought she wanted: Ersh’s knowledge of how our kind moved through space.
The poison I couldn’t forgive, but Skalet had to live with me, the Youngest, in charge, making us even.
I got over her suddenly not being dead; it made me impatient with Paul’s family, who hadn’t.
Lionel had been there, when I’d faced off on Picco’s Moon with my web-kin. Had, with Rudy and Paul, witnessed our sharing of flesh—not something any of the Humans found comfortable, adaptable as they were.
Lionel had shown Skalet kindness, surprising us both.
Now, here he was.
The problem? He’d promised to come months ago, to share his considerable expertise and help curate the collection, only to change his mind abruptly, without giving a reason. Paul had refused to speculate, saying only we shouldn’t think ill of Lionel.
I didn’t. Instead of panting my stress, I walked faster, pulling Celi along.
Not every Human could deal with what we were. Rudy had known, then struggled to comprehend; as a result he’d come within a breath of killing Skalet.
I wasn’t ready to find out if Lionel had faced all the strangeness of me he could handle, that day on the moon.