The flange was tricky; it hadn’t been attended to in some time. Nubry had to shake the whole assembly to break off bits of corrosion while Bott eased out the faulty flange, trying not to let any bits of it fall into vital parts of the machinery. At least, he thought, she was pilot enough not to try to fix something she knew nothing about. Bott had served on one BBB-44 where a flange that had been replaced with a pair of dardnapples, resulting in the burnout of five rotors.
Even trickier was fitting a new, clean flange into a spot formerly occupied by a corroded one. He kept one eye on Nubry while he worked, squeezing himself into a spot in the service access tunnel from which he could still reach up into the prospondor and watch her at the same time. This still might be part of a plot.
But she was doing just what he would have been doing in her place: cleaning up the old flange to see if any of it could be salvaged. People outside official imperial supply lines could not afford to waste a thing. Sage havens where new parts could be found were far apart and subject to closure without notice.
Wjicj is what she was currently talking about. “I can’t afford to go to any places like that anywayCould I? I could not! They’d be raided in seconds. I’ve been on their wanted list ever since they…. Have I? yes, I have! Usually I set my course and do maintenance in the mornings. Then I work in the library, afternooons, and bring things up to date. And in the evenings I check my charts and textbooks, so I can decide which way to run next, and learn better how to maintain the Dragonshelf. How long has it been now? I’d say it’s been….”
“Oh, great leaping honk!” The wrench slipped and cracked across all four fingers on Bott’s ;eft hand.
Nubry, sitting on the floor to clean the flange, leaned way over to peer under the prospondor. “Am I talking too much? Distracting you? Yes, I am!”
Boot had been wondering, in fact, when she would need to stop for breath. But, shaking his nhand and shoving the wrench back to its previous position, told her, “It is nice to hear a voice that’s not coming from a computer.”
She sat back. “Do yours talk? Oh, of course: you had it talk to me. Ours was silenced for safety’s sake. There’s no one else, so I do talk to myself quite a lot. Otherwise, things get so quiet. The library ship was never this quiet when people were using it.”
Rising, she spun to indicate the ship, her hands in the air. Her mouth opened but her hands slapped to her hips at the sound of another smothered exclamation from inside the access tunnel.
“This pprospondor’s more corroded than anything I’ve seen before,” growled Bott, when she peeked in at him again.
She dropped to all fours. “Can you get it fixed? Or is it too far….”
“I can fix anything when I’m sober, and I haven’t had a drink in three days,” he informed her. “But it’s dripping and I nearly got some on my clothes.”
Despite an unfamiliarity with her race’s facial expressions, he knew what she was thinking as she glanced at his clothes. The Drover had frequently commented on them, the word ‘chic’ never being used. “These were my father’s,” he said.
“Oh. We have lots of things here f you want new….”
“No!”
She did not reply. The flange was in a delicate spot right now, so he did not continue. No need to snap, he thought: as a fellow captain, she deserved a little better than that. When he could, he turned his head to explain, and couldn’t find her. He eased the flange a little to the left.
Then he heard, “They have squilgees in fifteen hundred planetary systems, but nowhere is it spelled the way it’s pronounced.”
A hand brushed his shoulder; his head jerked up, his forehead coming flat against the flange. When the stars cleared from his vision, he found she was draping a dropcloth over his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Yes. But it knocked the flange right into place. I told you I can fix anything.” He tightened three remaining screws and slid out of the tunnel. “I’ll just wash my hands.”
“Oh!” He stopped just outside what should have been a sink station on the BBB-44. “Not there!”
At the same moment, he spotted the low light and the little altar. In some cultures, stepping into a shrine uninvited meant a death sentence.
She was right behind him, pointing at the small box on the table. “Those are family prayerstones. For the families that died when we were….The ones taken prisoner had theirs with them.” She lifted the stone she wore to her forehead again.
“Ah.” Bott could understand this without knowing much about it. “And those?” The vessels were of precious metal if he knew anything at all about loot.
Her face brightened at once. “Oh, those are thee trophies the Dangerous rebels won playing the other university fleets in volleyball. We were going for our fifth straight…oh well, volleyball isn’t the point, is it? No, it is not.”
She drew back, and Bott stepped out of the chapel. “I’ll wash up on my own ship. The computer’ll have a fit. So, where do you go from here? I can give you a lift. We’re the fastest ship known, so you’d get a real jump on whoever’s following you.” He did not mention that he didn’t know a lot about navigating his current vessel, nor that the computer was bound to make trouble about transporting contraband.
“Well.” Nubry folded her hands in front of her, her thumbs tapping together in quickfire. “Finding one of the other fleets is dangerous. I said that, didn’t I? Yes, I did. So what I’ve wanted to do….” Her eyes rolled toward him and her chin came forward.
Bott was about to ask, but in a rush, as if wishing to get the words said as quickly as possible she finished “Is go to the Library Planet.”
Bott shook his head. “Where’s that?”
“You never heard? No, you wouldn’t. They’d keep it quiet. It used to be the central library of imperial space, until it shut down in self-defense, and built security to keep everyone away, but legend says the librarians are all still there. I always thought I could land there and re-open.”
“The Library Planet it is, then.” Bott felt there had to be a commission in it for a pilot who delivered this many books somewhere. “If they don’t mind letting in a pilot who doesn’t want to read anything.”
They had stepped out of the BBB-44 into the cargo hold. Nubry stopped. “But everyone opposed to the Imperial government should read!”
Bott glanced back at her. “Why?”
Her eyes seemed to expand, her brain apparently so full of answers it threatened to explode. But she settled for “Because they don’t want you to!”
Bott had to admit this was a good reason. He led the way to the cargo hold door. Nubry stopped on the threshold and licked her lips, staring into the shadowed heights of the corridor beyond.
Having been through this once already, Bott could feel a little superior. “Of course,” he said, his voice ridiculously small amid the echoes, “It’s supposed to have a lot more people in it. Like your library.”
She moved up close behind him. “Too big,” she murmured. “Needs shelves.” They moved up and out, Bott trying hard to retrace the route back to the bridge without error.
“Of course,” said Nubry, “It is very beautiful.”
Bott shrugged. “If you like this kind of thing, I suppose.”
“How did you capture all this?”
Bott felt intense relief when the door ahead of them slid open ad he saw the bridge. “Because I had barely any crew aboard,” a familiar voice replied. “He really had very little opposition.”
Nubry stopped, taking in all the sights and sounds of the control room. “Welcome aboard,” the computer went on. You have joined the crew of the infamous Bott Garton, known for raping, pillaging, looting, driving badly, and dressing worse than any known lifeform.”
The little nose tipped up. “Those are his father’s clothes.”
“And you are Nubry,” the ship continued, late of the Dangerous Rebels, with a price on your head so high you’d best not mention it to your pirate escort.”
She glanced at Bott, and replied. “Not as big as the reward they’re offering for you.”
“There’s no accounting for tastes.”
Bott slid into his seat. “Ship, I want you to….”
“Why they worry about someone with a magazine and five recipe cards,” the ship went on, “I….”
“They know about the recipe cards already?” Nubry demanded. She stepped far enough into the control room to allow the door to slide shut behind her. “But you’re wrong. Yes, you are. We have 530,452,151 items,”
“I don’t believe a word of it. I’ll run a scan.”
“I….” Bott began.
A low whistle was followed by “530,452,262 items!”
“Well, I’m behind wit the accession list,” Nubry replied.
Bott tried again. “Ship….”
“Listen,” the computer said, “Do you have any of those new cultural encyclopedias? I got all the charts and navigational stuff, and engineering data, but this lummox stole me before they could load me with anything but the planetary culture stuff.”
“We can supply the answer to any reference question,” Nubry said. “If you let me know what you need….” Her head tipped to one side. “Do I call you ‘rover’?”
Bott opened his mouth to make a suggestion but the computer replied, with a diffidence he hadn’t heard before, “My original programmer called me Dassie.”
Nubry’s hands clasped before her. “Oh, I like that!”
Bott set his chin on his fist. There was no telling what literates would get up to.
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