By the time Bott caught up, Nubry was halfway down the corridor, conducting a spirited debate with herself.
“Of course, they could mean they’re deaccessioning the collection from the Dragonshelf while accessioning it to their own inventory. Couldn’t they? Of course, they could! Or maybe they said ‘THE Accession Chamber’.”
”Deaccession Chamber,” said Bott. The grenade was in his hand again. Something was apparently seriously wrong, and perhaps an explosion would come in handy.
Nubry pulled up short at an arched doorway and thrust both hands against a terminal to the right of it. “General floorplan,” she murmured. “Do hurry, general floorplan. Oh!”
One finger stabbed at the screen. “What?” Bott asked, angling around for a better view.
Her hands came up to her ears and clenched into fists. “This big room is labeled ‘Deaccession Chamber’ and there’s a ‘Danger: Heat’ warning over at the side. Oh, they wouldn’t! Oh, they couldn’t! Where’s the way out? Where is it?”
Bott looked behind him. “These doors are….”
“Herte!” she cried, as that finger bounced across the screen. “And here! And here! We have to….”
Bott squinted at the screen. “How can you tell?”
“They’re labeled, see?” That finger threatened to break through the screen. “Oh! Sorry! These, um, letters make the word EXIT: that’s a way out. There’s probably a sign like it over the doors.”
Bott’s mouth dropped open. He was learning new things about why the Free Imperial State made such a fuss about reading. With labels like those, just anybody could walk in or out of a building, and not just those who knew the place.
Nubry was studying the screen again. “Now, the door closest to the Deaccession Chamber….”
“Is off limits, I’m afraid.”
Wanure Smalen and three earnest young men stood just beyond the archway. “The burning will begin in a few minutes, and for safety reasons….”
“Burning!” Nubry took a step away from the terminal, both hands on her prayerstone. “How can you burn books? You’re a library! You’re THE library!”
The deputy cleared his throat, but made no answer. One of the men with him said, “Deaccession is a vital part of library procedure. You can’t keep everything: there isn’t space.”
“You should FIND space!” she replied, with a stamp of her vote.
“And we cannot accept books which may be contaminated,” the young man continued, “Or….”
“That will do.” The red-braided Head Librarian looked displeased, gliding in on her travelling square. “”Wanure, you may go. I will see you in my office later.”
The deputy pushed past Bott and Nubry. Opio looked them over. “We hoped you would not find out until the process was complete.”
“You’re really going to burn our books?” Nubry set her prayerstone to her forehead. “Without even…without even looking at them? I can’t believe it! Can I? No, I can NOT!”
“Of course without looking at them.” The Head Librarian’s voice was gentle but firm. “His Imperial Worship prefers it that way.”
“This can’t be an Imperial post!” Bott exclaimed, as Nubry’s mouth opened and closed several times.
“It can. It is.” Opio raised a hand to indicate the walls. “We maintain this library against the day when Imperial policy changes about the number of books it is safe to possess. In return for our existence, we also maintain the legends of an ancient and secret library operation, just to lure in collections such as yours.”
Bott’s lips twisted. He should have thought to ask why the location of a hidden library Nubry couldn’t find would be on the navigational charts of an Imperial slave ship.
“I did mean what I said.” Something like sympathy showed on the Head Librarian’s face. “Yours is a magnificent gift, for the destruction of so large a collection may gratify His Imperial Worship to the extent of letting us keep you on as a docent.”
Nubry stamped her foot again and, still at a loss for words, stamped it one more time.
“Orm” the librarian went on, “We can wait and inform His Imperial Worship that you have already been added to the docent staff, after the Drover has been modified.”
“Modified?” Bott demanded, running his thumb across his grenade, identifying it by feel as he summed up his opponents. Four of them: not a serious threat unless they were really well-armed. “My ship?”
“The drover apparently belongs to whoever can hold it,” the librarian replied, with a braid=-bouncing jerk of her head. “We can hardly allow you to leave, to imperial out reputation for Imperial service. The ship is of no further use to you, and we need the storage space.”
“Storage space?” Nubry sputtered. “Storage space? You don’t even have any books or magazines!”
“No,” Opio admitted. “But that may change, and, in the meantime, we have been perfecting our classification system. Providing an alphanumeric code which can fit any artifact in the known universe is a major project, and the explicatory software and hardware has been overflowing its allotted space. The Drover should be able to hold a great deal of it, once the ship has been modified along the guidelines of the latest subcommittee report on efficient use of space on a library ship.”
”Mod….”
“And stamped within and without using proprietary codes.”
Bott pulled himself to what there was of his full height. “The Drover is the single most beautiful and efficient ship in the universe!”
The vast red eyebrows spread out across the bland forehead. “It may seem so. To a layman.”
Nott’s free hand went down for a second grenade. Opio nodded. “This is a library, sir. We like things to be orderly.”
Door opened all along the corridor to release a company of nearly naked men and women. The shortest of these was twice as tall as Bott, and what they lacked in clothing they made up for in muscle. Tomy eyes glittered as they fixed on Bott; thin lips drew back to reveal very long teeth.
“These have been bred for generations to collect overdues, once we have returned to operation,” Opio explained. Now, sir. How would you like to be classified? ‘Library, Friend of’ Or ‘Formerly Living Being—Human’?”
Nott considered the group. Puffy lower lips were bouncing against those elongated teeth as the enforcers murmured in unison a chant of “Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.”
It reminded him of that time on Nazcor-D. And he’d gotten out of that. True, his crew had been with him, and a much larger supply of grenades. But surely a good pirate captain could face down any mob when he was sober.
And he hadn’t had a drink in three days.
His eyes went to Nubry, to see if she’d be ready to jump and run. But her eyes were closed, and she held that prayerstone clamped against her forehead.
“Well?” Opio inquired. “:”Which is it to….”
Nubry’s right foot was suddenly under the nose of the nearest enforcer. The big man’s eyes widened as blood shot from his nostrils. Bott’s eyes widened too, as the man dropped and Nubry spun.
One of the librarians who had come with Wanure, who had come forward to grab her shoulder, fell back, clutching his arm. A second enforcer fell forward, blood gushing from him onto Nubry’s fresh uniform.
Three enforcers dove for Nubry but Bott had remembered he was part of this performance as well. The key was out of the grenade, and he yanked the collar mask up in front of his face. He figured he had half a second to pull the second mask free before the enforcers also remembered he was there.
Ducking under the arms of two plug-uglies, he vaulted the body of one fallen enforcer to nudge past the one who had Nubry by the throat. Hoping she recognized him with his mask on, he forced the spare mask over her nonexistent nose as the gas from the first grenade burst free.
Those not punctured by the blast waved at the pink smoke. It was a little late for that, and they tumbled in a largely unlibrarylike disorder to the floor, gasping. Bott, Nubry, and her assailant toppled in one bundle. The big man had fortunately pulled to the right as he fell and, dying, even failed to crush his captives. Bott pried muscular fingers out of Nubry’s windpipe.
She stared at him through her mask. “Got to…save the….”
“:Over here!” someone shouted.
Blogsy Babbles 