Two of the crew sat crosslegged on the floor of the Dragonshelf. Nubry, having donned a white Maintenance jacket, was reconnecting the console that would monitor pursuit, of which there had been strangely little so far.
“Pass me the rakwet diagnostic.”
“Racquet,” said Bott, pronouncing it “racket”. He handed her the small white instrument.
Nubry plucked it from his hand and shifted her hips to present more of her back to him. The control room was very quiet, lacking all the little beeps and blips you never paid attention to until they were missing. The Klamathans had taken the first sleep shift, quaered in long unused crew cabins at the ship’s core. Nott doubted they were sleeping yet; There were too many things Chlorda and Louba had not yet done to Bassada.
Nubry’s actions were abrupt, almost fierce. Bott did not think this entirely strange. Despite what had no doubt been a grueling day, she had volunteered to take the first shift here in the control room. He doubted the Emperor’s hospitality to his prisoners would make anyone less than edgy.
And there was something rather too good about this escape: that was a cause for worry as well. A quick check had shown that only this room had seen damage from Imperial demo crews: the books were safe. Perhaps the Emperor and the Sheriff had set up new bets on the pursuit, and wanted good odds. A surprising number of messages, detectable but not interceptable under current conditions, showed they must be up to something.
Nubry propped the console with one shoulder. “Do you have the…Artchonistic Prospondor?”
“Arkonistic.” Bott handed it over.
She took it, but her eyes were still on him. Her upper lip had drawn back, displaying gritted teeth. He waited.
Her eyes narrowed. “Is this still my ship?”
He remembered how sensitive she could be—how any captain WOUD be—about who was at the helm. Nut he did feel he had more of an excuse this time. “Do you think you could fly it when it’s in this condition?”
“I can fly anything when I’m sober.” She sniffed and tossed back her hair. “And I don’t drink.”
Before he could reply, she had shifted again, turning her back to him again as she applied the prospondor to the console. After a few ferocious twists with it, she leaned back. The console stayed in position. She rose, and pressed a small tab. A square green screen above it blinked on.
“Now we can see where we’re going,” she murmured.
“Good thing, too,” Bott told her. “Nice job.”
She didn’t turn around. “Where are we going?” her voice was even quitter now. “Or is that none of my business?”
“I….”
“Or do you even know where you’re going?”
“Of course,” Bott told her. “I checked the book.”
She turned around now; her face told him she was not really in the mood for that. Well, he hadn’t divulged any of his plan yet—no one had asked him—but she had a right to know. “Actually, I was thinking of setting a course for Kamath.”
Her shoulders were very high and stiff as she turned her back on him again. “Yes. Mm-hmm. Of course.” She sniffed again. “And what will you do there?”
“Drop off as much of the crew that wants to go back there.” He shifted both sets of wires in his left hand. “After that, I thought I might try for Near Shloggina.”
She came around to face him, frowning now as if HE was the one mispronouncing his words. “Near…. The Library Planet? Why? What’s there?”
“A big, empty library.”
The frown deepened; she shook her head, trying to understand. “But they don’t…they DESTROY books.”
“There must be more librarians down there like Wanure, who DO want books. We help them take over. And then we refill the library.”
Her chin came forward. Her frown was now one not of doubt but of open distrust. “This collection was meant to stay aboard the Dragonshelf. The whole existence of the university fleets was arranged because having libraries and schools on stationary locations was too dangerous.”
“Of course,” Bott said, “But we….”
A small wrench bounced as Nubry stamped one foot on the floor. “I don’t care what the four of you decided to do with the Dragonshelf when it’s empty. I can’t let you….”
Bott held up both hands. “We have the Emperor’s copy machine! We can use it to copy your collection, for the Library Planet and any other empty libraries!”
“Oh.”
The librarian’s foot slid back and forth across the place she’d stamped it, as if trying to erase the place. “No. No, we can’t.” She swallowed hard. “Things fade out after a number of copies.”
Bott shrugged. “Then we do it the way they do making those bootleg recordings at the Neybil Shop: make a dozen master copies, and then just copy those copies, to keep the originals secure.”
Nubry’s lower lip slid under the upper as she thought this over. “Ye-es.”
“It’ll take space, and a lot of helpers,” Bott said. “On Near Shloggina, we should be able to get all of that, if we can get the book librarians to overthrow the administrators. The place is nice and private, and the Emperor would never suspect we’d go back there. They can hang on to the master copies and keep copying while we deliver copied copies to planets all through the Free Imperial State.”
“That would take time, and be dangerous.” Nubry licked her lips. “When would you be making your profit? How would you….”
Bott slid a hand down the front of his father’s jacket. “Undermining the Free Imperial State would be profit in itself.” He jerked his head toward the screen she had brought to life. “I think I might be getting tired of being a pirate. Maybe I could become a crusader. Or a Dangerous Rebel.”
The librarian’s mouth slid up at one side, and she nodded. Then the frown came back, and her lips rolled in on each other. “You seem to have a lot of plans for my books,” she said. “Ad y ship.”
Bott looked down at the threads he was holding, and shrugged. “I guess I have.”
Her shoulders rolled back; her chin rose. “And do you have plans for me as well?”
His eyes came square up to hers. “Oh, I think so.”
Nubry pulled her maintenance jacket closed; Bott hadn’t noticed it was open. “And what are they?”
Bott found a stray clip on the floor and brought it up to bind the threads he was holding. “Well, I can be some use in this project, but not enough.” He smoothed a wrinkle in his father’s jacket and looked up again. “Do you think you could teach me to read?”
Her mouth dropped open. No words came out.
Bott got a leg under himself to rise. “Do you think so?”
Her eyes were huge. “Do I? Yes, I do!”
The Dragonshelf bounced a little as Bott let go of the clip and stood up. But it was still locked on course. It was headed for a future that mixed universal literacy with a plethora of books and a shortage of Emperors into a system that was willing to risk the threat pf the printed word.
None of this registered on the monitor of course, and Bott was only vaguely aware of it as the floor bounced and he fell toward the librarian. She caught hold of him, and this was more tangible than the ship’s course, certainly more reasonable that what seemed to be a ghostly whisper of “Kiss her, you lummox!”
It seemed a good way to start. Bunny Bunk could wait.
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