“At last! I’ve been waiting…. I wish we didn’t have to meet up in the old burying ground!”
“Well, Nellie Belle, I cain’t come into town. Not since they figgered out who looted the stage an’ broke the driver’s neck.”
“Oh, I know, sweetheart, but…what was that?”
“Don’t fuss so, honey. You know that ol’ owl sets up in that dead pine, nights like this.”
“I wish I was brave like you, Bart. You’re used to bein’ out after dark.”
“That’s true, love. Now an’ again, though, I get to listenin’ and there comes a rustle in the brush by Monterey Pete’s stone and I know…tain’t nothin’ natural.”
“Oh, don’t say such things! Isn’t there any way at all we could just go somewheres else to be together, you an’ me?”
“No chance of that, Love, not since…not since the sheriff sniffed out my cave in the hills.”
“Oh, Bart, I wish they hadn’t hanged you! I hate this! Just look! I patched those ol’ pants for you an’ now…. More worms than ever, eatin’ plumb through!”
“Don’t I know it! Don’t hurt so bad as lookin’ at that pretty hair an’ dress of yours in the moonlight. I cain’t aide them crabs an’ little fish. You didn’t have to go drowndin’ yourself in the crick that afternoon.”
“Oh, Bart, oh Bart! Whatever can we do!”
“Nothin’ much ‘til…. There’s that hem crow again: reckon it’s time to go. Kiss me g’bye ‘til tomorrow night, Nellie Belle.”
This seemed to me the right postcard to show on a morning (or possibly afternoon) after the holiday we set up in honor of clock-watching. When some of us have spent our evening waiting for the two hands to meet at midnight so we would be positioned to kiss the right person (or a well-constructed wrong one), it seemed only right to pay tribute to places not so constricted by tradition. The fact that in some regions any time the clock shows is right for a quick canoodle seems worthy of commemoration.
Of course, this is really one of those cards where the first part of the sentence is separated from the second so that the second could be reprinted to fit any town or region where a storekeeper wanted to stock this cheerful thought. I have done a little online research into the town of Newark Valley, and can find no evidence that it is any more famous for its canoodles than any other community. I suppose the local Chamber of Commerce MIGHT be hushing this up, for fear of stampeding tourists. But this would violate the principle of this century that everything posted on the Interwebs in the last twelve hours is true and anything left unsaid must be untrue.
HOWEVER, I did find a certain amount of work on what the clock is telling us here. Yes, it IS telling us that the time is ten-ten, which MUST be a time of omen. It is NOT a suggestion that this double time announcement is especially good for canoodles, since that would contradict the sentiment of the postcard, that ANY time will do. (Besides, if you canoodle only at nine-nine and eleven-eleven or six-six, this leaves 48 minutes of every hour when you’ll need to find something else to do. Unless you have a ship’s clock and there ARE times of the day when it will be fourteen-fourteen or twenty-one twenty-one. Side note: is the new year one when we can all sing In the Year twenty—five twenty0-five without fear of retribution, or will the science fiction critics again…where were we?)
See, clock and watch advertisements for many years have shown 8:20 or 10:10. And the world is filled with people who want to assure us that this is not some vast international conspiracy. (They do us a lot of credit. I hardly ever notice what time is shown in watch ads. I am fairly clueless, of course, and had to look at my watch just now to see that it says 5:35. That may not alarm YOU, but my watch has said 5:35 for the last twelve years. Must get that new battery one of these days.)
See, apparently the people who DO observe these things created a sentimental narrative about the fact that the inventor of the wristwatch died at exactly 8:20, and watchmakers ever since have done honor to him in their ads. (The identity of this inventor isn’t always consistent, but maybe EVERY watch innovator died at 8:20.) OR this memorializes somebody else’s death. I especially like the theory that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at 10:10 and that, years later Harry S Truman, who ordered the bombing, died at 10:10 himself. Both of these amazing facts are completely untrue, which never prevents a good conspiracy theory. Other people supposedly remembered who did NOT, in fact, die at 10:10 are Dr. Mating Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, or John Cameron Swayze (the spokesman for Timex watches, which “take a licking but keep on ticking.”) As someone who is working on a series of conspiracy theories himself, I would HATE to point out to anyone that I found NONE of these theories on line except in articles written to prove they weren’t true.
This conspiracy theory seems to be the True Fact. Eight twenty and ten ten are two times which keep the hands in full view and expose half the face of the watch or clock, thus allowing a good look at the logo of the manufacturer. These manufacturers liked to have their names at the TOP, which made 8:20 the favorite until some clever ad executives noted that this gave the clock a kind of a frowny face. Setting the watch at 10:10 makes the face smile. (Again, I hate to be THAT guy, but I always see the central point on the face as the nose, which makes the 10:10 clock a face with angry eyebrows. But this is why I am a blogger and not in the ad business. That and my tendency to hum random melodies when I should be working. “In the year 2525….”)
Lacking any other plan, Bott and Nubry moved in the direction of the voice, crawling over crumpled enforcers and under the traveling square of the Head Librarian, which zipped back and forth, dragging its unconscious rider. When Bott saw that the source of the voice was Wanure Smalen, wearing a transparent gas mask, he thumbed the ring of another type of grenade.
“You’ll need to go outside to reach the Deaccession Chamber in time,” the deputy librarian said. “The halls will be filled with our Collectors.”
Nubry rubbed her throat and glanced at Bott. “Why…should we…trust you?”
“Because I want something from you,” he replied, with a little bow. “I want to come along.”
Nubry took a step toward the older man. “You put my ship in the Deaccession Chamber.”
“Yes!” The deputy held up both hands and shook twelve long fingers at her. “But I set up the longest possible burning sequence, to give you time to get there if you could. Give hundred million books! I’ve never even SEEN a book. My father thought he saw one once, in the Head Librarian’s office.”
“Opio’s?” said Nubry.
“Her!” His lip curled. “She wouldn’t touch a book. She won’t even watch them burn. Please hurry; it won’t wait forever.”
“How do we….” Bott began.
“Ket’s try!” Nubry turned to him. “What could happen that would be worse than letting the books burn?”
Bott could think of several possibilities but followed the deputy and the captain of the Dragonshelf on the stairwell behind the door. His free hand went into his pocket for his cards. He pulled up the gold one.
“Ship?” he whispered.
“Are you STILL breathing?” demanded the Drover.
“Shut up. Come down within missile range and prepare to fire at the defenses if you see us leaving in a hurry.”
“You do have a knack for making friends. It must be your sweet smile.”
“Just do it.”
They came out onto the planet’s surface in the fog, which was breaking up under the impact of a wind that tossed loose strands of hair around Nubry’s ears. “Which way?” she called, sweeping these back.
Wanure pointed a thumb straight ahead. “If we cut through the ancient convention center, we can reach the exhaust vents, where we can drop down into the Chamber. If we reach your ship, the blast doors will be closed, so you’ll need to shoot them or ram through….”
“There they are!”
“Let’s go!” Wanure broke into a run toward a large roofless building. “Straight out the back!”
Rock fragments from the door sprayed them as the first gunshots landed. They plunged into cold shadow, surrounded by heaps of rotting debris. Running carefully so as not to get ahead of the man who knew where they were going, Bott kicked at one of these heaps to see if anything useful had survived. The rusting jewelry and broken measuring sticks did not strike him as especially profitable.
A grenade flew straight up from Bott’s right hand as he jumped at the sound. While he ducked the gunman’s shot, another grenade slipped from his left hand to wobble inert to the pursuer’s feet. The enforcer picked up the grenade, sneering, just in time for the first grenade to explode right in front of his face.
Bott put on a burst of speed toward the far end of the chamber. The near ed, rocking as the first explosion set off the other grenade, did not seem safe.
“Get ‘em with that every time when I’m sober,” he murmured. “And I….”
He stumbled, and snatched at a leather strap that had caught his ankle. Staring, he pulled this free of the pile of rubbish.
“A grenade satchel? Fully loaded?” He slung it over a shoulder. “On a library planet!”
“That’s a common stereotype,” said the deputy, holding open a door that dangled y one hinge. “People think librarians can’t handle weapons of destruction. That must have been a booth for a library security vendor.”
“I don’t like your security.” Nubry pointed at three waves of traveling squares approachin from the left. “Where do we go now?”
“There.” Wanure pointed out two metal squares with one hand, drawing a gun with the ther. “Take off the tops and you can slide down into the Chamber. When you get out, stop and collect me.” He held up his hands. “We all wear security bracelets that keep us from wandering into any trash eliminators or other dangerous areas.”
“Yeah?” Bott inquired, studying the man.
“I’d only get stuck halfway down the chute,” Wanure told him. The gun swung toward the sky. “I’ll try to discourage some of these folks while I wait.”
“I don’t….”
Nubry already had the lid free of one square opening. “You wait here,” she said. “You can get back to Dassie somehow if I don’t come out.” Before Bott could object, she dove into the darkness.
Scowling, Bott let a grenade fly up in the direction of the approaching traveling squares and ran to follow. He let the antique grenade satchel slip from his shoulder. He could already feel the het from the exhaust vent and there was no knowing what might set the vintage grenades off.
He chose to slide in feetfirst. A hand reached up to pull down his mask before the building heat melted it to his face. Landing in a brilliant haze of heat waves, he saw Nubry disappearing around the corner of his ship. He started to follow, but stopped, staring up into the golden eyes of an angry golden idol.
The heat generated by the statue allowed only one glance, but it was enough. Bott nodded. They used exactly this kind of incinerator to execute pirates on Sola Palag. The condemned were sealed into their ship which was positioned on a big gray slab like the one under the Dragnshelf. The heat was generated inside that massive head, and increased as the mouth opened. Eventually, the ship would be running in rivulets into grooves under the gray slab, sorted by atomic weight into reservoirs so it could be recycled. Anything remaining of non metal contents of the ship could be skimmed away later.
At the far end of the room were the locking mechanisms for the doors of the chamber. His lockpicks, absurdly cold for coming out of a rapidly heating pocket, were already in his hand. These doors would be specially reinforced against heat or explosion, and it would be far better for Nubry if those doors were open when she got there. The skin of a BBB-44 was very touchy when it came to heat.
A hum made him look back. He couldn’t tell if the Dragonshelf was moving, or if this was an illusion of the heat. He slid his lock picks away; he’d use the method his father had used to open the doors on Sola Palag. Pity to use his last two grenades. He should have accepted the Drover’s offer to make more, slave ship or no slave ship.
The mouth of the idol pulled wider. The Dragonshelf lifted a little from the slab. Sliding the pins from his grenades, Bott considered the lock. The grenades had to meet just at the sweet spot, not a finger to the left or below. And he had very little experience pitching grenades through waves of burning air.
“I can hit anything when I’m sober,” he reminded himself. “And I haven’t had a drink in….”
The Dragonshelf was definitely moving, and grenades wouldn’t wait. Time to move. He let the grenades fly and pushed off in the other direction. With any luck, Nubry had noticed he was here and left a ramp down.
The chamber shook. Bott found the main ramp and threw himself against a strut. A glove would have been useful right now, but he gritted his teeth and hung on.
The ship sped past a fallen door and up a steep incline into air that was shockingly cold. Bott slapped out some small fires in his vest and nearly fell loose when the ship executed a turn. A shot from the Dragonshelf’s underside scattered an approaching wedge of traveling squares.
“Just in time!” cried the deputy, who was carrying the abandoned grenade satchel. He flung this up on the ramp. Which was at his chin level, and grabbed the edge. Something rumbled above them; Wanure looked out and up.
“That must be your other ship, the….”
“No! Don’t!” Bott grabbed his wrists. “Don’t!”
He hauled the deputy onto the ramp, though the look of wonder on the man’s face told him it was too late. He had himself approached the Drover with blinkers, so he wouldn’t see too much of the most beautiful ship ever built.
The ramp rose slowly. Retreating into the ship, Bott checked the most likely places for a pulse. He had no idea where Wanure Smalen’s people kept their hearts. But he found nothing suggesting life.
A dull thud told him the Library Planet had broken out its heavy guns, and a second told him the Drover was replying in kind. The health of the deputy seemed suddenly less pressing.
“Where’s Wanure?” Nubry demanded, when Bott reached the cockpit.
Bott jerked a thumb toward the door. “Back at the door. Must be his security bracelets. Can you check on it? I don’t know your ship well enough.”
“Okay. Here.” Rising, she indicated her chair. “I’m staying out of range of their guns until we find a place they don’t have any. Shoot them if they need it.”
As soon as the door closed behind her, Bott lunged for the controls, sending the BBB-44into exit speed. This was no time to be cautious, not with the Rhododendron coming within reach. He had to dodge the shots from the ground and those answering from the Drover; when the sheriff’s ship added its fire, this would be incredibly complex. He thought of calling the Drover; the ship’s computers should be able to analyze the firing pattern and help navigate a way through it. But there wasn’t time for backchat from the computer.
In fact, he thought, as the Dragonshelf veered between blasts, this might be a good time to abandon the Drover completely. Having the biggest most beautiful ship ever built did add difficulty to concealment. The Dragonshelf might make him a better flagship.
The door to the cockpit opened. He glanced at the returning Nubry, whose eyes were all but invisible under her glare. Maybe not.
I am not referring to the making of ice cream, as I might if I wrote a food blog. I have wrestled with one of those handy dandy ice cream makers in the 1990s, which guaranteed endless delights, and succeeded only in making a flavorful slush. Nor do I refer to the complexities of finding new or seasonal flavors of frozen treats. Not one cubic inch of peppermint stick or egg nog ice cream did I find in any of my stores this season, which is no doubt one of the few pieces of good news to pass along to my doctor, and there are a few exciting new flavors that were announced along about last May which have never appeared anywhere in my vicinity. But aside from the occasional longing for something novel, I am able to furnish most of my own desires with vanilla and the occasional Chunky Monkey.
No, I was thinking of my family’s history of fighting with restaurants about ice cream. For a dining establishment, ice cream should be fairly simple: either a generous scoop in a bowl or, if your menu runs that way, a generous scoop piled with insane amounts of fudge, marshmallow caramel, whipped cream and a few dozen peanuts. As long as your wrist is limber and your ice cream scoop is clean, what’s the problem?
The women in my family: that’s the problem. Not ALL of them: I don’t recall my mother, for example, ever making a fuss about ice cream in any sort of eating establishment (beyond her mourning for the death of the five cent cone.) But among the members of my family tree, there are several who wound up with their pictures posted under warning signs in restaurant kitchens. Let us go back a few decades to consider my grandmother, who once picked up a slice of apple pie al a mode at a buffet style café.
The size of the slice was adequate. The ice cream addition was also of a good size, and just at the right temperature, melting just a bit from the proximity of pie. And then she spotted the doily.
What kind of burro-brain, she demanded, would put any sort of ice cream on a doily? She was NOT paying for a doily that was going to soak up her ice cream, nor did she intend to sit at her table sucking vanilla ice cream out of a fancy piece of paper. The resulting furor left a permanent mark of those of her grandchildren who were present, as well, we hope, on the restaurant (now out of business, possibly from the expense of all those doilies.)
I would like to note that, in my opinion, she was completely correct, as was an aunt of mine whose appetite for hot fudge sundaes was the stuff of legend. Her issue was not so much a matter of ice cream, but she would firmly refuse to dip a spoon into the dish if the kitchen had forgotten her maraschino cherry. I agree that a kitchen that could forget such a detail is simply too busy. This complaint always brought dividends. Feeling that to produce a plate with a single cherry on it might be interpreted as an insult, the waiter would generally turn up with anywhere from two to siz cherries. This always put her in a forgiving mood. (If I wrote a food blog, I would mention the times she would order a hot fudge sundae and I would order a hot peanut butter sundae, and we would, with amazing damage to the tabletop exchange halves of our respective sundaes. Why the place didn’t just offer hot fudge/hot peanut butter sundaes I have no notion. But they’re out of business now, too. So there.)
The final two adventures, in which, again, I think the relative who complained was in the right, are completely my fault. Once upon a time, a cousin of mine had a slice of apple pie a la mode in an establishment which also offered a dish of cinnamon ice cream. She asked the waiter if she could, instead of the vanilla ice cream offered with the pie, get a scoop of the cinnamon instead. The waiter and the kitchen had no problem with this, and she enjoyed the result.
I’m the one who glanced at the tab and said “Hmmmm. They charged a dollar extra for cinnamon ice cream.” What can I say? The ensuing fifteen minute argument about why it should cost a dollar to scoop ice cream out of THIS container instead of THAT one was my doing. My aunt and I left the place before the argument was done, and I still look back in shame at this act of cowardice.
But I will take no blame for the OTHER incident, when my aunt, cousin, and I decided a bowl of chocolate chip ice cream was just the thing to finish off our meal at another eating establishment. We continued to chat about the news of the day, each of us working on our bowl (you didn’t think I meant one bowl for three people, dd you? Waiters who made that mistake around us did so only once.) But again I acted the troublemaker.
I said, “Um, have you found any chocolate chips in your chocolate chip ice cream?”
They paused. They had not, but they had all assumed what I had been thinking: maybe this was some special version with white chocolate chips. But we hadn’t encountered chocolate chips of any color with our teeth or taste buds, and we finally flagged down the waiter to ask. As I recall, he didn’t even have to check; he knew the answer.
“Oh, the kitchen just finished a container of chocolate chip and didn’t want to open a new one.”
Had we started a riot, no jury in this land would have convicted us.
Now, these were four different dining venues, three of which are now gone where the good times go. And I dislike conspiracy theories, so I cannot believe word went out among the hospitality community about us. But I HAVE noticed that whenever we order ice cream, sorbetto, or gelato nowadays, we are told that the kitchen JUST NOW ran out of that flavor. Coincidence? THAT answer isn’t complicated.
Oh you darling fat fraud, there is only one thing I really want from you this Christmas, and that is that you keep far away from my holiday gift list. How am I supposed to train my relatives to give me useful things, like an online subscription to the Screaming Streaming Service and passwords to websites unfairly restricted to people twice my age if you keep chiming in with advice on giving me old, used stuff? I know my mother will probably get me more cute books with fluffy kitties instead of zombie rats in them, but I MAY have convinced my doddering grandfather that something high-tech can be sent by email and does not require wrapping, so kindly do not interfere with advice about pre-owned clutter. A Christmas without you would be like a gift of a thousand New Years.
IN GREAT HOPES FOR A SANTA-FREE DAY
Dear Ingrate:
It is always nice to hear from you, as it lends a personal touch to the holiday. It’s like seeing a grimy thumbprint on an otherwise pristine sugar cookie.
I am, however, rather surprised that you even bother to write, you being so modern and high tech. I suppose you still think that Elf on the Shelf is nothing but a bright-eyed chucklehead with no thought but to amuse and entertain. He has an advanced degree in all those modern technological wonders you adore, and has forwarded me your online wishlists and browsing history.
It pains me to point out inconsistencies in your hopes and dreams, but that IS part of the holiday tradition. You show an eager interest in movies which involve mortals who awaken ancient evil spirits, and you regularly check online auction sites for haunted dolls and artifacts with curses on them. Perhaps you see where I’m going with this. I hope not; sI need to fill the rest of this column somehow.
Perhaps you are simply taking your family too much for granted. You are so used to getting secondhand books with bunnies from your mother that you take no interest in the previous owners. Perhaps they were like you, Ingrate, and some of their frustration at not seeing decapitated gnomes or ravening bear ghosts lives on in those well-thumbed tomes.
Perhaps your doting grandfather, eschewing a digital passkey, will send you some postcards. Do NOT, Ingrate, just toss these aside saying “Confounded kitsch!” The message on the back may tell of treasure buried in an ancient burial ground, or hold coded clues to where something vile has been lurking in limbo, just waiting for some small, disappointed Christmas grumbler to speak the words “I am fine. How are you?” backward to activate the charm.
Christmas, my bitter dumpling, has always come with a streak of darkness: it is celebrated in the season of early sunsets and dark nights among people who believed that if they told stories of bloodthirsty creatures waiting just outside the door, those creatures would get the hint and move to the house of someone who had no respect for such ancient traditions. Not sending threats, Ingrate: just hints. Remember that one of the jauntiest of traditional English Christmas songs deals with the discovery and a skeleton in a forgotten room. Not everyone gets EXACTLY what they wanted or deserved (much as I know you’d love to find an ancient death in your toybox.)
I hope you will take whatever your family gives you this year in the right spirit. Surely someone of your basic temperament will be able to turn even fluffy bunnies and faded postcards into tools of terror. Show a little initiative, cyanide souffle; in the olden days, kids were expected to make their own terrors, and were perfectly happy with socks and underwear at the end of December. (Okay, maybe not PERFECTLY happy: your particular ancestor probably growled about getting pink undies instead of camo wear.)
Wishing you something terrifying and unexpected this holiday, and hoping you can respond with something equally surprising and horrifying for your family. (Try smiling. It’ll probably make them think twice before sampling the cranberry sauce.)
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….”
I have always appreciated your advice on giving pre-owned objects as gifts, but as years go by, i find the wish lists of my grandchildren very difficult to translate. One grandchild in particular gives me a lot of instructions which are awfully technical. Are second-hand postcards at all appropriate for such an up-to-date kid?
BARELY KEEPING UP
Dear Bear Up:
This is a time for reflecting on the past and the future, and we can all get caught up in depressing considerations about what is gone and what may be coming up. But this is also a time for remembering that some things are perennial, and always relevant, like snowflakes, safety pins, and old jokes.
You see, Bare, old jokes are like leaves: they blossom, give shade, wither, and disappear, But every old joke finds its way to come back in a new but recognizable form. And jokes on old postcards can be as relevant today as they were when first published (if we do it right.) For example, what could be more current than a phone with multiple uses?
And, believe it or else, even in 1905, there were jokes about people in danger from drones. What says 2024 better?
For the social media addict (and what else have we got nowadays?) we can show examples of musical cat videos from days of yore.
Along with motivational quotations (taken from some other source and misquoted).
In days long past, we had people who were willing to bring to our attention badly worded signs in public places,
Right next to personals ads on dating websites (though the word “website” did not exist, the idea of a web behind such ads was surely already present),
Mixed in with highly entertaining trivia of dubious verisimilitude and source.
Behold, Bear: if we keep looking, we can even find people whining about their printers. So take heart and go boldly forth with that Christmas list, Grandpa! Do not waste your money and your grandchild’s time with some high tech wonder which will be obsolete by Groundhog’s Day but fill that stocking with these glimpses of our past, proving that social media was as living and vibrant and annoying as it is today. They’ll always remember your gift. (I do hope you live more than a snowball’s throw away.)
We continue to pore through history to find good solid conspiracies involving each of the Presidents of the United States. To recap, we need a story about a president which involves him in some deep plot, or one that seemed deep at the time. We prefer theories which are more or less contemporary with the man himself (I could make up better ones than some of these myself, but that’s cheating) AND it must be a conspiracy which is largely discounted by most Mainstream Historians. (Since it is the nature of politics to make back office deals, some conspiracy stories turn out to be true, which takes them out of conspiracy theory and into History.)
The reason this series has been on hiatus is that Benjamin Harrison, unfortunately, was apparently too dull for conspiracies. The best I can do for you is technically a Grover Cleveland conspiracy theory, put about through the workings of Harrison’s campaign folks. One of their operatives, pretending to be a British expatriot living in California, wrote to the British ambassador to the United States to ask whom he should vote for. The ambassador replied that Cleveland would be the best bet, as he would be lowering the tariffs. Which would have been true. What makes it bogus is that the campaign’s REAL intent was to make it look as if Grover would be doing whatever the British wanted. This was not especially true, but DID convince the Irish voters to turn their support to Harrison, since anything the English government favored had to be evil. This isn’t much, but will have to do for a placeholder until we can show Harrison knew Marilyn Monroe, or something.
William McKinley was assassinated so we are on firmer ground. Like Garfield’s shooting, this should not have been fatal. The doctors guessed wrong about where the bullet was, and just as the President seemed ot be recovering, he died of gangrene. His assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was an anarchist, which set off a wave of action. All the leading anarchists in New York were arrested on suspicion of being in on it, including the entire family of “Red Emma” Goldman, whom Czolgosz had mentioned meeting, to force her to turn herself in. She denied any connection to the crime, saying that if she HAD wanted to kill McKinley, she wouldn’t have picked an idiot like Czolgosz for the job. The Secret Service was accused of being part of the conspiracy for not protecting the president (though this was still just an unofficial part of their job). Despite this, and a demand by some people that protecting the President should be the Army’s job, the Secret Service was made an official protection agency for the NEXT President. The idea that Czolgosz had Not Acted Alone (remember this phrase; it’ll be coming back) led to the establishment of groups dedicated to investigating anarchists, some of which were consolidated into the Department of Investigation, which in the fulness of time became the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Czolgosz accomplished a lot, actually, for someone who basically accidentally killed the President
As for the next president, known to some supporters as “That Goddamned Cowboy”, we have to save him for next time.
Nubry’s eyes had been fixed on the big screen for some time now. Broken buildings were all that remained of Near Schloggina. Old stone stalls they seemed to be, roofless and doorless, a refuge for fog and shadows.
“Probably they had to shut down the conventions after the Great Weed,” she sighed. A hand went out to the touchpad on her chair.
Bott sat now in the co-pilot’s seat, his own hands close to the grenades on his belt. He was not entirely easy about having left the Drover uncrewed in orbit. He was mostly certain that, despite the ship’s opinion of him, it still had to do what he said. But this went against all his training.
The library ship skimmed along above the dead city. Cubicles in stone rows, roofless buildings everywhere the same: Nubry went on shaking her head.
She flew pretty well, he thought, though of course this was a pretty short, straight trip. The dof was tricky, though. Easy to see she had a few years’ experience.
She had changed her uniform while tidying the books, and now wore purple over a white bodysuit. Bott hoped this wasn’t required protocol; he had nothing to change into, and he wanted to make a good impression on these librarians. They could deal. No planet could susbsist entirely on its own resources; a hidden planet, especially, would need suppliers, especially illicit ones. If he managed to master the Drover, he could be a very efficient one.
Blinking lights indicated a landing site beyond the empty city. Bott watched Nubry closely; she showed no sign of noticing this scrutiny as she maneuvered the Dragonshelf toward this, going swiftly through the routine of settling a BBB-44 onto the surface. The Dragonshelf obeyed her perfectly, and without comment. The landing circle lowered too, somewhat more slowly than the ship, so that when the Dragonshelf finally touched down, the platform was completely below the planet’s surface. The roof closed over them. Bott had a grenade unhooked from his belt.
Nubry didn’t notice this, either. Once she had settled the ship, she rubbed her palms on the thighs of her suit. Ibe hand came up to hit the release for the main exit hatch. “Let’s go see!”
Reaching the bottom of the exit ramp, she [paused, forwing around at the big, empty cargo area as though she’d been expecting floor to ceiling bookcases. Bitt turned his eyes to seek out more threatening anomalies. He was the first to hear the low hum, though he had not identified the source before it turned into a voice,
“Wecolme to the library! Come any time; come many times!”
Two travelling squares were gliding toward them. The first bore a tall, regal woman in a long grey robe. Red braids hung down her back, red eyebrows shot up in rays halfway across her smooth forehead. A faint golden glow surrounded her.
“I am Opio,” she said, as the square settled in front of the ramp. “Head Librarian here. This….” She indicated the short white-haired man with a monocle. “Is Chief Deputy Libraroan Wanure Smalen.”
The deputy nodded. Nubry bowed. Pirates don’t bow, so Bott didn’t. He settled his hands to his hips, letting the grenade slip into a pocket for future reference.
“Head Librarian Opio, this pirate captain and I have come to offer the Dragonshelf’s 530,000,000 items to refill the Great Library’s once legendary holdings.” Nubry bowed again, gesturing to Bott as she did so.
The Head Librarian inclined her head with all the dignity of her ancient post. “A magnificent gift. But what did you intend to do once you had turned over your library. Had you any thought of becoming one of our docents?”
Nubry’s ears went a bit red. “I’m sure I would not claim….”
Hr smile warm, the Librarian extended a hand. “There are examinations to be endured, to be sure, but certainly one who has tended the library of the Dangerous Rebels would pass those.” She stepped to the side, making room on her square. “Come! Many I offer you a tour of the facility?”
“Oh, yes!” Nubry took the hand and stepped up.
“I can’t stay long,” Bott glanced up at the closed ceiling. “I have to get back to my ship.”
Nubry frowned, but the Head Librarian inclined her head again. “I understand. But can you not stay long enough, to accept our hospitality, in gratitude for your work?” She gestured to her deputy’s square.
Bott was perfectly willing; he had merely sent a message to these librarians that he would like to get around to business as soon as possible. He was sorry to think that, in delivering the Dragonshelf to this haven, he was losing someone who had shown promise to be a great crew member. But librarians, he supposed, belonged in libraries.
He stepped up next to the deputy, and the two squares moved off in different directions. He could hear Nubry saying , “He’s a very amiable pirate. He could probably hunt books for you.”
Bott had been hoping to do that, and a number of other things, for the Great Library if the Great Library was willing to pay. From the looks of things, they could afford it. The cargo bay was well-jept and well-lit, and these travelling squares moved smoothly, unlike the ones he’d used back home.
Moving into the corridors of the building itself enhanced this feeling: the creamy brown walls were recently polished, and the carpet below their squares was in perfect condition. Lighting was gentle and indirect; everything that could shine shone. The designers of this building had shared the same taste for elegance as the Drover’s architects, and designers with such tastes were not cheap.
Specifics were necessary before negotiations could start. “An expert cloaking device,” he said to the deputy, as if just making conversation. “How do you get supplies through?”
The Chief Deputy’s nose went up a bit but he answered, civilly enough, “We have our ways sir. Would you like to stop and freshen up before going on to the lounge?”
“All right with me. Do you get many ships stopping here Libraries and things?”
Wanure looked away. “That sort of information is naturally classified, sir.”
“Is that glass in your eye for seeing things?” Bott inquired, “Or for making sure nothing that gies in comes back out?”
The deputy smiled, and brought the square to a halt before a light orange door. “I must go supervise the transfer of the Dragonshelf to the Deaccession Chamber, sir. The Reader’s Lounge is at the far end of this lounge. If you will wait there, Her Organized Honor will be joining you presently.”
Btt nodded and stepped down. The deputy guided his square along the corridor. After the man was gone, Bott checked the door for traps and security devices. The cameras and snares were well hidden, but he had plenty of experience with them. They were very good ones, built along the same principles as the ones on the Drover. If he and Opio couldn’t come to terms, it might be fun to try and steal them.
The mirrored room beyond the door was very well stocked. Bott studied the array of soaps and colognes. That spiral bottle held a very popular new scent; he’d hijacked a load of it not so long ago. The Library Planet already had pirate connections, then. He hoped it wasn’t Jaller Parroll. Of course, they might have had it from the dealer Bott supplied, in which vase they might be interested in eliminating the middleman.
He picked upthe bottle to look it over and then, with his free hand, reached down and bunched up a big handful of his jacket. Raising this to his nose, he took a deep sniff and was nearly knocked down by the cold and gritty aroma of the cloth. It still smelled like a spring morning on his home planet. He set the cologne back.
The Reader’s Lounge was almost obnoxiously clean and bright, with small tidy terminals for those who knew how to use them. The smooth lines reminded him again of the Drover. He reached down for his collection of cards.
“Ship?”
“Are you still alive?” “Sorry to disappoint you. Is the Rhododendron still coming on?”
“Yes, but they can’t see through the planet’s cloak. They are following our last course and should miss us by a wide margin.”
“Don’t signal them.”
“I can’t. They could not receive any message unless they come within range of the buoys. And that depends on how clever their ship’s computer is.”
“I’d hate to think it’s smarter than you.”
“You’d never know. We are both advanced too far beyond your brain.”
Bott had more to say, but put the card away and turned as a door opened.
“Such a library!” Nubry slapped her hands together. “The community meeting rooms, the processing center, the…I never saw anything to beat it! Did I? I did not!” She cleared her throat. “Elevator access to all…and the executive offices! You should see the exhibition of bookmarks!”
Bott grinned: she’d like it here. “Do they have as many books as you do?”
Ihe ball if hair bounced left and right. “They didn’t show me that///security./ I used to think I’d hate…but it’s such a beautiful facility! Where’s Wanure? I want to show him where things are. Oh, not the classification system, but which sections are where. They might already, of course….”
She had to pause to catch her breath again. “The deputy said he was going to see the Dragonshelf into the Deaccession Chamber,” Bott told her.
Mintu spread her hands wide. “Well, I guess they would have a special place….” She frowned.
“Deaccession? Are you sure he said that? Not Accession?”
“Yeah,” said Bott. “Why?”
The flush was gone from her cheeks. “But that means weed!”
“That means we’d what?”
“No!” she cried. “Weed! Deaccession!” She looked helplessly at the pirate for a moment and then added “Throw away!” She turned and ran out the way she’d come in.
Responses to my most recent column were evenly split, about half using the word “Scrooge” and the others using “Grinch.” (There were a few other words which are new to me, but I got the general gist.) It occurs to me that perhaps I was a little hard on those people who announce startling new Christmas trivia that I have heard every year since my increasingly distant childhood. There is, after all, always someone who HASN’T heard about Benjamin Franklin and the turkey, and I myself have been known to quote the aphorism that “Every joke is new to someone who hasn’t heard it before.”
I have ALSO been known to say (as noted by everyone who pointed out that I have also been known to tell the same stry numerous times: and here I thought you weren’t paying attention) that instead of censoring or rewriting things you don’t like, you should just offer something better. So I shave made up a list of Christmas trivia I have NOT s een sufficiently covered. Next time you want to give us the shocking news that eating poinsettias can make you sick, add in the answers to some of these burning Christas issues.
Where DOES that comma go in “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen”? I repeated for many years the tidbit that in the original printing of this song, the comma is moved one word over, making it “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, making the song about how Christmas should make you relax about your afterlife. Then an institution published what they claimed was the earliest known printing, and there IS no comma in the title. Find that first lyric sheet and come to the point. (Yeah, punctuation puns get me right in the colon, too.)
Maybe you think that’s nitpicking; that’s what trivia is ABOUT, mistletoe goulash. Consider, the Island of Misfit Toys in the classic Sixties Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. My mother had an issue early on; at the end, when the elves are dropping the toys to houses below, handing each one a parachute umbrella, the toy bird refuses the umbrella and just flies down. But, as she pointed out, the reason the bird was ON the island was that it couldn’t fly. So how…. A recent TikTok expert addressed another question: why is that winsome doll on the Island? She has no obvious flaws, like the cowboy who rides the ostrich.
I, personally, look to another part of the story for my own question. Where did Yukon Cornelius keep his guitar? You recall that when we meet him, he is heading out to replenish his “life-sustaining supplies: gunpowder, corn meal, hamhocks, and guitar strings.” Are the guitar strings what he uses as a harness for the dogs on his sled? I do not see a guitar sticking out of his supplies. And did he or Sam the Banjo-playing snowman write “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas”, which completely obliterates the elf-written “We Are Santa’s Elves” by the end of the picture?
Luther’s Cradle Hymn, better known to Sunday School alumni as “Away in a Manger”, is so popular a poem that it has been set to at least three different melodies. We are frequently being told by Christmas trivia mavens that Martin Luther had nothing to do with it. He DID write some hit hymns, but not this one, which firat appears somewhere in the late nineteenth century. So who DID write it? My own theory is that it comes from some forgotten pageant about the life of Luther, but no one seems to know. Go find out.
When did it become fashionable to hate fruitcake? There are a lot of desserts our ancestors, for whom sweet things were a novelty except when fruit was ripe, adored that we avoid. But I have eaten some really good fruitcake, some of which were mainly cake and some of which were mainly fruit. At what point did fruitcake become the quintessential unwanted Christmas present, beating out old favorites like socks and long underwear?
How did red and green become the Christmas Colors? Santa’s suit was not originally red—another thing the Christmas trivia folk tell me every year—and Christmas trees were frequently brown, being made of carved wood. Do we just like seeing cardinals in spruce trees that much?
There are other possibilities, some of which may be unanswerable. Who invented the term “Stocking stuffer”? What WAS wrong with Tiny Tim? When did the Three Wise Men become Three Kings? (Is “Magi” just too hard to rhyme?) Mix a few of these in with your Christmas trivia next year, and maybe I will only grumble “humbug” to myself the next time you break it to me that Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” for the annual royalty check.
This will give me more time to write that blog about the Christmas SONGS that really tick me off.
Blogsy Babbles 