Editing Libraries of Faerie (section)

==Tomorrow's Vaults==

===Library of Osmosis===

Information is bonded drectly to hydrogen atoms, which are placed in a solution that combines mind-altering elements and chemicals that create synaptic bridges. 

The enitre library is rows upon rows of fridges that contain drinkable books.

===Library of the Modern World===

Charlie and I were making a quick run from the Ouurt Rim to Sunyan's Folly in Selkie, a little freighter I once owned, when we dropped out of ispace for a position and bearing check. Nothing big, just a stop-look-listen, because too long in ispace can bend you, a little, and the more bent you get, the tougher it is to get back. Plus, since space is curved, sometimes you get a little off the mark, and you have to stop and point yourself again. 

Anyway, Charlie and I, we're just sitting there, minding our own business, when Charlie flips on the EM detector and not five seconds later, there's a !ping! and something, not sure what, starts recording. Now, usually in the deep-dark like that, you won't hear anything but starfire and, ocassionally, a distress signal...but we were way, way off the beaten track (it was a quick run, really, and it wasn't gonna hurt anyone if we took along some less-than-declarable items), but here Charlie is, getting some sort of stream. So he lets it spool into the recorder while he goes trying to track it down.

We should have left then. 

I wanted to bug out once we got our bearings, but Charlie...he just had to know what this signal was, and where it was coming from, so we stayed...and we stayed...and I started worrying about fuel and food and air. I don't know how, but Charlie talked me into staying, little by little, three blasted weeks. Three weeks in the middle of nowhere, listening to that damnable little blip on the EM-tector. 

And then, one late shift, Charlie comes sailing into the observatory, waving his datapad and perturbing his vector so bad he missed the hand-brake and bounced off the couch. "I've got it!" he yells, as if he's Archimedes, and about as well dressed.

"Got what," says I.

"I know what the signal is! Heron, it's a recording...in fact, I think it's a recording of every digital signal ever sent. At first it was all blips and bloops, but I was spooling the signal through some filters, and I swear to gods, Heron, I heard a voice! And do you know what it said?"

"What, Charlie?"

"It said 'Watson, come here, I need you'!" He stared at me, as if I was supposed to know what that meant. 

Anyway, we stayed a bit longer, and every hour me looking at the clock and the food and water and air levels, and trying to figure out if we could still make planetfall. We'd blown the rendezvous to the depths of the 99 Mahen Hells, so I wasn't worried about getting paid any longer...now it was about keeping breathing. I said as much, to Charlie, too.

"Look, Heron, you have to understand...if this is every broadcast ever made, then there's some serious history here! Phone calls, TV shows...there's an archive here that's priceless! It's a Library of the Modern World!"

We came to blows over it, eventually. We were going to run out of air. As it was, the food ran out two days before planetfall, and the water a day later. But Charlie left me enough air, that's a point in his favor. 

He clobbered me but good, and I woke up, strapped to the pilot's chair, already in ispace and booking for Folly at 110% of engine capacity. As it was, it was still a close thing.

Charlie had taken the skiff, loaded it with half the water, food, and about a third of the available air, and then sent me and Selkie on our way. He stayed behind, to tend to the Library of the Modern World.

I lost Selkie to an auction for Debt Repayment, less than a year later; Charlie was always the numbers man. I haven't left planet since. But I wonder, sometimes, though I know it's impossible...I wonder if he will ever hear my broadcast to him, the one I sent tight-beam, aimed at the last known position of the Skiff "Writer's Bloc": 

"Charlie, I love you, and I'll come back one day for you." I'd like to think it'll make it into the library.

===The Stolen Book===

The Eldest said the ship comes but once each generation, a cursed relic from the Times of Sin, before the gods smote the earth with cleansing fire. All in the village were warned to keep away, lest its taint infect us and bring back the evil of centuries ground to dust, but T'mith and I were too curious. The craft was vast - bigger than a tree, a house, a mountain. It blotted out the sun, its fumes turned the west wind to a choking miasma, its roar shook the ground beneath our feet. While our families huddled in their huts and prayed, we took our spears and went forth. It had landed in the cursed valley a few miles from the village, a place of ancient ruins that has long been taboo to our people. 

It hulked in its crater like a bird brooding upon a nest. Its skin was blackened with age, coated with streaks of rust and pitted like a spearhead left too long without its oilskins. Gaping holes in its side oozed chill vapors, exposed broken ribs and empty chambers. Only flecks of paint were left on its hull, spots of bright color scoring the darkness like the pustules of a virulent disease - we drew closer, rags wrapped around our faces to make the breathing easier. Up close, the smell was even worse - we would have turned back, if not for our pride. To have come so far, only to fail now? Unthinkable. We slunk in through one of the ancient wounds like vermin wriggling into a rotting corpse.

As we stalked through the corridors on deckplates time had turned into a nightingale floor, lights flickered about us and ancient voices, their voices creaking and squealing with disuse called to us. We clung close together with fear, our spears shaking in our hands - chamber after chamber we explored, each stranger and more fascinating than the last. Shattered vidscreens, dusty computer terminals - all the technology of the Times of Sin, dead now, struck down by age or the will of the gods. And more - room upon room filled with shelves, and each shelf crammed to overflowing the books.

I had never seen any book but the holy tomes of the Eldest before, and I wanted to stop and touch them, try to read them, try to learn some of what the ancients knew. T'mith was frightened, and insisted we go back - and we did, though I took one book with me, to mark that we had been where none ever dared to go.

The villagers stoned us for sinners, cursed us for daring venture where they never could. T'mith died at his own father's hands - I fled, tail between my legs and curses ringing in my ears.

I've learned things, since then - walked the broken cities of the ancients, made deals with devils and pacts with angels to learn the secrets time has tried to erase. And I've watched, and I've waited.

The book I stole so long ago begins to glow, at night. On the back cover a tiny message burns in runes of flame. The countdown has begun.

"Your due date is approaching! Please return this volume to the Bookmobile within six months, two weeks, and three days, or your account will be charged late fees..."

===Schroedinger's library===

If you open the door, you might find it.

Then again, you might not.