Editing Libraries of Faerie (section)

===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.