A pause. “Continuing. Yes.” The old, dark-carapaced Sage seemed to stare at the dark read-screen. “Hmm,” he said. He turned fractionally to look at Fassin. “Let me see. Your use of the word ‘continuing’ there.”
“I understood that Valseir had been cataloguing his libraries Wasn’t he?”
“He was always so secretive. Was he not?”
· I’m getting light-comms leakage here, Hatherence sent.
· Tell me if there’s a burst after this:
“And dilatory. Hapuerele always said that Valseir was more likely to win the All-Storms Yachting Cup than ever finish cataloguing his libraries.”
Another pause. “Quite so, quite so. Hapuerele, yes.”
· Leakage. Hapuerele does not exist?
· Exists, but he had to ask elsewhere just there. Shouldn’t have.
“I would like to take a look round some of the libraries myself. I hope you don’t mind. I shan’t disturb you.”
“Ah. I see. Well, if you think you can be discreet. Are you seeking anything in particular, Mr Taak?”
“Yes. And you?”
“Only enlightenment. And what would it be that you are looking for, if I may ask?”
“Exactly the same.”
The old dweller was silent for a while. In real-time, most of an hour passed. “I may have something for you,” he said eventually. “Would you care to slow down a little more? No doubt this, our present pace, seems surpassing slow to you; however, I find it something of a strain.”
“Of course,” Fassin told Jundriance.
· I’ll have to leave you here, major.
· Lucky you. I’ll try to keep this short.
· Good luck, Hatherence sent.
“However, I shall leave you at this point, sir,” the colonel said to the Sage.
“Pleasant to have met you, Reverend Colonel,” Jundriance told her. “Now then,” he said to Fassin. “Let me see. Half this pace, I think, Seer Taak, would suit me better. A quarter would suit me better still.”
“Shall we try half, then, initially?”
He was back in just three days. Hatherence was inspecting the contents of another library when he found her. The room was almost perfectly spherical, with no windows, just a circle of dim light shining from the ceiling’s centre and further luminescence provided by bio strips inlaid on each shelf, glowing ghostly green. Further stacks of shelves like enormous inward-pointing vanes made the place feel oddly organic, as though these were ribs, and they were inside some vast creature. The colonel was floating near one set of close-stacked shelves near the library’s centre, strips of green light ribbing her esuit.
“So soon, major?” Hatherence said, replacing a slim holocrystal on a shelf half full of them. At the same time as she spoke, she sent: — Our friend had nothing of interest?
“Sage Jundriance gave me so much to think about that I decided I’d better come back to normal speed to think it over,” Fassin replied, then signalled, — The old bastard gave me fuck all; basically he’s trying to stall us.
“Well, I have been studying while you were conversing.”
“Anything of interest?” he asked, floating over towards her.
— There are signs that many more Dwellers were staying here until not long ago. Perhaps only a few days long ago. “The house system seems to think there ought to be a catalogue of cata-logues somewhere. In fact that there ought to be multiple copies of it lying around.”
“A catalogue of catalogues?” Fassin said. — Other Dwellers?
“The first catalogue that Valseir compiled, listing the catalogues of individual works he would then draw up.” — Perhaps as many as ten or twelve. Also, I get the impression Livilido and Nuern are more, or at least other, than they appear.
“One catalogue for everything would be too simple?” Fassin asked, then sent, — I didn’t think they seemed like ordinary servants either. So where are all these multiple copies?
— I suspect they have been removed. They would be the key to beginning a methodical search, the colonel replied, then said, “I gather it seemed to him the logical way to proceed. Certainly there is no shortage of material, even yet, when much of it has been removed. One catalogue would, I suppose, be cumbersome.” The Colonel paused. “Of course, a single giant database with freely dimensioned subdivisions, partially overlapping categories and subcategories, a hierarchically scalable cross-reference hyperstructure and inbuilt, semi-smart user-learning routines would be even more to the point and far more useful.”
Fassin looked at her. “He’d probably have got round to one of those after he’d done what he considered the proper cataloguing — getting everything down in some non-volatile form that can be read without intervening machinery.”
“Our Dweller friends do seem to be remarkably purist about such things.”
“When you live as long as they do, future-proofing becomes an obsession.”
“Perhaps that is their curse. The Quick must endure the frustration of living in a universe with what seems like an annoyingly slow speed limit and the Slow must suffer the frenetic pace of change around them, resulting in a sort of exaggerated entropy.”
Fassin had been floating slowly closer to Hatherence. He tipped to make it clear that he was looking at her as he came to a stop a couple of metres from her. The glowing biostrips on the shelves painted soft lime stripes across the little gascraft. “You all right in there, colonel?” he asked. “I realise it’s very hot and pressured down here.” — Colonel, do you think we are wasting our time here?
“I am fine. Yourself?” — Very hard to say. There is so much still here, so much to be looked at.
“Also fine. Feeling very rested.” — That’s my point. We could be made to waste a lot of time here, looking for something that has already been removed.
“I understand slow-time will have that effect.” — That is a thought. I had the odd impression, from dust marks and so on, understand, that many of the shelves have recently been filled, or refilled. And many of the works seem to make no sense given what I’ve understood of Valseir’s subjects of study. Seemed most strange. Though, if all this is a sort of slow-trap for you and me, then that begins to make sense. But what else can we do? Where else is there to go?
“I’ll have to talk to the Sage again,” Fassin said. “There are many things I’d like to ask him.” — Whereas in fact I’ll do everything I can to avoid talking to the old bore again. We have to get word out to any legitimate scholars who did take works from here, see if any of them have the catalogues, or anything else. There are two dozen separate libraries here; even if they’re only half-full we could be searching them for decades.
“He is a most interesting and wise character.” — Many tens of millions of works, and if most are unsorted, all are. I’ll signal to the Poaflias, have them put out word to the relevant scholars. Who might be trying to put obstacles in our way so?
“Indeed he is.” — I don’t know.
“Well, I think I shall continue to search the shelves for a while. Will you join me?” — Will you?
“Why not?”
They drifted to different but nearby stacks, snicked holocrystal books out of their motion-proof shelves, and read.
“His study?” Nuern asked. A fringe flick indicated a glance at Livilido. They were afloat at table. The two Primes had invited Fassin and Hatherence to a semi-formal dinner in the house’s ovaloid dining room, a great, dim, echoing space strung vertically with enormous sets of carbon ropes, all splayed, separated into smaller and smaller cords and fibres and threads and filaments and then each thin strand minutely and multiply knotted. It was like being inside some colossal, frayed net.
Jundriance was still deep in slow-time and would not be joining them. Special food had been prepared that was suitable for the colonel. She ingested it via a sort of gaslock on the side of her esuit. Fassin, contained and sustained within the arrow-craft, was really only here to watch.