by Jim C. Hines
“Tell that to Kumar,” said Wolf. “He doesn’t think there’s any such thing.”
Cate stepped past. “You said humans once lived here. Obviously, they cleared away the glass. We’re wasting time, Captain.”
Mops switched on the small lamp clipped to her harness and peered through the doorway. Inside was a rectangular chamber with yet more pillars and arches. Beneath the dust and bird droppings, the stone floor was patterned with a repeating circular design, like a sunburst or flower. “The entryway looks clear. Monroe, what’s the best procedure for checking a building for ferals and other threats?”
“Send a drone hive in ahead of you,” he answered over the comm.
“Great.” She stepped through the doorway. “Any chance you brought a hive in your pack and forgot to tell us?”
“I’ll add it to the list for next time.”
Hallways stretched away to her left and right. Farther ahead, ornate staircases to either side led to a second-floor walkway. Chunks of debris from the ceiling littered the ground. Mops turned in a slow circle, scanning the balcony before moving toward the far side of the room.
She circled each pillar to make sure nothing waited in ambush on the other side. By now, the others had joined her, all save Monroe. Wolf was gaping like a tourist. Rubin walked backward, constantly scanning for threats. Cate moved with wings spread, the blades around the edges fully exposed.
The next chamber felt like it could be the heart of the library: a multistory circular room with an enormous domed ceiling, parts of which had fallen and lay in fragments on the floor.
“It reminds me of the Judicial Council Hall on Yan.” Cate pointed to the second-floor balcony. “Sharpshooters would be stationed there and there, ready to carry out the judge’s sentence.”
This place was large enough to shelter hundreds. Thousands, even. Mops cupped her hands to her mouth. “Hello,” she shouted. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
“Giving up on the stealthy approach?” asked Monroe.
“We’re not that stealthy anyway.” She moved toward one of the many arched openings in the outer walls, each of which seemed to lead to a separate room. She shone her light into the area beyond. “I know you’re scared . . .”
Her voice trailed off. All thoughts of their mission fell away. All she could do was stand and stare at the sight before her. She didn’t even blink until her vision began to blur. Swallowing a knot in her throat, she whispered, “Doc, share what I’m seeing with the others.”
Wolf was the first to respond, her words uncharacteristically soft. “That’s a lot of books.”
Row after row of bookcases filled the room in front of Mops. Each one was seven shelves high and overflowing with books. Some had spilled onto the floor, where they lay in dusty disarray.
Barely breathing, Mops stepped forward and bent to pick one up. She hesitated, then holstered her weapon and used both hands to lift the book as gingerly as she would a new-hatched Quetzalus.
The pages were swollen with moisture and stiff from the cold. The cover cracked and tore when she opened it, making her gasp. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, not knowing who or what she was talking to. The ghosts of her ancestors, maybe.
Mold and mildew had rendered the title page illegible, even if she’d been able to read the language. She blinked to clear her eyes and gently returned the book to its place, trying to avoid doing any additional damage.
“I’ve got another room just like yours,” whispered Wolf.
“Same here,” added Rubin.
Mops didn’t notice Cate approaching until he was directly behind her.
“Didn’t your people have electronic data storage?” He sluiced off another layer of mucus from his arms and looked for a place to wipe it.
“If you get so much as one drop of snot on these books, I will shoot you in the face,” Mops warned.
Cate hesitated, then stepped back to wipe his hands against the wall. “Unless you expect to find your runaway human in one of these primitive books, perhaps we should continue searching?”
Mops allowed herself one last, lingering look at the thousands upon thousands of books, all written by humans. These were the direct thoughts of her ancestors, undiluted and unfiltered by Krakau translators. In that moment, simply knowing these books existed was enough to make this shitblock of a mission worth it.
“All right, people. We’ve got a lot of real estate to cover. Keep looking.” She wiped her cheek. “And try not to damage anything.”
* * *
Half an hour later, they regrouped in the center of the main circular room, having cleared the ground floor.
“Looks like this place has a cellar, too,” said Wolf. “Where next, boss? Down or up?”
“From what we’ve seen, the basement would be prone to flooding,” said Mops. “If I were looking for shelter, I’d take the upstairs. It’s dryer, and you can keep watch from the windows.” She led the way past a bronze statue and up the stone staircase, marveling at the carvings in the wall. With proper cleaners and sealant, much of this place could be made to look almost new.
Almost immediately, Wolf called out, “I’ve found something.” She crouched next to an old blanket spread over the floor. A pile of meat and bones sat in the center. She reached out. “Looks like whoever was staying here left in the middle of dinner.”
“Don’t put that in your mouth,” Mops ordered.
“I’m not—” Wolf yelped as the blanket fell away. Off-balance, Wolf toppled through the hole it had concealed.
“Wolf!” Mops raced back to the steps. Halfway down, she vaulted the railing to the floor below, expecting to find Wolf sprawled on the ground.
Instead, Wolf hung suspended overhead. The blanket completely cocooned her, held by a loop of thin black cable that had tightened around her ankles. The other end of the cable disappeared into the ceiling, leaving her to jerk and swing helplessly.
“Bloody fuckpustules,” Wolf shouted. A series of curses in other languages followed, all of which Doc dutifully translated, while rating each on creativity and proper pronunciation.
“Calm down.” Mops pulled out her combat baton and thumbed the controls, shifting it into a long single-edged knife.
She’d just started back toward the stairs when Monroe spoke. “I’ve spotted three figures approaching the library. Humanoid.”
“Cate, Rubin, get to cover now.” Mops ducked behind a pillar. “What are we looking at, Monroe? Ferals?”
“I don’t think so. They’re clothed and armed, but it’s not EMC issue. Their gear looks pretty primitive to me. They came running from another building right when Wolf started yelling.”
“Movement to your right,” said Doc, highlighting a humanoid shape crouched at the foot of the far stairs, pointing what appeared to be a weapon in her direction.
Mops threw herself to the floor. An instant later, a deafening crack split the air, and a crater of white stone exploded from the wall where her head had been. She half-crawled, half-ran for the cover of the nearest archway. Their weapons might be primitive, but they were effective.
“I have a shot,” Rubin said over the comm, her voice utterly calm. “Should I eliminate the threat, Captain?”
“Not yet. Doc, show me what Rubin’s seeing.”
Her visor split to give her the feed from Rubin’s helmet. Their attacker held a rifle of black metal and dark-stained wood. A white helmet left a pale, bearded face exposed. He wore bulky white-and-gray clothing.
“Orders, sir?” whispered Monroe.
Three more figures had arrived at the front of the library, dressed and armed similarly to the one by the stairs.
“Stand by,” said Mops.
“What’s happening out there?” shouted Wolf, thrashing even harder.
The three newcomers kept to the shelter of the doorways. One shouted in a lang
uage Mops didn’t know. The man by the stairs yelled back.
Mops grabbed the cleaning wand from her harness. She connected two soap cartridges to the intake valves. A safety alert flashed on her visor, warning against mixing those particular cleaners. She cleared the warning, then sealed her collar to the bottom of her infantry helmet, triggering her suit’s internal air supply.
One of the figures at the entrance moved in, keeping to the wall to Mops’ left. Her weapon was aimed toward Mops’ position. A small black patch covered her left eye.
Mops poked the wand around the archway, turned the pressure to maximum, and squeezed the trigger.
Cleaning fluid arced through the air, all the way to the entrance. Clouds of gas erupted outward. The two people in the doorway stumbled back, coughing and gagging. The third retreated up the steps, one arm over her mouth and nose.
“Rubin, take the one on the stairs to my right. Alive.”
“They shot at you,” Cate protested.
“You keep your head down. If they’re this mad to see us in the library, I don’t want to know what they’ll do about a Prodryan.” Mops turned her wand toward the fourth attacker, the one who’d shot at her. Seconds later, that one was coughing and ducking away as well.
A shriek of fear and anger made her whirl. Rubin had simply leaped from the railing onto the figure on the stairs, sending them both tumbling downward.
“Not exactly what I had in mind,” Mops muttered. She detached her cleaning wand and sprinted toward her would-be killer to the left. Another gunshot threatened to deafen her, but her suit didn’t register any impact. It was hard to aim when you couldn’t breathe. Mops hurled herself against the woman, slamming them both against the wall. She grabbed the gun with both hands and twisted. It clattered to the floor.
“Mops . . .”
“I see it.” The gun’s stock had glanced off the woman’s nose, loosing a stream of blood. Red blood.
The woman grabbed the front of Mops’ uniform and slammed a knee into her hip. Mops grunted, then brought her head down, driving her helmet into the woman’s face.
“Goddammit!” She brought both hands to her nose and fell back against the wall.
“You speak Human?” Mops demanded.
She managed a hoarse, “Yes,” which set off another bout of coughing.
Rubin had subdued her opponent and was now sitting on top of him, her combat baton pressed across his throat.
Mops backed away. “We don’t want to fight.”
“I have a dissenting opinion,” said Cate.
“For once, I agree with the Prodryan,” Wolf added.
Mops tugged out a cleaning rag and tossed it to the bleeding woman. “For your nose.”
Scowling, she picked it up and pressed it to her face. In thickly accented Human, she said, “You’re EMC.”
“Used to be.”
“Drop your weapons!” The shout came from one of the two humans at the entrance.
“I can kill them both from here, if necessary,” Monroe whispered.
“Hold your fire, but stay out of sight, just in case.” Mops raised her hands over her head and stepped to the center of the room. “My name is Marion Adamopoulos. Who the depths are you people?”
The human kept her gun on Mops. “Bev, are you all right?”
“I’ve been better.” The bleeding woman with the eye patch retrieved her rifle and hobbled toward the entrance, her shoulders hunched. “Damn gun broke my nose.”
“You’re in charge of this group?” asked Mops.
“I am.” The human stepped closer. “Eliza Gleason. And since when does the EMC use chemical weapons?”
“It’s chloramine,” said Mops. “Causes coughing, burning eyes, and shortness of breath, but it shouldn’t kill anyone.”
As the gas thinned, Mops studied Gleason more closely. In addition to the heavy white clothing they all wore, leather bracers covered her forearms. A thick belt held knives, holster, ammo, and several leather pouches.
Doc zoomed in on her face. The skin around Gleason’s eyes was brown and wrinkled, with warm undertones, a flush of life that ironically made her seem not-quite-human to Mops.
“You’re cured,” Mops whispered. “Fully human, all of you. How?”
“You first,” said Gleason. “How did you find us?”
“A security satellite spotted one of you walking around a few days ago. Another caught an image of that same person—we thought—entering this building.”
Gleason turned toward the human Rubin was currently straddling. “Dammit, Melvil. This is what happens when you break protocol. They’ve probably got an entire squad of Alliance bombers ready to crater this place.”
“We’re not with the Alliance.” Mops lowered her hands and took several steps closer. “The Krakau in Stepping Stone Station don’t have that second image. They know someone’s down here, but not where. We were hoping to find that person—Melvil, I assume—before the Alliance.”
“Not to interrupt,” Wolf shouted, “but any time you people want to cut me down from here, that would be outstanding!”
Gleason spoke to the others, her words strange and melodic.
“What language is that?” asked Mops.
“One the Krakau can’t translate.” Gleason pursed her lips, then said, “Nishnaabemwin.”
“Was . . . is it a human language?”
Bev snorted. “One of only a handful that are left.”
Whatever these people were, they weren’t helpless runaways from Admiral Sage’s secret medical facility. They’d been around long enough to make or scavenge clothes and weapons. They had their own weapons and organization and rules. Their own languages. Not the artificial one the Krakau had pieced together, but genuine human languages.
All of Mops’ assumptions about this mission had been wrong. Everything she’d believed about humanity . . . It was like the first time she’d left that Krakau medtank after being cured. She felt lost and off-balance. “Who are you?” she whispered. “What are you?”
Gleason lowered her rifle. “We’re librarians.”
* * *
Mops sat with her team next to the staircase, waiting for the librarians to come to a decision. Rubin appeared calm, and had even closed her eyes to rest. Wolf was more uptight, drumming her fingers on her knees and humming an EMC marching song.
“I hate you all,” Cate proclaimed. Again.
“We know,” said Mops.
As unpleasant as Cate’s reaction to the skunk spray had been, his body’s response to the chloramine Mops had mixed to assault the librarians was far worse. The mucus oozing from Cate’s arms had turned a distinctive shade of bright blue, and his wings had begun to shed, leaving colored dander everywhere. Transparent patches now marred the blue-and-yellow patterns of his wings.
“I will recommend the utter sterilization of this damned planet,” Cate continued, wiping a layer of blue goop from his left arm and flinging it onto the floor. “And the eradication of all your toxic cleaning supplies.”
“Just think,” said Wolf. “All the Alliance had to do was drop a carrier full of detergent on the Prodryan home world, and they’d all drown in their own snot.”
“Two detergents,” Mops corrected. “They have to mix together to produce the gas.”
“Few of my people share my allergies,” Cate muttered. “Your soap scheme will not stop the Prodryans’ inevitable victory.”
“It’d be fun to watch, though,” said Wolf.
Cate shuddered, sending another shower of wing dandruff onto the floor. “Why waste time with toxic gases to incapacitate these humans when you could have shot them dead? Instead, you surrender your weapons. Are you so eager for defeat and death?”
“They’re human,” said Mops. “Pure human, unchanged by the Krakau venom. Whatever happens, we’re going to protect them.”<
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“You think they’ll extend you the same mercy?” asked Cate.
“He’s got a point,” added Wolf. “They did try to shoot you, sir. What if they try again?”
“Then I get shot.”
“I agree with the captain,” said Rubin. “These humans must be preserved.”
Gleason approached, her gun slung over one shoulder. The other librarians continued to argue behind her, but all three had their weapons out and pointed toward Mops and her team.
Gleason studied each of them, her gaze lingering on Cate, before turning to Mops. “In its prime, this place would have been packed with people. Imagine crowds moving through every room, others sitting at wooden privacy desks with terminals that could access nearly all information ever recorded by the human race. Imagine paintings and murals covering every surface, tributes to literature and knowledge.”
Mops’ throat tightened as she tried to visualize it.
“There was a painting on the far side of the building,” Gleason continued. “A woman holding a torch, with the words ‘In tenebris lux,’ which means, ‘In darkness, light.’” She glanced back at the other librarians. “We’ve seen more than our share of darkness.”
Rubin opened her eyes. “Have you considered moving to another latitude, one with sunnier weather and longer daylight at this time of year? Many species migrate to follow the sunlight.”
Gleason held up one of the combat batons from the pile of discarded weapons. “You come here with EMC weaponry and equipment, escorted by a Prodryan, but you expect us to trust you? You’re not the first Alliance mercenaries to come hunting.”
“We’re not mercenaries,” said Mops. “We were shipboard hygiene and sanitation services.” When Gleason frowned, Mops added, “Janitors.”
“Janitors?” Gleason let out a snort of disbelief and pointed to Cate. “Is that one a janitor as well?”
