by Robin Sloan
“Want some, tiger?”
“Ah—no. In fact, I do not think … you see, there are books here.”
“Oh, I’m no book-burner.”
“It would presumably be an accident.”
“No such thing as accidents, tiger.” She takes a drag. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“New? Ah, no. In point of fact, I am not truly here.” He means to say: I do not work here; I am just filling in. But it comes out strangely, and—
“That’s far out,” she says, nodding. “Maybe I’m not here either. Maybe you and me shouldn’t be here—together. Catch my drift?”
“I believe so, but I do not—”
“My pals are heading over to the Haight. Why don’t you boogie with us?”
“I cannot, ah, boogie. That is—I cannot leave my post. Another time, perhaps.”
She gives him a pitying smile. “Keep on trucking, then.” She sends another plume curling into the air and rejoins the crowd. Later, heading for the door, she casts one last glance in his direction, but Penumbra looks away.
Bright clear sunlight presses in through the front windows and gleams on bare floorboards; Al-Asmari’s 24-Hour Bookstore is, remarkably, empty. It is midday, and the longhairs are probably in the park, sprawled on the grass under the strange light of the daystar. The store is stuffy and overheated, unequipped for this level of thermodynamic stress; Penumbra has propped the door open with a stack of Slaughterhouse-Fives.
He is watching the shop again, waiting for Corvina’s return. The clerk has found a member with a brother-in-law who does taxes for a construction company that manages one of the BART worksites. He is schmoozing the accountant over beers at the House of Shields.
Penumbra is halfway through The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; he feels like he understands the overnight crowd better with every page. The Merry Pranksters have just encountered a group of Hells Angels when a throat is cleared, delicately. Penumbra snaps his head up, startled. Before him, several steps back from the desk, stands a young woman in a green corduroys.
“Can I—ah.” Penumbra sets his book aside. “Can I help you?”
The woman seems to be evaluating him. Penumbra is not sure how long she has been standing there. She is clutching a huge dark-bound book close to her chest.
“You’re new,” she says at last.
“I am not actually—ah.” He gives in. “Yes. I suppose I am new.”
“I can come back later.”
“No, no. I can help you.”
She takes two swift steps forward, drops the book onto the desk with a heavy whump, then retreats two steps back. “I’m done with that one.”
Penumbra tips the book up, looks at the spine. It is one of the volumes from the tall shelves.
“Of course,” he says. “So. How, er—was it?”
She is silent a moment, and he thinks she might be about to flee out the front door, but then her cool countenance cracks a little, as if she can’t quite contain herself, and in a rush, she says: “It was pretty interesting. Not as hard as I thought it would be, from the way he talked about it. Mo, I mean. It was just a homophonic substitution cipher.” She pauses. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that.”
Penumbra has no idea what she is talking about. Or what he is supposed to do now. An uncomfortable silence spreads between them.
“Anyway,” she says at last. “The next one in the sequence is … wait.” She digs in her pocket, pulls out a wrinkled piece of paper. It is covered on both sides with letters scratched out and rewritten, blanks erased and filled in, like a game of Hangman gone wrong. She reads across and down, mouthing the letters. Then she refolds the paper, stuffs it back into her pocket, and announces: “Kingslake.”
“Kingslake,” Penumbra repeats. He finds the oblong ledger that Corvina consulted on his first visit—the catalog. The entries are handwritten; many are annotated, and some are crossed out. He finds KAEL, KANE (SEE ALSO: CAIN), KEANE, KIM, KING, and then, KINGSLAKE. The catalog specifies coordinates.
“Three … twenty-three,” Penumbra reads. “Three twenty-three. Wait here, please.”
He pads back toward the tall shelves, where he finds numbered brass plaques set low, at approximately Al-Asmari-level. He follows them down to III and rolls the ladder into place, fumbling with the locking brace at the bottom.
Then he climbs. It turns out that shelf XXIII is very far from the ground. The Galvanic library has no ladders; there, they keep the books, sensibly, on many separate floors. Penumbra grips the rungs tightly and takes slow, careful steps—past V, past X, past XV and XX.
At this height, he can see the ceiling—can confirm that there is, in fact, a ceiling, not just an infinity of dark shelving. He tips his head back to get a better look. There is an image up there, a mural that covers the whole area, looking a bit like a Renaissance fresco. Piece by piece, he assembles the scene: climbers in cloaks on a steep rocky trail. Dark clouds above them, and lightning that runs like a crack through the paint. Their expressions show wide eyes and gritted teeth, but their arms are outstretched, and they clasp hands. The climbers are pulling each other along.
He lowers his gaze to find shelf XXIII and there he spies his quarry: it is as thick as a dictionary, with KINGSLAKE printed on the spine. He hooks an elbow around the ladder, then unclamps his other hand and sends it searching after the book, his longest finger stretching to reach it, wiggling in air, just catching the spine once, twice, tipping it forward, until it starts to slide under its own weight, and he knows he needs to grab it, except that he is suddenly very aware of its mass, and he is afraid that if he attaches himself to this heavy object, it might overburden him, might pull him—
The book falls.
He has time to register his carelessness, and even consider how else he might have approached this challenge, as he watches it plunge down past twenty-two lower shelves, spinning end over end, fluttering just slightly—and fall into the outstretched arms of Marcus Corvina.
Down on the floor, the young woman has a look of horror—perhaps potential co-culpability?—rising in her eyes. She accepts the book from Corvina, whispers a quiet thank-you, and darts for the door. The clerk opens the wide leather-bound book on the desk and begins to scribble there.
Penumbra approaches gingerly. “I am sorry, Marcus,” he ventures. “I should not have—”
Corvina looks up. He is smiling—only the second time Penumbra has seen that expression on his face. “I’ve dropped three books and never breathed a word to Mo. As far as I’m concerned … I didn’t see a thing.”
Penumbra nods. “Thank you.”
Corvina finishes scribbling, closes the leather-bound book, then taps it meaningfully. “It’s people like Evelyn Erdos who are the real customers, you know.”
“The real customers.”
“Yes. The real readers.” The smile has faded. “If I ran this store, I’d make it members only. I certainly wouldn’t waste any more time with the public.” He almost spits it: public.
Penumbra pauses, considering. Then he says: “Marcus … if this store were not open to the public, I would not be here now.”
Corvina furrows his brow and nods once. But he seems unswayed.
The clerk’s schmoozing has been fruitful. The member’s brother-in-law’s client, Frank Lapin, manages one of the BART worksites, and he is amenable to their undertaking; in other words, he will happily accept a bribe to look the other way while they explore the excavation.
Corvina delivers the news glumly.
“But this is a positive development, isn’t it?” Penumbra asks.
“He wants two thousand dollars,” Corvina explains. “I wish I could tell you otherwise, but we don’t have that kind of money.” He looks around the store with a sour expression. “As you might have noticed, we don’t sell many books here. A foundation in New York pays the rent … but that’s about it.”
“Do not despair yet, Marcus,” Penumbra says. “There is another benefactor we can call up
on.”
Penumbra dials Langston Armitage from a pay phone on Montgomery Street. He explains what he has learned. He describes the city, the ship, the map. He tells him about the bookstore.
Armitage is wary. “Who is this bookseller?” he croaks. “Some purveyor of pulp?”
“No, no,” Penumbra says. “Mohammed Al-Asmari is anything but that. I have visited every bookstore in this city, and many beyond, and this one … this man … they are unique.”
“But he’s still just a bookseller, my boy. Commercial. Not academic. Not intellectual. All he cares about, at the end of the day, is selling books.”
Penumbra barks a laugh. “I am not so sure about that.”
“What keeps the lights on, then?” Armitage challenges. “It’s a business, my boy.”
“I would say this establishment occupies a … gray area, sir.”
“Playing in the shadows, are we, Penumbra? Ah. There is a precedent. Did I ever tell you about the time Beacham got himself hired by the publisher in Hungary, just to get at their secret archives?”
“No, sir.”
“Well. We found him floating facedown in the Danube, but no matter.”
Penumbra explains to his employer that, if they want access to the remains of the William Gray, it will come at considerable cost.
“And to be very clear, sir,” he says, “the ship is likely little more than a compressed layer of rotten wood at this point. I still think it is worth trying, but … there is no guarantee that the Tycheon has been preserved in any form.”
“Well, you know our saying: ‘It’s not over until you hold the book’s ashes in your hands, weeping at the years you’ve lost.’”
“I did not know we had that saying, sir.”
“I’ll wire you the money, my boy. Bring us a book!”
The Sandhog Cometh
Penumbra arrives early, in time to watch the last remnants of the overnight crowd rouse themselves, stretch languidly, and drift out in search of various sustenances. By midday, the store has emptied, and Corvina has put him to work, rearranging a short span of books midway up the tall shelves. They climb two ladders side by side and hand heavy volumes back and forth according to some system that Penumbra does not understand.
As they work, they talk. Penumbra tells the clerk about Galvanic, and the library there. He learns that Corvina was, in fact, a sailor of sorts: a radar technician aboard an aircraft carrier. He spent four years at sea.
“I read a lot,” Corvina says. “That’s how I got interested in all of this.”
“What sort of things did you read?”
“What didn’t I read? I read everything. We had the best library in the whole navy. The officer who oversaw it—I only learned this later—he’s part of the same … organization as Mo. He taught me to read Greek.”
“Wait. You are saying that your aircraft carrier was related to this store somehow?”
“Absolutely. Midshipman Taylor’s Fourth-Deck Book Depository. There’s a whole network of these places … it’s a tradition, Ajax. It goes back a long way.”
“So, that makes two floating bookstores, then.”
Corvina laughs. “Ha. Yes. The William Gray and the Coral Sea. Although, I have to tell you … mine was bigger.” He smiles. Number three.
After an hour, Penumbra’s back aches; his calves tremble; his hands feel like claws. He is about to beg for a break when the bell tinkles below, and a rough voice calls out: “Anybody home?” Louder: “Anybody named Mark here?”
Corvina’s face goes sharp. He hisses: “It’s him!” Penumbra begins to descend, but Corvina hisses again. “No. I told his accountant I would be alone. You stay here.”
Before Penumbra can protest, Corvina curls his ankles around the sides of the ladder, let his hands go slack, and—Penumbra gasps—slides straight down, falling into a liquid crouch on the floor. He rises smoothly and strides through the shelves toward the front of the store, passing out of Penumbra’s view, into the sunlight.
“Welcome,” Penumbra hears Corvina say.
“Heya, Mark.” The visitor’s voice is rough and jocular.
“Marcus,” Corvina corrects him. “You’re Alvin’s client? The construction worker?”
“Construction worker? Please! I’m a sandhog. The few, the proud. Good to meet you. I’m Frankie. Or maybe you prefer Franklin.”
If there is a note of mockery there, Corvina either does not detect it or chooses to ignore it. “Franklin. It’s good to meet you, too. Alvin told you about the nature of my undertaking?”
Penumbra slows his breathing, stretches his ears to listen. Frankie must be wearing work boots; whenever he moves, they clomp heavily on the floorboards.
“He did, and—I gotta ask this, I’m sorry. For my own peace of mind. You’re not a bank robber, are you?”
“I assure you,” Corvina replies smoothly, “I am merely a local historian.”
“Okay. I’m gonna trust you. But only because Alvin’s a good guy, and because he vouches for you. Got that?”
“Of course. Now … how should we proceed?”
“Welp, first of all, Mark—you pay me. The amount you, ah, suggested to Alvin will be just fine.”
Penumbra hears the scrape of a drawer, the whisper of paper—the fat envelope he retrieved from Wells Fargo yesterday. He feels a thrill down his spine. This is what it means to be a Junior Acquisitions Officer.
“Here,” Corvina says. “Just as we discussed.”
“Let me just give that a look-see.” There’s a rip, a riffle. The counting of cash. “Very generous. Okay, Mark, I got good news and I got bad news.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“The good news is, your spot’s all clear. We dug through there ages ago. Market and Beale, right? Yeah, I went back and checked it out myself. There’s something there. Doesn’t look too great, but considering the circumstances, it doesn’t look too terrible either.”
“And the bad news?”
“The bad news, Mark … is I don’t manage the Embarcadero worksite. That’s a whole different outfit, and it’s locked up tight.”
Penumbra can almost hear Corvina’s nostrils flare. His own heart sinks. They are so close, and yet, once again, the path is blocked. This is what it means to be a Junior Acquisitions Officer.
Corvina presses ahead. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have a solution,” he says. “Am I right?”
“You’re very perceptive, Mark. I’ve got you covered. We finished the tube—did you know that?”
“The tube under the bay?”
The visitor makes a satisfied mm-hmm. “Sealed it up tight. No track yet, but we’re driving trucks through every day. And the worksite on the other side of the tube—that one’s mine. I can square things away with the night watchman, no problem.”
“The worksite … on the other side.”
“Yeah. West Oakland.”
Corvina chuckles. “You’re suggesting we go the long way.”
Frankie laughs, too. “Why not? Get a little exercise, right?”
“Is it safe?”
“Sure. The muckety-mucks are organizing a big walk next month—open to the public. Little kids, old folks, everybody. Right through the tube. The way I see it, you’re just getting early access.”
“Well, I’m glad you see it that way. I assume that this donation ensures your … discretion.”
“Of course, Mark, of course.” Frankie clomps toward the door, then pauses. Penumbra hears him turn. “What’s in there, anyway? Gold doubloons?”
“Would you care?”
“I don’t know…. I might want a cut.”
“I hate to disappoint you, Franklin, but it’s just books.”
“Well, this seems like a lot to pay for some old books, but I can see you have, ah, quite a collection here. To each his own, I always say. You all set?”
“West Oakland. Through the tube. What do I say to the night watchman?”
“His name’s Hecto
r. He’ll keep an eye out for you. We can use a password—”
“Festina lente.”
“Say again now?”
“Festina lente. That will be our password.” It is possible, Penumbra realizes, that this is not Corvina’s first time organizing an illicit expedition.
“Fes-teen-uh lenty. Okay. If you say so.” Frankie clomps toward the door again, and this time he pulls it open. The bell tinkles brightly. “Go anytime after midnight. Fes-teen-uh lenty. Okay. Good luck down there, Mark.”
The Wreck of the William Gray
They cross the bay on the last ferry of the night under a half moon flickering spookily through low clouds. The boat passes smoothly beneath the dark bulk of the Bay Bridge, sterner and more serious-looking than its tourist-friendly cousin.
The ferry lands near the Port of Oakland, among the warehouses. They have bicycles, purchased from a man who called himself Russian Mike on the corner of Turk and Leavenworth. Corvina claims the sleek green Schwinn; Penumbra gets the blue beach cruiser with a banana seat. They pedal to the West Oakland worksite, which is not difficult to identify: there are smooth concrete pillars rising to support nothing; hills of rust-red rebar waiting to be woven into stone; multiple slumbering backhoes.
They spot Hector shuffling lazily around the chain-link perimeter, wearing an approximation of a police uniform. They signal from a distance; approach cautiously; say festina lente in the shadows. He grunts, waves them through, and continues around the fence, all without ever quite looking them in the face.
The mouth of the Transbay Tube gapes hugely. Loose dirt hangs ragged around its metal lip; it looks less like a public works project and more like an ancient tomb. There is no train track yet. Instead, a wide, weedy path descends from the worksite, marked with treads where trucks have passed.
There are no lights. They are prepared for this. Corvina lifts a camping lantern and hangs it from his handlebars. “Ready?”
Penumbra steadies himself. “I suppose so.”
The tube swallows them. Corvina zips out ahead, pedaling with long sure strokes, his gearshift clucking and crackling as he moves swiftly to the most efficient ratio. Penumbra glances back, watching the view through the tube’s entrance—a dusty oval of Oakland sky—shrink and fade until it is no brighter than the blotches of color that his retinas produce in the absence of light.
