"Red Home, escorts, this is Batcave. Confirm, you are clear of the hangar."
"Batcave, this is Home. Engaging autopilot, cloak field, and comm silence protocol...Now."
And with that, the three ships disappeared from the radar, and the signal on the sensors fuzzed. The cloak on the Red Home was not a full double-blind cloaking field, but it was enough to prevent visibility and render the three ships impervious to Terran scanners. Sci closed the comm channel and turned to Nat. "Well, they're away."
She trumpeted. "Peace favor their swords."
"Easy. Shienaran warrior's blessing, Wheel of Time." Ever since Nat had been through Sci's impressive library, the two had been constantly trying to top one another with quotes.
"I know. I'll try something more difficult later. But we need to discuss your itinerary."
"It's simple enough. We leave tonight for New York City. I meet up with my friend, we deal with the UN. We then leave for Coruscant. Then we come back."
"You say that like it's just a trip to the market."
"In some ways, it is."
"Good point. But what about this person you were going to contact?"
"Oh, yeah. Better call him." As he went for the standard Terran phone, Sci whistled a few bars from Pink Floyd's The Wall.
"What was that?"
"What?"
"The music you were making."
"I was whistling. It's from my media collection."
"Media collection?"
"You went through my library and didn't notice the music, movies, everything?"
"I saw a computer, but it was password-protected."
"Even without your slicer ME, that shouldn't have been a problem."
"No, but it was a breach-of-trust issue."
"Better get that taken care of. This afternoon," he said, dialing an American number. Nat beeped.
*ring*
*ring*
*click* "Hello?"
"It's me."
The voice on the other end brightened audibly. "Hey! Long time no see!" The voice and Sci talked for a while, trading information on old friends.
"Look," said the voice eventually, "can we meet in person some time soon?"
"Yeah. New York City, Grand Central Station, tomorrow, 3 PM." The voice responded, but before it could finish, it was cut off.
"No, don't call me by my real name. You know why."
The voice swallowed. "You got it, 'Sci.'"
"Oh, and you're Araneithel."
"This is serious, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
Araneithel hung up. Sci followed.
Sylvana yawned; it had been a long morning. It was well past 0340 when she'd fallen asleep in the tree, and then she'd awoken early from the strange dream to go down for breakfast. With Fate trundling alongside her, she headed to her small room, shut the door, changed into her scrub-suit, crawled into bed, curled up, and soon fell into a dreamless sleep.
There was the sound of frantic droid-beeping, followed by a small shout and the slam of a door. Sylvana frowned in her sleep, and slowly swam to wakefulness. She looked over at the door and saw Fate there, chattering angrily, yet when she sat up, the little droid turned around and tootled happily.
"I can't understand you," she groaned as she stretched with a yawn. She quickly unbraided, then rebraided her hair as the droid came up to her and handed her the datapad again.
"NICE TO SEE YOU FINALLY WOKE UP. IT IS WELL PAST LUNCH."
"I missed lunch? Sithspit," she muttered as she threw off the cover and stood to stretch more fully.
The droid tootled again and she looked over at the datapad on the bed. "A YOUNG MAN WITH BLUE STRIPED HAIR BROUGHT FRUIT FOR YOU, IT IS ON THE TABLE."
"That's my brother, Arrek." She paused in her stretching, "Is that who you just chased out?"
The droid tweetled an affirmative and Sylvana shook her head with a chuckle before going into her Tai-Chi exercises. The droid blatted for her attention and beeped again. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Sylvana sighed and put the datapad down, sat on the bed and looked at the droid. "Tai-Chi, de-stressing, energizing. That sort of thing. May I finish so we can go find something to do with our free time?"
The droid tweetled, chagrined, and rolled over to the corner to watch her quietly.
Soon, she finished the exercises and changed into a comfortable floor kissing flower'd skirt she'd bought the day before, and another deep grey v-neck t-shirt. She threaded her poignard and hairstick into the braid and tossed a look of disdain at her shoes in the corner. Then, grabbing a few fruits, she opened the door and left with the droid on a mission of ending boredom. That is, after telling Fate not to roll over her bare feet.
"Is there a library in the palace?" Sylvana asked someone she met in the hallway.
The Mendellian looked at her curiously, then nodded. "There is an extensive library on the premises." He then gave her directions of how to get through the winding halls, and she stepped back perplexed.
"Uhm..." she bit her lip.
He sighed and smiled, shaking his head. "I will take you there myself, Miss."
Sylvana grinned lopsidedly, clasping her hands before her. "Thank you very much!"
His smile grew, and he motioned for her to follow him. She fell into step beside him, while Fate followed quietly behind, tootling happily to himself.
They walked in silence, but out of the corner of her eye, Sylvana noticed him stealing the occasional glance. She half smiled and refrained from sighing. They arrived eventually, and he opened the door for her.
"Here you are, Miss. Is there anything else I may help you with?" his eyes fairly sparkled.
She shook her head, and smiled warmly. "No, thank you much for showing me here." She stood tiptoe and kissed the handsome servant on the cheek before turning into the room.
The young man blushed deeply, putting a hand over his cheek as he left back to his work.
Sylvana stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her, flipped on the light switch, and looked about in wonder. The library was a single room larger than the building in the town she had spent most of her life in. There were sets of sconces on the walls between the cases, and a lovely chandelier hung from the ceiling. It was well-lit, as well. A computer terminal stood by a smaller door in the back.
But all that would be found in asides. Books covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and wooden ladders hooked to small tracks above them, laying against each wall so one could get to the higher shelved books.
Slowly, almost reverently, she walked forward, deeper into the fantastic room. She pulled one book from the shelf. It was not an old book, being a mass-market paperback, but it was well-thumbed, nearly falling apart. She read the title off the cover. "Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card," she whispered, almost unwilling to disturb the atmosphere. She'd never heard of it before, but obviously someone liked it.
The sound of the door creaking open reached her ears, but she ignored it, just as she ignored Fate's contented quiet beeping in the corner, as she carefully looked down the shelf at the titles. Names she didn't know; Robert Heinlein, Roger Zelazny, Theodore Sturgeon. Some names she knew; Michael A. Stackpole, Aaron Allston, Timothy Zahn.
The distinctive sound of metal clearing leather was more difficult to ignore. She froze, hesitant to turn around.
"Okay, what are you doing in here?"
It was a lazy day after that. Sci played some Final Fantasy X for a while, cursing at the Besaid Aurochs. Sometimes it's annoying when you can't control your team on defense. He swung by Thayer's office for a while, and had a nice chat with the Dictator. Turned out Thayer was still not sure what the whole plan was for Operation Arrakis, so Sci managed to explain the non-classified portions. Thayer and Sci had engaged in smaller talk for a while, of course, but Thayer's heart wasn't in it; it was very clearly elsewhere, and equally clear where it was. Then, Sci and Nat started heading for the library. Of course, the library was, from where they had ended up, via the Mess Hall, and by then it was lunchtime, so they had to stop in for a meal.
And a meal, when Rich Boyd cooks, is an experienced not to be rushed. Then, Kirret Xarim came in to the Mess Hall with a question for Sci about juggling, a Mendellian Councillor, and some officials in the Mendellian government. Nat, who'd heard the story before, beeped in laughter throughout Sci's careful explanation.
At long last, it was nearly two in the afternoon when the Major and the droid arrived at the library. Sci smiled to Nat and was about to go in when he noticed something. "Nat," he said quietly, "can you do a bioscan check for the library?"
"It'll take a few seconds," she responded, extending her scanner. "Why?"
"The lights are on. Someone's been in here since I was last, which was this morning, and no one let me know. I'm not really worried, but it's a question of..."
"Confirmed, one life sign."
"I doubt this, but can you identify it?"
"No chance. What the hell are those walls made of?" Nat asked, clearly annoyed. Sci smiled.
"There's a dampening field, low-level. When I want to read, I don't want to be disturbed at all."
Nat chimed a droid sigh, and Sci pushed the door open. There, in the brightly-lit room, a tall, shapely figure was sillhouetted. Sci drew his blaster. "Okay, what are you doing in here?"
Sci dropped his blaster back into its holster as he recognized the figure as Sylvana Lorrdain. "I certainly don't want to harm anything here," he said as he walked down the long hallway. "It took me forever to collect everything."
She got halfway to a salute when she started and dropped the book in surprise. Sci, who was close enough, grabbed the book out of the air. Sylvana dropped all pretense of saluting and stared openmouthed. "You OWN all this?"
He nodded. "And the media collection to go with it...which reminds me." He walked over to the computer terminal and tapped in a code, then walked back to Syl. Nat whistled and wheeled over to the computer.
"Anyway, as I was saying, yes. I own everything in here. A carefully built collection."
She nodded slowly, dumbstruck. "How...it..." Sci just smiled, and pitched his voice so it was clear he was quoting.
"'Napoleon was a prodigious reader. It is recorded that in his headquarters at Waterloo, with the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, he had a mobile library of some 800 books.'"
"Who said that?"
"A man named Harry Golden. Apt, isn't it?" She nodded. "I've always loved reading. It's a way to escape the world. Even a life such as mine is only one of many. Through books, I see them all, experiencing every one of millions." Sci's voice, normally friendly and kind, became, if not harder, more inspiring. More passionate. "'All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.' Thomas Carlyle."
Sylvana was finally able to get her voice under reliable control. "These are yours? All of them?"
He nodded. "I needed a big room, somewhere safe. Thayer mentioned that there was a library, but the books had been cleaned out. I simply moved in."
She blinked. "All-time greatest understatements. Do you let people borrow books?"
Sci pointed to the computer. "Type in the title, and you'll see where it is. I only have two rules: Let me know what you're taking, and if it doesn't come back in the same condition it was, you buy me a new one. I'm especially strict about the second one."
Nat beeped. "Ask him about Mike's first few joke wars."
Syl looked back at Sci with a questioning glance. "The first joke campaign he staged involved removing pages from a book I was reading." She winced.
"Once we caught him, in addition to doing the dishes for a few days, he replaced my books. Next time was here in the palace. He and his partner got into my trunk of books with...Let's see. Glue, staplers, scissors, a knife, a blaster, matches, gasoline, small incendiary devices and a blowtorch." She shuddered. "Then they moved all of my bookmarks."
She stared for about five seconds, then burst out laughing.
When she had finally calmed down, she mentioned that she'd been looking for something to read, either immediately or for the long shuttle trips. "Any suggestions?"
He held out the book he'd been holding the whole time. "Start here."
She smiled. "Thanks."
She gave him a kiss on the cheek, and quickly left the room, Fate trundling contentedly behind her. Sci shook his head, then pulled a specific book from a shelf and sat down. He turned to a page. "Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."
Nat beeped. "Easy quote." Sci smiled.