At the Library
© 2020 by Walter Reimer


Thumbnail art by  dragonmelde and  marmelmm


The AGB 58836 had returned to the This Far system after the Terran attack had been blunted and driven back. The Support craft was essentially a mobile space station, but it depended on other, smaller ships to defend it from attack. A battleship and its escorts were considered sufficient protection.

“You are requesting some recreational time?” Captain k’Jen asked, and he smiled when Varan gestured affirmatively. “Good.” He placed a fingertip on the padd, adding his signature to the request. “How is your boarding training progressing, Subcaptain?”

Varan smiled. “The simulator here aboard the Kith awarded me eighty percent on the last scenario, sir. The enemy ship was disabled with less than ten percent casualties.”

“That’s very good,” the kam said with a cheerful grin. “I never got over seventy-seven percent. When you come back, I may schedule some time in the simulator for myself. Enjoy your leave, Varan.”

She saluted. “Sir.” He returned the salute, and Varan left the office for her quarters to pack a few hygiene items and a datapak containing the latest game level that she and Meredith had been working on. As soon as she verified that all of her paperwork was completed, she left to join several members of the crew waiting for a shuttle.

There was a simulator available, and she had it reserved for three cycles. After purchasing a small food hamper stocked with snacks and drinks, she loaded the game module and stepped into the holographic image of the village.

Seeing one of the farmers triggered a memory of the song that had welcomed her and Meredith:

“Oh little town of Bug Tussle
The Mayor won’t make a speech!
The Library’s bare
No books lie there
Stay away from the nude beach!”

She had expressed a desire to search out the library on their last visit to the game, so she guided her mage avatar and Meredith’s paladin from the fight arena, where they’d saved the game last, and past the signs pointing the way to the nude beach that they’d been warned to stay away from.

Based on the song, Varan was reasonably certain that the place was crawling with all sorts of unsavory entities. Because of Meredith’s status as a paladin, there was a risk that too much corruption (loosely defined as lying, sex, theft, murder, and so on; the designers’ intent was intriguing) would rob her of her consecrated armor or other protections. The Teddy Bear Picnic had been a hard lesson.

Varan decided that she would send her avatar, with a few protective spells running, to see what was going on.

The library was a two-story structure of half-timber architecture, and despite the OPEN sign on the door there didn’t seem to be anyone in the building. However, there was something going on, if the shadows flitting across the windows and the repeated shouts and sounds of breaking furniture were any indication. Checking once more that her protection was at maximum, Varan opened the door and stepped in.

Her tail hiked and her feline pupils narrowed, a gesture somewhat similar to a Terran’s exasperated eyeroll.

The song had been right; there were no books lying on the shelves. They were, however, flying off the shelves and swooping around as a figure tried to catch them. The figure looked somewhat reptilian, with a large body, legs and tail, a head that appeared to be almost too large for its small chest and spindly neck, and it sported two ridiculously short arms. It wore a garishly colored pair of short trousers and waved a net around frantically.

It spotted her after a clumsy pirouette that caused it to upend a row of shelves, startling more books into panicky flight. “You!” it called out. “Grab a net, snare, mesh, and help, aid, assist me! I have to get these books, tomes, volumes back in their cages, nests, hutches!” He gave a short cry of triumph as he managed to net a flying book, which he then stuffed into a large cage.

There were a collection of nets by the door. Dodging a dictionary, Varan picked up a long-handled butterfly net and asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m the librarian, archivist, scholar,” the creature replied.

“What are you?”

“I’m a Thesaurus.”

The vir blinked. “Of course you are.” She hefted the net and stepped toward the flock of books.

After spending quite a few minutes chasing after her quarry, Varan paused and consulted her collection of spells. The attack magic that she had wouldn’t be much good – fire and water are not a good combination with paper – but there was one incantation that straddled the line between offense and defense. She’d never cast it before.

She set aside the net, grasped her mage’s staff, and cast ‘Directed Wind.’

The vir suddenly winced as a pronounced rumble and a jolt of pain lanced through her, followed by a loud burbling noise as she farted. The spell seized on the afflatus, transforming it into a whirlwind with sufficient suction to gather the flying books up and funnel them into the cage. The door shut as the wind died, leaving just the smell lingering in the air, as Varan shut and locked the box.

Varan was very glad that Meredith wasn’t present in the game with her.

The Thesaurus lumbered up to her, a broad smile on its face. “Xiexie, thank you, asante! Please accept, acquire, obtain, this gift, present, award, reward, benefit,” and it offered her a small book bound in gold-stamped leather. Unlike the other books, it didn’t seem to prefer being airborne.

Varan turned the book over in her hands, noting the title: Making Sure the Dead Stay that Way. “Aka, this could be useful,” and the vir added it to her character’s inventory. She was about to leave the library when the Thesaurus cleared its throat.

She turned to see that it had dropped its shorts, revealing its dangling participles and pronounced gazetteer. “Would you like to kutomba, ta ma de, allaena, fuck?”

Varan shut the door in its face and saved the game module before closing the game. “Those game designers,” she muttered, and removed the datapak from the simulator. She still had nearly a full cycle left over, but decided to get a drink and something to eat.