by Tom Hendricks

Part Three. The Capture

Set: a full length mirror shattered in the upper right corner like a spider web - it will have to do - framed by an ebony wood stand, and placed in the dark end of the room.
"A mirror is an opening." I un-vented a skylight that poured in starlight all around me and the mirror, and cast shadows out from the center like spokes in a wheel. I read from the incantation , spell, charm, under my lamp, "with moonlight for warmth... The back of the mirror is the opening." The mirror was turned backwards with the black dull side facing me - now sitting in a soft chair opposite it.

I read on: "Take a tall blue pitcher of water with a small hole, leak, opening, at the bottom. Let it drip till drops are gone. Untie all knots in a long rope, chord, twine. Wrap it around your left arm and the left arm of your chair with both ends dangling free. Wait expectantly."

I looked at my arm and it reminded me of an electro magnetic coil. I looked up from my daydream and in the pale starlight on the dark side of the mirror, I saw a body mass taking shape. I saw it fold and assemble itself drop by drop, light point by light point, molecule by molecule, to a sitting form, a fellow human, a she, the she, the shade of the aisles and stacks!

It was hard to sit quietly. My quick beating heart was calling for a response - but I knew that I must not utter the first word (so it commanded).

She, dressed in a rough yarn tunic, sat opposite me (in a princess chair). A rope was loosely wrapped around her left arm and her chair too. My pupils widened to take it all in - to focus clearly. She stared, but her stare becomes twinkling and animated. She spoke, 'Yes?"

* * *

The Interrogation.

...She spoke, "Yes?" then yawned a disarmingly quick yawn.

I: May we talk?

S: (she) Yes. (Her lips are moving, muttering, but I seem to hear not a voice but a mind message.)

Sutter Ra: "Now that the ice melts and the water turns to vapor," (a courtesy command between you and the spirit).

S: Yes, we should talk.

I: You are the shade of a week past?

S: Yes.

I: Why did you make that noise? To attract me?

S: I made no noise. I can't make noise, or rather I don't or seldom do. I didn't.

I: (That seemed weird. The noise, the 'nok' was real. She was there. She was where the noise was real. She frowned and shifted her body in her chair.) Let's go ahead. Why were you there or are you in the library.

S: First firsts. Am I beyond the edge of death? Yes. Am I a shade? Yes. Can I haunt? I say visit with concern, but either will do. Is it permanent? Slow but limited - not open ended.

I: What powers do you have? Can you walk through walls, fly, go forward or backward in time? Do you know all?

S: I know little more than I did. Going back in time during my life is easy - I just recall a memory. Forward to now? That period is like molasses in the works of a clock. Time slows down, spreads out, oozes instead of ticks. The future from now is vague...
Can I fly through walls? Yes but there is no rush to get anywhere. Time seems endless and passions are slower to burn. They seem to flow out like one's exhaled breath in the cold air. Desires lesson, pain lessons, drive lessons.

See passionate children and then steady ponderous adults watching them? I see passionate adults and stodgy shades like me! (She shifted in her chair. The rope loosened a bit.)

But I do love, even crave, flying... up there. (She points up and waves a finger at the rafters, its shadow dancing across the floor.) It's a wonderful view hovering or slip-sliding, or disappearing into that air.

I: I can imagine it. Do you like to read?

S: That passion hunkers down like a parasite, refuses to budge, feels it's 'life' depends upon it. Though that analogy rings a bit false in the terminology, I do love and did love reading - madly, madly and fondly, and all the rest.

I: How long have you been here?

S: I remember when the confederation owned it and everyday was a day at the ant farm!

I: You were running your hand over an ancient fable of Earth, The Princess and the Pea.

S: Yes what fine bindings, what delightful sounds the rush of 4 fingers along a row of spines. I'm like a bookworm burrowing! Ha ha!

I: But the meaning of that book?

S: Oh let's leave that now... I do have a quest. And perhaps your finding me was destined. I may fly on these bony-arm wings, but I need your hands and legs. The heavy books and the high stacks were hard for me to reach and carry when alive. They are harder still now. Will you help me...

Before you answer, I'll answer. You seem to be the last left. This is how it's to be - correct? Before you answer, I ask because if not you , who?

I: Yes. Yes. Indeed ... who.

She smiled and I felt that smile well up in me as if she had snapped that rope around her arm, at one end and the wave had reached me and shook my arm at the other. I smiled too.

I: Well then what can I do? Miss ... (a term of civility and manners to all women from men)

S: Tomorrow and tomorrow. I fade away. (A wave of her hand and she was gone.)

* * *

The Interrogation. Part two.

Next day, a day like all others - so the machinery thought. It's monitors detected nothing unusual in the lighting, and temperature, and moisture content, and air mix, and a thousand other variables on its robotic check list of a thousand rooms, air locks, glass display cases - nothing notable except a higher heart beat (in the one occupant).

I woke with a start, an initial impetus like a bird calling my name or a hand shaking my shoulder! "Wake up! Wake up! Coo! It's time for a 'quest' - a reminder - its' quest today!"

I quickly finished my chores and again placed the chairs or rather my chair and the back of the mirror... ('I must remember that her chair is unreal and keep my illusions tucked into their proper zone', thought I. 'Twilight is not real, day and night are'.)

I wrapped and wound the yard long rope 4 times around my arm and the arm of my chair. I again waited as the full-to-the-brim, blue pitcher leaked its drops. And ... as before ... She reappeared again. The gazing stare became animated and smiled broader this time.

S: Yes?

I: Madam I awoke this morning with a fact and a question. I don't even know your name...

S: Booklet (she laughs). I know, I know, but that is my parents in a nutshell. Specially my father. Booklet was the name I went by. My surname is lengthy.

I: Booklet. And may I call you that or is that too familiar?

S: Please do. Oh social skills and manners all in one man. I approve.

I nodded and smiled in thanks. Then a frown and a tightening of the brows crossed over my forehead.

I: I ask this carefully and more out of curiosity than a need-to-know basis. But what did you die of?

S: The vapors... nothing more or less, just a miasma of sorts that lays undetected even now - Neptunian Shore Disease - the vapors.

I waited for her to continue...

S: You are ill at ease around women?

I: I'll get used to them ... more so now.

S: I was a virgin, and died alas before that gift was given to any man. Who gives when she has near a thousand years to hold. Who knows such flukes happen to oneself?

Life was soon denied me; but what there was, was easy. Death was kind too...

Are you married? And what is your name, (what handle shall my voice wrap around)?

I: Street and Smith.

S: Then Street and Smith are you married?

I: To many. Three or four, I suppose. And they to others now.

She thought of that awhile, then continued.

S: Well here's the weighty crux of the matter that's iron important. I remain in this state, this cocoon with one last wish, isolated passion; one small pearly irritant left alive. It concerns my music.

I: Are you a musician?

S: A composer for better musicians. Let them act the lines, or color between them. 'A composer for better musicians' - so I was told - so I listened. Ha! Ha! My singing voice was birdlike.

But it is my sister's granddaughter's granddaughter etc. five times further, that I worry about. She needs a 3rd sign, portent, string-on-the-finger to convince her of her artistic talents as both singer and composer.

(She counts on her fingers) One - a palm reader suggested it from lines and stars on the mound of Venus; two - a little child praised her beyond compare with an astonished and long held mesmerized look as she played. This she, to this day, cannot not imagine. But there is no three. That is only two, one short of the three that is needed to guarantee her the notable vocation that she deserves.

If somehow she knew that I, her mitochondrial ancestor, wrote music; she would be inspired and feel those genetic stirrings inside her.

Will you help me find my music - here somewhere in these lofty halls. (She waves both arms about). And somehow get it into her hands - her gifted hands?

I: Yes of course. (A quest thought I)

She poised as if caught in a stare... (I watched)

S: Ready? Set? ... Go! (She laughed)

First clue. It's either in the library of my home planet or the planet of the music chronicler 3J. My planet is Ozykawt. (The letters appeared before me and between us riding thin air.) And 3J's planet is Risama. (Its letters appeared on a 2nd line). Do you know of these places?

I: I think I do. I've heard of both. Let's see what we can do. S; I'll be somewhere close beside you - over a shoulder popping in and out. Ha! Ha! Well...

(I looked up from my thought and she was gone).

* * *

The Quest

On the way....

The rocket car hummed .... up and forward.

Thunder rumbled outside - another of our great lightning storms - the deep erratic pulse of a wide horizon cracking.

And thunder inside - disguised as a gnat , a fire ant, a biting itch.

Was I mad? I accepted without question that I had seen a ghost - conjured her - and now was taking orders from her. But she had my speech patterns. She looked like a composite of people I knew. Was she a dream composition - a cross of miswired neurons?

One who reads imagines other worlds and may get stuck in them like a fly in a web of honey. One who lives alone, builds on sand - a thought on a thought, instead of brick on brick...

I have had blue tea, that slight intoxicant, that chocolate elixir, that enabler. But I've often had blue tea and not conjured anything.

I passed the books of the Ah-ah-Qui-Ca, the planet of manners where literature is protocol and the nuances of bowing , their poetry. How easily offended yet how hard to move -this race.

She looked normal enough. Dark black hair with a few rare blue streaks; green eyes, small hands folded in her lap - no wait, one was always wrapped and tied to the arm of the chair. Just one in her lap.

These Ah-ah-Qui-Ca are a queer group, indeed. Their few books are the slowest to be correctly arranged - no, aligned is the better term. How crisp, right, rigid, and proper the racks and displays.

Her hair - I thought to myself. Yes. How was it arranged? I thought that it was just shoulder length and thick and straight - yes. Her lips were full and dark red against her pale white skin (skin so thin there seemed to be a tint of a green network of veins underneath). Her nose was wide but well formed, her ears flushed with red, her eyes quiet and not intimidating - receptive - aware.

She seemed short - didn't she say she could barely touch the taller shelves? Her people are known as being petite. She was petite, and cute.

I was now crossing the forbidden zone, the one around the Ah-ah-Qui-Ca. (No other library can 'contaminate' it.) And there are a thousand other libraries like this dear reader - perhaps more - each with their own directives.

Each book is its own world. (Just like a star is a part of a galaxy, a book is a part of its library). A reader may get caught, affixed, and can't come back - like a pinned bug in a glass case -like a bedbug under covers - that can't leave the words or the story or the ...

What's this? I unfolded the quick-guide, map, blueprint. It was the Svall Group - IP, the library of a mountainous , scrunched up planet with each dell, valley, glade, its own kingdom: Green Field IP, Clover IP, Sunspot IP, Meteoriteland IP, and so forth. No long halls of shelved books here; instead miles of kiosks, islands and isolated carts and cart trains. IP's lit is mostly tales of alliances, and fidelity, and epics of inter married branches from multiple family trees.

Her hands were small but her fingers very long - her nails invisible - her earlobe attached but unadorned. How vivid for a dream - if a dream.

I was now thirsty, and stopped to have my blue tea, some whey, and some frozen green berries.

* * *

Late afternoon and I passed the last of IP-lands. Everything in their lit is multiples - multi covers, multi colors, multi type, multi stories (anthologies), multi views in the illustrations - even their 'chess' game had 5,6, or sometimes even 10 players on a game board with 10 levels.

Twilight approached. I reached the closest long-distant rocket-cart. It was similar to the one I've been riding yet it was bigger and held more cargo. It was bright red and shaped like a long narrow rocket with 4 seats lined up one behind the other in the cockpit, all behind a protective clear glass shield. I found it sitting there (perhaps this is one of the fleet that has been idle for decades). It started up immediately, and rumbled and shook without a sound, like a dog shaking off excess water. Dust fell off its sides. There was a whiff of a fuel smell. I loaded my pack in the cargo hold and drove off or drove on.

Next was the vast Garden region, miles and miles of greenhouse land under free range cultivation, a tropical jungle of fruits, vegetables, fungi, sea creatures, amphibians, reptiles, oxygen making plants, and everywhere robo-bacteria to supply all else a planet needs. Brightly colored birds and tree climbing and ground burrowing mammals act as overseers and add the necessary sights and sounds. Insects are the day to day gardeners and garden police.

I entered through one of the airlocks and we sailed through and across the garden, following the main road, the Round-About Path, the Meandering Way. (No stops here today.)

At the other end of the greenhouse, I left the garden and entered the next library, the library of the Lak No Zeda, a race where the sense of smell predominates in their literature. Books are collections of fragrances on display. Smells tell stories by their arrangement - viscous stinks battle Lavenders and Patchoulis.

Lak No Zeda is a subservient race known for their undying loyalty.

Over the glass wall, the ______ people's - the name is unpronounceable - though often translated as 'ooaauuur" - live in a water world of slurred whistles and moans to us outsiders. All their books are audio records. They are known for their sweeping lyrical epic poems. All books swim in categorized water tanks. There's a constant sloshing sound of circulating water, and the smell of the sea everywhere.

So many types of books, so many manifestations of prints, pictures, and sounds. So many ways to please a reader.

Next one of the largest libraries. This one from the Plaspala Union , a multi-planet civilization. Their pictograph language never simplified to symbols. Instead it went the other way. Today theirs is a language of pictures - and the best of their massive picture book tomes tell picture stories so clearly that any sentient beings can see and read them without translation immediately. How inviting (like these people). How open and straight forward (like these people). How popular with all (again like these people).

These wide open stacks would have taken hours to pass. I decided to turn east and south, and by zig-zagging through and sometimes over them, I would soon be by the door of my first destination - the library of Ozykawt.

* * *

I set the rocket for Ozykawt and slept. Four hours later a bell awakened me. We had stopped. We were there.

Ozykawt is a land planet with two crowded life zones, one by each pole. It developed none of the outré arts or art forms - as many others libraries; yet, it still produced artists of uncommon and exceptional skill. Perhaps there's a total of a square mile of books in their five sided zone.

The library of Ozykawt is built like a jungle gym of free formed, criss-crossing iron rods that give the appearance of a spider's web - a web with giant cached pockets of books - each the size of a small library. Hidden between them are see through staircases that connect the book pods up. There is a form to the arrangement with the more recent writings higher up, built on the foundation, the literal foundation of those writers that went before.

I knew from the time clues that Booklet gave me, approximately where in this web of books to start looking for her music. But first more sleep. Tomorrow would be another day

* * *

I did my morning, upon-waking, ritual, then began to climb through the girders. I called out to empty air, "Booklet, I am here. I am ready to begin looking for your works. What say you? Are you near? Any advice?" (No sound - sometimes no sound means a lot, sometimes not)

At the turn at level 73, some half mile up, I found her time and place. I stopped, rested, caught my breath from the climb, heaved a sigh while leaning on the balustrade, and read the background on my screen, my 'sketch pad'.

Oh you don't know what that is. It's a flying, hovering, slightly attached, always nearby, mobile screen, life-line, that calls up any visual, audio, smell, or touch, info. I'm so accustomed to it, I don't think of it as a novelty anymore than an elbow is a novelty to my arm.

Screen: We have a listing of great note-strikers, note-smiths, note-weavers, note-brushers of this era of Ozykawt culture. They include, but are not limited to: A-aak, a-bes, Ban-es, blan-es, blas-let, Bis-cot, bev-y, book-let, Brop-ner...

I: More about book-let please.

S: Also note in the list above, that those with capitalized names have been knighted and are royalty...

'book-let, 00428-004___ (the original last 3 numbers are smudged with burnt charcoal), short in stature, but long in melody, died young, known for 'Eb" and other short sophisticated and complex piano pieces. See complete works by 3J - Risama.' End of entry.

Ah. My smile widened. I had found some info on our sprite, our demure poltergeist, our chair rattler. "Rocket 068! Whistle in joyous manner!"

It's lights strobed as it sounded off, "Whoop-whoop!" and then a descending "weeeeeeeeeeee" sound. Then it repeated it twice more. I watched it sing its song from my high perch and laughed a hearty laugh.

I: I concur 068. We're on our way. Screen, please find the book this quote comes from.

It activated that specific book's electric patch to beep so I could locate it. I soon heard beeping coming from a close by room. I climbed a short flight of clear stairs and entered a room with invisible sides. The beeping was coming from somewhere behind some 8 foot tall stacks.

S: It is safe to open. (Meaning it was both safe for my health, and the well-being of the book and the other books ensconced under the glass.)

I turned the corner and at the end of that row was a single art nouveau styled glass and gold metal bookcase with two compartments. One was flat like a desk, the other raised up from the back like a bed board. Dangling from a string on a button on the right side of the flat case was a glass key. I used it to open the front case. The beeping immediately stopped. A puff of slightly piney greenish air rose and dissipated.

I: Exact title, please.

S: "Anthology of Cultural Biographies (of the Ozykawt-land) (( 26th era))."

I: Condition, please.

S: Fair and very well preserved for its age. Assorted worm holes - some fire smudges.
Caution - be careful with pages 217-285 - delicate. 162 year old text.
Note - this book is on the vertical shelves, right column, shelf 3b, by itself. To reach you must release the security latch in the middle of the left wall of the front display case.

I felt for it and released it. A lock clicked. I pulled open the glass to the vertical shelves and the door swung effortlessly on its hinges. I pulled down the book - a big tome but with almost no weight - and set it flat on a pull-out hidden side shelf (that the screen had indicated by a diagram and a blinking arrow).

I: (The book was locked). Key please.

S: Reverse the cabinet key and it'll open it.

I opened the book lock. It made a clicking noise followed by a slight musical tone - an 'a' sound. Then a melody played as the narrator read the title, "Anthology of Cultural Biographies ...." and began speaking the introduction. I, curious, ....

Oh dear reader, I had done it again. Two hours later I had awoken. I'd spent the time caressing and perusing and evaluating and delighting in this text and its many color and b/w illustrations, its type face, printing, and book design - its' spine and lock. And then I had gone to the other books nearby; a poetry book about stars, 2 Diaspora novels, an anthology of epic war poems, a song cycle history of the south polar zone, a ... 'Focus self'.

I: Screen, ring every 20 minutes please and spark me out of my book dives.

Readers, I hear you. You are saying to me loud - ESP-ly, vibrating your thoughts like an electron field, making the hair on my arm stand up on my goose bumps, asking me 'Why haven't you asked this screen the background of Booklet - if not at this moment, long ago, soon after she told you her name.

I did of course and this was the only source, though it added this info: Planet Ozykawt. Library 85.9% catalogued/ 14.1% not.

I had known all this. But I also had to see the printed, tangible, text evidence that proved beyond shadows and doubts the existence of 'Booklet'. Here I had that proof in my grasping hands.

* * *

Next Day. I awoke from sleep. My plan, agenda, day's schedule was to begin to go through that 14.1% of uncat material.

My screen lead me to a long painted folding screen. What a lovely landscape. Majestic purple blue glaciers under a yellow sky, over a forest and field of green pines and clover. The painted screen was a 30 foot long mural showing a celebrational scene of people trickling into and around a clearing left of center - walking from both sides through wood paths and along well worn broad roads. They were dwarfed by the scenery around them. Smoke was coming up from a fire near the open and cleared circle of 15 foot high monolithic stones.

S: On the painting side is catalogued shelves. The uncatalogued are behind the screen.

I turned the corner and behind the screen were scattered crates, and trunks - some opened some sealed - plus open stacked book piles and small tables and carts of loose material. The room was dusty and smelled musty, uncleaned, and less ventilated.

A few aisles in and I was taken back by a small women sitting on her folded up legs, hands on her thighs, with loosely thrown books in a ring all around her.

Sadness covered her face, "Not here. Not here anywhere, anymore. My own land and I am landless." She faded away, dust fell from her fingers.

On to Part Four or back to the Main Page