Real or not, however, the Director’s wrath at him was clearly undiminished by Rossi’s virtual shenanigans. “Nice of you to join us at last.”
(Busted!)
“Sorry, ma’am.” (Shut UP!)
“Surely you understand the reason for this meeting, Syd. I would have expected a little more interest on your part.”
(Ouch.)
(Pen, knock it off!) “I know. I am sorry. It’s been a little crazy planetside since the news broke.”
The Director was unmoved. “Crazy or not, you are a member of the Imperial Library Corps. The next time I call a mandatory staff meeting, I want you here on time. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
(What were you doing last night, anyway? )
Syd did not answer Penny, lest he find him even more distracted than he already was. Everyone took advantage of these staff meetings to socialize or make use of the extra bandwidth—Syd recalled fondly an old cataloger from Blake’s World who would play virtual pai gow with mandarins on the casino moon of Titan and somehow trick the Director into thinking that he was paying attention, even when he suddenly cursed a losing round—but Penny was the queen of multitasking, keeping an eye on a dozen branch libraries while chatting with Syd and her other colleagues while she shopped online.
(What do you think of these shoes?) she’d ask him in the middle of his own briefing, throwing a holovid into his workspace that would obscure his crib notes. Half the time Syd didn’t know whether she was shopping for real things or their virtual equivalents, though on the occasions when they had met in person he couldn’t help but notice that she took the same pride in her own appearance as she did her avatar’s.
He still remembered the last holiday party on Cygnus, where emboldened by more than his share of rum punch he told her as much, which had lead to a furtive make-out session under one of the eaves. Mortified by his behavior, Syd kept on wanting to clear the air with Penny, but didn’t know how or where to begin; for her part, she seemed quite content to revel in the poor librarian’s torment until he summoned the courage to bring it up first. In fact, what had transpired between them only served to make her more of a flirt when they shared the same virtual space, hence the added distraction, to which Syd finally succumbed.
(I had a hot date.)
(Oh?)
(With an ancient colonization wagon left by the Settlers.)
(And you volunteered for this post again why?)
(Hush, the Eagle is looking at us!)
(I bet she knows…)
(Knows what?) Syd wanted so desperately to use Penny’s taunt as a segue into a deeper conversation about the holiday party and what it meant, but the Director was having none of it. Fixing Syd with a stiff albeit flickering glare, she cleared her throat and began to speak in a manner that suggested that she’d put some effort into crafting exactly what she was going to say this morning. Syd felt a lump in his throat and the night’s anxiety twist his innards. This was not likely to be good news.
“No doubt by now you are all aware of the fact that Jon Devlin has accepted the unconditional surrender of the Garden Cluster, which is why we are short a few librarians this morning.”
Syd smacked himself in the forehead. He’d been so wrapped up in his own personal dramas that he’d forgotten about the libraries that now lay in the pirate king’s hands. How many librarians had there been—six? Jenneth, Sapor, Eun Lee, Daveson, Orry, and Xavier. Had he arrived on time, he surely would have noted their absence. Syd felt like even more of a dolt than he had before.
“We have not heard anything from our comrades caught behind the lines,” the Director continued. “But I hope and pray that they have not been ill-treated by Devlin’s men or the local authorities. As the Garden Cluster’s wholesale defection was a complete surprise to everyone, it is believed that the Imperial Tachyon Relays were taken intact, which is why many of you have noticed an armed presence near your own stations. The relays are the lifeblood of Imperial communication lines—I have been warned that the Empire will not allow any additional stations to fall without Jon Devlin paying the cost.”
“Hang on,” Penny interrupted the Director before she could begin her next sentence. Exasperated, she allowed her to speak nevertheless. “What does ‘paying the cost’ mean exactly?”
Syd nodded, as did several of his cohort. The Director sighed.
“It means the Imperial Navy is prepared to scuttle the stations if they deem them in danger of falling into Devlin’s hands.”
Penny snorted. “Scuttle? Ma’am, I work in a mining colony, not on a starship. Galactic, please!”
“They’ll blow them up from orbit,” the Director said, her jaw clenched. Even over the varying bandwidths and connection rates, there was a collective gasp in the Telepresence Alcove.
Syd felt as if he’d just been punched in the stomach. “But ma’am,” he managed to croak. “My library is right down the street…”
“Don’t you get it, Syd!” The Director snapped all of a sudden, provoking even more audible shock from the assembled librarians. “The Empire is hanging the Periphery out to dry…”
“But I heard that the Imperial Navy was massing in Orion’s Belt,” Penny protested, her demeanor deadly serious now.
The Director paused, uncertain as to whether or not to answer the implied question. At last she spoke, her voice dropping almost so low as to whisper, “It’s a feint. The fleet hopes to draw Devlin’s attention away from the Outer Worlds long enough to facilitate a full withdrawal.”
The room fell silent as the full import of the Director’s words became clear.
“Please be assured that the Imperial Library Corps intends to reassign each and every one of you to a posting or at least equal grade within the Inner Worlds. While we cannot necessarily guarantee…”
(So this is it?) Penny messaged Syd as their Director descended into the details of drawing down the libraries in the Sector, post by post. (We just pick up and leave? This is outrageous. I’ve got a dozen libraries I need to shut down. I wonder—is Director Pinhead going to help me do that over a tachyon relay? Why do I get the feeling the answer is no.)
(I can’t believe the Empire is just giving up) Syd answered. (All this work out here… for what? Just so we can pack it all up and pretend it never happened? Why even bother having this meeting, if they're just going to…)
(Hey, you all right?) Penny asked as Syd failed to complete his sentence.
Oh, no…
Syd didn’t answer; instead, he stood up and walked out of the Telepresence Alcove. His departure was so abrupt that the Director didn’t even have time to challenge him, although his communicator began rumbling angrily as soon as it was clear that he wasn’t simply taking a bathroom break.
(Syd?)
Penny had messaged him again, this time via a private channel that they had set up ages ago and promptly forgotten about. Synchronous communication was a luxury for anyone living on the Periphery, and unlike their counterparts back in the Inner Worlds there was no Galactic standard for timekeeping, which meant that even if you did want to keep in touch with a friend in the Outer Worlds you were never sure exactly when to catch them awake unless you planned ahead of time. The messenger program, which Penny had an Imperial Library Tech write for her, was actually meant for real-time library circulation across the sector, but hacking around one day she had discovered that it could be used to send short text messages through the System Alert function. That feed piggybacked from the circ machine in Syd’s library to his personal communicator, which in turn showed up as a glowing trail of letters and words on his glasses.