The next tower was different. It was filled with books, with half a dozen copies of some of them in the boxes. She had never seen any of them before. She peeked inside one and immediately found herself embarrassed and looking around. It was a romance novel, heavy on the smut. The title was shocking enough, My Other Lover. It was a play on words as a quick read showed her. The other was an actual Other. “Yuck,” she said aloud in her corner.
As she piled through the boxes she found a single copy of a book that was machine printed. It was small and slender and bound in a way she had never seen before. The cover reminded her of the leather made from goats or rabbits but different. Thick and very beautiful, it invited touch. Along the outside edges of the paper there was a golden glimmer. She opened the pages to see and the gold appeared to have been painted along the edge of the paper. She couldn’t imagine such an extravagant use of the rare metal. The pages were supple and only slightly browned at the edges.
The book title was difficult to read. Also in gold, the script was strange. She teased out the letters until she could read it. In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson. She had never heard of him but the title was the same as the Memoriam so it must be related. She turned a few pages gingerly and found various attributions that wasted whole sheets of paper.
On the next page she found another wasted sheet and the words Copyright, 1897, 1900 and 1902. Her mind shot back to the papers they found with the numbers 2053 and so on instead of years. Was it possible that these were years in some past time?
She looked back and made sure that none of the others could see her. The path was clear and she could hear their voices rising above the sounds of air coming from the vents. The book was very small, no bigger than her hand, and would fit into a pocket in her coveralls without a problem. She knew it was wrong but she wanted to look this over privately. The little book had an air of illicitness to it. She would keep it just to see. Just for a little while.
She slipped the book into the front pocket of her coveralls and set to work on the other books, ever careful of the book next to her chest. She browsed the titles and found a pretty standard array. Some poetry, a few romances and an adventure or two.
She packed them up and took those boxes, one at a time, toward the staging area near the table. At Greta’s raised eyebrows, Marina let a box clunk to the floor and waved off any urgency. She said, “Books. But not that kind. It looks like books from the library. I thought they might go back. After you checked them, that is.” She stopped and thought about the smutty book, then added, “I think they might be banned books. Some of them are, umm, a little dirty.”
Greta nodded and said, “Sure. I’ll take a look.”
“How do you think they even got put in here?” Marina asked. She noticed that Piotr was looking over at the box with a bit more interest. She suppressed a smile.
The other woman shrugged, her interest reclaimed by what she was doing. She answered without looking up, “Who knows. How did half of this stuff wind up in here?”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Taylor asked, unsmiling and with a strange tone to his voice. It sounded to Marina like he was asking it in a way that meant it should not be here at all. No one else seemed to notice.
Piotr gave Marina a little grin. He said, “In case you haven’t noticed, historians have a problem with sending things to recycling.”
Greta’s head came up sharply and she said, “We do not!”
His eyebrows gave a wiggle in Marina’s direction and she smiled at his successful ploy to get a rise out of Greta.
The woman in question motioned to all that lay before and around them in the room and said, “We wouldn’t have any of this if we had been too eager to recycle.”
“True,” Piotr said, drawing out the word while his eyes took in the piles.
They went back and forth, the two of them bantering like the fast friends they were becoming. Marina didn’t know how long the two of them had known each other but it was at least as long as the two served on the council. The queer formality of the council had been warming up since their mission had become a joint one. It was nice to see but Marina’s mind kept turning to her coverall pocket. The book pressed hard corners into her breasts and dragged her down with the weight of her decision to hide it.
She stopped herself from reaching up to touch the book. She rubbed her hands down the sides of her coveralls, like she would if she wiped off sweat or grime. She gave them one last smile, her face saying that all was fine, and went back to her messy corner of the archives.
It was all anticlimactic from there in her searching. Her hand came unbidden to the square form inside the pocket of her coveralls time and again. Several of the leaning towers were now organized and no longer leaning. They bore her neat Fabber script detailing the contents and several were empty and waiting for the results of further organization throughout the room.
By the time they were ready to break for dinner, Marina could barely control her desire to open the strange book and read. Pleading a headache, she escaped from the meal as soon as she could shovel it down her throat and went back to her room. She put the chair in front of the door and wedged it beneath the handle, then adjusted it several times, yanking the door to be sure it held.
On her bed, she pulled the book out with careful fingers. It was warm and that made it even more inviting, if that was possible. She felt the grainy green cover and depressed letters on the spine. There was a design on the front, also wastefully impressed in gold, that reminded her a little of the artifacts with the strange clawed animal. It wasn’t really the same, but it gave the same general impression.
She squished her pillow behind her head, took a fortifying breath and opened the cover. She could feel the strain of the old binding so she didn’t open it fully, just enough to turn a page and read. Beyond the blank and thick first pages, there was a page covered in a large and almost indecipherable script. A name, Catherine Meeks, and some gifting words that were so normal it made Marina smile. Then the words; June 16, 1907, Graduation Day.
What did that mean? It had the flavor of a date. Graduation was something she understood and there were always gifts given since it usually coincided with a first shadowing. It was the start of adulthood. This had that same feeling but if it was, what did it signify? What is June? What did 1907 actually relate to?
She shook her head and turned the page. Again, a full blank page but this time it had a much more understandable script. Rather than large and elaborate and loopy letters…a wasteful script… it was neat and very precise. It read:
Everything Ends,
Even Worlds
Some Company for a Like Mind
For the Trip
“Hmm,” Marina hummed into the quiet room. “Even worlds, huh.”
The words somehow reeked of arrogance, a wink and a nod toward the catastrophe that was the silo, and it pissed Marina off. Whoever this T was, she was certain he was an asshole. That was the down deep of that.
She almost passed the next page. The two pages wanted to turn together. She separated the pages with a fingernail and found yet another page of writing, this time with the familiar neat and tiny letters of a silo person well acquainted with the value of paper. The letters were blurry so she held the book under the bedside light in her room and adjusted it further away from her eyes until it swam into sharp focus.