The Glimmer by the Fire

I rang the bell on the counter three times. Brisk feet sounded on an upper level, and the librarian came down the stairs, eyes on me like two indignant spotlights out of the gloom. She wore green trousers, high boots and a belted caftan, in the style of the lower city intelligentsia. She had taken her place behind the desk before I realized she was artificial.

“Yes?”

I smiled “Sorry to bother you, but I need all the information available on Hilford Gibbons. Since he was involved in so many things, it would take too long for me to cross-reference everything. Is there any way I could have a list of all the volumes available? Then I can go and find them myself.”

The librarian bit her lip. “I don’t think I can. I was up there looking for something, and until I find it, I won’t be able to help you.”

This would have been mere rudeness from anybody but an android. I said, “If you’re too busy, I can wait a few minutes. But the matter is urgent. I need to make my report by Monday, I’ve fallen behind. I was counting on getting what I needed tonight.”

I stood waiting for her to reply, listening to the rain drumming on the high roof, thinking how odd it felt to stand begging favors from an artificial person. “No,” she said at last. The word came with difficulty. “No, I can’t. I can only apologize.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I...” she glanced around, “I lost something. Without it, I can’t work. I can’t...”

I had never seen a robot in pain before. Most could not feel pain at all, but even with a face of synthetic skin, the expression was unmistakeable. “What exactly did you lose?” I said.

She bit her lip, eyes flickering from my face to the floor.

“Listen,” I said, “I want to get this information as fast as possible, and I want you to help me, so I want to help you. Tell me, and we’ll do our best together to get it back.”

Another hesitation, then a loud sigh. “It’s somewhere up on the third floor. I think something took it. If I don’t get it back, they’ll remove me from the Library.” She gripped the counter until the wood creaked. “Being away from the books, never allowed to come in here, I wouldn’t survive! I wouldn’t want to survive!”

Instinctively, I reached out and put my hand on hers. “We’ll find it. If it’s here, we’ll find it. First, tell me what it was.”

Her face relaxed. “An all-purpose skill cartridge, last-generation.”

I knew nothing of organetics, or the centuries of robotic design that had led up to it. “Alright,” I said, “But what was on it? What exactly did you lose?”

She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “It was my literacy center. I’ve lost my ability to read.”

Slowly I nodded, affected strangely by the sorrow in her eyes. “And where did you last see it?”

#

The library’s architecture changed as we climbed upstairs. This great building had been one of the first constructions in the city, and many features were to be found nowhere else, carved into the shelves and walls. On the right, we passed a line of re-shelving drones lined up and charging in a recessed wall, then a great mural depicting the city’s founding. The librarian waved her hand toward the dark gulf on the left. “Over seven million volumes, serving the entire upper half of the city. Even though I was built only three years ago, my literacy places me into a continuity reaching all the way back to the first explorers. When I’m out among you people of flesh, I’m no more than a specialized tool, but here in the Library, I’m an authority, a part of something eternal. My literacy is the most precious thing, the only thing I will ever own. I would have given my arms or legs, or been erased rather than suffer this!

Trying to calm her, I spoke slowly. “And what exactly does this drive look like?”

“It’s a lamellar disc, rectangular, about two fingers thick. It has a lovely iridescence to it, like the play-of-color in a fine dark opal.”

The library was full of moving things, tiny drones that kept the Library clean, all coming to life now as evening drew near. They skittered out of our way as we climbed up onto a wide, separate veranda, complete with cushions and padded chairs grouped around an ornate fireplace, carved to represent a forest scene. A healthy fire burned behind the grate. The librarian pointed to the space in front of it and said, “There. That’s where I lost it.”

“You were in front of the fire?”

Her voice raised defensively. “It was during my break, and no one else was here! I was curled up with a copy of Eisenstill’s ‘The Rhapsody of Flowing Water,’ and I accidentally read the passage about the River Espizh. I should have known better. The rhythm of the words affected my shut-down inhibitors, and the fire and the sound of the rain didn’t help. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, the words made no sense to me! I’ve searched the entire area! I can’t imagine where it’s gone! I can hardly imagine anything without that drive!”

The area was warm, and the sound of the rain made it cozy indeed. Standing here, my report seemed unimportant, along with the whole city. This library was the only place to be, with plenty of books, a fire, and the rain outside.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes. “Very well. You woke up, and it was gone. Therefore, something took it. It must have been an animal. What would any of the drones want with a data disc? None of them could possibly use it. It must have been a wood-vole, gathering shiny things for its nest. Either that, or...”

The last possibility remained unspoken, because if someone had managed to sneak in while she was asleep, then all hope was gone. The drive was somewhere out in the city, sold many times over, lost in the underworld. I smiled at her, shrugged and said, “Couldn’t you get another disc?”

“No. I was an expensive model. If I tell them I lost such an advanced component, they’ll decide I’m a bad risk. It would be better to erase and reuse me.”

Before she fell back into a hole of recursive panic, I nodded and took hold of her hand. “Well then, let’s start looking. We’ll explore every niche and corner, the likely and the implausible. It must be somewhere inside the building.

#

We searched every level, moving at a run from one place to another. Together we moved cabinets, rifled through storage lockers, wrestled crates and potted plants. She held my ankles as I dangled upside-down to check the undersides of stairs and balconies. Soon I was exhausted. Even the librarian had begun to slow down. Still, there was no sign of the drive.

We returned to the fireplace, defeated. “You can learn to read again,” I said, “You can do it on your off-time. I can help.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. It’s most of my memory as well, all the books I’ve read, all my time here, my ability to cross-reference and interpret layers of meaning. Now I have a fleeting memory of ‘The Rhapsody,’ but soon even that will be gone. I’ve never been at such a loss! I can’t think! There must be a possibility I’ve missed, something, anything! But what?!”

Looking at her, it occurred to me that I could leave. What was it to me if this one android went the way of all metal, a few years early? Standing there, I knew the question was meaningless. I could not leave. This was no robot to me, but a young woman, much younger than she looked, and this Library was all she had. At one time, it had been the same with me. I remembered my childhood self, lugging a book far too large for me over to my reading spot on the first floor, where a sunbeam would bring some grand illustrated adventure to life in my hands.

Because there was nothing else to do, we sat together without talking, staring into the dying flames. Minutes passed, and then I reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want me to read something to you? Maybe get a head start on learning to read for yourself again?”

“No.” Her voice was a hard monotone. “It would make me too jealous. I’ll sit here until I enter another shut-down state. Maybe I’ll dream I can still read.”

I sat with her, wishing I could read while I waited, that I could get up and fetch one without making her feel bad. Soon, the fire was only smoke. The smell was sharp, growing stronger, until my nose burned, and my eyes started closing on their own.

The librarian gave a great sniff and stood suddenly, scenting the air like a questing hound. I did the same. The smoke was wrong, with a toxic whiff of plastic and metal. Standing in silence, I could hear a set of footsteps, light and solid.

“No!” she breathed, indignant, “Without a command? How could it?”

I was about to ask what she meant when a drone walked into the light. It was carrying a book, open in one hand.

The image was wrong, almost obscene. Drones were only just complex enough to do what they were told. Take this box of books to this floor, file them according to their codes, return to your dock and wait for the next task. They traveled mindlessly, with an efficient, uniform gait. This drone strolled, weaving, all its limited attention focussed on the printed page.

“Command exit!” the librarian barked, “Return to niche! Unit, respond!”

She spoke all the right words. I could see them as they registered with the drone’s systems, each one causing the metal skull to wobble as it resisted its orders. Fingers built for crude labor now turned pages delicately, wide sensor-eyes scanning the text out of its squat, brutish skull.

The drone read the last page, then instantly threw the book onto a cushion, plucked another one from the shelves and started reading again. A low hum rose into audibility, then climbed to a piercing whine.

The librarian pulled my sleeve. “We need to stop it! Come on and help me!”

The smell was unbearable now. Wisps of blue smoke leaked out from under the drone’s carapace. We stood on either side of it, held the upper torso, then twisted and heaved upwards. The hands never stopped turning pages as we set the machine on the floor, but the legs behaved automatically, sinking into a cross-legged posture. The drone only existed now from the waist up, but it still read, the blunt head bent toward the open page.

The librarian took hold of the book, and the drone lashed out, struck a blow that would have caved my chest in, but only sent her spinning like an unbalanced drill across the floor and into the wall. She picked herself up and came back through the cloud of blue haze. The processing panel glowed orange, and the librarian took hold of this and pulled up, peeling the door away to expose drone’s slots.

She plucked at a sliver of iridescence, nestled in the hot metal. “This was never meant for these machines! This drone has some real brass, doing something like this!”

Her fingertips were glowing by the time she gave up and withdrew her hands. We watched together, helpless as the entire port turned red, then yellow, then white, radiating until I had to step back from it. At last it slumped and ran down to the floor in a heap of glowing slag.

The drone’s fingers still turned the pages. By now, the movement was no more than the machine equivalent of muscle memory, the last wish of a dying machine to read, to never stop reading. Even this halted as a many-colored shape slid out of the molten port and rode down to the floor, as on a frozen waterfall, leaving the metal behind until it lay by itself on the bare stone.

I bent and took the book out of the spidery hands, now still, and looked at the title. “‘Elbart’s Book of Sewers.’ If you had the choice of one final book before death, which would you have picked?”

She reached out a foot and toyed with the drive on the floor. “It seems undamaged.”

I stared at the little block of literacy, shining with many colors on the floor. It hardly seemed possible, but she was right. The edges of the drive were still precisely square, the colors vibrant, free of cracks. She picked it up, brought it over to the fire, set it on the hob, turned back and looked at me. “It should be alright. It’ll cool safely by the fire and when it’s ready, I’ll fit it back into my system.”

Still staring at the drone, I said, “How could this happen? Why did it do this?”

Her anger had faded, and the skin around her eyes wrinkled with sympathy as she looked at the machine. “They all have an imagination. They need to, for the good of the job. It’s a small one, no more than a few circuits, but I suppose carrying books around year after year must have stimulated part of that imagination into curiosity.”

“But it’s not possible! They make sure of that when they build you!”

“It’s impossible to say what’s possible. These drones may be simple, but they’re far older than me. If you leave an imagination by itself too long, you can’t be surprised when something starts growing.” She turned to me with a smile. It was the smile she had wanted to give me when I came into the library, calm and professional, befitting a guardian of books. “I’m sorry we can’t accommodate your request at this time. If you’ll leave your contact information, I’ll gather the requisite materials and get in touch with you shortly.”

This was a signal for me to leave, common to human and android alike. I thanked her, and she turned away and sat at the fire, watching the many-colored block as it glimmered by the fire.

It was a warm, rainy night when I walked out in the street. I turned my collar up against the rain and set out to walk the three blocks home, trying to identify the feeling that had overcome me upon leaving the Library. At last I decided it was resentment, after all I’d been prepared to sacrifice for the librarian, the hours I’d spent helping her. Having done all that, she had turned me away without so much as thanks. By tomorrow, the melted drone would have been cleaned up, the metal scraped off the floor, and the librarian would be functioning normally again. Would she remember any of this time? Would she ever think of me, as she sat down with a book again?

I came to the boarding-house under the crooked steeple, I found that I was smiling, though I could not tell why. I was still smiling as I locked the door of my room and began warming milk for chocolate, then took up a selection of pastoral poems and laid it open across my lap. By the time my drink was ready, I couldn’t find it in my heart to blame the poor librarian, all by herself in that ancient palace of reading.

She was only a machine, after all.