Salvage

“That shouldn’t be there…”

Wren let the Stardrake cruise to a halt…well, as “halted” as anything could be in the shifting void of the universe. The impulse engine purred in its stasis, creating a soothing background noise as the old adventurer checked the readings on her screens and instruments.

The sector she’d found herself in was devoid of any nearby celestial bodies, apart from asteroids that reminded her of driftwood in the ocean. Useful, sometimes, if collected from properly, and sometimes with bits of fishing line–in this case, thick, rusted cables from long-decayed shipwrecks–but simple sticks floating around in the water of space. She’d been on an internal, bittersweet nostalgia tangent about it when she’d noticed something odd pop up on her infrared reader.

Something bigger than an asteroid. Or, at least, bigger than most of the asteroids around here.

Her first thought had been that it could be another spacecraft, one with more of a population on it than her personal craft, but as it came into view of her illuminators she found it decidedly…organic. Far too wooden to belong in the vacuum of space.

“WICR, give me a reading on this.”

On her console, a silvery-blue light flickered on. WICR, which stood for Wavelength Information and Communications Relay, was essentially the brain of the ship, though it didn’t often pay attention to her unless she directly spoke to it.

“A reading on what, Captain Caldwell?” said the bot’s voice. It really snuck into uncanny valley, she thought, how well WICR’s voice matched the inflection of a standard human’s voice.

“Call me Wren,” she said, for perhaps the hundredth time. “Give me a reading on this unknown object we’re facing. It’s too big and too…wooden to be an asteroid.”

“Certainly, Captain Caldwell,” he said, a hint of humor in his tone. There were a couple of contemplative beeps and the sound of something scanning, and she looked out the viewport at the object as a grid array appeared on it, mapping out its contours.

She frowned, peering closer, then cursed as the grid vanished. “Do that again.”

“The entire scan?” WICR asked.

“No, the grid array. Let me see it.”

The array flashed on again, lingering as she tried to make out its shape. It almost seemed like…a building?

“Are you satisfied, Captain?” WICR asked.

“Sort of,” she said, leaning back. “Have you finished scanning it?”

“Yes. It seems to be a manufactured structure. The framework is steel and lead. The outer shell appears to be brick and mortar, made of what appears to be a mixture of wood, clay, and trace amounts of other materials. Due to the lead, it is difficult to get a reading on the inside, but–”

“What’s the architecture’s origin?”

“A planet known as La’uck Lao.”

Wren frowned as a thought occurred to her. She was going through an asteroid field right now…

“Can we get a read on some of these other objects around the ship?” she asked.

WICR beeped again. More grids flashed out, flickering along contours before flitting off to the next object. Wren sat in relative silence, a feeling of dread settling in her stomach.

She was getting too old for this.

When WICR spoke again, his voice sounded apprehensive…or maybe Wren was projecting. “There are an odd assortment of objects out here,” he said. “Most of it is igneous stone. But there is also: Ice, plant matter such as splintered wood, and manufactured metal.”

A lot of random material, she thought. But not quite as random if my hunch is right.

“WICR, one more question,” she said. “Is there supposed to be a star system in this sector?”

“Yes,” WICR said. “The main sequence star known as Lak La’uck. It is a yellow star much like Earth’s Sun.”

“Known by whom?” she asked.

“By the people of the planet of…” A few more beeps seemed to hang in the air as Wren’s meaning registered in the AI’s computing processes. “The former planet of La’uck Lao.”

“Scan for the core of that sun, but keep a grid array on the front of that structure,” she said, pulling out her bandanna. She wrapped it around her head, securing her dreads before pulling on her space helmet.

“Are you planning on entering it, Captain?”

“Yes,” she said. “Maybe I could find out what happened here.”

“And if you encounter a life form?”

She frowned. “Doubtful.” But she grabbed her holster anyway, double-checking the charge on her photon pistol before clipping it around her waist.

The expanse of the black void was cold. It settled into her aching joints with a stinging pressure, but she ignored it–arthritis be damned, she was going to figure out what this was. She drifted toward the building for a moment, enjoying the complete and utter silence of space for a moment, before switching on the propulsion system in her boots and gliding toward the ominously angular structure.

Well, she thought, her internal monologue the only sound in the universe, at least it has a regular door.

The door yawned open for her. Apart from the lines from the array leaking in, it was pitch-black inside, so she turned on her headlamp to look around. What she saw was…eerily familiar.

Books, was her first thought.

Rows upon rows, shelves upon shelves, some drifting in the zero-gravity and some neatly stacked where they’d been for countless days, were triangular shapes reminiscent of books. The covers seemed the same thickness as the pages, and had a dark hue with lighter writing on it, but they were books. She pulled one out of its stasis and flipped it open, examining the lettering–an unfamiliar alphabet, but undoubtedly writing. She examined its texture, and realized these were made of particle wood. The cover had some sort of painting on it; green flames surrounding a figure that looked vaguely humanoid, wielding what was perhaps La’uck Lao’s version of a sword.

She looked around. There were hundreds. Thousands, maybe. She turned off her propulsion boots and “walked” along the surface, eyes searching. This was a library! Arguably, at least in her eyes, one of the most important parts of a society: its knowledge. 

Her heart fluttered in sympathy as she noticed the corpses floating in the dead space between the books. Somehow, this building had survived a catastrophe that had wiped out its planet and its people. It was possible that no one in the universe would ever be able to read these books again. The bodies were frozen, preserved, faces masks of horror and hands–or whatever they had instead of hands–permanently clenched as if they had been trying to hold onto something, anything, as their planet was rent asunder.

Or whatever had happened.

“WICR?” she said into the mouthpiece, then froze.

Something was watching her.

She wasn’t sure how she knew. There were no nearby sounds, there was no flicker of light save for her own, nothing had touched her. She couldn’t even pin it on the grid array lighting up a section of the wall beside her. And yet, there was a tingle of the hair pricking up on the back of her neck, the urge to run shifting her feet.

“Yes, Captain?”

She jumped out of her skin, her heart jumping into her throat. She had to be careful of that these days. As she internally reprimanded herself to calm down, though, she took a deep breath and looked around. Nothing but her shifted, and the sensation of eyes on her had gone. 

“Your vitals appear to have spiked,” WICR said. “My apologies. What did you need?”

“It’s fine.” She took another deep breath. “Can you look up any other information on La’uck Lao? Alphabet, customs, stuff like that.”

“Certainly. Please hold.”

Wren continued to look around. Carefully moving between the books, she looked around at the architecture. More wood, more stone brick. Everything seemed to be triangular. The windows, doors, even a set of derelict stairs leading up to a second floor that was no longer there.

She followed the stairs anyway, then stopped, feeling the tingle of apprehension return. Her brow furrowed, and without turning, said, “I know you’re there.”

Silence. But she expected that. Murmuring to WICR to keep at his task and ignore her unless she called for help, she continued to bounce into the remnants of the second floor. It was nothing but the approximation of a rooftop now, and she sat, running a gloved hand through waving strands of what must have been a carpet. She faced the entrance to the stairs, eyes on the yawning black hole set in the off-black contours of the library.

Then she turned off her headlamp.

The feeling of being watched intensified. She felt as though she were surrounded, footsteps of a bustling patronage nullified by the blast. If she were to stand back up, she thought, she might headbutt whatever had walked up to her. Black eyes in a black face set against a black void peered at her. Invisible, hollow, and yet there just the same.

These were probably ghosts, she thought. Spirits of a planet that had been obliterated so fast the AI databases hadn’t caught up. None of the people that had been here had been properly laid to rest, because there was nowhere to lay them but a broken library surrounded by the shreds of its world.

“You probably don’t understand me,” she said. “But I want to help. I come from a planet that was destroyed just like yours. I live on a new planet now, one that was built to give people that lost their homes a new place.”

The presences around her stilled, and now she did feel something, a light pressure on her shoulder. It pressed hard enough she could feel it through her suit, but light enough she could tell it wasn’t trying to hurt her.

Or it was, and just unable. Still, it didn’t feel aggressive.

“WICR,” she hissed. “Can you get me the word for ‘friend’?”

“One moment. Who are you talking to?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll explain later.”

She held up the book she’d picked up from below, setting it on the floor in front of her. “I have an idea,” she said. “It might be a little hard. It’d take several trips. But I would like to move this library to my new home. But…well, I’m not really privy to your customs. It just seems more fitting for a place like this to be re-established somewhere that people of many displaced cultures can come and learn about yours.”

The pressure on her arm increased, then fell away. She still felt the presence of several somethings around her, but continued to see nothing. WICR’s voice spoke in her earpiece, and she nodded.

“Ki’lom,” she said.

Abruptly, the atmosphere seemed to change. It felt more…energetic. Twin pinpricks flashed before her, reflecting in the fiberglass of her faceplate. The book she’d placed before her was lifted up, then placed firmly into her arms.

A voice spoke, raspy but warm. “Ki’lom.”

*

Several months later, the last ship to carry the final pieces of La’uck Lao Library descended on the flatlands of Hakshaithlin. Wren and Joa, her friend from Earth, had picked out a plot of land that almost matched a photo they’d found in the old library, and it had been developed–well, about as well as it could be–to accommodate both the library and the cemetery. It was grueling work, but on a planet filled with the lucky unfortunates of the universe, most of everyone was willing to pitch in to help.

Wren stood at the gate, watching a melting pot of workers fix up what they could of the library. She held that first book in her hands–after a few months she was still missing the meaning of most of the words, but she could at least make out what they spelled out. It was a fantasy story, from what she could tell, about a legendary figure from folklore.

She found herself walking down the rows of gravestones. Or, perhaps, the word “garden” fit this plot better. The locals had planted flowers around the stones, greeting the dead into this haven just as warmly as they greeted the living.

A few rows in, she creaked her way into a seated position in front of a headstone. It had been carved with lettering found tattooed on the alien’s arm, which had been confirmed by WICR to be a form of identification. As she sat, she placed the book in her lap.

“I wish we could’ve met,” she said. “I would’ve liked to be friends.”

She felt that pressure on her arm again, and turned to see a pale, misty figure sitting beside her. She couldn’t make out a single distinctive feature save two pinpricks of light where the eyes would be, but she got the impression it was smiling. Or, well, exuded the emotion of smiling. She doubted it would look the same to her.

“Ka’ehr.”

The word barely reached her ears, and in the next moment the figure had dissolved. She thought to ask WICR to translate the word, but after a moment of thought she realized she knew exactly what it meant. She smiled.

“You’re welcome,” she said to the breeze.