over…” He tailed off, noting the scowl on my face. “Oh, fine. What can I help you with?”
“Have
The librarian shook his head. “Ivan is a cultural boogeyman used to frighten children. Though many tales present him in a favorable light, as a vanquisher, few express him with magnanimity.” He waved a hand. “Oh, there are some about rescued children, clergy or some such, perhaps its slaves in others, but otherwise no. In fact, the only connection I’ve
“Barian Dreger,” I replied.
“Yes, Dreger.” He rubbed his chin. “You’re clearly correct; it must have some connection to what Grey mentioned.” He gave a laugh. “I still can’t believe you spoke to both Traverian Grey and Voux Hanatar. How by the tides of Old Earth did you manage such a thing?”
I raised an eyebrow.
Marqyni pouted. “Oh, fine. Be all mysterious. If you’re not going to humor me even in the slightest, what
“I need both of us to dig through as much as we can to find… something, anything,” I replied. “I know it’s ambiguous, but there must be some news report of Dreger’s arrest. Perhaps Ivan tipped the authorities to a group of released captives. There’s nothing the GSA would like more than the good press of breaking apart a slaver colony.”
I furrowed my brow. “Or, maybe some of the GSA reports are public record now that Hanatar is in prison for life. Or… there was also the slave container Dreger discarded when he was captured. It was near to an asteroid field. The colony could have been nearby: not a terrible place to hide something of that nature. If we can find any survivors from Dreger’s slave trade, they would have been the most likely candidates for Ivan to approach for help.”
The librarian listened with a thoughtful expression. “Let’s get started then. You wish to be inside no more than an hour, correct?”
“Yes. You start with public GSA records around the time of Hanatar’s arrest; I’ll work on news archives.”
“Are you certain?” Marqyni frowned. “There’s going to be a broader range of subjects there; you might lose a lot of time.” He was referring to the Archivist instinct to tangential searching.
I waved a hand. “I can still dig through them faster than you can, no offense.” I smiled.
He rolled his eyes. “Very well, I’ll set you up here in my office and use one of the terminals out on the floor myself.”
“Good,” I replied. “Let’s get started.”
Dana’s improved programming and architecture helped. Using it made me nervous, as I had no idea what else her programming and the hidden vestige would have in store for me. I still couldn’t resist using it.
The result was nothing short of amazing. My mind blazed through hundreds, thousands of files, clippings, news reports. The fall of Hanatar was widely reported; killing a GSA witness in his own home drew not insignificant attention. They mocked him for it, and hardly a mention was made of the victim’s name, even less mention of former employment with his alleged killer.
Dreger’s initial capture was kept quiet as well. Only vague pieces about GSA pursuit and bravery against a well-known, unnamed slave trader received tiny blips in the waters of Hanatar’s destruction. There was nothing about a cargo ship full of people nearly smashing into an asteroid.
As per usual, dozens of times my mind was lost to the pursuit of other topics. However, a sharper focus seemed to be present, tangents more relatable to the focus of my search:
A historical catalogue of whistle-blowers and witnesses, successful and/or killed for their dedication. Various instances of forced labor and its degree of social acceptance. More recent uptake of kidnapping vacationers and tourists. Thousands of cities on hundreds of worlds with reported missing bankers, laborers, researchers. Even a tour group from Atropos Garden went missing and was later rescued by GSA forces.
I searched files on the incident on the Garden, and little aside from speculation existed on the subject. I even recognized images on the nets, similar to those gleaned from Dana’s mind, of the reforming world. Much of it was discarded as fabrication, and general consensus was not that the planet was destroyed: only the colony.
How little they knew.
Much rumbling existed in the Ivan enthusiasts. Several corporations seemed to be regaining interest in the subject, and public contracts for information regarding him had been renewed. Hundreds more stories floated about, an absurdity of gossip sprinkled with the tiny motes of truth.
I resisted the temptation for self-congratulatory egotism in seeing if anything related back to myself and continued to search through Dreger and slave colony reports.
There was nothing. Nothing at all.
After a time of fruitless searching, I disconnected. My eyes opened.
Marqyni loomed above me, grasping and shaking my shoulders. “Sid. Sid! Are you all right?!”
Scowling, I replied, “I’m fine, what’s the problem?”
“You were seventeen minutes over! I couldn’t wake you!” He appeared quite worried.
“Seventeen minutes?” I asked.
“You’re bloody-damn right seventeen! I thought I’d completely lost you! How can you…” As my friend the librarian chattered about how concerned, angry, terrified, and uncertain he was, I checked my systems.
The subroutine for my internal alarms and the external port for Marqyni’s wake-up were both disabled. As I checked them over, I felt the tiniest trickle of laughter in my mind, and ghostly fingerprints dotted the landscape of my programming.
As I sought the source, I felt a tiny foreign presence skittering away, fading into subsystems. As I perused it, a small measure of shock came to me as I realized it was the hidden vestige of Dana, capable of more influence than I had thought. It seemed she decided to assist my search by extending it, or she was simply trying to kill me. I tried to seek her out, but the essence, whatever it was and could do, was gone.
“…and Great Alexandria only knows what your employers would do to me if they thought I ever endangered your existence. You’re worth umpteen billion; I’m just an eccentric librarian!”
“Relax, Marqyni, I’m fine,” I said. “It was a glitch, nothing more.”
“That was a
I hadn’t told the librarian about Dana. Shame of brutality, coveting some information, whatever the reason, I omitted that piece of the story. This also meant I didn’t reveal what I knew about the damage to Atropos Garden. “I’m all right, please relax,” I said. It felt wrong to leave him out of the loop, but some things seemed best kept private. A measure of guilt returned to my thoughts for both her demise and oddly still for Cain’s appearance at the Class 4 shipyard.
Marqyni scowled. “You’re going to be the death of me, Sid. Mark my words.”
A sliver of concern seeped into my mind as his statement echoed my troubled thoughts. I tried to push it aside. “The concern of lesser mortals is always touching, my friend.”
The librarian smirked and gave a short laugh. He wagged a finger at me. “Don’t toy with me, Sid. The Gods are nothing without the mortals to serve them.”
He seemed to calm somewhat, but I could still see the tension in his body. “I’m sorry to have concerned you, but I’m quite all right.”
This was the honest truth. Far from the normal overheating delirium from too-long searching, I felt excellent, refreshed even. Dana’s memories didn’t give me her precise age, and the jumbled files hadn’t yet provided a frame of reference. However, I’d have guessed she’d been no more than a year old as an Archivist. Her programming and systems were marvelous in their improvements over my own.
“Tell me,” I said, changing subjects. “Did you come across anything helpful?”
My friend shook his head. “I’m afraid I didn’t, Sid. Many of the records from the trial are still sealed, citing galactic security.”
Something about Ivan as a government spy using the pinnacle of fighter technology rang in my mind. “Maybe
