“Yes, Tarnilee. You'll need a great deal of educating, nonetheless, to understand what might have happened to her and what avenues of action might be open to you. Read the books on Romaghin culture, the
“Lead me to them.”
“You'll be interested in the latest escapades of the Muties. Papes are full of it. Exciting stuff. They say the Fringe is actually beginning to wave negative under Mutie pressure and the shell molecule is rupturing in many cases, though total success has yet been denied them.”
“What?” That had sounded like nothing so much as doubletalk, trickspeak, or some such ruse.
The library was silent a moment. “Oh, I guess you
“Muties?”
“We'll educate you. That's it. You'll learn all the wonders of this galaxy. I—” the giant cube said, slipping into a soft, confidential tone, “am secretly in favor of what the Muties are doing.”
“Yeah, well, if I could find out about Tarni—”
“REPORT!” a familiar voice snapped, shaking the hull.
“Oh dear,” the library said. “I think we have guests outside.”
II
“What are they going to do?”
“Leave this to me,” the library said. He thought it giggled.
“YOU, FLOATING LIB SEVEN, REPORT!”
“Yes, sirs,” the library said reverently. “Can I help you? Reading material, research, news?”
“INFORMATION!”
“Yes, sirs?”
“WE WERE MONITORING A JUMBO, A RENEGADE FROM ROMAGHIN. HE DISAPPEARED FROM OUR SCOPES IN THIS AREA.”
“Yes, sirs. Witnessed that, I did. Said to myself, said, now that looks like a bit of chicanery. Doesn't look good, I says.”
“WHAT DIDN'T LOOK GOOD?”
“A Setessin freighter scooped him up. Came in behind me, shielding itself from you gentlemen, and took him.”
There was a moment of silence while the three Jumbos conferred among themselves and with the Generals back home. “WHICH WAY DID THIS FREIGHTER GO?” one of them asked at length.
“It seemed to plot off toward that quadrant containing
“YOU CAN'T BE MORE SPECIFIC?”
“No, sir. I was much too alarmed by the fleet of battle cruisers hanging farther out, waiting for the freighter to return.”
“BATTLE CRUISERS?” the voice said.
“Faint dots. Standing pretty far off. Maybe a dozen.”
“UH, WELL—” the voice said haltingly. It was obviously manned by a Romaghin who was preempting the primitive brain and controlling the machine.
“I knew you would want to search out the blackguards and teach them a lesson,” the library went on.
“WELL, WE'RE A LITTLE TOO BUSY AT THE MOMENT,” the Romaghin replied, picturing the dozen cruisers with their hundreds of guns and impenetrable shells. Then they were evidently recalled, for the blast of their rockets echoed dully inside the cube for a brief second.
He unplugged himself from the portable robo-link the library information bank had extended to him.
“Find anything?”
“They sell the women as concubines,” Tohm said sourly. “On the world of Basa II, they have a slave market where the fairest girls are taken.”
“And I imagine she was fair.”
Tohm didn't answer.
“Well,” the library said, “what did you think of the Muties' latest adventures? Exciting, huh?”
“I didn't understand a word of it,” Tohm snapped. “What is the Fringe? And for that matter, what the devil is wave pattern negative or a shell molecule?”
“You mean you don't know?”
“I wouldn't ask if I did.”
“Oh, dear. Well, let me start at the beginning. All the worlds of the galaxy were settled by men from the planet Earth. Most planets were peaceful and joined in mutual trade agreements which resulted in the Federation. The planets settled by the ancient political faction known as the RadRi became known as the Romaghin worlds, in honor of their first president, and were kicked out of the Federation because they refused to join in the disarmament plan. The exact same thing happened to the planets settled by the RadLef, which, for many years and through the last several centuries, was and has been the mortal enemy of the RadRi. These two factions built huge armies and navies and entered into a series of wars which have been in progress for eight hundred years. The entire galaxy has never known peace in that time. The Federation, unarmed as it was in the beginning and overwhelmed by the might of both combatants, has never been able to halt the battle. Thirdly, there are worlds like your own where exploration parties reverted and set up primitive tribes over the generations. These the Science League of the Federation is trying to preserve. Both war parties, however, raid these primitive worlds for brains.”
Tohm sighed. “I understand that much.”
“That's background. Now, these first wars were fought strictly with nuclear weapons. Fallout was tremendous. Naturally, mutated births began to occur. Both sides, however, instead of facing up to the responsibilities of this new horror, began killing the mutants at birth. Several groups of sympathetic normals, clergymen, and scholars, formed an underground that kidnapped mutants nearly upon birth. Over the centuries, a respectable colony of un-normals existed throughout the galaxy. Several times, the Romaghins and Setessins have launched campaigns to wipe out these semi-people. But they have never quite succeeded. Today, less than ten thousand Muties are living, but they are a vital group. They have discovered a way to rid the galaxy of the two warlike peoples. They have certain psi-talents (every mutant seems to be born with some) that enable them to envision a daring plan. The Romaghins and Setessins are afraid, for they realize the feasibility of the plan. The Muties are now under the greatest attack in their history. They are fighting for their lives.”
“But how? I know the history, it is the method of obliterating the war mongers that confuses me.”
“Well, the Fringe is the single molecule which is the barrier of quasi-reality between the realities that lay in infinite number. When the energy nets—”
Tohm sighed, interrupting. “What is a quasi-reality?”
“Oh. Well, a quasi-reality exists but doesn't exist. It's a sort of no-man's land with the Truths on either side. Understand?”
“No.”
The library flustered to itself for a while. “I never thought of the complexities involved when attempting to explain the twenty-ninth century to a twenty-second century man.”
“Hey, I'm educated, you know!”
“Certainly, but you were given only the scientific understanding of the twenty-second century. The only thing you know after that is history. You know what has happened in the last eight hundred years, but not how or why. You're years behind in
“What would you know about anything,” Tohm stormed, the pride of his people surging within him.
“Before I died, I was,” the library said, “Chairman of the Department of Literature at Floating University One.”
