“So you say. If you are seventy-five, than you’re lucky to have got this far.” The voice sounded as old as Eric felt.
“Ask me something from the Gone Time. Not something I could have read in a book. If you’re as old as you say you are, then you’ll know what to ask.”
Through the wood, Eric heard a whispered discussion, but he couldn’t catch any of the words. Sour-faced, Teach sat on the trap door at the bottom of the stairs behind Eric, scraping the last of the muck off his water- darkened moccasins.
Finally, the voice said, “Okay. Three questions. If you answer them correctly, then we will open the door. If not… we will use the Old Science against you, and you will die.” Eric smiled wryly at the phrase “old science” and the doomsday tone the voice used to say it. He guessed that the people in the building, whoever they were, had held off Federal’s men with such a warning, but it sounded ridiculous to him, almost superstitious.
“Ask away,” Eric said.
The three questions were, “What did the phrase, ‘Plastic or paper?’ mean? What exactly was the Pepsi Generation? and, What was call waiting?”
After he answered, several locks clicked, then the door swung open revealing the same white-smocked, elderly woman who’d surprised them as they exited the tunnel, and a truly ancient appearing man in a wheel chair.
Nearly bald except for a fringe of wispy white hair that reached to his collar, and dark liver spots that marred the smooth skin on his head, he scrutinized Eric through a milky-gray cataract haze, but he seemed to see fine as Eric crossed the threshold. The woman stepped protectively to the old man’s side. Eric looked past them. His eyes widened. Rows of books stretched behind the man in the wheelchair, thousands and thousands of books, lit only by narrow shafts that slipped through the cracks between the boards on the windows. Grinning broadly through yellowed and broken teeth, the old man extended his hand toward Eric. “I’m Pope,” he said, “the Librarian. I thought Federal had killed all of the Gone Timers but myself.”
“Yes,” said Eric, and shook his hand absently. As far as he could see, stretching into the darkness, from floor to ceiling, were books. He walked past the old man, down the nearest row, trailing his fingers across the bindings. “Yes,” he repeated. Eric thought, I’m here at last, and the books survived. A smile ached on his face. Fatigue dropped away from his legs and back. Leda, he thought, if you could only see this. You were right, about the learning, about the persistence of knowledge. At thirty-nine, when she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d said, “The child has to be taught, Eric. Promise me that we’ll teach him to read.” Even after fifteen years together he still shivered in amazement at her love. Her dark hair framed her face, and the only signs of age were tiny crow’s-feet in her eyes’ corners, but her gaze was so intense that he’d been taken aback. “Of course,” he said. “Why wouldn’t he?”
She hadn’t smiled, didn’t break the stare. She’d said, “If something happens to me, you will have to be his teacher.”
Not enough light penetrated for him to see titles, but the backs of the books felt fine and solid. He passed his fingers across the embossed letters of a thick, leather-covered volume, then inhaled deeply and smelled the library smell, millions of pages pressed together, the weight of thought and information heavy in the air. “Oh, Leda,” he whispered. “Oh, Troy.”
Something lightly touched the back of Eric’s leg. Pope sat in his chair beside him. Eric had not heard the chair rolling. “We share our time in books, don’t we?” whispered Pope. “This has been my life work.” Eric grasped Pope’s wrist and squeezed gently. “They are beautiful.” Deeper back in the rows, more narrow streaks of sun penetrated through the boarded windows, casting thin, buttery light on other books standing neatly on dustless metal shelves.
From behind him, the woman said, “We ought to go upstairs. It’s not safe down here.” Reluctantly, Eric turned away to follow Pope, the old woman and Teach to an elevator. “How do you power it?” asked Eric.
Raising himself slightly from the chair, Pope pushed the up button and the doors slid open. “Generators on the roof and solar panels spread throughout the campus.” Eric, Teach and the woman stepped into the elevator. Pope blocked the doors with his chair. “Tell me again why you’re here.” He rested his chin on his chest as Eric told him of the troubles in Littleton, of the illnesses and stillbirths. Pope nodded his head slightly at each detail, as if in agreement.
Teach cleared his throat after a few minutes of this. “Seems like a closet’s an uncomfortable place to get to know each other.”
Pope let the door close and pressed a button. Teach’s shock as the elevator rumbled into movement tickled Eric.
On the second story, a muslin curtain covered one tall, partially open casement window that overlooked the quad in front of the library. Pope said, “We can see out, but they can’t see in.” Seven large army tents filled the back third of the grassless area, and five heavy machine gun nests built of sand bags faced the structure. Behind the tents, and on both sides between red stone buildings, the ubiquitous scrub and greasewood stood, a wall of tough vegetation that encircled the camp. The loudspeaker, still blaring its message about giving up the books, hung from a pole beside the middle gun nest. A few yards from the broad marble steps that led to where Eric guessed were the front doors a rolled barb wire fence blocked the entrance. Behind that, a ditch paralleled the long front of the building. By leaning close to the muslin, Eric saw the ditch and wire made a neat ninety-degree turn at the far corner. No soldiers were visible.
Pope said, “Federal surrounded us two weeks ago. It is pathetic, really. His men lie in that ditch, watching twenty-four hours a day. Meanwhile, my people come and go as they please through the tunnels. They think the buildings are haunted, because of us, so they are even unaware of the tunnel entrances.”
“People?” said Teach.
Pope squinted at the big man. “A library requires more manpower than you would suspect.”
“What do they want?” asked Eric. He wondered if the men who had carried out the execution the day before were in the camp now. A soldier dressed in green, pushing a wheelbarrow, appeared between the tents and headed for the library. He dumped his load between the machine guns and the ditch. Eric strained to see what the small pile was. A second soldier followed the first with a similar wheelbarrow, and after him the line continued.
“Books,” the woman whispered. “Oh, Pope. Do you think they’ve found the Chemistry library, or the Bio lab’s?”
“So much for the ghosts,” said Eric.
“The traps would not discourage them forever,” said Pope grimly. “It doesn’t matter if they did.” Despite his words, he still sagged into his chair, as if someone had severed one of his strings. More books joined the pile, a barrow load every few seconds.
The message booming over the loudspeaker clicked off. Through the open window came the thud of books piling onto books and the metallic squeal of the barrow wheels as the low stack grew and spread out.
Teach said, “Why the library? What’s he want?”
More books hit the ground. Eric looked back. The old woman gripped Pope’s shoulder; he had closed his eyes. Behind them, rows of books spanned the distance from light to dark. Shadowy glass display cases stood beside dusty tables, and Eric imagined students working quietly, heads down, pens scratching notes.
“Many things, I suppose. Federal knows knowledge is power. He fears our existence here. The books frighten him. The building itself too maybe. The campus. We foiled him in Commerce City by luck. I did not even know of him,” wheezed Pope. “I had sent an expedition to warn them about the water, and all but the stubborn moved north and into the mountains three days before Federal arrived. He conscripted the remaining young men, killed most of the others and tortured the oldest to find out where the rest had gone. An eleven-year-old girl saw it all from hiding and warned us of his approach. We had time to prepare.” He coughed dryly into the flat of his hand and wiped it with a handkerchief the old woman gave him. “Federal thinks he is the new Genghis Khan, riding with his warriors over the wastes of the world. He thinks we will oppose him, so he decided to eliminate us first. He thinks that our power comes from the books. Just the Old Science between him and a crown. The man who would be king of nothing.” Pope coughed again, then said to the woman, “Contact the staff. Events are moving faster than I planned.” She nodded and disappeared between the rows.
“Why nothing?” Eric paid attention to the men piling books. At first he thought that they were innumerable, the uniformed men coming like an infinite line of men and wheelbarrows, but he’d seen the same soldiers several times now, and he realized there must be only fifty or so of them.
