San Luis Valley, Colorado, 1750 MST
The San Luis Valley. Described by some as a patch of sagebrush about the size of Rhode Island and surrounded on all sides by equally inhospitable mountains. Several ranches and the odd small town were the only signs of human civilization, such as it is.
But Marc hadn't come to observe humans anyway. Pulling his sleeping bag closer around his body, he huddled over his telescope and settled in for another night of searching the night skies for signs of the alien civilizations that he _knew_ were there to be found. He'd been here for over a week and a half, and so far he'd had about as much success as the patent request for the sodium tea kettle, and yesterday a cow had stepped on his primus cooker, ruining it. To place insult upon injury, it looked as if it was going to snow.
Marc shivered, and in doing so almost mistook the glob of darkness that blotted out the stars for a speck on the lens...until he noticed that it was moving. He looked up and saw the shadow moving rapidly toward Bianca Peak.
When it passed almost directly above him, a shimmering rectangle appeared in the air several miles away. The shadow veered sharply and accelerated toward it. When it reached the light, both vanished without a trace.
Marc just stood there gaping for several minutes until he remembered that he'd forgotten to get his camera from his backpack. When he finally did remember, the silence in the valley was shattered by his cursing.
Verthandic Rangers Main HQ, 1755 MST
The farcaster portal in the entrance foyer opened briefly to disgorge a shapeless gob of darkness, then closed again while Shadur materialized in dragon form in the Atrium. Taking stock of his surroundings, he saw the receptionist asleep on duty, feet on the desk and the back of his chair cranked into a horizontal position.
{Guess someone neglected to mention they were getting visitors tonight...}
*Yeah. Dan, probably. But even so, I don't think that guy is supposed to be catching Z's on duty...*
As the dragon padded over to the desk he finally discerned the identity of the drowsing receptionist. For a moment he paused in mid-stride, tail twitching in shock.
{What the sneckbuggering hell is Keeb doing at desk duty?}
*Probably doing community service for breaking something again. I wonder if it was anything valuable...*
Shad eyed the various monitors that probably had served as security screens before the Elf had wired them to pay two-by-two JavaPong, coming last to the one whose keyboard was on Keeb's lap.
{He's programmed this terminal to playback Fearsome Scottish Honkytonk.mp3 at him at 23:45. Bet you $10 his shift ends at midnight?}
*No bet. Let's wake him, shall we?* Rens's mind-tone carried the evil gleam that shone in Shad's grin...
Five seconds later, a deafening roar seemed to shake the entire mountain complex on its foundations. The Elf woke up with a strangled scream, sitting bolt upright and losing his balance. Scrabbling for purchase only served to dislodge the frying pan precariously balanced on a pyramid of empty Jolt cans, causing the entire stack to collapse and fall on the luckless Elf, adding their metallic clattering to the sudden banshee-like wail of the security alarms.
Shad stood back, waiting patiently until everything that was going to fall down had done so, then leaned over the front of the desk. "Keeb? You still alive?"
"Oh no, not Sally Struthers again..."
"You're fine." The tone made it clear that whether this was good or bad was still under debate. "Now get up and tell me where everyone else is. How come you're pulling desk duty, anyway?"
"Uh, I'm doing community service...Nexx said something about people not being very happy about those Jolt bottles exploding."
"Somehow I'm not surprised. Speaking of Nexx, where is she?"
"Umm, they all went through the gate a couple hours ago, and it blew a fuse afterward, or something...Mal's been working at it since, but they haven't gotten it back up yet."
Shadur muttered a particularly obscene-sounding Dutch curse, then sighed. "Why don't you get busy and get someone to take me to the labs while I slip into something more comfortable." Without waiting for an answer, the dragon shadowformed and flew into the restrooms just as a security detail, sent to investigate the cause of the roar and subsequent alarm, rounded the far corner. The officer in charge eyed the Elf sternly. "What in the name of perdition happened here?"
"Uh, Shad just barged in and yelled at me, I think he wants someone to take him to Mal."
"The dragon? How did he get in?"
"Dunno, didn't ask."
"By farcaster portal, how else?" A voice interrupted them from the other side of the room.
Six pairs of eyes and four gun muzzles turned towards the lavatory door, which opened.
Rens, back in human form, walked out and slung his backpack over one shoulder.
"You needn't bother with the guns...Lieutenant," Rens said, eying the OIC's shoulder marks. "I need to speak with Councillor Malaclypse immediately. Take me to him. Now."
The tone implied that its owner had had a long night and wasn't in the mood for discussion. The officer decided it was safest not to argue. "This way, sir."
VRDET HQ, main transdimensional research lab, 3 minutes later
The lab was in a state of barely controlled chaos. Whatever had gone wrong with the Gate had done an impressive job of it: technicians were running to and fro with replacement circuit boards while the smell of scorched electronics and burnt-out wiring pervaded the room. Occasionally a not-quite-dead-yet component sparked its demise. Rens scanned the room for the familiar shape of his colleague Triumvir but failed to locate him. A loud swearing erupting from inside the Gate's innards cleared up the question a second later, and Mal emerged, filthy, slightly scorched and *VERY* angry.
"Eris damn it, somebody get another replacement modulator coil! This one's busted to hell and back."
"We don't have any spares, sir."
"Then **CANNIBALIZE ONE FROM THE SECONDARY ARRAY, YOU IDIOT!** We'll construct a new one when we have time! Do I have to do everything here myself? Shad! What the hell are you doing here?" Mal exclaimed, finally aware enough of his surroundings to notice Rens, who grinned and raised a hand in greeting.
"I got Nexx's message about Katze, and I came down immediately. Could you explain what the hell is going on? Where is she? Where's Nexx, for that matter?"
"Better sit down for a minute. This'll take some time to explain."
Rens listened patiently as Mal summarized the situation.
"...and we're still trying to get the gate back up," Mal finished.
Rens raised an eyebrow. "'Makes sense.' Gusat replied."
Mal winced.[1] "Listen, I've got to get back to work if we want any hope of getting this thing back online. I'll give you a call the moment it's working. You," he said, turning to the nearest technician who didn't seem to be doing much, "please escort Captain t'Kharn to one of the V.I.P. rooms, then report back here. Oh, and Shad?" Rens paused at the door and turned to face Mal.
"If you ever do that again, you'll experience new levels of pain."
Rens only grinned.
"This way, sir." The technician turned around and walked toward the elevators, Rens only a few steps behind.
10 minutes later
"...Here you are, sir. I hope everything's to your liking."
Rens surveyed the rooms while the technician switched to the standard,
run-of-the-mill
"here's-the-bathroom-here's-the-minibar-here's-the-stereo-and-if-you-need
-anything-here's-the-intercom"
talk.
{Niiiiice. Remember to ask Katze who did the furnishing.}
*Yeah.*
"...restaurants are on the first floor, across from the foyer and directly below the museum and library..."
Rens snapped out of his reverie. "What?"
"The communal restaurants are -"
"Not that," Rens cut him off. "You said something about a library?"
"Why, yes, the Library and the Adam Weishaupt Reading Room are located on the second floor..."
"Thank you, that clears it up. Give me a call when Mal gets the Gate working again."
After the technician had left, Rens sat down in one of the leather-upholstered chairs, pondering.
*A library...*
{We've never been to this Marraketh place before. And how do you know this one's even big enough?}
*If Mal had any hand in it's construction, it'll definitely be large enough.*
{Still, how would you get there?}
*We could try to find...Him.* An image from a part of Rens' memory, shrouded by time and blurred by the unfocused eye of childhood, floated before their minds' eye. Shadur pondered it.
{... It could work.}
*Worth a try. Let's go.*
Rens grabbed his backpack again and walked out of the room, retracing his steps to the elevators.
{You were right. It *is* large enough.} Shadur's tone was hushed. It took a lot to humble a shadow dragon in awe, but this library managed it.
It was *HUGE.*
Rens walked slowly, softly and above all _quietly_ between the towering shelves, trying to clear his mind for what he had to do.
In theory, it made some sense once you accepted the basic premise...
Rens turned a left at the next crossing and walked down an aisle of religious books, each one claiming to be the only authoritative book on the subject of divinity and whom to worship for Eternal Life, but he wasn't looking at the individual books any more...
...Knowledge is power. Everyone knows this.
...Rens, now totally oblivious to his surroundings, turned right after several shelves of historical texts...
...Power is energy. Check your local dictionary for the definition.
...Rens turned right again, dimly aware that the scentless, heavily scrubbed air of the Bianca mountain complex had changed into the slightly musky air of aeons...
...Energy is matter. Einstein figured this one out.
Rens slowed his pace and opened his eyes. Gazing into the darkness with eyes that hadn't needed light to see for the past 6 years, he looked out over...
...Matter equals mass. All of these equations are widely known, but for some reason no human bothered to combine them into the obvious conclusion. Any large collection of books can distort time and space by the sheer weight of words that they contain.
The distortions link up, and form the immensity called L-Space, a space which is defined by what it contains and where it leads. It connects to all libraries, everywhere, everywhen, and it can lead you there.
If you know how to get there, that is. Compared to the geometry of L-Space, M.C. Escher drew straight lines.
Rens had once stumbled into it by accident as a child when he'd gotten a little more lost than usual in the local library. Someone had found him, and showed him the way home. Much later, after he'd joined with Shadur, he'd discovered that he could go anywhere if he'd been there before. Now, he was looking for somewhere he couldn't even describe. He'd need help for this, and he only knew one person, who could be anywhere right now.
But there was somewhere that person had to be, and a time he had to have been there...
Think too long about this sort of thing, and the next thing you know you're wearing a canvas blazer with the sleeves stapled to the back. Rens shrugged, and resumed walking, navigating the fractal pathways of L-Space back to a time and a place he dimly remembered, but never forgot...
Nijmegen, 1983
Home. Well, almost. Rens emerged from the trance-like state of consciousness he fell into when navigating through L-Space and looked around. Not a soul.
{You sure we got to the right place?}
*Place, I'm sure. I'm worried about the time - What was that?*
Rens froze, closed his eyes, and listened.
There it was again. A faint shuffling noise, like someone walking very hesitantly. With cat-like stealth, Rens crept towards the noise. Peering around a shelf, he saw...
Himself, 15 years ago.
{Awwwww. You never said you were thaaaaat cuuuute.}
Rens grimaced. Shadur's mental voice guffawed. His younger self wasn't paying much attention to anything. He was just looking around and wandering deeper into the uncharted reaches beyond the Shelves We Know, with his adult version a while behind.
Suddenly, a short, hairy shape climbed down from a shelf and dropped in front of the child, studying it.
Rens observed from the shadow realm, barely aware that he'd shifted, perplexed, as the orangutan reached a decision, took the child by the hand and guided him back to the normal world.
{No wonder you couldn't recall any specifics...Rens?}
Rens just stared. Shadur decided he'd better take matters into his own claws before the man, er, ape, went away again and reformed into the physical realm in front of it.
It - he - looked back with an air of curiosity, and then his eyes lit up in recognition and he pointed back at where the child had been.
"Oook! Oook?"
Shadur nodded. "Yeah, that was me. I never got a chance to thank you before."
"Ooook."
"You're right. A friend of mine has been kidnapped and taken to a place called Marraketh in another dimension and I'm trying to get there. I was hoping you could help me..."
"Eeeek."
"Please, this is important. I'm not letting that purple piece of puke and its cronies get away with this."
"Oook? Oooka 'ook oook ooooo...' ook?"
"The same. Fat, purple, moves around like a hippo on acid, turns brains to mush. You heard about him?"
"Eeeeek! Oooka eeek ook ook!"
"He did? Figures..." Rens' voice trailed off as the implications sank in. "So there's no way to get there now. No library." He sank to his haunches with his back against a shelf.
The Librarian looked at him in sympathy. There was a place in this world for beings who destroyed libraries with the sole intention of keeping the populace stupid, and as far as he was concerned it was in the deepest pits of Hell. On the other hand, there were rules against interfering with the nature of Time.
On the third, there are times when rules are just guidelines. He reached a decision. "Oook. Eeek ook."
Rens straightened up. "Name them."
"Oook."
Rens nodded. "You have my word."
"Oook ook, ooka eek ook."
"I will. And the third?"
"Ooook."
Rens grinned like the sun coming back from beyond a rain cloud. "You have a deal."
Chi-Lin public library, present time, about two subjective hours later
Meryt was at her desk perusing inventory reports when she felt the air in her library take on a greasy feel and her skin begin to crawl. She looked up from her work just in time to see the air begin to bulge as if it were a sheet of rubber and someone was pushing at it from the other side. She gazed, open-mouthed, as the distortion took on a distinct walking humanoid shape.
Suddenly, the fabric of reality snapped back, and a tall man with long hair and black orbs for eyes walked toward her and asked her, "Excuse me, but would you happen to know the quickest way to Marraketh? I seem to be a bit lost."
At this point it occurred to her that this was an alien. Her eyes flicked down to where his ID badge should be and found nothing. An illegal entry. Of course, she did the natural thing to do in a situation like this.
She screamed, pressed the alarm button, turned around and ran headlong out of the building. Rens walked after her at a walking pace with a befuddled expression on his face.
*What? What'd we do?*
{Beats me. Maybe there's something scary about asking for directions in this place...}
As places go, it was quite a nice one, too. It looked as if someone had fused William Gibson's work with the set from _Blade Runner,_ cleaned up the streets, and then started a block-wide panicking riot. This last bit confused Rens.
*Not that we haven't gotten this reaction before, but this has got to be a first for it in this body...*
"FREEZE!"
Rens turned around to see a squadron of uniformed men training their weapons on him. The specific design wasn't familiar, but the general idea behind their construction was fairly obvious: To make life easier for the person using it, and, preferably, short for the person on the other end. He raised his hands, and tried to smile disarmingly. "Ah, good evening, officers. I seem to have gotten lost. Would any of you happen to know the direction to Marraketh?"
The guy with the megaphone blinked, then signaled to two of his squad. They advanced cautiously toward Rens, taking care not to get in their comrades' line of fire.
{Rens...}
*I see them. Wait for it...*
Both men sprang at once, catching Rens by surprise and knocking him to the ground. One of them straddled his back, pulled a set of handcuffs from his belt and reached for an arm.
Rens' entire body jerked. In one fluid movement, his legs shot up behind his assailer, hooked his feet around his neck and yanked him off his back and onto the pavement. Pushing himself up on his hands, he kicked out at the other cop, catching him on the chin and sending him sprawling. In the third second of the fight, he was back on his feet and leapt toward the nearest point of cover.
In the fourth second, an energy beam caught him full in the chest. Lights exploded on the inside of his skull, and he passed out.
Shadur came to his senses, dimly aware of being jostled up and down. The next impression was that his hands were cuffed, and then recollection set in.
{Rens? (jab)}
*Nrrft. Wha?*
{WAKE UP, DAMMIT!}
*What? Who? Where...ohyeah.*
{Where do you think they're taking us?}
*Police station, or whatever they call it here.*
{Do we make a break for it?}
*Not yet. We'll need to get our strength back first. Besides, let 'em believe we're still incapacitated.*
Several minutes later, the ambient sound implied some kind of large hall, with a lot of busy traffic. Rens kept his eyes closed and remained still.
"What have you got here?" That voice came from very close by, less than two meters.
"Illegal entry. Caused a big riot in the MC. Scan indicates he's dual-natured, but that isn't our biggest concern."
"Enlighten me, sergeant."
There was a muffled thud as if a bag had been dropped on a table, then the sound of a zipper being opened.
"This. According to the scans, it fires solid slugs at over mach 1. And see this sight? I'd say this thing would be accurate at several kilometers."
"Sniper weapon. All right, toss him into one of the holding cells. We'll get the entire story out of him when he wakes up."
"We hit him with a pretty heavy dose. He'll probably be sleeping for a couple more hours, at least."
Rens shadowformed his lower arms, letting the handcuffs drop off and catching them in one hand. *That's our cue.*
Nobody expects a limp body slung over his shoulder to make any sudden moves. It's therefore not entirely surprising that when this one did, the man holding him lost his balance and fell backward. Rens rolled forward while gripping the handgun he'd pickpocketed from his captor in what he hoped was the correct way. He came up in a crouch and leg-swept the nearest cop. Catching her as she fell backwards, he held her up as a human shield while aiming for the guy that had shot him in the first place.
"Shad!"
Rens spun toward the voice, pointing the weapon toward the ceiling. "Nexx? So this is the right place. Good to see you, too."
"What are you doing here? I mean, how did you get here? What the heck did you do?" she asked as two more officers jumped him and pinned his arms behind his back. "What is he being held for?" She turned to the guards that were holding him. "You can release him into my care. I'll sponsor him."
"You'll have to go to the Comm of the I.E.D. to claim him. He's here illegally, caused a big riot at the MC and he's got quite a temper. Being a shape-shifter and carrying an unregistered weapon type isn't going to help his case much either. Neither will this little escapade."
"Who's the Comm at I.E.D. these days?" Nexx queried.
"Merten," the other guard answered.
"All right," she replied. "Shad, keep quiet, cooperate and I'll have you out in a little while."
There was a tension-filled moment as Rens pondered this. Finally he nodded, letting his whole body relax. "All right. See you later," he called as the officers led him none-too-gently towards the back of the building.
To be continued.
All characters are copyrighted by their respective owners.
The Librarian and L-Space first sprung forth from the wonderful mind of Terry Pratchett during his novel "Guards! Guards!" If you haven't read it or any of his works, I suggest you do so.
[1] If you don't catch the reference, you're lucky. I won't do you the disservice of exposing you to R'hatliffian "writings" to explain. Suffice to say, you'd wince too. Trust me.