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12:02 AM
The first few days in Camallate, Galade wasn't sure he'd be happy. The capitol city is nothing like any place he'd ever been before in his life--tall, imposing buildings, the scores of people, and the rich market culture. The tight-knit freighting community with its house tattoos and coded language is secretive and undemonstrative. Everything in Camallate seems bigger and brighter and louder, and at first it was hard to imagine he'd ever feel comfortable.
And then the Voice sent him to the library.
Camallate's library is tiny and underfunded, squeezed into an old transport station a block from the Hall. Most of it's tapes for the consoles, either the entertainment kind that project holos or the kind that just spill text across a screen. But the bored librarian directed him to a side room full of real, genuine books, stacked into aging metal shelves, completely uncategorised, full of everything from manuals on animal husbandry to a text on obscure Chinese characters, and Galade is about as in love as he's ever been in his life. Best of all, though, there's the past.
His new project is mapping the history of the planet. There's enough here, both in paper and in tapes, to get a good start, and halfway through raiding the archives he found a series of recorded interviews with the first colonists to the planet. The librarian seems baffled by his fascination with the inventory, but willing enough to let him do what he wants. The Voice helps, keeping him company and giving advice.
Galade has always been grateful for the Voice, for telling him what God wants and for being his friend; he's not had many friends.
And the library has eased his passage into the city considerably. Almost every day he's there, copying and rerecording and making notes for his records. He's been diagramming battles, collecting inventories of products shipped in, keeping lists of the live births per hundred women, and the cattle farms, and as many details as he can find about the life of Vtere Liung.
It's a warm day outside, but Galade is in the side room with his things, working away steadily. He's humming an obscure hunting song Brinol taught him as a child, and tapping his brush against his shoe as he reads. The Voice is silent, but then some days it is. He's happy.
And then the Voice sent him to the library.
Camallate's library is tiny and underfunded, squeezed into an old transport station a block from the Hall. Most of it's tapes for the consoles, either the entertainment kind that project holos or the kind that just spill text across a screen. But the bored librarian directed him to a side room full of real, genuine books, stacked into aging metal shelves, completely uncategorised, full of everything from manuals on animal husbandry to a text on obscure Chinese characters, and Galade is about as in love as he's ever been in his life. Best of all, though, there's the past.
His new project is mapping the history of the planet. There's enough here, both in paper and in tapes, to get a good start, and halfway through raiding the archives he found a series of recorded interviews with the first colonists to the planet. The librarian seems baffled by his fascination with the inventory, but willing enough to let him do what he wants. The Voice helps, keeping him company and giving advice.
Galade has always been grateful for the Voice, for telling him what God wants and for being his friend; he's not had many friends.
And the library has eased his passage into the city considerably. Almost every day he's there, copying and rerecording and making notes for his records. He's been diagramming battles, collecting inventories of products shipped in, keeping lists of the live births per hundred women, and the cattle farms, and as many details as he can find about the life of Vtere Liung.
It's a warm day outside, but Galade is in the side room with his things, working away steadily. He's humming an obscure hunting song Brinol taught him as a child, and tapping his brush against his shoe as he reads. The Voice is silent, but then some days it is. He's happy.