Ahab

I wrote this for @calluna's Tell A Story To Me Contest #8.

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Hands resting on the harness, I pull my small two-wheeler up the grassy road. The path is barely wide enough for the cart; all the tracks I see suggest the locals carry everything on their backs. I won't find horses in the village. Some good from that: if I have to bail, any pursuers will also be on foot. I'll take it.

As I enter the well-tended hemp fields, I realize I must be close. The first houses soon come into sight: rough stone basement, clay bricks, straw roof. Just drapes in place of doors and windows. It's no wonder that they can't waste wood for furniture, still, this certifies I'm not getting rich from this stop. I had small hopes but having them dashed so early, it just blows.

People look from behind the curtains, the stares aren't exactly welcoming but neither are they hostile. They know I'm bringing trade, and they hope I'm bringing news. A few children jump over a stone fence and make a show of helping by pushing the cart. They're more walking along than putting effort, but I smile anyway. These kids are me twenty years ago, I had the same bare feet and hungry eyes.

The manufactory is right in the village center. It's a large building, by most standards, and kept in better shape than every other house I can see. Coming from inside I hear the regular, low thump of the printing press, the village's very heartbeat. I make a show of unloading my tomes from the cart--better the kids know there's nothing left to steal--then after removing the harness, I enter the office.

There's an ancient metal desk, and behind the desk a bald middle-aged man I instantly dislike. Around his neck, a necklace with more than twenty copper rings--means he's committed to memory just as many lost editions. He's the local librarian. He's the boss of this place, and the guy I'm going to do business with.

"What have we here," he says looking me over, "a woman and a hunter." I stay silent. Words are coins, and he's not getting anything from me for free. "No guns on you. Courage, or foolishness." Or being plain broke. He finally sighs and gets to the heart of the matter. "Show me."

Still silent, I start placing my merchandise on his desk. Truth is, I haven't got much. All my tomes are Post-Setback, many are missing pages. Two-thirds are hand-written, the ink fading some more with every passing month. But it's still knowledge, and I must have some he's never read.

As he turns the pages he scoffs, he smiles, he shakes his head, he scoffs some more. The pile of his discards keeps getting taller. Finally, he gives me his sales pitch. "You can address me as Master Othello. We run a flourishing trade, our editions guaranteed fifteen years. Quality hemp paper, every single page triple-checked for typos, sheep leather covers and bindings. The current yearly production is fifteen hundred copies, which will double next year." I nod, acknowledging that's quite a lot, and wonder where all that wealth is going--certainly not to the people I've seen earlier on the way.

He continues: "We sell treatises on advanced agriculture, basic medicine, chemistry and a full literacy course. But mostly we specialize in mathematics. Remember all that, for the next villages you will visit." I nod.

"I've recognized a few titles we already own. I will have them checked for errors. Also, you have a dictionary. In horrible condition, T to Z missing but we'll copy it all the same. And the atlas. Personally, I do not approve of geography; there's just no practical way to print a map, and no places worth visiting anyway. So..." He licks his lips. "Five books for one week. I'm offering you thirty-five sheets of quality hemp paper, ink, and free use of our library for the duration. Is that to your satisfaction?"

It's a dirt cheap offer and the bastard knows it. Time to spend my coin. "I can recite three more from memory," I lie. "The Man That Was Thursday... Jonathan Livingston Seagull... Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy." The third one is me dangling a nice juicy bait called Newton just for him and look, how he bites it. "Oh! Oh," he says. "Oh... Well of course it's, I mean we have to, um, write those three down. One hundred sheets, two more weeks for your trouble. I will alert our scribes. You can leave the books here, they will be cared for. Tomorrow at dawn?" I nod and take my leave.

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News from faraway places are universally appreciated--they give the illusion there's still a society, rather than a handful of tribes feeding off each other. But anywhere I go, there's always the same three topics that get me free food and lodging. The three dreams. The promises we'll get over the Setback.

That evening, at what they insist on calling an inn, the locals question me about them. What I have for them is something they have heard before, but it's not the news themselves they want; they just need the assurance that there's still progress, still hope. They need to know humankind hasn't given up.

Yes, I tell them, there's going to be a Moon Base one day--if we can get far enough from the ground, all kinds of circuitry start working again. That much is true, as is the fact that there have been many attempts at reaching orbit. I decide not to add that to my knowledge, none have been successful, and I also keep to myself that there's no breathable air on the moon.

And yes, I answer them, the Setback is not permanent. The electromagnetic pulse is decaying apace. Two more centuries at most, perhaps just one--and if we can remember the technologies, if we can keep the culture alive, if we can store all that once we were: then we will be great again, and we will have a future.

To the few that are interested, I also describe the mechanical computers. I have actually seen them, and they're real. As big as rooms, you can walk inside them, all miniature gears and switches and springs and wheels. Ten kilohertz, fifty megabytes capacity... Words meaning little and nothing, except the numbers are increasing with every bigger, improved and noisier model.

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The inn falls quiet immediately after sundown. With the forests all but gone, fuel is too precious to waste on illumination. Soon it's pitch black outside; I arranged my trip precisely so I would arrive with the new moon.

Most people in my business don't realize, how hunters are different from traveling merchants. The latter follow fixed routes and have regular customers. We, on the other hand, blaze our trails collecting bounties. The book trade, that is just a means to scrape a living on the road. Lost treasure is what we are really after.

In silence, I slip out of the window and into the open night. I trace my steps to the cart, and I open its secret compartment, pulling out the knives, the lockpicks, and the hooded lantern. The light of the stars is barely enough to guide me to Master Othello's home.

Quietly, carefully I sneak in through the window. From the direction of the main bedroom, I hear two people snoring. This could be a wasted effort, of course. So far, I've followed a very uncertain trail of whispers and hearsay. It could lead to this village or the next two. I will look around the house, and if I find nothing, well then Othello is just an honest manager that's not too good at investing his finances.

But then, right there under the carpet, I touch a metal trapdoor with an actual locking mechanism. I scratch the 'honesty' hypothesis off the list, start smiling and get to work on the lock.

Thirty minutes and a few drops of oil on the hinges later, I'm down in the secret cellar. Here it's safe to light my lantern. There's not much: a small desk, a candle--and thirteen Pre-Setback actual books.

In a daze, I start delicately turning the pages. The covers are long gone. The sheets are impossibly thin and frail, dark yellow, with smallest characters just barely readable. One of these can become a modest pension, or a large winter house, or a ticket to sail across the Atlantic.

My flight of fancy is broken by a cough. I turn to see the barrel of a gun. I follow the arm holding it until it connects to Othello's bald head. "I just don't see the hurry," he explains. "Why immediately on the first night, when I gave you three weeks. And why the rush to steal my books at all. I'll make sure they are circulated... In due time."

So he says, but he's bullshitting me. I know his type; he's the very reason hunters like me have to exist. His entire life and authority are built on being the only one that knows what's in those books. He might tell himself that one day he'll share, he might even believe it, but he'll always delay, and find excuses, and add rings to his necklace, and keep his secrets. In the end, they'll die with him.

"You're going to kill me," I say matter-of-factly.

He looks pained. "Yes. Sorry. I could close the trap door and wait, but you might damage the books. Then again, you're sort of trespassing."

"It's my job," I try.

"It's my property," he insists.

"...can you at least tell me the titles?"

"I suppose that's fair."

His eyes shift up and to the left, as he remembers. And that's the split second I needed. My throwing knife was already hidden in my hand; with a flick of the wrist, I relocate it through his neck. He sputters, late in realizing what's happened. I take a few quick steps, lift the gun from his limp hand, gently help him lie down. Another sputter, and he stills.

I count twenty-seven rings on his necklace.

But only thirteen books on the desk.

Did I recover those thirteen for humanity, or did I destroy the other fourteen forever? I suppose I did both. Sighing, I sit down. On some level, I'm already planning my escape. Leave the body in the cellar, close the lock behind me, get back to the inn, wait until sunrise, exit stage left.

But this, this simply can't wait. This is what makes it all worth it. I light the candle on the desk, put a book on my lap and start reading:

Call me Ishmael.