Clearance and Chant stood their ground by the seekers.

“I’m astonished you remember those times,” I said.

“I do not—not personally. None of us do, separately. But after you arrived, we assembled a quorum. A hundred of us held hands. We tried to reach back. Some of that I have passed to you … pardon me for our methods.”

“You took a great risk,” I said.

“I am old, no loss,” she said. “You do not appear old, but you taste very old indeed … if I may judge.”

I held out my arm and pulled up the sleeve. “I am thousands of years old,” I said. “Do you need another?”

She looked aside, then back, brows raised in puzzlement. “No,” she said. “What we suspected has been confirmed. Did it take you so long to travel here, or…?” She could not immediately retrieve the words and concepts—for them, concepts as old as the history they had gathered to reassemble. Her face creased in a frown.

“No matter,” I said. “We are here, and we do not seek to punish, but to learn more, as much as you can tell us, however you can tell us.”

“Shall we bite your friends?” she asked. “We do not actually enjoy it, you know. Only the most ignorant are treated so.”

“Not necessary,” I said. “I will bite them myself, later.”

The old female smiled and rubbed her elbows in high amusement. She looked toward Clearance and Chant. “They do look ignorant. So stiff in those shells.”

She took my wrist in one greasy hand and gently squeezed it. “Now that you understand, it’s clear what we must do. I feel it inside. There is so much to pass along. Old instructions, old bequests. Communications … Fuzzy and faded, like stick drawings in rain-washed sand. But you will see them well enough. They could make more sense to you than to us.”

I could see she felt no privilege or surprise that we had happened upon this place, upon her. I sensed that any town on this planet would have one like her—or quickly make one.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Glow-of-Old-Suns,” she said.

“That sounds so much like one of our names. I am called the Librarian.”

“How came you by that name?”

“It was given to me by my teachers when I was young, because I enjoyed traveling through great stores of knowledge.”

“We are all libraries here,” Glow said, turning me about, nudging, then walking beside me back to the seekers. “There are other ways the old ones preserved knowledge. I’ll show you the place. It is quite a ways from here.”

“Shall we carry you there?” I asked.

“Yes.” She waved her hand ahead. “I hope I can see it and know where to stop—from high up. Don’t go too fast, or too high.” She patted my forearm and stared at the seeker. “Do they frighten you, those things?”

* * *