Torture? Scan the news at your own risk, Rachel thought.

She was a bit tired of the Lunar sophisticates’ habit, their narcissism of borrowed tragedy. It came from viewing from afar—or at least far enough—the perpetual disasters on overcrowded Earth. It struck her as inverted empathy: relate some tragedy from the news and express your sad-eyed care, and soon enough, other people’s suffering becomes about you. You convey with raised eyebrow or warped lips that you’re owed some measure of the deference and compassion that the victims are.

“They knew the risks going in,” she said.

The thin woman frowned. “Well, I’m sure, but—”

“And chose to take them. Too bad it failed, but honestly—how likely is it that we mammals, whose sole hibernators are bears and the like, could take decades of cold sleep?”

“Well, they’ve been working on this for—what, a century?—and I think the scientists know what they’re doing.” The woman gave Rachel a sharp look that should have stuck several centimeters out of her back.

“Seems not. They all died?”

“Uh, yes. Twenty-five. Some made it to the six-year mark, but none past eight.”

“How’d they die?”

“The connectomics scientists say their slowed metabolism just stopped. Wouldn’t restart.”

A light-haired brown man added with a smack of lips, “The report said when they opened the life chests, there was a distinct smell of porcini risotto. Armpits filled with fungus.”

A big laugh. This was enough to disband the group before Rachel got in too deep. But something in the issue tickled her mind. Did a century of trying cold-sleep mean it just wasn’t possible for complex animals, including aliens?

If so, no visitors, no crewed starships. Even if civilizations arose and persisted, they could only visit other stars robotically. Then all interstellar contacts were the province of artificial intelligences…. A glimmering of an idea. Ancient SETI messages, the Ythri—

Maybe—

“I have noted that you are disobeying,” the Prefect Stiles said at her elbow.

“Oh! You startled me.” Somehow the Prefect’s bald head loomed large out here in the open. Or maybe it just reminds me of how many dead worlds I’ve seen.

“You are spending pod time on old reconnaissance. I will have to vector a report.” Not a flicker of emotion. “Vector a report” meant blocking her from becoming a Librarian, maybe forever.

“I have an idea I’m pursuing.” Not quite a lie.

A long, slow blink, as if thinking. “I give you three days to stop.” Prefect Stiles turned and walked away with the long lope those born on the moon made into a graceful sway.

At every stage of her life she’d been reasonable, dutiful. But now a vague intuition made her bat away the advice of her friends, and the everyday world of what people said, of tips and tales, theories and tidbits that might add to the Library’s already vast stores of alien messages. The Library had evolved into a factory, producing human minds distended out of all proportion—force-fed facts, as unlucky geese are force-fed corn. The succulent foie gras of such minds was then to be dined on by the Library, digesting alien zeroes and ones into a digital aesthete’s wisdom. A Librarian’s life, like the goose’s comfort, was certainly secondary.