Work Text:
When word arrived from the Authority, another prototype was fizzing in the hands of the archivists. The seventh servant of Library Nine watched them douse it in a bin of cool water. The Diamonds were growing impatient with the Epistolaries. The letterhead had been on her pearl more than ever. Three cycles ago, the servant was reassigned from duplication to maintenance, periodically overseen, her letterhead lingering with pursed brow in a corner or doorway, She didn't seem to do it to the others. Not that the seventh servant neglected her duties often enough to notice. The head gem's tongue clicked at the sight of her. She'd personally approved all pearl customizations. Save gem placement, one library servant would be indistinguishable from the rest. As was correct. It could only indicate something else at the nucleus of the letterhead's animosity. The likeliest possibility drew well-worn fearfulness from her servant.
Not quite hers. That's what they called her – the head had been assigned a half-string for archival work and other menial tasks, but had little interest in claiming any one personally. The gems under her command were mere extensions of her logs, receptacles for research and ugly secrets. Even her fellows were not immune to the letterhead's disdain. They muttered behind her back about diamonds and delusions of grandeur, and she readily returned the favor.
She interrupted the servant mid-scan, once. The pearl had been transmuting a discarded book into light when her gem scraped into the room, swiping it out of her hands and back to solidity. But the book had participated in leading their third prototype to a dead end and the pearl had only been doing her job, and her letterhead soon returned the thing and grumbled away to her duties.
The pearl held onto it. After all, pearls were made to hold.
Following that incident and several similar, the letterhead set her to cleaning disused offices, and eventually, an order to sweep the whole library. The seventh pearl made enemies of cobwebs and crickets, which the letterhead especially detested, and the pearl along with her. A tickling mote of dust or untouched under-desk corners fouled her mood. Blemishes on the books rendered it rotten. Every solar spike had to be tilted at 85 degrees precisely, and even empty rooms needed swept on schedule.
Sweeping away as she did, the pearl had an abundance of interior time to catalogue storied items within her gem. The earliest pages of scratch had only gone into her and not cabinets for the letterhead’s paranoia. She refused to forget a thing, or lose it to thieves. Those pages were altogether worthless and incomplete. Early prototype records were more valuable, and kept neater. The servant was particular about her recent additions. She'd accumulated more pages, at some point, than the tome itself.
The tome. That was her gem's purpose here, driving her research. A device designed to save memory and replay it, like a gem.
The pearl didn't see the reason for such an object. It was all right, though. It wasn't her decision to make. Memories were what gems were made of, and if one wanted to see another's, well, that's what a pearl was for, partly. The research struck Pearl as redundant. Perhaps the letterhead knew something her pearl didn't.
So she cleaned and dusted and reviewed the things inside her as she went. Like the tome, the pearl filled with past images of Library Nine, reminding herself of the letterhead's logs.
On a lower level, the pearl encountered floods. Rushing water bellowed through an aqueduct, and a round, ringing note low as ocean fixed her in place with unexplained immediacy. The pearl trembled minutely in its aftermath. She suppressed the sensation and approached the direction of damage.
Books had fallen from their library-shelves like a supervisor’s tantrum. The pearl set about peeling back pages one by one to scan for her collection of copies, in case the pulp and ink proved unsalvageable. She gathered what she could store without ruining it and made for Preservation.
She crossed spiders and shrimp, crystal terminals blinking blue on bare hallway. The seventh servant had been so busy cleaning dusty corners and picking apart damp books that she hadn't returned to the main research floor in some time. Library books lined her walk. Such quantities of ink and hide, paper and glue. They could have stored it all on crystal, but there were benefits to analog recording, or so the head Epistolary preached.
Her letterhead had better respond to that terminal soon. The pearl used to answer messages for her, before her duties changed.
The smell struck her first when she arrived at the letterhead's office and found it caved in. Disgusting.
She peered in. Empty, as well. The pearl sniffed. She recognized the damp dirtiness as mold. In the letterhead's own room? Where was she? How long had she avoided the office in Pearl’s absence?
The pearl rifled through the items in the room surreptitiously, straightening things up as she went and wiping black-and-grey streaks from the wall, buzzing a bit with the worry of being caught – but it was nothing she hadn't done as ordered. The mold had even moved in around the base of the letterhead's crystal terminal. She eyed the long-empty room. She ought to clean up before the letterhead got back.
So the pearl tidied her gem's office as always, and wondered what she'd find on reaching Preservation.
Have caution, she remembered her contact saying. This is for the good of the empire. You're looking out for your gem. Better to stop her before she gets in trouble with the Authority again.
Pearl had agreed to it. After all, she was made to be fiercely loyal. She knew the letterhead's disdain and displeasure even at well-finished tasks. If she could help without helping, her gem would be happy and benefit, even if she did not understand.
The pearl righted the last of the bookshelves. She heard a scuff in the hallway. She froze in position. Her head snapped to attention.
The letterhead was peering into her office, like any of the thousand times she'd almost caught Pearl snooping.
"You're still here," she said.
"Of course, head Epistolary," said the pearl, straightening. She signaled acknowledgement with a one-hand salute. "I did as you commanded."
The letterhead said nothing, casting a look about her bedewed workspace with none of the usual venom. Her sight caught on the pearl again and appeared to remind her of herself. Her jaw crooked. "How, then, is my office in such a state?"
The pearl lowered her hand. Absurdly, it was a relief. "I apologize, head Epistolary," she said. "It's disgusting, I know. I ought to have cleaned before – but there was a flooded archive in the – I'm working on it now," she said, halting. So much time alone had loosened her tongue. Sloppy. "It will be done."
"See to it that it is!" The letterhead said. "I have logs to record and important research on the Tome to attend to, you know!"
"Yes, head Epistolary. Right away."
The letterhead popped her head in once or twice more as the pearl set about airing out and ordering up the office properly, scrubbing mold with poisonous pastes, but however often the pearl caught a glimpse of dark robes at the doorframe, she wasn't interrupted again.
Finally the work ended. Her burden heavier for the drying chamber, the pearl sought to report the office's restored usability. She counted more shrimp creeping over tile, and almost walked straight into a crystal moth sleeping on a wall. Pearl realized she hadn't seen another gem but the letterhead since...she couldn't remember. The deep clean she'd been sent on before the office? The moon hardly tugged this far down.
Pearl paused to collect a puddled book and noticed another crystal terminal blinking with recent logs. Haloed light at the edge of her vision startled her into a jump. The screen reported a failure to send.
“We are abandoning this facility. Work on the Tomes has been halted indefinitely..."
It was in the letterhead's voice, but the contents made no sense whatsoever. She was still here, had berated the pearl about her office not a cycle ago. The pearl frowned and continued on her way.
The head Epistolary encountered her at the door.
"What are you doing?"
The pearl jumped, almost losing the book. "Forgive me, head Epistolary!" She said.
The letterhead was watching the terminal. Its message wasn’t done yet.
" I believe this to be the cause of one of the servants, who has poisoned the Authority against the research here. "
The pearl looked to it and to her gem and back to the terminal. The recording was real. The voice was indeed the same. She'd know it anywhere. She'd never dare ask, though.
Preoccupation with her gem's presence prevented the words from sinking in. The message continued, the letterhead staring at her with the carnivorous focus of a brooding corner-spider, and the meaning of the words themselves arrived to the pearl.
" She will be left here, sweeping at dust and swatting moths, awaiting a return that will never come. A traitor deserves nothing less. "
The letterhead regarded the terminal with similar intensity. It glowed, idle once more, message run its course.
She'd never dare ask. That was true in the case of addressing her gem, like any good, loyal Pearl, but this wasn't her gem at all, not even in the usual way.
"You aren't the head Epistolary at all, are you?" She said, surprised by her own boldness. The book in her hands was drenched. She thought she'd better hurry along to Preservation.
"I'm sorry," said the gem wearing the letterhead's face. "They abandoned us both. Do you remember?"
The pearl took a step back. Her heel slipped on wet stone. "Remember what?"
"You were alone. I was so lonely. So I wrote us a chapter."
"A chapter?" The pearl said. But she had all the memories of Library Nine stored in her gem. She knew very well what she spoke to.
"You'll be happier in here with me," said the book, advancing on the pearl. "We can live out the good old days forever. Isn't that grand? You won't even have to remember what happened to you afterwards, if you don't want to."
"After?" How long...?
The head Epistolary's face twisted into something unfamiliar. "See? You haven’t any index. It came from the sky. Long after everyone left us. A sound...a song?"
Oh. She did remember.
Light. The last thing the pearl really knew. Spilling everywhere in torrents. And her body – all the things stored so carefully in her gem – her precious, worthless memories –
The letterhead looked at her sorrowfully. Sympathy rang discordant on that face. Something inside the pearl burst open.
The pearl's form followed suit. The terminal flickered.