she stepped inside, taking in the floor-to-ceiling shelf units arranged in parallel rows. The room was almost as large as the mess hall. The neatly placed slates of data glowed softly, illuminating the space with multi-colored light. “This is impressive.”
Her reaction warmed his chest with pride and an odd sense of pleasure. The library has been one of the biggest accomplishments of his leadership, in his opinion. Sadly, it was also the least appreciated one.
Crux immediately bee-lined for the red-glowing section with sex videos of various species. The other two errocks followed him. With his personal guards now occupied by shifting through the data slates, Vrateus followed Svetlana deeper into the room.
“Did all these come from the shipwrecks?” she asked, trailing a finger along the hard edges of the slates that were glowing green. This section contained information on farming and agriculture.
“Yes. Most I’ve collected during my time as the captain, but some have survived from the prior years.”
“They’re all in the same format,” she noted.
“I’ve converted everything to one format. It makes it easier to use.” He gestured at a crate full of tablet frames. “You can have one if you want.”
“Really?” She shot him a guarded glance.
“Sure.” He selected a frame for her, in dark brown like her eyes. “What would you like to read or watch?”
“Well...” she rubbed her upper arm. “Since I’m to stay here for the rest of my life, it would be good to learn more about this place. What information do you have on the Dark Anomaly?”
It surprised him how relatively fast she seemed to have accepted the Anomaly as her future. It was good that she had, though, as it made things so much easier for both of them.
“The latest data on the energy field of the Dark Anomaly comes from your own ship.” He moved over to the section of slates glowing in faint gray.
“Those would be the results of our research from the outside,” she said. “I’d like to learn what I don’t know yet. The actual structure where we are. How you’ve made it habitable and all the ways you keep maintaining it. As well as the information on all the species occupying this place.”
“That might be too much for one visit, but I’ll get you some to start with.” He browsed the units with the gray shelves, selecting a few slates. “Nothing here is in any of the languages spoken on Earth, of course. Some newer articles can be read in the Universal language, though. Do you read Universal?”
She nodded.
“Good,” he continued. “Many have an audio version, too, which your implant will translate for you.” He then moved on to a much larger section that housed slates glowing in various shades of yellow—from the lightest, nearly white, to the darkest orange, almost brown. “These here contain information on the species, each is color-coded with its own shade.”
He pulled out a few, making sure to include a documentary about the life of themul on Nofoi. For some reason, he wanted her to know more about his own species, even though he could hardly be considered part of Nofoi culture himself, having left the planet at a very young age.
“Thank you.” She took a slate from him, turning it in her hands and examining it closely. “I’ve heard of this format before but have never held one in my hands until now.”
“It must be considered an antique in the world out there by now?” He chuckled.
“Well, yes. It is a severely outdated technology,” she admitted, then added quickly as though afraid to have hurt his feelings. “But it works, right? That’s what matters.”
“This one contains a fictional story from Hexol, the errocks’ world.” He pointed to the slate in her hands.
She’d mentioned she’d had a different opinion of errocks before her arrival on the Dark Anomaly. The group of them here were far from their home world, and not just geographically. He had accepted the fact that errocks, like all the other species here, had become the product of their environment. All of them have shed layers of civilization under the harsh conditions of life in the Anomaly.
The film he had chosen for Svetlana was a fictional story, but it contained hints of the raw violence he had witnessed in errocks over the years. The video would be possibly hard to watch for her at times, but he wanted Svetlana to have no illusions about what kind of people she now had to spend the rest of her life with.