Stoneskin Read online

  Today, the Library allowed itself to be found without any twists or turns in the maze at all. Tembi ran down the gravel path to the too-small cottage with the old wooden door. Three quick taps on the doorplate, and the Library’s front door swung open.

  The single room inside the Library was small and square, with one wooden door set in each of its four walls. It reminded her of her family’s unit back home in Marumaru, but made from bare gray stone instead of painted metal. She dragged her fingertips across the rough-hewn surface of the stone, delighting in how she could feel its bumps and crannies. Her skin was thinning; she was slowly regaining her sense of touch.

  “Kiddo, that sound is like fingernails on a chalkboard.”

  The circular desk in the middle of the room was the oldest human-made thing Tembi had ever seen with her own eyes. Its wood had turned a deep, rich brown from being carefully oiled and polished once a month by the man who sat in its center. Born in the Mars colonies before bioforming had become popular, Williamson was tall, with light skin, short-cropped dirty blond hair, and blue eyes. Like most of the older Witches, he seemed almost ageless, but he did have some prominent wrinkles cutting across his forehead from a lifetime of squinting at text. As far as Tembi could tell, he was only slightly younger than the desk.

  (And only slightly older than Matindi and Matthew.)

  And he wore glasses! Actual reading glasses with silver frames!

  “Hey, Williamson,” she said, folding her arms and plunking her upper body on the desk. “What’s a chalkboard?”

  “You know digital displays and holoscreens? Like those, only made from slate.”

  Slate. She had never heard the word except as the name of another neighborhood way, way down in the Stripes, so far down that her sisters had threatened to beat her up if she ever went to explore it. But if it was in the Stripes, that meant slate was either a color or…

  “They make digital displays from rock?” she asked.

  “Not really,” he said, as he leaned over and made a note on the plass tablet beside him. “It was a treated flat surface for semi-permanent content, used to display lecture notes during class and erased once they were no longer needed.

  “But,” he said, turning the page and skimming the content with an index finger, “it is said that when Earth-normal fingernails were applied to that surface, a shrill noise was generated. Which, for the purpose of this discussion, is all that’s relevant.”

  “Okay.” She peered over the counter. “What are you reading?”

  “De Caelo et Mundo, by Aristotle.” He glanced up, saw the expression on her face, and smiled kindly. The laugh lines around his eyes deepened. “An ancient philosopher’s thoughts on how Earth’s solar system works. It was written several thousand years before humans invented flight.”

  “You’re a Witch, Williamson! Why are you reading that?”

  “I think it’s hilarious. What brings you here today, young Stoneskin?”

  Tembi tried the nickname on for size and decided she liked it. “The Deep threw some balls at Leps. She blamed it on me and assigned me three thousand words.”

  “Ah, ethics. My favorite.” Williamson said. He pressed a panel on the desk, and the wooden door to the left of his desk slid open. “Do you know what you’re looking for?”

  “I think so.” It wasn’t the first time Tembi had to write a lengthy essay about how she needed to be in control of the Deep and not the other way around. “But…”

  Williamson arched an eyebrow at her.

  Leps…” Tembi wasn’t quite sure what was bothering her. “She’s always been tough, but she wasn’t mean. Except now, she’s mean.”

  “Her first annual performance review is next week,” Williamson replied. “She’s nervous that she’ll be told she isn’t a good teacher.”

  He leaned forward and peered over the edge of the book. “It’s not always about you, kiddo,” he said, and winked.

  Tembi giggled.

  “No food, no drink, no open flames,” the librarian said, as if chanting a prayer older than time itself. “You tear the books—”

  “—you tear my hide.” Tembi finished, and stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Well, not your hide, young Stoneskin,” he said, and paused to make another note on his plass tablet. “I’d have to find another form of punishment for you. There’s a bathroom around here that’s been in dire need of cleaning for at least twenty years. The Deep has been begging me to do it, but I’m saving it for someone who doesn’t treat books the way they deserve.”

  Tembi grimaced.

  “Shout if you need me,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, and vanished into the room.

  She had no idea where this room was: there was no space for it in the tiny cottage in the center of the maze. Williamson was still in view, still sitting right there at his desk in plain sight, still no more than three meters away. As far as she knew, he was also halfway across the galaxy.

  Tembi turned away from the Librarian and began to walk around the room. She liked books. The covers had a crunchy, solid feel to them that wasn’t found in using holos or with scrolling on a tablet, and their pages had a sweet, woody smell. And, while they were extremely inconvenient and next to impossible to search, Tembi always felt like she belonged in the library when she was surrounded by books.

  She had figured out a way to beat the search problem, though. Apparently, the Deep liked to read, and it forgot nothing.

  “Deep?” she asked quietly. “Can you recommend a book to help with Leps’ assignment?”

  A book appeared on a nearby table. She picked it up and checked the spine: Ethical Challenges in Movement along the Rails: A Primer.

  She winced. The Deep usually didn’t give her the basics. “Um—”

  The book vanished. Another one appeared, with a brightly colored cartoon Witch on the cover. What is the Deep? An I’m Curious!™ Guide for Children.

  Well. She could take a hint.

  “Deep?” she asked. “Is there a book you want me to read?”

  Immediately—instantly!—stacks of books appeared around her. A cage of books. No, whole walls of books on every side, covering the table, the floor, stacked so tightly that if she moved a centimeter they would collapse and crush her—

  “Tembi!”

  “Sorry, Williamson!” she shouted. The books vanished.

  “Let’s try this again,” she muttered to herself, very quietly. “Deep? I can only read one book at a time. Is there one book I should read before I read the others?”

  A pause as the Deep stopped to consider what she was asking.

  She repeated the question, this time using different words, just in case.

  A book appeared on the table in front of her. It disappeared before she could touch it, and was replaced by a different book. The second book vanished, and was replaced by a third…

  This went on for some time. Tembi took a seat on the table and waited for the Deep to make up its mind. After a while, two books began to exchange places—a book with a blue cover was replaced by a book with a brown cover, then it was replaced by the blue, and then the blue was replaced with the brown…

  The book with the brown cover settled on the table. It was massive, with glittering gold edging its thin pages. She sighed: it was the kind of book that no one other than Williamson would ever read for pleasure.

  “This one?” she asked, holding her hands above the cover in case the Deep jumped it away again. When it didn’t move, she flipped open the cover. “A Foundational Treatise on the Use of the Deep in Conflict Conditions,” she read aloud, and flipped to the first page.

  “As the Deep is the first, and thus far only, sapient being discovered apart from humanity itself, the ethical underpinnings governing the use of this being for our own purposes has been a hotly contested topic.”

  Okay. None of that sounded too dense. She moved on to the second sentence.

  “The majority of ethical arguments made are solipsistic and
do not consider the elements of accountability and shared communal purpose we have taken upon ourselves as the fourth-dimensional stewards of this being.”

  Tembi stood and picked up the book. She knocked on the door frame and entered the Librarian’s central room. “Williamson?”

  The librarian took off his reading glasses and spun in his chair to face her. “Yes, kiddo?”

  “The Deep wants me to read this, but…”

  “Is that one of Rowland’s?” he asked, and took the book from her. “Ah, yes. The eighth volume of fifteen. Only a Witch could live long enough to regurgitate the same tiresome point in several thousand brand new ways.”

  “The author was a Witch?”

  “Oh, yes. Still is, most likely. He dusts himself off and comes to Lancaster to give lectures every decade or so.

  “By the way, Rowland is younger than Madam Matindi,” the librarian whispered conspiratorially. “But both of them are spring chickens when compared to yours truly.”

  “What’s a chicken?”

  “Gods save us,” Williamson sighed. “What do you want to know about Rowland?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “The Deep gave me this book. Is there an abridged version?”

  “Of Rowland? No, nobody would take the time to make one. As I said, he writes mainly for the satisfaction of seeing himself in print, and not for the purpose of contributing anything new to the field.

  “But,” the librarian added, as he turned the book over in his hands, “I suppose he did have one good point, several hundred years ago…” He paused as he turned the pages with gentle fingers. “Yes. He mentioned that as the Deep learns more about humanity, it might change its opinion of us. So holding on to the customs we use to interact with the Deep is about our self-preservation as much as its own.”

  Tembi blinked at him.

  “Young Stoneskin,” Williamson said, very patiently, “under what conditions is it prohibited to use the Deep?”

  “To harm someone, especially during war.”

  “Correct.” The librarian closed the book and pointed to the word “Conflict” on its spine. “Now, we assume we follow these prohibitions as the Deep has asked this of us. But tell me, young Stoneskin, in all of its time associating with us, do you think the Deep has ever made such a clear, coherent request?”

  Tembi shook her head, slowly. The idea of the Deep saying outright that it wouldn’t participate in a war…Well. That wasn’t how the Deep communicated. At best, it would throw the smell of blood into their minds until the Witches managed to guess what it wanted.

  “The biggest lie that Lancaster has told the galaxy is that while the Deep may be sentient, it relies on its Witches to make its decisions,” Williamson said. “Everyone here at Lancaster knows that the Deep does what it wants. It’s fully capable of making our lives a living hell if it wanted to. But it doesn’t. It’s got a playful streak, but it also has improved our lives immeasurably because that’s what it wants for us.

  “Can you imagine if it decides it wants something else?” Williamson’s eyes were intent on hers, as if he was trying to drill the single most important message of her life straight into her brain. “Commerce would slow to a crawl, or even stop on some remote planets. The galactic economy would have to be rewritten to compensate for the relatively slow speed of starships. And, to go back one more link in the chain, we would have to build those starships first, as almost all of current galactic trade uses ships designed to work with the Deep.

  “So we follow traditions,” he said. “Because none of our traditions have caused the Deep to abandon us, and those of us who love this galaxy-hopping lifestyle of ours are terrified to our bones of that coming to pass.”

  He handed Tembi the book. “Go,” he said. “Read. And don’t forget to ask yourself why the Deep’s decision to violate tradition and choose an eight-year-old Witch has shaken all of Lancaster.”

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  STOP

  Excerpt from “Notes from the Deep,” 4 January 3270 CE

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  Chapter Thirteen

  Bayle’s family had money. Serious, planet-purchasing sums of money. Bayle had a line of credit in her name, and she enjoyed spending it: Tembi and Steven usually came along for the ride.

  And now, so did Rabbit and Kalais.

  Even if she was one of those Witches who lived until she was a thousand years old or more, Tembi was sure she’d never be comfortable with the idea that she now had money. And she did! She did have money…or at least quite a lot of credit, borrowing against her future wages when she went to work for Lancaster. (Bayle had assured her that this was the same thing.) Indeed, Tembi’s new position as a Witch had turned into the best thing possible for her family. As Leps had predicted, Lancaster’s accountants had garnished Tembi’s future earnings and set up a weekly payment plan for her mother. Her family had moved from their too-small unit in Marumaru to an apartment—an actual apartment! With running water!—in a neighborhood in Red, and one of her sisters had managed to leverage her new address to get a job as a clerk in a boutique up in Gold.

  Tembi was convinced that it all might disappear in a heartbeat. So she let Bayle pick up the sums, and Tembi told herself it was fair because…

  …fine. It wasn’t fair—it was in no way fair! So Tembi had offered to teach Bayle things that the older girl had never gotten a chance to learn.

  Like pickpocketing.

  And while Bayle might never be good at sparring, she had the makings of an exceptional petty thief.

  “You’re making the Deep to do the lift for you,” Steven grumbled. “I just know it.”

  “Whatever you tell yourself to make you feel better,” Bayle said, stretching out her long fingers. The golden badge she had lifted from the law officer vanished as the Deep returned it to the officer’s belt.

  The five of them had been enjoying the night air outside a small café, sipping on iced drinks and sharing a whole cake between them, when Bayle had leapt up and rolled the passing law officer under the pretext of asking for directions. Rabbit and Kalais had barely even noticed that she had left to talk to the law until she showed them his badge as her prize.

  Kalais was shaking his head. “You do this for fun,” he said, utterly bemused. “You steal people blind, and then return it?”

  “The game is to not get caught,” Bayle said.

  “Why do you lift from the law?”

  “We have a points system,” Steven said. “Lifting from the law and from thieves is worth the most.”

  “Thieves?” Kalais asked.

  Tembi pointed around the street, picking out the two (other) professional pickpockets working the crowd, and explained how they were a team which cut and lifted handbags. One would distract, the other would grab, and then they’d both fade into the alleys to repeat the process on the next block.

  “This is really stupid,” Rabbit said. “Really, really stupid.” He looked at Bayle and Steven. “You should know better.” Then he looked at Tembi. “You know better, don’t you?”

  She replied by sucking the last remaining drops out of the bottom of her plass cup.

  “Witches don’t steal,” Steven said. “Everyone knows that.”

  “If you get caught—”

  Bayle held up Rabbit’s wallet.

  “Hey—” he started to say, but the wallet vanished from Bayle’s hand. He tapped his pocket, pulled out the wallet, and checked to make sure everything was inside.

  “We don’t steal,” Bayle said. “It’s just a game.”

  “It’s a game to you,” Rabbit said. The gills on his neck flared as he took a deep breath. “Not to anybody else. Not to you, if you get caught.”


  “It’s just,” Bayle said, as she smeared frosting on Rabbit’s nose, “a game.”

  He growled and yanked her onto his lap. Tembi, Steven, and Kalais were suddenly very interested in the scenery several meters in the opposite direction of the two of them.

  “Could you teach me how to be a pickpocket?” Kalais asked her, as they dropped their plates and utensils into the cleaner bins.

  Tembi opened her mouth to say yes, but the word got stuck on its way out. Teaching Bayle and Steven had been one thing—she was still not quite sure why she had done that in the first place—but teaching Kalais…

  “No,” she said. “Rabbit’s right. We gotta stop.”

  “Victimless crime!” Steven said, throwing his hands up. “And it’s only, like, two minutes of crime, at most!”

  “Then you teach him.”

  Steven grumbled about clunky fingers and missing easy grabs, and Tembi knew the discussion was over.

  Bayle and Rabbit rejoined them a few minutes later, and they set off into the city.

  “So…” Rabbit said, reaching over to ruffle Tembi’s hair. “Want to drop the kids off with the sitter and go catch that show?”

  Tembi pretended to punch him in the ribs. Rabbit looped one arm around Bayle’s waist, the other around Steven’s, and started running.

  Tembi and Kalais let the others disappear into the crowd. He took her by the hand, and they walked without speaking, watching the fireflies blip in and out of the air.

  After a while, he asked, “Is it like this where you grew up?”

  Marumaru. Hard, wind-scoured Marumaru… “No,” she said. “You?”

  “I’ve already told you about my planet. You never talk about yourself.”

  “Ask yourself how a little kid learned how to steal,” she said, as she snuggled her arms around his waist, “and you’ve got me figured out.”

  “I doubt that,” he chuckled, and pulled her off to the side of the street.