50.

Things Happening Now

The deep Archive, Year 200 AGH (early month 12)

Jo had brought more paper than she could spread on the shelf. She put the thickest packet beneath the others, opened the book beside them, then moved the ink before the edges of the new leaves reached it.

“Stillwater,” the mind said when she read the headings.

“That one comes with limits.”

“They all do.”

“Yes. I'm reading them.”

The account had reached her after the occupied excursion in the eleventh month and its subsequent report and settlement. Its participants and the people responsible for the records had supplied what they permitted to be told.

“Do they say who made the Hall?”

She read the scope from the cover. The observations belonged to work on the tested strip. The lower landing had been seen from there. The report did not establish who had made the Hall.

“But they saw farther,” the mind said.

“Yes.”

“Then begin there.”

Jo kept her hand on the three thinner accounts.

“I'd like these first.”

“What are they?”

She gave the places again: Eydin, Talon's Reach, the Ice Fields. One was a family supper, one an evening two people had arranged for themselves, and one a visit in which someone had opinions about what belonged in soup. The permissions and dates had come with them.

“Before Stillwater?”

“Yes.”

It asked her to read the Eydin heading. She supplied the date, early in the eleventh month, and the short description with it. The mind asked about the other dates. The Reach evening and Ice Fields visit belonged to the tenth month.

Jo turned a clean page. There was room for the supper's heading. The mind began a word, stopped, and she waited with the nib clear of the paper.

“Small things,” it said.

“You haven't heard them.”

“I have heard the headings.”

“That is what I mean.”

It did not answer immediately. Jo put the pen down. She wanted to hear the supper too. There was something in the received account about bread which had made her stop during the checking, hungry despite having eaten.

“We are near an ending,” the mind said at last.

“Did they know?”

“Who?”

“The people having supper. Did they know they were living near the end of your knowledge?”

“No.”

She waited.

“I would still like the Hall,” it said.

“So would I.”

Jo slid the exploration packet farther back so that it lay flat and would not overhang the shelf. She put the Eydin account above the other two. The movement gave her enough space to open it without moving the ink again.

“The supper,” the mind said. “Then the evening.”

“And the Ice Fields.”

“Yes. I heard the soup.”

She made the order in the working contents, leaving Stillwater after the three. Its packet was still within reach.

Jo set the permitted Eydin leaves beside the book. She put the event's date above the place and the date of this sitting in her working margin, leaving room for the stopping point.

“Ready?” the mind asked.

She picked up the pen.

“Eydin,” she said. “Early in the eleventh month.”