driftfleet | eighth labyrinth

Who: Felix Harrowgate
Broadcast: Fleet-wide
Action: The Iskaulit library
When: Today

[There's some disorienting tilting to the view from his communicator before Felix backs up into frame, affording the prospective audience both a decent view of the dark blue doublet he's obtained a few worlds ago as well as the room around him. The space is wide open and filled with a mismatched array of furniture and bookshelves that seem only partially occupied, which is really the thing of utmost import right now.

He smiles and offers the camera a sweeping wave]

Greetings, Fleet members. My name is Felix and I have a brief request for all of you. If you are not aware, this [Another wave] is the Iskaulit library. If you are new and not aware of the Iskaulit, it is a communal ship in the fleet which you can reach via shuttle. This library was previously curated by a former fleet member aboard one of the smaller ships, largely through their own finances and donations of others. Since then the collection hasn't much changed.

Now..[with that out of the way, it's time to get to business, and he folds his hands in front of him]...this is where I ask all of you for help. I realize we are all rather poor right now, but I also know many of you are finding ways to make up for it. I ask that you take a few of those chips and buy a book or two while we are still near the Starlight, as it may be the last chance we may have for a month or two. Not every place we visit will be nearly so full of ways to occupy your time, not to mention the stretches of time in between.

If you find it in your heart and better interest to contribute, you can bring any books you procure to me at the SS Starstruck, or bring them directly here. Nearly anything is appreciated. [He has some standards, but only some]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd picked up a few slim volumes. Not one of the authors is familiar to me, but the genre seems to hover somewhere around an intergalactic variety of Victorian gothic. A cheap thrill and a few fake ghosts.

[His lips twist into a half frown, like someone tasting something bitter]

Why fake ghosts?

Metaphor, I imagine. Man makes his own monsters.

A sound theory, though I don't know why the ghosts need be fake to illustrate the point.

[As far as ghosts go, it's far more literal, in his experience]

Because the illusion and the deceitful doubling is very much the point of the genre, in many cases. If the ghosts were real, that would be a whole other story entirely.

I imagine that would be true, for the most part. Real ghosts can present their own kind of mystery, but it's usually the same question.

[Like how they died.]

What kinds of stories to you prefer, if you had more of a choice?

I always loved adventures, as a little girl. The wilder the better. My school years saw a nigh-embarrassing proclivity for metaphysical poetry. A-and now? Now, I'm only learning all over again what I might like. Before the Fleet, I didn't have much time for pleasure reading.

A sentiment many of us share, I'm sure, out of those that enjoy it in the first place. Unless you're lucky enough to have your work coincide with your hobbies, that is. The two have only occasionally met for me. But for me, pleasure reading and academic reading are often one in the same.

[ her work's great if you love reading mail out of someone's trash. or dry pompous case files. in truth, she's more apt to live the story than to read it. ]

You must consider yourself quite lucky, then -- that they should often be one in the same. What's your field?

[Lucky isn't a word that tends to associate with himself, but it's funny that other people tend to spot all the ways he was when all he sees looking backwards is the misfortunes. And that, on it's own, makes him feel a bit ungrateful]

I'm not sure that I have one, strictly speaking, though my last job was teaching thaumaturgical theory to potential initiates.

[ dear lord, give her a moment to blow the dust off her schoolgirl greek. ]

-- Something to do with...miracles, is it?

[Happily, there is some overlap with Earth languages and his own]

Magic, actually, though etymologically they are similar. I'm sure to annemer - that is, people without magic - the two may appear to be one and the same.

I admit to being something of a non-believer. At least, before arriving here.

I'll forgive you the transgression. [He smiles faintly; teasing and flirtatious but with no more than a feather's weight behind either.]

I'm well aware it's not a force that exists in all worlds, and not a known one in all of the places it is.

Back home, we're more apt to run into something alien or -- or dimensional, I suppose, than we are magical.

Really? What do you mean by that, exactly?

[There's the spark of real interest in his eyes now. Dimensional could mean a lot of things, but anything that might pertain to travel between worlds relates to their situation]

-- Of late, I find myself plagued by a new scientific discovery. A sort of matter that consumes all. All it seems to know is ruination.

[There is a very deliberate pause as he absorbs that, because it says more than just something about her world. When he answers, it's just as deliberate, voice quiet and even]

Your position at the phone company is far more involved that I was aware, I see.

And old -- and convenient -- lie. One I pray you'll forgive. But back then, things were different. [ is there any easy way to say this? one that doesn't sound mad? ] I slept, one day. And lived a full 'nother year back home. Circumstances made the lie far less necessary.

[If it's madness, there are few people better equipped to comprehend it. He also understands old lies; can understand why she'd even have preferred to maintain the fiction in a place where the past was too far away to reach you. He acknowledges the answer with a tiny nod.]

If I may ask....what changed? That made you feel you no longer had the need to obfuscate, that is.

I suppose -- I felt, for myself, how absolutely little is retained from this place whenever one returns home. So to speak. Enough to dispense with the usual discretion.

We wouldn't be a threat to you, you mean. [Which isn't meant to be judgmental. Just a fact.]

You're the first I have known of to experience such a thing in the fleet. That does, at least, answer some unexplained questions.

[ -- peggy doesn't feel judged. rather, he's precisely right. threat assessment had always been at the heart of that choice. ]

I'm not certain it was quite like leaving -- as I know some do. But I was unconscious for some time, and what one might take for dreams was actually a continuation of my life. I'd doubt it's veracity except a colleague could vouch for what happened back home.

You left in the only way it truly matters. For you body to follow seems secondary. Where I was before this...it happened like that quite frequently. It also tells us it may be true that time is stagnant in relation to our time here.

[The knowledge seems important if not purely academic. What did it really change?]

It certainly seemed stagnant. Which means I have a wealth of recovery left ahead of me whenever I do go home for good.

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