Back on Earth, New Zealand was a country that had a fairly good Library system. Every city of a decent size would have a well maintained Library that had a good selection of books, and a steady amount of foot traffic.

So while Kyra had been surprised when Alex mentioned that there was a Library here, it had mostly been a reaction of “Already?” that had caught her off guard, and not so much the fact that there would be one at all.

When Kyra had gone around the large green building that was the medical facilities, to see the tiny little cottage with a plain plastic sign above its door declaring it to be the Library, Kyra found herself struggling to believe that it was actually what she was looking for.

Thinking that this cottage was perhaps only meant to be a stand-in to hold the first lot of books that were sent here until better arrangements could be made, Kyra approached.

A little bell rang over the door as she entered, waking the man in military uniform that had been dozing off behind the desk to the rear of the room. It was vaguely L shaped, and seemed to take up most of the entire space of the building, except for a small corner to the right side of the desk that was walled off. Probably as an office or something.

The walls were undecorated, and were the same slate grey that could be seen on the outside of the cottage.

Four metal bookcases were lined up in a row to her right, and there was a tiny seating area to the left where four comfy looking chairs were arranged around a small circular coffee table.

The guy didn’t even bother to take his legs down from the counter as he gave her a once over, rattling off, “Books over there, you’ll need to create a membership if you want to take anything out. For which you’ll need your identity papers.” Before closing his eyes again.

As she looked around, she decided that she would need to mention the definition of the word “plenty” to Alex the next time she saw him. If there were more then 500 books on the shelves combined, Kyra vowed to herself, she would eat one of Ihaka’s nappies.

Figuring that it was safe enough to let Ihaka down since none of the books were placed below the height of Kyra’s hip, she took out his floor blanket and put it down near the seating area.

Giving Ihaka his bottle that was filled with juice from his earlier Milkfruit, Kyra placed him down with his kiwi plushy, and told him to stay there, and that she would be right over with the books.

Ihaka protested marginally, but was soon occupied with his bottle. Kyra then reassured him a bit more by playing a few rounds of peek-a-boo through the bookshelves with him, proving that she was still there.

The guy sitting at the desk opened his eyes for a moment to snort at her.

Ignoring him, Kyra finally took a look at what books there were. The first shelf closest to the seating area seemed to be dedicated to human history. There were a number of books with lofty titles including the words “World History” and a few dedicated specifically to New Zealand and Maori history. Kyra skipped to the next shelf. It consisted of manuals on Agriculture. The one after that on Horticulture. The last shelf contained scientific textbooks and a few craft manuals.

I’m not going to be needing to eat a nappy today, Kyra thought to herself as she brought her estimation on the number of books down to 200, tops.

Absentmindedly answering Ihaka’s querying call from across the room, Kyra glanced over the Horticultural books, wondering if any of this knowledge would even be relevant here. Then she remembered Blaize mention something about a Kumera topping earlier, and how Alex had mentioned farming teams. Kumera being a sweet potato that was native to New Zealand, it would either be insanely expensive to continue to bring it through the portal periodically, or, they had begun growing some of Earth’s flora here.

Shrugging, Kyra put the book that she had been looking at down, and went to intercept Ihaka whom she could hear throwing away his bottle and coming to find her. Grabbing him just as he was about to crawl off his sheet, she picked up his bottle and asked him in a surprised voice if he didn’t want it anymore. Threatening playfully to drink it herself.

Ihaka protested this vehemently, and Kyra gave it back to him after receiving his solemn apology for throwing it on the ground.

Once she had quieted him down and he was sucking peacefully on his bottle once more, Kyra resettled him firmly into the crook of her arm and approached the counter. The guy saw her coming, as he had been watching the previous exchange out of the corner of one eye.

He used one hand to pull open a filing cabinet in the desk.

“Membership?” He asked.

“Is it possible to request books?”

He blinked in surprise at her question, finally lowering his feet from the desk, “You mean order one from Earth?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Yes, though not so much a specific book. As I don’t know the titles.”

“For your kid?”

“Um, maybe. But I was mainly wondering if I could get anything on sign language.”

“Someone deaf?”

“Ahh, no. More mute.”

“Little guy seemed pretty verbose to me.”

“It’s not for Ihaka.”

“Whatever. You can fill out a request, but better ask for everything you need if you’re also planning to ask for kiddy books. You’re much more likely to be rejected if you ask multiple times, then if you ask for a ton, once.” He took out several forms from the cabinet, “There, and a Membership form. You can’t request books without being a member.”

“Thanks.” Kyra was unable to decide if he was rude or just brusque as she took the forms and went back to sit in one of the little couches.

Ihaka wouldn’t let her put him back down without an argument. So, deciding that it wasn’t worth the potential tantrum, she pulled the little table as close as it would go, and commenced the awkward operation of writing around a baby who one, found great interest in what you were doing, and two, tried to participate in any way they could.

The Membership form was pretty straight forward. Just needing her name, birth date, and address. It also asked her to present her identification and key fob as proof to the Librarian who would then sign off as witness.

He had given her four copies of the Request form, each allowing space for her to write up to three books and the reason she was requesting it.

After she wrote in the request for a book on sign language, Kyra figured that it couldn’t hurt to expand the dismal selection that she was currently faced with, and so filled out all of the remaining slots in with different storybooks that she could think of.

As she did, she wondered about the fact that he had told her that she would be much more likely to be rejected if she asked multiple times. Before, Kyra had assumed that there would be a fairly regular back and forth between the base and people on Earth. If nothing else, scientific research should have been being sent back fairly regularly.

And if that were the case then it would logically follow, that whatever supplies and things that were needed were simply being sent through at the same time. Take that a step further and one might assume it would be much easier to handle the requests if they came in smaller amounts, regularly. Not this almost, “Ask once and then forever hold your peace” kind of approach.

Should she ask for even more books, Kyra wondered.

Eventually dismissing the idea, mostly because she was getting tired of wrestling Ihaka for the pen, Kyra took the documents back up to the counter with her Passport and key fob.

The military guy checked them over and stamped them, before handing her an old fashioned Library card that looked like a little booklet with her name and Membership Number, 00006, written into the front, and space for the titles and due date of any books that she took out to be written into the inside.

“You’ll be able to find out if your books were approved by the end of this week.” The man looked as though he wanted to say something more to her as she gathered her things and prepared to leave.

However, in the end, all he said was to have a good day as she walked out the door.

Kyra was at a loss for what to do next. Somehow, the library had been more of a disappointment then if it hadn’t existed altogether. First of all, she hadn’t thought to wonder about it until she knew it did exist. Leaving her with nothing to be disappointed over.

Secondly, until she had gone through the door, she had been able to assume that the small size was just due to them having bigger projects that were far more urgent. Such as the medical facilities or coming up with regular food production.

However, from the way they didn’t seem to want to encourage regular book orders, or the fact that it was being run by a bored military officer and not anyone who might actually care for the place, Kyra was forced to wonder if the so called “Library” was only a front. A front for what she wasn’t sure. Maybe just the appearance of caring.

Ihaka was quiet as she pulled out her new map for inspiration. He was finishing his bottle and seemed content to just watch as she unfolded the fairly large piece of paper.

For all it’s size, the map was still rather simple. The different buildings were shown depicted in different colours depending on what they were for, and the large sections of land that were set aside for farming were shown with thin diagonal lines.

If Kyra had thought that the military influence couldn’t be seen from the way that the buildings had been built in the base, then that was not true of the layout. She hadn’t noticed because of the sheer size of the place, as well as the scale of each block of buildings, but all of the roads were ruler straight.

She had also felt like she had walked a good long distance since she had come through the gate earlier that day. Looking at the big picture now, she hadn’t even scratched the surface.

The entire base apparently spanned a diameter of 40km, a good large chunk of which was depicted on the map as one whole irregularly shaped white box, with nothing but the words “Military Grounds. Authorised Personnel Only.”

Kyra felt as though a bubble that she hadn’t even been aware of around herself had been popped. For all that she had known that the military held power here, she hadn’t so much as seen a patrolling officer since she had arrived. This had given the illusion that nothing was different from living in New Zealand. However, she couldn’t afford to forget that she was living in a military controlled base now. For all that it was still supposedly under the laws of New Zealand, Kyra wondered how much control the government actually had here.

Hopefully they would continue the seemingly non-heavy handed approach that they had started out with.

Most of the military zones were to the right on the map. Between the big white blotch and the Library, there was depicted a lot of military housing. Single homes, mostly.

To the left was the registration building. Which she ow knew was called the Central Support building officially. The Medical building, and beyond that was the common housing. Of witch, her building four was a part of. There seemed to be some 400 such buildings up already.

The rest of the space, mostly the upper half of the map, was covered in labels such as “Plans for…” as well as the aforementioned farmland.

Near the bottom of the map where the entrance was, were a few recreational buildings. At first glance, there was a bowling range, an archery and gun range, as well as a Rugby field that Kyra wondered how on earth —or Spirit Realm rather— she had missed it as she came in.

Deciding to go to check out the bowling range to get a feel for the atmosphere of the new community that she had become a part of, Kyra folded the map down to where the relevant section was visible, and idly chatted to Ihaka as she made her way over.