PLANET ICARUS, GREECE, MEGALOPOLIS.
Miss Dap, the proprietor of Labyrinth Books, refused Non entry into her shop. “No centaurs,” the owl scowled, her penetrating amber eyes narrowing with suspicion. “I don’t trust you on my floors. The wood is old and overloaded.” Her winghand traced over the four sealed crates of books on her book cart. “I can handle them from here,” she stated dismissively.
The equitaur tried to offer more. “Here’s Lernea’s requested list, and these two books.” Miss Dap plucked the list from his hand, perusing its contents. Her feathered hand tenderly cradled The Master Key, its time-worn cover reverently held. Her expression soon regained its frostiness. “I already have the Chaucer, centaur.” One toe of each owl foot rotated forward as she aloofly pushed her cart inside.
Non could have argued—other shopkeepers welcomed him without a fuss. Besides, he was an equitaur: possessing a centaur’s physique but with a horse’s head. In a world teeming with diverse creatures, where humans, minotaurs, unicorns, canines, and medusas were as commonplace as the town blacksmith, it felt biased that Non, of all entities, should be singled out for exclusion because of…
As the inner door opened, Non saw a ceiling height a full meter lower than his own stature. ‘Oh.’
With a resigned sigh, Non sought refuge under the cool canopy of a nearby tree just outside the shop’s entrance. Biting into a juicy pear, he savored its tang while activating his inner-eye implant. Rectangular patterns danced across his coat, a window into his fluid thoughts and emotions.
Non Sequitur eats a pear during a video chat [https://i.imgur.com/U76iUlD.png]
The time for his scheduled voice chat on the Intergalactic Computer Network had arrived.
“Arpanet, private chat, Lernea5-Nonagon.”
A striking blue-green reptilian head, adorned with vivid red eyes, materialized on his retinal screen.
“Are we in?” asked the fifth head of the Lernaean Hydra. “Encrypt by online name and turn on your perfect memory. An ability you never use,” she clucked. “Those faded memories of yours lack utility.”
“It gives me a headache. But it’s on, and we’re in,” said Non. “Miss Dap is taking a book to her office.”
”Which book? Baum or Chaucer?” Lernea Five inquired. “The non-line-of-sight imaging actually seems to be working.” On screen, the owl passed a painting of secretary birds to a tight spiral staircase.
“The Master Key,” Non answered as the owl unlocked her private study. “She doesn’t like me.”
“Miss Dap is quite the incendiary hen, but at least she liked a book. She hates everybody.”
Over the next few minutes, L5 studied the owl’s office via the hidden camera. Non crunched pears to distract himself. Pulling up the news in his other eye, he noticed, ‘A total eclipse today?’
Miss Dap Labyrinth [https://i.imgur.com/otkJLBf.png]
“Amusingly, mid-book, the protagonist gets a device that lets him see the world news,” mused the hydra. “Are you eating? I hear weird noises.”
“Sorry, yes, I found these pears at–”
“I don’t care about centaur grub prices.” Lernea cut him off abruptly but stayed silent as she watched the owl, so he turned up the feed volume.
“There it is! Audubon’s Birds of America! I knew she had it! Right next to Birds of the West Indies by James Bond! Frabjous day!” chortled the hydra.
Non winced. ‘Damn it, Lernea. I just turned my volume up.’ He covertly tried to playoff the sudden jerk by taking a healthy bite from the pear in his hand. As he attempted to relax, an apple bonked his head. He grunted and looked up at the owl peering down through the office window on the third floor. “Hey, centaur! How much are you authorized to pay me for this trade?”
“Tell her twenty. How aptly profitable for her,” whispered Lernea on his eye screen.
“Twenty, ma’am. But I could–”
“Deal! I’ll load your cart,” the owl said with finality, slamming the window shut.
“If you can get to them, memorize those books. Did I ever tell you I met him?” Lernea chimed back in as Non ate the apple thrown at him. A touch of southern drawl, barely a whisper in her tone, suggested Lernea might tell a story.
“Baum? Bond?” asked Non.
“Audubon. Mississippi, 1824.” As she told a story, especially a faraway memory, the drawl grew a little heavier. “Master told me to get a woodpecker out in the swamp. Ivory-billed. It wasn’t hard to find, rapping away like mad. Threw a rock at it. I wrapped it in my dress, but then it woke up and wanted to escape. Clawing at me, jabbing at me. I got back to the plantation, blood running down my belly and legs. Master told me to take it to the artist. Audubon heard me struggling with the bird and used a big piece of burlap to get the bird away from me.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Abdomen puncture? In 1824? And you were a slave? None of that sounds good.”
“Could have been worse. Master had cataracts, but I was a handy learner. I read books aloud to him all day. Later, Mr. Audubon asked me to lead him to the tree. He spoke of his book plans. I dared to mention my book about a hydra that loved reading. He heard my narration to Master, so he wasn’t surprised I could write. After some sketches of trees, we went back to the plantation. By then, he noticed my limp. Said he could look at my wounds, good taxidermist. At my bed, he saw the area around the bandage rags and said to leave them on. My fate was guessable at an– no amount of cleaning would help. He gave me the bread and cheese he’d taken to the tree, then… Well, he did something I’ll never forget.” Her voice sounded vulnerable; every thought followed by a pensive pause.
“Did he just leave you there?” Non inquired.
“Audubon picked up my journal and read through it,” She pursed her saurian lips. “In my rendition, Hercules helped the Lernaean Hydra to build a library. Then she helped the Nemean Lion to found a fighting academy. The Ceryneian Hind was a doe with antlers. That’s a reindeer.” Her southern drawl flowed freely now, thick, as if she always spoke with that somber accent. “He read out A Visit from St. Nicholas I’d copied from a letter to Master. He humored me as I talked about Vixen starting a delivery service. Then he added a sketch of a 5-headed hydra. Last time I laughed as a human.”
“Finding respect as an unknown storyteller is a rare gift. My condolences. Then you woke up on Planet Icarus as your hydra character?” asked Non.
“Well, not quite. As a hydra on Icarus, I began amassing books when I was just one year old. Turning eight, we received our first health warnings from Earth. Agent Wheatley brought hydra me to human me in the cabin. Memory transfers work differently for hydras, so most went to head three. The dominant head woke up, and then we went back to Icarus. Had a gryphon assistant back then. Did you know–”
"Here we go," Non muttered, inadvertently eye-rolling his screen out of view.
“–Hush, child.” She scolded Non with a click of her tongue. “As I was saying, did you know that gryphons came from protoceratops skeletons mistaken as lion-eagles? Audubon would have loved our gryphons. Anyways, health warnings. Being your employer, I’m aware that you’ve received them.”
“Health warnings? Yeah. Thanks, Lernea. I didn’t know your story.”
“Few do. Information is a precious, dangerous thing. I’ll understand if your memory transfer happens soon. If so, and you have time, have those books reshipped, please. I believe I’ve left no category exposed.” A moment of hesitation followed. “Goodbye, Non.” The screen vanished.
Cronch, cronch. Cart half-filled. He turned off the perfect memory recording, then waited for the owl to come out with more books.
“I could assist,” Non proposed.
“Don’t trust taurs in my shop,” scoffed the owl.
‘Maybe I could sneak in wearing a trench coat.’ He let out a chuckle as a screen popped up to portray the idea he’d just mused. The taur wondered if the ‘three weasels in a raincoat’ gag had ever genuinely succeeded anywhere. The taur-reverse variant wouldn’t work either. The owl, sagely, did not trust him. That stung, even if she distrusted him for the wrong reasons. ‘Here I am, planning a data heist while fretting at the lack of trust.’ Non looked over the elegant wooden frame bookshop and made a mental snapshot. He dismissed the spiral staircase, much too tight. But he could reach that window...
Equitaur in a trenchcoat [https://i.imgur.com/XimYYnx.png]
“Cart’s ready. Twenty planck. You okay, centaur?” The owl stood right in front of him.
Non pulled out a gold 20♇ piece. “Sorry, Lernea told me to try for a straight trade.”
The owl snatched the coin away. “Don’t worry! Lernea’s money, not yours. A manifest of books is in the side pocket. Come again.” In her shop and gone before Non could finish his lie. ‘Mental note: get Lernea to pay me back 20 planck.’
Non got to his hooves. As he backed his equine body between the poles and hitched himself to the cart, the book camera let him scan the owl’s desk calendar: “Book fair. Athens Overlook Rm 237.”
Non turned off the Master Key camera as he hauled the cart away. ‘Mission success, I guess.’
Outside of town, Arpanet’s access would dwindle as he traipsed further from civilization, so Non took a mental snapshot of the Kane Inquirer to read on the long Roman-paved road to Tripoli and then the shorter trip to Lerna Springs. The solar eclipse article he’d glanced at during Lernea’s story had a data add-on, so to entertain himself, he grabbed that just before Arpanet vanished.
Surprise Total Eclipse with TASC bid at the Planetmover Initiative — Tintin
MOON: A total solar eclipse with a path of totality through Athens, Florence and Milan will start at 11:58 today, as announced by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company (RSE: TASC▲37%) yesterday. This was achieved with TASC Planetshakers, one of them the angled volcano ten kilometers behind me. (Get net access to see the image)
Four weeks ago, Dr. Ogilvy informed me of unusual moon eruptions. With considerable effort, I reached our moon yesterday. Based on these new lunar observations, astronomers on planet Icarus determined that TASC has warped our moon’s orbit for at least five months, with no notifications to Galactic Core Corps (GCC). A spokesperson for Sagittario announced that GC itself wasn’t aware of the orbit change. “GCC will calculate ripple effects and act accordingly.”
After TASC CEO Bearwarden outlined planet engine technology at the Planetmover conference in Athens, he announced a change in the Moon’s orbit by .2%, enough to cause a total eclipse for the final day of the conference. “If this attempt succeeds, it can doubtless be repeated,” said Bearwarden.
On the moon, we can feel extreme vibrations every 58 seconds, with … (Read the full article?)
‘I don’t have access here!’ Non sighed, then looked at the data add-on—comforting, plottable facts.
“Okay, it’s galactic center orbital data. For the first time, our sun is the thousandth closest star to Sagittario, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Sagittario protects this solar system with an array of gravitational lenses. The lenses cause galactic core to have an apparent distance of just 30 light hours away. As far as Pioneer 10 from Voyager 1.”
“Voyager launched Monday morning on September 5, 1977. My birthday. My Earth guy saw Star Wars the second time the night before. Greedo never fired a shot. In early summer, he’d gotten the D&D Basic Set and created me as a character for the first time.”
Lernea’s account of her death and the owl’s quick quips had tilted him off kilter. The facts and figures calmed him when his emotions ran hot.
“Our black hole’s event horizon measures 1.5 light minutes across. The accretion disk measures six times that, nine light minutes across. More than the distance between the Earth and Sun.”
Non retrieved a 1300-page book titled Gravitation from his cart. One author, Kip Thorne, later won the Nobel prize and got the movie Interstellar made, which featured planets around a black hole. Absorbed in reading, the equitaur continued to haul the books towards Tripoli.