Sheila bolted down the short, steep staircase to the bridge.

“What do you mean he’s nowhere on board?” she spat, disbelieving. Throwing herself into the Captain’s chair, Sheila flung her hands out over the holographic control panel. The levers sprung to life, and Sheila flicked on the security feed. A dozen different views throughout the ship appeared on the screen in front of them, from bridge to Midroom, inside storage, and areas off-limit to passengers. There were no cameras in the privy, but anyone about to use it was checked in and out automatically by the ship’s computer, and a quick check showed he hadn’t entered. Strangely, the small metallic case still hovered in place where Finda had left it.

“I should clarify,” said Zara. “I mean I can’t see him on board. The ship says he’s here, or at least it recognizes two humans here, which would be you and our passenger.”

Sheila frantically scanned the video feeds again, finally settling on the view of the Main Cabin. The metallic case stood unmoving, but seemed to grow in Sheila’s mind’s eye. The man had asked to keep the case with him, though he was unlikely to change clothes.

She pressed a button, speeding the footage back to the start of the voyage. Then she scanned forward, watching herself guide Maxis Finda into the cabin, their brief exchange, and his laying down. She watched herself leave, and saw Maxis lift his head briefly to look at the door. Then he settled himself down again, and indeed, seemed to go to sleep.

Sheila increased the speed. He slept for some time, but after a few seconds of playback, stirred and sat up. Sheila clicked a button, and the footage switched to a normal speed.

Maxis Finda was standing next to the case. He took one look toward the cabin door, and ran his hand over the side of the metallic object. Again the case swung open, but instead of retrieving the datapad or clothes, he…

Climbed inside the case. Not on top of the hovering object. Into it, his legs disappearing like a reverse magician’s trick - a rabbit going into a hat. His feet seemingly hooked onto something, and Maxis Finda descended into the case until all that remained was one disembodied hand, which closed the lid behind it.

Sheila stared at the image, blinking. What she saw should have been impossible. The case hadn’t changed size or shape, yet it supposedly contained a whole human.

And what else? Sheila suddenly wondered, and a shiver ran up her spine.

“Well that’s an interesting trick,” Zara said, breaking the silence and bringing Sheila back to the present. Abruptly, Sheila jumped to her feet and dashed down the hall.

“Meet me in the main cabin,” she shouted over her shoulder to Zara, and pressed the pad to open the door, drawing her blaster at the same time. Stepping into the cabin, she pointed her blaster at the case. Zara materialized between the two rows of benches, still slightly translucent and wearing her kimono, but now human-sized. Sheila met her eyes and nodded, then she and the hologram carefully approached the case.

A meter away from the metallic object, Sheila stopped, and signaled Zara to do the same. “Scan it,” she instructed, and Zara raised an open hand in the direction of the case. She scrunched her face.

“There’s a lot of tech in there,” she said after a moment. “You inspected it?”

“There was a datapad,” Sheila recalled. “And the case itself is hovertech, so there’s-”

“I’m not talking about that,” Zara cut her off. “It’s something else.”

“Dangerous?”

“Hard to tell,” Zara said, still scanning. ”There’s just a lot of tech in here. More tech than should fit in a case that size. Enough to make this whole room feel crowded.”

“What?” Sheila asked, incredulous. “What do you mean? Is it a bomb?”

Zara shook her head. “Not a bomb, I mean that literally. The more I scan, the more there seems to be. And…” Zara trailed off just for a moment, then nodded and lowered her hand. “Confirmed, Maxis Finda is inside the case.”

Sheila stood, staring. Slowly, she lowered her blaster and approached the case. That couldn’t be possible. Even if it were, should that make her feel better about the situation?

Running her hand over the case, Sheila felt for a hidden latch or buckle. Then, remembering how Finda had opened the case previously, slid her finger along the same side he had. The case let out a short series of dissatisfying beeps, but otherwise, nothing changed.

“Locked,” Zara observed, and then answered Sheila’s silent question by continuing, “I can’t open it.”

Sheila scrunched her face, trying to add it all up. Somehow, a human person and a starship’s worth of tech were stuffed into that tiny hovering case. A case which was unlike any Sheila had come across before, or even heard of. And the man who owned it, the man inside it, had bought out her entire ship for transport.

Suddenly, Sheila felt much less interested in Maxis Finda’s dancing.

“Then we wait,” Sheila said after a long pause, and settled herself on the bench where Finda had stretched out. “Stop the ship. We’re not going anywhere until we find out what we’re carrying, and why.”

Zara disappeared immediately, and Sheila felt the ship brake. Zara returned a moment later, still human-sized, but now wearing a uniform to match Sheila’s. Sheila had never programmed the AI to have such a uniform, nor had she asked Zara to create one. Zara had done that herself once, to help Sheila deal with a group of rowdy customers. That was part of what Sheila enjoyed so much about her AI companion. Programmed or not, Zara was thoughtful, clever, and even affectionate at times.

If she were alive, not even necessarily human, Sheila could see them being very good friends. Zara was certainly more present than many of the real people in Sheila’s life. Through no fault of theirs, Sheila had to admit. She was the one who had chosen a life which would keep her off planet more often than not. She tried not to notice the widening gap between correspondences.

Sheila leaned back on the bench, and Zara adopted a ready stance near the case. They didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later, the top of the case separated and swung open. Immediately, Sheila stood and pointed her blaster toward the case. It was set to stun by default, but the kill trigger was one switch away. Zara extended a glowing red hand toward the case.

“Don’t shoot!” came the voice of Maxis Finda, and a disembodied hand shot out of the open case, palm open. His other hand gripped the side of the case, and a moment later, the dark-haired top of his head came to view. Maxis Finda peeked his eyes out, darting his gaze. “It’s not what it looks like,” he continued.

“It looks like you lied about what’s in your case,” Sheila replied coolly, blaster now trained between Finda’s eyes. Zara took a step closer, and her glowing hand hummed with energy.

“I didn’t lie,” Finda countered. “I just… didn’t elaborate. If I can come out and explain.” He began to lift himself out of the case, as if climbing a rung on a ladder, but Sheila moved her aim with him, and Zara stepped closer, allowing her red hand to glow brighter. Finda froze once again.

“Why don’t you start by telling us what this thing is,” Sheila began, and flicked the blaster to indicate the case. “What do you have in there?”

“Myself, mostly,” he evaded, then turned his attention to Zara. “Is this your AI?”

“I’m Zara,” she confirmed cheerily, then revved her hand again. “And you have a lot more in there than yourself.”

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Maxis chuckled, shaking his head slightly. Sheila felt her forehead scrunch.

“Something funny?” she challenged, but Maxis met her eyes effortlessly. There was something in his gaze. A knowledge of something… else. Like how a parent has a greater knowledge than their child, or a professor than their student. And the effect on her was just as powerful. Sheila felt suddenly disarmed, despite the still-trained blaster.

“Well…” Maxis began, and Sheila had the sense that he was about to answer “yes”. Then, he continued, “It might be easier if I just show you. There’s a ladder here. Climb down.”

Then, Maxis’s head disappeared beneath the rim of the case, followed by each hand. She could hear the soft scraping of boots on metal rungs, which continued for a good twenty seconds before stopping. In that time, Sheila allowed her mind to catch up with what was happening. Or try to. Was she really about to do this? Follow Finda into the case?

It could be a trap. But then, why? Sheila had no fortunes or wealthy family. She didn’t have any secret information she knew of either. Nothing of real value on the ship. Of course, there was the ship itself, but while the Twilight Princess was certainly a nice starship, it probably wasn’t worth stealing to someone who could rent the entire cabin to himself.

Sheila also had herself, which some might consider valuable enough to steal. But the ship only registered one other human on board, and Sheila knew how to defend herself. Besides, Finda hadn’t told her to leave her weapon behind - not that she would.

“Nothing down here is going to bite you!” Maxis’ voice shouted from inside the case, sounding surprisingly far away. Sheila lowered her blaster and turned toward Zara, whose hand had resumed its normal, flesh-toned glow. She nodded, and the two of them approached the case, peering over the rim.

With each step, the view became more jarring. There was indeed a metal ladder, but it seemed to be attached to something below the rim of the case, rather than the case itself. That ladder descended down what looked like a jagged rockface into a cave. Small rectangular lights behind the ladder cast a dim yellowish glow, which bounced off the rough walls a meter in either direction. At the base, quite a ways down, was another yellow rectangle, but even from here Sheila could see that it was a doorway.

“The ship can’t project me in there,” said Zara after studying the case.

“Transfer to my wrist holo,” Sheila replied without looking up. The wrist unit wasn’t powerful enough to make Zara a full hard-holo, but she could make a small projection if needed. Mostly, Sheila didn’t want to go in alone.

Zara closed her eyes, and the glowing projection fizzled out. A moment later, a small green light on Sheila’s wrist unit turned on, indicating the active AI interface.

“Transfer complete,” came Zara’s voice from the speaker. Sheila steeled herself, then holstered her blaster. Still glaring down into the case, she gently placed her hands on the rim and pushed. Despite hovering in midair, the silver case resisted as if it were bolted to the ground. She placed more weight on the rim, and still, no change.

“Well,” Sheila said, more to herself than Zara, “here we go.”

With that, Sheila pressed down on the case, swung a leg over, and hooked it on the first rung of the ladder. Awkwardly, she swung her other leg over, landing on the second, and let go a held breath. She looked down the length of the ladder, then over the rim of the case. Despite seeing the floor of the Main Cabin three feet below her outside the case, the inside seemed to descend far below it. Her stomach lurched with a sudden sense of vertigo, and Sheila straightened to avoid looking at the floor.

It’s fine, she told herself. Nothing strange here, just a regular old ladder. Shaking her head, she began to descend, looking down at the ladder, and ignoring the disappearing ship around her. One rung at a time.

“Your heart rate is elevated,” Zara offered from Sheila’s wrist.

Sheila, already aware, replied, “Shut up, Zara.”

As her head dipped below the rim, Sheila saw that the underside of the case seemed to be hovering just below a ceiling of rock. The entire shaft looked like a natural column… but that didn’t make any sense. Was it a simulation? Part of the tech Zara found? It felt real enough to the touch.

Sheila continued to descend, mentally passing through the floor of the cabin, then through the engine room, then out where the bottom of the ship would be. Her sense of vertigo increased as she thought of climbing the ladder out in open space, and had to stop to catch her breath.

“Everything okay, Captain?” came Zara’s voice from Sheila’s wrist. Sheila nodded, not able to speak, but knew Zara would understand the affirmative signal through her muscle patterns. Forcing herself to continue, Sheila shifted her focus to the rock in front of her, and the task of moving her hands and feet. After a few moments, her left foot hit solid ground, and she let out a sigh. Tension dissipated from her shoulders as she set down her right foot, and once she was certain the floor wouldn’t fall out from beneath her, she let go of the ladder.

This had better be good, she thought to herself, turning toward the doorway. Or I’m tossing this guy out of the airlock, case and all.

As she completed her turn, however, all thoughts of airlocks, or even of her own ship, flew from her mind. Through the door was not a storage room, living quarter, or even workshop - all of which could have been reasonable enough to keep in a case with some kind of unknown technology.

What she saw instead were… mountains. Dozens of cloud-topped mountains under a pale orange sky. She stumbled through the doorway into an enormous open space, a natural cavernous formation in what appeared to be the living rock of a cliff. The ground was covered in a durable textured metal, and a number of platforms large enough for starships four or five times the size of the Princess lined the edge of the space, near the open air. Actually, there was a starship on a nearby platform, an enormous, castle-like bulk cruiser with multiple viewing platforms.

Suddenly, Sheila realized what the space looked like, though it made no more sense than anything else she’d seen so far.

“It’s a hanger,” Sheila said softly, lifting her wrist unit to her mouth.

“I can’t see anything,” said Zara, programmed concern in her voice. “My readings are all over the place, and I can’t communicate with the ship.”

“That’s because you’re no longer on the ship,” verified Maxis Finda, and Sheila whipped around to see him standing against the cave wall, a few feet from the entrance she’d just walked through. There was another door next to him, and a box-shaped glass enclosure with what looked like a desk or control panel, which was built into the cave so that natural rock made up the back wall.

Now that they were properly face to face, Sheila was surprised to find Maxis looked exactly the same as when she first escorted him on board. The past few minutes had been a series of shocks following surprises, and Sheila half expected Finda himself to have sprouted a second head. Yet he stood before her, almost boringly normal. Sheila almost wanted to stomp her foot in frustration.

“What do you mean I’m not on the ship?” she demanded, and her hand instinctively flicked toward her blaster. It wouldn’t be useful to shoot Finda, she knew, but it sure would feel good.

“Look around,” he replied. “Breathe in the air. That’s not cycled, it’s fresh. Look.” Gesturing, he led Sheila toward the mouth of the cavern. She followed a few steps behind, watching the landscape open around them, more mountains appearing with every step.

A breeze Sheila hadn’t noticed before was pulling at her hair, and she stopped to breathe it in. It was cold, and smelled faintly of frost and tannin. Mountain air. The kind of air a climate computer could replicate, but never truly be.

But how?

As if in answer, Finda continued. “The case is like… one side of a door, and the other side is this place.” Sheila opened her eyes and found Maxis Finda watching her, silhouetted against the brighter sky behind them. It was a real sky, she knew. She was no longer aboard the Twilight Princess.

“The case is a door,” she said slowly, firming the idea in her mind. “But where are we?”

Maxis took a few steps toward her and stopped. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything beyond that this is a top secret location, and I have the only passage in, or out. Still, I hope you can see that nothing here is a danger to you or your ship.”

“Yes, about my ship,” interjected Sheila, motioning to the large bulk cruiser parked on the platform nearby. “Why do you need me to fly you across the galaxy when you have a ship of your own right here?”

The answer was obvious from a few angles, Sheila realized immediately. The ship was enormous. The amount of fuel required to fly it would cost a small fortune in itself, and to move all that bulk for a single passenger was wasteful to say the least. Not to mention the fact that it looked more like a museum than anything; long and flat, with intricate exterior details and large glassed-in platforms for guests.

Finda flashed that same knowing smile, and again, Sheila wanted to stomp her foot in frustration. “Just tell me,” she demanded, to counter the heat she felt rising in her cheeks.

“Well, besides the fact that it’s a little bigger than I need,” Maxis Finda began, “what you’re looking at is no ordinary starship.”

Sheila took a deep breath and let it out forcefully, then crossed her arms. She raised her eyebrows.

“Well?” she asked when Finda didn’t elaborate. “What is it, then?”

“This,” he said finally, “Is the Library of Alexandria.”