Space Inc (anthology)

Catalog of Woe by Mindy L. Klasky

Sarah heard the chimes of the starship’s clock, and she pushed back from her desk, raising the headset that let her speak directly to the master library workcon. She stretched her back and rubbed her fingers along her hairline. Palming her ’con, she saved the most recent data that she had retrieved for the mission’s scientists: melting temperatures for various metals, expressed in visual files.

“All right, David,” she called to the wildcatter who hunched over a gamecon on the far side of the library. “It’s dinnertime.”

“Just one more round.”

“You heard the bell—shut off the ’con. You might want the dregs of what passes for food on this ship, but I’m not going to be late to the mess hall.” Jessup Universal Mining might have promised her a substantial bonus for this salvage mission, but there weren’t enough credits in the sector to make her face the mess hall after the wildcat crew had eaten its fill. Besides, she was looking forward to seeing Bernard. He had not visited her all day.

“I’ve almost got it! I simulated the alethium mine shaft, and I’m going to take out those eight-legged alien bastards!”

“David, now!” When the man refused to step back from his ’con, Sarah reached out to the control panel on her own desk. Moving with years of long practice, she flicked an icon. Her panel beeped once in warning, and she confirmed the command.

“Wait!” David cried, as his ’con went blank.

“You’ve got another three weeks before Earthfall. You can win your game by then.”

The wildcatter grumbled and pushed back his chair. He glared at her as he strode out of the library.

Sarah looked around her domain. It was definitely suffering ill effects from the space voyage. Everything had been new and shiny at the beginning of the mission—gamecons had glistened with the newest controls; bookdisks had lined the shelves in orderly rows.

Now, ’disks were missing. Holes gaped along the shelves where borrowers had failed to return items. The edges of the tables had been chipped by angry game players. Three different stains spread across the carpeted floor, baleful reminders of the library’s no-drinks policy.

Sarah had taken to locking the library door in her absence. Any serious researcher who needed information while she was gone could jack into the main computer and pull down data from the net. She must protect her library-cum-entertainment center, keep it safe from the rugged wildcatters who had traveled to Marduran to exploit the alethium mines. For that matter, it took her best librarian strategies to preserve her resources from the government officials who watched over the journey, from the Jessup scientists who calculated the wealth buried beneath Marduran’s surface, to the crew of the starship itself.

Now, with the mission’s scientific data-gathering completed, Sarah spent more and more time babysitting bored employees. The division of labor was completely unfair. Of course, she knew that the wildcatters had earned their keep on Marduran’s surface, digging trial mine shafts, working with the repulsive eight-legged natives to calculate the most efficient ways to exploit alethium. Wildcatters like David had scarcely had time to eat on the planet’s surface; they had managed only a few hours of sleep each day, between long, grueling sessions in the mines.

With their work complete, the miners had no idea what to do with themselves. Their brute strength was no longer required. They lazed about the ship like children on school holidays, trying to fill the long, changeless weeks of transport with boisterous contests and endless games.

Sarah, on the other hand, was now overwhelmed by demands on her time. In addition to stealing precious minutes with Bernard, she needed to meet the scientists’ daily reference demands. Even more importantly, she needed to catalog the resources that Jessup had acquired from the Mardurans. The valuable scrolls must be transmitted into the Universal Catalog by the time the starship returned to port. The catalog records would support Jessup’s claims of salvage and bolster the legal arguments that would be made the instant the ship docked.

The Mardurans’ scrolls would establish the original Earth colony’s attempts to mine alethium. The records would outline the unexpected demise of those settlers, presenting incontrovertible evidence that Jessup Universal Mining was pursuing a risky, noble goal in attempting to reopen the alethium mines. Jessup deserved to proceed under the financial grace of salvage laws, turning twelve times the profit on any ordinary mine.

Sarah had three weeks left—twenty-one days—to complete the catalog. As soon as she arrived Earthside, she could claim her bonus of 500,000 universal credits.

Sighing as she locked the library door behind her, Sarah tried not to think about what she could do with a half million credits. Ten years of pay, free and clear. She would retire, of course. She would catch up on the towering backlog of ’disks that she wanted to hear. She would master the electric harp that she had bought years before. She would learn to cook real meals, combining her own ingredients without the help of food formatter.

And she would spend time with Bernard. The French scientist was the best thing that had happened on this mission— better even than the promised financial bonus. Bernard Flauvier was smart and accomplished; his sense of humor was brilliantly acerbic. He had overseen the Marduran mission with grave concern, collecting and analyzing data so that he could determine the scope of Jessup’s control over the native aliens.

Sarah had first met Bernard when he came to the library asking for information on insectoid aliens, for studies that tracked innate human repulsion to such species. She had pulled the data for him, and she had been impressed by the way he had listened to the research results, by the way he had studied carefully, analyzing her findings before asking for follow-up materials.

She had made a point of delivering those reports directly to his quarters, and he had asked her in to discuss the finer points of collecting research on a starship. One thing had led to another, and…

Sarah brushed her hair behind her ears. The mission had not been easy for either of them—there was the inherent conflict between her position as a Jessup employee and his role as government investigator. If he decided that the Mardurans were fully protectable under the Protection of Alien Species Act—Class Three on the Voortman Index— the mines would be abandoned, and Jessup would lose billions of credits. Moreover, space travel was threatened by a forecasted shortage of alethium, something the Mardurans had in abundance.

A Voortman rating of Class Two, though, would permit Jessup to exploit the planet, to pay into a central fund for all Mardurans that were taken in the course of development. Jessup was pressuring Sarah to track down and deliver to Bernard any materials she could find that would convince the government to rate the Mardurans Class Two.

Any materials, she mused. If only Morton Jessup could see the lengths to which she was willing to go to serve her company. She smiled as she smoothed her tunic. Oh, she would try to convince Bernard. She would use her womanly wiles…

And then she would collect her 500,000 credits. With that sort of money, she could look forward to a lifetime of days—and nights—with the grave scientist. But only if she also whittled down the mountain of cataloging, the thousands of records that Jessup needed before the ship docked in Earth orbit. It was worth losing a little sleep now, for future rewards.

Arriving in the mess hall, Sarah collected her compartmentalized tray and waited in line for the slop that passed for dinner. Her appetite fled when she saw the gray gravy and the lumps that were clearly supposed to be meat. “What is this?” she asked the hapless cook.

“Veal marsala. Without the veal.”

“Without the marsala,” Sarah muttered. As she had at every dinner on this journey, she vowed to research some edible recipes for the galley crew. She settled for grabbing two extra rolls and a cup of tea.

Shaking her head, she made her way to the table where the government scientists habitually gathered. Bernard looked up as she approached, and he smiled, gesturing to the seat opposite his own. She sat down quietly, trying not to interrupt Joaquin Rodriguez’s impassioned words. As xenoanthropologist for the mission, the slight scientist was the strongest advocate for rating the Mardurans Class Three.

“Bernard, have you even read my reports? The Mardurans have language. They create written records. They have a complicated religious system, with hierarchic gods!”

Bernard’s shoulders lifted into a delicate Gallic shrug. “So do dogs, Joaquin. They understand that one human in the household is supreme and the others are lesser deities.”

The xenoanthropologist’s face flushed. “You joke now, but you’re ignoring the truth. The Mardurans have religion. They have tools. They have a highly evolved society. How could you even consider rating them a Two?”

Bernard set down his fork. “First,” he said, holding up one finger, “the Mardurans have only achieved a modified civilization structure, with a pack mentality rather than a true division of labor. Second, they intentionally perpetuate a subsistence level economy, where a single bad season could wipe out the entire so-called community. Third, they rely on brute strength and their eight legs for mining—they have not applied one of the basic tools of physics.”

“And fourth,” Joaquin said, “they have no idea of the wealth they’re sitting on, with all that alethium so close to the surface.”

“We need the alethium, Joaquin.” As Sarah listened, she heard the sorrow in Bernard’s voice. That open emotion was one of the things that had first attracted her to the man. He understood the difficulty of his job. He knew that the future of an entire species rode on the decisions he made.

“Cities, Bernard!” Joaquin’s voice had become shrill. “Cities and social institutions—childcare and eldercare that surpass anything we’ve ever seen on Earth! They limit their mining, to protect against long-term environmental destruction.” The xenoanthropologist set his palms on the table, as if he were about to push himself to a standing position. “My report will recommend Class Three.”

Bernard refused to escalate the argument. Instead of trying to outshout the other scientist, Bernard lowered his voice, almost whispering, “You’ll do what you have to do. We all will.”

“You’re recommending genocide if you put the Mardurans in Class Two.”

“I understand you believe that. I’ll take your report under advisement.”

Joaquin slammed his cup down on his tray and stomped from the mess hall. Bernard watched him go before turning to Sarah. “Well, that was nastier than I anticipated.”

“Have you decided, then? Are you definitely certifying them Class Two?”

“I don’t have to issue my final opinion until we dock.” He shook his head, and the light caught on the silver streaks in his hair. He managed a rueful smile, and Sarah wished that they were alone in his cabin, that she could raise her fingers to smooth away the lines beside his lips. He seemed to understand that desire as he shook his head and said, “Joaquin is right about one thing, though. There is a tremendous amount of money at stake.”

A tremendous amount—500,000 credits, Sarah thought, even though she knew that her bonus was a pittance in the overall scheme. She pitched her voice low enough that he had to lean toward her. At least, that was an intimacy they could afford in the gossip-mongering mess hall. “It’s not just money.”

“I know that.” He smiled as he looked at her, and she read the things he did not say aloud. She knew that he was thinking of the studies she had brought to him, the resources she had delivered. He was remembering the first conversation they had had—about this very topic. She had made an impassioned plea for the preservation of all higher alien species, and he had responded to her steadily, avidly, providing her with a level of intellectual debate that had fed her mission-starved mind.

And then, he had dropped by the library the next day, seeking out her thoughts on an obscure journal article. And she had closed the library door, locking it from within…

“I know that,” he said again, and for just a moment, she did not know if he was speaking about the Mardurans, or if he were affirming the memories that had brought a blush to her cheeks. “I know how much technology hangs on our getting alethium. I know that we have security issues, and technology problems. The morality is only one piece of the puzzle.” Bernard smiled and brightened his tone. “Speaking of which, how is your cataloging progressing?”

“I haven’t finished yet.” At Bernard’s surprised glance, she said, “I have another three weeks! And I’ve been a little, er, distracted.”

His quirked eyebrow made her belly clench, and she wished that she were not sitting in a company ship, surrounded by crude wildcatters and Jessup employees. His words were innocent enough: “I can’t imagine what would take you away from the joys of cataloging.”

“It is interesting work,” she protested. “Just not as interesting as some other, um, responsibilities I’ve undertaken.”

Again, his smile warmed her. His words, though, were more practical. “You’ll get the mining resources cataloged, though? Before Earthfall? I’ll be relying on them in my report.”

“They’ll be done.”

“I feel bad, asking you to neglect the other Marduran scrolls.”

“That’s all part of my job-recognizing priorities.”

“Priorities…” She heard all sorts of promises in the word. “I hope you plan to reward yourself when you’ve met all your priorities.”

“I’ll reward myself,” Sarah said, and she could not keep a smile from twisting her lips. “Don’t you worry, I’ll reward myself.”

Before Bernard could fashion a reply, the ship’s clock chimed. The scientist pushed back his chair and sighed apologetically. “I’ve got to go—meeting with the agency director by uplink.”

“Go.” She waved him toward the door. Before he could step out of hearing range, though, she called out, “Bernard!” He turned back, his expressive face molded into a question. “I’ll have those reports tonight. The ones on superheated alethium.”

He did not miss a beat. “I’ll stop by for them after my meeting. I appreciate all your hard work.”

Sarah grinned to herself as she drank her tea.

She should not have been surprised to see Joaquin waiting for her outside the library, his workcon jacked into the socket in the hall. He looked up from the display and grimaced. “Bernard doesn’t understand the importance of the decision we’re making.”

“He understands. He just has broader priorities. You know we need the alethium. Space travel will shut down within a decade if we can’t find a new supply.”

“He and I work for an agency that is supposed to protect alien species.”

Sarah heard the frustration in his voice, and she tried to make her own words soothing. “The agency has to consider all the facts before it issues a decision.”

“But some facts get considered more than others.” Joaquin’s bitterness sharpened. “You know the stories they tell about Venelia! And Portulan. Those native species weren’t anywhere near as primitive as the Class Two designations they received. The agency looked the other way.”

“Bernard isn’t like that.”

“You don’t know him, Sarah. Not like I do.”

She thought about how she might respond to that. She thought about announcing just how well she knew the French scientist, but she settled for asking, “What are you going to do about it, then?”

“Whatever I can.” Joaquin sighed. “I’ll finish my reports. I’ll stress the Mardurans’ evolved social structure. I’ll try to ignore the fact that the aliens I’m protecting have exoskeletons and multiple brains and eight multijointed legs. I’ll try not to feel like I’ve betrayed them, when the government classifies them as Class Two and specifies the bounty that Jessup will have to pay to exterminate them.”

“Jessup isn’t the bad guy here!” she protested, thinking guiltily of her bonus. “The entire universe needs the alethium. And Jessup can’t do anything without the government’s approval.”

“The same government that let the lacefish of Baranon die? The ones that declared the Aeopagii Class Three, two years after the last breeding pair choked to death on sulfuric waste?”

Sarah’s frustration constricted her chest so that her heart pounded painfully. It’s 500,000 credits, she reminded herself. With that sort of bonus, she would never need to face a journey like this again. She—and Bernard—would not need to make hard decisions for a long, long time. “We have to consider all the facts.”

“Tell that to the Mardurans.” Joaquin powered down his workcon, as if he did not trust Sarah to view the display field. He disappeared down the hall as Sarah keyed the pass-code into the library’s lock.

Mechanically, she turned on her own machine and listened to the mail that had arrived while she ate. An announcement from Jessup central, reminding her with a smooth administrator’s voice that she needed to complete her investment portfolio before Earthfall, if she wanted the tax advantages to kick in for the current fiscal year. Half a dozen junk advertisements that had made it past the mail-guard programs. What was she going to do with green-and-maroon real K’lassan hair implants out here in space? And why would she ever be interested in pictures of nubile young Earth girls with horned Zarassian aliens?

In the middle of the dross, Sarah found three actual assignments. One was overflow from Jessup’s main Earthside library—they must be understaffed again. She could track down the handful of universal patents later.

The second assignment was from on-ship, from Jessup’s highest official on board. She listened to the terse note from the Vice President for Planetary Exploration twice, at first disbelieving her ears: Pull all certified statutes from all planets in Sector 127 concerning transport of life-forms off world. My daughter’s school project is due in three days, so time is of the essence.

No “please.” No “if you have time.” No “if this does not interfere with your paid work on behalf of our mutual employer.” Sarah listened to the Vice President’s slick electronic signature and swore. She would have to do the project, but she would hold the results for a while, edge as close as she dared to the three-day deadline.

She ran her fingers over her workcon’s surface, selecting the final piece of mail. “For a panel meeting tomorrow morning, please identify the three most profitable mining ventures, sector-wide, in the past year. Include corporate profiles of the companies that completed the ventures, as well as predictions of future market worth. We’ll have Morton Jessup himself on-line—I don’t want to look like an idiot.”

Sarah swore again. They’ll have the President on-line, will they? That meant that the meeting had been planned for at least a week, likely for even longer. And they had just decided that they needed the statistics now? When was she supposed to enjoy some peace and quiet, some down time in her own quarters?

Resisting the urge to toss her ’con across the room, Sarah forced herself to take a deep breath. There was plenty of time to do the work; she could finish before Bernard was out of his meeting. She settled her fingers on the command panel and began to pull up figures, to store away visual data. She had just finished listening to recent news articles when a trio of wildcatters sauntered in.

“Great! The ’cons aren’t being used?”

Sarah looked up, distracted. Wonderful. Each of the men held a large glass. Filled with dark liquid. Sloshing onto the floor. She could smell their unwashed bodies across the room. Nevertheless, she forced her voice into a vague semblance of civility. “They’re not in use, but I can’t help you load the games right now.”

“That’s fine. We know what we’re doing.”

They certainly did. Sarah knew these three; they had spent the better part of each day since leaving Marduran lounging in the library. She had cleaned up after them for weeks.

Sighing, she waved toward the wall of gamecons and reminded herself: 500,000 credits. All of this would be worthwhile, once she was Earthside. She sank back into her research, tracking down facts and figures for the last-minute project.

“Die, you sarking spider!” The howl jerked Sarah back to the library. The wildcatters were shouting exuberantly, spilling their drinks and pounding each other on the back. With a single glance, Sarah could see that they had loaded a new module into the ’con, splicing in code to make the game’s generic aliens dead ringers for the Mardurans. Now, an eight-legged creature was splattered across the three-dimensional game space, its body dripping viscous blood. Sarah’s belly turned as she watched the miner’s game avatar tuck an old-fashioned gun into a shoulder holster.

She wanted to yell at the wildcatters. She wanted to tell them that they were crude and revolting. She wanted to scream that it was no wonder they went from planet to planet, spending no more than a week Earthside with their supposed friends and loved ones.

She swallowed her words, though. The miners were Jessup’s lifeblood. They kept the company profitable. They paid her salary. Would pay her bonus.

Her ’con chimed, and she glanced at the display space. A red icon flashed repeatedly, and she reached toward it without thinking. “You have twenty days to complete Task Priority One—Cataloging. Twenty days to complete Task Priority One. Twenty days—”

Sarah slammed off the reminder. Of course, she had twenty days. She had programmed the reminder herself. Bernard had understood the demands on her time. He had sympathized with her when she explained how much she had to accomplish before the ship returned to Earth. He had helped her to work out the strategy, setting priorities, keeping her sane as Jessup’s demands grew more and more insistent…

Sarah tuned out the trio of gamers and forced herself to pay attention to the assignment in front of her. Finding the last of the news articles for the morning meeting proved simple enough. Predicting the future, though, was a little more challenging. She knew some useful resources, but none was directly on point. Nevertheless, she tracked down a handful of citations and loaded them into a compact audio file. She reviewed the results and organized them differently, knowing that her shipside companions would not have time to study her findings in detail before their conference.

She sent the file with a deft flick of her wrist. Another project completed. Another patron served.

Swallowing a yawn, Sarah started to power down her workcon. She would go back to her quarters, wait for Bernard there. They could talk about the day’s work, discuss the Marduran classification dilemma, before they moved on to other more entertaining diversions.

Catching her breath against the distracting thought, Sarah wondered if Bernard ever betrayed a flash of inappropriate emotion to his scientific colleagues. He certainly had been cool enough at dinner. Smooth. Unflustered. Even in the face of Joaquin’s impassioned arguments.

Sarah knew that—all flirtatious games aside—she could not have remained that impassive if she were still undecided about the Mardurans’ fate. She would have tested the xenoanthropologist, fought against her own instincts, struggled, battled, measured out possible conclusions.

Had Bernard already made up his mind?

Without thinking, Sarah flicked her fingers over her console. She managed databases all day long; it was child’s play to make her way through the mail system to Bernard’s files.

What was she doing? She had no right to go into his messages! What would Bernard think if he ever found out that she was spying on him?

Her fingers hovered over the icons. The more she thought, the more she realized that Bernard had seemed unusually self-possessed at dinner. He had made up his mind. He had decided how he would rate the Mardurans.

She could just skim through his files. After all, Bernard would probably tell her, if she asked him directly. She didn’t need to sneak around. He would share his conclusions with her openly. And it wasn’t like she was going to tell anyone else. She would just know for herself.

She would try to open his mail—if she could guess his password in three tries, she would read what was there. Read, but never comment.

Sarah pulled her headset closer to her mouth and whispered her first guess—the name of a childhood dog he had mentioned a week before. As a librarian who constantly railed against violations of system security, Sarah knew that a shocking seventeen percent of ’con users set their passwords to pets’ names.

The display shimmered, and the mail program adjusted to indicate a string of incoming mail messages. Bernard was in the seventeen percent. Sarah smiled grimly, almost regretting her decision. She was in the system now, though. She might as well see this through.

Six unopened files, all directed to the government regulator. The K’lassan hair implants. The nubile young girls. An electronic paystub.

Breathing quickly, Sarah turned her attention to the last three messages. Minutes from an agency meeting held Earthside that afternoon. An agenda for the current meeting—perhaps open on Bernard’s own ’con, even as Sarah eavesdropped. She felt a twinge of guilt.

A message from Morton Jessup himself. Sarah triggered the icon to listen to this last communication, curious about what her employer’s president might have to say to the scientist who could determine his company’s fate.

The file would not open.

Sarah repeated the sequence, certain that she had brushed the panel too lightly in her rush, but it remained locked. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and adjusted her headset. What secret message would Morton Jessup have sent to Bernard? What would he have secured beyond Sarah’s ability to detect?

Biting at the inside of her cheek, Sarah backed out of the mail program. After glancing at the gaming wildcatters, she hunched closer to her terminal and entered the system again. This time, though, she used her credentials as the records manager for the starship.

As records manager, no file was locked to her. She was responsible for retaining all the ship’s files, even seemingly inconsequential mail.

It took her only a few heartbeats to find her way back to Bernard’s message stream. Her palm hovered above the icon that would whisper Morton Jessup’s words to her. Did she want to know what he had said? Did she want to collect that much information? Did she want to be responsible for the knowledge?

She was a librarian. Knowledge was her stock in trade.

Sarah touched the icon.

Jessup’s oily voice whispered through her headset. “One million transferred. Two million to follow, if Class Two sticks.” No closing. No electronic signature. None was necessary.

Sarah listened to the words again. A third time.

The Mardurans had no chance. Bernard had been purchased. Joaquin’s work was meaningless; all his protests would amount to nothing. The agency would declare the Mardurans expendable Class Two aliens.

The wildcatters cheered across the room. Sarah looked up in time to see the gaming avatar pull up his trousers. A quivering spider-shape was curled about itself, all eight legs wrapped tight, as if it tried to seal itself from a wound.

The men congratulated their colleague, pounding him on the back, bellowing approval. Sarah’s belly turned as the third player took his place at the gamecon. What horror would he devise? How would he torture the virtual Mardurans?

Class Two—the status for companion animals. Preferred for continued existence, but expendable. Able to be forfeited in the face of proven need. Able to be bought with cold, electronic credits.

Sarah closed out of the communications package, making sure that she had left no trace of listening to Bernard’s files. The wildcatters hooted to each other, like excited animals in a cage. She ignored the sound.

Bernard had been bribed. Three million credits, all told. Six times the bonus that Sarah would earn—that Sarah would earn through hard work. Bernard was doing nothing for that money, nothing but stepping aside.

No, Sarah realized. That was not entirely true. He was doing something. He was creating a pretense of unbiased judgment. He was ordering up journal articles, scientific studies. He was making a show of reviewing options. He was pretending to consider all angles.

All of a sudden, Sarah thought about the times Bernard had requested materials. He had asked in front of other scientists. In front of Jessup staff. In front of wildcatters. He had made a show of coming to the library, of returning research in the mess hall. He had made it clear to anyone who was paying attention that he was studying the Mardurans in painstaking detail.

Sarah had thought that Bernard emphasized the materials so that no one would call into question their relationship. He had brandished files so that no one would accuse him of spending inappropriate time with the ship’s librarian. And all the time, he had been fending off other accusations. All the time, he had been shielding himself, hiding his three-million-credit bribe.

All the time, he had been lying.

Fingers shaking, she called up the catalog that he had pushed her to create, that he intended to rely on for his own work. With a pass of her palm, she found her first record. Alethium Mining on Marduran. She heard the mechanics recorded there, the alien knowledge preserved for Jessup to exploit. Bernard had urged her to enter every one of the mining records first; he had encouraged her to set aside the social science scrolls for later. He had been working for his three million even then.

For just an instant, she thought about erasing the entry. Jessup would discover a deleted record, though. The company would withhold her 500,000 credits, keep her enslaved for future missions. For future lies. It might even accuse her of sabotage.

Sabotage. The ancient act of shoving sabots—wooden shoes—into machinery, to spare workers from the evils of the Earthside Industrial Revolution. Where had Sarah learned that? What source had taught her? How had she gained the knowledge?

She shook her head. She, too, could bring technology to a halt. She could insert things where they did not belong, bring the so-called wheels of progress to a stop. She could cripple Jessup Universal Mining as certainly as French peasants had destroyed their massive threshing machines.

On one side of her workcon, Sarah pulled up a digital representation of one of the ornate Marduran scrolls. Eldercare—Its Goals and Its Rewards. One of the crucial Marduran works. One of the volumes that showed civilization, that proved the species was worthy of a Class Three designation.

On the other side of the ’con, Sarah opened her catalog. She summoned a blank form, completing the rote task as she had hundreds of times before, as she would hundreds of times more, before Earthfall in three short weeks.

Her fingers flew as she primed the icons. She mouthed the catalog entry rapidly, enunciating the title, the Marduran author, the subject matter. She took the time to add half a dozen alternative subject headings, selecting ones that would attract attention from the broadest community of scientists, from segments beyond mining and manufacturing. Society and social structure. Daily life on other planets. Ethics. Voortman Index. Marduran society.

The image of the alien scroll shimmered in front of her, shifting as if her eyes were blurred by tears. Her fingers hovered over her ’con.

One touch, and she could upload the entry. One touch, and she could tell every librarian in the universe about the Mardurans’ highly evolved social structure. One transmission, and she could open the doors for Class Three status.

One heartbeat, and she could lose 500,000 credits, her job, her future. Bernard.

The wildcatters exploded into boisterous applause, shouting out praise to their embattled warrior colleague. Sarah heard them swear; she smelled the drinks they poured out on the floor. She recoiled at the foul words they shouted.

Without glancing at the miners’ game, Sarah touched the icon and sent her catalog entry to the stars.

When Mindy L. Klasky was learning how to read, her parents encouraged her, saying that she could travel anywhere with a book in her hands. Mindy never forgot that advice. While growing up, Mindy’s travels took her from Los Angeles to Dallas to Atlanta to Minneapolis. She now lives in a suburb of Washington, D.C. Mindy’s academic travels ranged from computer science to English to law to library science. Professionally, she has moved from practicing trademark and copyright law at a major law firm to managing the reference department in a large law firm library. When Mindy is not reading, writing, or working as a librarian, she fills her time with swimming, baking, and quilting. She is an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, many legal bar organizations, and a number of library societies. Her two cats, Dante and Christina, make sure that she does not waste too much time sleeping.