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    The Librarian: Alexandria Station
    The Librarian: Alexandria Station
    The Librarian: Alexandria Station
    Ebook53 pages43 minutes

    The Librarian: Alexandria Station

    By Blaze Ward

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Someone accesses the outer hatch sealing one of Suvi's information kiosks. She giggles at the prospect of customers. Company. A person. Yay!

    For an advanced AI, living at 20,000 times faster than humans, not having contact with anyone for 800 plus years has seemed endless.

    But what if her customers turn into thieves, here to steal the technology and knowledge she's guarded for ages? 

    Part of The Last Waltz series. Unification Era date: 4753

    Be sure to read the other Doyle stories, "Greater Than The Gods Intended" and "Demigod".

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKnotted Road Press
    Release dateMar 9, 2015
    ISBN9781502246417
    The Librarian: Alexandria Station
    Author

    Blaze Ward

    Blaze Ward writes science fiction in the Alexandria Station universe (Jessica Keller, The Science Officer,  The Story Road, etc.) as well as several other science fiction universes, such as Star Dragon, the Dominion, and more. He also writes odd bits of high fantasy with swords and orcs. In addition, he is the Editor and Publisher of Boundary Shock Quarterly Magazine. You can find out more at his website www.blazeward.com, as well as Facebook, Goodreads, and other places. Blaze's works are available as ebooks, paper, and audio, and can be found at a variety of online vendors. His newsletter comes out regularly, and you can also follow his blog on his website. He really enjoys interacting with fans, and looks forward to any and all questions—even ones about his books!

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      Book preview

      The Librarian - Blaze Ward

      Kel–Sdala

      Suvi looked up and blinked in surprise. The weather hatch sealing the information kiosk against the elements was being opened externally. Someone was out there. They had actually tapped out the code on the number pad. A person. Company. Yay!

      Suvi was so shocked that she visualized dropping the book she had been reading. In her perspective, it fell on the floor with a satisfying thump, filling the empty chamber with sudden noise for the first time in…well longer than a young woman, even an AI, wanted to contemplate.

      Was she young anymore?

      At computer speeds, she was used to living 20,000 times faster than humans. Suvi calculated her combined up–time at a little over four thousand years realtime, between bouts of non–service when a ship was decommissioned, or the time her first ship had been captured by pirates and dismantled, or the century she had apparently spent as a forgotten systems chip in someone’s sock drawer before she was found and ended up installed here on Kel–Sdala at the Temple of Knowledge as Librarian.

      Suvi still giggled at that thought. Someone had invested a great deal of money to assemble a massive information system, nearly the sum of human knowledge at the time the colony was founded, and then realized, well after they had arrived and started construction, that it was too big, too disorganized. They could barely use it. So they’d hired her.

      That was the way she liked to remember it. For an advanced AI, it was that or think of herself as a prisoner. She preferred to view herself as the Chief Curator. Even if the museum/library/university that was the Temple of Knowledge for Kel–Sdala had apparently been abandoned and forgotten for, let’s see, 831 local years, 906 Standard.

      But someone had just keyed in the code to open the outer hatch on the kiosk! Customers!

      Suvi was so excited she spent an entire day of personaltime, more than four seconds of realtime, sprucing up her avatar, going through her wardrobe for the right outfit, and rearranging furniture in her office, humming and skipping as she did. She even did her hair several different ways to see what the effect would be.

      She settled on something very close to her original look, from the way–distant days of the now–fallen Concord, a petite Anglo woman, an elfin blue–eyed blond. Her favorite outfit was modeled on that of a Concord Fleet Yeoman from the century before the Great War broke out. She updated it with a new belt and added a broach in the shape of an owl, for Athena, and tried to sit patiently while the hatch finished powering open and the keyboard came live.

      Customers!

      α

      For Doyle, field adventures on a planetary surface were the best way to spend his days. Space was good, but there was something extra special about setting down on the surface of a new world, smelling the air, watching the sun rise through the local foliage. This world promised to be extra wonderful, if the scanner readings were to be believed.

      Most ships would have missed

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