Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

She pushed her chair back, and gazed steadily at me. Somewhere in back, a clock ticked ponderously. “The book you picked up when you first came in was—” she paused, “—mislaid almost two thousand years ago.”

“The Tacitus?”

“The Histories Five Through Twelve . We also have his Annals .”

“Who are you?”

She shook her head. “A kindred spirit,” she said.

“Seriously.”

“I’m being quite serious, Mr. Wickham. What you see around you is a treasure of incomparable value that, without our efforts, would no longer exist.”

We stared at each other for a few moments. “Are you saying,” I asked, “that these are all lost masterpieces by people like Tacitus? That this ”—I pointed at Watch by Night —“is a bona fide Hemingway?”

“Yes,” she said.

We faced one another across the desktop. “There’s a Melville back there too. And a Thomas Wolfe.”

“ Yes .” Her eyes were bright with pleasure. “ All of them. ”

I took another long look around. Thousands of volumes filled the shelves, packed tight, reaching to the ceiling. Others were stacked on tables; a few were tossed almost haphazardly on chairs. Half a dozen stood between Trojan horse bookends on Coela’s desk.

“It’s not possible,” I said, finding the air suddenly close and oppressive. “How? How could it happen?”

“Quite easily,” she said. “Melville, as a case in point, became discouraged. He was a customs inspector at the time Agatha first came to our attention. I went all the way to London, specifically to allow him to examine my baggage on the way back. In 1875, that was no easy journey, I can assure you.” She waved off my objection. “Well, that’s an exaggeration, of course. I took advantage of the trip to conduct some business with Matthew Arnold and—Well: I’m name-dropping now. Forgive me. But think about having Melville go through your luggage.” Her laughter echoed through the room. “I was quite young. Too young to understand his work, really. But I’d read Moby Dick , and some of his poetry. If I’d known him then the way I do now, I don’t think I could have kept my feet.” She bit her lower lip and shook her head, and for a moment I thought she might indeed pass out.

“And he gave you the manuscript? Simply because you asked for it?”

“No. Because I knew it for what it was. And he understood why I wanted it.”

“And why do you want it? You have buried it here.”

She ignored the question.

“You never asked about the library’s name.”

“The John of—”

“—Singletary—”

“—Memorial. Okay. Who’s John of Singletary?”

“That’s his portrait, facing the main entrance.” It was a large oil of an introspective monk. His hands were buried in dark brown robes, and he was flanked by a scroll and a crucifix. “He was perhaps the most brilliant sociologist who ever lived.”

“I never heard of him.”

“That’s no surprise. His work was eventually ruled profane by his superiors, and either burned or stored away somewhere. We’ve never been sure. But we were able to obtain copies of most of it.” She was out of her seat now, standing with her back to the portrait. “What is significant is that he defined the state toward which he felt the human community should be advancing. He set the parameters and the goals for which the men and women whose works populate this library have been striving: the precise degree of balance between order and freedom; the extent of one’s obligation to external authority; the ethical and emotional relationships that should exist between human beings. And so on. Taken in all, he produced a schematic for civilized life, a set of instructions, if you will.”

“The human condition,” I said.

“How do you mean?”

“He did all this, and no one knows him.”

“ We know him, Mr. Wickham.” She paused. I found myself glancing from her to the solemn figure in the portrait. “You asked why we wanted Agatha . The answer is that it is lovely, that it is very powerful. We simply will not allow it to be lost.”

“But who will ever get to see it here? You’re talking about a novel that, as far as anyone is concerned, doesn’t exist. I have a friend in North Carolina who’d give every nickel he owns to see this book. If it’s legitimate.”

“We will make it available. In time. This library will eventually be yours.”

A wave of exhilaration washed over me. “Thank you,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That may have been misleading. I didn’t mean right now. And I didn’t mean you .”

“When?”

“When the human race fulfills the requirements of John of Singletary. When you have, in other words, achieved a true global community, all of this will be our gift to you.”

A gust of wind rattled the windows.

“That’s a considerable way off,” I said.

“We must take the long view.”

“Easy for you to say. We have a lot of problems. Some of this might be just what we need to get through.”

“This was once yours , Mr. Wickham. Your people have not always recognized value. We are providing a second chance. I’d expect you to be grateful.”

I turned away from her. “Most of this baffles me,” I said. “Who’s James McCorbin? You’ve got his Complete Works back there with Melville and the others. Who is he?”

“A master of the short story. One of your contemporaries, but I’m afraid he writes in a style and with a complexity that will go unappreciated during his lifetime.”

“You’re telling me he’s too good to get published?” I was aghast.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Wickham, you live in an exceedingly commercial era. Your editors understand that they cannot sell champagne to beer drinkers. They buy what sells.”

“And that’s also true of the others? Kemerie Baxter? Gomez? Parker?”

“I’m afraid so. It’s quite common, in fact. Baxter is an essayist of the first order. Unlike the other two, he has been published, but by a small university press, in an edition that sank quickly out of sight. Gomez has written three exquisite novels, but has since given up, despite our encouragement. Parker is a poet. If you know anything about the markets for poetry, I need say no more.”

We wandered together through the library. She pointed to lost works by Sophocles and Aeschylus, to missing epics of the Homeric cycle, to shelves full of Indian poetry and Roman drama. “On the upper level,” she said, raising her eyes to the ceiling, “are the songs and tales of artists whose native tongues had no written form. They have been translated into our own language. In most cases we were able to preserve their creators’ names.

“And now I have a surprise.” We had reached the British section. She took down a book and handed it to me. William Shakespeare. “His Zenobia ,” she said, her voice hushed. “Written at the height of his career.”

I was silent for a time. “And why was it never performed?”

“Because it’s a savage attack on Elizabeth. Even he might well have lost his head. We have a major epic by Virgil that was withheld for much the same reason. In fact, that’s why the Russian section is so large. They’ve been producing magnificent novels in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoyevski for years, but they’re far too prudent to offer them for publication.”

There were two other Shakespearean plays. “ Adam and Eve was heretical by the standards of the day,” Coela explained. “And here’s another that would have raised a few eyebrows.” She smiled.