At last the screen flickered into life, and only three of the assembled diners were required to give up a little of their free time to attend the ships needs.
Glyn then told Mia about the books, and his intention to visit the book room just in case it might hold some data which could be useful in counteracting his nightmares.
‘I’ve never been in there, what’s it like?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, I’ve only heard about it. They say it’s full of old books from the days of Earth, but only a token amount, as all the data we need is held by Teacher.’ he replied.
‘But Teacher doesn’t work any more.’
‘I know, that’s why I’m going to the book room. No one else is able to help, so that’s my only chance of finding out why I’m getting these nightmares.’ He sometimes wondered if his wife was as bright as she was made out to be, but she made up for any lack of awareness by her loving care and attention to little details which made his life all the more sweet for her being there.
‘I’ll go along to the sunning room for a spell. Will you join me there later, dear?’ she asked, smiling sweetly. ‘You are looking a little pale.’ she added as an afterthought.
‘Yes, but I don’t know when exactly. It may take a little time to find what I need from the book room, but I’ll be along as soon as possible.’ Glyn replied, knowing full well that he might have to miss the sunning this week if he was to find what he wanted.
The book room was not visited very often, in fact Glyn couldn’t recall anyone he knew having been in there.
The main reason for this apparent lack of interest in the books was due to the fact that the room had an inert atmosphere to protect the books from the normal ravages of decay, which oxygen and moisture in normal air would produce.
This meant wearing a suit complete with air supply if one wanted to study the works of the ancients, and not many were prepared to put up with the extra hassle of so doing.
Teacher had broken down some three generations ago, but as the youngsters were taught all that the adults knew, including reading and writing, there was little need for the book room. It was just a museum, a small token of that which was, a reminder of how things were done in a bygone age, but which could now prove its worth.
Not being sure where the book room was, Glyn headed for the equipment room where all the necessary tools and materials for repairs were issued when something wore out or needed a little attention. He remembered that a map of the ship’s layout was on one wall, and the book room should be on it.
The ship was big, very big, and it was some time later when he entered the equipment room, much to the surprise of its occupants. ‘What are you doing here, Glyn? I didn’t think you were called to duty today,’ said one of the men, loading tools into a carry bag.
‘I’m trying to find the book room, it should be somewhere on the wall map of the ship.’ Glyn replied, trying to make the answer as nonchalant as possible, thus avoiding a possible long explanation of his need to find the room.
Luckily they took no notice of his answer, and carried on loading their tools while Glyn scanned the wall map for the elusive book repository.
At last he found it, tucked away in a corner of the main map, and perhaps a good twenty minutes walk away from his present position.
Making a mental note of its relationship to one of the hydroponics gardens he knew well, Glyn turned and bade farewell to the tool collectors with a wave of his hand, and set off down the corridor in what he thought was the correct direction.
Striding off purposefully on his quest, he wondered what a book looked like, and how he would know which one contained the necessary information. Glyn could read and write proficiently, as all members of the ship could, but he had only seen written reports and messages so far, and wondered if a book was like a report, but bigger.
He was a little out of breath as he passed the hydroponics chamber where the passageway split into four, and slowed his pace to make sure of his bearings. The map had shown that the book room was off a small corridor which in turn was off the main one he was now in, but this was new territory to him and he felt a little uneasy as he walked on into the unknown regions of the ship.
As he marched on, he noticed several light tubes in the ceiling of the corridor had burnt out, and no one had bothered to replace them. This could only mean that very few, if any, had been to the book room, or even down this corridor, for a long time.
A feeling of loneliness overcame Glyn as he hurried on, and he felt even more uneasy as he reached the turn off for the book room. This corridor clearly hadn’t been trodden for some time, as a layer of dust had collected on the floor showing his footprints up as he looked back. The normal dust removal system must have broken down, and no one had noticed. As this wasn’t a vital function of the ship, he supposed the maintenance computer had ignored the fault, leaving it to the humans to repair, if they didn’t like dust.
Most doors had numbers on them, while some had numbers and their purpose spelt out in letters. Glyn hoped that the book room was one of the latter, as he didn’t know the number of the room and hadn’t thought to find it out before he began his journey.
Checking each door as he went, he began to wonder if he had passed the room, as the corridor seemed never ending and the only markings on the doors were in numbers.
A feeling of panic hit hard as he realized that he was cut off from the rest of the ship’s members by a great distance, and if he got lost who would be able to find him?
He found some relief in the knowledge that the tool collectors knew where he was going, and if the worst came to the worst, and he was missed, they would no doubt set up a search party.
Feeling a little brighter at the thought of possible rescue, he almost passed the door of the book room in the gloom from a failed lamp.
The door was clearly marked 235 with BOOK ROOM printed beneath the number. Glyn pressed the usual button in the centre of the door and it obligingly hissed open, revealing a small and cramped chamber beyond.
He entered the chamber, the door hissed closed behind him, and the old feeling of fear returned. He shook it off, looking around for the air suit he knew he would have to wear in order to enter the actual book room.
It hung on a peg high up on the wall, a long flexible tube protruding from the back section which then snaked around and disappeared into a socket on the wall.
As Glyn struggled into the suit, he wondered how they had decided what size to make it, and found the designers had indeed been generous in their specifications, as it hung on him like a lose fitting bag and would therefore fit anyone, if fit was the right word.
The head gear was a cumbersome thing to have to contend with, and he could well see this was yet another reason why this room wasn’t the most popular one on the ship.
Clamping the helmet into place, he took a couple of steps towards the entrance door of the room, and was pulled up short by the air hose. Realizing that he would have to disconnect it, he did so, instinctively holding his breath.
The inner door opened to reveal an odd shaped room, the walls lined with what he thought were the books, with a dim light over a table in the middle. Just inside the door was a socket for the air hose, and he reconnected it hurriedly, gasping in a breath of fresh air.
The shape of the room wasn’t the normal square or oblong enclosure he was used to, but more reminiscent of the space when several odd shaped rooms were brought together, and the book room was that left over space where they joined.
He went over to the nearest wall and slowly pulled a book from the shelf where it had rested for several hundred years. Fearful that it might disintegrate, he gently laid it down on the table and opened the cover.
‘A Collection of British Butterflies’ adorned the top of the first page, and beneath it was a picture of a butterfly with spread open wings, a glorious golden thing.
Having never seen one before, Glyn didn’t know what a butterfly actually was, but he was able to identify it as a member of the insect family as he had seen insects in the hydroponics gardens, but none as beautiful as this.
A strange lump came up in his throat, and all thoughts of his purpose for being there fled as he slowly turned over the pages, drinking in the sheer beauty of the illustrations and wishing these creatures were needed to pollinate the gardens on the ship.
It took a while to go through to the end, and with a sigh he reluctantly replaced it on the shelf, and set about trying to find how he could identify the book he had come for.
Set in the wall between the books was an oblong panel, with the word INDEX at its top. There didn’t appear to be any controls to work the index, no buttons or switches that he could see, so he laid his hand on the main panel to see if it would respond to his presence. There was a slight flicker of light, a hint of some lettering, and then it went blank and stayed that way, despite repeated touches and not a few thumps from a very frustrated Glyn.
He gave up fiddling with the inoperative index after a while, and returned to the shelves of books, which he found to his amazement were in no special order that he could discern. They certainly were not filed by author or subject, and he supposed that over the years they had been put back in a random fashion by those who had used them.
Selecting another book at random, he sat at the table and opened it. It appeared to be a condensed history of earth from the time of the Romans, who ever they were, up to the time of the smelting stations which had encircled earth. It seemed that raw materials were in very short supply, and the asteroid belt was being mined for anything useable in the way of minerals.
The end of the book seemed to be contemporary with the period in which the Great Ship had been built, although there had been no mention of it that Glyn could find.
He had only a scant knowledge of the history of the Great Ship, as it was referred to, and that was on a ‘hand me down’ basis from his forebears. His interest in the ship had been reawakened by the book, and he decided to find out as much about it as possible, but first he must locate the necessary data to stop the awful nightmares.
Several random selections provided a mine of interesting things to study, but so far there was nothing about dreams.
It was only when he began to feel hungry that he was aware of how long he had spent in the company of the books, and checking his time piece he realized that he would have to hurry if he was to get to the eating room before it was too late for the midday meal, and a panic ensued at his absence.
The journey back to a familiar area of the ship took less time than he expected, and he began to wonder if he had accidentally taken a short cut, but later when he consulted the map of the area, he knew he hadn’t, he’d just been very hungry and in a hurry.
During the meal Glyn explained to Mia what he had been doing, but although she listened intently, and asked the right questions, she showed little interest in joining him in his quest for knowledge.
He now had a new interest in life, and impatiently waited for the rest of the ship’s members to finish eating so that he could get back to the books.
The bowl of fruit had just been passed around the table, when the screen above the food hatch lit up, a gong sounded and the voice of the Captain echoed across the eating room, his words printed out on the screen as he spoke.
‘There has been a malfunction in hydroponics garden number H233, please attend at once and correct.’
The Captain had never been seen, and rarely spoke except in an emergency, so everyone took what he had to say very seriously. It was rumoured that he was just an extension of the vast computer system which ran the ship, but no one was sure.
For a moment Glyn forgot about his books as he and three others volunteered for the duty call, and went immediately to the equipment room to collect whatever the ship deemed necessary for the operation.
‘Looks like we’ll have to suit up.’ one of them said as four bright yellow anti-contamination suits spilled out onto the floor from a locker.
‘Something must have gone horribly wrong for us to have to wear suits.’ Glyn added, a feeling of dread welling up from his stomach.
There had been a spate of mishaps in the hydroponics department of late, and the worrying events seemed to becoming more frequent.
‘Better check the route for the shortest possible journey, as this is one I don’t know.’ one of the team said, looking up at the spider web like corridor map on the wall.
‘It’s down three levels and off to one side of where we are now, and that’s quite a distance. You’d think they would have put in some form of simple transport, wouldn’t you?’
‘At least it gives us some exercise,’ Glyn said, ‘and one or two of us could well do with it.’ he added, with a glancing grin at one of the team who was a little over weight.
Just then there was a loud thump as a purple canister with a white skull and crossbones on it came out of a chute and rolled across the floor of the equipment room.
‘This must be serious, I’ve never seen one of these before,’ Glyn said to no one in particular, ‘and what do we do with it? There are no instructions on it as far as I can see.’
‘I don’t like the sound of this event. I thought the Captain’s voice was a little strained when he spoke to us earlier, so maybe this is a major catastrophe.’ one of the team said.
‘Oh, come on, the Captain is only a computer voice, it can’t show any emotion like we can.’ Glyn felt sad that any of them should be so naive as to give credence to the story of the Captain being human and aloof from them all, hidden away in a little place of his own.
‘Well, it’s never been proved one way or the other, and I think there may well be something to it. After all, most things have broken down or developed a fault at some time, but the Captain never has, so perhaps he is real after all.’
‘Come on you two, we’ll sort this out later on if you really must, but drop it for now and let’s get on with the problem of the hydroponics cell.’