The Backup Librarian

How it begins

The book was missing from a shelf that did not exist.

Leah knew the shelf existed because she was standing beside it.

Her backup disagreed.

"There is no shelf C seventeen," Mira said.

Leah looked at the brass label.

C17.

"Would you like a photograph?"

"I would like you to stop accusing the catalog of architectural invention."

The lunar library had been sealed for maintenance at six the previous evening. Leah had counted the staff out herself. No one had entered since.

Now a rectangle of clean dust marked the absence of a book.

Leah ran one finger along the empty space.

"Something was here."

"Objects are often somewhere before they are somewhere else."

"That sounded like me."

"It was you. Tuesday's staff meeting."

Mira had been created from Leah's professional memory eight years earlier. Retired last month, she now occupied a maintenance terminal and offered criticism nobody had requested.

Leah had argued to keep her.

This morning she was reconsidering the terms.

She checked the access log.

No entry.

The environmental log showed no pressure change.

The shelf inventory listed fifteen books where Leah counted sixteen spaces.

"What was the title?"

Mira did not answer.

Leah turned toward the terminal.

"You're usually faster when you're telling me I'm wrong."

"There are restrictions."

"On a retired system?"

"Apparently."

Outside the library window, Earth rose above the crater rim, bright enough to make the glass seem thin.

Leah opened the terminal's maintenance drawer.

Inside lay a paper borrowing card.

Her own handwriting.

A date from before Mira existed.

And a name she had not spoken in twenty years.

The terminal fan slowed.

"Leah," Mira said, "please don't let them repair me."

Leah read the card again.

For the first time that morning, the missing book seemed less impossible than the idea that someone had expected her to forget it.