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Post By Yet another innocent sub-plot gives its life that this Hooded Hood story may live Wed Nov 17, 2004 at 08:20:25 am EST |
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#189: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Trial of Lee Bookman | |
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#189: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Trial of Lee Bookman Shazana Pel by Visionary The Audit Fleet was five sleek black spaceships, designed for maximum speed and firepower. They dropped from hyperspace eight miles above the moon’s surface and oriented their weapons on the Mare Ingenii, location of the Lunar Public Library. Senior Library Auditor Blay-Kee stood in a pool of stark yellow light in the centre of the command vessel and flicked on his official IOL communicator. “By the authority vested in me by the Interplanetary Order of Librarians (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Order’), as sealed by the High Audit Council under license by the Governors and ratified under the seal of the Senior Librarian stamped on the seven thousand nine hundred and eleventh cycle of the ninth iteration of the galactic axial rotation since the founding of the said Order, I hereby place the Lunar Branch of the Intergalactic Library Service, Sector 7272, under penance of Audit, ordering the suspension of all activity, evacuation of the premises by all non-library personnel, and a complete transfer of defensive and communications systems control to this vessel. Lunar Public Librarian Bookman (hereinafter referred to as the recusant) will place himself under arrest pending trial on charges preferred before the High Audit Council and ratified under the seal of the Senior Librarian stamped on the seven thousand…” This went on for some time before the Auditor cut to the chase. “Resistance is futile, and will lead to immediate penalty of termination.” There was no reply from the Lunar Public Library. “Have they transferred across their override codes?” Blay-Kee demanded of his lieutenant, snuffling his toothbrush moustache in agitation. “Have we control of the library systems?” “They appear to have somehow overwritten the back-door failsafes, sir,” Lieutenant Porka reported. “We are unable to access and take command of the facility at this time.” “Mutiny!” hissed the Auditor. “Sheer wanton disobedience! We should never have allowed Bookman back. I warned them, but would anybody listen? No. And now look where we are!” “Shall we fire a warning shot, sir?” Blay-Kee nodded vigorously. “Oh yes,” he agreed. “Fire all weapons directly on that wretched little library and wipe it off the face of that moon. That’ll warn him, alright.” “Yes sir.” Porka gestured to weapons, and the audit fleet’s arsenal heated up then fired. A sparkling screen of energy deflected the shots, sending them ricocheting back, scattering the fleet. A lone man hung in the vacuum of space, his star-filled cape billowing out behind him. “I object,” Amazing Guy told them. “Wow, I saw him on TV!” Lt Porka called out. “On that Transworlds Challenge! He’s the Protector of the Parodyverse!” “He has no jurisdiction here!” Auditor Blay-Kee shouted. “I have the authority! Me! Me!!” “But he has the command of all those weird energy shapes from the multiversal substratum,” Lt Porka pointed out. “Bah! You may think he is very clever, with his flowy cape blowing in vacuum and his tight muscly legs in their skin-hugging spandex, defining every contour of his… I mean, you may think he is very clever, lieutenant, be we have the Rule Book!” He waved one pointy finger towards Communications. “Send out the emergency imperative code. We shall take command of that Library’s artificial intelligence through the direct authority of the Senior Librarian himself!” The young woman at Communications checked the secure database for the ultimate over-ride for D.D., the Lunar Public Library’s operating system, and keyed command authority to the Auditor’s workstation. “Lunar Public Library Artificial sentience, this is Senior Library Auditor Blay-kee issuing a primary directive override first class, demanding immediate and total control over you and all the systems you command. Acknowledge.” The main monitor screen twinkled to life and the computer-generated image of a young woman flashed up to respond. But this wasn’t the usual blonde-haired, blue-eyed avatar of D.D. This was a guest star. “I’m sorry,” Hallie smiled unsympathetically down at the Auditor. “D.D. is offline undertaking her scheduled maintenance cycle, as outlined in the IOL technical manuals. In her absence she asked me to fill in for her, to mind the desk so to speak.” The grin became wolfish. “Do feel free to try and override my systems, gentlemen, but bear in mind that I have a tendency to push back, and I’m not the one sitting in the middle of space in a tin can dependent on computerised life support systems and nuclear engine management programs. Just a thought.” “What?” exploded the Auditor. “Who is that? What is that?” “My friends call me Hallie,” answered the Lair Legion’s AI. “You can call me you worst nightmare.” Blay-Kee swung round to Porka. “Is there an Artificial Life Form series drone at that installation?” he demanded. “One with an independent operating system?” The lieutenant checked the logs. “Yes, one of the old first generation models,” he reported. “The ones that had the tendency to go insane and massacre everybody. Artificial Life Form model RED, serial number Gamma Ro Epsilon 7394…” “Never mind that,” the Auditor snapped. “Project a command override directly into that unit’s systems.” Porka nodded to Comms, and Comms obeyed. Then she started, nearly fell from her chair, and pulled out her earpiece. “What?” yapped Blay-Kee. “What now?” “The A.L.F.RED isn’t responding to override either,” Communications blushed. “He said…” “What?” demanded the Auditor. Comms repeated what A.L.F.RED had told her the Senior Auditor could do with his fleet. “That’s not physically possible,” noted Lt Porka. “Not even with practise.” The IOL Audit Fleet took up geostationary orbit around the Sea of Cleverness. Lieutenant Porka strapped on his heavy combat armour and led his assault squad to the teleporter. “They’ve changed the shielding frequency to prevent us porting right into the structure,” he warned his commandos, “but they can’t stop us getting to the perimeter and forcing entry through one of the loading bays. You’ve got the Library defence schematics wired into your combat computers, and what you can’t shut down remotely you’re authorised to destroy.” “Sir,” a nervous trooper asked, “is it true they have one of the old A.L.F. units down there? The ones that…?” “Yes, they’ve got one,” Porka admitted. “It was deactivated once already, but this Bookman character somehow got it working again. It seems completely out of control. You’re authorised to take it down for good.” “But sir,” another marine chimed in, “they say those model RED drones have a defence mode like a pissed battle tank on legs and when they’re annoyed they…” “Why do you think you’ve been equipped with remote EMP mines?” Porka snapped at them. “These things are specially designed to take down mechanical defence forms, like A.L.F.RED and that bizarre home-made artificial intelligence thing that’s running the systems down there. As for the Librarian himself, we have the containment documentation in proper form. He can’t use his powers against us. So stop acting like a big bunch of girlies and let’s go rip something up!” The combat unit teleported down to Landing Pad Homer and fanned out in order to force the bay doors. “Sloppy!” complained Shazana Pel as she dropped down on her anti-gravity wings and disabled the first pair of heavy combat marines, “Very sloppy. First you establish a perimeter, provide some cover for your sappers.” Another of the troopers took a heavy war-mace to the sternum and went over. “Then you ensure you’ve got ranged lines of sight to prevent enemy incursion.” A faceplate shattered under a gravity-assisted wing buffet, necessitating an emergency teleport evacuation. “You send a couple of your people into the skies to have a tactical overview in case a combat situation arises.” The Thonnagarian warrior flew through the largest cluster of soldier, and as she did do she grabbed the pins from a couple of the EMP mines they carried. “Then, when your beachhead is secure, you can proceed knowing that you are well positioned against sudden devastating attack.” The whole area was bathed in high energy electromagnetic chaff, wiping on-board combat management systems, overriding combat suit servo-motors, leaving the troopers in clunky uncontrollable polycarbide shells while the lithe fast pigeon woman smashed through their number. “Emergency teleport!” Porka called over his commlink. “Get us out of here! But his commlink wasn’t active. “Oh dear,” said Shazana Pel insincerely as she walked towards him and pulled back her mace. “Bookman!” yelled Senior Auditor Blay-Kee. “I’ll get you for this!” The main screen on the audit vessel shifted to a view of a grave looking bespectacled young man in the blue and black garb and academic overrobe of a Moon Public Librarian. “For what?” Lee Bookman challenged, looking grave as he stood beneath the great rotunda of the Library’s main repository. “For doing my job?” “Your job?” shouted Blay-Kee. “I’m authorised, I am! I’m a Senior Auditor, laddo! I’m here on official business, to deal with your blatant and flagrant breeches of IOL regulations. Again!” “In that case you should have followed standard IOL procedures,” the Librarian, and went on to quote them all from memory. “Section Nineteen, article 812, subsection 1844, paragraph three: A local Librarian in jurisdiction shall be informed in writing of any complaints or charges laid against him. S21, a449, ss1220, p2: If no written rebuttal case is forthcoming, or should such rebuttal be deemed inadequate, a writ of summons shall be delivered for the local Librarian in jurisdiction to attend a hearing at the Central Library.” “I know the regulations!” barked Blay-Kee. “Actually, you seem to have skipped several steps and gone right to S37, a23, regarding the deployment of an Audit Fleet and the use of force,” Lee Bookman censured him. “Since you haven’t approached me in the proper forms, I’m obliged to uphold regulations and defend the Library in my charge, its possessions and personnel.” The Senior Auditor almost exploded. “You have a bleeding superhero blockading my ships!” he screeched! “You set some insane Thonnagarian warrior-woman on my troopers and took them into custody!” “As I said,” the Librarian nodded. “I’m obliged to uphold regulations.” “Regulations! I am the regulations!” Auditor Blay-Kee shouted. He caught his breath and gripped his workstation so hard that his knuckles were white. “Right,” he spat. “If that’s the way you want to play it, Bookman… By the authority vested in me I’m summoning you, so-called Librarian of Sector 7272, to a hearing at the Central Library, to face numerous charges of which the most serious are Tampering With the Course of History, Misusing Library Resources, and Dereliction of Duty as Librarian in Jurisdiction of the Lunar Public Library. And Interfering With a Duly Authorised Senior Auditor In the Pursuance of His Responsibilities.” Lee Bookman looked grave. “Then I’ll come,” he answered. The trial took place in the Number One Hearing Chamber of the Central Library, heart of the Intergalactic Order of Librarians, on a planet seldom visited and beyond the Milky Way. A vast dark hemisphere was lit only by the pools of light in which prosecutor, defendant, and judges sat. Three Governors presided, senior librarians with their faces hooded so their justice was anonymous. The rest of the vast auditorium may have been empty or packed, it was impossible to tell. Senior Auditor Blay-Kee was Counsel for the Prosecution. He wore his silver and black Auditor’s outfit with strutting pride, an absurd periwig perched on his head to denote his legal status. “Your honours, I object!” he began. “There is no precedent for allowing an outsider, a civilian, to defend the recusant in this hearing.” Lisa L Waltz uncrossed her silk-stockinged legs and rose from her chair. “Actually, since I’m the Keeper of the Booke of the Law, a cosmic office holder responsible for the arbitration of multiversal justice, I am a bit overqualified,” she admitted. “But I submit that my credentials are more than good enough for this courtroom.” “Really? And him?” Blay-Kee gestured at Amazing Guy, who stood grimly with arms crossed beside his accused friend. “I’m protector of the Parodyverse,” AG replied. “I’m allowed anywhere. For that matter, who’s going to stop me?” “And what about… about that?” demanded Blay-Kee, jabbing one accusing finger at Shazana Pel. “She’s my legal assistant,” Lisa told him sweetly. “Don’t you rate an assistant?” “I have many assistants. Many,” the Senior Auditor assured her. “And minions. And flunkeys. Servitors even. But she is an abomination, an outcast Thonnagarian heretic, a zhonga-kha, a misuser of their sacred Z-alloy. She is a criminal to her own people, and has no right to…” “My assistant isn’t on trial here, your honours,” Lisa interjected. “And as fascinating as it is to hear a list of how important my honourable opposite here might be, I wonder if we can get on? My client is a busy Librarian, and he has many tasks that call upon his time.” “You need not fear me, little man,” Shazara Pel assured the Auditor. “I only fight men.” The Governors brought the court to order and demanded to know the charges. “Certainly,” preened Blay-Kee. “Responding to a complaint from the sovereign authority of the Skree Star Empire, the Supreme Interference, the Audit Department reopened the file upon Lenard H. Bookman, Librarian of the Lunar public Library…” “Objection!” called Lisa, grinning at the Auditor. “The Audit Department cannot have re-opened the file on my client. There never was a file before.” “Of course there was!” rebutted Blay-Kee. “A massive one! I refer the Governors to the lengthy and details reported of Supervisor Garth regarding thousands of documented infractions. Everything from wearing non-standard uniform and programming his drones with personalities through to running a library outside IOL specifications and abandoning his post simply because the universe he was in at the time was destroyed. Bookman interfered well beyond the bounds of his authority, and he was tried and executed for it.” Lisa pointed to the defendant as Exhibit A. “The Librarian to whom you refer was terminated by this very court,” she noted. “My client today is undoubtedly alive. I put it to you that he cannot be the same man the IOL executed before.” “It was the Hooded Hood!” Blay-Kee argued. “He saved Bookman with a retcon, dragged him out of the moment where he was being terminated and put him to work in his own library for a while. Then later he did something complicated and merged that Bookman with the alien Librarian we’d stationed at the Lunar Public library, and maybe even with other past Librarians or something, and what came out was Bookman!” “What came out was an entirely new entity,” the first lady of the Lair Legion suggested. “new enough that the IOL Council accepted he was a fit being to take on the challenge of running the Lunar Public Library.” “Challenge?” mocked the Auditor. “That minor installation on a dreary moon around a Level Four civilisation?” “The Level Four civilisation that just won the Transworlds Challenge, you mean?” asked Shazara Pel. “It is also an installation that has had to cope with being transplanted and reinvented from another dimension,” Lee Bookman pointed out. “As you know, it was one of the far Libraries, out on the moon around Earth Ranchburger in one of the alternate realities, until that universe was folded up. Then we had to paste it into history in this timeline. That’s not been a minor undertaking. It required a lot of remodelling and some very delicate negotiations. I have awards.” “If there’s any doubt on the matters of these retcons, I could always summons the Hooded Hood,” Lisa offered sweetly. The Governors conferred, and determined that Lenard H Bookman had no prior record of wrongdoing to take into account. “Even so,” pressed on the livid Senior Auditor, “the current charges are more than enough to assure his termination once more. Or, is Miss Waltz insists, for the first time. Setting aside for a moment the grievous misuse of IOL property and the breach in protocol and procedure of removing the override backdoor facilities of his resident artificial intelligence library operating system and that menace of a scrapheap A.L.F.RED unit…” “Let’s not set those aside, your honours,” the amorous advocatrix interjected. “Let’s note that those were necessary precautions at the time that Lord Resolution has used his genetic command of humanoid lifeforms to dominate a fair quantity of the civilised galaxy. In fact I believe even the Central Library here came under his control, when he commanded you erase large chunks of valuable information in your archives. If my client hadn’t protected his Library from you while you were under outside influence you wouldn’t have had any backups to restore your own information after you deleted it.” “The main point,” persisted Blay-Kee, “the major point of this – apart from his flagrant disrespect for the office and person of a Senior Auditor…” “Respect must be won,” muttered Pel darkly, glaring at Blay-Kee as if she wanted to rip the moustache from his face. “The main point is that this Librarian interfered in the course of history, in violation of one of our most sacred tenets. And he did so not only in causing the destruction of the Supreme Interference and preventing its takeover of the planet Earth, but again and far more blatantly in front of the cameras transmitting the events of the Transworlds Challenge to every civilised race in the galaxy!” “Ah,” said Lee Bookman, and swallowed hard. The case for the prosecution was this: that in contravention of the strictest rules of the Intergalactic Organisation of Librarians, Lee Bookman has given aid that had significantly shifted the course of history on at least two occasions. The first was when he had detected the plans of the Supreme Interference to genetically alter the human race to become the new Skree and had led the Legion to stop him. The second was in aiding and supporting Earth’s team to triumph in the Transworlds Challenge. “One intervention that saved the life of billions,” Lisa pointed out, “and another that saved the lives of zillions.” “But still serious contraventions of the Code of Non-Interference as established by the 53rd IOL Conference” gloated Blay-Kee. “I’ve got you now, Bookman! I’ve got you!” “On the contrary,” the amorous advocatrix protested. “I shall now call a witness to refute these charges. I summons Sir Mumphrey Wilton, leader of the Lair Legion.” The IOL had sophisticated defence screen to prevent teleporting and dimension jumping. Lisa’s power ignored that and pulled Mumphrey there anyway. “Good afternoon, your honours,” the eccentric Englishman bade the judges. “Ms Waltz. Ms Shazana.” “Mumphrey?” Lee whispered across to AG. “What can he…?” “Sir Mumphrey, would you describe to us the basis upon which Mr Bookman is a member of the Lair Legion?” “Absolutely. Mr Bookman’s an Associate Member coming to the end of his probationary period,” the old gentleman lectured, hooking his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and facing the justices. “He stipulated in joining that his work with us would be limited by his duties and ethical responsibilities as Moon Public Librarian, and of course he’s stuck to that to the letter.” “To the letter?” attacked the Auditor. “He stopped your planet being wiped out!” “And we’re very grateful to the IOL for rectifyin’ their earlier mistake,” Mumphrey assured the judges. There was stirring on the bench. “Our mistake?” “Oh, we don’t blame you. You chaps weren’t in your right minds when you were taken over by the Resolution Prophesy and tried to interfere with our history. No guilt attached. We don’t hold you in any way responsible for the death of our member Pegasus, or the destruction of the Space Robots, or the fall of the Constellation, or the shift of political power that led the Supreme Interference concluding it was a good time to take over our world. Really we don’t.” The Auditor was flushing with anger. “What has that to do with…?” “But since it was in part the IOL who set up the circumstances of the Interference’s, ah, interference, clearly Mr Bookman felt it behoved him as a Librarian to mitigate the errors that had been made. Finest traditions, I’d say. Well done. Credit to the corps.” “If my client’s to be held accountable for that intervention, then the whole of the staff at the IOL Central Library is surely culpable too?” suggested Lisa wickedly. “And I suppose we’re to blame for the Transworlds Challenge as well?” Blay-Kee demanded. “Absolutely not,” Mumphrey assured the agitated Auditor. “That was that false Gamesmaster oik. Bad hat. But there all Mr Bookman did was render due assistance to a fellow of the Library, one Dr Blargelslarch, and answer the questions put to him as Librarian in the course of his duties.” “The course of history was changed!” Blay-Kee insisted. “Absolutely. Our chaps did very well. Can’t see how you can pin it on Mr Bookman though.” The Senior Auditor appealed to the bench. “Your honours, surely you can see they’re trying to obscure the facts here, distort and muddy the truths! That Bookman’s been bad news from the start, wilful, arrogant, disobedient…” “With the most commendations for excellence of service and for retrieving and preserving rare volumes in the last millennium,” Amazing Guy interjected. As everybody looked astonished at his grasp of such information he tapped his forehead and said. “Cosmic awareness. Don’t leave home without it.” “With the most censures and fines for protocol infractions too,” Blay-Kee retorted. “Your honours, he’s laughing at us! Scorning our authority! Mocking the rules, and the people who enforce them! He’s not one of us!” He thrust an accusing finger at the Librarian. “He has to die!” And then it was Lee Bookman’s turn to make a statement. He pulled an old soft-leather-covered book from his pocket and opened it. Shazara Pel stared at it in disbelief. “Rewards and Fairies?” she read from the cover. The battered volume fell open at the page the Librarian wanted. “If you can dream - and not make dreams your master, If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;” He turned to Blay-Kee and went on reading: “If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose and start again at your beginnings, And never breath a word about your loss;” “Keep going,” breathed AG. “That’s just what you did, Lee.” “If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the will which says to them: Hold on!” “Damn right,” muttered Mumphrey hoarsely. “Carry on.” “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill each unforgiving minute With sixty seconds worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son.” The Librarian handed the volume to Mumphrey and drew a slim black minute book from his robe. “What is this?” demanded Blay-Kee. “Your honours…!” But the Librarian read again, from the Minutes of Congress 1862, the President’s Annual Address to a nation divided by civil war: “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.’” He closed that book and passed it to Lisa. He had a final tome to read. “Love,” he told them, “is patient, love is kind. It does not envy. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; It is not self-seeking, nor easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongdoing. It does not delight in evil, But rejoices in the truth. It always protects, trusts, hopes, and preserves. There is nothing love cannot face; There is no limit to its faith, hope, and endurance. In a word, there are three things that last forever: Faith, hope, and love; But the greatest of these is love.” The Librarian shut the Bible and looked up at the Governors. “How could I not strive to preserve a people who can write words such as these?” Blay-Kee made to interrupt but Shazana Pel stamped on his foot. “I love words,” Lee Bookman told the court. “I love books. They hold the wisdom of the ages, and every time we read them those ideas come alive again, from the minds that first thought them to our imaginations today. I am a Librarian because I believe those words should be preserved, and that those who need them should be able to find them. That’s what a Library is for.” He turned to the darkness, to address those who watched unseen. “Sometimes we forget this. Sometimes we concentrate on the rules and regulations we set to guard against error but omit the truths that first inspired us to create those laws.” He turned to Lisa. “Whatever we can argue legally today, I did stand accused once before, and was condemned for taking the part of people who needed help.” And now he faced his judges: “And if you acquit me today I’ll go back to my job and if I see people in need and can do something to assist them then I will. That’s right. If the rules say it’s wrong then the rules need to be changed. Nobody will ever convince me that the people who said the things I read you, and the millions who have been inspired by them, are not deserving of a little help in due season. Libraries are for people. Librarians have to be too.” He looked up at the judges. “You became Governors, Senior Librarians because you were Librarians first.” He glanced scornfully at the Senior Auditor. “Not illiterates,” he spat. “So now you have to decide whether you can lend me to the Lair Legion, and their world, to help them to make the words their people wrote come true.” “Congratulations,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton told Lee Bookman, pumping his hand. “They found me guilty,” The Librarian pointed out. “Sure, and their considered punishment for your infractions was to dock you wages by one Earth dollar,” Lisa noted. “That’s pretty much like saying they agree with your argument but they can’t be seen to agree with it.” She smiled sweetly. “Of course my fees will be somewhat more than a dollar, but we’ll work something out.” Senior Auditor Blay-Kee was outraged. “I’ll get you yet, Bookman! I’ll get you for this! See that I don’t.” “Good luck with that board of enquiry,” the Librarian answered him. “If I see you again,” Shazana Pel told the Auditor, “I will step on you.” “You’ll have to give that marine lieutenant and his soldiers back now, Pel,” Lisa warned the Thonnagarian warrioress. “After I’ve played with them,” promised the pigeon woman. “The rules of this place are wrong,” Lee Bookman considered thoughtfully. “Things need changing.” “Hmph,” agreed Mumphrey. “So what are you goin’ to do about it, young fellah-me-lad?” “Me? What do you mean?” “You read all those passages. The ideas came alive from the minds that first thought of them to your imagination today. So I ask again: what are you going to do about it?” And Lee Bookman paused before answering, and thought. Next Issue: Romance and intrigue as Hatman goes on his absolutely definitely final blind date set up by CrazySugarFreakboy!, as the Juniors’ party gets crashed by the New Battlers, as Epitome and Hallie get better acquainted, as Vizh says goodbye to his Cephans, and as Killer Strike finds he’s just been killed. That’s our double-sized UT#189: Heart’s Blood, or Weird Romance Coming soon with misty rose-tinted pages – but watch out for the thorns! The Quality of Mercy is Not Footnoted The Librarian was shown to have survived his supposed execution and to be working at Herringcarp Asylum in UT#126: Untold Tales of the Hooded Hood: Survival. He saved the world from the Supreme Interference in UT#162: Together Again For The First Time. He was active throughout the Transworlds Challenge, but perhaps especially so in UT#180: Diplomatic Solutions. Poster-L! has this to say on the Central Library: The IOL Headquaters is located on the IOL homeworld. Their homeworld is in an unknown solar system & in another galaxy than the Milky Way. The location of the planet is only know to the Librarians & guest, which they rarely have. The planet is covered with lush vegetation and bears little no artefacts of habitation except for on the northern most continent, stands the Central Library. That is the repository of all the universe's intelligent planet's knowledge. Lee quotes his passages from: If, Rudyard Kipling’s most famous poem, first published in his children’s story Rewards and Fairies in 1910. The whole book is available free online at Project Gutenburg The Concluding Remarks of Abraham Lincoln’s Annual Message to Congress at Washington, December 1, 1862, also available online at http://www.swcivilwar.com/MessagetoCongress.html St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13. Lee selects some key verses. The full text is available online all over the place. The New International Version translation used here is found at http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&passage=I+cor+13&version=NIV The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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