She turned and nodded to a young man wearing a green cummerbund and holding a tape measure, one of the several Kostromans who’d come forward with her when Daniel arrived.
“—which Master Carpenter Bozeman and the journeymen of her staff have been making toward the project’s aesthetics.”
“We’re veneering the edges of the shelving and supports,” the fellow with the measure said. “When we’re done, you won’t be able to tell the result from prime cabinetry. Even the plastic!”
He frowned and added, “When there’s books on them, that is. We can’t do much about it otherwise.”
Daniel, swinging a knotted handkerchief in his left hand, walked along the end of the stacks and peered into a bay. The racks rose nearly to the room’s high ceiling. There were no books or bound papers above head height, and the shelves in use were only partially full. Wooden blocks formed bookends to keep the end volumes from falling over.
“Are the higher ones . . . ?” Daniel said, nodding toward the bare ranks of shelves above him.
“They may be useful at a later date,” said Adele who’d fallen into stride with him. The three Kostromans watched with a respect that had been notably missing the day Daniel first visited the library. “Woetjans says she’ll rig rolling ladders on each stack. I’m inclined to leave that part of the job for the time at which it’s needed. An intermediate floor might be preferable for staff members who aren’t—”
She smiled.
“—starship riggers. On the other hand, the future won’t have Woetjans and her crew as a part of it. I’m undecided.”
“Ah, how are these . . . ?” Daniel asked. “That is, the arrangement.”
He waggled his handkerchief toward the shelves. One of those nearest him was a rank of cookbooks. Standard volumes on astrogation—including many obvious duplicates—filled the two shelves immediately below.
Adele smiled wryly. “By number,” she said. “I open the boxes of material and assign a number to each volume I find. Mostly I scribble it on a scrap of paper. These—”
She flicked open the leather covers of the binders in her hand, one and then the other.
“—would be one-forty-seven, both of them. They’re profit and loss statements from Teichnor Clan trading ventures of the past century.”
Daniel nodded. The accounts were nothing that would ever interest him, but he knew how valuable they’d be to someone who understood the context in which they were created.
He’d read Uncle Stacey’s logs. They were merely dry listings like, “Antenna Forty-one sheared under acceleration. Stepped replacement and entered Matrix as calculated.” That would mean nothing except to someone who’d listened avidly to Commander Bergen talk to the friends from the old days who’d come to Bantry to see him.
“I’ll take them, mistress!” said one of the Kostromans brightly.
If you knew the language—which meant more than grammar and vocabulary—there was no useless information.
“Thank you, Vanness,” Adele said, handing the binders over with a smile visible only to Daniel. She continued, “My assistants take the item to the numbered shelf while I dig out the next one. Vanness and Prester agreed to stay late tonight because I need to clear more floorspace for the next stack. Before the morning.”
“Amazing!” Daniel said honestly. He’d have guessed it would take the better part of a lifetime to convert the chaos he’d first seen here into order. A couple weeks would be sufficient. Though—
“I don’t quite understand the numbering system though, mis—that is, Adele,” he went on. “These . . .”
He indicated the cookbooks and stellar directions cheek by jowl.
“Yes, sections sixteen and seventeen,” Adele said. Her grave expression dissolved into a smile. “The sixteenth item I pulled from the crate with which I started was Easy Recipes for Frontier Worlds by Cyprian. You’ll not be surprised to learn that the volume underneath it was the Star Sector 30 Pilot.”
“Oh,” said Daniel. It sounded like an absolutely terrible system, scarcely better than putting the books up at random. “Well, with a proper index . . .” he added.
The librarian smiled broadly—broadly for her, at least. “Right up here,” she said, tapping her temple with an index finger. She laughed aloud at his expression. “Daniel, this is a rough sort. I’ll arrange the holdings according to the standards of the Academic Collections as soon as I’ve got them out of boxes. Until then you’ve got to depend on me to find anything.”