WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(9)

If she heard the phrase "I'm sorry, mistress, but we do things different here on Kostroma" just one more time, she'd scream.

There were four people in the library: the two lovers, who were ignoring the stranger deliberately instead of merely being concerned with their own activity; Vanness, who because he couldn't ignore the stranger but wasn't sure he ought to approach the fellow, was bouncing like a child who needs a toilet; and the stranger himself.

The stranger was a man wearing a gray suit with closer tailoring than the Kostroman fashion. His back was to the door, and he was leafing through a folio volume that dated from before the Hiatus.

"Sir!" Adele said. "I'm the Electoral Librarian. May I ask who you are?"

If he dropped the book or tore a page, she'd—

The fellow turned. The gray suit was a uniform. He was a little on the plump side, with sandy hair and a smile that made him look even more of a boy than he clearly was.

"Honored to meet you, mistress," he said. "I'm Lieutenant Daniel Leary, Republic of Cinnabar Navy. Sorry I can't shake hands with you but—"

He waggled the folio slightly. He had a hand under either board. To turn pages he'd apparently rested a corner on the stack of deed boxes beside him in lieu of a proper reading table.

"—a book like this takes precedence over courtesy. Did you realize this is a first edition of Moschelitz's Zoomorphology of the Three Systems? I can't read the Russiche, but I recognize the plates from Ditmars's translation. This original color is so much better!"

"Yes, I do recognize Moschelitz," Adele said dryly; though she might not have, and it was a wonder equal to a western sunrise than anybody else on Kostroma did. "You're an information specialist yourself, sir?"

Leary closed the huge volume with the care its size and age required. He'd taken it from the middle of a stack. It was a knife to Adele's heart that somebody who understood books should know that she'd allowed it to lie with that weight on it simply because the task of organizing this mire of information had daunted her.

"No, not me," Leary said. His engaging grin slipped a trifle as he—and Adele, from where she stood—looked for a place he could safely put Moschelitz down. "I'm a bit of an amateur naturalist, though. My uncle, Commander Stacey Bergen—perhaps you've heard of him?"

"No, I'm afraid the name's new to me," Adele said. "Here, I'll take that. Perhaps I can store it. . . ."

"At my lodgings," she'd been about to say, but her room was apt to be broken into at any time. If the concierge, Ms. Frick, wasn't a scout for burglars, then her face sadly belied her.

The only safety for the folio was that nobody knew how valuable it was. To that end, leaving it as part of the undifferentiated mass of the library was the best chance of safety.

"I think maybe on that stack there," Leary said, nodding toward three wooden boxes that Adele hadn't gotten around to opening. They might be filled with business ledgers for all she knew. He didn't hand over the book. "I know it's a little high, but it seems a solid base."

"Yes, all right," Adele said. She couldn't lift the folio down herself without a ladder, but she wasn't likely to need to. Vanness could reach it. . . .

Leary walked to the piled boxes, stepping over and around other stacks with an ease that Adele envied. Part of being in the navy, she supposed. Certainly the starships on which she'd travelled, even the luxury liner that took her from Cinnabar to Blythe, had been cramped. Warships were probably worse.

Leary raised the folio over his head, holding it at the balance. He put the book squarely on top of the pile without rubbing the cover on the wood as she'd feared.

"The reason I asked if you'd heard of my uncle," he said as he concentrated on his task, "is that you've a Cinnabar accent yourself. Uncle Stacey had a dozen species named after him by the academics who described specimens he brought back home."

Adele felt her lips tighten. She'd known there was a Cinnabar naval delegation on Kostroma. One of Mistress Bozeman's excuses for delay was her need to refit the wardrobes in the suite assigned to the guests.

In an even tone Adele said, "I was born on Cinnabar, but I haven't lived there in a very long time. I prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the galaxy."

Leary nodded pleasantly and stepped back from the boxes. "That was my Uncle Stacey too," he said. "Not that he isn't a patriot, and no one ever mistook him for a coward either. He didn't push to get a combat posting, even though he knew as well as anybody that a few battle stars are the surest route to promotion."

He shook his head and laughed. "If I'm ever half the astrogator my uncle is, I'll be proud," he continued. "But this—"