S Is for Space

“Thank you.”

Simple as that.

He walked into the library a few minutes later.

“May I help you?”

He looked at the librarian. May I help you, may I help you. What a world of helpful people! “I’d like to ‘have’ Edgar Allan Poe.” His verb was carefully chosen. He didn’t say ‘read.’ He was too afraid that books were passé, that printing itself was a lost art. Maybe all ‘books’ today were in the form of fully delineated three-dimensional motion pictures. How in blazes could you make a motion picture out of Socrates, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Freud?

“What was that name again?”

“Edgar Allan Poe.”

“There is no such author listed in our files.”

“Will you please check?”

She checked. “Oh, yes. There’s a red mark on the file card. He was one of the authors in the Great Burning of 2265.

“How ignorant of me.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “Have you heard much of him?”

“He had some interesting barbarian ideas on death,” said Lantry.

“Horrible ones,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Ghastly.”

“Yes. Ghastly. Abominable, in fact. Good thing he was burned. Unclean. By the way, do you have any of Lovecraft?”

“Is that a sex book?”

Lantry exploded with laughter. “No, no. It’s a man.”

She riffled the file. “He was burned, too. Along with Poe.”

“I suppose that applies to Machen and a man named Derleth and one named Ambrose Bierce, also?”

“Yes.” She shut the file cabinet. “All burned. And good riddance.” She gave him an odd warm look of interest. “I bet you’ve just come back from Mars.”

“Why do you say that?”

“There was another explorer in here yesterday. He’d just made the Mars hop and return. He was interested in supernatural literature, also. It seems there are actually ‘tombs’ on Mars.”

“What are ‘tombs’?” Lantry was learning to keep his mouth closed.

“You know, those things they once buried people in.”

“Barbarian custom. Ghastly!”

“Isn’t it? Well, seeing the Martian tombs made this young explorer curious. He came and asked if we had any of those authors you mentioned. Of course we haven’t even a smitch of their stuff.” She looked at his pale face. “You are one of the Martian rocket men, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Got back on the ship the other day.”

“The other young man’s name was Burke.”

“Of course. Burke! Good friend of mine!”

“Sorry I can’t help you. You’d best get yourself some vitamin shots and some sun lamps. You look terrible, Mr.—?”