Gravis hurried up the steps of the back entrance, tapping his arm to activating the interface wristlet.

"Nearly there. Didn't mean to be late," he huffed, "but had to get the, well, you'll see."

The pixelated face of his mentor, Tuck, stretched over the back of his forearm. "Opening commences next rotation. Be hasty with the sharing."

"Worth the wait," Gravis promised.

Tuck chuckled, "Me granmum used to coin that." His brow pulled together. "Been sneaking the volumes again?"

"Naught." The lie tugged on his lungs, and he hoped his intake of breath went unnoticed.

Tuck sighed. "Get spied, and I can't contain the consequence."

Gravis tapped again, and the lights streaming from the wristlet faded, ending the communication. A dark-haired girl lingered near the top of the steps, brown skin glittering in the glow of the purple sky.

"Greetings, Gravis." Marmalade smiled at him. Her papyrus tunic crinkled as she re-positioned herself.

He pretended to check the time, then pretended to appear displeased. "Shouldn't you be intelling for Houghie's expedition?"

"She allotted two free rotations, in anticipation of the library opening," she said. "Plus, next star expedition shoves off in a ten rotations. Plenty of prep time."

An adventure among the stars. Gravis might have been jealous, had he not taken similar journeys while reading volumes such as Starmaker, and The Visitor. He kept the forbidden details to himself.

"Smart to wait ahead. 'Morrow's queue should be snaked around these steps and then some," he said.

Marmalade nodded. "Guessed so." She held up a sack full of fruit. "Ready to wait til morn, peruse the volumes. See what Kimur was like a hundred cycles ago."

Suddenly, he remembered Tuck's summons, and he sidled away from his League friend.

"See ya in the morrow!" She waved.

He threw a wave over his shoulder.

Gravis made it to the doorway, waiting on the retinal scan to allow him entrance. When the particle barrier came down, he ran inside.

As he passed under the yawning archways, he reached up to run his fingers along the etched stone:

Future Library.

2114.

Every time he touched the words, a tingle spiked through him. A hundred years of preparation, and the time had arrived. In the 'morrow, the Future Library would open, unsealing centuries of stories long believed to be lost.

Gravis had developed a habit of reading the library's stores, a punishable offense. Not much warranted punishing, but a disregard or misuse of knowledge was always ill-received.

His unilateral access of the library was brave, and an expedition any agent in the League of Worlds could appreciate. Every story carried him to a new world, and his latest favorite was Scribbler Moon, a place he wanted to believe was real. Unlike Kimur, which no longer existed. Except, Gravis aimed to prove the opposite, so long as Tuck heard him out.

"G'day, citizen," the mainframe greeted him, the cheery voice echoing in the empty space.

"G'day." He kept running.

A dozen more Gravis's ran with him, reflected on the liquid surfaces of access panels.

"Care for a volume?" the mainframe inquired, and the image of a book appeared on a panel near him.

"Not this rotation," he said.

In the room leading to Tuck's office, clear desks waited to be filled. Next rotation, library patrons would move rapid hands over the supple interfaces, coaxing century-old stories back to life. Gravis could barely bite back the excitement. His granmum had coined the import of volumes, above all else. He absorbed her advice and built a life from it, leading him to mentor with the library curator on his 13th cycle, a time when most others joined horticulture studies or the League of Worlds.

Finally, he burst into Tuck's office. "Kimur! It's still there!"

Tuck glanced up from his desk, clearing away virtual files with a flick of his hand. "Of course it's still there," he said. "Still dead, though."

"No, it's-,"

Tuck silenced his protest with an impatient shake of the head. "The opening ceremony must be re-visited before fantasy. Reiterate the sequence."

Gravis pulled his arm in front of him, the light on his wristlet shining. "Ceremony list," he commanded.

"From memory," Tuck said.

His arms dropped to his side, his fingertips tingling from the power imparted by the stone words. Using only memory, he recited the ceremony sequence to his mentor's satisfaction.

"Now," Tuck began, "what's this about Kimur?"

"Well, let me show you!" Excitement caused his voice to crack. His hands shook, but somehow he positioned the wristlet on top of Tuck's desk.

"Stream the story, Scribbler Moon," he told the device.

Tuck's eyes widened. "A sealed story saved to your interface?"

"That's not even the most interesting part," Gravis said, deflecting from his felonious action.

Immediately, an image for Scribbler Moon filled the desk's surface. The mainframe read the lines of  prose aloud, beginning with the ones he knew by heart:

"In the infinite quiet, I found the truth."

Gravis mouthed the words in cadence with the mainframe, eyes closed.

Tuck shook him. "A neat trick, but why?"

A small silence skipped by until he opened his eyes and answered, "It's not the trick, but it's the previous access point."

At the phrase, the mainframe picked up the command, and stated, "Scribbler Moon. Short story. To be read after the opening of Future Library, cycle 2114. Previous access point: Kimur, cycle 2113."

Tuck shuffled the virtual pages around on the desk, searching for the access file in question. When he viewed the unaltered file, he slumped down in the particle-composite chair, running dark hands through thick curls.

"Has to be glitchy tech. Kimur is dead," he muttered.

"According to this," Gravis grabbed at the file, flinging the image at the wall interface, enlarged and unavoidable, "not all of Kimur is dead. Someone accessed this same file, only one cycle back."

"This...we...the League can confirm the tech. But only until after the next rotation, and only until a patron accesses the story," Tuck said.

Gravis's hope at sharing in the discovery of Kimur deflated. Tuck meant to bury the knowledge, until someone stumbled upon it, seizing the glory for themselves.

"What if Scribbler Moon is never accessed?" he countered.

The possibility choked him. He tried hiding the disappointment peppered by tears, but they fell anyway.

"You'll access it in the mid-noon, 'course," Tuck said.

Gravis smiled through the tears. "You'd allow it? Even after my unauthorized access?"

His mentor stood from the desk and hugged him. "It's not every rotation that a dead planet shows life. After the long war, Kimur went silent, and no one's communicated with them in seventy cycles. Your discovery will spark a new age, much like the opening of the library."

Tuck hung an arm around Gravis's shoulder, leading him from the office to the main library meeting hall.

"'Mazing, right? Kimur is there after all," Gravis said.

Tuck smiled. "The library's contents were gathered on Kimur, and the Library commencement was meant to be there. The planet's obliteration came as a shock to the League, and it was only by the determination of one Kimurian librarian that we were able to salvage the data files."

"Kimur." Each syllable rolled around his tongue. "It had a different name, all those cycles ago."

Being young, Gravis couldn't recall the name, but Tuck could.

"Earth," he said. "In the cycles before, the League coined it as Earth."

****