The first book Margaret picked up was a slim volume entitled River Systems of the Pacific Northwest: The Impact of Dam Building Upon Culture, Commerce and Native Wild Things Quick-time reading brought her the images: She was a fish, smelling home in the river, fighting her way upstream. She was an eagle, flying over the landscape, seeing the river's course, the changes that had occurred over many centuries. She was a dam, powerful, holding back the river for irrigation and electrical power. She was a First-Nations fisherman, casting for steelhead at Celilo Falls. She was greed, she was power, she was broken treaties and legal battles, snow-capped mountains and endless forests, high desert and wind-swept plains, small cities running on cheap electrical power, factories and nuclear weapons, deep gorges, wild horses, and bountiful fields made possible by irrigation. The entire contents of the slim volume came rushing over her like a wave. She understood the contents from the point of view of the one who wrote it. She had been an environmental scientist with a full grasp of one small corner of the world at a certain time in history. Heeling Recipeas appeared to be the oldest volume in the library. She was an elder of the village, respected by some and feared by others. Having given her life to the systematic study of herbs and their uses, she was the most accomplished medicine woman for miles around. Treating all who came to her, practicing her art gave her a quiet joy. Some saw her as a giver of life and death, and when they came for her she escaped by joining the mob unnoticed, making her face an ugly mask that mirrored that of her attackers, and angrily stomping off into the woods alone when it was discovered that the witch was not at home. Margaret sat up straight, stretched her spine, rubbed the sides of her face with the palms of her hands, and rolled her head around to stretch her neck muscles. She had only been sitting there for a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. The next book that came to her hand was a logbook. Dates and notations told of a life lived in the Lunar Colonies. Arrival of water ships, of freighters, of pleasure cruisers. Records of arrests, notes describing suspicious activity in the port, and one long segment where she had investigated and solved a particularly complicated crime. She was head of the Port Authority, struggling in her personal life with alcohol and isolation. She remembered the feeling of living with success and failure together, remembered how much she hated that feeling, remembered how desperately she wanted to leave the moon. In every lifetime, every situation, there was one constant: Margaret wrote it all down. Like a compulsion, she recorded her experiences. By the time each life had been fully lived, she had at least made notes about her experiences and what she had learned. And she remembered ... In every age, from the days of witches burning to nights spent in the cold vacuum of space, there came a time when Margaret had learned what she had come to learn. Turning a corner, she had arrived in this library with her latest book to add to the collection. Sometimes it was a surprise to arrive here, sometimes she knew where she was going. But each trip to the library signaled an ending and a new beginning. Dropping back into slow time, Margaret sat perfectly still. Today she had no new book with her. She had not recorded her experiences in ForceOps. Why was she here now, in this place, when she was still fully involved in her life? "You ARE done," insisted a voice inside Margaret's head. The holo on the desk flickered to life, flamed blue and went out. Still in slow time, Margaret did not hear the translation portal opening directly behind her. There was no time for her to react as Macali emerged through the portal, activated a containment field around them both, and instantly transported them to an Opaque cell. ******** Craig & Tara (auntietk)