Chapter 7: Bibliarcheology

After the regular lessons, Ava spent some time in the school library, trying to find information about the Vega constellation. The Virtual Search Interface had only come up with some references to old-fashioned wooden 'books'. This led to some huffing and puffing from the resident librarian, the searching of the key to the storage cellars and eventually the retrieval of said 'books'. Just the look that was given by the cobweb-encrusted librarian was enough to convey his unspoken vow never to return into the bowels of school library ever again. Since the date stamping device appeared to have been lost in the mists of time, the librarian had told Ava that the lending term was indefinite, for all he cared, before quickly turning his back on her and retreating in his VR-headset, mumbling that he had taken this job at a digital-only school for a reason. (Several reasons in fact: No heavy lifting, decent pay for the negligible amount of actual work and unsupervised access to virtual grown-up girl avatars at no cost (real life girls tended to cross the road to avoid his strong aura). The 'Helping kids when asked' prerequisite was the only real drawback).

Ava surprised Mom and Dad by quickly finishing her least favourite dinner (deep-fried Brussels sprouts with soy-based mustard) and bounding upstairs after dessert. Afraid of being caught with the wooden books, she had sneaked them upstairs while claiming she was going to put her Device on the charger, when returning from school. She had Eddy swear her an oath of secrecy on the way back home, in order to test his loyalty, before entrusting him with anything bigger, like the court summons. So far he had kept his word. Eddy had helped carrying the bag hiding the wooden books home, all the while droning on about learning to write the letter "@" on his tablet device with his finger. Tomorrow they would start on the pound sign.

Retrieving the books from the bulge under her duvet, Ava started reading articles. Apparently Vega was a star in the Lyra constellation, some 25-ish lightyears away (Note to self: maybe it is still there, please confirm in 25 years to validate the current statement), which is far away and close at the same time. It is a bigger but much younger brother/sister/neuter of our own sun, which likes to spin so fast it is bulging at the equator (a bit like Uncle Alex, but without the spinning). Since an actual star is probably too hot for any lifeform to stand on, Ava assumed that there must be some planets in the system as well, if any kind of explorers were to come from there. Digging some deeper, she found a discussion on this subject, but given the distance (and the age of the book), disturbances in the star's movement could only give some indication of what could be out there in the secretion disc surrounding Vega. Something Neptune-like was likely, but smaller, rockier planets could be present in a much closer orbit.

Falling asleep to the still lingering smell of slug slime, Ava started dreaming about an unlikely planet around a fidget-spinner star, sending out flames in all directions. The chipped marble of a planet was pock-marked on one side and covered in some kind of blueish cloud or ice on the other side. Ava concluded the planet didn't look healthy and only as round as the clay marbles Eddy recently made at school, despite being analogue and physical (Mom sent an instant complaint message to school about that).

As in a cut-scene from a computer game, Ava's vision zoomed in to the blue-white pole, where the atmosphere seemed to be evaporating into some sort of space bubble at a rather alarming rate. The most likely reason for this being the intensifying red glow underneath, which quickly turned into yellow and hinted at the likelihood of turning into the hot brother of the white twin moons sometime in the near future. Several blue and yellow streaks flashed away from the boiling surface before disappearing into deep space. One was heading for a smaller star in the middle distance. The others headed out in entirely different directions.

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