Coffeehouse
People embracing a new freedom must fear it being taken away again.
Sherry said, “Who wants to go next?” She was moderating the meeting.
Several people raised their hands high. The moderator looked past the regulars to find a new attendee with her hand barely up to her shoulder. “Come on up,” she said to the newcomer.
She walked up to the front of the room—the basement of the coffeehouse—and faced the rest in their seats. She was younger than most, in her twenties. Her fingers tugged at the hem of her blouse.
“Welcome.” “Thanks for coming.” “We’re glad you’re here.” Even the people who didn’t say anything gave her a supportive smile.
The woman took a deep breath. “I’m Alice, and I—”
She broke off, looking around, checking the corners of the room.
Everyone waited for her. They’d seen this before.
“I’m Alice, and I read a proscribed book.” She broke, looking a little thrilled at her daring. The Censorate had been expelled from Nordeste two years ago, old books were legal now, but it was still hard to overcome a lifetime of conditioning.
“That’s great. Tell us about it,” said the moderator.
Another breath. “I read a book titled the Betty Crocker Cookbook. It’s a collection of recipes for cooking. There were lots of dishes I’d never heard of. I tested one. It was called pancakes. The recipe called for eggs but didn’t say which kind, so I made two batches, one with quail eggs and the other with duck eggs. It came out better with the duck eggs. I’m going to try some more recipes and I’ll post notes on what I used for ingredients since the cookbook doesn’t define them precisely.”
The thirty attendees applauded her. “That’s useful,” someone remarked.
Alice blushed, said, “Thank you,” and returned to her seat.
“Alice, when you post your notes, please let me know so I can link to them in our database.” The moderator was learning to be a librarian. She’d started the book club to go through the library passed along by the visiting rebels. It had tens of thousands of books, with no indicators of which were the good and useful ones. So people were now picking some at random and reporting on them.
Steve spoke on a manual for manufacturing and maintaining phased array radar modules. He was far more enthusiastic about it than anyone in the audience.
“Who wants to be next? Madylyn, I see that smirk. Come share.”
The elderly woman moved briskly to the front, leaning on her cane. There was a chair up front Alice and the earlier speakers hadn’t bothered with. Madylyn sat in it.
“Hi! I’m Madylyn and I read a proscribed book.” Her smirk had widened to a positively evil grin. “This book is titled the Pirate’s Precious Plunder. Pirates are sailors who steal money and kidnap people. The story follows a beautiful woman who’s kidnapped. The pirate murders other people, but he falls in love with this woman. It’s a tale which would spice up any lonely woman’s day.”
The grin broadened. “Tucked into the middle of this book is a different book. The Insurgent Warfare Manual. It has everything you need to know for a regular subject to overthrow their government. How to make bombs from cleaning supplies. Making a gun from plumbing parts. Figuring out which member of your group is a government spy. Ways to recruit new people safely.”
That woke up her audience. The men whose attention had drifted away as she described the romance novel were now locked on to her. Others were nervously looking about.
“Of course, we have no need of that now, since our King has freed us from the Censor.”
“Hail to the King,” chorused about half the attendees. This custom had sprung up since Governor Huang was officially elevated to ‘King.’ It wasn’t required, but people were encouraging it, and it felt safer to do it than to be noticed not doing it.
“But if the Censorate ever invades, this could be a useful book for fighting off the Censies and restoring the King. Just like the Corwyntis drove the Censorate off their world. I urge everyone to keep a copy, either in their home system or printed out.”
Steve shook his head. “I wouldn’t want something like that in my files if the Censorate came back and started inspecting everyone’s system again.”
The Censorate demanded that all books be erased after the death of their author. This applied to history books, creating the illusion that the Censor had always ruled humanity. Only the arrival of the rebels with their proscribed library shattered the illusion.
“Printed books are harder to search,” said Sherry. She was a fan of them anyway. Shelves of books decorated her coffeehouse, encouraging patrons to sit, read, and order more beverages as they finished the story.
Madylyn said, “That’s probably why they put the fighting book inside the romance one. Any Security man picking that up will just look at a couple of pages and then toss it aside.”
“They’d still destroy it once it was old. That was the worst part of keeping a book collection in my coffeehouse. I had to keep checking on the authors and get rid of their books when they died.”
One of the regulars spoke up. “You handled it nicely. I remember the open house you had when Wapner died. We all sat in a circle describing our favorite bits as his twenty books burned.”
“Yes. Thank goodness we don’t have to do that any more,” said Sherry.
“Thank the King,” chimed in someone.
She bit back the temptation to point out—again—that then-Governor Huang hadn’t lifted the laws against old books to be nice. It had been the price for his alliance with the rebels, his best hope of escaping execution for not producing enough tax revenue. He’d been fine with the old rules until then. Including the rules against criticizing high officials.
Steve said, “I’d like a printout of that insurgent manual if I could get it tucked into one of those cow herding books. The pirate story would look out of place on my shelves.”
Alice laughed. “I need it as the pirate version. That’ll fit right in for me.”
That started a general discussion of what books people would want to use to disguise their secret insurgency manuals. Sherry promised to arrange with her printer to have them made up. The members could pick them up at next month’s meeting.
When that wrapped up, she asked for volunteers to describe books at the next meeting. Six hands went up. She wrote down the names. There was no consequence for failing to follow through, but she’d noticed making the notes doubled the chance people would show up prepared.
As people filed out, a few stayed behind to help stack up the chairs. Alice chatted up some of the older men in the group.
That made Sherry suspicious. Young women didn’t need to put in that much work to make new friends. In the old days, she would have thought her a Security undercover agent. Now Censorate Security was filling mass graves. The King hadn’t set up a replacement organization.
Or had he? There were new Royal offices with vague names. They couldn’t all be sinecures for ex-Censies who’d turned their coats quickly. If Royal spies were looking for potential rebels against the crown, Sherry’s book club would be a good spot. The books they read were giving people ideas.
The new regime had shifted power to the people. Instead of a Censorial appointee, cities were now ruled by elected councils, chaired by a Royal representative with veto power. Elected officials controlled the details, but the King had the final word.
It wasn’t enough for some members of the book club. They were getting ideas. Political theory. Novels showing life in a free society. Adventures where tyrants were villains to be overthrown. Those were the ones who’d been most eager to have a copy of the Insurgent Warfare Manual.
Would Alice be reporting on them? Or was there some other agent already in the club? Sherry would have to read the manual to see how to recruit safely. Some of the old time members she trusted.
How could she get them a copy of the manual without some Royal guard spotting it instantly in a search of their house? The disguise as other book technique had to be known to them, soon if not already.
She put an end to the conversations. “Shoo, everyone. I have to start grinding beans for tomorrow’s drinkers.” With cheerful farewells, they all went out into the evening.
After locking the door, Sherry went back down to the basement. It was lined with the imported coffee she served her customers. The big cloth sacks held beans. Once ground, they went into paper boxes for sale to those who wanted to make coffee at home, or straight up to the bar upstairs to be brewed.
Sherry hefted one of the packages of coffee grounds. It was about the same density as a book. She thought about the thickness of the Insurgent Warfare Manual. She’d have to add another book or two for it to fill one of the coffee boxes. But that would make a nice, discreet package someone could put at the back of his pantry, not to be opened until the need arises.
Hopefully the need would never arise.
“Proscribed” is part of the Fall of the Censor series, which begins with Storm Between the Stars. Governor Huang is elevated to King in Book 7, War By Other Means, on sale this week for $0.99.