"How long have people been working on the book project?" she asks. The fact that he's a second-generation maintenance librarian is neat, but it also makes her wonder about the timeline of invention. The periods between inventing new computer architectures came pretty quickly in her world; maybe the slower invention is a function of their lower population?

Around fifty years, probably a few more than that? The original inventor is retired now, but he's still around. It hasn't been open to the whole world quite that long, of course, it started out as a personal project and then spent a while as a local utility.

It's at about this point that they come to the beginning of his territory; unlike the formatting team's section, the tunnels that they've been walking through have been left to look like polished natural stone, similar to the unfinished tunnels they took to get here, though unlike those these are lined with crafting material, to close inspection. The doorway he leads them through is similar to the others they've passed, with the doorframe and door itself made in his design (the teardrops are three dimensional but not fully separate from the door, in this case), and leads to a corridor running under and through a nest of marble rails, itself under a translucent roof. Everywhere one might look there are marbles running at least occasionally, though some tracks are much more popular than others; it's fairly noisy but not too loud.

There are soundproof headphones by the door if the formatter wants some, he conveys, and he has an idea for something that might do the job for Weeping Cherry if the noise bothers her - it is kind of a lot but he's used to it, the sound helps him tell that everything's working as it should be.

"I like noises!" she reassures him. And, in fact, her forb is tracking sonic returns from everything to get a more detailed view of the surroundings. The different marbles make subtly different noises, and she's pretty sure that she could write some analysis software to read off what traffic is going overhead.

It wouldn't be especially hard to; the rails themselves are somewhat sound-dampening (unlike the headphones, which decline to transmit sound waves at all) but the marbles themselves are tuned to a straightforward major scale with a few sharp or flat notes for the special markers.

Their guide shows them around; a lot of the space is just for transit, but they can see a marble reader - this one's fully soundproof once the marbles are inside, but he'll take a copy and make it translucent and remove the soundproofing so she can see the mechanisms in action - and the bit after each reader that holds extra requests when there's a backup in a particular section, and the much bigger holding area for when the whole machine is backed up, and some encoded books headed back out to the book readers, and then he'll lead them to the edge of his domain to where it overlooks another section, done in buttery yellow and light coral, where they can watch a book get read out into an ansible. He's happy to answer any questions she has along the way, or make copies of any other things she'd like to see.

She has various questions about the sensitivity of the mechanisms inside the marble readers, how they allocate codes to books, how they elevate marbles when required, etc.

She takes lots of visible-light pictures, and turns out not to need any x-rays to see things because of his helpful transparent copies. When they get an overview of the book reader, she does use a focused burst to get a more detailed scan of it.

She starts working up designs for a book reader that she could sit in to scan books faster, but probably they won't be willing to attach her mechanisms to the library for a while, and her language proficiency is already doing pretty well.

When the tour is over, she expresses her appreciation and asks if she can sit in the formatting team's room and read more books.

They're going to want it back before too much longer, not everyone on the team is up for sharing space with strangers. but she'll be fine there for the afternoon and she can hang out in one of the empty formatting team territories for a few weeks if she wants, or there's a more public shared area a little ways down the mountain that nobody will mind her hanging around at. And of course she can get a book printer of her own if she wants one.

"The afternoon is okay, or anywhere I can have a transparent book printer. I can be outside if you like that," she says.

Well, whatever Weeping Cherry prefers works, really, she can have her printer anywhere she'd like - they can put it on a walking cart for her if she wants that, a little one won't take much crafting material. Or they can maybe rig up some kind of airship that doesn't need crafting to use? She'll think about it.

"I want to read enough books to have good talking, and then I want to help Crafters until I am fixed myself. After I am fixed, I can travel and find a territory. I can help by sharing crystal-person machines, or by remembering, or by seeing small things, or by getting in small places, or other things," she explains. "If no Crafters want me to help, I will not be hurt by being outside. I like the outside."

- it's ultimately Weeping Cherry's choice, is what she's getting at. It'd hurt a Crafter pretty badly to have someone try to make a choice like that for them, and she doesn't expect anyone to be willing to make it for her just because she's an alien; she's certainly not willing to.

... huh. She keeps finding little things that remind her that these are aliens.

"Oh! I regret confusing you," she says. "What I choose is a choice for you also? If I choose to be in the Formatting team room, that is also a choice for the Formatting team. So when crystal-people are choosing, they think it is good that all the people a choice is for say what choices are good. If we both think one choice is good, I do that. If we think different choices are good, we can compare our choices."

"If that isn't how Crafters do it, I will stay outside with a book machine. I think that choice is the fewest people are not liking it," she concludes.

Yeah, if Weeping Cherry wanted to camp out in the formatting team room indefinitely that'd be a problem, which is why she's been disinvited from doing that. The other two options she mentioned are fine, they're not going to affect anyone very much one way or the other, so it's nobody's business but Weeping Cherry's which of those she picks, or if she goes with some other option.

She supposes that makes sense. She's also getting the idea that governments are going to be way less popular here than they are at home. At home, most people live somewhere with more than the minimum laws, and here it's probably going to be the reverse.

She doesn't really have anything else to say on the matter, so she just replies "I understand," and continues following neon-bubbles in the direction of the formatting room with the intention of making off with one of the transparent book machines.

The lounge is much as she left it; teal argyle has left and the one in green and coral that she saw last night is back, eating a salad and tinkering with a miniature airship.

"Will you help bring a book machine outside?" she asks neon bubbles. "And make a roof for it if it wants a roof?"

Sure - does Weeping Cherry intend to give it back within the next few days, or should someone make one for her?

She thinks for a moment.

"I like one for longer, but I could use this one for a day and then bring it back if nobody wants to make one right now," she concludes.

Give her a minute to check her crafting material stockpile, how about.

(She goes to do that.)

Given how fast checking probably is, she's not sure whether she has time to strike up another conversation or not. She settles for orienting to face green and coral in case a conversation happens, and spending the time reading more of her stored books.

They seem pretty engrossed in their tinkering; it looks like they're designing a new leveling system to keep the ship steady in the air.

Oh, that does look neat! Their machines are so wonderfully understandable -- built on a human scale, with no complex microscopic components. She thinks that if she had been born a Crafter she would have had so much fun learning about and designing mechanisms.

She reads a few more pages, occasionally scanning through her stored corpus to find example sentences with similar grammatical structure to the ones she's trying to pick apart.

Neon bubbles is back before too long, and goes ahead and makes another reader and roll of paper; Weeping Cherry can keep the set she's using, since it has the ansible in it, and she'll head down to the depot and get another one while she's out. She has material for a shade, too; rain won't bother the reader but the paper will react to bright sunlight the same way it reacts to light from the reader until it's deactivated, so she'll need someplace sheltered for that unless she's sure she isn't going to want any hardcopies of anything.

"I don't need paper," she explains. "The middle is clear because I can see the lights and remember them and look at the book in my head. Because I can't craft the paper empty, this is easier."

She figured it was something like that but she didn't want to assume anything - she could change the paper so it can be cleared by heating or cooling it or something? But it does sound like Weeping Cherry is fine with what she's doing now.

"Can you bring it? I am still too small to bring it well," she requests.