Tieria stepped out of the restaurant in a bit of a daze. He had no time to process Regene's stunt, though, because the village stretching before captured his attention. Not many vehicles labored up and down the narrow, unpaved strip of road but there were stored lined up on both sides.
Grabbing the Haro tighly, Tieria made his way slowly, inspecting each dusty window with great interest. He noticed Mileina staring intently at a purple glimmering gem amid a clutter of items and decided he might as well buy it for her.
"Wait here."
From the cluttered window Tieria already expected the shop to serve several purposes but it was still somewhat taken aback. Shelf upon shelf layered with tools of all types, screws, bolts, along with vases, plates, cups, bundles of cloth, rubber, tinned goods, seeds, all in such a confusion that it gave him a mild headache. At his core Tieria was a creature of method and the complete lack of one baffled him all the more as he had been shielded from chaos for far too long.
Tieria found himself at the counter, having reached it after much blundering along dead end aisles between shears, bundles of wool (who not keep these with the cloth?), nozzles and who knew what else. He forgot all his unease as soon as he spotted a crate full of books.
"Can I help you?"
Finally, a somewhat awkward young man emerged from beyond the counter and addressed Tieria.
"Can I have a look at these?"
The man blinked. Then blinked again. His mouth widened in shock. It was a visible effort that he pulled himself together.
"The books? Yes- of course, feel free to."
Tieria did not need to be told twice. He placed the Haro reverently on the floor and proceeded to go through the surface layer of dusty covers under which he found others.
"Is this all books?"
"Yes, we get them from time to time,"
"I'll take them."
Tieria, for all his selfless purposes of getting a gift for Mileina, had forgotten all about it.
"Which ones?"
Tieria did not even bother to establish eye contact, this was a treasure trove. Not so much for him, Tieria had learned how to appreciate reading a physical, paper book as opposed to downloading straight into his memory but it was not something that attracted him that much. Ribbons, on the other hand, craved this kind of archaic ritual. Already Tieria was considering possibilities. A few titles were so promising that Tieria could hardly believe his good luck.
"All of them."
The man gasped.
"But- that's, a lot of books, are you sure,"
Tieria was already producing his card.
"Yes, I'm absolutely sure. I'll take the whole crate. Oh and the purple necklace in the window."
Tieria now hesitated. It was best for him to keep this transaction from coming to Ribbons's awareness. The card would give it away. He already had spent a lot of his allotted money on the Haro. Before this became a problem, the man announced a surprisingly low figure and Tieria found himself able to make his purchases without having to spring for the card. He also got a crate in which to stow away the Haro.
Mileina squeed for joy upon receiving the necklace. It was a cheap trinket but to her it might as well be an actual precious jewel. Tieria contemplated the relative value of things in general, to Mileina a glossy piece of glass was worth the world and to Ribbons, master of the universe, this stack of books sold by a pittance in a pitiful human settlement was invaluable. Somehow, Ribbons seemed utterly unaware that there were books to be had for pennies. Tieria puzzled about this for a while, as he boarded the shop owner's vehicle that was to carry them along with the goods to the station , his attention equally absorbed by his reflections and the outskirts of the settlement, taking note of every single vehicle that he saw.
Ribbons had access to all virtually available inventory but in these backwaters, there was no means of keeping track of books. Actually going in search for them would mean stepping into human territory, something that Ribbons was not likely to at all do. Why he had not just decided via one of his many edicts that all books were to be sent his was, Tieria could only guess. Perhaps he had become so disconnected from humanity itself that he had ceased to expect anything worthy to come his way from that quarter.
"-gize, but,"
Tieria realized that the man had been speaking to him.
"Yes? I'm sorry, I was zoning out."
The man had blushed bright red, which was never good.
"I don't mean to be offensive but has anyone ever told you that you look just like him? Just like Lord Tieria Erde."
Well, no one had ever told Tieria as much, no. The irony knew no bounds. Mileina rushed to the rescue.
"I keep telling Brother! Just like Lord Tieria!"
Tieria tried his nicest, sweetest smile.
"Thank you. I am most unworthy of such praise."
If you cannot beat them, join them. Tieria was vaguely amused until it occurred to him to what extent this was true of him.
At the station the man handed Tieria his business card- odd how such things still persisted- and Tieria made sure to store it. Ti e ria wished he had some means of communicating with this fellow in order to get more books but he had no access to the old technology used in human settlements and even if he did, it would be closely monitored by Ribbons and Regene.
Storing the Haro was a further problem. Tieria was thinking it over, how to get it safely to the ship without detection, when he was informed that a transport had been provided for him to take him directly to the other Innovators. Even as he plotted, in his own small way, to pull a wool over Regen's eyes, Regene anticipated him: the transport carted off the books with ease and it allowed him to keep the Haro with him.
The Haro did not go through any checks and thus escaped from Regene's most attentive gaze. A small win but better than nothing.
Tieria tapped the pencil against his chin thoughtfully. He contemplated the blank sheet of paper before him as if he hoped for sudden inspiration to spring therein. Nothing of the sort happened, of course. This was borderline prehistoric technology he was dealing with but he could not help but think back to the many images that had filtered into his consciousness, images that went from sepia and grainy to highly glossy, images in which the common theme was children arrayed in rows upon rows of desks, bent over sheets of paper, pen and pencil at hand.
These formed the backdrop against which he measured 'early childhood education' even if they were already fairly outdated by the time Tieria had come to be. Then again, as remote from Mileina's world as they were, they were still much close than the human education of Tieria's time. A high tech education would be impracticable in Mileina's village. Best rely on old tried methods that could be brought back even from the brink of a collapsed civilization.
As luck would have it, one of the books he had bought in bulk just so happened to be a manual of sorts. It had bright illustrations, that Mileina found most thrilling, and short texts meant for children, that failed to grab her attention. Tieria had underestimated human children's learning processes. Learning, as such, was not foreign to him. He had gone through drills and learned quite a few subjects in his other life, going through motions as opposed to just downloading information. But Tieria, as an Innovator, assimilated new data with an ease that was innate. It was, after all, what he had been designed to do.
All this made him a bad teacher. Tieria had handed down instruction, in his other life, and very often grew nothing short of furious when his fellow crew needed time to fully grasp it. For quite a while he was convinced it was nothing short of deliberate obtuseness, that they went out of their way to be so slow in order to annoy him: and annoy him they did. Tieria had been tossed into a self-contained human community without having been briefed on what human beings even were and so assumed they were, essentially, like him.
Tieria had been cured of all this a long time ago. There was no anger for Mileina's slow going and if there was any disappointment, it was at himself for not being able to properly teach her. Maybe he should download actual reading primers, there should be at least a few floating around Veda.
Then, inspiration did strike him.
"Alright, let's start with something you are familiar with. My name, 'Tieria Erde'. T-I-E-R-I-A E-R-D-E."
He wrote his name in a clear, easily readable font. Just last night he had downloaded a calligraphy program.
Mileina studied the paper reverently. She touched each letter with the tip of her index finger, tracing it with great care.
"These are letters,"
"Yes. It's not Innovate, though."
Innovate was more useless than Esperanto. It had its own script but Tieria was not about to lose time teaching it. He smiled as Mileina sounded the words under her breath. She was fully absorbed and Tieria felt surprisingly pleased.
"I can write Your holy name now…?"
Tieria nodded. He spent the next hour going through it, guiding her hand on the paper, correcting her grip on the pencil, explaining the formation of each letter and how they connected together.
"See, you have 'T' and 'I', so you get 'ti'. Since it's a proper name the first letters are capitalized, the 'E' in the first letter of of 'Erde' is the same letter as the last one, 'e'. The 'T' is a capital letter in this case, normally it's be 't'."
Mileina's brow was knitted in deep concentration. It was starting to worry Tieria a bit. "Take your time, there's no need to hurry. You'll be reading and writing in no time. And here, your name: 'Mileina'."
Tieria made sure to draw the name with great care so as to make it look as pretty as possible. The program was paying off.
"So many letters!"
"There are quite a few others. You'll learn them tomorrow."
Tieria nodded encouragement.
"Ribbons's birthday is coming up."
Regene announced this, dainty teacup dangling from his fingers.
"Every day is Ribbons's birthday."
Regene chuckled at the dig. It was one of Tieria and Regene's bonding rituals to make fun of Ribbons. The god complex was just too much.
"You know what I mean, there will be a party and everyone is expected to give him something."
"I already have a gift ready."
Regene seemed surprised at this. Tieria sipped some tea. They were having a nice afternoon tea on a balcony overlooking a lake. The delicately landscaped panorama, blue lake widening away into the distance, matched the silvery tea set.
"Really?"
"Yes. How about you?"
Regene shrugged.
"Your gift can do for the two of us."
"By the way, how did Ribbons even come up with this date?"
"I really can't say. Maybe it's when he stepped from his capsule first."
"It's not the same date every year, though. Last year it was the old 25th of December. Christmas, as it used to be called."
Regene laughed.
"But of course it was."
Tieria thought for a second.
"Is this also Hiling's birthday?"
"Having to celebrate Ribbons is bad enough as it is, I draw the line at Hiling."
"One almost feels sorry for Hiling."
Tieria could hear the smile in Regene's lips, curved on the delicate, borderline transparent china cup.
"Keyword: almost."
