"Are these black books?" said Don as he and Mark lifted a large trunk wrapped in chains.

"Yes," Poppa said. "The Satanic Bible, along with books of spells and curses and other black arts."

"Don, Mike, that goes straight to the vault," Kathy said.

"Yes, ma'am," Don said.

"We think at least one raider in Lafayette was after them," Poppa said. "He threatened Petra, but Liam took care of him. Later, we took a look at him. He had the CUT sun-sign on a metal disk, but he had a lot of icons attached to his armor. We didn't think he was one."

"Did his eyes go black?" Kathy asked.

"Liam says no, but the guy was wearing a mask. That mask also precludes him from being a Cutter because they've never been known to wear any."

"A wanna-be, likely," Kathy said.

"Here's a 1956 Sears catalog," Petra said. "Is it any good?"

"Doesn't matter," Elaine said, leafing through it. "We can't buy these things anymore, but we might get ideas on how to make items we can use."

"Like those frilly dresses? And those petcoats-"

Elaine leaned down and whispered. "Petticoats, right? And girdles? God, I wouldn't be caught wearing that stuff in a pigsty."

Petra giggled.

"This goes on the wagon with the encyclopedias," Elaine said. "What's in these boxes?"

"Mystery novels an old lady in Lafayette insisted we take," Poppa said.

"OK, they go on that other wagon."

"What's the difference?" Petra said.

"Fiction and nonfiction. What's real and what's made up." She shrugged. "Most of the time."

Petra didn't understand that last remark, but she felt a pang of regret as the last of the books came off her father's wagons. She felt sad she would never see them again.

"That's it, then, Pettibone, Raphael," Poppa said. "You guys rejoin the convoy." He unhitched his horse from the wagon, hitched it to a nearby post. "I'll probably catch up before you reach Center."

"Right, sir," Pettibone said as he climbed into the driver's seat.

"Wait!" Petra shouted.

"Yes, yes, missy, here it is." Pettibone pulled the bundle from under the seat, handed it down.

"Thank you for everything, Mr. Pettibone," she said, clutching it to her chest.

"You're quite welcome, missy. We'll see you soon." He touched his brow with his fingers as the wagon pulled away.

The library people wheeled the carts inside and pushed them against a wall. Poppa followed Kathy into an office and Momma led Petra through a double door into a huge room with long tables arranged in straight lines. Books were stacked on carts and the floor. People sitting on stools at the tables were bent over, until one would place a book on a cart behind, then take another from a stack.

"Are our books coming in here?" Petra said.

"Yes," Elaine said as she joined them. "These folks are classifying the books, nonfiction by topic and fiction by type, for instance. Some we'll copy using the printing presses next door, duplicates we'll send out for trade in other cities. The ones we keep will be available for anyone to come and borrow."

"Any new contact outside the Gulf Coast Coalition?" Momma said.

"Yes, we've heard solid reports of a stable government up in Oregon. It'll be tricky getting there, but it'll be worth it. We've also heard some strange tales about some sort of magic sword."

She shrugged. "I hope it's more myth than reality, but you can't tell these days."

"All done," Poppa called from the door. "We got good prices and credit this time," he said as they walked back to the dock. "As I expected, this will be a profitable trip."

"Good," Momma said. "I'd hate to go through all this for nothing."

They embraced, kissed, then Poppa got on his horse. "Say hello to Grandpa for me, petite fleur, but don't give him that present until I get there."

"All right, Poppa." She waved as he left, turned to Momma. "What are we going to do now?"

"We are going to Grandma and Grandpa's in style, that's what."

Momma hired a fancy one-horse, four-wheeled black carriage with red interior and brass fittings. Once settled on the thick velour seat, Petra took the book out of the bag and found to her dismay that the wrapping had wrinkled and torn.

"It's been through a lot," Momma said as she untied the white string and smoothed and readjusted the paper. She rewound the string, tied it with a bow. "Small wonder it's a little ragged and worn. Just like the rest of us."

After a while, the carriage turned into a curved street. Momma pointed out the window. "Look, that's the house we're going to live in."

They passed a structure with only one floor and no roof. "See, it connects to Grandma and Grandpa's house right next door. You'll have your own room and there's a lake in back so you can still go swimming and a small woods to go exploring in."

"In between chores," Petra muttered, but Momma laughed. "Why did we come?"

Momma slipped an arm around her. "It's safer here, little flower. When I'm on duty and your Poppa is on another trip, you'll be safe with Grandma and Grandpa Landreaux. The old village area was getting too dangerous with those cultists and dark-arts people in the forests. Plus, we're a lot closer to Grandmere and Grandpere Gautreau in the Houma Nation. We'll go for a visit soon."

The carriage stopped and as Petra got out, a screen door opened and a tall, lanky white-haired man came down the steps.

"Grandpa!" Petra shouted.

"Is this my petite fleur?" Grandpa said as Petra ran into his arms. "Not so petit anymore is she? Soon she'll be too big for old Grandpa."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and giggled as his beard tickled her. He set her down and she ran over to Grandma, who smelled of baked bread. Momma, after paying the driver, came up and more hugs and hellos were exchanged.

"Where's Liam?" Grandpa said.

"He'll be along later with Mycroft," Momma said. "He rode in with the Rangers."

Grandpa arched an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

"So young," Grandma said, a look of concern wrinkling her brow.

"He saved me, Grandpa," Petra blurted.

He look down at her. "Did he!"

"Yes, I-"

Grandpa knelt, placed a hand on her shoulder. "Wait until he arrives, honey, so he can tell us in his own words."

"All right."

"Right now, my stinky fleur," Grandma said, "it's bath time for you."

Petra protested, but once immersed in the hot water, she found she enjoyed it. There were bubbles, there was Grandma scrubbing her back with a brush and washing her hair with sweet-smelling soap. She put on a clean-smelling shift that was soft against her skin. Momma then took a bath, and meanwhile neighbors came in whose names she quickly forgot. Grandpa showed her the communal gardens, the house and the stables, then took her to the greenhouse where she picked several big, ripe tomatoes and carried them into the kitchen.

Liam and Poppa arrived to another round of loud talking and hugs, and when Poppa gave her a hug, he said, "Someone smells sweet. Did'ja save any bathwater for me?"

"Was I supposed to?"

The neighbors stayed for a dinner of glazed ham, hominy grits, mustard greens, and a corn and red pepper dish along with fresh cucumbers, carrots and the tomatoes. Spiced apples and little nut cakes served as the dessert and the adults offered toasts with goblets of wine while Petra drank grape juice. She suspected Liam had wine in his glass, but he was on the other side of the table so she couldn't be sure.

Finally, Momma said, "Petra, the bundle."

Petra raced upstairs. She carried the gift carefully into the dining room, noticing that Momma stopped talking when she did.

"I'm sorry this is so late, Grandpa," she said. "But I wasn't here for your real birthday-"

"It is no never mind," he said, putting his free arm around her. "I am truly touched by your devotion and determination to bring me this. Your Momma told us about the troubles you had."

Petra felt her face flame. Grandpa didn't seem to notice as he untied the string and removed the wrapper.

"Ooo, pretty gold color," Grandma said.

"This book still has a slipcase," Grandpa said, turning it over in his hands. He tilted it and slid the book out, set the slipcase on the table and opened the cover. "The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again." He gazed at the gold cover a moment. "I remember this."

Petra's heart sank. "You read this already?"

He smiled. "Long time ago. Now it's your turn." He slipped the book back into the slipcase. "But now-Jacob did you bring your accordion?"

"But of course."

"Then we shall dance first."

Once cleared and the dishes done, the tables were moved, leaving a large open floor. The music started and the dancing took over. Before long, though, Momma took Petra by the hand and led her upstairs, had her change into a long nightgown, say her prayers, then crawl into a soft bed.

"Don't fall asleep yet," Momma said after kissing her good night. "Wait for Grandpa."

Petra sat up in the bed when she heard the slow tread coming up the stairs. Light flickered on the walls as he made his way to her room. He set the lantern on the chest next to the bed, then pulled a chair over. He sat down, took the book out of the crook of his arm and slid it out of the slipcase, which he set aside.

"Are you going to read that whole book to me?"

"I am. Unless you have an objection."

"I brought that for you."

"And we'll read it together. This is something that should be shared. Besides, it's my duty."

"Duty?"

"It's a grandpa's duty to read stories to his grandchildren. It's a tradition that reaches way, way back, before the Reckoning, back before they could print books, back before folks could even write, back to the ancient times when everyone lived in caves and listened to the old stories. So settle back and we'll get started."

Petra plumped her pillow, adjusted the covers, put her hands together, rested them on her lap, looked at her grandfather with her best polite face.

He laughed lightly. "You are a pill, no doubt about that. Well, anyway." He opened the book. "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again." He cleared his throat. "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit-"

"A hole? Who wants to live in a hole?" She remembered hiding in holes back home that most times had water in them, and sometimes big bugs or other icky, crawly things, or even snakes. And the holes always stank.

"Well, now, I'm sure"-Grandpa flipped the pages back-"Mr. Tolkien will explain why this particular character likes to live in a hole. That is, of course, if certain of us can set aside our impetuousness for a moment to hear what he has to say."

Petra shifted, frowned. "All right, Grandpa, I'll be patient."

"Good." He shifted the book in his lap, then resumed.

The hole, the story went, was snug and comfortable because the individual who lived there wouldn't have it any other way, and as Grandpa's voice rumbled into Petra's thoughts, she discovered that there were also dwarves who danced and sang and ate a prodigious amount of food, a wizard who made secret plans, and possibly a dragon, a creature she'd only heard about but she knew to be dangerous and powerful, who had stolen a vast treasure. At some point, all those things became part of a dream, though if asked she couldn't say exactly when that had happened, just as she was unaware exactly when Grandpa had stopped reading, tucked her in, kissed her on her forehead and said, "Sweet dreams" softly into her ear. And if she had stopped to think about it, she would recognize that these new dreams contained things she'd never seen before, places she'd never been before, with adventures she never could have imagined otherwise, because there, in the safety and warmth of Grandpa's house, it was possible to have such dreams.

Fortune and Glory.

by John Birmingham.

John Birmingham.

John Birmingham is the author of the Axis of Time series, Weapons of Choice, Designated Targets, Final Impact, and the Stalin's Hammer e-book spin-offs. Because you always wanted to see a time-traveling rainbow alliance kick Hitler's ass.

In "Fortune and Glory," he revisits some of his favorite characters from Without Warning and the Disappearance series. Cap'n Pete Holder, Fifi Lamont, and Lady Julianne Balwyn of the good ship Diamantina. In this alternate-alternative history they take on a direct commission from the King of Darwin to track down a vital document lost somewhere within the great crypt city of Sydney. But being ambitious, self-starting pirates they also find time for a little side project and a running battle with the city's ferocious cannibal horde, the Biters.

The old sailboat was a twin-masted forty-footer carved out of thousand-year-old Huon pine from the Tasmanian Highlands, a beautifully preserved museum piece. She placed third on corrected time in a SydneyHobart race way back in 1953, and in the decades since had logged enough miles to make it to the moon and back. In that time she had been the plaything of a builder, a manufacturing tycoon, one dot-com millionaire, and a pirate by the name of Pete Holder.

He was a nice pirate, though, if you asked him. Quite handsome in a derelict-surfer-bum sort of way, in spite of, or maybe because of, the scars. Damsels dig scars, after all. And he only ever stole from the other pirates, and when he wasn't doing that, he was busy rescuing said damsels and hunting hidden treasures, as the better sort of pirate is wont to do. Commendable pursuits that had furnished him fortune and glory and Jules and Fifi: a dark-haired, deadly English rose and her messy blond bestie, redneck princess to Lady Julianne's bona fide if distant claim to the blood royal.

The fortune he'd salted about here and there. A little in the Royal Vault at Darwin. A little more on his account at the Townsville Arsenal. At least half in the First Republican Bank of Tasmania. And a few little trinkets and baubles buried in watertight capsules on lonely, unpeopled islands up and down the Great Barrier Reef.