I like the direction and momentum of the book. Even yesterday afternoon, with a headache and feeling a bit woozy, I managed to lay down 3,000 new words.
A longer bit of WIP than usual:
"So we know nothing new." He drummed his fingers on the worn leather arm of his chair. "Which is, of course, nothing new. Neither have we disproven anything." Another rattle of the fingers. "Before the rest of my Privy Council is admitted, let's give the Library Raisa its voice. Tavares, will you do the honors?"
The man leaned gingerly towards the jeweled casket that served as Library's base to tap on the sound system.
"...finest minds in the ripest kinds of paranoia to be destroyers your revolution comes from without not within evolution convolution involution across the star-studded oceans of night too bright for us to understand being only human, you not I, we take ourselves in hand. I remember Earth almost before space, Imperator, when the eagle and the bear chased one another across the lowest margins of the sky. Evolution then, crawling up the sky beach like fish in search of a dish of lungs and tripe so ripe our dreams have become these people babble like bears in a baiting cage filled with rage each convinced of his own right to victimhood and mastery in one breath as if we could be both prophet and centurion to share the same nails the head is never so bad off as the point for all the hammer pounds like ground shaking under the strike of rocks thrown by God to taunt His children, frogs in a pond, ripples untold unfolded toward the verges of the water and margins of the reeds and rushes where the baby was found to lead us all in revolution from the houses of the brickmakers through valleys in the water Red Sea, Reed Sea, sea of storms, bridge of sighs, bifrost, the heavens high Asgard and Midguard and be on your guard because no guard can ward you from what comes on wings of fire and light–"
"Enough," said the Imperator. Tavares shot him a grateful look and stabbed the Library to silence, though its lips kept moving and twitching and gasping.
The four of them exchanged glances.
"Well?" Moreland II finally asked.
Household Major Rhysling shook his head. "Nothing new."
"It spoke directly to you, Sire," Tavares said. "About the eagle and the bear. That's ancient Earth history. From Gagarin's time."
"Something that happened two thousand years ago is bearing fruit now?" asked Delahunt mildly.
Tavares shrugged eloquently. "If you do not believe that to be true, sera, then you aren't paying any attention. History is more real than most people think. But no, I didn't hear ancient conspiracy. More like ancient metaphor. Evolution, transition. The Library sees it coming, too, whatever it is. The same thing that's got the court and the virteo nets chattering. Everyone's casting about for more. But nothing new today, no."