01. Midnight At the Well of Souls Read Online Free PDF Page A

the technocrats needed to read.
    Only barbarians and wanderers read anymore.
    And librarians.
    Everybody else could just flip a switch and get a full, three-dimensional, sight-sound-and-smell creation of their own fantasies or those of a crew of dedicated fantasists picked by the government.
    Pretty dull shit, he thought. Even the people were bred without imaginations. The imaginative ones were fixed—or gotten rid of. Too dangerous to have a thinker unless he thought the government's way.
    Brazil wondered idly whether any of his passengers could read. The Pig probably—his name for Datham Hain, who looked very much like one—but he probably only read up on the stuff he sold or some mundane crap like that. Maybe a manual on how to strangle people twenty ways, he thought. Hain looked as if he'd enjoy that.
    The girl with him was harder to figure. Like Hain, she obviously wasn't from the communal factory worlds—she was mature, maybe twenty or so, and, if she didn't look so wasted away, she might be pretty. Not built, or beautiful, but nice. But she had that empty look in her eyes, and was so damned servile to the fat man. Wu Julee, the manifest said her name was. Julie Wu? mused a corner of his brain. There it was again! Damn! He tried to grab onto the source of the thought, but it vanished.
    But she does look Chinese, said that little corner, and then the thought retreated once again.
    Chinese. That word meant something once. He knew it did. Where did those terms come from? And why couldn't he remember where they came from? Hell, almost everybody had those characteristics these days, he thought.
    Then, suddenly, the thought was out of his mind, as such thoughts always were, and he was back on his main track.
    The third one—almost the usual, he reflected, except that he never drew the usual, permanently twelve-year-old automaton on his trips. They were all raised and conditioned to look alike, think alike, and believe that theirs was the best of all possible worlds. No reason to travel. But Vardia Diplo 1261 was the same underneath, anyway: looked twelve, was flat-chested, probably neutered, since there was some pelvic width. She was a courier between her world and the next bunch of robots down the line. Spent all her time doing exercises.
    A tiny bell sounded telling him that dinner was served, and he got up and ambled back to the wardroom.
    The wardroom—nobody knew why it was called that—merely consisted of a large table that was permanently attached to the floor and a series of chairs that were part of the floor until you pulled up on a little ring, whereupon they arose and became comfortable seats. The place was otherwise a milky white plastic—walls, floor, ceiling, even tabletop. The monotony was broken only by small plaques giving the ship's name, construction data, ownership, and by his and the ship's commissions from the Confederacy as well as by his master's license.
    He entered, half expecting no one to be there, and was surprised to see the two women already seated. The fat man was up, intently reading his master's license.
    Hain was dressed in a light blue toga that made him look like Nero; Wu Julee was dressed in similar fashion, but it looked better on her. The Comworlder, Vardia, wore a simple, one-piece black robe. He noted idly that Wu Julee seemed to be in a trance, staring straight ahead.
    Hain completed reading the wall plaques, then returned to his seat next to Wu Julee, a frown forming on his corpulent face.
    "What's so odd about my license?" Brazil asked curiously.
    "That form," Hain replied in a silky-smooth, disquieting voice. "It is so old! No such form has been used in my memory."
    The captain nodded and smiled, pushing a button under his chair. The food compartments opened up on top and plates of steaming food were revealed in front of each person. A large bottle and four glasses rose from a circular opening in the middle of the table.
    "I got it a long time ago," he told them