Flame Read Online Free PDF Page B

shadows. At the end of it, sitting in a dim circle of light, was a small, decrepit person, fingers woven together on top of a leather blotter resting on an ornate oak desk. Waverly couldn’t be sure if this was a man or a woman—age had stripped away all signs of gender. The back of the leather chair hovered over the tiny person like a pair of dark wings, and when … she? he? it?… smiled, wrinkles rearranged themselves to make room for an overwide mouth and unnaturally white, square teeth, giving the impression of an otherworldly creature.
    “Dr. Wesley Carver,” Jared said with a bow, “I present Waverly Marshall.”
    So he was a man. Waverly recognized what was so strange about him: He was far, far older than anyone she’d ever met. The oldest person on the Empyrean had been Captain Jones, and he’d been sixty-five at the time of the attack. When the mission launched, no one older than twenty-five had been allowed to board the ships, or at least that’s what everyone had said. For the sake of the mission, the crews had been chosen for their robust health, intelligence, skills, and a capacity for longevity. Yet this person, this man, might have been eighty, he might have been one hundred. Waverly had no experience from which to judge.
    Tentatively, Waverly stepped into the room. The walls were lined with hundreds of leather-bound volumes. She glanced at some of the titles: The Prince by Machiavelli, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Histories by Herodotus, Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche.
    “Are you a reader?” the doctor asked with a smile.
    Waverly stood before the desk, watchful. “Novels,” she said breathlessly.
    He rubbed a hand over sparse white hair and indicated the overstuffed leather chair to Waverly’s left. “Sit.”
    Waverly lowered herself into it. She glanced behind her, expecting to see Jared standing there, but he’d silently left the room.
    “You ought to try philosophy,” the old man said. “Nothing excites the mind like a good bit of logic.”
    Waverly didn’t reply. She felt too out of her element. There was nothing this decrepit person could do to hurt her physically, yet she felt afraid.
    “You’re not one for small talk,” the man said, nodding approvingly as he pressed a button at the edge of his desk. “Let me get you something to drink.”
    The door opened behind her and Jared carried in a silver tea service. Ornate scrollwork covered the teacups in the twisting shapes of grapevines. The teapot looked to be made from ancient porcelain, and it was painted with a scene from antiquity—water nymphs lazing by a pool, centaurs carving their arrows.
    “Regency period, I believe,” the doctor said, watching her. “Quite rare.”
    The guard, if that’s what he was, poured a cup of tea for her. She accepted it quietly and watched as he dunked a biscuit into the old man’s tea and handed it to him before padding back out the door.
    “You have an appreciation for old Earth things, judging from what we were able to learn from your mother,” said the old man. “You like historical novels, isn’t that so?”
    She squirmed to have this person know anything about her. “I suppose.”
    “Don’t say ‘I suppose.’ It makes you sound wishy-washy. ‘Yes’ or ‘no’ is best.”
    Waverly took a slow sip of tea, then set the cup and saucer on his desk.
    “I’ve called you here, Waverly, because you have shown mettle. I am a person who appreciates mettle. It is so rare a thing. Most people are simpering heaps of nerves.” He smacked his lips distastefully. “You’re a smart girl. But I wonder if you’ve noticed that Anne Mather’s light is fading.”
    This got her attention. She looked at the man, tried to read him, but he was inscrutable in the way he grinned, one eye larger than the other, lips glistening with spittle.
    “Few people know instinctively how to wield power,” he said, tenting his fingertips together. “I saw that quality in Anne, and I must admit, she