In the Hall of the Martian King Read Online Free PDF

delicate pastries.
    Jak untethered and pushed off the warming pad, feeling as if he had a hangover, and slowly, slowly dispensed coffee into a
     bulb. Usually when he was sleep-deconditioned, he had threatening dreams, frightening dreams, dreams that made him weep, none
     of them coherent, all of Shyf; this time had been no exception. Jak had a sour taste in his mouth, a raw feeling in his throat,
     and an oozy gray mess in his brain.
    He drew a breath, told himself to be a grown-up, and stripped off the old “PSA Maniples First Chair” shirt he usually slept
     in.
    The music changed over to a medley of medieval American musical theatre songs, bright bouncy happy things about cockeyed optimists,
     four-leaf clovers, and figuring that whenever you’re down and out the only way is up. (Conservation of momentum was apparently
     unknown to medieval Americans.)
    He ate only two small puff pastries, despite all the temptations the waitron offered. It would be close to dinnertime for
     Sib and Gweshira, and Sib always sprang for a great meal.
    Not that he would ever admit it to Sib, but Jak was looking forward to seeing him. Sibroillo Jinnaka had raised Jak, taught
     him the Disciplines, pushed him to excel at everything, and usually been everything you would want your uncle to be. Of course,
     there was a downside. Jak had gotten caught, more than once, in Circle Four’s deadly feud with Triangle One. Jak’s life could
     have been much easier had his family name been something other than Jinnaka. But still, Uncle Sib had been right there whenever
     Jak needed him, and if his advice had sometimes proved dead wrong, he was still Jak’s model of brains, skill, and courage.
    Besides, I haven’t seen the horrible old gwont, or had a chance to tease him in person, for a whole year,
Jak thought as he airswam swiftly through the tunnels.
Hope I haven’t lost my touch.
    Most passengers off
Eros’s Torch
had taken the launch directly down to Mars. Sib and Gweshira were the only passengers on the ferry. As Hive citizens entering
     a Hive possession, they cleared security swiftly, and were out in the receiving area, pounding Jak’s back, hugging him and
     laughing, within a minute of the green pressure light.
    They went to the Parakeet, a pleasant-enough all-shifts restaurant. On the way, Sib commented, “Except for some minor changes
     in the uniforms, this could be a hundred eighty years ago, when I used to come up here to go drinking and whoring.”
    “Since I’m in charge of the place, I’m supposed to go somewhere else for that.”
    “The burden of command,” Gweshira said, her eyes twinkling. She was a tiny woman, all muscle and gristle, and the deep brown
     skin stretched over her square jaw was still firm and tight, though she must be close to two hundred years old herself. Her
     silver hair had escaped from its clip, bobbing around her face as they airswam.
    The Parakeet was centrifuged to one-tenth g, the grav that made “light” synonymous with “rich” or “high class,” in which soup
     stayed in a bowl and one could walk, but lying on a hard floor was comfortable and motion easy. On the partitions in the dining
     room, which blocked the view of people dining upside down over one’s head and doors whirling by every few seconds, screens
     showed views from outside cameras; the restaurant appeared to be freeflying in Mars orbit.
    One side of the dining room showed the red-green-blue-white landscape of Mars, spattered with small lakes, interrupted by
     tight white cyclones and smeared with the black smoke of prairie fires. On the opposite side the screens were lit with the
     wild rainbow flame of
Eros’s Torch,
a stream of exotic matter tortured to the borders of existence, cooling into a thin smear of plasma, fifty thousand kilometers
     long and a million kilometers away, against the black star-showered velvet of space. “Well, the ferry with my boss on it should
     be reaching
Eros’s Torch,
right about