The Well of Stars Read Online Free PDF

Chairs?”
    “Approaching,” one of the new Submasters offered. “Washen took a wrong turn, it seems.”
    The officer was a Remora named Conrad. Barely human, in other words. The Remoras lived on the ship’s hull, their bodies permanently encased in lifesuits woven from hyperfiber. Surrounded by vacuum and raw radiations, they were subjected to endless mutations and odd cancers, but not only did the Remoras accept the damage,
they used it. Each mutation was an act of Creation, full of potentials and possibilities. To the good Remora, the body was a ripe and holy vessel meant to be reshaped without end—a perfect canvas on which endless brushstrokes of gaudy paints could be applied at will.
    Conrad’s single eye looked human, but it rode a muscular stalk, allowing it to pivot as he winked at his associates, joking, “It’s not a good sign, having your First Chair lose her way.”
    The Master stared at him while saying nothing.
    “Perhaps,” one of the AIs sang out. “Begin without them?”
    The golden woman shook her massive head, and from a position of utter weakness, she had to say, “No, we’ll wait. We have to wait.”
    Everything was different now.
    Everything.
     
    THE TWO MISSING officers walked a narrow trail, working their way toward the black point of rocks. Pamir’s grin betrayed a rare good humor. He nodded at the security troops standing watch, and with a sly grin, he asked, “What would you guess? If we walked into every house in this city, how many deserters would we trip over?”
    Washen remained silent, concentrating on other matters.
    “Ten or twelve no-goods,” Pamir offered. Then with a genuine laugh, he added, “It’s always been easy, vanishing.”
    “Should we make it more difficult?” she inquired.
    Pamir had considerable experience with desertion. A great portion of his life aboard the ship had been spent hiding, in one fashion or another. Only a general amnesty had coaxed him out of his self-imposed exile. Given the chance, he would be the first to admit that his rise to the Second Chair’s post was astronomically more unlikely than finding a little criminal making himself drunk inside Washen’s childhood kitchen.
    “Perhaps disappearing should be more difficult,” he offered. Then with a breezy laugh, he added, “If only to cull out the amateurs.”
    They were still smiling when they reached the crest of the hill. The Master remained sitting while the other high officers stood. Washen offered a smile and a curt nod, saying, “Madam. All. My apologies. Shall we begin?”
    The Master bristled silently.
    In truth, this had always been Washen’s intention. By arriving late, just this once, she would show her colleagues the new order. The Master couldn’t complain about her tardiness. Washen and Pamir had saved both her life and her command, and she ruled today only because they had decided to allow her golden round face—that very familiar face—to continue to speak for the Great Ship.
    “Welcome,” said that face.
    Humans nodded, and everyone repeated the word, “Welcome.”
    Washen, then Pamir occupied the final two chairs, flanking the Master Captain.
    “We’ll begin with reports,” the golden face continued. “Conrad? Please.”
    The epaulets of the Remora’s new rank had been fastened to his hyperfiber shoulders. The single stalked eye stared out through the diamond faceplate, glancing at each of his equally anointed colleagues. Then with a wide, elastic mouth, he described the state of the ship’s hull. “It’s shit,” he assured them. “We took a huge pounding after the lasers and shields went down. We’ve got some awful craters to patch, and the shields and lasers are barely at half strength. And because our telescopes and other sensors were pounded to dust, we’re flying close to blind now. It’ll take years to rebuild our eyes, and decades more to patch the craters properly. Except for the monster crater, which could eat up a full century of hard