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Authors: Robert Reed

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“Twice,” the woman muttered.

“I know.”

“I have lost the ship two times now.”

Pamir showed her the barest hint of compassion, then swept it away with a glare. “We lost it for you, this time. Washen did. I did. But if you think any of us could have predicted this mess …”

The mess remained too enormous to measure. But clearly the Great Ship had survived the polypond. Others had taken hold of the helm, and by incomprehensible means, they had twisted the ship slightly. Feeling an irresistible pressure, the damaged Sword was warped, and with twenty Earth masses bearing down on its cutting edge, its blade had slipped sideways. In the end, it cut the Great Ship into two unequal pieces, doing untold damage in the process. But the core and Marrow were spared And in any other scenario, that would be a good enough reason to celebrate.

But in the midst of one attack, another enemy had risen. And with an ease that terrified every captain, the nexuses were disabled, while the reactors and pumps, and the waste disposal and environmental controls, were each being stolen away by quick hands that still refused to show themselves.

Reaching the first door, Pamir paused. Using a simple radio transmitter, he said, “Status?”

“We still have control,” Aasleen said through a clutter of static.

“I need a door opened.”

“Isn’t it?”

Pamir turned to the harum-scarum. “Burn it open!”

“We’ll expose ourselves,” the Master warned.

“We’re pretty damned exposed as it is,” he countered Then to the soldier, he said, “Burn it, and anything or anyone that gets in our way.”

That door and the door standing behind it were obliterated Running through the smoldering mess, Pamir led them out onto the floor of one of Port Alpha’s secure berths. The vessel looming over them was a strange contraption, resembling a submarine more than a starship—a heavily armored machine ready to burrow its way through long stretches of dangerous water. Only after it passed through the polypond would it shuck off that exterior. Inside was a streakship, fully fueled and in perfect repair, with a small picked crew and an AI pilot that Pamir knew well. The Al spoke across a shielded radio channel, telling his old friend, “Hello. Welcome. Another journey, is it?”

“Not today,” Pamir replied.

The Master walked heavily her significant bulk not only useless but taxing. Yet despite her own anguish, she began to run, broad legs swishing, almost matching Pamir’s near sprint.

“I’m staying behind” he told the pilot.

“But why?”

“I’ll do more here.”

The AI accepted that judgment without comment. “Then what is my mission?” it inquired.

“Someone has stolen our ship,” he replied “It is human property by law and rights, and my species needs to be warned. Who else should deliver that news but the unseated Master?”

There was a pause—an eternity for an AI.

Then the voice said “Agreed.”

The trio had reached the sealed vessel. A single hatch blossomed open, and feeling all of her weight, the Master Captain bent low and began to climb inside. Again, with a mournful voice, she said, “Twice I have lost this ship.”

“And twice in the past you have taken it,” Pamir replied. “For yourself, for humankind For the Milky Way.”

The golden face nodded.

Silently, the open hatch began to melt at the edges, flowing back together again.

A moment later, for no apparent reason, the lights inside the berth died away, and from the Port’s control came a sputtering, sloppy voice saying, “Hurry, hurry. They’re coming, we’ve got to launch now … !”

Near the ship’s center, a seamless night had been born.

Contingencies continued to play out, relentlessly and in every corner of the universe, and who could count how many plans were unfolding?

Washen had given up trying. What remained, for now and maybe for always, was the belief that the Great Ship had been built by wise minds, and it was meant to be an enduring, perhaps everlasting creation. And wrapped around that belief was the hope, probably innocent and flawed … but still the keen perfect hope that for all of its problems, Marrow was meant to serve as the castle’s keep. Desperate good warriors could make a final stand here, and maybe they could try to take back the sky, eventually.

Years ago, spurred by imagination and inner voices, Washen had ordered a narrow and secret tunnel to be reopened, reaching almost all the way back to Marrow. In the last few days, using equipment at the bottom of the shaft, she and a few selected companions had finished the excavation, and in another few minutes, with more
luck, they would collapse everything that lay above again.

That would stop no one from following, of course. But then again, whoever was in charge of the ship had been on board for millennia, and none of them had taken so much as a stroll across the world below.

The world below.

Washen’s long legs hurried, carrying her and her pressure suit down a set of temporary stairs. The stairs had been cut into the wall of the hyperfiber tube, leading everyone to a place that Washen knew well—a place she had barely left in any fashion but physically.

Just where she had left it, an old-fashioned timepiece waited.

Robots had carved it out of the hyperfiber, leaving it only a little damaged. She picked it up and clung to it, then she turned and looked down. The world beneath was black, save for the patches of volcanic fire and burning forests and soft, colored glows that could mean nothing but human life.

A voice behind her said, “Mother.”

She forced herself to look at the others.

“There’s news,” Locke reported.

“A general broadcast,” Mere added, one tiny hand holding out a view screen linked directly to the rest of the ship. It was the same secure line that Washen had set in place here to eavesdrop on her grandchildren, and she didn’t trust it anymore, either. But for the moment, she allowed it to work.

Aasleen reported, “The new rulers are saying, ‘Hello.’”

Washen held the screen against her chest, unwilling to look just now.

Moving like smoke, Mere came up beside her and paused, looking down at the swollen odd world and the darkness. The buttresses had fallen almost entirely asleep. Yet they remained strong enough that despite the ship’s acceleration, Marrow had not moved. Plainly, the
Builders had imagined this contingency too. When would Washen ever become less than amazed with these vanished souls?

“Cut the dome open,” she ordered.

With quick energies and a blunt precision, the diamond barrier beneath them was punctured in one small spot. Air began to fall downward, creating a soft little wind that was heard more than felt.

“Seal up,” she told everyone.

The suits were secured and pressurized, and heavy packs full of supplies and twin chutes were pulled against their backs.

Everyone wore a silver timepiece on his or her belt. Washen had handed them out at the end, just to these few. Each little device held directions to the meeting place and a specific time, and everyone who had not come was now left behind.

Pamir?

She kept looking for him among the dark figures. And he kept on avoiding her gaze, having made his decision to remain elsewhere.

The wind continued to sing.

Finally, almost as an afterthought, Washen looked at the broadcast from the world above. A creature that was very nearly flat, armored and segmented and wearing a pair of trilobite-style eyes, was telling the surviving billions, “The captains could not save you. But we did, and we will protect you. Great things are coming, my friends. Great things!”

Mere said the alien name.

!eech.

Washen shook her head, but it was Locke who corrected her. With a soft touch against the shoulder of her suit, he said, “No, no. That’s just an invented name, we think.”

“Then what are they?” Aasleen asked.

“The Bleak,” said Locke.

Said Washen.

With that, she turned away leaping for the hole and passing through it.

Then she began to scream.

But it wasn’t a fearful scream. Not at all.

It was the full-throated, wonderstruck shriek of a girl who until now, until this moment, had forgotten just how much fun it was to fall.

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

BOOKS BY ROBERT REED

The Remarkables
Down the Bright Way
Black Milk
The Hormone Jungle
The Leeshore
* Beyond the Veil of Stars
* An Exaltation of Larks
* Beneath the Gated Sky
The Dragons of Springplace
(story collection)
* Marrow
* Sister Alice
* The Well of Stars
The Cuckoo’s Boys
(story collection)

* denotes a Tor Book

He drove the blade into the tabletop

She watched as the keen edge clipped one of her middle fingers.

“Make a fist,” he said.

“But I understand,” she countered. “We disperse so that all of us don’t die together.”

“A fist. Now!”

She jumped a little bit, and then to cover her fear, she sat forward and found the courage to ball up her fingers and palm. Osmium reached high with the knife, aimed and thrust hard. The woman felt a pain born entirely from her own mind. The hand had been missed, and by plenty.

“Why?”

“Because if we are dispersed, and diluted, and thin,” Osmium explained. “Then not only will that help keep the harum-scarums from being decimated. It is also the very best way of ensuring that every species, small or large, will bear his share of the suffering.

“If it comes to that.

“If it comes …”

“Again, hypercomplicated, dense with ideas and a plot that works itself into a fine old lather: amazing and satisfying both.”

—Kirkus

About the Author

Robert Reed is the critically acclaimed author of eleven science fiction novels, including
The Remarkables, Down the Bright Way, Black Milk, The Hormone Jungle, The Leeshore, Beyond the Veil of Stars, An Exaltation of Larks, Beneath the Gated Sky, Sister Alice
, and
Marrow.

Reed is also a prolific writer of short fiction, having been compared to both Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick and nominated several times for the Hugo Award. His short stories have appeared in
Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age
, and many other magazines.
The Dragons of Springplace
is a selection of his prestigious short work. He was the Gold Award winner of the first Writers of the Future contest.

Cutting-edge hard science fiction coupled with strong characters and intricate plots is Reed’s forte. He, his wife, Leslie, and their daughter, Jessie Renee, live in Lincoln, Nebraska.

THE WELL OF STARS

Edited by James Frenkel

A slightly different version of this novel was published in England in 2004 by Orbit, an imprint of Time Warner Books UK.

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

eISBN 9781466822962

First eBook Edition : May 2012

ISBN
-13: 978-0-765-34764-0
ISBN
-10: 0-765-34764-4

First Edition: April 2005
First Mass Market Edition: February 2007