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
Copyright © 2004, 2005 by Robert Reed
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
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
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eISBN 9781466822962
First eBook Edition : May 2012
ISBN-13: 978-0-765-34764-0