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Contents (188)
  1. THE
  2. IMMORTALITY THIEF
  3. Taran Hunt
  4. Contents
  5. CHAPTER ONE:
  6. The Nameless Ship and the Dying Star
  7. CHAPTER TWO:
  8. Three Convicts and a Generous Opportunity
  9. CHAPTER THREE:
  10. The Lost Language
  11. CHAPTER FOUR:
  12. Sean Wren and the Philosopher Stone
  13. CHAPTER FIVE:
  14. Leashed
  15. CHAPTER SIX:
  16. The Imp of the Perverse
  17. CHAPTER SEVEN:
  18. Lantern-Eyes and the Minister
  19. CHAPTER EIGHT:
  20. Indigo and Ultraviolet
  21. CHAPTER NINE:
  22. Three Lives and One
  23. CHAPTER TEN:
  24. Rot and Bone
  25. CHAPTER ELEVEN:
  26. Signs in the Dark
  27. CHAPTER TWELVE:
  28. Dead End
  29. CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
  30. A Way Out
  31. CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
  32. Missed Chances
  33. CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
  34. One and Two
  35. CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
  36. The Choice and the Hull
  37. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
  38. The Indigo Minister and I
  39. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
  40. The Minister and the Lieutenant
  41. CHAPTER NINETEEN:
  42. Lieutenant Lantern-Eyes
  43. CHAPTER TWENTY:
  44. Mara Zhu’s Experiment
  45. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE:
  46. Forty Locks
  47. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO:
  48. Oh, Shit!
  49. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE:
  50. Beta Version
  51. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR:
  52. Some Really Angry Rocks
  53. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE:
  54. The Trap
  55. (Featuring: Sean Wren’s Inability to Use a Grenade)
  56. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX:
  57. Made of Man
  58. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN:
  59. The Moment
  60. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT:
  61. Three Doors
  62. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE:
  63. The Roach
  64. CHAPTER THIRTY:
  65. Family Photo
  66. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE:
  67. The Last Words of Mara Zhu
  68. Part one
  69. CHAPTER THIRTY TWO:
  70. Sins of the Father
  71. CHAPTER THIRTY THREE:
  72. The Lieutenant
  73. (again)
  74. CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR:
  75. Field and Forest
  76. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE:
  77. The Minister, the Lieutenant, and I
  78. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX:
  79. The Deer and the River
  80. CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN:
  81. Some Fresh Bullshit
  82. CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT:
  83. Enemy of the Enemy
  84. CHAPTER THIRTY NINE:
  85. Impromptu Electrodynamics
  86. CHAPTER FORTY:
  87. Babel
  88. CHAPTER FORTY ONE:
  89. Three Strangers and a Desperate Offer
  90. CHAPTER FORTY TWO:
  91. Another Lengthy Détente with Some Stubborn Assholes
  92. CHAPTER FORTY THREE:
  93. The Worst Camping Trip of My Life
  94. CHAPTER FORTY FOUR:
  95. Sisters, State Secrets, and Just So Many Creepy Children
  96. CHAPTER FORTY FIVE:
  97. Nests?!
  98. CHAPTER FORTY SIX:
  99. My Mother’s Wardrobe
  100. CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN:
  101. I’m Susceptible to Bribes, But Only in the Form of Grammar
  102. CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT:
  103. The Center of It All
  104. CHAPTER FORTY NINE:
  105. God Damn Children
  106. CHAPTER FIFTY:
  107. The Bodies of the Past
  108. CHAPTER FIFTY ONE:
  109. Test Subjects
  110. CHAPTER FIFTY TWO:
  111. A Hot, Piping Cup of Coffee with a Side of Creepy Children
  112. CHAPTER FIFTY THREE:
  113. Sean Wren and the Incredible Hypoxia
  114. CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR:
  115. Trust Me
  116. PART ONE
  117. CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE:
  118. Trust Me
  119. PART TWO
  120. CHAPTER FIFTY SIX:
  121. Trust Me
  122. PART THREE
  123. CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN:
  124. The Shedding of Blood
  125. CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT:
  126. Lab 17
  127. CHAPTER FIFTY NINE:
  128. Something in My Eye
  129. CHAPTER SIXTY:
  130. Eye for an Eye
  131. CHAPTER SIXTY ONE:
  132. What Must Be Seen
  133. CHAPTER SIXTY TWO:
  134. Third Eye
  135. CHAPTER SIXTY THREE:
  136. Hindsight
  137. CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR:
  138. Eye on the Prize
  139. CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE:
  140. The Last Words of Mara Zhu
  141. PART TWO
  142. CHAPTER SIXTY SIX:
  143. An Old Friend
  144. CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN:
  145. The Wall
  146. CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT:
  147. Sean Wren’s Special New Skill
  148. CHAPTER SIXTY NINE:
  149. Last One There Loses
  150. CHAPTER SEVENTY:
  151. Sympathy for the Devils
  152. CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE:
  153. A Frighteningly Efficient Kidnapping
  154. CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO:
  155. The Whole Truth
  156. CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE:
  157. The Breaking of the Fellowship
  158. CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR:
  159. Perversion of Potential
  160. CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE:
  161. Benny
  162. CHAPTER SEVENTY SIX:
  163. Sean Wren, Unkillable Machine Man
  164. CHAPTER SEVENTY SEVEN:
  165. The Republic
  166. CHAPTER SEVENTY EIGHT:
  167. Sister
  168. CHAPTER SEVENTY NINE:
  169. The Ministers
  170. CHAPTER EIGHTY:
  171. Number One
  172. CHAPTER EIGHTY ONE:
  173. Brother
  174. CHAPTER EIGHTY TWO:
  175. The Philosopher Stone
  176. CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE:
  177. Center of the Compass
  178. CHAPTER EIGHTY FOUR:
  179. Sean, Tamara, and Shay
  180. CHAPTER EIGHTY FIVE:
  181. Memory
  182. CHAPTER EIGHTY SIX:
  183. Improvisational Linguistics
  184. CHAPTER EIGHTY SEVEN:
  185. The Dreamer
  186. CHAPTER EIGHTY EIGHT:
  187. A Letter from the Dead
  188. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

She looked at me with the implacable patience of the immortal. Fear crawled its way up my throat, that she would kill us for knowing nothing.

So I confessed. “We were looking for the Philosopher Stone.”

CHAPTER NINE:

Three Lives and One

“Sean!” Benny hissed, but I ignored him. I could not tell if the ultraviolet Minister respected or despised me for my honesty, if she felt nothing at all.

“What did you want with the Philosopher Stone?” the ultraviolet Minister asked.

“Uh,” I avoided looking at Quint, “to sell it.”

“Thieves,” the ultraviolet Minister said, mildly, but a shiver went down my spine. “How did you know the Philosopher Stone was here?”

I thought fast. “From the transmission,” I said. “It was in Ameng. I translated it.” The SOS had said nothing specific about the Philosopher Stone, only something about a stalled ship and someone named Mara Zhu, but parts of it had been unintelligible. Hopefully, if the Ministers had picked up the same transmission, they hadn’t heard the whole thing either and would assume the Philosopher Stone mention had been in the inaudible part.

“That language was erased. How could you translate it?”

I hadn’t expected that line of questioning, but I was only too happy to avoid any direction that might lead to discussion of a certain Senator. “There are fragments all over the colonies and the Sisters… if you go looking for them hard enough, you can put together a library. I’m good with languages.”

“Prove that you can understand Ameng.”

“How? Do you want me to recite a poem, or—”

“Open the central door,” she said, and gestured to a panel on the far wall. The buttons were glowing faintly—somehow, the Ministers had restored power to this small patch of the ship.

My legs were unsteady when I stood, but I forced myself to walk away from Benny and Quint. The Ministers were busy on their own tasks; one was examining the panel where Lantern-Eyes had vanished, others were scanning the air and the walls. One had vanished down into the Viper. But I felt them all watching me. A particularly tall Minister was standing beside the wall panel, his collar-light glowing softly yellow at his throat.

The machine was labeled, as I’d seen before. For an empty, sinking moment, all the letters were nonsense to me, and I had no plan, no thoughts, no goal, nothing left but the fear. And then I took another breath and memory trickled back in. The labels were simple, mercifully. There were three doors in the room, one on each of the windowless walls. I knew the Ameng word for door. I could never keep left or right straight, but I could reasonably assume the keys were laid out in the same order as the doors. Or so I hoped. I could forgive our ancestors for discovering the secret of immortal life and promptly hiding it in the middle of a supernova just to inconvenience me a thousand years down the line, but putting the right button on the left side and the left button on the right would be inexcusable.