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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

Before the Ministers could. “So you do have reinforcements coming,” I said.

“I radioed them before I retrieved you. They’ll be here in a few days.”

Something about that timeline was strange to me, but the tablet in my hands was more immediately interesting. Lantern-Eyes had left one particular document open—perhaps she’d been trying to translate the Ameng herself—but that was only one file out of many. Some were text, some visual, some video. I poked through the folders, examining the huge chunk of text she seemingly expected me to translate on the spot.

“Why do the Ministers want the data, anyway?” I asked, poking through a folder full of ancient videos. Fascinating. Even if we didn’t find the Philosopher Stone, there was enough linguistic data here to thrill the whole Republic’s worth of academics. “They tried to destroy it a thousand years ago. Why not just blow the Nameless from orbit?”

“The Nameless? Do you give everything a stupid name?”

“Why, what do you call it?”

“I call it ‘the ship’,” said Lantern-Eyes.

Her voice was milder than I expected, but I’d finally reached the end of all the videos she’d downloaded from the ancient computer, and the last file caught my eye. I opened it without playing it. An oddly familiar woman’s face filled the screen, high dark eyes and narrow angled cheekbones.

I couldn’t shake the feeling like I’d met her before. I held the screen out to show Lantern-Eyes. “Who is this?”

She glanced over without moving from her spot against the wall. “That’s Mara Zhu.”

Then I’d definitely never seen her before—she was a thousand years dead. The only person on this ship who could’ve met her would’ve been one of the Ministers.

Speaking of, Lantern-Eyes hadn’t answered my question. I said, “Why do you think the Ministers want the data?”

“I have no idea why they want the data exactly, but I imagine it’s personal.”

“Personal? What, like their mother’s phone number?”

For the first time since we’d arrived in her safe-room, Lantern-Eyes looked at me directly. “You came all the way to this ship, and you don’t even know what the Philosopher Stone experiment was?”

“It’s not a very smart rock?” I joked.

“The Philosopher Stone experiment was the experiment that created the Ministers.”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE:

Forty Locks

The Ministers were immortal. That is, they could be killed, but they did not age.

The Ministers were humanoid. The way they dressed and moved accentuated their differences, but they looked human enough that they could be mistaken for human, albeit a small-statured and androgynous human.

The Ministers had appeared in human history out of nowhere, with no known origin or home planet. And they had appeared at the same time that the Philosopher Stone experiments had occurred—at the same time the Philosopher Stone data had gone missing.

“A thousand years ago we didn’t have faster-than-light travel,” I realized, thinking aloud. Lantern-Eyes’ gaze held on me, steady. “It took more than one human lifetime to travel between star systems. Our ancestors couldn’t make the distances shorter, so they tried to make human lives longer.”