Read Online The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe - Free Book Online Page A

screamed—not so much from pain, I think, as from the sight of my blade thrusting from his flesh. I threw him down, and a moment later had the point of my knife at his throat.
    "Quiet," I told him, "or I'll kill you on the spot. How thick are these walls?"
    "My arm—"
    "Forget your arm. There'll be time enough to lick your blood. Answer me!"
    "Not thick at all. The walls and floors are just sheets of metal."
    "Good. That means there's no one about. I was listening while I lay on the bunk, and I didn't hear a single step. You may wail all you want. Now stand up." The hunting knife had a good edge: I slit Idas's shirt down the back and pulled it off, revealing the budding breasts I had half suspected.
    "Who put you on this ship, girl? Abaia?"
    "You knew!" Idas stared at me, her pale eyes wide.
    I shook my head and cut a strip from the shirt. "Here, wind your arm with this."
    "Thank you, but it doesn't matter. My life's over anyway."
    "I said to wind it. When I go to work on you, I don't want to get any more blood on these clothes than I have already."
    "There will be no need to torture me. Yes, I was a slave of Abaia's."
    "Sent to kill me so I wouldn't bring the New Sun?"
    She nodded.
    "Chosen because you were still small enough to pass as human. Who are the others?"
    "There aren't any others."
    I would have seized her, but she held up her right hand. "I swear it by Lord Abaia! There may be others, but I don't know them."
    "It was you who killed my steward?"
    "Yes"
    "And searched my stateroom?"
    "Yes."
    "But it wasn't you I burned with my pistol. Who was that?"
    "Only a hand I hired for a chrisos; I was down the gangway when you fired. You see, I wanted to cast the body adrift, but I wasn't sure I could carry it without help and work the hatches too. Besides..." Her voice trailed away.
    "Besides what?"
    "Besides, he'd have had to help me with other things too, after that. Isn't that right? Now, how did you know? Please tell me."
    "It wasn't you that attacked me at the apport pens, either. Who was that?" Idas shook her head as though to clear it. "I didn't know you'd been attacked at all."
    "How old are you, Idas?"
    "I don't know."
    "Ten? Thirteen?"
    "We don't number the years." She shrugged. "But you said we weren't human, and we're as human as you. We're the Other People, the folk of the Great Lords who dwell in the sea and underground. Now, please, I've answered your questions, so answer mine. How did you know?"
    I sat on the bunk. Soon I would begin the excruciation of this lanky child; it had been a long while—perhaps before she was born—since I had been the Journeyman Severian, and I would not relish the task. I was half hoping she would bolt for the door.
    "In the first place, you didn't talk like a sailor. I once had a friend who did, so I notice when others do, though that's much too long a tale to tell now. My troubles—the murder my steward and so on—started soon after I met you and others. You told me at once that you'd been born on this ship, but the others talked like seamen, except for Sidero, and you didn't."
    "Purn and Gunnie are from Urth."
    "Then too, you misdirected me when I asked the way to the galley. You meant to follow me and kill me when you could, but I found my stateroom, and that must have seemed better to you. You could wait until I was asleep and talk your way past the lock. That wouldn't have been hard, I suppose, since you're a member of the crew."
    Idas nodded. "I brought tools, and I told your lock I'd been sent to mend a drawer."
    "But I wasn't there. The steward stopped you as you were leaving. What were you looking for?"
    "Your letter, the one that the aquastors of Urth gave you for the Hierogrammate. I found it and burned it there in your own stateroom." Her voice held a note of triumph now.
    "You would have found that easily enough. You were looking for something else too, something you expected to be hidden. In a moment or two I'm going to hurt you very badly unless you tell me