Death of a Starship Read Online Free Page A

chair in one of the exam rooms, at the bottom
of a step-sided funnel. This resulted in his looking up into a
rounded, widening space as the examiners leaned over their
individual podiums and looked down upon him. A bank of lights at
the far end of the room glared too-brightly, while the metal and
carbonmesh tiers rising above him looked like something on the
verge of collapsing downward.
    All in all, a masterpiece of
psychological architecture. The view was profoundly disconcerting.
As was the persistent rumor that particularly unlucky examinees
were dropped out of the bottom of the funnel and into somewhere
terminally unpleasant deep within the convoluted bowels of Powell
Station.
    He looked up at Froggie, Admiral
Penrose and Dr. Yee. Old Anatid wasn’t in the room, which worried
Golliwog. Old Anatid was the only one who would have approved of
his solution. Froggie he trusted, Admiral Penrose was just doing
her job, and Dr. Yee was...Dr. Yee. To be avoided whenever
possible.
    But by vacuum, he’d succeeded.
Golliwog smiled. For some reason, the three above him
shifted.
    “ Golliwog,” said Froggie in his
sternest mentor voice. The teacher was the oldest human Golliwog
had ever met, but also one of the strongest. “We are here to score
your exercise performance. That score, and the opinions of this
Examining Board, will weigh into your next duty detail.”
    Golliwog’s smile slipped away at
that statement. Training, training, training. He had been training,
yes he had, since he could remember. Once there had been so many of
him he couldn’t count them all. Then there were fewer, and fewer.
He’d first killed himself at the age of seven. Now, well, there was
only one of him left. Though Golliwog knew with a cold, sometimes
comforting certainty, that there were other classes of biones in
Powell Station going through the surgeries, the training, the
bone-grinding pain – other clutches of same-faced killers
committing serial murder-suicide. Others unlike him, striving to
reach...something.
    “ I am ready, sir and
ma’ams.”
    Froggie glanced at Admiral Penrose.
The Admiral, who was an apparently unremarkable woman except for
her rank, nodded. “GLW 317,” she said slowly, “in the matter of the
recent exercise, this Board deems that you have passed by right of
survival.” She leaned a little further over. “This is known
informally as the last man standing clause. While some of us may
not endorse your methods, the results make their own case.” She
glanced briefly back at Froggie. “Speaking personally, I found your
conduct of the exercise refreshing and even somewhat original. It
is the judgment of this Board that you are to be granted a passing
grade, without censure or demerit.”
    Golliwog had never doubted that he
had passed. The fact that he was still breathing was proof of that.
But they could have bounced him back down the training
cycle.
    Dr. Yee took up a paper in her
hand. She was a tiny woman, skin almost space-black, with huge
round eyes. She was also one of the few people who frightened
Golliwog. “It is further the recommendation of this Board that you
be released to an operational mission. Your assignment will be on a
brevet basis, working under a senior agent of the Office of Naval
Oversight. That agent will have complete authority over you as an
asset, including the right to order your termination. Do you accept
this assignment?”
    An assignment. To be free of
training after almost two decades. In spite of himself, Golliwog
smiled once more. He would finally be out of Powell Station. “Yes,
ma’am. I accept.”
    “ You will report to me at 06:00
hours tomorrow. You are free to go.”
    Froggie shook his head.
    The restraints unsnapped. The
Examining Board filed out of an exit on their tier. Golliwog sat
alone at the bottom of the room, which seemed filled with ghosts
and echoes. All of him, at all different ages. He’d reached
something they’d all been straining for since before