Radiant Read Online Free

could see he was non compos mentis?
    I asked him that once. Tut just laughed. "They don't need us sane, Mom. They just need us ready to bleed." He chucked his finger under my chin like a fond uncle amused by his young niece. "If they rejected head cases, Mom, you wouldn't be here either."
    I was so affronted by his insinuation I stormed out of the room, stomped back to my cabin, and made thirteen statues of little gold-faced men being disemboweled by tiger-headed demons. When I showed Tut the results, he said, "Shiny-finey! Could I eat one?" I told him no, but later I noticed my favorite demon was missing.
     
    Two months and fifty-four statuettes later, we finally received a distress call.
    At the time, Pistachio was transporting twelve dignitaries to the planet Cashleen: six officers from the navy's Diplomatic Corps and six civilian envoys from the Technocracy's Bureau of Foreign Affairs. Since Tut and I had no immediate duties, we always got assigned to play host for any honored guests who came aboard... but this particular group of VIPs took one look at my face and instantly became self-sufficient. My cheek had the wondrous power to make the mighty say, "No, no, I can do my own laundry."
    So I'd had little contact with the diplomats on that flight. I didn't even know what their mission was. However, Cashleen was the homeworld of the Cashling race—longtime allies of the Technocracy—so I assumed this was just the routine diplomacy that goes on between friendly powers.
    The team of envoys certainly didn't behave as if their trip was important. Instead of preparing for the work ahead, they spent most the voyage getting drunk and trying to seduce the better-looking members of Pistachio's crew. For the entire week of the flight, Tut never went to bed alone. He told me, "Hey, Mom, everyone loves to lick gold. Did you think it was just on my face?" I consoled myself with the observation that people might be eager to sleep with him once, but nobody did it a second time.
    I'd never slept with Tut myself. I'd never slept with anyone. An honest-to-goodness virgin. Not literally, of course—I'd manually ruptured my maidenhead within twenty-four hours of learning what it was... mostly to spite my mother, who'd given me an infuriating lecture on remaining intact. Only afterward did I stop to think: Yes, I've done it, but how will my mother know? Any "discovery scenario" I could imagine made me nauseated. Later on, I found that the thought of sex made me nauseated too. How could anyone want to do that with somebody who looked like me? Pity? Depravity? A lust so intense it didn't give a damn what it fucked? I couldn't conceive of a single acceptable reason why someone would sleep with me, so I fled every situation where the possibility might arise.
    I was in my cabin, gouging a little hole in a Princess Gotama's cheek so I could plant a pearl there, when the message buzzer sounded from my desk. Most likely, I thought, the diplomats wanted me to fetch another case of Divian champagne. They never wanted to see me in person, but they were quick to ask for booze to be left outside their doors. Without looking up, I said, "What is it now?"
    The ship-soul's metallic voice spoke from the ceiling. "Explorer Youn Suu. Captain Cohen requests your presence on the bridge. Immediately."
    I nearly threw my figurine across the room. "Is there a response code?" I asked as I rushed to the door.
    "No." Which meant the captain hadn't yet decided how to resolve the impending crisis. I had no doubt there was a crisis—not just because I'd been called to the bridge "immediately" but because the call came straight from the captain to me.
    I was a wet-behind-the-ears Explorer Third Class. Tut was not only more experienced than I, but he outranked me: as an Explorer Second Class, he was my superior officer. Protocol demanded that the captain address all Explorer matters to Tut, who would then bring me in if he chose. Going over Tut's head to call me directly