Resnick, Mike - Oracle Trilogy 01 - Soothsayer

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Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

Fictionwise Publications

www.fictionwise.com

This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

NOTICE: This ebook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or

distribution via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means to a person

other than the original purchaser is a violation of International copyright law and

subjects the violator to fines and/or imprisonment. Fictionwise Publications offers a

$500 reward to anyone who provides information leading to the conviction of a person

infringing on any Fictionwise ebook copyright.

COVER DESIGN BY CHRIS HARDWICK

This ebook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons.

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

Volume 1 of the Oracle Trilogy

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

To Carol, as always,

And to Susan Allison and Ginjer Buchanan,

fine editors and fine ladies

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

Table of Contents

Prologue

Part 1: The Mouse's Book

Part 2: The Iceman's Book

Part 3: The Yankee Clipper's Book

Part 4: The Mock Turtle's Book

Part 5: The Soothsayer's Book

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

PROLOGUE

It was a time of giants.

There was no room for them to breathe and flex their muscles in

mankind's sprawling Democracy, so they gravitated to the distant, barren

worlds of the Inner Frontier, drawn ever closer to the bright galactic Core

like moths to a flame.

Oh, they fit into human frames, most of them, but they were giants

nonetheless. No one knew what had brought them forth in such quantity

at this particular moment in human history. Perhaps there was a need for

them in a galaxy filled to overflowing with little people possessed of even

smaller dreams. Possibly it was the savage splendor of Inner Frontier

itself, for it was certainly not a place for ordinary men and women. Or

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

maybe it was simply time for a race that had been notably short of giants

in recent eons to begin producing them once again.

But whatever the reason, they swarmed out beyond the furthest

reaches of the explored galaxy, spreading the seed of Man to hundreds of

new worlds, and in the process creating a cycle of legends that would

never die as long as men could tell tales of heroic deeds.

There was Faraway Jones, who set foot on more than 500 new worlds,

never quite certain what he was looking for, always sure that he hadn't

yet found it.

There was the Whistler, who bore no other name than that, and who

had killed more than one hundred men and aliens.

There was Friday Nellie, who turned her whorehouse into a hospital

during the war against the Setts, and finally saw it declared a shrine by

the very men who once tried to close it down.

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

There was Jamal, who left no fingerprints or footprints, but had

plundered palaces that to this day do not know they were plundered.

There was Bet-a-World Murphy, who at various times owned nine

different gold-mining worlds, and lost every one of them at the gaming

tables.

There was Backbreaker Ben Ami, who wrestled aliens for money and

killed men for pleasure. There was the Marquis of Queensbury, who

fought by no rules at all, and the White Knight, albino killer of fifty men,

and Sally the Blade, and the Forever Kid, who reached the age of

nineteen and just stopped growing for the next two centuries, and

Catastrophe Baker, who made whole planets shake beneath his feet, and

the exotic Pearl of Maracaibo, and the Jade Queen, whose sins were

condemned by every race in the galaxy, and Father Christmas, and the

One-Armed Bandit with his deadly prosthetic arm, and the Earth Mother,

and Lizard Malloy, and the deceptively mild-mannered Cemetery Smith.

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

Giants all.

Yet there was one giant who was destined to tower over all of the

others, to juggle the lives of men and worlds as if they were so many

toys, to rewrite the history of the Inner Frontier, and the Outer Frontier,

and the Spiral Arm, and even the all-powerful Democracy itself. At

various times in her short, turbulent life she was known as the

Soothsayer, and the Oracle, and the Prophet. By the time she had passed

from the galactic scene, only a handful of survivors knew her true name,

or her planet of origin, or even her early history, for such is the way with

giants and legends.

But she had an origin, and a history, and a name, and even a childhood

of sorts.

This is her story.

Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

Part 1:

THE MOUSE'S BOOK

Blantyre III was a world of tall towers and stately minarets, of twisting

streets and pitch-dark alleyways, of large chimneys and narrow

stairways.

In other words, it was a world made to order for the Mouse.

She stood on the makeshift stage at the back of Merlin's wagon now,

not quite five feet tall, barely eighty pounds, wearing a sequined tie and

tails over her tights, smiling confidently at the assembled crowd as Merlin

produced bouquets and rabbits out of thin air. Each of these he handed to

her, and each she placed in a special container, since flowers and rabbits

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SoothsayerbyMikeResnick2FictionwisePublicationswww.fictionwise.comThisebookisaworkoffiction.Names,characters,places,andincidentseitherareproductsoftheauthor’simaginationorareusedfictitiously.Anyresemblancetoactualeventsorlocalesorpersons,livingordead,isentirelycoincidental.Copyright©1991MikeResnickN...

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