Mere

Great Ship #1.5

by Robert Reed

An immortal child is born in the most horrid conditions. But luck delivers her to a world that will embrace her, first as a god and then as an alien. And before she is finished, Mere will help make a society that deserves to live to the ends of time.

Then a soft voice asked, “Will you accept a worshipper, madam? I should like very much to see you.”
Mere rose and said, “Yes. Always.”
Her guest was dressed in a truth-seeker’s gown, but his teeth were orange and there was no wig on his wide head. In his hands was a sheet of green copper, ancient and decorated with old words. Mere recognized the dialect with a glance. It was from the time when she first fell from the sky, and along the top margin of that single sheet was the official mark of the original truth-seeker. Beneath the mark, someone had written, “Should it become necessary, tomorrow or at the end of time, this is how you may kill the god.”
Following the newcomer were twenty soldiers armed with keen swords and buckets full of fire. They stood together in a tight, nervous mass. There was a moment when Mere felt that she could convince them to surrender their weapons. But the new truth-seeker threw a platinum coin to the floor, and he said, “In this one shadow of everything, you will become rich men. I promise.”

Genres: Science Fiction

49 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

He has also been published as Robert Touzalin.

Reviews

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chapbook with one short story and an afterword explaining the story. I enjoyed the short story, it talks about a mentally crippled immortal who lives her first 10,000 years alone being kept alive by a spaceship. The spaceship finally finds a planet to drop her off on and it then explains her innocence and adventures in dealing with another culture. The people call her Mere because she is a god of no significance. They worship her as an immortal and she lives through the cycle of their world until it is about to die. there was nothing special with this tale, but it was an interesting little tidbit, and it exposed me to Robert Reed, whom I will be buying more books from. The afterword tells about how this story has been told in three different incarnations through the years, and how Mere will be included in future novels by Robert, in this setting. This was some initiative stuff about his sci-fi universe. I thought the afterward was as entertaining as the short story.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting, savage, gruesome. Unimaginable that any human mind in any form could survive this. But this is science FICTION at it's finest. Unimaginable that a human mind could even conceive this kind of story, but then, we're talking about Robert Reed. I've read this before, somewhere. It's one of those stories that sticks in your head forever.

[Robert Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulous tale well told.

A small tale about an amazing soul and her painful birth and forging into the Greatship universe. More will be revealed.

[Emmalyn Renato · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novelette was nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon award in 2005.