Mastering the !eech: A New Great Ship novelette

You are the !eech. Maybe you are the wise gods who rule the galaxy, or maybe you're nothing but shapeshifting monsters capable of evil beyond measure. Verdicts are hard to come by in a Robert Reed story. But this particular !eech is awake after a very long stint in prison. He doesn't know where he is, and he can't imagine where he is going. Which is exactly what his captors want.

The human was standing inside a wide trough on a landscape of sloppy, undulating glass. He had plain features and a broad mouth full of tilted teeth. Not his native face, but the asymmetric ugliness was a constant that played well with his nature. Gruff and blunt, quick to smell bulls--t and just as adept when it came to celebrating life's triumphs. Pamir. That was his secret name, and the bulk of his life had been spent like Hiding in plain sight, remaining exactly who he was.

Robert Reed is the author of several hundred published stories. He won a Hugo Award in 2007, for his novella "A Billion Eves." But Reed is best known for his stories about the Great Ship and its secret cargo.