ORACLE by Mike Resnick copyright 1992 Contents Prologue Part 1 The Whistlers Book Part 2 The Injuns Book Part 3 The Jade Queens Book Part 4 The Icemans Book Part 5 The Oracles Book Prologue It was a time of giants. There was no room for them to breathe and flex their muscles in mankinds 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 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 farthest 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 five hundred new worlds never quite certain what he was looking for always sure that he hadnt yet found it. There was a shadowy figure known only as the Whistler 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