CORDELIA PA
The Gigolo Aunt’s sick bay smelled of disinfectant and Gant’s egg-flavoured farts. The frog stood on the other side of the bed, his yellow face barely cresting the covers. He stuck a licorice root into the corner of his mouth and said, “She don’t look like nothing special.”
I ignored him. I’d been inside the Intrusion; I knew that whoever this was, she was important. She might even be the key to everything that was going on. And right now, I needed answers. I needed to know why I was here, where my father had gone, and what the fuck was going on with the Intrusion and all the shit that had apparently kicked off in the rest of the Generality.
The updates flooding our comms were grisly, to say the least. Ships dying all across the sky. We were being tidied away like the naughty children we were. All our toys were being put back in the box.
Well, bollocks to that. I hadn’t sat through four years of flight school in order to be grounded now. Since being rescued from City Plate Two, the Gigolo Aunt had been my symbol of freedom. She was an old ship, but she was home. The home I’d never known as a child. And I’d be damned if I’d give her up without a fight—however overwhelming the alien armada standing against us. I’d grown up as a scavenger. I was used to existing in the liminal spaces of the world. If I had to run and hide, I wouldn’t think twice. As long as it kept us flying and free, I’d do whatever it took.
“Wake her.”
Gant screwed up his loose face. “You sure, princess?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Only we’re going to have to stimulate the fuck out of her to wake her up. The shock might kill her.”
“I don’t think we have a choice. And, Gant?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t call me princess like that again, unless you want your back legs sautéed in garlic butter and served with a crusty baguette.”
All his eyes went wide with surprise and indignation. “That’s pretty fucking racist,” he said.
I opened my mouth to deliver a scathing retort—but managed to regain control just in time. Nick had been speaking through me again. “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my eyes with finger and thumb. “I apologise, Gant.”
Gant rubbed his maw with webbed fingers the colour of Egyptian papyrus. He smelled like a blocked storm drain. “Whatever,” he said, clearly still offended. “Now, do you want me to wake the bitch up, or not?”
I looked down at the figure laid out on the covers of the bunk and felt myself hesitate. Thanks to my father’s memories, I knew who she was, and why she was so important. If she died, we’d be in a world of trouble. But if she remained unconscious, she’d be of no help whatsoever.
“I think you’d better.”
“Stand back, then.” He produced a spray hypo and pressed it against the woman’s neck. I heard a click and a hiss, and the patient went rigid. The overhead lights sputtered. Eyelids flickered. And then, before I really knew what was going on, I found myself staring into the tired grey eyes of a woman who’d been old when the Generality was young.
“You’re Sofia Nikitas, the founder of the House of Reclamation.”
The woman peered up at me. “I’m afraid I might be.”
“Might?”
She raised a hand. “I don’t even know where I am right now.”
I crossed my arms. “You’re on the good ship Gigolo Aunt,” I said. “We got caught in a reality quake, and after it passed, we found you washed up on one of the trailing Plates.”
“So, I’m back in the universe, then?” She held out a gnarled hand. “Help me up, would you?”
I pulled her gently into a sitting position. It was hard to imagine that a couple of centuries ago, this dried-up stick of a woman had almost single-handedly built an organisation that now straddled the entire Generality.
“What’s the date?” she asked.
“Twenty-fourth of December.”
“What year?”
“225 GS.”
She frowned. “GS?”
“Generality Standard.”
“Oh dear. I don’t suppose you know what year that would be in the old calendar?”
“Which old calendar?”
Sofia sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I can see it’s been a long time.” She eased her legs over the side of the bunk until she was sitting on the edge, and placed an experimental toe to the deck.
At flight school I’d learned that Nikitas had founded the House of Reclamation but had eventually been betrayed and ousted from her own organisation, after which she had gone missing. Some speculated she had joined a Hopper expedition to Andromeda; some that she had passed through the Intrusion in search of a better universe; others that she had struck out into the lanes of starless darkness between the galactic arms, seeking eternal solitude. Apparently, those who’d guessed at the Intrusion had been right.
“We remember you,” I told her. “The House of Reclamation still exists.”
“It does?”
“Well, it did until quite recently.”
“Why, what happened?”
“Somebody dug up a fleet of old Hearther ships, and they’ve been taking out all our spacecraft, right across the Generality.”
“Ah.” Sofia rolled her head on her neck. The vertebrae crackled like popcorn. “Then it seems I’ve come back at the right time.”
She looked up at me and frowned. I guessed the stimulants we’d filled her with were causing some disorientation. “You look familiar.”
“We met earlier, during the aftershock.”
“We did?”
“You were in the Intrusion with my father, Nick Moriarty.”
“Ah, yes.” Her brow crinkled. “You’re… Cordelia?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I suppose it’s good to finally meet you in the real world.”
I sat on the bed beside her. The hair on the unshaven side of my head flopped down to cover my right eye. “That conversation with my father… was that real? I mean, did it really happen? Was that really him?”
“It was.”
“So he’s alive?”
“As far as I know.”
The fist that had been squeezing my heart seemed to loosen its grip. I sucked in a ragged breath. The Generality might be under attack by alien forces. Civilisation might be crumbling. But right then, all I felt was a sudden, wild sense of hope.
“Can we find him?”
“I’m sure you can.” Sofia reached over and patted my knee. “But first, there’s something you have to do.”
“What’s that?”
She smiled. “What we designed you to do.”