CORDELIA PA
I stumbled back into wakefulness, to find Sofia stroking my half-shaven hair and singing soft words I couldn’t understand.
“What language is that?”
She smiled to see I was awake. “It’s Greek. The language of my ancestors. The language of my childhood.”
“It’s nice.”
“How are you feeling?”
“My head hurts. My fingers…” I held them up, expecting to see them charred and ruined—but they looked exactly as they always had.
“Well, don’t worry. There’s a House of Reclamation ship on its way. It should be here in a little under an hour.”
I remained strapped into the chair I’d been in when the white ships attacked. Half the screens on the bridge were dead, and warning lights glimmered on every console. But we were alive. Had I really swiped three ships from existence with nothing but a couple of simple gestures? My temples thumped and my insides felt battered and queasy. None of this made any sense—and yet, somehow, I’d always known I had this power. The knowledge had been there all the time, hidden in some dark, chthonic mental chamber. And now, thanks to the Intrusion, I had the ability to wield it at will, and make Hearther tech jump and twist at my command.
Sofia took my hand. “You begin to see why you’re so important?” she said. “And why your father and I made a deal, twenty years ago, to put you right where you needed to be?”
I continued to stare at my unchanged fingers. I didn’t know what to say. Yet there was an undeniable frisson of excitement when I thought back to the ease with which I’d killed those ancient warships. I felt scared, and angry, and godlike, all at the same time. It reminded me of the night Michael and I had run from that security patrol. Had that only been four years ago? It seemed like a memory from another life.
“This is why we need to get you to the control room at the heart of City Plate Two,” Sofia said. “Because, if you can control the Plates as effectively as you just dealt with those ships, there may be hope for us after all.”
I looked up at her through a haze of nausea. “We’re going to get through this?”
She put her hand back on the top of my head and smiled. “Maybe some of us.”
“Only some of us?” I looked around the bridge. Gant was eyeing me with wary concern, relieved to see me awake but a little afraid of what I might do next. “There are only three of us left.”
Sofia’s smile died. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, love. You seem to have misunderstood. When I said some of us might survive, I was talking about humanity.”
“Oh.”
Gant swallowed loudly and smacked his lips. “Racist,” he muttered. Sofia ignored him.
“You see, the Plates are more than they seem.” She began to stroke my hair again. “They’re not just habitats. They’re not abandoned Hearther cities. The Hearthers hated cities.”
The warmth of her hands was soothing. I felt like a child again, and my head filled with images of my dead mother. “Then what are they?”
“A spacecraft.”
“Funny looking spacecraft,” Gant muttered.
“They’re all the components of a spacecraft,” Sofia told him, “without a hull wrapped around them.” She pursed her lips. “Although, I suppose you could call the air-shell in which they’re embedded a kind of hull. If you wanted to be pedantic.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. “I don’t understand.” Sofia stopped stroking and stepped away. She touched a few of the still-working controls and threw up an image of the Plates. “They’re lifeboats,” she said. “Deliberately made as an enigma to attract the younger races so that, if another attack came or the Fleet of Knives got loose again, there would be a population in place, ready to be evacuated.”
I fingered the pendant around my neck. “And this?”
“A piece of code. It should never have left the Plate system, but your father can be a bit of an idiot sometimes. He thought it best to keep it somewhere else, for safety.”
“And so he gave it to my half-brother?”
“As I said, a bit of an idiot.”
I held the stone up to the light. “What does it do?”
“It’s a key. It allows the Plate’s motive force to be accessed.”
“By me?”
“That’s your purpose. The Intrusion designed you to interface with Hearther technology. What you do with that power is up to you. You can use it, or you can smash it.”
I flexed my hand. “I see.”
“I hope you do, because there are several million people on those Plates who are waiting for you to decide if they’re going to live or die.”