Still in her thirties, Sofia Nikitas had grown to be one of the most powerful and respected women in the Generality, able to command an armada larger than could be mustered by most nations. And she did it in the name of her dead mother and father, and her missing husband. Only ever clad in mourning black, she devoted herself to their memories, and to the hope that through her efforts, others would be spared the pain of similar losses.

Unfortunately, things weren’t exactly as they seemed, and in her fortieth year, she faced an unexpected betrayal.

Her husband, Carlos, had been alive all this time. His trip to Hopper space had been a diversion, a sleight of hand to cover his absconsion from hitherto unsuspected gambling debts. Now, at the height of Sofia’s fame and influence, he came back into her life, attributing his desertion to temporary amnesia and demanding an equal share of her assets—assets she had already poured into the formation and maintenance of the Reclamation fleet.

Sadly, Carlos was as charismatic as Sofia was introverted. He looked good on screen and knew how to charm an audience. More importantly, he had the backing of several of the House’s key trustees—men and women who had been close friends and colleagues before he disappeared, and who now rallied to his banner, convinced he’d make a better figurehead for the organisation than the awkward, reclusive and grief-stricken Sofia.

For a year, the dispute fulminated in the courts. Accusations and counter-accusations flew, and various governments and political factions weighed in on one side or the other, hoping to curry favour and influence. Finally, when the scales of public and legal opinion seemed to have tipped decisively in Carlos’s direction, and the fabricated scandals and authentic acrimony had become too much for her to bear, Sofia followed once again the example of her predecessors, the Hearthers. She fled, leaving behind all her possessions and wealth, and a single fertilised embryo in a clinic on the Moon.

Nobody knew where she went. She ran so far and so fast, she eventually became somebody else.

And that’s where the story ends.

The House of Reclamation continued to operate. Carlos claimed the embryo she left, and it grew to be your great-grandmother. When Carlos retired, some hoped Sofia might return, to claim and once more oversee her empire of altruism. But she never did.

And now even the most fervent of her remaining supporters has had to face the fact she has been lost forever, having died in penniless obscurity somewhere out among the stars she so dearly loved.

* * *

I stopped talking.

Curled in the bottom of the life raft like a fledgling in a nest, a silver survival blanket drawn tightly around her shoulders, Captain Konstanz had begun, very gently, to snore.

Twenty-Six: Ashton Childe

TWENTY-SIX

ASHTON CHILDE

The sheets beneath me were wet with sweat. Was I back in the jungle?