M’Umbha Uhura’s home was located, not coincidentally, in a residential tower overlooking Uhuru Park, one of the city’s oldest and most prominent public spaces, next to the central business district and near the University of Nairobi, where M’Umbha’s current husband taught. Uhuru—“Freedom” in Swahili—was a popular name in East Africa, though a Western-influenced ancestor of the Uhuras had chosen to “soften” the final vowel a few generations back. Perhaps this had been meant to make them stand out from the crowd, but M’Umbha had chosen to take a dwelling near their namesake park despite that. Had that been out of pride, Nyota wondered, or a legal advocate’s appreciation for the ideal the name embodied? Or did it reflect her sense of humor? She wished she could remember.

When the door to the Uhura apartment began to open, Nyota wondered for a moment if she would even recognize her own mother. They had exchanged brief, often tense correspondence on occasion since Nomad, but no more than a cordial, distant acknowledgment for the past several years. Still, she knew immediately that the woman standing in the doorway was her mother, for she looked the way Nyota imagined—or hoped—that she would look in thirty years. M’Umbha was a lean, regal woman in a brightly patterned kanga dress, with a cloud of silvery-white hair framing her striking, large-eyed features.

Those dark eyes glistened with tears, and before Nyota could react, she found herself in the older woman’s embrace. “Oh, binti yangu! Nyota! Welcome home!”

After a moment’s hesitation, she relaxed into the embrace and returned it. She had no right to close herself off to this freely offered love just because her memory of it was gone. That absence was artificial, imposed by a heartless, half-alien machine. M’Umbha’s experience of their bond was the true one, and she should defer to it if she could.

Besides, being called “my daughter” gave her a sense of attachment she hadn’t known she’d been missing.

M’Umbha led Nyota inside the spacious apartment, but the commander hesitated at the sound of activity and male voices from the kitchen. “I… I thought it would be just the two of us,” she said.

“Oh, I know, dear, but Omar insisted on preparing a feast for the occasion. This is the first time he’s actually had a chance to meet you! And as for Malcolm, well, he insisted on beaming in from Kampala. You know how stubborn he can—” She broke off, kneading her hands in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. That just slipped out.”

“I understand. It’s not your—”