The world was brighter than she remembered, and more intense. Some of the names had changed. Whole cities had disappeared, swallowed by the war during her imprisonment. But there was one place in the world that was just the same, and she walked there now, comforted by the shiny amber streets, the bright awnings above the tea houses, and the sounds of the soft, lilting accents of the Firsts.

Only a few individuals walked the streets this time of day. It was far too hot, and the suns too close, for any intelligent Family member to brave the street. The ones who did were concealed in slick organic burnouses and billowing organic trousers the color of spider’s silk. They wore hijabs that wound around both head and face, with opaque, organic veils over their eyes to shield the sun. Her own blood-red burnous and uncovered head made her a subject of interest, but none stopped to question her. She had easily passed through the filter that led to the hill. Her blood was too old to be purged from that filter. To purge her code would have rejected one of every eighty Family members on the hill.

Her Family’s estate was one of just forty-five that jutted from the dusty face of Mushtallah’s second hill. Like the other hills of Mushtallah, the interior of the second hill was the shell of a discarded derelict. The face of her family’s house was outside, molded to fit the landscape, but inside the Firsts still met and conspired deep within the old starship. The warm, organic heart of it still beat softly, powering much of the residences and the magicians’ tunnels. Three thousand years was a long time for a ship to slumber, even one of the old colonial scouting ships, and she didn’t expect this one would go on much longer. Like the Firsts themselves, it was a calcified old wreck, drunk on the memory of itself, its former power. She had once stood within a few meters of the heart, pressed her ear to the spongy walls, and listened to the ship muse about days long past. Most of it was madness, of course. After three thousand years, any organic thing would go mad. For her, it had taken much less time than that.

She paused outside her family’s residence and tasted the filter there. It was a complex weave of scents, aloe and chamomile, beeswax and capsicum, and the peculiar nutty tang of crushed hornets. The mix of scents told her she was no longer coded for this filter. Unsurprising, given how long she had been captive. And for the reason behind it.