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“I broke out and went straight for Aten. I got a little taller and regained one hundred pounds in the repair units. The thing they don’t tell you is that rations don’t work for everyone.”
Margo blinked. “Didn’t the medics notice?”
“My bloodwork was good as far as they knew, and no medic is allowed to uncover a soother. We are like nuns that they rent out by the hour.”
“As far as they knew?”
“They depend on the records of previous soothers. There never was a human soother. So I was eating enough, constantly, really, and nothing was sticking. I am not the first human like this, and I won’t be the last.”
Cloudy frowned. “Like what, Auntie?”
“I can’t get enough from processed rations. A few of the Zowoth came in smelling of roasted meat, and I nearly tore their throats out. That was the point I had to leave.”
Thunder frowned. “How did you get out of it?”
“That is a story for another time. I am being summoned to play again.” She casually lifted an electric fiddle and a bow from somewhere, and she inclined her head and skipped over to the bandstand.
There was a cheer of excitement, and the music spiralled outward, sending droves of people to the dance floor.
The pale woman smiled. “She has too much life to be contained.” She frowned. “If they try it again, she’s not going to survive it.”
The Zowoth said, “She will give up?”
“They will come en masse, they will be careful, and they will shove her into another room where she will stop fighting.”
The younger woman skipped over. “Mom, why aren’t you dancing?”
“Ghost of Christmas past just showed up.”
“Who?” The woman looked around.
“The fiddler. Another Zowoth well-intended confinement that nearly killed a human.”
“She was a concubine?”
“Soother.”
“Like a pacifier?”
“She removed lust and frustration from their minds. They put her in a box, sat in a chair, had her do her psychic thing, and then they left her in the box.”
“I really want to be able to travel away from Mom right now.”
Cloudy blinked. “Why can’t you?”
The younger woman smiled and went translucent. “I am a ghost. I am haunting my mother until her body lets me reincarnate.”
“A ghost?”
The scaled woman smiled. “That’s my thing. I am the ghost memory of Terra. If you have any loved ones who died between my birth and my pickup date, I can access them.”
Cloudy looked around. “Most of my loved ones are here. We managed to get the entire village taken on by the generous Overseer Yvari.”
Yvari chuckled. “Vecchin authorized it, but yes. I thought it would be interesting to get an entire linked group here, and it definitely is.”
Cloudy grinned.
Margo raised her brows. “In joke?”
