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CHAPTER 1
They had gathered there at the Mouth of Heaven, the dozen of them. High Mother with that ridiculously oversized headpiece she so often wore, as if in denial that the Second Age had ended, or that her husband had died, his reign over. Sistra and Brac standing next to her looking just as pompous and imperious as their mother. Flanking them were the nine sniveling, groveling first women of the petty nobles, now paupers in everything but name, though they’d yet to realize it, as Quaia had.
High Mother turned and the whole entourage turned with her, looking up at Quaia who stood proudly on the top step of the great staircase. Their ridiculous dresses swished and shuffled around them as they spun, relics of the age they clung to. “Well, come down, girl,” High Mother said, motioning at Quaia to descend the steps. “The sail ship has just come into view. Dither and you’ll miss the docking and not know what’s in store for you.”
The petty noblewomen started tittering and whispering around her, sneering at Quaia in that mean-spirited way they’d perfected after all these seasons.
She held her head high and set one dainty, bare foot in front of the other as she began descending the stairs. Her feet were freezing, and her mind was numb from how preposterous it all was. They’d lost nearly everything, and still they performed these rituals of decadence as if nothing had changed. As if they still had any wealth or power, or held any sway in this corner of the galaxy that had fallen dark when that great beacon Zora had flickered out.
The silky shift brushed across her skin as she moved. Touching those sensitive parts of her normally protected by her undergarments, now bare and feeling quite exposed save for the sheer fabric surrounding her. She didn’t like the way the garment made her feel. She’d choose a jumpsuit over a frilly dress any day of the cycle. Thick and padded, protection not just against the dark void but against the leering eyes of males. The shift pronounced all the curves the jumpsuit smoothed. Her bust felt like it was bared, and her bottom, too.
And effectively they were. For good reason.
Two of the first women at the end of the line glared at her, jealous daggers shooting from their eyes. If there were a mechanism to let them take her place she would have gladly used it. But she knew full well their jealousy was not just about her appearance, her pretty face and well-proportioned body, but at the fact it was her Ripening and not theirs. Even their twice daily rounds of aquaia treatments couldn’t mask the creeping wrinkles at the corners of their eyes, and that made them resentful beyond repair.
She straightened her back and stood a little taller when she reached the bottom landing. It was a small consolation, but their angry jealousy at her natural charms, her youth, pleased her. These women of high birth and petty spirits coveted what they could never again have: potential. It soured her mood even more knowing she was indulging the same low feelings she resented in them. But they were all in this spectacular farce together so, as the saying went, when in Horonimus…
“You’ve grown to quite a shape,” High Mother said, raking her judgmental gaze down Quaia’s frame.
“More plump than I remember,” Sistra quipped next to her.
“Silence!” High Mother snapped, casting a scornful look at the woman.
Sistra, duly chastened, stared at the pointy tips of her shoes, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. She’d take out her anger on Quaia at the first opportunity. For the time being, Quaia enjoyed seeing her scolded and silenced.
“Come, Quaia,” High Mother said, stepping to one side and waving a hand toward the Mouth, that great, curved opening at the peak of the station that looked out into the great black void beyond. Once kept so clean and polished, so transparent, now covered in a greasy grime in spots. The crack running from the upper left corner down into the center was too expensive to be repaired. The stazens that had kept it in pristine condition had long departed for greener pastures. And High Mother was still pretending it was a monument to their privilege and not the testament to their misery that it was.
Quaia stepped forward until she was standing two bastions away from the glass wall and looked out into the gaping maw of nothingness beyond. In the distance she could just make out the heavy solar sail of the Andomocles. The body of the ship stretched out beyond the sail. A long, thick tube of silicone and steel dotted with portholes that sparkled with the light from within. The ship that carried Goethen, her soon to be trainer, his crew, and Quaia’s destiny.
“You strike quite a proud pose for a middle-born,” High Mother said. The women at her back began to giggle and this time High Mother said nothing to stop them. Only smiled with those leathery, tortoise-like lips at her own tasteless remark.
Quaia bore the insult with as bored an expression as she could muster. She had no patience for pseudo-regal snobbery. Soon she’d be back at the helm of the Silent Falcon speeding through the long, deep dark while High Mother would be stuck on the station mucking about in miserable loneliness and pretending she was still rich or relevant to anyone.
The solar sail began to furl, the Andomocles gliding silently toward the station on its fading momentum alone. An ugly, phallic totem, its tip pointed at the docking port, it would soon couple with the station and disgorge its cargo of pretentious aristocrats.
“You see the way it sails?” High Mother asked in a feverish whisper.
Quaia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The old crow was still in the thrall of a power that had long since passed and the rituals they kept as a bulwark against how utterly unnecessary they all were.
“Strong and silent through the quiet night. What grace. What splendor. There could be no metaphor more fitting for its purpose.”
Quaia bristled at the reminder of why they were all gathered here in the first place. She’d dreaded this day since she’d first learned it was coming. But each bit of petty snark, each casual cruelty doled out by a petty noble had steeled her resolve to not just endure, but triumph over this depraved occasion, and with her dignity intact. “It is a sight,” she remarked, trying to sound as bored as she looked.
“It is a sight indeed,” High Mother said, chuckling. “Soon to be far more than just that. You’ve not forgotten, have you, Quaia, to what business the Andomocles comes to attend?” The question was, of course, meant as a barb and not a serious line of inquiry.
But Quaia couldn’t resist the opening. She tipped her head back, holding her chin a little higher, and looked down her nose at the transport. “How could I possibly have done?” she asked. “I’m reminded with snickering whispers each time I pass a pettyw’omn in the gangway.”
The gasps behind her pleased her greatly, but she resisted the urge to smile. She blushed at the sharp crack of High Mother’s morning wand on her rear, but didn’t flinch. It was expected payment for her transgression and, in a way, brought her just as much pleasure as the outrage behind her. That the old crow had to resort to violence in the face of wit only highlighted how she was a slave to her own narcissistic rage.
“You’d do well to mind your betters and keep that grease-grunt language out of your mouth and in the hold while you’re here,” High Mother seethed.
When Quaia didn’t react to the chastisement with the expected submissive bow, she heard the morning wand whistling through the air, then felt it connecting with her behind again. This time she permitted herself a smile, though the whipping stung like flesh ants. She turned and looked High Mother straight in the eyes. “I thank you for that admonishment,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Forgive me for forgetting in whose company I stand.”
High Mother’s jaw jutted out and her eyes burned with anger. “You prideful little slut,” she spat. “Rest assured that Goethen will wipe that smirk off your face by whipping your ass hard enough you won’t walk straight for a cycle.”
Quaia turned to look out the Mouth again. Diverting her attention before it was properly dismissed only enraged High Mother further.
“I’ve no doubt you’re used to spreading your loins for whichever grunt drags you into the brig. You’ve quite a shock coming, Quaia. As you’re soon to find out, Goethen has no interest or care about your pleasure. His mastery of you will come from discipline and discipline alone. And I doubt you’ll find much to smile at under the sting of his crop.” Obviously still unsatisfied by Quaia’s reaction, she punctuated her statement with a final, harsh smack, this time on the thighs.
