Meltdown XXIX & Fallout 029 (May '23).

- CTHULHU’S NEPHEWS -
[ORIGIN STORY]
starring khar’’ina halruzh.
with the maid of death, noe-i, and uncle j.j. jay!.

*****

*****

Burund wasn’t much when they first built it. It was meant to be the southernmost outpost of a blossoming empire, erected against the eaves of the Djank Rainforest. This huge ocean of vegetation swept across much of the southern half of the continent, and - but for some inroads made around Burund and a half-dozen other settlements on the jungle’s borders - had been left mostly untouched by the lumiens and chorult that were indigenous to the moon. Upon realising how important the rainforest was to their ultimate survival, both of Khaled-1’s sentient species had the good sense to leave it well alone. There were parts of it that were still uncharted, millenia following the erection of Burund’s first work-huts. And it teemed with life: ninety eight percent of the moon’s known species of flora and fauna made their home beneath the tangled branches of the Djank’s lofty green roof.

At first, the village of Burund was extended in the opposite direction of the trees until it met the sea. With no more room to grow, the ignorant city planners began to cut into the forest for a brief time, clearing several square kilometres of woodland before the satellite’s scientists educated the expansionists. The blossoming city continued to grow, but did so in the treetops themselves, as well as on and beneath the sparkling surfaces of the gleaming purple seas. The people of Khaled-1, both lumien and chorult alike, took great care of their home celestial body in the hopes that their home celestial body would in turn take care of them.

It was in one of these aforementioned treetop structures that Kha’’rina Halruzh - aged a mere four years on Khaled-1, which equated to roughly twelve standard years elsewhere in the universe - was currently situated. She looked out over the patchwork of luscious green leaves and wooden buildings sprawling out before her, as far as her keen eyes could see. The sky was blue and clear but for the huge, pink sun that throbbed in the centre of it. A black liner cruised overhead, disturbing a flock of pulyon-birds that screeched as they took aimless flight.

Finally, she heard the workings of the lock to their apartment. Hers and her mother’s. It was this expected arrival that she’d been waiting for, filling the time until it came with drab internal descriptions of the Djank Rainforest. A moment later her mother walked through the door, a nonchalant smile decorating her face as if she’d never been away.

"Was starting to think you weren't coming back," Kha''rina said. She folded her arms and grimaced, attempting to express petulance with every fibre of her being. It only served to amuse her mother, who missed even those most uncomely of attributes during her long sojourns away from Khaled-1.

"Wishful thinking?" her mother asked, whilst throwing her arms around her daughter. Kha''rina kept her own folded. "Won't get rid of me that easily. Why aren't you ready for training?"

"You can't still expect me to train today?" the young girl asked. She wrenched herself free of her mother's grasp to be sure that she could see her eyes rolling. "I haven't seen you in weeks. I thought we'd watch a movie or something."

"Today has been circled in your calendar ever since you were born," her mother said. Kha''rina was well aware of her engagements. "My poor punctuality is no reason to let yours slip. You don't have to take after me in everything."

Eventually, after a brief but tense stand-off during which Kha''rina questioned her mother's authority over her before cowering beneath her gaze, she disappeared into her bedroom to change into her training robes.

Juro waited for her in a vast courtyard behind the KCP central dojo, where all of its gadfly agents were trained. She'd never seen the man before but recognised him from her mother's description. He was a lumien, tall and narrow and rangy like all of the species, and with two clusters of small, black eyes dominating his face. His torso was a thick and strong thorax, from which two long arms and a pair of thin, translucent wings sprouted. The species had long lost the ability to fly but these appendages were far from useless. They were light but hardy, providing protection when needed, and their subtle bioluminescence provided a beacon in the darkness. Juro Takturian was the Gadfly Assembly's head trainer, which meant he did very little training himself. Most of his time was spent delegating. But Kha''rina was an important student, given the dubious honour of his direct tutelage.

Kha''rina's mother, Flik'x Halruzh, had been a gadfly for years before her only daughter was born. In fact, she often liked to tell her that - if it wasn't for her service - Kha''rina most likely would never have been born at all. This, though, was another story for another time.

The courtyard behind the dojo was dimly lit by a large firepit in the centre of it. Juro stood next to this focal point, most likely to ensure his introduction into the scene - and indeed into Kha''rina's life as a whole - was as cinematic as possible. The young girl looked at the old man for as long as it took her to determine that he intended to remain silent. When this conclusion was drawn, she instead scanned her surroundings.

"No weapons," she said, upon completing her perusal. "Will we fight with our hands?"

"You ask too many questions," was Juro's reply. She considered pointing out that it was the first question she'd ever asked him, but decided this probably wasn't a very good idea. "We won't fight at all. Not for a long while."

"Then what will we do?" Kha''rina said. Juro grunted a disgruntled grunt.

"More questions," he said. "You will stand on one leg. Improve your balance."

"For how long?"

"For as long as it takes."

Afterwards, Kha’’rina always thought of the interlude as four straight days standing upon one leg. That wasn’t quite the truth of it, though. She’d spent much of it losing her balance through fatigue or (more often) a lack of skill, and other large spells sitting on the floor in a sullen and despondent sulk. Juro was never far away. The professor wore a volksbone cane from his belt, though it seemed mostly ceremonial. He instead only peered at her with his cold, hard eyes when she wasn’t being compliant. When pushed to it, he would use his cane to nudge her back to consciousness if she fell asleep. She mastered the skill in spite of her best efforts not to, her resentment for the banal and useless task manifesting itself in a passive and immature hostility towards her new master. She wasn’t particularly proud of her youthful self, in reflection.

Eventually, though, she had mastered it. After what could've been an hour on one leg but might have easily been several, Juro told her that the lesson was over. He left without saying goodbye. This didn't surprise her.

"You're back early," her mother said, when Kha''rina reached their treetop apartment and, exhausted, threw herself onto the sofa.

"Early?!" she asked. "I've been gone for days."

"My first lesson was three weeks long," her mother said. "Juro must like you."

*****

*****

“Sounds like you’re progressing quickly,” her mother said. They were below the treetops and descending still, repeatedly circling around a sturdy old bhellop tree on the edge of the jungle.

“Yes, it’s only been a year, after all,” the girl replied, her delivery dripping with sarcasm. “Maybe I’ll start learning how to fight soon.”

“It’s not all about learning how to fight,” the woman advised. A bushy-tailed squirrel scurried past them as it scaled the vertical bhellop trunk. “Patience is a skill you’ll have to develop, too.”

“Patience isn’t a skill,” the girl responded. “It’s an imposition.”

“Your youth is too obvious,” the mother, with a knowing smile. She spoke from experience. “You’ve got to stop and smell the flowers sometimes, Kha’’rina.”

“I guess we’re going to the right place,” Kha’’rina said.

The mother and daughter pairing reached the bottom of the wooden staircase, a structure that seemed light but had stood for thousands of years, connecting the narrow treetop bridge-paths to the rest of the city. The outwardly illogical array of roads and footpaths sprawled out in every direction before them, straddled on either side (and, in some instances, above and below) by structures of various design, size, and age. The lumien and chorult peoples were often referred to as ‘expansionists’, by others and by themselves, and you could clearly see why that was with a quick glance at one of their cities. It usually began with an ancient centrepiece, the first hub built by travelling settlers. The city then burst out from this nucleus in uneven rings that told its history like rings in a tree trunk. The only constant were the frequent, small gardens, blooming with runebells and swan’s tears and imported dragonlilys. The white-stone paths themselves were riddled with blackblossom that clung between the cobbles.

Their pace settled down as they arrived in the central districts, where the markets and exhibits were set up in Pembrose Gardens and a dozen other similar city parks around the town hall. Kha’’rina’s mother grew a few flowers in ceramic pots on their balcony along with a handful of herbs in their small, cramped kitchen, but otherwise she’d shown no real interest in horticulture. Or any other culture, really. Flik’x Halruzh’s time was almost exclusively divided between her thankless job and her impatient daughter. Today, though, her mother had decided she would ‘stop and smell the flowers’.

She also, for some reason that Kha’’rina wasn’t privy to, seemed to have already chosen the flowers she intended to stop and smell. In the upper levels of Pembrose Gardens, between the marble fountain and the statue of the stoic Yundheim guardsman staring over the crescent-shaped lake, they found a vibrant display heavily featuring innumerable shades of pink and purple. The central feature of the small exhibition was a tall, straight tree with a silver trunk and huge, lilac leaves, under which the display’s eccentric curator smiled broadly. He was unlike anything little Kha’’rina had ever seen before, with his most prominent distinguishable feature the tangle of bristling tentacles protruding at all angles from the lower half of his head. The top half of it was a smooth, purple dome, two sunken brown eyes sparkling with warmth and life and something a little more sinister. He flashed the approaching tandem the underside of his middle and index fingers, which only the mother understood to carry vague connotations of peace in certain parts of the universe.

This prominent and widely-respected horticulturist is, of course, known to my dear listener as that most fantastic of COSMIC HORRORs, the Nightmarer and 5D-Go Master himself. He was also known to the government upon Khaled-1 for reasons quite separate from his skills with flower arranging. Kha’’rina watched her mother greet this strange being with an uncharacteristically broad smile. She was outside the circle of knowledge and lamented how often this was the case.

“So here we are!” Uncle said, as he emerged from behind a small water feature in a corner of his display to grasp Flik’x in a tight and familiar embrace. “You’ve finally seen it. Now do you believe it?”

“It really is something, Uncle,” the woman said. She scanned the flora and tried to chart the patchwork of colours: cerise, violet, peach, and amaranth in one patch, fuschia, orchid, magenta, and lavender in another, this ocean of pink and purple only broken up by the green stems and leaves and moss around a circular pond that teemed with life of its own. Kha’’rina concurred with her mother. She’d never seen such a vibrant display of plant life and wondered if it, or its curator, could be natural. “Still seems like more of a hobby, though. A side hustle.”

“Everything else is the side hustle,” JAY! replied, with a wink. He seemed distracted by a trio of photo-journalists who were framing his bed of hot pink chiraliums. “Are you around for long? I’d love to talk you through the display. And those photographers should probably know what they’re looking at, too.”

“I’ll have to leave you to it,” she answered. “Work.”

“Always work,” Uncle said, whilst shaking his head. His tentacles wafted gently as he did.

“Not quite,” Flik’x corrected. “If you’re still free for drinks tonight.”

“Who else would I drink with in this city?” Uncle answered. Only then did Kha’’rina notice the two others in pink tracksuits that were tending the stranger’s gardens. A man in a mask and a woman wearing a look of passive disdain. The one in the mask lingered close to the conversation as if monitoring it. “The droids will start to pack the ship at thirty hours. You’ll meet me here then?”

“I’ll meet you here then,” Flik’x repeated. Uncle disappeared to inform the photo-journalists about the nuances of his exhibition. Kha’’rina followed her mother towards the Gadfly House and the Academy a few doors beyond it.

“That man is your Uncle?” Kha’’rina asked. “Does that mean he’s my Uncle, too?”

“No,” Flik’x answered. “That’s just his name.”

“Will I go for drinks?” the daughter asked. “A groppos juice, obviously.”

“You’ll be busy,” the mother answered. “Juro told me not to expect you home tonight.”

Kha’’rina grimaced, and wondered if her teacher planned to have her learn how to stand on no legs at all.

*****

*****

“Three months,” her mother said. “That’s all.”

The specific duration was meant to calm her daughter but had the opposite effect. Three months seemed like quite a long amount of time, and the look of concern that haunted her mother’s face brought fears of a different sort. As Kha’’rina’s progress had progressed, Flik’x began to confide a little more openly in her about the details of her own work. The younger woman had never seen her mother approach a job with anything other than lightly-worn confidence. Kha’’rina always suspected that this was at least partly an act. Flik’x’s countenance right now validated that theory.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Her mother paused. Weighed up how much she should reveal to her daughter. For all the love she’d received through her handful of years, there was a closed hesitance about their relationship that still partially persisted.

“I don’t know if I like it,” her mother said. Her expression suggested she’d decided she didn’t like it.

“The job?” Kha’’rina replied. Her mother nodded her head. The younger girl was aware of the details of the latest operation that Flik’x had been assigned to. Uncle J.J. JAY! was half the universe away, which accounted for the three month round trip that her mother was embarking on in order to kill him. Kha’’rina wondered why they didn’t wait until another local horticultural event. “Wouldn’t have thought you’d be sweating the flower guy.”

“It’s not that,” her mother started. “It’s…”

Her voice trailed off. She glanced around herself nervously. Kha’’rina was unsure what it was about their apartment that was spooking her. It hadn’t changed much since she’d been born. Suddenly, Flik’x stood up and walked to the balcony. Kha’’rina had never seen her smoke before. Things must’ve been bad. Whilst balancing the cigarette between her lips, she took two small, black devices out of her satchel and placed one upon a table. She held the other up in her daughter’s direction.

“We’ll stay in close contact, okay?” she said. Kha’’rina sensed that she was being guarded. She didn’t enjoy her mother’s paranoia. She was usually so steadfast. That’s how she needed her to be.

As she regarded the bundle of nervous energy that had consumed her mother, she lamented that this would be how she’d remember her for the next three months.

Kha’’rina followed her onto the balcony. She was careful not to inhale any second-hand smoke and collected the device from the table. A small screen activated when she held it. There was a keypad beneath it. Her mother began to type on her own machine, and after a few seconds her message appeared on Kha’’rina’s screen.

>> Will only work for you. Needs your signature. I’ll call, too. x.

The younger woman was confused but placed the device in her back pocket. Her mother gave her a long, tight hug - a little longer and tighter than usual, even - before disappearing out of their apartment’s front door.

That night, Kha’’rina arrived at the Gadfly Academy for what she assumed would be a routine lesson. Juro and another man waited for her in front of the building in a grey cruiser with chipped paintwork. The other man patted her down and she was glad to have left her mother’s communication device beneath a floorboard in her apartment. Juro opened the back of the cruiser and told her to climb in. She didn’t hesitate. Juro became unbearable if she hesitated. They drove through the night and she slept.

She was awoken by the harsh morning sunlight and, when she climbed out of the back of the cruiser, concluded that she was somewhere in the Yorrynn Plains. Near the Alfomen Flats, if the arid landscape was anything to go by. Juro carried a short, rusted spear with him. He threw it down at her feet. She’d never used this or any other weapon before. Most of Juro’s teaching techniques seemed to rely on learning by doing.

“Find and kill a male gaolcat,” Juro instructed. The other man waited inside the cruiser. “Don’t come back without one on your shoulders.”

Kha’’rina stuffed her hands into her pockets and surveyed her rather desolate surroundings.

“What will I eat?” she asked.

“That’s for you to decide,” Juro answered. “You can forage. Or hunt. Careful with the spear, though. It’s not the sturdiest.”

“You could leave me a sturdier one,” Kha’’rina said. This brought a smile from Juro. She was unsure if she’d ever seen him wear one before.

“That’s part of it.”

Juro climbed into the hovercraft and she watched it drive away. When it was out of sight, she shook her head, kicked the sand, and let out a sigh. Only after doing each of these things a second time did she pick up the spear.

It took her three days to find the gaolcat, three days to kill it, and three days to drag it back to Burund upon her shoulders.

“Not bad,” Juro said, when she presented the carcass at the Academy. “But it only took your mother five days.”

“She is less patient than I am,” Kha’’rina said. Juro didn’t respond. He turned and left the courtyard, two of the academy’s orderlies descending on the cat to take it to the incinerator. Seemed a waste.

Kha’’rina assumed that the lesson was over and went home, thinking only of the little black box hidden beneath the floorboards in her bedroom.

*****

*****

In the days leading up to her mother’s death, the messages she received on their private communications device became more frantic and more frequent. The mission wasn’t going well. They’d barely made it out of the quadrant, still lightyears from the Crease, but already the voyage was beset on all sides by disaster.

The voyager that Flik’x Halruzh was tasked with captaining across the universe was, by its own captain’s account, falling apart. Most of the recreational equipment was broken when they’d first set off, but soon enough she was reporting technical problems with the operational machinery. Their long distance radar required lengthy maintenance work and three of their eight propulsion units were on the fritz, too. The engine was old and the top-speed that they were getting was deteriorating each day. They hadn’t been able to speak over the ship’s communications system after the fourth day of the trip, and they would frequently lose their direct line to headquarters for long, unexplained stretches. Flik’x questioned whether the old girl would even make it across the Crease and didn’t relish the idea of another crash-landing. She didn’t know if she could hack another spell on a mark four planet.

In addition to complications on a technical front, her mother would sometimes express doubts and concerns about the crew that she’d been assigned. Along with the three lumien agents and the sturdy chorult guard she usually adventured with, a half-dozen other beings she didn’t know or even recognise packed out the ship. She’d initially reasoned that Uncle was dangerous game. A larger party might be needed to bring him down. But the quality of the team picked for her left a lot to be desired. At best, they were layabouts or cravens. One or two of them carried the sinister air of schemers. As they got closer to the rendezvous, and (somewhat counterintuitively) their chances of actually making it there grew slimmer, Kha’’rina’s mother began to question whether she’d be better off attempting the hit with just the crew she knew and trusted. She didn’t seem to think it was too late to do that.

There were moments when her mother questioned the mission in its entirety. JAY! stood accused of conspiring with a rival in the system to undermine Khaled-1’s political hold on Djoruk, a moon rich with resources and with great strategic significance in local intergeopolitics. The accusations were doubtlessly true, and Flik’x Halruzh had completed a hundred similar missions with far less doubt. Perhaps it was the memories of Uncle that Kha’’rina had seen alluded to in her one previous meeting with the COSMIC HORROR. She couldn’t see it herself, but her mother was a good judge of character. Her fears meant something.

And these were only, of course, the fears that Flik’x communicated to her daughter, through the secure line she’d arranged via their small, black communications devices. Kha’’rina kept hers hidden under the floorboards in her bedroom. Flik’x’s never left her person. Both would sit up at night, typing away beneath their bedsheets through fear of capture by predators known and unknown. Kha’’rina concluded that there were other worries that were kept from her. The deluge of paranoia that she received each night was only a sample of the ocean her mother drowned in.

On the night that she would later learn was her mother’s last, Kha’’rina received the following series of mayday messages, delivered sporadically over a period of just under an hour.

>> More issues with the ship. Two more propulsion units out. Engineers useless. At this rate, we’ll only ever meet Uncle if he chances upon our wreck and decides to rescue us. x.
>> Getting worse. Engines are spluttering. Think we might need to send a mayday soon. Let me know you’re safe when you’re home - I assume you’re training? Love you x.
>> Mayday attempted and failed, we think. Comms systems fully down. This is my only line out of the ship and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep it hidden. The Korul doesn’t trust me. x.
>> Power systems failing. Engine has shit itself. It’s a real clusterfuck up here. Air locks going down, one by one. Might be stuck here for a while. Love you, K x.
>> Leak in the chassis. Real mayday stuff. Might need to evacuate. Kholf is there with his spanner, hoping to patch things up. Will update. x.

The messages stopped a little after the start of a new morning on Khaled-1. Kha’’rina read them three days later, when she returned from a long velyuhrr hunt along the western wild coast. By this point the KCP had already released its official statement on the death of a gadfly unit out on official planetary service. Such an announcement was, in and of itself, highly peculiar. They chose to break the news to Kha’’rina by playing her the recording of General Secretary Palluk Vrings’ statement to the centrally controlled media. Juro stood at his shoulder, a grave and solemn look upon his face that seemed oddly devoid of his usual anger. The attempt at softening his presentation seemed insincere and cynical.

“At a little before midnight last night,” the General Secretary began, whilst leaning against a pulpit in the Goloff Gardens in front of Burund’s statehouse. The calm ocean sprawled out behind him, glistening and purple and reflecting the hot golden sun. “A Class A voyager manned by a team of envoys representing the Khaled-1 Central Party was boarded as they traversed the Crease’s Blundelt rock-fields. This crew was engaged on official business with the objective of detaining an enemy of the state and returning him here to Burund, to face trial for his crimes. After a swift crossing to Yull’s Landing, the KCP ship, led by decorated diplomatic commander Flik’x Halruzh, was waylaid by an ambush masterminded by this very target.”

As Vrings spoke his mother’s name, her official photograph was displayed in the top right corner of the screen. Kha’’rina’s intuition didn’t need to be strong to see where this was going. Her breath caught in her throat and choked her.

“Commander Halruzh, along with her entire crew of ten, were viciously murdered by the fugitive Uncle J.J. JAY!,” the General Secretary continued. The image of her mother shifted into one of her alleged killer. It looked like a mugshot of some sort but she couldn't place its origin. “This mayday call was sent by the commander at 39:78 yesterday evening.”

Vrings pressed a button on the control panel upon his pulpit. The recording played out of the speakers on the other side. The General Secretary bowed his head respectfully.

“We’ve been boarded,” said Flik’x Halruzh. It was her mother’s voice, alright. She had to burrow through the fear, which wasn’t a usual component of her tone, but it was mostly her. An approximation of her, maybe. Kha’’rina began to develop doubts of her own as this hollow and fearful version of her mother continued. “By the mark himself. The COSMIC HORROR. Yull’s Landing is still behind us but he’s blown out the engines. There are many of them. The ship’s defences are down. Weapons systems are scrambled. We are holed up in the bridge. We have sealed the locks but that won’t hold them for long. The ship shakes… drums, drums in the deep. We cannot get out.”

Rumbling and then static. The recording ended. General Secretary Palluk Vrings shuffled uncomfortably behind his pulpit, adjusting his notes with his head still bowed. Juro stood next to him with clenched fists. His anger had apparently returned to him in this most dramatic of moments.

“Khaled-1’s hunt for this fugitive continues,” Vrings said, after finally looking up from his pulpit at the assembled press. “But we will send no more of our people to die at Uncle’s cruel hands. We have placed a listing on the IQBHF until more information can be gathered. J.J. JAY!, though, has the acrimonious honour of being named public enemy number one. He is not welcome upon Khaled-1 or any of its sisters. Our thoughts are with the families of those who gave their life for Khaled-1’s beauty and splendour at the Yull’s Landing massacre.”

A few moments of silence followed. Kha’’rina knew what the Inter-Quadrant Bounty Hunter’s Forum was and what it usually meant for anyone listed on it. After what he felt was an ample amount of seconds, Palluk Vrings turned from the pulpit and left the shot. Juro followed. The next day his promotion to the Academy’s Chief Administrator was announced. Only the head of the guild now outranked him within the gadflies. The General Secretary’s confidence in him had surged during her most recent hunting trip. Another cause for concern amongst a sea of them. She tried to swim to shore.

In the coming days she inherited her mother’s small treetop apartment, her surprisingly healthy savings, and her beat up old flashliner. Kha’’rina thought about leaving immediately, but quickly realised she had nowhere to go even if she now had a way to get there. The situation was sticky, and the KCP’s story was full of holes, but she hadn’t yet begun to form her own. The idea of becoming a fugitive herself over an unknown truth seemed a clumsy and ill-advised one.

And so she stayed. At least for a little while.

There were times in the weeks and months that followed, as Kha’’rina dutifully continued her training and preparation for service within the ranks of the Khaled-1 Central Party’s renowned gadfly, when she wondered if her new legal guardians were actually blameless in the whole affair after all. Perhaps it was possible that Uncle J.J. JAY! had somehow mimicked her mother’s biological signature and, in an action that would be devious enough to fit in with the one-dimensional picture painted of our COSMIC HORROR by the KCP, duped her into mistrusting her protectors. She didn’t doubt that there were beings out there who had the power and intelligence to do such a thing. But the constant warning in her hearts told her that this was not the case here. Not now.

She was torn between trusting in her gut and indulging her cynicism. Both had served her well and poorly in the past. She remained conflicted as her grief gradually softened.

Her ‘graduation’ took place about half a year after her mother had died and involved her halo-jumping from a low-altitude flashliner and landing in the middle of the Djank Rainforest. She was given only a short brief. Follow the river downstream. The target will be waiting for you at the waterfall.

She followed the river downstream. The target was waiting for her at the waterfall.

He was a thin and small mulukh man with his hands tied behind his back and his legs shackled to the base of a sturdy whitevein tree. His mouth was gagged and his eyes were filled with tears and fear. Despite the fact that they were open, the rest of him seemed to be asleep.

Juro had told her through her comms device that the target was an enemy of the state. No more than that. This was a couple of minutes before she free-fell from the liner to the canopy. She imagined the briefs would eventually get more complicated than this.

When she returned to the academy, Kha’’rina placed the token on Juro’s desk. It was a gadfly tradition that she’d been well-drilled in from an early age. The chief administrator picked up the mulukh’s hand and inspected it at length. He eventually placed it back onto his desk, next to a large pile of red dossiers, and glanced at the young woman in front of him with a smile that she didn’t care for.

“Congratulations,” he began. He was attempting pride and encouragement but was missing the entire ballpark. “You’re an agent now, just like your mother was. Is. Will always be.”

He emerged from behind his desk and placed a hand on her shoulder. It was clammy even through his glove. Kha’’rina worried that it might melt through her.

“Are you ready to avenge your mother?” he asked.

*****

*****

She woke up in Djoruk’s orbit, the luscious pink and green sphere rotating slowly but noticeably below her liner. She was alone, as she always was, but for the blinking of a small light on the interface that heralded a message from headquarters. Coordinates. She engaged the thrusters and brought the ship down towards the surface.

A standard hour later, she sat in the COSMIC HORROR’s hotel bedroom and watched him wake up. He had been surprisingly quiet whilst sleeping and remained so as he turned on the bedside lamp and noticed Kha’’rina with a blaster trained on him.

“They sent you to avenge your mother,” he said. His voice was somewhat kind, except for the manner in which he lingered over the word ‘avenge’. Here, his tone was sardonic and cutting, as if admonishing her for short-sightedness. Mostly, though, he sounded unsurprised. This, in turn, surprised Kha’’rina.

“Did you kill her?” Kha’’rina asked. Uncle’s tentacles bristled as a smile rippled out beneath them. He knew that the question meant hesitation. Today wouldn’t be his day.

“I heard all about your mother,” Uncle began, with a shake of his head. She’d read all about his prowess as a monologuer but didn’t think he sounded insincere. “Rest in power. Flik’x Halruzh was a truly remarkable woman. I heard those bogus A.I. recordings, too. Had my team analyse the tapes. Extensive voice irregularities. Really quite a vulgar trick, the more you think about it. Of course, if I had met your mother on her mission and she was serious about carrying it out, we would’ve undoubtedly fought to the death for real. I won’t lie about the fact that I would have killed your mother, if she meant to do the same to me, but that is unfortunately not how it came to pass.”

“Unfortunately?” Kha’’rina repeated.

“Unfortunately,” Uncle repeated again. “Would’ve been quite the battle.”

She considered his response and found it aligned with her doubts. She was cynical even about her cynicism, though, and worried that Uncle would seek to exploit this. He knew the holes in the KCP’s official story as well as Kha’’rina did, but that didn’t mean he was telling the whole truth either.

“Are you an enemy of the state?” she asked. She worried that her voice sounded like Juro’s when the question slipped out.

“Yes,” Uncle said. “But only because Khaled-1 is fucking terrible. You already know this, or you wouldn’t be flirting with the idea that they killed your mother. Which they undoubtedly did, by the way.”

“Did you meet my mother on Earth?” Kha’’rina continued, changing the subject.

“Almost,” Uncle said. “I met your mother on Mars, the next planet over. We spent some time together in the Copernican System, which is probably why those bastards from the KCP wanted her dead. They’re not the most trusting, and they don’t teach trust in their academies. Paranoid about a secret allegiance drummed up during our stolen months, I’d wager.”

“How did she get to Earth?” Kha’’rina.

“If you’d believe it,” Uncle mused, whilst reaching into his pocket slowly to retrieve his vape. He puffed on the end of it thoughtfully before continuing. “There’s even less on Mars than there is on Earth. Your mother and crew weren’t trusting enough to let me take them back to Khaled-1, especially given my reputation with the government there. But they also knew their ship was fucked and that they didn’t want to starve to death on Mars, so they at least hitched a ride as far as the blue planet. I helped arrange her extraction, too. Got in contact with the KCP, despite our vast historical differences, and told them where she was. The fact that Earth is mark four didn’t help. We had to prove she crash-landed there before we could begin the extraction, which - of course - she didn’t. But we pulled it off and got her back. Just took a few months. That’s when she fell pregnant with you.”

She’d heard patches of her mother’s side of the story before. But there were always gaps. Holes. Her mother told her that she wasn’t old enough yet. Old enough to train and kill but not old enough to know her own story. She would know the whole story when she graduated, her mother said. Eventually this promise had been fulfilled, but not by her.

“Are you my father?” she asked, finally.

Uncle’s eyes sparkled as brightly as his beaming smile.

“No,” he said, softly. “I’m your Uncle. Capital U.”

She couldn’t place the feeling in her stomach. Relief? Disappointment?

“Your father is a man named Alfred Ian Tranter,” Uncle continued. “He lives in a place called Runcorn. Works at a bookmaker’s, the last time I checked.”

“What’s a bookmaker’s?” Kha’’rina.

“It’s like a casino but for horse-racing,” Uncle.

“What’s a horse?” Kha’’rina.

“I guess you’ll find a lot of this out one day,” Uncle.

“Unlikely,” Kha’’rina. Finally, she lowered her blaster.

“Do you want some advice?” Uncle. She found his voice soft and warm, like a fire to curl up in front of. She nodded her head. “Tell them that you killed me. Stay close to them so that you can have your revenge, if that is important to you. Which apparently it is, given the first question you asked me.”

“How exactly will that work?” she asked. “You’re not the most discrete of beings.”

“For my new friends I can make concessions,” Uncle said. “I’ll lay low for a year. Work on my 5D-Go game. Synthesise a few new plant species. Maybe take up pro-wrestling. Thomas has been looking for some months to indulge in his ‘time crystal’ project, too.”

She thought about the proposition. Already, she had begun to write a list of names in her head. The last two upon it were Chief Administrator Juro Takturian and General Secretary Palluck Vrings.

“In one standard year and one standard day, all bets are off,” Uncle continued. He remained in his bed, carrying out the conversation as if they were discussing the weather. “A COSMIC HORROR can’t stay under a rock forever. I’d get out of dodge before that day comes.

“Oh, and one more thing: don’t ask so many questions.”

She took this last point to heart.

Uncle retrieved a knife from his pocket and, still smiling, lifted it to one of the tentacles protruding from his chin.

*****