Star Crossing: Aeon's Legacy, #3

STAR CROSSING

Alexis Glynn Latner

This is a sequel to the novels Hurricane Moon and Downfall Tide. 

In Hurricane Moon, the starship Aeon set out from climate-changed Earth to find a new world and begin a new civilization without the mistakes of the old.  After an unexpectedly long journey, Aeon reached mild and mysterious Planet Green with its hurricane-covered ocean moon. Then the season of crisis began. The astronaut crew, including pilot Joel Atlanta and structural engineer Becca Fisher, made critical repairs and brought the ship into orbit. Then equally critical and more subtle repairs had to start. The human genome was damaged because cryostasis—cold suspended animation—went on too long.  Astronaut-physician Catharin Gault has to enlist the cooperation of the brilliant and possibly untrustworthy maverick geneticist Joseph Devreze in making unprecedented biomolecular innovations if the colony to have healthy children. Meanwhile the mild but alien environment of Planet Green challenged the Earth-evolved minds and reflexes of the explorers in Unity Base. At the end of Hurricane Moon, they finally knew there would be a human future on Planet Green. 

In Downfall Tide that future had truly begun. To work around a paucity of mineral resources on Planet Green, Becca Fisher had engineered a tide machine to power a city made of glass.  The first children had grown up. They included John Mark, the genetically repaired son of Catharin and Joel; Silke, the brilliant daughter of Becca and Joseph; and Nathaniel, the grandson and spitting image of Joel Atlanta. With Joel as Captain, Aeon was exploring the Green system’s outer planets for resources. Then the hard-won beginning ended. Refugees from an interstellar war appeared with an incredible story: that while Aeon made its eleven-century journey, fast starflight was invented, and now a corrupt and immortal empire was spreading invasion and conquest across the stars. War soon came to Green. It ended with the City destroyed. The invaders wanted Aeon with its treasure trove of biological materials from Earth. Joel, now the Captain, used the interplanetary shuttle Lodestar, piloted by Nathaniel, and Aeon itself to inflict enough damage on the invaders that they withdrew. But they would inevitably return.  So Joel and Becca, Catharin and Joseph, and the rest of the first generation who survived the war, sent Aeon on a new journey to safety.  Because still more centuries of cryostasis would have physically devastated them, they stayed behind. On Green they faced a grim uncertain future.  In the end hope came in a way they never expected. But their children, in the dreamless darkness of cryostasis for four hundred years, never knew about that. 

In Star Crossing, Aeon has reached another new world. Aeon came as an enormous (and welcome) surprise to the enterprising, spacegoing colonists of the harsh planet Gotayel. 

This new future has major surprises in store for the children of Aeon too. . . .

For Dr. Lila Rose Anderson

Contents

CHAPTER 1—ANASTASIS

CHAPTER 2—SHADOW OF GREEN

CHAPTER 3—RENDEZVOUS

CHAPTER 4—DIPLOMACY

CHAPTER 5—CAST THE DICE

CHAPTER 6—STAR CLOUD

CHAPTER 7—SPACESLIP

CHAPTER 8—PITFALL

CHAPTER 9—ROGER LISTENING

CHAPTER 10—RING DISCOVERY

CHAPTER 11—STAREXPLORER

CHAPTER 12—LOST IN TRANSLATION

CHAPTER 13—COLLISION

CHAPTER 14—ASIA

CHAPTER 15—EVER’S LEGACY

CHAPTER 16—SANCTUARY

CHAPTER 17—ENIGMAS

CHAPTER 18—THE CHILDREN OF BANE

CHAPTER 19—BARGAIN

CHAPTER 20—ATLAS IN STARCROSS

CHAPTER 21—STARBIRDS

CHAPTER 22—TRAJECTORY

CHAPTER 23—STOWAWAY

CHAPTER 24—AEGIS

CHAPTER 25—GHOST IN THE MACHINE

CHAPTER 26—RIDDLES IN STARLIGHT

CHAPTER 27—THE ICE PIPER

CHAPTER 28—DEBRIEF

CHAPTER 29—CHANGE OF HEARTS

CHAPTER 30—GREEN IN AMBER

CHAPTER 31—BATTLE STATIONS

CHAPTER 32—RING TRANSIT

CHAPTER 33—CASUALTY COUNT

CHAPTER 34—JOSEPH’S SONS

CHAPTER 35—PERIASTRON

CHAPTER 36—EPIPHANY

CHAPTER 37—AURORA’S SONG

CHAPTER 38—RESPITE

CHAPTER 39—GUARDIAN ANGEL

CHAPTER 40—THE FARTHEST PORT

About the author

Acknowledgments

Credits

CHAPTER 1—ANASTASIS

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Nathaniel Foster studied his palm one more time. He barely registered the ventilation hum of the starship around him while he concentrated on the words inked on the skin of his palm. Writing key words on his hand before having to say something important to say was a trick his Grandpa had taught him—an ancient trick that dated back to Earth and the Twentieth Century, thousands of years and lightyears away now.

He heard feet scuffing in the spingravity. Rivka Lowe soon appeared around the corridor’s curve. She guided a slender young man who looked dazed and unsteady. He had to be the new riser named Tamas. Nathaniel knew that Rivka had gone to get him.

John Mark is bringing one more new riser, Nathaniel murmured to her. He didn’t tell me whose, just that we should start the story but not explain Green until he gets here.

She took a deep breath. Roger.

Balling his hand into a loose fist, Nathaniel followed Rivka and her riser into the Recovery Room.

The wall of the Recovery Room showed an ocean-blue and desert-tan world streaked with clouds. The newest risers already in the room regarded the world with tongue-tied awe. Several earlier risers, including a doctor and a psychologist, were equally silent for a different reason—apprehension. The true and entire story had already unhinged a few risers. You never knew how it would hit somebody—other than hard.

Rivka led Tamas to a comfortable chair and got him seated.

Three risen Fishers—no mistaking the family resemblance, all three of them short and sturdy, with reddish hair—stood together supporting each other. The risen Foster family, four of them, stood tall. They gave Nathaniel interested glances, already noticing how his chocolate-brown skin and long bones resembled theirs. The Wing family sat around a table holding each other’s hands. They had taken Ha Minh Nguyen into their midst so she wasn’t alone. As for Tamas, he was alone in the Ship and alone in the universe. Nathaniel felt sorry for him.

The new risers’ attention latched onto Rivka. It was her blue flight suit with the Primary Crew insignia. They knew what it meant.

Rivka said calmly and clearly, "Good morning. You may be aware that it’s always been the custom in space travel to use the greeting good day, but this is an extraordinary day for all of you. You’ve just been revived from a long night’s journey in cryostasis. You’re all here because you’re related to someone who was on the Starship Primary Crew or someone who rose when they did."

Tamas shook his head.

She put her hands on his shoulders. Or you’re connected somehow to one of them. Not everything went according to the nominal plan.

Nothing did, Nathaniel thought. Not much had gone according to subsequent plans either.

I take it not everyone rose alive, said a Fisher flatly. He must be Aunt Becca’s brother. Nathaniel could see how much his features resembled her. The resemblance gave Nathaniel a lump in his throat.

"It was more complicated than that. After Aeon left Earth to cross the stars, the original destination turned out to be a barren, moonless rock only half the size of Earth. The original Primary Crew came out of cryostasis, assessed their options, and reprogrammed the Ship’s Intelligence to search for a better place. They went back into stasis. The Ship went on again, on and on, until it found a better planet. Then the Primary Crew rose again and brought the Ship to planetfall."

Would you please quantify ‘on and on’? asked Tamas. Nathaniel remembered that he was a bioscientist.

The maximum safe duration of cryostasis was estimated to be a thousand years, said Rivka, with only a trace of uneasiness in her voice. "For reasons we still don’t understand, Aeon journeyed for more than a century longer than that before the Intelligence decided it had found a good enough planet for us."

Tamas went even paler than he had already been. Any scientist knew that more than ten percent over an estimated limit was too far.

There was a risk in that much stasis, especially in two segments, a Foster said slowly.

Yes. Nonetheless, those of the original Primary Crew who were needed all rose alive and well enough to work. Rivka knew how to deliver bad news. Make it short but not brutal; make a story of it; and leave out parts of the grim truth along the way. Their planetfall was four hundred years ago.

Grief washed across their faces as they realized that their relatives had long since lived their risen lives and died. It was a chance they had all taken, going into stasis to a raw new planet where they would be revived when they were needed, and not before, in the long work of terraforming a new world. They had known full well that they might never see their loved ones again. They had all hoped against hope, though.

The blue-and-tan planet on the wall hovered invitingly, at least, invitingly compared to the Ship’s first, barren, moonless destination. Across the face of one sandy continent were scattered spots of terraformed green. The continent had green measles.

The talkative Fisher brother nodded. Farmers are needed now. He sounded resolute.

Yes. Farmers are badly needed.

Slow footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. John Mark entered the Recovery Room helping another man walk. No wonder John Mark had been late. This new riser moved very slowly and unsteadily. Both of them were tall; the similarity ended there. Where John Mark was young and athletic, his handsome face the color of coffee au lait, the riser was the pastiest, most wrinkled human being Nathaniel had ever seen in the flesh. Old! Nathaniel had to make himself not stare. With John Mark’s steadying hand under both of his elbows, the old man sat down with a jerkiness that should have emitted a creak.

Tamas frowned. That planet doesn’t match four hundred years of terraforming. Not even with the ecological accelerations. It’s got an atmosphere, and some of those green zones are the size of Lake Superior.

You’re very observant, said Rivka.

What are you doing here? the old man rasped at her. Evidently he remembered that according to plan, the Primary Crew all had backups for when they failed to rise, or went planetside for good, or died of illness or old age; the plan had been to operate Aeon for at least two generations as it explored the new solar system. Primaries should have been used up before now.

From the distaste that flashed across Rivka’s face, she didn’t like it being phrased that way any more than Nathaniel did.

I’ll explain. With a wave, John Mark changed what the picture showed.

The green-measled world shredded into pixels.

***

The image on the wall rippled into visuals of a very different world.

Planet Green. Fifty lightyears and four hundred years of stasis away. It used to be the only Earthlike world Nathaniel had ever known. He was surprised at the pang he felt as it pixellated into existence on the screen.

Aeon’s long lost past was going to come as an enormous shock to the unsuspecting families.

Green looked very different from the blue-and-tan planet. Green had been an ancient world clad in a tattered green cloak of ecosystem. Nathaniel suddenly wondered if he missed Green.—No. Not like a lost home, at any rate. It was more like something Aunt Becca had told him about her own childhood, how she’d enjoyed summer camp in the Smoky Mountains. Nathaniel had taken excursions on Planet Green and had been amused and collected rocks. His true home was Aeon, and it surrounded him here, big as a mountain, with a hide thick enough to withstand all the stars had thrown at it, rotating its way along its path to create a spingravity sense of up and down that made perfect sense to Nathaniel’s reflexes. He was at home in Aeon and glad of it.

The new-risen families murmured in puzzlement.

John Mark raised his voice slightly. Bear with me as I tell this story. I want you to understand what happened. His voice was calm, yet arresting. The families listened intently. "About four hundred years ago Aeon finally made planetfall at the world we called Planet Green. It wasn’t barren. It had an extensive ecosystem. It looked like a gift to star-stricken eyes."

In the visuals the big blue moon rose behind Green. The families murmured in surprise.

It had a moon, an awesome moon, an Earth-sized ocean world covered with hurricanes. We weren’t sure that an Earthlike ecosystem could be built without the tides generated by a moon. Well, Green had tides an order of magnitude bigger than the tides on Earth. After the Primary Crew took one good look, they started reviving life scientists to figure the ecosystem out. They brought these passengers out of stasis before their time, people like— John Mark hesitated for an instant. Carlton Wing. The name of one of his and everyone's favorite people took an effort to say out loud. The world had abundant, fernlike vegetation and he was a fern botanist. He was raised from stasis long before his time. John Mark met the stricken gazes of the Wing family. He bitterly missed you and always hoped he’d see you again someday. Yet he was needed to make that world livable—and give spiritual guidance to confused, frightened colonists in his other role of Catholic priest. He lived up to both callings.

The Wings bowed their heads. Tears pricked Nathaniel’s eyes. He missed Uncle Carl.

Another one raised before his time was a brilliant genetic theoretician named Joseph Devreze, said Rivka. Nathaniel didn’t know if anybody who’d actually known Uncle Joseph could have spoken of that remarkable man right now without choking up. Rivka could say what needed saying because she hadn’t known him. Nathaniel and John Mark had.

So had poor Tamas. He looked stricken too. That can’t be. I left him on Earth.

No, Rivka said gently. He took to the Ship.

Tamas shook his head. He wasn’t the type to leave Earth for the stars.

From what I’ve heard of him, I know why you say that. But he made enemies on Earth and took to the ship after you did. Your decision may even have given him the idea.

Enemies. Yes. I saw that coming. Tamas struggled to understand. He didn’t die on Earth a thousand years ago?

No. He lived on Planet Green for thirty years while you stayed in stasis.

So you’ve lost him just as surely as you thought, but for thirty years he lived on while you stayed in stasis, and you’ll be thinking about that the rest of your life. Ouch. Nathaniel suppressed a wince.

John Mark took over the story. "Thirty Green years after planetfall, it became clear that Aeon could not remain at Planet Green. Aeon had to go on yet again. But we had to leave the First Risers behind. None of them dared go into stasis again, not after more than a thousand years of it and then thirty years of aging. Age raises the risk of stasis damaging the human body."

Yes, and these Fishers and Wings and Fosters were siblings of the First Risers plus two nephews and three nieces. No one over fifty-five years of age was supposed to have gone to the stars. The inexplicable old man’s mind must have been in better shape than his body. Colony failed after all? he asked shrewdly.

It hung in the balance for decades. John Mark's tone was implacable. Stasis had done so much damage to the human genome that there weren’t going to be enough natural, viable children. What saved us all was the work done by Uncle J— He caught himself. Nathaniel wondered if that were a real slip of the tongue on the part of the superbly self-controlled John Mark, or if he had deliberately chosen to let his humanity show. Joseph Devreze. He salvaged the human genome.

Him? Poor doubting Tamas sounded incredulous.

Rivka smoothly took up the story. He had a major change of heart on Green. He worked long and hard with the Ship’s Primary Crew physician, Dr. Catharin Gault, on salvaging the human genome from the damage done by extended stasis. I understand that he also partly deciphered the genetic code of some organisms on Planet Green and found time for recreational genetic inventing.

Nathaniel noticed that the inexplicable old man had gone stiff as a board. He had likely heard of Joseph Devreze on Earth. By all accounts, Uncle Joseph and his genetic inventing had been notorious.

Rivka turned to Tamas, "He knew you were in stasis in the Ship. He knew you could understand both his repair work and his genetic inventions. He was hoping to hand the work to you in only a few more years. With Aeon needing to leave Green, he named you his heir."

Tamas shook like a leaf. Besides being a close friend—or more likely much closer than a friend, back in Joseph’s wild young days on Earth—Tamas had been one of precious few bioscientists near the top of Joseph’s field. Tamas could guess what salvaging the human genome implied. He would also know how to do it when he explored Joseph’s legacy—provided this package of news didn’t unbalance him.

Rivka put her arm around his shoulders. He gripped her forearm like a man overboard would clutch a life preserver. We need you and your inheritance now, she told him gently. "It took Aeon slightly less than four hundred years to get here, on top of the earlier voyage that went on for so long. There is even more stasis damage yet to be repaired. But the likely damages are known. The pathways to repairs are laid out."

Tamas managed to nod.

And there are healthy human genomes down on that world. John Mark took the tale back up. "It turns out that we are the second colonizing starship from Earth to end up here. The colonists of the previous ship have been at it for centuries. They had a shorter and more direct flight across the stars than we did, found an Earthlike new world, and have given terraforming their best shot ever since. Unfortunately, terraforming is chancier than any of the mission planners on Earth expected. It was teetering on the brink of failure when we got here. The resources of Aeon are enough to tip the balance and guarantee that terraforming will succeed for good."

That’s good, Uncle Carl’s nephew echoed faintly.

You didn’t recross the stars to save a failing world, said the old man.

No, sir.

Sir? Who and whose relative was he?

Now I will tell you the full truth about why you’re rising here with your loved ones long gone, John Mark said. It’s not easy for me to say. It won’t be easy for you to hear.

CHAPTER 2—SHADOW OF GREEN

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John Mark’s calm voice had a grim note that made everyone in the room, newest risers and earlier, lean forward to listen. Doctors Jakarta and Cruz hovered, unobtrusively filled water glasses, and moved packs of tissue across the table tops toward new risers who looked about to cry. Nathaniel felt his palms sweating with his own tension. He resisted the urge to wipe the sweat—and his notes—off onto his immaculate flightsuit. His role in this encounter would come too soon for his comfort, but it wouldn’t come close to being the burden that John Mark held in his hands day and night and had to explain to these frightened, fragile people.

"After thirty years on Green, a small group of strangers in a strange ship showed up out of deep space. They were human. They claimed to have crossed the stars in days. They said that while Aeon traveled for a thousand years, fast starflight was discovered, humanity spread across the stars with a speed and ease we never imagined, and many new worlds were colonized."

Tamas muttered a startled curse. Other new risers dropped their jaws.

"Their story was incredible. We brought one more of the Primary Crew out of stasis then. That was El Ae Nguyen. Of all the people in cryostasis on Aeon, only he had the mind and mathematical training to understand what the strangers said about fast starflight. He confirmed the scientific truth of it. That is why your brother is not here to rise with you." John Mark made an apologetic Asian bow, hands placed together, toward Ha Minh Nguyen. She returned the gesture, looking shattered. The Wing family drew closer around her.

"It gets worse. The strangers said they were refugees from an interstellar war and that the enemy was hot on their trail. Sure enough, their enemies came after them, discovered our colony, and found out about Aeon. These enemies of theirs—and of ours!—wanted Aeon for its treasure trove of Earth biological material. They wanted Aeon enough to try to take it by force." He fell silent. His jaw muscles clenched.

Rivka continued for him. "Joel John Foster, by then the Captain, kept Aeon out of their hands. Those enemies were a vindictive bunch, though. When they didn’t get what they wanted they destroyed the first and only city on Green. A lot of people died then."

The families gasped.

John Mark continued with an effort. Point made, our enemies left.

That left out a lot of the story. Nathaniel’s heart speeded up, remembering the dark times and the final end—not what the families needed to hear right now.

"Those enemies we had never hurt, that we had never even known, were inhuman. Not alien. Inhuman. Something very bad happened on Earth after we left, and spread like a plague with fast starflight. Our enemies looked human but they were heartless, without a shred of compassion and, which seems to be very significant, they were immortal."

Two Fishers grunted a simultaneous Huh? and a Foster breathed, Good God, but Tamas clutched his hair in hands. Oh no. Oh no. The immortality gene set. Joseph invented it because powerful people pushed him harder and harder to do it. He realized that it would turn out very bad if it ever spread through a human population—it would be a nightmare. Like you said. He designed it to be destroyed by cryostasis in starflight. He thought it would be quarantined on Earth forever!

John Mark’s eyebrows shot up. It had taken thirty Green-years to pry that secret out of Uncle Joseph. "He was right. Unfortunately fast starflight let the plague out of quarantine and it has spread to many stars. We were visited by a military expedition from what seems to have been a thoroughly evil stargoing hegemony. We kept Aeon safe until the enemy expedition destroyed our city and went away."

Not all of the enemy expedition had gotten away, Nathaniel thought with vindictive glee. Not the part of it they had sent straight to Hell.

"Sooner or later they would have come back. We were too close to the stars they controlled. The refugees we’d taken in told us that if we could make for this world with its yellow and blue suns, we’d be on the far side of a wide stretch of starflight space, and much safer. El Ae Nguyen confirmed what they were saying. Starflight space isn’t like ordinary space. The distances don’t correlate. We took the chance. The journey here started with a gravitational boost from looping around Blue and Green. Aeon then took four centuries to cross the fifty lightyears between Green and here."

Green dwindled and disappeared from the picture. The focus of the picture rotated 180 degrees and stars flowed by. Finally the blue-and-tan world appeared and grew larger until it dominated the picture.

With the visuals and the momentum of the story itself pulling the families into this unexpected future, John Mark went on. "Depending on who you ask, the name of this world is Gotayel or New Earth or Nearth or Golly. We’re talking to those of the colonists who still have space flight. They know full well that our arrival may make the difference between the end of their world and its salvation. They regard us as saviors from the heroic distant past.

"They know Aeon as the Earthship. We have not told them the true name of this Ship. We don’t know how far our enemies may have spread in four hundred years. We feel sure that with their immortal inhumanity, their hearts will not have changed. We have been told there is a stargoing civilization out here—that Gotayel has stargoing allies described as human and civilized. But we’ve kept the name of the Ship a secret, along with some of our personal names and the truth about our years at Green. We’re keeping our secrets until we really understand who’s out here and what they’re like—until we’re sure our bitter history will not be repeated."

By now even the acid-tongued old man had been stunned silent.

The picture on the wall was real-time. The blue sun rose from behind the planet, a star-bright beacon that painted a blue glaze across the oceans. No moon, here, but a distant second sun, Rivka said. This world has strong sun tides. With our help, it can be terraformed the rest of the way. At long last there is a human future here on this side of so many stars.

The strain was showing on John Mark, not in his face, but in his voice. He sounded hoarse. "Your own loved ones all survived the war at Green. They were either on Aeon or hiding in the wilderness planetside. Yet we had to leave them behind. They had life and health and each other—and all of that was sure to be lost if they went into cryostasis again and died or came out ruined. We don’t know how it went for them. Radio communications would give away Aeon’s direction. They had no technological infrastructure in any event, not with the city destroyed. The alien plants were inedible and our agriculture had never gotten a good foothold in Green’s ecosystem because the native microbial ecology was incompatible. Humanity on Green may not have survived very long. They knew what to expect. The tremor in John Mark’s voice was slight, but it told Nathaniel that John Mark felt almost overwhelmed. Yet they sent us on."

Rivka’s face was very solemn. This was personal for her: she was Uncle Aaron’s niece. He had known she’d be one of the first out of stasis after Aeon’s last journey, and he’d written her a long letter. John Mark’s account must have agreed with Aaron’s. She nodded slightly.

John Mark’s spine was very straight. They were all our parents. We are all their children. The genome was so badly damaged that there were few natural births. Catharin found combinations of egg and sperm that worked, and Joseph repaired genetic aberrations in utero so that there were enough healthy children. There was food for them because people like Carlton Wing had started to figure out agriculture. Becca Fisher used her knowledge of engineering to invent an energy infrastructure by harnessing the tides. Confronted by cosmic bad luck, the First Risers worked for decades to build a city on Planet Green. And then our enemies destroyed it.

In the long shaken silence that followed, a Foster, Joel’s sister, turned to Nathaniel. She had a kind face. Are you related to us?

Yes, ma’am. He nodded. I’m the genetic son of your brother Joel, from his sperm and the egg of a woman who was particularly genetically compatible. Joel and his wife Betty raised me as their grandson.

The name ‘Nathaniel’ means ‘Gift of God’, said Rivka.

In the face of the great-aunt he’d never met, Nathaniel suddenly recognized Grandpa, and felt a pang of loss worse than anything he’d felt since rising. It was hard to say the words he’d worked so hard to prepare at John Mark’s behest. John Mark had told him, You’re the most likeable of us and the most recognizably related to some of them. If they open their hearts to any of us, it will be to you. Nathaniel swallowed hard and made his mouth work. I’m a pilot, like Grandpa. He taught me. I command an interplanetary exploration shuttle. Did feelings rise more slowly from stasis than bodies did? For the first time since he had risen to help bring the Ship in from the stars, Nathaniel felt what he had lost, and who he had lost, and it hurt.

His great-aunt saw it. She reached out patted his hand. How old are you?

Almost twenty-three Green years. Green years are five-sixths of Earth, he replied.

Nineteen, his great-aunt whispered.

"How old are the oldest of you?’ asked the old man.

That would be me, John Mark answered. Twenty-nine Green years.

You’re wearing the silver cross I gave my niece Catharin, the old man said abruptly.

So that explained the old man. Aunt Cat had an uncle who was a Navy admiral on Earth, Nathaniel remembered. She had not known that he was on the Ship, or if she did, she had kept quiet about it, waiting for the day they knew how to repair the star-stricken genes of someone so old he shouldn’t have been on the Ship at all. He must have pulled rank to get aboard.

Catharin was my genetic mother, John Mark said evenly. The cross on its silver chain gleamed under the open collar of his blue flight suit.

It was made out of asteroid silver, but she never wore that thing. It didn’t square with her religious sensibilities. The old man scowled at John Mark.

She treasured it so much that she included it in the personal effects she took to the stars. Because I follow the faith of my genetic father—Joel—she gave it to me before we left.

Nathaniel saw it hit the old man then, grief, like a slow-moving punch to his midsection. By now all the Fosters were looking at John Mark with wide eyes. The Wings and Ha Minh were crying, and the Fishers clutched each other for support. A Fisher asked, Did my sister Rebecca have children?

It didn’t feel like the right time to talk about Dom Junior, poor little Domino. You’ll soon meet Silke. Nathaniel carefully pronounced her name the right way, Zilka. She was your sister’s natural child. He did not add, And Uncle Joseph’s, from before everybody sorted their relationships out, before Joseph and Catharin married each other and Aunt Becca married Uncle Dom. "She’s on duty. She’s Aeon’s Executive Officer."

And you’re the Captain. Catharin’s admiral uncle glared at John Mark. Not even twenty-five years old.

Yes. My officers are either younger than I am, or newer to the stars. John Mark’s tone was calm yet final. He was a perfect alloy of Catharin and Joel—their looks, intelligence, and character blended into a man who completely deserved to