pole, and we’re well inside it. Normal approach and docking will be completed in . . .’ She made a show of hesitation, although the answer was surely known to her in advance. ‘Thirty seconds. Please fold away your tray- tables and place your seats in the upright position. Thank you for flying with Akinya Space.’
‘Why did you shoot at us?’ Gilbert asked.
‘That wasn’t shooting. That was a reminder not to take anything for granted.’ She made him let out a small, prideful sigh. ‘Well, grandson – now that my work here is done, would you like your body back?’
His eyes stopped their jerky dance. He could speak again, and move his hands normally.
‘You did well,’ he said.
‘You feel the need to compliment me?’
‘It’s what Sunday would do,’ he said, addressing the now disembodied voice. ‘That’s all.’
Soon came a gentle clunk, followed by a quick sequenced drumroll of capture clamps, primed like the petals of some carnivorous plant to lock on to any vehicle that made it this far.
Geoffrey began to undo his restraints. It had been difficult, but they had docked with the Winter Palace.
Now all they had to do was go inside and see what had become of Hector.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
There was darkness, an absence of experience, then dawning amber light, the primal stirrings of consciousness. Then there was a room, warm and golden and as bedecked with finery as the inside of any wealthy merchant’s tent, in any desert caravan from the
And Sunday was awake, looking at herself.
A memory stirred: an error she would not make twice. It was not her own face looking down at her, but there were sufficient similarities that a blood relationship could not be denied. A woman’s face, close enough to her own that they might have been sisters or cousins. And she had seen this woman before, behind layers of glass, in a landscape older than Africa.
Her mouth was dry, her lips gummed together. Nonetheless she managed a word.
‘Soya.’
‘Glad you remember me. You were both pretty cold by the time we reached you. Your suits only had a few hours of effective life support left in them.’ Soya was dressed in a white blouse, draped with about a dozen necklaces, some hung with jewelled pendants, some with wooden charms. She was all skin and bones, lean and angular where Sunday (as she would readily admit) was padded and ample. They had genes in common, but they’d been raised on very different worlds. Soya’s legs, in leather trousers with calf-length boots, were stupidly long and slender. She was taller than Sunday, and towered over her even more so now that Sunday was lying on her back, on a couch or bed in one corner of the room. It had curtains rather than walls. Incense smoked in candleholders. The air smelled of honey, cinnamon, baking bread.
‘Jitendra?’ she asked, forming his name in three distinct syllables, each of which cost her effort.
‘He’s well, don’t worry.’ Soya was pouring something into a glass. Bangles clashed against each other on her wrist, making a constant metallic hiss whenever she moved. ‘You don’t remember much about being rescued?’
‘No,’ Sunday said.
‘But you know my name.’
‘We’ve met before.’
‘Yes, we did.’ There was a note of reproach in that. ‘And still you got into trouble with those people. Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned.’ Soya leaned down and offered the glass to Sunday’s lips. ‘Drink this.’
The liquid was sugary and welcome. It rinsed some of the dryness from her mouth and throat; notched her one step closer to the living.
‘I don’t know who you are, Soya.’ Sunday dredged a hard-won memory from the recent past. ‘You told me you were born here, on Mars. You said something about Nigeria. We’re still
‘You’ve only been out about thirteen hours. It’s tomorrow.’ Soya smiled at that, and the smile cut through Sunday. She’d seen it a million times, in her own reflection. Just not as much lately as she might have wished.
‘And that’s all I get? We’re related, Soya. I’ve known that from the moment I first saw your face. And why would you make contact with me if it wasn’t connected with my family?’
Soya smiled, but with less assurance than before. ‘I know you want answers, but you’ve had a difficult couple of days and you should probably rest first.’
‘You just told me I’ve been asleep since yesterday.’
‘After nearly dying.’
Sunday took a leap into the void. The question was absurd on a number of levels, but she had to ask it. ‘Are you . . . related to Eunice? Are you some granddaughter or grand-niece I never knew about?’
‘No, I’m not related to her. I’d offer you a cell scraping, if you had a means of testing it.’ Soya looked down, fiddling absently with the necklaces. ‘But you and me, that’s a different story. We do have a common ancestor. But it’s not Eunice.’
Sunday pushed herself up from the couch. Heavy blankets slid away from her. She was wearing lime-green football shorts and a cheap yellow tourist T-shirt with an animated space elevator printed on the front. The logo said
‘Who, Soya?’ The other woman had half a head on her, but she still took a step away, as if she hadn’t anticipated a show of determination quite this valiant.
‘Jonathan,’ Soya said. And as if that was not enough – there was only one Jonathan in Sunday’s firmament – Soya added, ‘Beza. Eunice’s husband. The man she came to Mars with.’
