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A chill goes down your spine. Putting two and two together isn’t that hard. And from the look of understanding in her eyes, Gully doesn’t need to tell you who the girl is.
“…you were aboard the Exodus Fleet?” you ask. From how Gully winces, it comes out harsher than you’d like. “Or…they’ve somehow come back without us knowing!”
“…I don’t know,” she answers uncertainly, “I can’t say anything about the Fleet. I can only speak for myself. And all evidence points to the fact that I was likely aboard a spaceship of some sort.”
Gully’s desperation to save the <span class="mu-i">Olympia’s</span> computer takes on a frighting amount of clarity. But there’s still a few things that don’t add up.
Cryo pods do a good enough job of keeping people alive en route to the Alcubierre Gate. No point in staying awake when you could just suck on a tube full of nutripaste and sit on ice for the month-long journey to Alpha Centauri. Or otherwise preserving their vital functions at minimal power in the event of an emergency.
You stare at Gully. “But if you were on the Fleet, that would’ve been…”
“Seventy-six years ago,” she confirms, “Just after the Cataclysm.”
A sense of vertigo suddenly overtakes you that has nothing to do with the height above the city. You don’t fall, but you do collapse heavily into a nearby chair. “Wow, that’s…God. Gully, I don’t what to say.”
Your fellow pilot regards you with a sad smile. “You don’t need to say anything, Unami.”
Well too bad, because you aren’t nearly finished yet. “Why are you telling me this?”
Gully shifts against the parapet. “Because you deserve to know. You saved me and the computer core after the <span class="mu-i">Olympia</span> exploded. I…thought it only fair for you to know why I risked so much for the manifesto.”
You nod, blearily. “…oh, uh. I’m flattered.”
Of course, the implication is that you’ll keep this a very close secret. Not that you’ll be blabbering about it. Who’d believe you anyway?
There’s a beat of silence as you take a moment to reorient yourself. “…so, does anyone else know about this? About your…uh, pod. And past?”
“Only my adoptive parents, and Geary, as he was there when I was discovered. You would make the fourth to have the full story.”
What an interesting circle you’ve gotten yourself involved with. Now that your breathing’s evened out a bit, you grouse, “So…if you don’t mind me extrapolating…Elishani and Geary didn’t tell the Empire about who and what they brought in with the shrimp.”
“They should’ve, but they didn’t.” Gully’s smile is warm and soft. “He adopted me as his daughter. He and my mother were…unable to have children of their own. My discovery was, in their eyes, God’s gift to them. That’s what my real name means, and one I only answer to them in private.”
Yohana.
No wonder she was angry at the spooks for demanding her name for the debriefing.
(cont.)
