Summary: By Cat Rambo Read by The Word Whore of Air Out My Shorts Guest Host: The Word Whore Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by Cat Rambo All stories read by The Word Whore Rated 13 and up for language Grandmother by Cat Rambo Most people called her Phoenix. Her former crew used “Captain” before that and “Sir” afterward. Ruby and Ada respectively called her “mother” and “g’ma.” Her hair was silver – not white, but genuine, metallic silver, a long fall against her pale blue skin, the color of a shadow on a piece of willow ware, that made her seems ageless despite the century and more that lay upon her, not to mention all those decades of pirating. They said she’d been the best slideboard rider of her time, and perhaps the best battleship pilot of all time, back before her parents and sister were killed and she turned rogue. They said she had done terrible things in her pirate days. They said she’d been ruthless in her rise to power, moving up the chain from god knows where, an origin she’d never, ever spoken of to anyone, not even her own daughter. She’d killed some captains, slept with others, called in favors and maneuvered and betrayed and seized power with a brutal efficiency that still underlay what now seemed a calm and orderly, rules-bound government that she and Mukopadhyay had created. They said she had killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people — sometimes at a distance, sometimes up close, with knife or fist. They said she’d killed a crew member when the shuttle she was in needed its mass reduced and the man hadn’t even argued, just nodded and stepped into the airlock, never said a word as the door closed and the lock cycled, staring in at his captain as she stared back. They said time had mellowed her. They said working with Mukopadhyay, even though he was crazy as a spiral comet, had mellowed her. They said helping colonize a whole planet, setting up its government, the rich and intricate power structure that now encompassed the whole solar system called Shiva, had mellowed her. Not to mention motherhood, they said, a change which no pregnant woman escapes. It alters the hormones in your body. Softens you. Makes you less rash, less harsh. Takes away even the sharpest edge, not to mention the hormonal craziness, which some women never recover from, after all. Sure, changes you in a good way, they were quick to say. But definitely softer. They said she’d never do those sorts of things now. # Phoenix left the curtain fall back into place. The blue velvet slid silently. The street lamp’s stripe of white light that had sliced across her face as she looked out was extinguished as quickly as a candle in the high-ceilinged dressing room’s dim light. She said, “The weather is terrible for this. It always is. Why we chose this time of year for Founding Day, I don’t know.” Her gown was armor and stiff brocade and jewels, the last crusted along hem and collar, cobalt crystals fastened in place with a netting of braided gold thread. More such jewels made up the elaborate earrings she wore, which ran along the lobe and upward, flaring to cup the almost-elvish point. Gareth guessed that none of it was her original appearance. And what did that mean, that this woman choose to present herself as a creature of blue glass and silver lines, that she’d chosen to have two moth-like antennae implanted on her forehead, curled close and hidden as eyebrows most of the time, but capable of uncurling to sample the air? Few saw those. Only his status as latest lover, as consort-in-training, had allowed him ingress to her bedchamber and the moments when she lay against silver satin that blended with the shimmer of her hair. Hard to imagine those moments now, when she looked forged of authority and iron. She belied that look — was ever woman so changeable? — as she came towards him, stooped to where he sat on the foot of [...]
