Page 62 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
“Then do it,” she said.
Damn. Kuka’s mom was savage. I was here for it. If my husband betrayed me, I’dtotallywant a cyborg to beat his ass. But, apparently, Ghol wanted to make it hurt first because he tackled the king and started pummeling him. The queen turned to me and smiled.
“Welcome, dear. You must be my son’s Velne. Please forgive the drama. I take it there’s alotyou need to tell me. Let’s do it away from here.”
The queen just stepped over Ghol beating the shit out of the king and I wanted that level of shade when I was her age.
“Did you make sure she can survive here before you brought her?” she asked.
“Yes. We can breathe on her planet just fine and eat the same things for the most part. I’ve brought seedlings back from Earth. I think our people will really like coffee and chocolate.”
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Your husband just tried to stage a coup.”
“Not my husband. Not really. I won my contest fair and square, but his family lost a lot of money. They used to sell devices to protect us from the black hole. I exposed that as fraud as part of my work with black holes and that was my idea for the contest. I wasn’t queen yet, but his parents made a huge stink about it.
“They were well connected, so my parents basically sold me to their son to keep them happy. I didn’t want to marry him, and I never liked him. It wasn’t really my choice.”
“Isn’t his family going to be a problem now?” I asked.
Because seriously, if she had to marry spooge to keep them happy, I was guessing they were going to be mad there was a cyborg beating the shit out of him in the garden. Torrek just chuckled.
“You’ve bonded with Kuka. He takes after his mom in every way. I’m betting she has a plan.”
“I do. But first things first. I’m Nizis. You can all me Nizis or you can call me Mom. I don’t care. I’m just happy you’re bonded to my son.”
“Baxter Holmes. I’ll have to build up to that. I didn’t have a super great relationship with my parents.”
Nizis led us into this room that managed to be both really high tech and borderline Baroque at the same time. It was gorgeous. Nizis arranged herself on a comfy chair and looked straight at Kuka.
“I know when you’re lying. I know you weren’t about Valtens trying to kill you and your Velne, but I suspect something else went on. You wouldn’t have come back if you hadn’t solved your quest.”
This was it. Whatever Kuka was about to say would either fix or ruin everything. And the first thing out of his mouth was that I was the Devouring Mother.
What.The.Fuck?
Baxter looked at me like I was completely insane when I introduced her to my mom as the Devouring Mother. I got it. I’d been saying this entire time that we shouldn’t tell people. But that wasn’t the kind of relationship I had with my mom. We were honest about everything, and I knew Mom wasn’t going to make her uncomfortable about it. She would want an explanation.
“I’m guessing you didn’t lead with that when your father started to open his stupid mouth because something happened on your quest, and you don’t want people to know.”
“Yes. Time travel is a lot more complicated than I originally thought. The Devouring Mother isn’t a prophet. She’s a human who knew enough about two races on our planet to describe them in that much detail that we thought she was becausewecrashed in her backyard when she was a child. The holy texts ended up here because I made a time machine and brought them there.”
My mother just stared at me for a moment and then burst out laughing.
“You always were into everything as a child. Why am I not shocked you were involved in our sacred texts? And that the Devouring Mother is also your Velne, and you brought her here. I love it. How do you intend to win your quest with this information while keeping that a secret? Valtens may have taken himself out of the running, but you haven’t won yet.”
I knew that. I built a working time machine, traveled to another galaxy, and went back seven thousand years in the past. I stated that my quest was to find the last holy text. All the time travel was just what I did to get the last holy text. None of it counted unless I got that text.
“I still don’t know what happens in the last book, but if you tell me what itneedsto say to fix things, I can still write it,” Baxter said.
“Absolutely not. I’m terrible at any form of art. I can’t sing, draw, and I loathe any type of ball where I might have to dance because I’m also bad at that. I have immense respect for artists. Enough that I’d never dream to dictate your creativity, even if it would fix a lot of issues here and guarantee my son the throne.”
Yeah, I inherited most of that, though I’d managed to figure out dancing without stepping on someone’s toes. Mom was a big patron of the arts. When she hired an artist, she never told them what to do. She’d bring them to the space she wanted something and ask them to do something amazing with it. It hadn’t led her wrong, and I intended to continue that tradition.
Baxter started laughing and that meant she figured something out. This wasn’t really a science problem or a theory I needed to solve. This was where a creative mind would come in handy and that was why she ended up my Velne.
“You’re also going to need to explain why you went looking for the Devouring Mother and ended up spending enough timearound me that you figured out I’m your Velne and brought me back. That sounds like amassivedistraction instead of working on your quest, even though I think everyone would be happy for you.”
“Yes, that’s definitely a complication.”
