Captain Luta Paixon from the considerably investor Tane Ikai needs to understand why she looks like a woman in her thirties–despite the fact that she’s actually eighty-four. She isn’t the only one desperate for that information.

The reason might lay with her geneticist mom, who disappeared over sixty years back, but even if her mom is still alive, it’s proving to be no small task to track her down in the vast, wormhole-ridden expanse of Nearspace.

Using the ruthless PrimeCorp bent on obtaining Luta’s DNA no matter what, her ninety-year-old husband asking for one last favour, and her estranged daughter locking horns with her at every turn, Luta’s seek out answers will take her to the furthest reaches of space–and deep inside her own heart.

Greedy corporations, nanotechnology, and family: an area opera with heart.

Print version winner from the 2014 Alberta Web publishers Prize in Speculative Fiction