How can she be The Star Child?
Anitra’s an ordinary girl from a run-down pit village in Northern England, isn’t she?
In an instant, Anitra’s cosy little world is turned upside down and to fulfil her destiny she must travel to Mars – and stay alive long enough to petition the Goubernator for human rights.
There’s more than just her life at stake. Will Anitra allow others to help her, when she’s not very good at doing what she’s told?
Anitra crept out of her seat and steadied herself in the unfamiliar gravity, adjusted to be equal to that on the Moon. Then she began to hop towards the glow of the bar, as if she was in a baby-bouncer.
She saw the silhouette of a single person sitting hunched on a bar stool. It gave her a warm feeling to see someone else there. The warmth evaporated when she saw it was Commissioner Nilsson.
She was about to turn and hop quietly back to her seat when she recalled something she’d read about tigers. You needn’t make a point of avoiding them when they are not on the prowl. The tiger you can see isn’t that dangerous. It’s the tiger you can’t see that you need to fear.
But if you get close enough to a resting tiger, you may learn something to your advantage. Like judging for yourself the sharpness of the teeth that could tear your throat out. And seeing for yourself the length of the claws that could open you up from chin to crotch.
Just don’t tread on its tail.
To the right of Nilsson there were three vacant stools, like spindly red mushrooms. Anitra thought of climbing onto the one furthest away, to leave a cordon-sanitaire between them. But she didn’t want to seem rude, even to an enemy.
On first acquaintance she had taken Nilsson for someone compassionate. Why she’d changed her mind was not because of anything the Commissioner had done. It was what Uncle Peter had said about her. But now, she reminded herself, she was old enough to make her own enemies.
Softly, as if the Selenean were asleep, she slid onto the stool beside her. Nilsson didn’t look round, but carried on staring at the blossoming bubbles in her tonic water. A steward appeared from behind the bulkhead and silently got Anitra a glass of orange juice. Diffidently she sipped it, aware of her neighbour’s proximity like an iceberg radiating chill.
Without looking up from her drink, the Commissioner murmured, “Why did you run away from me at the hospital?”
“I was frightened.”
Anitra hoped Nilsson would be satisfied with that, but she wasn’t.
“Did Uncle Peter tell you to escape from me? He was in touch with you the whole time, wasn’t he?”
Anitra didn’t answer. The clock ticked through a right-angle before Nilsson spoke again.
“That’s a gorgeous charm bracelet you are wearing. But wouldn’t somebody your age consider it ‘retro’?”
For a moment Anitra thought Nilsson had changed the subject, for which she was grateful. But she could almost hear Peter’s voice saying, “She’s just coming at you from another direction. Watch those teeth and claws.”
However, one thing Anitra had learned from eighteen years of growing up was not to be devious. It worked for some people: it had never worked for her. Like a groubian, she couldn’t tell a lie. If she felt a surge of gratitude for Nilsson moving the conversation onto safer ground, then she ought to go along with that, trusting to her native wits if it proved a trap.
She glanced down at the dangling charms on her wrist as it rested on the counter. Letting a little brightness seep into her voice, she said “Yes, that’s what I thought at first. But now I really like it.”
“A gift from Uncle Peter?… yes of course it is. A formidable little armoury, if I may say so. It confers on you the firepower of a helicopter gunship.”
She turned to stare Anitra full in the face. “Did you know that?”
Anitra’s eyebrows shot up as far as they went. When she didn’t answer, Nilsson tried another question.
“Has he trained you in the use of all that weaponry?”
“I—I don’t know what you mean…”
Her wrist began to tingle. She realised the Commissioner knew full well that her groubian skin made her incapable of telling a convincing lie. But amazingly, that knowledge was her sword and shield.
Nilsson looked away again. With a laugh that was more of a bark she said “I suppose I ought to be grateful he didn’t tell you to drop that little death’s-head in my path—that elstat.”
Anitra swallowed hard. He had. But then he’d changed his mind…
“So,” the Commissioner continued, “you’d have me believe those pretty charms are nothing but fashion jewellery?”
“So far as I know…”
“Then how about this one?”
Nilsson reached into her pocket and placed something small and glinting on the counter. It was the Smiling Sun that Anitra had lost in the gutter outside her home.
She felt like Tam O’Shanter. Riding home drunk one night and chancing on a witches’ sabbat, Tam knew the safest thing to do was to keep on walking forwards, not to turn tail and run.
She picked up the Smiling Sun and put it in her ear lobe.
“Thank you! Where did you find it? How did you know it was mine?”
“It was in Peter Zwillinge’s jacket pocket when we arrested him.”
Written by Clark Nida
(This novel is the sequel to The Titan Kiss.)
Published (April 2026) by Undead Tree Publications in a limited First Edition of 100 numbered copies, all proceeds going to the British charity Freedom From Torture.
PRESS: Use the Contact Page to apply for a review copy.
Whitby Writers Group 