CROOKED V.2 INTERVIEW OF GAU SHESHARRIM (Gau’s Handler: Caitlin Demaris McKenna)
We had a pretty cool idea for the release of Crooked V.2: Team up with a fellow author in the anthology and ask main characters interview questions, and post them on our sites, or newsletters! My lucky draw was Caitlin Demaris McKenna, author of the Expansion series.
I’m going to let the guest go first, so let’s start with some questions for Gau Shesharrim, hero of Absence of Blade:
- You and your family have a horrible history with the Terrans. If it’s not too hard to talk about, what happened?
We got caught up in interstellar politics. My family was part of the only Osk community to settle on a Terran world. Up to that point neither species knew much about the other, even though our fleets had clashed over territory. But the colony ran afoul of the Terran Church: Our leaders challenged their influence in Diego Two, and the Church sent its private army to wipe us out for our trouble. I escaped, but I don’t know of anyone else who made it. The rest of my family didn’t, or they would have come looking for me by now. I know they would.
- I understand that during the war with the Terrans you were an assassin. What can you tell me about that period in your life?
It was a way out of Diego Two. I knew I had no future there. The new Osk colony in a nearby system seemed like a fresh start, a place where I could put some of the skills I’d learned on the street to use. You don’t survive long in Diego Two’s underworld without learning to be scrappy. I enlisted in the new colony’s fleet, and it wasn’t long before I was fast-tracked to be trained as an assassin. Turned out I had a talent for getting in and out of places I wasn’t supposed to be and leaving corpses behind. I got a taste for it too — for the first time in my life I was able to strike back at the Expansion.
- Tell me more about your relationship with Torres. How did you end up doing work for her? Did your e-cap dependency begin then, or before?
It must seem strange I’d work for a Terran, given what I said above. Torres is all right, even if our relationship isn’t what I’d call warm. I used to do odd jobs for minor dealers in Diego Two’s shadow markets, and one of them told me their major distributor was short a courier and could use the help. Well, that distributor was Torres. I never asked what was behind the job opening. Couriers drop off the map all the time–some get picked up by Civil Security, others get killed in turf wars or they overdose. I’m not the only courier who uses, but others aren’t as careful as me. And no, Torres didn’t get me hooked. I’d already done that to myself by way of skimming off the top of some of my deliveries. The difference was she offered it as part of my pay, aboveboard and accounted for. I wasn’t going to refuse that kind of deal.
- If you could leave this way of life behind, what would you like to do?
Find my friend, Ariveth Illission, if she’s still alive. She was the only one who ever cared about me besides my family. I’d find a way for us to leave Diego Two, go to Oskaran or another Osk-held world, and make a life there. I don’t know what it would be; it’s been so long since I’ve thought about anything beyond my short- and mid-term survival. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to want, unless we’re talking about my next e-cap hit. But there must be something more to life than this.
- You say you might be the last Osk in Diego Two. That makes me wonder about the history of the Osk, their origins, their characteristics, and their struggles. Can you give me a short lesson?
Things weren’t always like this. Before the Terran upstarts started expanding into the galaxy, the Osk had good relations with other species. That’s what people tell me, at least. The Terran Expansion has been a threat to the Osk way of life since before I hatched. We prefer not to go to war: on Oskaran, assassins, or sephs, are an integral part of politics. When two factions clash, one sends sephs to kill the other’s leaders and vice versa. Conflicts are decided with only the necessary amount of bloodshed. We can’t afford all-out war, not when Oskaran orbits a binary star system: its climate and ecosystem are too delicate to withstand that kind of devastation. But that doesn’t mean we won’t defend our territory from Terran aggression. They’ve left us no choice.
Next post: Caitlin asks Dave Crowell, hero of The Ultra Thin Man and The Ultra Big Sleep some questions!
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