by Ian McDonald
He opened his eyes. Cried out. Light: true light, real light. He blinked the painful light away. A fluorescent tube on a ceiling, and faces, looking down at him, a man in a high-collared suit, a well-dressed woman, a woman in a white cowl. Beyond the light: another light, a great window. He struggled up on his elbows, drawn by the light of the world outside world. Towers, endless skyscrapers, pinnacles and glittering glass; the contrails of aircraft, ribbons of high cloud, arcs of light moving across the high blue sky.
‘Where am I?’
You’re on Earth.
‘Earth? Earth? Then what is that?’
He lifted an arm to point. Beyond the city skyline, beyond the aircraft and the clouds and even those higher, mysterious moving lights, was another blue world hanging in the sky, so huge he could not blot it out with his open hand. A world of sea and green forests, brown deserts, white snow, coiling clouds.
Easy easy.
You’ve had a shock.
You’re safe now.
Easy easy.
Your name …
Can you remember your name?
‘My name,’ he said, still staring at the other world in the sky, ‘is Tejendra Singh.’
GLOSSARY OF PALARI
alonio: alone
amriya: a personal vow, promise or restriction that cannot be broken (from Romani)
barney: a fight
belay: stop, cease. A naval term
bijou: small/little (means ‘jewel’ in French)
bona: good
bonaroo: wonderful, excellent
buvare: drink (from old-fashioned Italian bevere or Lingua Franca bevire)
buggerello: expression of distaste or impatience, entirely of Mchynlyth’s devising
cha: tea. Airships run on it
clobber: clothes
cove: friend/person/character
dolly: sweet, pretty. Interchangeable with ‘dilly’
divano: an Airish ship’s council
dona: woman (from Italian donna or Lingua Franca dona), a term of respect
dorcas: term of endearment, ‘one who cares’. The Dorcas Society was a ladies’ church association of the nineteenth century, which made clothes for the poor
douce: clean (French)
ground-pounder: a non-Airish person
kris: Airish duel of honour between two airships
lally-tappers: feet
latty: room or cabin on an airship
manjarry: food (from Italian mangiare or Lingua Franca mangiaria)
meese: plain, ugly, despicable (from Yiddish meeiskeit: loathsome, despicable, abominable)
naff: awful, dull, tasteless
nanti: not, no, none, never (Italian: niente)
omi: man/guy
palare: talk
polone: woman/girl
riah: hair (backslang)
sabi: to know (from Lingua Franca sabir)/understand
scarper: to run off (from Italian scappare, to escape or run away)
shush-bag: holdall/backpack
so: to be part of the in-crowd/Airish (e.g. ‘Is he so?’)
Tharbyloo!: Airish warning to people below: from ‘There below!’
troll: to walk about looking for business or some kind of opportunity
varda: to see/look at (from Italian dialect vardare = guardare – look at)
willets: breasts
zhoosh: style, make a show of
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ian McDonald is a science fiction writer living just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland. He’s the author of over twenty novels and story collections – both adult and YA – and has also written for screen and stage. He’s been nominated for every major science fiction award – and even won a few of them. Empress of the Sun is the third part of the Everness series.
