Matthew Ky is an older man, with caramel-coloured skin, a round face, and straight black cropped hair going grey. He’s from Earth, India, but had been working on T’Lon space station for years, and was looking forward to coasting down to his retirement, so he is not well pleased to be drafted in as an emergency replacement for the injured Dr Robinson. He looks like Sanjeev Bhaskar.
He is not so fit as Robinson, carrying some extra weight. He has been letting himself go a little in anticipation of his retirement. He had a different perspective on getting older when he talked to Tofi Dathan, the Kohathi. He learned that the Kohathi value the learning and experience of the older ones, who never retire, but take apprentices to pass on their knowledge.
Dr Matthew Ky has quite a shock to find it could be a dangerous mission, and is annoyed to find that because of the overcrowding, his medic Sam Ryan will be sleeping in sickbay. He initially takes it out on the poor medic. He also makes Ryan completely rearrange the sick bay.
However, his true qualities come out when he takes care of the mysterious woman Anna. Initially she presents with a head injury, but he discovers previous brain surgery, amnesia, and the ability to detect the Intruders mentally. He works tirelessly to help her.
He nearly loses it when the Kestrel meets the Intruders, seeing in them the echo of an ancient superstition and dread. Captain Darrow has to cope with this at at time of great crisis in the mission. Matthew Ky only appears in the first Kestrel book, Intruders, as at the end of the book he decides to retire to Sam Ryan’s planet, who badly need a doctor.
Ann Marie Thomas is the author of five medieval history books, a surprisingly cheerful poetry collection about her 2010 stroke, and the science fiction series Flight of the Kestrel, Intruders, Alien Secrets & Crisis of Conscience are out now Follow her at http://eepurl.com/bbOsyz