ترجم النص التالي الي اللغة العربية While Chet sat to figure out the route, M-Bot and I went to do a little
scouting.  This  newest  fragment  was  the  most  normal  of  the  ones  I’d  been on. No strange grasses, no towering trees. Not even dirt. Just good, sturdy rock. It was darker than the stone on Detritus, and was cracked like it had been  through  a  furnace,  but  the  way  it  scraped  underfoot  reminded  me  of home.
We  found  a  small  wooden  building,  but  it  had  been  scavenged  clean. While  I  was  inside,  M-Bot  called  to  me.  I  peeked  out  to  see  three starfighters shooting past in the sky.
“I  think  they’ve  come  to  survey  the  destroyed  fragment,”  M-Bot  said, hovering beside me.
Made sense. We stayed out of sight, and I had a spike of fear that they’d grab Chet. Unfortunately, I realized I’d misplaced Skullbreaker in the chaos of  the  exploding  fragment.  That  gave  me  a  surprising  sense  of  loss.  The club  hadn’t  been  impressive,  but  it  had  been  special  because  Chet  had helped me make it.
As the starfighters wove through the sky, flying away from our fragment and doing a few quick maneuvers, I got a feeling for their skill. Like…like how  you  can  tell  from  watching  someone’s  warm-up  routine  how  athletic they are. Those pilots seemed fine, but not terribly skilled.
If I could get into a ship, I should have no trouble outflying them in the short  term.  But  how  would  I  get  through  pirate  territory  in  general?  We would need to land and study the next portal in the Path of Elders, and we couldn’t do that if pirates were on our tail.
When the ships were out of sight, I hurried back to check on Chet—and found that he’d vanished. There was just the large pile of dirt heaped up on the front of the fragment near where the collision had happened.
That  dirt  stirred,  then  Chet  appeared,  digging  himself  out  from  where he’d  apparently  hidden  himself.  He  brushed  the  dirt  from  his  jacket,  then spat out a little of it and grinned at me. “Not my most noble of escapes, but better than becoming a floor washer!”
“How goes the planning?” I asked him.
“A little more time, if you please.”
I wandered a bit farther away—maybe twenty meters—and climbed up a small rock formation near the edge of the fragment. I stood tall, looking into the distance and admiring the view of the various nearby fragments, one of which was streaming water into the void.
Hands on my hips, I took a deep breath and couldn’t help but grin. Scud, I was  loving this. The feeling I’d had the day before—the joy of traveling with Chet—expanded. Now I’d seen firsthand that the quest was useful to me.
Exploring a strange frontier? Being forced to use some physical prowess for  once?  Running,  climbing,  jumping,  and  being  chased  by  monsters?  It really  did  feel  as  if  I’d  slipped  into  one  of  Gran-Gran’s  stories.  Where  I belonged. Where things were right. It was genuinely satisfying to have my life  depend  on  whether  I  could  escape  a  crumbling  fragment—rather  than on how well I could imitate an alien on Starsight.
I  settled  down  on  the  rocks.  My  friends  were  in  trouble,  and  I  did  miss them. Terribly. What I wouldn’t give to be able to share this trip with them.
M-Bot hovered over, and I smiled at him. I had at least one friend here. I put my arm around his drone and pointed outward at the fragments. “What do you see?” I asked him.
“Chunks of matter.”
“I see adventure,” I said. “I see mysteries and striking beauty. Watch the water shimmer as it falls. Doesn’t it look gorgeous?”
“Somewhat,” he admitted. “Like…little bits twinkling on and off…”
“That’s  what  emotions  are  for,”  I  said.  “Partially.  It’s  not  their  only purpose, but it’s an important one. Do you understand that part?”
“No,” he said. “But I’m closer, maybe. I guess…I guess I wouldn’t know how  great  mushrooms  were  without  feeling  something  when  I  find  them. Right?”
I smiled. “I’m glad I’m here with you, M-Bot. I know you were hesitant about entering. But thank you for being my friend, for joining me.”
He wobbled in a nod. “But Spensa? I’m…still sad.”
“Why?” I asked. “I’ve  spent  years  upon  years’  worth  of  processing  time  imagining  what
Commander  Spears  would  be  like.  Now  we’ve  met  him  and…and  he  just
calls me an abomination.”
“He’s coming around,” I said. “The longer he spends with you, the more he’ll  see  that  he  was  wrong.  But  even  if  he  doesn’t,  who  cares?  I’m  your pilot now. And I think you’re great.”
“Thanks…”
“What?”
“I said thanks. I don’t believe that statement requires qualification.”
“Yeah, but you left it dangling,” I said. “Something’s still bothering you.”
“You can tell that? How?”
“Gut feeling.”
“I  don’t  have  guts,”  M-Bot  said.  “So  I  guess  you’re  the  expert.  But…if you need to know, the bigger problem is that I’m still kind of mad at you.”
“For leaving you behind when I left Starsight?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I thought you forgave me for that.”
“I thought I did too. But I keep remembering it. Is that…normal?”
“It is for humans. Sometimes it’s too easy to forget the things you should remember—and  far  too  easy  to  remember  the  things  you  really  should forget.”
“It’s  doubly  so  for  me,”  he  said,  “since  I  literally  can’t  forget  things unless they’re deleted, or at least commented out of my code.”
I leaned back, putting my hands behind me to support myself as I sat and thought  on  what  he’d  said.  Scud,  he’d  given  up  a  lot  in  all  of  this—his wonderful  ship  body  not  the  least  of  it.  And  now,  to  deal  with  all  these emotions…
“I’m  sorry,”  I  said,  “for  what  happened  to  you  on  Starsight,  M-Bot.  I truly am. It broke my heart to leave you like I did.”
“But you’d make the same decision again, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,”  I  said.  “As  much  as  it  pains  me  to  know  I  hurt  you,  if  I  were  in that situation again…yes, I’d go save the people of Detritus.”
“It makes logical sense,” he said. “But I don’t feel it. What do I do to get rid of these feelings? I don’t want to be angry. So it’s stupid that I’m angry. It makes no sense.”
“It  makes a ton of sense, actually,” I said. “You don’t have many friends —basically  just  me  and  Rig.  When  I  left,  you  were  being  abandoned  by everyone  you’d  known  and  loved.  It’s  not  the  sort  of  thing  you  get  over easily.”
“Wow,”  M-Bot  said.  “You  know  emotions  really  well,  Spensa. Particularly the stupid ones.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“So what do I do?”
“Weather it,” I said. “Get better. Learn to accept that sometimes what you feel isn’t invalid, but that it doesn’t mean you have to act according to those feelings either.”
“Again  I’m  supposed  to  feel  things,  but  then  ignore  those  feelings.  Act opposite of how they direct. Why is that?”
I  shrugged.  “It’s  just  life.  But  sometimes  talking  about  it  makes  it  feel better.”
“Huh. Yes, I believe that I do feel a little better. Strange. Why is that the case? Nothing has changed.”
“Because I’m your friend, M-Bot. And that’s what friends do. Share.”
“And do they also abandon one another to certain death?” he said, then hovered down lower. “Sorry. It just kind of slipped out. I’ll do better.”
“It’s all right,” I said, climbing to my feet. “Again, it’s okay to feel angry, M-Bot. But you’re going to have to learn to deal with it. We’re soldiers. We have  responsibilities  that  are  bigger  than  any  one  individual.  So  being friends doesn’t mean I won’t someday have to leave you behind again.”
“What does it mean to be friends, then?”
“It means,” I said, “that if something like that  does  have  to  happen,  I’ll do whatever I can to return to you once the crisis is over. And you’d do the same for me, right, bud?”
“Yes,”  he  said,  hovering  higher.  “Yes,  because  I  can  move  on  my  own now.” He turned, looking toward Chet. “And maybe you’re right about him too. Maybe it doesn’t matter what he thinks. It’s hard to feel that, but I can say it. That feels like a different kind of lying. One that’s not all untrue.”
“We’ll make a human out of you yet.”
“Please  no,”  he  said.  “From  what  I’ve  read  of  it,  I  really  don’t  want  a sense of smell.”
I smiled, intending to check on Chet. I hesitated, however, as I saw we’d drifted closer to the fragment with the waterfall. We weren’t going to hit it
—in  fact,  our  current  fragment  seemed  to  have  slowed  to  a  normal  speed. Serene and peaceful, as if it hadn’t just been in a horrific collision.
Something  was  standing  on  the  edge  of  that  other  fragment,  near  the waterfall. I couldn’t make out much because of the distance, but it seemed to have…
Glowing white eyes.
I felt a mind pushing against mine.
What…did…you…do…
…TO THE US?
I backed up a few steps. The delvers had found me. Chet had said it was possible  to  hide  in  the  belt  out  here,  but…I  supposed  that  in  using  my powers to initiate the vision on the Path, I’d drawn their attention.
Determined  not  to  be  intimidated,  I  quested  out  with  my  own  cytonic senses. And I found…strength? I’d grown, here in the nowhere. I was able to brush that distant delver’s mind as it projected anger at me. I picked out things it didn’t intend to broadcast. They had indeed sensed what I’d done in activating the Path of Elders, and they’d sent the battleship fragment to destroy the one I’d been on.
That  had  taken  a  remarkable  amount  of  effort,  and  was  something  they couldn’t  do  often.  It  had  actually  been  an  experiment,  as  they  felt  they needed  to  push  farther  into  the  belt  to  try  to  find  and  stop  me.  These glowing-eyed  things  were  the  same.  An  experiment.  Isolated  individuals, who had lost a lot of their memories, were susceptible to the delvers’ touch. But only non-cytonics, for this particular thing they were trying.
Saints…I felt so much more in control now, even after only one step on the  Path  of  Elders.  The  experience  had  opened  something  in  my  brain, showing  me  how  to  hide  and  not  draw  attention  while  spying  with  my cytonics.
This delver still wasn’t aware of how much I’d gleaned from it. I felt like gloating, but then I sensed it trying to attack my mind. That manifested as coldness  and  pressure;  it  was  as  if  I’d  been  plunged  into  an  icy  lake,  the cold seeping like water through my skin, toward my heart.
And those voices…
What have you done…to the Us…to the Us…
“The Us” referred again to the delver I’d changed. The others were angry, furious  at  me.  Because  I’d  touched  and  spoken  to  that  one  delver  I’d
persuaded  not  to  attack  Starsight.  In  so  doing,  I’d  corrupted  it  forever. Essentially destroying one of their kind.
That  made  me  feel  sick.  The  friendly  delver  and  I  had  connected  in  a beautiful  way;  I’d  thought  my  actions  would  change  things.  But  if  the others  refused  to  listen  to  me…  I  shivered  as  our  fragment  drifted  farther from the one with the waterfall.
Chet stepped up next to me then, and jarred me from my thoughts. “You felt it too, I presume?”
“The delvers possessed someone over there,” I said.
Chet nodded. “Whatever we did with the Path attracted their attention,” he said. “I find it amazing they’d risk individuality by entering the belt, but it is obviously happening. We will need to be careful moving forward.”
“Agreed.” I took a deep breath. “You finished planning our route?”
“I did indeed, Miss Nightshade,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “Tell me. What is your opinion on sailing?”
Chet led me back to the small wooden building I’d discovered, saying that
we  needed  to  salvage  some  supplies.  I  tried  explaining  that  it  had  been picked clean, but once we arrived he proceeded to take the  doors  off  their hinges.
We each carried a door to the edge of the fragment, where we waited an hour to jump across to the next approaching fragment. It was a tropical one, full  of  tall  trees  with  bare  trunks  and  leaves  only  at  the  tops.  We  took  our time crossing this one, scavenging for some strange oversized nuts the size of a person’s head. They weren’t coconuts—I knew those from my studies on Old Earth—but were similar.
We spent the evening hollowing the nuts out by prying off the tops and pulling  out  the  long,  stringy  pulp  by  hand.  Afterward  we  stretched  the interior membrane of each one over the hole we’d made and set it to dry.
That night, I again failed at contacting Jorgen. But I woke up eager and excited for the day’s trek—because while we’d slept, our next fragment had approached.
An ocean.
It was the most bizarre thing I’d seen here yet. The sides were stone like the  bottom,  but  they  were  only  about  a  meter  thick.  Beyond  was  water; essentially the fragment was an enormous bowl. It seemed larger than most fragments we’d traveled on, extending for kilometers into the distance.
Chet showed me how to use the pulp—which had become cordlike as it dried—to tie the doors together and lash the hollowed-out nuts to them. The nuts  were  watertight  and  filled  with  air.  So  when  we  shoved  off  into  the ocean, we had a functional raft.
It was awesome.
Even  M-Bot  was  impressed.  He  buzzed  around  us,  complimenting  the raft’s “structural integrity” and “remarkable buoyancy.” We named the ship
the  Not-ilus  and  I  stood  proudly  at  the  prow—well,  the  flat  front  end  I declared the prow. Chet chuckled softly, weaving oars from bent reeds and leftover nut-guts.
It was slow going, but I still felt like I was some ancient Polynesian hero sailing  the  ocean  for  the  first  time.  Plus  it  got  even  better.  Because  the ocean had sea monsters.
I  saw  them  swimming  below  as  sinuous  shapes  and  immediately  fell  to my knees, worried. And excited. Because, you know. Sea monsters.
I glanced at Chet, who was whistling softly and braiding some nut-guts into a stronger cord. One did not act so cheekily nonchalant by accident; he wasn’t worried about the sea monsters, whatever they were.
“Oh!”  M-Bot  said,  hovering  past  me.  “Look!  Ah!  Um,  turn  around! About-face! Reverse rudder or whatever! We’re going to get eaten!”
Chet calmly tossed me the rope, one end of which he’d fashioned into a loop. Then he handed me a small red fruit he’d harvested somewhere.
“Float  that  out  beside  us,”  he  said,  “then  set  the  loop  around  it  in  the water and get ready to pull.”
I could hardly contain myself as I did what he said. I stood at the ready as a  blue  serpentine  head  came  up  and  snatched  the  fruit.  I  yanked  with  a mighty pull, looping the thing around the neck, which let out a gaping…
…yawn?
Well, it  was a sea monster, even if it barely noticed that I’d captured it. Instead it chewed on the fruit, bringing up another coil of its body from the depths below. It was like a snake, perhaps as thick as a man’s thigh, but had little flippered legs along its very long body. It bit happily at the fruit, then looked up at me with pleading eyes, its head wagging in the water.
“You,” I told it, “shall be known as Gnash the Slaughterer.”
It  made  a  bubbling  sound,  then  turned  eagerly  as  Chet  tossed  another fruit  far  out  into  the  ocean.  It  began  moving,  towing  us  along  as  I  yelped and held tight to the rope.
“Spensa,” M-Bot said, hovering along beside my head, “I don’t think that creature is likely to slaughter anything.”
“It’s  a  garqua,”  Chet  explained,  settling  back  down  on  the  raft—er,  the deck  of  our  mighty  ship.  “They’re  not  dangerous.  They  come  from Monrome.”
“Monrome?” I asked.
“Dione  homeworld?”  Chet  said.  “Even  I  know  that,  and  I’ve  forgotten the names of my parents.” At my blank stare, he continued. “No predators on Monrome.”
“What?” I said. “None?”
“None,” Chet said. “Scavengers and herbivores only.”
I  glanced  at  M-Bot,  who  bobbed  in  the  air  to  simulate  nodding.  “It’s true,”  he  said.  “Though  I  doubt  this  one  came  directly  from  the  dione homeworld—they have colonized nearly a hundred planets and have a habit of  importing  their  local  wildlife.  After,  ah,  exterminating  the  local  species for being too brutal and aggressive.”
“Sounds like them,” I said. “Still feels odd to me.”
“Did  you  assume  every  planet  had  the  same  ecological  hierarchy  as Earth?” M-Bot asked.
“Well…yeah,”  I  said.  “I  mean,  it  seems  pretty  fundamental.  Things  eat other things.”
“It  seems  fundamental,”  Chet  said,  “because  it’s  the  way  it  was  for  us. Doesn’t mean it has to be that way everywhere.”
Huh. I continued holding Gnash’s leash. She stopped to eat the fruit Chet had  thrown—but  then  continued  on,  pulling  us  along  contentedly.  She appeared  to  think  she’d  find  another  piece  of  fruit  if  she  kept  going  that direction, something Chet reinforced by occasionally tossing out another.
I  contemplated  the  idea  of  a  world—well,  many  worlds,  if  M-Bot  was right—without  predators.  No  hunting,  no  killing?  How  did  survival  of  the fittest  and  all  that  work?  At  any  rate,  no  wonder  the  diones  thought everyone else was too aggressive.
The more I thought about it though, the more annoyed I became at them. They  acted  like  they  were  superior—like  they’d  developed  “prime intelligence”  or  whatever—because  their  society  was  peaceful.  But  they’d simply  evolved  on  a  planet  without  predators.  They  hadn’t  become enlightened  or  learned  a  better  way—they  merely  assumed  their  way  was how it was meant to be.
I  supposed  lots  of  species  were  like  that,  my  own  included.  But  we weren’t  conquering  the  galaxy—currently—or  forcing  everyone  to  live  by our rules. Currently.
We spent the better part of the day crossing the ocean fragment. When we reached  the  far  side  we  thanked  Gnash  with  some  more  fruit  and  then
moved  on. And let it be known that M-Bot was totally wrong. Gnash was an excellent slaughterer, at least when it came to fruit.
We slept that night on a fragment with many caves that reminded me of home, and I think I got my best sleep of the entire trip there, comforted by the peaceful sound of water echoing as it dripped. The next day was full of different delights. Cliffs to scale, two swamps with utterly different scents —really, one smelled like cinnamon, like…someone I’d known once. After that,  we  crossed  a  fragment  broken  by  winding  canyons  and  beautiful patterns of colored stone.
By  the  end  of  the  day,  Chet  informed  me  that  we  were  nearing  the Broadsider pirate base, and I found myself strangely melancholy. Once we got a ship, we would travel faster—and I was eager to take to the sky. But I had truly enjoyed the time I’d spent traveling.
Flying  the  rest  of  the  way…well,  it  seemed  that  would  undermine  the epic  nature  of  my  quest  a  tad.  That  said,  as  I  considered,  I  decided  that many of the heroes from the stories would have used a starfighter if one had been  available.  Gilgamesh,  for  example,  would  totally  have  done  it.  (Not sure  about  Xuanzang,  admittedly.  He’d  probably  have  been  all  about  the need for the journey to refine him, or some other super-wise Zen stuff.)
We  ended  the  day  on  a  jungle  fragment  that  I  liked  more  than  the  first one I’d been on. It had less underbrush and all the plants were blue, which I found relaxing. It was just a more natural color.
According to Chet, this fragment would pass the pirate base the next day. So we decided to camp, and he sent M-Bot to scan for life forms that could be dangerous.
“I doubt that there are large beasts on this fragment,” Chet explained to the AI, “but it is better to be careful than to be eaten.”
“Plus,” I added, “if the delvers can possess bodies, they might be able to grab one we don’t expect. So see what kind of life there is, big or small. I’d rather not be surprised by a group of zombie chipmunks.”
“Zombie…chipmunks?” Chet said.
“It  would  likely  be  a  fun  fight,”  I  said.  “With  lots  of  kicking.  Probably feels about the same to kick a chipmunk as it does to kick a rat.”
“And…how many rats have you kicked, Miss Nightshade?”
“Only the ones that were asking for it,” I said, smacking my fist into my palm.
M-Bot  zipped  off,  and  Chet  and  I  began  pulling  down  blue  fronds  and making bedding out of them. I kind of wished we could make a fire like in the stories, but it never felt cold in here—or hot. Plus the smoke would give us away.
Soon we each had a nice bed. And though I’d liked the caverns, this was probably going to be the softest of our nights in the nowhere.
“Thank you,” I said to Chet as I settled into mine, “for all of this.”
“I’ve been paid each day,” he said. “You don’t need to thank me!”
And  each  day  he’d  watched  the  reality  icon  with  hunger.  But  I  moved past that. “You haven’t just guided me, Chet. You’ve taught me and shown me incredible things.”
“Well,” he said, “at the very least I’m glad you were able to see an ocean of sorts. I did promise you they were fun to explore! Regardless, no need to thank me. You saved my life on that fragment that was being destroyed!”
“And you saved mine.”
“A sign that we’re an excellent team!” he said, settling back into his nest of  fronds.  More  solemnly,  he  continued,  “Truly,  Miss  Nightshade,  I’ve rarely had such an invigorating companion. Plus you encouraged me toward a goal I’ve been avoiding for far too long. For that I thank you.”
I nodded in agreement. “What are we likely to face tomorrow? Will the pirates be armed with modern weapons, for example?”
“Yes,”  he  said.  “But  remember  they  are  mostly  outcasts—not  a  true military  force.  They  have  gathered  together  more  out  of  necessity,  to  be near other minds.”
“Any idea why that helps us not forget in here?” I asked.
“It  is  curious,  isn’t  it?  It’s  like…people  are  all  a  little  more  real  when they’re  together.  Maybe  together  we  remind  one  another  what  it  is  to  be alive. To have family.”
He said that last word with a hint of longing, looking upward through the trees.  He’d  forgotten  his  family,  whoever  they  had  been.  I  wished  that  he could see M-Bot as a lost friend, reunited, and not an “abomination.” But I decided not to bring the issue up again at the moment.
We fell silent for a while, then Chet spoke, his voice softer. “I once had a ship in here. I decided to fly it all the way to the lightburst—to get out that way,  if  I  could,  and  return  to  whatever  life  I’d  left  behind.  But…I  lost myself, flying. I think that’s when I finally lost the last of my memories of
my  family,  you  see.  Out  there  on  your  own,  you  don’t  have  anything  to remind you of who you are.
“Down on the fragments, everything—the stones, the structures, the trees —helps somehow. It grounds us, one might say. Ha! At any rate, I think we two  will  be  fine  flying  together.  We’ll  have  each  other,  plus  your  icon.  It should be enough. Should be…”
Chet  trailed  off  and  I  shivered,  imagining  losing  so  much.  I  had  to  stay focused. Find my answers and get home. It had been…how long since I’d entered the nowhere? Maybe a week?
How many times have I slept? I wondered. Three? Or has it been four?
It was unnerving that I couldn’t remember. So I focused on the upcoming mission. “We’ll send M-Bot to do some reconnaissance once we’re on the pirate faction’s fragment,” I told Chet. “They may not be a true military, but they’ve got to be somewhat competent to have stolen ships and kept them.”
“That is true,” Chet said. “I agree. Expect them to be modestly capable, but not military trained.”
“I’ll bet they sleep in shifts and have scouts on duty to watch for anyone approaching, even on foot. So we have two options, as I see it. The first is to hit them when most of their numbers are away during a fight. During a battle, the people they leave behind might be distracted enough for us to get in and steal a ship.”
“Assuming  all  the  ships  aren’t  away  at  the  fight,”  he  said,  “denying  us our opportunity for larceny.”
“I  suspect  they’ll  be  smart  enough  to  leave  reserves—and  if  not,  there will  be  ships  in  their  hangars  undergoing  maintenance.  M-Bot  should  be able to determine which of them are in flying shape.”
“Still sounds dangerous,” Chet said, leaning back in his makeshift bed. “I assume they would be more alert during a fight, not less.”
“Well,  our  second  option  is  to  strike  during  a  long  shift  when  most  of them are asleep. We move in stealthily, have M-Bot hack through a ship’s security,  then  fly  out  with  our  prize  before  anyone  knows  what’s happening.”
“They’ll give chase,” Chet noted.
“Trust  me,  Chet,”  I  said,  “I  might  not  know  how  to  build  a  raft,  but  I won’t have trouble outflying anyone in that group.”
“Marvelous! I shall look forward to our flight, then.”
M-Bot  came zipping back. “I used infrared scanners to search for warm life  forms,  and  didn’t  find  anything  larger  than  a  worm,”  he  announced. “No chipmunks, zombified or otherwise.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“That…wasn’t a ‘made you look’ joke, was it?” he asked. “Sending me out to look for things? I can’t tell.”
I’d  completely  forgotten  about  pranking  him  that  once,  so  it  took  me  a moment to remember what he was referencing. “No joke,” I promised him. “We really did want you to look for dangers on this fragment.”
“Thanks,”  he  said,  then  flew  off  again,  likely  to  begin  searching  for mushrooms. I sat there for a while, staring upward…
Then I jumped when M-Bot returned.
How…how long had I just been sitting there, not noticing the passage of time? Chet was already asleep.
I couldn’t tell. It could have been a minute, could have been an hour. But M-Bot had seven different mushroom samples in his grabber claws and was laying them out to catalog them. So…scud.
I  turned  over  in  my  bed,  worried  about  that  sudden  passage  of  time. Gran-Gran had told me about a man who’d accidentally slept for hundreds of  years.  That  wouldn’t  happen  to  me,  would  it?  Normally  a  thought  like that might have kept me awake. But this time I fell right to sleep.
Floating.
I  quested  out,  searching  as  I  had  before.  Like  on  other  nights,  I  didn’t find anything. I was nearly pulled down by my own tiredness again.
But  no.  No,  I  was  Defiant.  Plus,  I  was  better  with  my  powers  than  I’d ever been. I was stronger than sleep, stronger than my own worst instincts. Strong enough to…
Push through. I latched onto the familiar sensation of Jorgen’s mind and pulled myself toward it.
This time I interrupted him shaving.
He jumped as he saw me suddenly reflected in his mirror, standing beside him  in  the  lavish  bathroom.  It  had  two  sinks.  He  was  wearing  a  towel, fortunately, but I do have to say…boy took care of himself. Mandatory PT for pilots didn’t give a fellow pecs like that, not without some extra reps at the gym.
“Spin!” he snapped. “This is not a good time.”
“Oh, and last time was better?” I said, folding my arms and refusing to be embarrassed. “At least you’re not getting shot at.”
He reached for his towel to wipe away the shaving suds covering half his face,  then—wisely—stopped.  Finally,  he  took  a  deep  breath.  “Sorry,”  he said,  “I  didn’t  mean  to  snap  at  you.  You  certainly  couldn’t  have  known you’d find me in a compromising position.”
“Huh,” I said. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Stay calm,” I said. “Be so understanding.”
“Command training.”
“Bull,”  I  said.  “I  know  your  secret,  Jorgen  Weight.  You’re  a  good person.”
“That’s…a secret?”
“Hush,”  I said. “I have to say things like that or I’ll look like an idiot for taking so long to figure it out. It would help me out a  ton if you’d at least pretend to be an actual jerkface now and then.”
“I’ll work on that,” he said, smiling.
I stepped forward, then edged around him so I could stand between him and  the  sink.  He  could  only  see  me  in  the  reflection,  so  if  I  stood  there— facing the mirror—our height difference meant we could look each other in the eyes. He stepped back to give me room. Saints, that smile was adorable with  half  his  face  shaved.  Even  the  tiny  scabs  from  his  healing  cuts  were adorable, in a grizzled warrior kind of way.
I, however, was anything but adorable. I’d never been one to fret over my appearance—even  when  I  tried  during  my  school  days,  kids  used  to  joke that  I  looked  like  a  rodent.  They  felt  so  brilliant  realizing  that  the  rat  girl was a bit mousy.
That  said,  scud.  “I  need  to  find  a  hairbrush,  don’t  I?”  I  said.  “And  a shower. Or seven.”
“You look just fine.”
“Ah, ‘just fine.’ Exactly what a woman loves to hear.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant to say that you look like a barbarian who just  finished  killing  her  seventeenth  rabid  tiger  to  make  a  necklace  out  of their incisors.”
“Really?” I said, tearing up. I mean, it was silly but…you know, he was trying.
“It’s  like  you  came  strolling  directly  out  of  a  barbarian  story,”  he  said. “Except for the jumpsuit.”
“I can fix that,” I said, reaching for the zipper.
The  way  his  eyes  bulged  was  totally  worth  it.  But  he  looked  so uncomfortable  that  I  spun  around  to  face  him,  raising  my  hands.  “Joking! I’m joking, Jorgen. Don’t faint or anything!”
He  shook  his  head,  reaching  for  a  washcloth  to  wipe  the  suds  from  his face. That left his face half-covered with black stubble, which would have been  sexy,  except…you  know,  the  fact  that  it  was  only  half  the  face.  I turned back around toward the mirror.
“What happened to your face anyway?” I asked.
Jorgen  grimaced.  “I  squeezed  a  slug.  It  didn’t  appreciate  it  and  let  me know.”
I  wanted  more  details,  but  I  knew  our  time  was  short  so  I  didn’t  press him.
“I lied earlier, Spensa,” he said. “Command training did  not prepare me for you. Nothing could have done that. Anyway, I suppose I should ask for a report.”
“Days passed?” I asked him.
“Since our last visit? Five.”
Yeah, time was odd in the nowhere. I thought it had only been three for me,  but  I  couldn’t  tell  for  certain.  “I’ve  made  progress  on  my  quest,”  I explained.  “I’ll  tell  you  about  that  in  a  minute,  but  first  I  have  more important intel. Jorgen…I think the Superiority leaders are trying to make a deal with the delvers. An alliance.”
He blinked, then took a deep breath. “That’s unfortunate.”
“That’s all you can say?”
“I was taught not to curse in front of a lady.”
“Good thing there are none of those here, eh?”
He smiled. “You say you think they’ll make a deal. They haven’t yet?”
“Not that I know,” I said. “But the delvers were intrigued by what Winzik said.  And  judging  by  what  I’ve  felt  from  them…I  think  it  will  happen. Unless we find a way to stop it.”
“I’ll report this to Cobb and the command staff,” he said. “It confirms our worst  fears,  that  the  delver  summoning  wasn’t  an  anomaly—but  an appetizer. Anything else?”
“I  found  a  kind  of  heritage  site,”  I  said.  “It’s  hard  to  explain,  but  I  saw some of the history of cytonics, and was taught a little how to better use my abilities.  Jorgen,  I’m  pretty  sure  we  were  made  when  the  nowhere  leaked into our reality and changed people living nearby.”
“Changed?”
“Think  of  it  like  a  mutation,”  I  said.  “Caused  by  specialized  radiation seeping through weak spots between dimensions. It means we’re not freaks. We’re mutations.”
“Well,”  he  said,  rubbing  his  chin  in  thought.  “Though  I  don’t  like  the word  ‘freak,’  many  would  call  a  mutation  exactly  the  sort  of  thing  that makes you one. Certainly, a ‘defect’ could be caused by a mutation. So I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying that we’re not some kind of sleeper agent for the delvers,” I said.  “We  predate  them,  in  fact.  What’s  happened  is  that  cytonics  have
blended with the nowhere—giving us access to it, letting us bend our reality to work the way it does.”
He  nodded  slowly.  “If  what  you  say  is  true,  then  we  could  potentially make more cytonic people.”
“There’s  a  portal,”  I  said,  “on  Detritus,  in  the  tunnels  near  Igneous. Search  northeast  of  the  cavern,  near  some  old  pipes  in  a  place  with  some strange patterns carved in the stone. You might want to study it.”
“I’ll put some people on it,” he said.
“Be careful,” I noted. “A cytonic can fall through and get stuck in here— and it’s hard to get out. So don’t, you know, pull a Spensa.”
“Will do,” he said, meeting my eyes in the reflection. “This is important. I’m  glad  you  stayed,  even  if  it  means…well,  this.”  He  gestured  at  my ghostly state.
“I’m going to continue on the Path,” I said. “First I have to deal with a bunch of pirates though.”
“There are pirates in the nowhere?” he asked.
“Yeah. Awesome, isn’t it?”
“I thought the place was…well…nothingness.”
“Kind of is, kind of isn’t?” I said. “It’s complicated. I’m going to steal a starfighter tomorrow, which should let me get to the next memory dump.”
He backed up to lean against the wall, his arms folded, thoughtful. And for  the  first  time  I  noticed  how  tired  he  looked.  It  was  tough  to  tell  with Jorgen,  who  always  seemed  so  upright  and  solid—his  dark  brown  skin making it harder to make out signs of fatigue like bags under his eyes.
“Jorgen?” I said. “You all right?”
“Things  are  tense  here.  We’ve  found  a  way  to  protect  ourselves—the planet’s defenses are fully online, thanks to Rig and the engineers.”
“Well, that’s good. You’re safe.”
“Too  safe,”  he  said.  “The  galaxy  is  collapsing  under  the  control  of  a tyrant while we’re hiding. I know we barely started playing on the galactic stage,  but  it  feels  wrong  to  hide.  We  should  be  doing  something.”  He grimaced. “It’s politics, Spensa. You would be indignant if you were here.”
“You can be indignant on my behalf.”
“I’m  trying,”  he  said.  “But  you  know  how  my  parents  are.  I  love  them, Spensa,  but…they’re  partially  responsible.  They  would  have  us  keep hiding,  hoping  the  enemy  will  just  leave  us  alone.  I  know  that  will  never
happen.  I  knew  it  before  you  told  me  about  what’s  happening  with  the delvers.”
“Maybe my news will be enough to get them to listen.”
“Maybe,” he said, sounding entirely unconvinced.
I glanced around at the decor. I’d noticed that this wasn’t some standard DDF  bunkhouse  latrine,  but  now  I  saw  more.  Was  that  gold  on  the  trim? White marble?
“You’re home,” I guessed. “Trying to persuade your parents?”
“I  thought  maybe  they’d  listen  if  I  could  talk  to  them  outside  a  formal context.  I  should  have  known—they’ve  arranged  four  dinners  for  me,  all with eligible young women from the lower caverns.”
The rich caverns, he meant. The ones best protected from surface attacks. “Good thing I’m not the jealous type,” I said.
“Kind of wish you were,” he said. “If you’d swing by and decapitate one or two of them, maybe the others would give up.”
“Jorgen, please,” I said. “Decapitation is reserved for worthy enemies on the battlefield.”
This  coaxed  a  full-on  smile  from  him.  He  walked  back  up  to  me,  and though  we  couldn’t  touch,  I  could  feel  his  mind  behind  me—and  I successfully  resisted  the  urge  to  probe  his  mind  with  my  new  talents.  We stood there, looking, feeling, for a short time. Because it was all we had.
“You  know,”  I  finally  said,  “I’m  a  little  surprised  to  find  out  you  don’t shower  in  your  uniform.  I  half  figured  there  was  some  outdated  rule  that required you to wear it at all times, or suffer one sixteenth of a demerit.”
“Wait until someone hears that I had a girl in the bathroom with me,” he said.
“I’m sure invisible girls don’t count,” I said, and felt myself start to fade. “Take care of yourself, Jorgen.”
“Same to you,” he said. “Consider it an order.”
I  nodded,  reaching  for  him.  I  felt  like  I  got  an  armful  of  something— something that was him—as it all vanished and I was dumped back into the nowhere. His essence, like his scent, lingered—as did the picture of him in my head, half-shaven, weary.
Still, this was a success. I’d been able to find him again, and I was more confident  in  my  powers.  So  confident,  in  fact,  that  I  did  something  that might have been stupid. I went looking for the delvers.
Last  time  I’d  dreamed  like  this,  I’d  overheard  them  engaging  in  an important conversation. Could I do that again? I quested outward, trying to capture the same…sensation as last time. The same location? It was wrong to  think  of  anything  in  this  place  as  having  locations.  It  was  more  like frequencies or—
Something slammed into my mind.
It was you!  Brade  said.  You  were  watching  before.  I  told  Winzik,  but  he didn’t believe me!
I  tried  to  pull  away,  but  she  was  better  trained  than  I  was.  And  she seemed  to  have  some  kind  of  ability  to  hold  on  to  my  mind  in  a  way  I’d never experienced before. I was like a fly in a web, buzzing about but held tight by Brade’s own mind.
I knew you were alive, she said. You did escape into the nowhere, didn’t you? Little cricket, sneaking about.
Brade, I responded. You don’t have to be like this. You don’t have to—
Of course I don’t, she said. You know what I hate most about you, Alanik? It’s that you aren’t willing to admit, even for the shortest moment, that I’m capable of making my own decisions. To you, I’m merely a misguided dupe.
Winzik is going to kill all the cytonics, I said. That’s the promise he made to the delvers. You know that. You’re the one who communicated the offer!
In response, she laughed. She either didn’t care or had some plan I didn’t understand.  And…with  my  improving  senses,  I  could  feel  a  little  more. That to her, my complaints were simplistic. Perhaps insultingly so.
She  tried  to  rip  my  mind  apart.  But  there  was  one  thing  I’d  learned  by sticking up for myself in the past: bullies expect you to fold.
I leaned into the fight. I didn’t whimper, or curl up, or back away. I threw myself  at  Brade  with  everything  I  had.  Though  I  was  formless,  just  a collection  of  thoughts,  our  minds  could  clash.  Like  two  bursts  of  light throwing sparks. Two stars meeting.
She was trained. But I was ferocious.
Brade broke first, then fled, leaving me exhausted as I slowly faded into proper  dreams,  highlighted  by  half-shaven  officers  and  epic  journeys  on sailing ships pulled by dragons.