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?”
