“You’ve never peeked,” Gran-Gran noted. “When I taught Spensa to do this, she kept looking through one eye. I had to challenge her to do it without looking, make it a game, before she’d do as I asked.”
Jorgen continued kneading. He had given up on trying to figure out how Gran-Gran would know if he’d peeked or not. She was obviously blind—the gnarled old woman had only milky whites for eyes. But there was a power to her. Near her he felt that same buzzing, fainter than with Spensa or the alien woman.
“You never complain either,” Gran-Gran noted. “Five days learning to bake bread by touch, and you’ve never once asked why I’m making you do this.”
“I was instructed by my superior officer to come receive your training. I assume it will make sense eventually.”
Gran-Gran sniffed at that. As if . . . as if she wanted him to balk at the strange style of instruction. Well, Jorgen had talked to dozens of soldiers about their first days in training, and the monotonous tasks they’d been given. It happened more in the ground crew than in flight school, but he understood nonetheless.
Gran-Gran was training him first to accept instruction. He could do that. That made sense. But he wished she’d hurry. On the same day as that first attack, the battleships had made two more test barrages at Detritus, and both had been intercepted. Since then, the enemy forces had just sat up there gathering resources, their fleet growing. The Krell’s return to inaction had him feeling tense.
The Krell had a very large gun to their heads. He needed to learn this new training quickly, and ascertain whether he could give the fleet what it needed, then report back to Cobb.
That said, he wasn’t going to complain. Gran-Gran was effectively now his commanding officer.
“Do you hear anything?” Gran-Gran asked as he continued to work the dough.
“The buzzing sensation from you,” he said. “As I reported earlier. It’s not really something I hear though. It’s more of an impression. Like the vibration you might feel from a distant machine, making the ground tremble.”
“And if you reach out, like I taught you?” she said. “If you imagine yourself flying through space?”
Jorgen tried to do as she said, but it didn’t accomplish anything. Just . . . imagining himself floating in space? Passing the stars, soaring? He had been there in his ship, and he could picture the experience perfectly. What was it supposed to do?
“Nothing?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“No singing? No sense of something far distant calling to you?”
“No, sir,” he said. “Um, I mean no, Gran-Gran.”
“She’s out there,” Gran-Gran said, ancient voice cracking as she whispered the words. “And she’s worried.”
Jorgen snapped his eyes open. He caught a glimpse of Gran-Gran, a wizened old woman who seemed to be all bones and cloth, with powder-white hair and milky eyes. She’d turned her head upward, toward the sky.
He immediately squeezed his eyes shut. “Sorry,” he said. “I peeked. But . . . but you can feel her?”
“Yes,” Gran-Gran said softly. “It only happened earlier today. I sensed that she was alive. Scared, though she might not admit that even still.”
“Can you get a report on her mission?” he asked, dough squeezing through his fingers as he clutched it. “Or bring her back?”
“No,” Gran-Gran said. “Our touch was momentary, fleeting. I am not strong enough for more. I shouldn’t bring her back, even if I could. She needs to fight this fight.”
“What fight? She’s in danger?”
“Yes. Same as we are. More? Perhaps. Stretch out, Jorgen. Fly among the stars. Listen to them.”
He tried. Oh, how he tried. He strained with what he thought were the right muscles. He pushed and forced himself to imagine what she’d said.
That nothing happened made him feel as if he were letting Spensa down. And he hated that feeling.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t get anything. Perhaps we should try one of my cousins.” He knuckled his hand, pressing it against his forehead, eyes still squeezed closed. “I shouldn’t have told her to go. I should have followed the rules. This is my fault.”
Gran-Gran grunted. “Back to your dough,” she said. Once he continued kneading, she spoke again. “Have I told you the story of Stanislav, the hero of the almost-war?”
“The . . . almost-war?”
“It was back on Old Earth,” Gran-Gran said, and he could hear bowls scrape as she began preparing her own dough to bake. “During a time when two great nations had their terrible weapons pointed