flying the platform to me, “you reached the heart!”
“What was it like?” Hesho asked from his throne. “Bright, like a thousand sunrises experienced all at once? Dark, like the gloom of a cavern that has never seen the sky?”
“Neither,” I said. “It was an empty room, Hesho. They don’t know what’s at the center of a real maze, so they couldn’t imitate it.”
“How disappointing,” he said. “That’s not poetic at all.”
“I heard,” Morriumur said, “that the high minister of the Superiority was here today, in person. Did you see them?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn’t recognize them if I did.”
Aya, one of the kitsen gunners, launched into a story about how she’d caught a glimpse of the high minister when touring Starsight. Hesho looked pointedly unimpressed—but, well, he had been a king, so maybe high ministers were boring to him.
I was content to let the others talk, settling down in my seat and tapping covertly on my bracelet. Status?
Waiting and observing, the drone sent. There is movement of personnel. Based on dialogue, I believe we will soon hyperjump.
Right. It was time, then. I just had to hope that the drone would be able to record something. I sank down into myself, pretended I was flying. I immediately saw the path home, but turned away from that. Not now. Not yet.
I tried to reach toward this ship, the Weights and Measures. I tried to “hear” what was being said on board . . . It shouldn’t work. There was no reason for them to use cytonic communication to talk to other places on board the ship. And yet, voices from Engineering popped into my head.
It felt like . . . someone was relaying them to me? Like someone was hearing them, then projecting them.
All pilots are on board and personnel secured, Winzik’s voice said. Engineering, you may proceed with the hyperjump back to Starsight regional space.
Understood, an engineer said back. I could even hear the dione accent. Preparing for hyperjump.
Near them. Near them was a mind. Not a person though, something else. It was relaying these words. Maybe . . . maybe I could help make certain the drone had something to record. My presence here on the ship had interfered before with the hyperjumps. Could I make that happen on purpose? Force the crew to swap hyperdrives?
I pressed softly against the mind I’d found. I heard a sharp cry.
Hyperdrive malfunction, Engineering said. Bridge, we have another hyperdrive malfunction. It’s those cytonics on board. They’re creating an unconscious interference with the hyperdrives.
Try a replacement? the bridge said.
Loading one now. Can we do something about this? It causes so much paperwork . . .
I snapped back to myself. Whatever they did worked, for we soon entered the nowhere again. Another scream. Another lurch as I was cast into that place of darkness punctured by the delver eyes. As usual, they had turned from us, and were looking toward the sound of the scream.
Was this how the diversionary bomb worked? Superiority hyperdrives could distract the delvers, divert their attention. Perhaps the Superiority had advanced this technology to create the device that Brade had activated.
I studied the delvers—who, more and more, were looking like tunnels of white light.
A prickling sensation washed through me. I knew, without needing to look, that I’d been seen. One of the delvers, perhaps the same one as last time, wasn’t distracted by the scream.
I turned and found it right beside me. I could feel its emotions. Hateful, dismissive, angry. Sensations washed through me, and I gasped. To the delver, life in my universe was nothing more than a bunch of angry gnats. Somehow, it knew I was more. It loomed over me, surrounding me, overwhelming me.
I was going to die. I was going to—
I slammed back into my seat on the Weights and Measures. Aya was still telling her story to a rapt audience.
I curled up on my seat, sweating, rattled. I’d never felt so small. So alone.
I trembled, trying to banish the unexpected emotion. I couldn’t tell if it belonged to me or was a side effect of having seen that delver. But loneliness swallowed me.
It was even worse than when I’d been on Detritus, training. Living in my little cave, sleeping in a cockpit while the rest of my flight ate and laughed together. Then, at least, I’d had an enemy to fight. Then, I’d had the support and friendship of the others, even if I was forced to scavenge for food.