and they were extremely eager to learn. Yeah, they couldn’t aim worth spit, but Cobb had always said he’d rather have students who could fly well. Those could stay alive long enough to be taught to fight.
I pulled my ship up beside Morriumur’s as we finished lunch and moved back into formation. “Hey,” I said, “when we do this next batch, try to watch and stay tighter in formation. You keep veering toward the outside.”
“I’m sorry,” they said. “I’ll do better. And . . . also, I’m sorry I almost shot you earlier.”
“That? That was nothing. At least you didn’t mean to try to kill me—that’s more than I can say for most.”
They chuckled, though I thought I could hear tension in their voice. I remembered my first few training sessions under Cobb—the worry that I’d get something wrong and be kicked out, the growing lack of confidence that I belonged, the frustration at not being able to do all the things I’d imagined myself capable of accomplishing.
“Don’t worry,” I told them. “You’re doing fine, particularly considering how new to this you are.”
“As I mentioned, my leftparent was a drone pilot during their youth,” Morriumur said. “I got a piece of that experience, fortunately.”
“You really get skills from your parents?”
“Of course,” Morriumur said. “Some of the knowledge and skills of the parents pass on to the child. I guess it isn’t that way for your species?”
Was it? Scud. I didn’t actually know, at least not for Alanik’s species. Without M-Bot there to whisper explanations into my ear, I could get myself into trouble.
“Anyway, I was lucky in this,” Morriumur continued. “But also unlucky. My leftparent has had some latent aggression, and I ended up with an extra measure of it. My first few days alive, I got a reputation for snapping at others.”
“Snapping at people is aggressive among your kind?”
“Very,” Morriumur said.
“Wow. I’d have never made it to being born. They’d have killed me right out.”
“That’s a common misconception,” Morriumur said. “If my parents decide not to bear me with this personality, I won’t be killed—they’ll simply recombine me in a new way. What you see in me is just a draft, a prospect, a possibility of who I could be. Though . . . if I were to be born, I’d retain these memories, and my personality would become real.” They paused. “And I do wish for that to be the case.”
I tried to imagine a world where I remembered being forced to prove I was worth existing. No wonder this society had issues.
We finished the next batch of exercises, and I was pleased at how well the group kept formation. “This is actually working,” I said, calling Vapor. “I think we might be able to make something of them.”
“Excellent,” Vapor said. “Are they ready for combat then?”
“Scud, no!” I said. “We need to be at this for another few weeks at least. They’re good pilots, so it’s not like starting with raw recruits, but that doesn’t mean I want them shooting at anything yet.”
Vapor seemed to take that in stride, and didn’t complain—or even ask for more details. She simply said, “Interesting.” How was I to interpret that?
“Let’s give them another break,” she eventually said to me. “Then we’ll try some higher-speed formations. We have three hours until we return to Starsight for the day. Flight Command has been asking if any of us will be heading into the maze. I’ll tell them that we don’t anticipate it.”
“All right,” I said, slowing my ship and pulling out my canteen.
“Unless, of course,” she added, “you want to give it a try while the others are on break. You and I could head in there together.”
I hesitated, canteen halfway to my lips.
“It would be useful, after all, to know what it is we’re preparing for,” Vapor said. “I’ve heard of delver mazes, but I’ve never been in one.” Her ship hovered up beside me, and it was disconcerting to see the cockpit empty, as if it were piloted by a ghost.
What was Vapor’s game? In putting me in charge of running the exercises, she’d been able to go back to observing. Participating, but remaining mostly mysterious. Now she wanted me to go into the maze with her. It seemed a test of some sort. A challenge?
I looked out toward the maze. Each flight had been assigned a different face of the dodecahedron, and the pilots had been practicing approaching and then flying into it.