sending Pizi running under the long ship front and back.
In the earliest hours of the morning, even the relief guards nodded sleepily. Mouth drying, Levona crept near the tail of the starship, there she fell to her belly and crawled the last twenty meters until she was partially shielded from sight by the runners. The scent of winter grass and odd ship tech smell rose from the dirt around her.
Then she walked carefully, step by step over frost-crunchy grass for several meters, senses strained for any shout of alarmed discovery.
She stopped where Pizi indicated and drew out her multi-tool with the focused beam of light. Her tool showed the crack, smaller than she’d thought, and at a difficult angle to get in. Pizi assured her that she could fit.
Levona sucked in her breath and drew on all her power and jumped up and in. Pizi pushed with her power, too.
With much squishing of stomach and breasts along with bruising, Levona wiggled through the outer skin of the ship and lay panting and rubbing her hurt chest, trying to recover not only physical, but her psychic energy.
Pizi ran off to explore.
Levona lay in a space between the walls, maybe a service area. The intense darkness gave no clues about the blueprint of the vehicle. S would wait until she got her breath back before standing and sending out her psi senses to determine a rough map. Meanwhile her nose told her of old dust collected in the walls, and oil and fuel.
After a minute she sat and flicked on her tool-light, but she couldn’t identify some of the materials of the ship . She stared at a girder that looked — not really solid — touching it, the material felt like metal, but made of tiny cavities.
So she didn’t know as much about the ship as she should have, desperately ignorant of everything, the crewing, the structure, the timeline … Yeah, despite her loner tendencies, she should have come down from the mountains months ago and joined the psi-mutant community, in the barrio or out.
Before she’d interacted with Bartek and Karida, Levona hadn’t truly realized how isolated she’d been from her own kind.
But she couldn’t regret lingering. Pizi’s trailing mew sounded in Levona’s mind and a flush of love swept through her. As her cat companion pointed out earlier, if Levona had returned from the mountains earlier, in time to be accepted as part of the crew for Lugh’s Spear, she’d have missed saving Pizi.
More than ever, Levona decided the cat was special, of the utmost importance. A genetic switch had flicked to make Pizi The Prodigy. The young cats they’d found that night seemed generations behind Levona’s own animal companion. Pizi was a genius savant, and a higher priority than Levona herself for the gifted community.
She let the dimness of the ship, the odd smells and the feel of the atmosphere wrap around her, settling her emotions from the last few days. She and Pizi had arrived and accomplished their goal. So far.
As she calmed and became fully aware of her surroundings, she understood that more than her hope sparkled through the air of the ship. The vehicle itself carried the vibrations of the psi leaders who’d bought it, who’d already traveled on it, those of the … pilot and the colonists.
Hope.
She felt comfortable here. For the first time, she could accept living her life on this ship, with these people.
If they ever accepted her.
At that moment Pizi traipsed back into sight. As soon as she saw the glow light, she trotted toward Levona, who opened her arms.
Pizi flung herself at her and Levona cradled the cat tight, closing her eyes, feeling the softness of her fur, smelling the dust and mountain tang of her cat and more, a coating of psi from the ship lingering on her fur. Slow and steadily, she petted her friend for long minutes. Pizi vibrated with her quiet purr.
I love you, Pizi, Levona sent mentally.
I love you, too, Pizi said, then I have found a place I like, a little nest where We can stay.
For now, Levona said. We WILL be discovered at some point in time, probably when we go out for water and food.
I know.
We are trying to hide until after the ship takes off.
“Yessss,” Pizi hissed audibly.
“Yes,” Levona muttered.
Follow me. Pizi hopped from Levona’s loosened grasp, and moved from the web of metal pillars to a short corridor with metal panels, tail waving.
Keeping her steps as soft-footed as possible, Levona trailed