Starsight

“I’ll admit,” I said, “I was hoping the same.”

“Oh, they’d never give us individual ships capable of hyperjumps,” Morriumur said. “That kind of technology is dangerous! It’s never trusted to lesser races. Misusing it could draw the attention of the delvers upon us.”

“We’re learning to fight the delvers!” I said.

“It still wouldn’t be wise,” Morriumur said. “FTL jumps are always handled by highly trained expert technicians who have prime intelligence. Even special-classification species, like figments, aren’t allowed. Right, Vapor?”

I jumped as she spoke from just behind me. “This is correct.”

Scud. I was never going to get used to having an invisible person in our flight. “Some races have cytonics,” I said, sitting down and strapping in. “They don’t need Superiority ships to hyperjump.”

“Letting a cytonic teleport a ship is incredibly dangerous,” Morriumur said, making an odd hand gesture—a kind of swiping motion. A dione indication of dismissiveness, maybe? “Going back to cytonics would be like returning to ancient combustion engines instead of using acclivity rings! No, no, in modern society we would never use a method so foolhardy. Our FTL jumps are extremely safe, and never draw delver attention.”

Curious, I glanced at Brade, but she didn’t look back at me. M-Bot’s research had reinforced what Cuna had told me: the modern people of the Superiority knew about cytonics, but the bulk of the population believed there were none left among them. It likely wouldn’t be known that Brade was one, let alone that I was one too.

So . . . could it be possible that this phantom “FTL technology” the Superiority had was all just a lie? They claimed to have something safe to use, but what if that was just an excuse to control and suppress knowledge of cytonics?

I closed my eyes, listening to the stars as Gran-Gran had always taught. I felt the Weights and Measures finally start moving, unhooking from the dock and accelerating slowly away from Starsight. Those were physical sensations, and seemed distant, disconnected.

The stars . . . the cytonic communications . . . I tried to parse them, understand them. I tried the exercise my grandmother had taught me. Pretending I was flying. Rising. Soaring through space.

I could . . . hear . . . something. Something close. Louder, more demanding.

Prepare for hyperjump.

Orders from the captain of this ship. Passed down to the engine room. I could feel it there. And the hyperdrive . . . There was something familiar about it . . .

I heard the captain order the jump. I waited, watching, feeling what was going on. Trying to absorb the process.

My mind flooded with information. A location. The place we were going. I knew it intimately. I could—

A voice screamed from somewhere nearby. Then the ship suddenly entered the nowhere.

21

I was there, hanging in the not-place, surrounded by blackness. And the eyes. They were here.

Except they weren’t looking at me.

I saw them, sensed them, heard them. But their gaze didn’t find me. They were focused elsewhere. As if . . . as if looking toward the source of the scream.

Yes, that was it. The piercing, agonized scream lingered in my mind. It distracted the delvers from seeing the Weights and Measures as it slipped through the nowhere.

It was over like a snap of the fingers. I lurched back into my seat in the little room, grunting. I felt as if I’d been thrown

physically, then been caught by the chair. I groaned, sagging forward.

“Captain Alanik?” Hesho asked, hovering nearby. “Are you well?”

I looked around the jump room, which held only the members of my flight. Morriumur didn’t seem to have even noticed that moment in the nowhere.

I looked back at Brade. She met my eyes, then narrowed them at me. She knew I was cytonic. Did she . . . did she suspect I was human as well? I had a moment of panic and looked down at my hands, but they were still a light violet shade, indicating that my disguise was functioning.

“Welcome, everyone!” A voice came over the PA system. It was Winzik. “We’ve arrived at our training facility! This is going to be so exciting, yes indeed! You probably have many questions. A drone will lead you to your flight’s dock, and you can get your starfighter assignments.”

“We’re here?” Hesho asked. “We hyperjumped? Usually they give some kind of warning before it happens!” The door of our jump room opened and he zipped out, the other kitsen tagging along behind on their platforms.

The rest of us, including Brade, gathered outside in the hallway, then followed a drone that had arrived to lead us. Another drone chased after the kitsen, barely keeping up with them.

I looked toward the engine room. That direction, I thought. The scream came from that direction.