Starsight

“I see glass shards floating in the air there. Perhaps the maze is obscuring something?”

“Yeah,” I said, nudging closer. Sure enough, the proximity sensors indicated there was a tunnel hiding back there, obscured by the hologram. I eased my ship down through it and emerged into the next chamber. However, as I did, the shadows behind my ship moved.

I immediately spun the vessel around on its axis, pointing my floodlights in that direction. I was facing down a large pile of alien fungus, pulsing softly as if breathing, each bulbous toadstool the size of my fighter.

“Did you see that?” I asked Vapor as she hovered her ship down beside me.

“No. What did you see?”

“Motion,” I said, narrowing my eyes. Something else darted away at the edges of my vision, and I spun my ship again.

“Proximity sensors show nothing,” Vapor said. “It must be part of the hologram.”

“Flight Command?” I asked. “What was that motion?”

The response that came back was jumbled and broken, my communications cutting out. The shadows in this room were moving. I spun again, trying to catch whatever was in here.

“Flight Command?” I asked again. “I’m not reading you.”

“Do you want an authentic experience or not?” the voice came back to me, suddenly clear. “I told you that when pilots get deeper within the maze, communication starts to get more erratic.”

“Okay, fine. But what are those shadows?”

“What shadows?”

“The ones that keep moving in this room?” I said. “Is there something inside this maze that will attack me?”

“Um . . . Not sure.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

“Um . . . Just a sec.”

Vapor and I hung there with the shadows. Until another voice came on our line, one that was more excitable and enthusiastic. Winzik, head of the Krell.

“Alanik! It’s Winzik. I hear you’re experiencing some of the maze’s more unnerving features.”

“You could say that,” I said. Winzik’s voice sounded . . . small. As if the signal from outside were a frail thread, close to snapping.

“There’s something in here with us,” Vapor said. “I think I saw it too just now.”

“Hmm, my my,” Winzik said. “Well, it’s probably just the holograms.”

“Probably?” I asked.

“Well, we’re not a hundred percent sure how this works ourselves!” Winzik said. “We aren’t adding moving shadows to your canopy holograms, but there might be other holograms in here created by the maze. We didn’t build it, remember. We recovered it, repaired it, and added our own drones, but it was built by humans. We’re not entirely certain what it can do—or what extents it can reach—to imitate a true delver maze.”

“So we’re lab animals?” I said, growing increasingly annoyed. “Testing something you don’t understand? You toss us in and see who survives?”

“Now, now,” Winzik said. “Don’t be so aggressive, Alanik. Aren’t your people trying to gain citizenship in the Superiority? Yelling at me won’t help you with that goal, I assure you! Anyway, good job in there! Keep it up!”

The channel cut off, and I barely held myself back from cussing him out. How dare he be so . . . so . . . perky. Well, that friendly attitude was obviously just an act for my benefit. Krell were terrible and destructive, as proven by how they treated my people. Did Winzik think an affable voice would hide that reality from others?

“Let’s get back out and check on the others,” Vapor said, turning to lead me out the way we’d come in. I followed, and though the next room was the same one we’d come through before, the moss was gone, and it just looked normal now. Again it reminded me of the old shipyard from Detritus. Had that been another maze, like this? Intended for the same purpose? Or was I jumping to conclusions?

“Your people,” Vapor said as we flew, “have a history with the humans. Do you not?”

“Um, yeah,” I said, sitting up in my seat. Vapor didn’t normally make small talk.

“Curious,” she said.

“That was years before I was born,” I said.

“Human domination altered the future of your planet,” Vapor said. “Your people fought beside them and inevitably adopted some of their ways. You speak a variation on one of their languages.” Vapor was silent for a time as we entered the tunnel that had looked like flesh.

“Your aggression reminds me of theirs,” she finally added.

“What about you?” I said. “Have you ever met humans? Other than Brade, I mean.”

“Many,” Vapor said in her soft, airy voice. “I fought them.”

“In the wars?” I asked, surprised. “The most recent was a hundred years ago. You were alive then?”

Vapor gave no specific confirmation, and we soon entered the large chamber with the writing on the ceiling, which had appeared to have blood on the walls before. Now it looked like a mirror gallery, reflecting back at me a thousand versions of my own ship.

I cocked my head and spun my ship, looking at the thousands of versions of my vessel. Until I pointed at one mirror that held not my ship, but just an image of me floating there—in space—alone.

Not Alanik. Me. Spensa.