And something else heard.
I see you!
The voice was distant, but loud. A cytonic shout vibrated through me, then something slammed into Brade, making her gasp and lose her focus. It was raw, this voice, as if untrained. If I was a sword, it was a bludgeon—a big one.
I flared with light and broke through Brade’s box, and together with the new voice we shoved her back, then escaped into the nowhere.
I was chased by that extremely loud voice. It had saved me, but it seemed a monster of some sort. I spun toward it, not wanting to put my back to it as it crashed into me. And…
…hugged me?
Jorgen? I thought.
Where have you been? he thought at me. Why haven’t you contacted me? Spin, it’s been weeks!
I tried! I said, forcing my mind to visualize him. For the moment we floated together in the void, our essences touching. Like we were two swimmers in a deep, vast, endless ocean clinging to one another.
I’m sorry I didn’t contact you, I said. Brade did something.
Brade? he asked.
The one who was holding me when you arrived, I said. How did you find me?
I’ve been practicing, he explained. I can’t hyperjump, no matter how hard I try. But Alanik says that’s not uncommon. Cytonics have different specialties. She says I can learn hyperjumping—that every one of us can technically learn every talent, but for some of us there are individual talents that are very difficult. We all have weaknesses and strengths.
Wait, I said. Alanik?
It’s complicated, he said. We’re holding out, trying to gather help. But tell me about you. Spensa, you’re glowing. Like a star. I could see you even from a distance!
I’ve been practicing too, I said.
Are you a pirate queen yet?
He said it with such fondness. There were so many images wrapped up in what he’d said—this communication had much more depth than ordinary words. For example, I knew instantly that he was joking—but also a little serious.
He loved my love of stories. He imagined me in one of those stories, and was completely confident in me. More confident than I was of myself. Saints…that was so good to hear. So good to know. His picture of me was of someone courageous, resourceful, and inspiring.
That was not what I deserved for how I’d treated him in our first weeks knowing each other. Fortunately, I could also feel Jorgen responding to my own picture of him. Upright, honest, caring. A leader, the best one I’d known.
The moment was as perfect a one as I’d ever felt. The two of us sharing our idealized versions of one another—knowing we could never live up to them, yet knowing it didn’t matter. Because by simply being near one another, we resonated and became a little more—a little better—for the knowledge, support, and trust.
Then it was ruined as eyes started to appear around us. Bright white holes, the attention of the delvers. It wasn’t my glow that attracted them. It was Jorgen. Scud, he was loud.
Go, Jorgen, I said as the eyes surrounded us. I’ll contact you later, once their attention dies down.
I felt his essence brush mine. I felt his affection, his passion. But then he was gone.
I turned to face the delvers. I kept thinking that with effort I could get through to them. After all, Chet had explained they were all the same individual. Not a group mind, but somehow all identical. So if I’d been able to change the mind of one, shouldn’t I be able to do the same for the others?
I’d failed at this before, but I had to try again. After all, it had taken three attempts to get a ship. So, as the eyes surrounded me, I tried to project a sensation of smallness.
I tried to shrink us all down, to narrow our perspective. As their minds touched mine, I tried to show them. Infinity went both ways—we could be as expansive as a universe, but we could be as small as a mote.
I showed them what I saw. Maksim, with his goofy smile and ready, welcoming manner. Shiver, who did so well understanding people who were very different from her. Nuluba, who so desperately wanted to make up for the ways the Superiority had wronged the peoples of the galaxy.
See us, I told them. See that we are alive.
We know, they sent back. Oh, we know.
They just didn’t care.
In that moment I saw things as they did. Yes, they’d initially refused to accept that all the noises in the somewhere were alive. Then I’d changed one of them. When I’d done that, the rest had responded against what I’d done.
In a way, it didn’t matter which one of them I’d changed. Because as soon as I’d done it, the others had put up defenses. Like how you might get off one sniper shot at people in a group, but then the rest would duck for cover.
I would never persuade another delver, not like I’d done before. Because now they hated us even more, knowing we were alive. Because now we weren’t just random annoyances. We were intentionally trying to bring them pain. We were dangerous.
We needed to be exterminated.
The horror of that idea made me flee from before them. And I was getting good at hiding. I pretended to fade away, to sleep, but then quested out with my ever-strengthening ability to listen. I thought I’d heard something back there, and was rewarded with a voice.
My, my, Brade said to the delvers, sending Winzik’s words into the nowhere. Was that painful? You see, she is too difficult to control. They all are. You saw how another came? They are multiplying. Getting louder.
That referred to Jorgen and the noise he’d made in rescuing me. Oh, scud.
I felt the delvers mull over his words, and I remembered what Brade had said. She’d wanted me to be “loud” as I tried to break through the dampening she’d put on me. As if…as if she’d purposely meant to provoke me. So that the delvers would…
We hear and hurt, the delvers said. But we can extinguish the noises on our own.
Can you? Winzik said. My, my. It seems that when you come to our realm, you are confused. You are as unskilled with this place as we are when in yours! You attacked Detritus and Starsight, yet failed to kill even a single cytonic. Many years have passed, and you have failed each time. We multiply. The noise multiplies. I will stop it. If you help me.
They hated this idea. I could feel their hatred. But also their agreement. We accept your deal, noise, the delvers said. We will do as you instruct in exchange for you stopping the ones that torment us.
Excellent, Winzik sent. So very, very wise of you.
I felt their deal snap into place. The delvers would work for Winzik. I realized what had happened just as I slid into true unconsciousness—and as a result, nightmares haunted me the entire time I slept.
Part Four
Chapter 27
Roughly twelve hours later, I flew on a direct course toward the arena, anxious for my duel—and holding a book in my hand.