Except I was far, far weaker. I held on only barely. Either I didn’t have a talent for this, or I needed a ton more practice. Still, even that little attempt panicked the delver. This brought the full brunt of their attention, fear, and hatred upon me. In that moment others gathered, and they tried to destroy me in the only way they knew how.
By trying to make me one of them.
I was pulled into the nowhere entirely. I became formless; I had no body, merely a mind floating in not darkness—as it normally was—but an infinite whiteness. Everything around me was white because it was full, packed with the delvers. Like an ocean is filled with water.
They saw me as a corrupted version of them now. Cytonics were like delvers. In a way, I was a cousin to them. They saw me as a tempter also, luring them toward their destruction with crass things like linearity and individuality.
Their minds assaulted me, and pushed me to see as they did. To see the peace, the harmony, of shared existence. I clung to my individuality, but it was frayed, worn, like a battle standard that had been shot full of holes. In seconds, what scraps of memories I still had left of my friends and family had frayed further, and my life in the somewhere began to vanish entirely.
They wanted to erase it. Because of…pain? Yes, they knew pain, from the past, but had escaped it. I latched onto this. It was a clue, or a seed of one. Yet…it was terrifying how I responded to their offer. To the peace, the blending of self, the eternity without pain—there could be no pain without the passage of time. There could be no anger when everyone agreed absolutely on everything.
I can’t really explain why that was so entrancing. I can’t even explain what it felt like—how do you describe such a thing? I was just a pilot. Without the right words.
I didn’t want to succumb to them. But I also had difficulty fighting. In a panic I stretched out, searching for help. Perhaps from my friends? Whose names I was forgetting… Whose faces…blended…into white…
And then, something.
Support from someone distant. A…friend? That comforting mind that was somehow my pin. The one that I was increasingly certain was my father. It bolstered me and brought with it images. The delightful scent of water dripping in the caverns back home. The calming purpose of tinkering on M-Bot’s ship with Rig. My mother’s exhausted smile, after a long day of work, upon seeing me. Gran-Gran’s steady voice speaking of the heroines of the past.
Then another mind, from the other side. A mind that reminded me of things I loved. Exploring. Flying. Stories. Existing was pain, but it was also joy. With those memories bolstering me, I stoked myself.
My star came alight. I wasn’t nothing here. I was Spensa, and my soul was fire. It exploded with brightness, and I offered that sense of myself to them—I bludgeoned them with who I was, and the emotions I felt.
They pulled away at that offer of corruption. At the offer of…of dissention. They retreated, though our exchange had told us a great deal about one another. As the sensation faded, I found another offer. A…truce.
Within me, they found my longing for my friends to stop dying. They’d seen my excitement for the battles I’d found in the belt of the nowhere.
Stay…the delvers pled with me. Stay and do not pass Surehold. We will stop.
Stay? I blinked, becoming aware of the space around me. I was hanging on to Hesho’s ship, looking down into those portals of light that were his eyes.
Stay. It wasn’t a word, but an impression—of me stopping my journey on the Path of Elders. Of staying at Surehold, or moving back out into the belt, but going no farther inward than the Superiority base. Of not continuing the Path of Elders or entering the lightburst.
What about my friends? I sent them. The people in the somewhere.
In truce with you, we leave them alone. We ignore the noise. That particular use of “noise” indicated Brade and Winzik. It wasn’t as strong a promise as I’d have preferred—it felt like from the way their minds worked, if they were pulled into our realm they’d still attack. But they would start ignoring Winzik.
Stay, the delvers repeated, the white fading from Hesho’s eyes. Stay away. And we promise truce.
With that, the light vanished completely—leaving me clinging to the outside of a frozen ship containing one very confused kitsen.
Chapter 35
I slumped into the cockpit of my ship.
That had been…a lot. A lot to think about, a lot to feel. A lot to remember.
Scud, I remembered. Gran-Gran, Mother, Rig. Even Jorgen, though the faces of my other friends remained vague.
“I told you that I understood crazy,” Chet said. “I was wrong. Thank you for the master class.”
“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “That was…interesting of you. Do you want a list of the emotions I’m feeling right now?”
“I get the sense they’d mostly be variations on frustration and bafflement.”
“You’d be right,” he replied.
“I’ll pass, then,” I said, as I closed the cockpit. “Come on, you two. Climbing out on my wing in the middle of a battlefield? You’ve both seen me do worse.”
“Which is why I didn’t call it strange,” M-Bot said. “Strange implies odd, or out of sequence with your normal behavior. Still, um… What the hell?”
I grinned. “Wow. You used that curse perfectly, M-Bot.”
“It’s the emotions,” he said. “I now understand the sense of frustration everyone else feels with you! It dovetails perfectly into exasperation, which makes me finally understand why it is people swear at you so much!”
“That’s great!” I said.
“I know! Also: WHAT THE HELL, SPENSA?”
“Hesho was possessed by a delver,” I said.
“Yes, Chet explained that,” he said. “So you went closer?”
“They’re afraid of me, M-Bot. I realized it…and it just felt right…”
“Right isn’t a feeling. Trust me, I’ve been practicing. Weren’t you listening?”
“Right is a feeling for me,” I said. “At least this time when I got out of the cockpit, I didn’t end up floating around in a vacuum. Chet, how much of that did you hear?”
“Not a lot,” he said. “My cytonic communication talents are not as powerful as yours.”
“Well,” I said, “immortality and the ability to cytonically echolocate are both also cool.”
“I didn’t say they weren’t,” he replied. “I did have enough skill to sense you in pain—and their attack. I tried to feed you memories of yourself. It appears to have helped. After that they left, though I couldn’t sense why.”
I should tell him, I thought. But the delvers’ parting thoughts—stay, truce—haunted me. I first wanted to think about what it all meant. “M-Bot,” I said. “Please open a comm line to Hesho.”
He sighed, but complied.
“Hey,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“I meditate upon the emptiness that is my past,” Hesho said softly. “And about how, despite it being blank, I know you were part of it. We were…friends?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Was I the leader of a pirate force?” he asked.