“Wait here,” I said to Hesho and M-Bot. “I’ll return soon.”
I walked into the hallway outside my room. Lights shone on decor that felt too soft to me. A brown carpet, walls with patterns on them. I closed my eyes again and rested one hand on the wall, which had an odd texture like paper. I was accustomed to smooth metal or rough rock.
I walked along slowly, my eyes closed, seeking that mind. Seeking my father. Before, I sent to it, you strengthened my memories of my life on Detritus. Can you do that again?
Curiosity.
Because I need to feel guilty, I thought, so I’ll force myself to return.
What came back through that mental connection hit me like a shock wave. It wasn’t the memories I’d demanded. It wasn’t condemnation.
It was permission.
A calm, gentle understanding. Like a warm breeze through my soul. No words, but meaning. It’s all right. Your pain is real. Your passion is real.
You can choose. It’s all right.
The emotion shook me. I sank to my knees, bowing my head. It wasn’t what I’d expected, and certainly wasn’t what I’d wanted. I needed guilt to propel me, didn’t I?
Yet the permission was insistent. Yes, there were some who would be sad or angry if I didn’t return. But nobody could ever claim I hadn’t done my part. The attempt at a truce with the delvers was plausible enough to accept. And even if it wasn’t…well, we shouldn’t be required to keep giving until we’d been wrung out. That wasn’t love.
I could stay. I deserved to stay, if I wanted to. That familiar mind wasn’t trying to persuade me. It gave me permission to let go, if that was what I truly wanted.
I pulled up beside the wall, head bowed against my knees, feeling that warmth flow through me. Until I let it flow out of me through tears. Like I’d been filled to the brim.
I couldn’t explain why I was crying. They weren’t tears of grief or joy. They were just…tears.
There’s no way to tell how long I sat there, though I don’t think the lost time was due to the strange effects of the nowhere. I eventually let it all leak out, and came to myself sitting in that muted hallway, unexpectedly calm.
I hadn’t made a decision yet, but I did need to hold my pin again. I had to know for certain if it carried my father’s soul.
Climbing to my feet, I went hunting, connected as if by light-line tether to that other mind. I took the steps at a reckless pace. On the ground floor, I entered a large room with tables almost as long as runways. Scud, was this the mess hall? Those chandeliers looked like they were on fire.
The mind was nearby. A few pirates were in the mess hall at the moment, including Maksim and a human who looked vaguely familiar. Had I seen him earlier? He was wearing a symbol of the Long Plank Faction.
Maksim gave me a friendly wave and I nodded absently, feeling…pulled…
I walked to the side of the room where, after poking around a little, I found a power outlet that was loose. I pried it off, and behind was a hidden alcove. Inside were two objects. My pin and a small, worn stuffed animal. It looked vaguely like an alien dog, from the shape of the face and the paws.
Both were surrounded by a scattering of reality ashes. I didn’t need a description to know the stuffed animal was the base’s icon. How had it gotten here?
We hid, my pin said—though more with impressions than words—when the fighting started. Some here would have tried to steal us.
Merely seeing the reality ashes immediately made me feel better. More connected to who I’d once been.
It’s so good to hold you, I said to the pin. Thank you. Thank you so much for your help.
In response, I heard a distinctive—and happy—fluting sound coming from the pin.
Chapter 38
Doomslug! I thought, excitedly projecting the thought toward her. How?
Hiding, she sent back. Delvers. The impressions were laced with the idea of hiding in a hollow of stone, trying not to be seen by a predator that prowled nearby.
I sent you home! I sent to her.
You equal home, she sent back, picturing us together. Then she added something to the image—projected into my mind. A version of her in my arms, but now with eyes and a smiling mouth plastered on her front. They looked like they’d been drawn on with marker. She didn’t quite understand what eyes and a smile were for, in human terms, but she seemed to sense that this expression indicated contentment. Happiness.
Home. She didn’t live in a cave. She lived with me. Wherever I was.
I felt like an utter fool. I’d vanished into the nowhere holding Doomslug, a cytonic creature that had evolved to avoid the attention of delvers, and then my father’s pin had immediately shown up in my pocket. And I’d been told by more than one person that cytonic people could change how they appeared in here. If a person could, well, why not a slug?
You look like my pin! I sent her.
Special, she said, very pleased. We are special. To hide.
Still, I said. You didn’t have to follow me in here.
She sent back comforting emotions and the image of me being chased by a predator. She’d been worried about me. So she’d come with me, but had hidden herself. I hadn’t been communing with my father’s soul. She was the one who had been supporting me all this time, the familiar mind that had lent me strength in resisting the delvers.
I felt an enormous wave of gratitude. And relief, actually, that she wasn’t my father’s soul. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, it was just that…well, there had been something unnerving about that thought. I could see that I’d substituted the familiar feeling that came from Doomslug with something I wanted. Which I now realized I didn’t want at the same time.
This made way more sense. Though…uh…I had buried her… She made a distinctly annoyed fluting sound.
“Sorry,” I whispered, chagrined. “I didn’t know it was you.”
I got an indignant fluting in response.
“No, I won’t bury you again,” I said. “But you could have told me.”
She sent me fright. Fear of the delvers, who had been nearby. Watching for her kind. She’d come in here with me, but had deployed her camouflage out of fear. After that she’d been comfortable riding in my pocket. Enjoying the…sensation of this place? Was that right? When in the nowhere, her kind just liked to snuggle down and absorb the nowhere “radiation.” Less slug, more…sea cucumber maybe?
This was what she did every time she traveled through the nowhere during hyperdrive jumps. Because of the delvers. It was why starships traveling via slug were so much safer than ones using cytonic people.
Can’t leave, she sent me. Since we weren’t in the lightburst, she was locked into the belt like I was. Other than that, she seemed content to be back with me, though I again had to promise I wouldn’t bury her. I wasn’t certain how much she understood; I’d always seen her as an animal before. But in here, I felt like I could understand her better.
You talk smarter now, she sent to me. Though it wasn’t words—but I interpreted them that way.
I’ve been practicing, I said to her, with my powers. You think it’s working? You understand me?