Smarter talk, she said with a fluting approval, and a reality ash dropped from her.
Wait, I said, pinching it between my fingers. What are these, anyway?
Poop! she said.
I blinked, but… Okay, I quested deeper into the meaning of what she’d sent. She thought it was the same thing as, well, poop. But it wasn’t—her powers linked her to the somewhere, and that pulled through a little reality. A kind of crust. I rubbed the ash between my fingers, and thought maybe I understood. Like fragments formed around holes between dimensions, these ashes formed around creatures that bridged the two dimensions.
Actually, hadn’t I been told that being near a fragment helped people keep their memories? Was that because, in essence, the small bits of new rock growing on the fragments were reality ashes?
Well, people were starting to notice me kneeling there beside the wall. So I took the pin that was Doomslug in one hand, the Surehold icon in the other, then held that one up.
“Hey,” I said to them. “You all missing something important?”
That caused a ruckus, of course. I settled down in a chair to wait as people rushed over. Maksim called for Peg, and it took her less than five minutes to come charging in. There, she reverentially reached down and cradled the stuffed animal.
“How?” she said. “Your…special talent?”
I nodded. “Tell me. Do you know what these really are?”
The tenasi captain clutched her icon, then glanced at the rest of the pirates. Finally, she waved for me with one meaty hand. “Let’s chat, Spin,” she said. “In private.”
The other pirates gave us space. Together, Peg and I left the chamber and entered the hallway outside.
“It was my secret escape plan,” she said softly as we continued walking. “I hid a taynix—a hyperspace slug—in my things when I entered. Took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that the stuffed toy in my luggage—my childhood favorite, but which I’d thought I’d lost years before—was indeed the same thing.”
“So the other pirates and workers don’t know?” I asked.
She shook her head. “The icon is already valuable enough. Don’t want them getting the idea that it might be able to hop them back to the somewhere.”
“It can’t,” I said. “Not while it’s in the belt.”
“You’re sure?”
“Reasonably. But I guess all of the slugs can hide themselves as objects.”
Nope, Doomslug said in my head. Only the yellow-blue ones. That was conveyed by a picture of herself.
There are other kinds? I asked.
Tons!
Right. Okay then.
Peg continued walking, thoughtful, so I kept pace with her. We soon left the barracks and entered a courtyard between several buildings. Inside it stood three trees. They were about three meters tall, with extremely stout limbs and very few leaves.
From the branches grew fruit. Like, actual fruit. Lots of it, in a variety of colors, shaped kind of like upside-down pears. Peg walked to one tree and inspected it. Then she selected a cherry-orange fruit and pulled it off.
She walked over and presented it to me. “A mulun,” she said. “For bravery. I’d hoped to have grown a few, and I have!”
I balked. “So…do these trees really…”
“Grow fruit based on how we tenasi feel?” Peg said. “Yes. My soul is bound to this tree. I was allowed to carry a new sapling with me, grown from my old tree, when I entered. Many of us believe that the fruit contains our emotions—and makes us able to be calm in battle. I find that to be a lie, or at least an exaggeration. But the bond is real.”
That made it even stranger to take the fruit as she forced it upon me.
“It is your reward,” she said. “Please. Honor me.”
So I took it. “Uh…do I…eat it?”
She laughed. “Not usually. Plant it. You won’t bond to it like a tenasi, but…well, having that tree will be recognized by others of my kind. As an honor.”
Well, that was cool. I was glad I didn’t have to eat it. Though in the past I’d made a few cracks about feasting on the blood of my enemies, that was completely metaphoric. I put the fruit and Doomslug’s pin in a pocket.
Peg turned back to the tree and drew her lips to a line. Not baring teeth, not threatening, instead content and happy.
“It just feels so odd,” I said. “Everything else about your people, Peg, seems about…well, being predatory. Aggressive.”
“No, not aggressive,” she said. “Merely growing a better future by making the next generation strong. We test, we push, we prove.”
“And trees relate to that…how?”
“Not at all,” Peg said. “Why should they? Humans are terrifying conquerors, but you have art, don’t you?”
“I suppose we do,” I said. Even during the war for survival on Detritus, we’d made sculptures and statues. People couldn’t help it.
“We evolved with these trees,” Peg said. “We care for them, and they provide fruit for us. Aggression and killing are always about life—life for yourself, for your kind. My people have forgotten that, and pretend those emotions don’t exist. I haven’t forgotten them. But I suppose that attitude is what ended up driving me to this place.” She waved to the trees. “These are about life too.”
Then she slapped me on the shoulder. “You’re leaving, aren’t you? My offer wasn’t tempting enough? You’ve decided to take another path. I see it in your expression.”
I supposed…I supposed that I had decided. Not because I felt guilty, but instead because…well, I had to. I didn’t trust the delvers. I needed to know what they were hiding, the things they didn’t want any of us to know.
But it wasn’t merely about duty. It was about stories. After it all, I…didn’t want to live in a story. Not if it meant leaving my friends and family. I wouldn’t ever be happy in here without them, and I didn’t want to forget them like Chet had.
Having the permission to stay had somehow given me the courage to leave.
“Thank you for taking me in,” I told Peg. “For not tossing me off the side of the fragment the moment you found me trying to steal from you.”
“I think I got the better end of the deal,” Peg said. “Will you at least stay a few days, to celebrate?”
“We’ll see,” I told her. “First, there’s something important I need to do.”
Chapter 39
I found Chet sitting on a stone outside near the landing pad, looking toward the sky. He stood up as I approached.
“Chet,” I said. “I…” I glanced toward the warehouse behind us.
“You’re going to continue the Path?” he said.
“Yeah. But you don’t have to do it with me. You don’t have to feel guilty for stepping away. You can take the ashes that Peg promised me. I don’t need them. Plus, Peg wants someone to explore for her—I’m sure you could accept her offer and get a whole team to keep you company.”
He stood in place as I walked up to him. Then he smiled. It was a more human smile, one that wasn’t full of excitement and bravado.
“I appreciate your concern for my well-being,” he said. “But…it wouldn’t be the same. Things must change, then. I guess I knew they would.” He gestured toward the warehouse. “The stone is solidified memories, Spensa. Shall we see what they hold?”
We entered the building, then stepped up to the wall—feeling dwarfed by the enormous portal, carved with serpentine lines by the weathering of time. Not like things weathered in the somewhere—an erosion uniquely of this place, caused by the people who entered and left.