“You came to the belt to hide,” Hesho said. “Would they destroy you if they could?”
“I think they would,” Chet said. “It’s terrifying.”
We flew for a time in silence, passing what appeared to be an arctic fragment below. That was odd, but maybe temperature was like food in here. Maybe it wasn’t something my body recognized anymore.
“What if,” Hesho said, “we somehow presented the other delvers with a sequence of choices that made them select random options? Would that frighten them? Because by making random choices, some are bound to choose differently from the others.”
“But they aren’t,” Chet said. “Given the same circumstances, they’d all make the same choice.”
“I do not believe that is how randomness works,” Hesho said.
“Because randomness doesn’t exist,” Chet said.
“Wait,” I said. “Of course it does. M-Bot, give me a random number.”
“All right,” he said. “Between what and what? I’ll reference the seed from my electron-cloud-measuring—”
“No,” I said. “Don’t reference anything. Just pick a number.”
“Spensa, I’m literally incapable of that,” M-Bot replied. “Don’t you know anything about robots? In fact, it’s undetermined if even a human being can choose a truly random number.”
“Eight hundred thirty-seven,” I said.
“Ah,” Chet replied. “But that might have been completely inevitable, based on your brain chemistry and current stimuli.”
“Yay determinism!” M-Bot said.
I frowned. This…was not a direction I liked having the conversation go.
“Regardless,” Chet said, “this is how delvers work. Hesho, your suggestion was a good one given the facts you had—but it won’t be viable. I’m sorry.”
“Ah,” Hesho said, “but we don’t need them to truly make different decisions from one another, do we? We merely need to present them with the illusion of it happening. Or present them with the worrying possibility that it will. Correct?”
“I…” Chet frowned. “You’re right. In the belt, they can’t experience the future. So if you can make them afraid of what might happen, that’s as good for our purposes—distracting them long enough for you three to slip through and escape.”
A fluting sounded from my pocket.
“I’m sorry,” Chet said. “You four.”
Another fluting.
“I…don’t understand,” he said.
“She is insisting you keep her secret,” I said. “And not tell other delvers that her kind hide in here as inanimate objects. At least I think that’s what she’s saying. She’s not always clear.”
Annoyed fluting.
“Doomslug,” I said, “in the somewhere, you’d merely repeat back at me what I said. That’s not clear communication.”
Satisfied fluting. To her it was clear, because the noises were meant to get attention—it was the mind-to-mind bond that conveyed the actual emotion.
“Hesho’s plan is worth trying,” Chet continued. “We need to think of ways to present the delvers with decisions. I suspect that you’re right, Miss Nightshade. Those monsters will be frightened enough to enter the belt—but only very close to the lightburst.”
We brainstormed a few ways that this might work—one of which prompted us to pause for a bit and strap the drone to the outside of our hull for later use—so at least we had something. After that we took a break, and I glanced out the canopy to inspect the fragments. We’d passed out of Superiority territory into No Man’s Land. Here, the fragments were much closer together—bunched up, with short gaps between them.
“Spensa?” M-Bot said softly, his voice piping from the dash.
“Mmmm?” I asked.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier,” he told me. “That I should figure out why you are acting against your emotions. They wanted you to stay with the Broadsiders, but you left anyway.”
“And what did you come up with?”
“I am still confused. But I have decided that I know we have to continue. I think…I think we don’t actually have a choice. Not if we want to save our friends in the somewhere. So we have to fly on, prepared or not. That…Spensa, that makes me scared.”
“Yeah. Me too, bud.”
“So we must act against our emotions,” he said. “Spensa, why do we have them? I’m sorry to keep asking this, but I can’t grasp it. What’s the purpose of emotions if so often we have to deliberately act counter to what they’re telling us?”
I’d never thought about that. It seemed that I did act against my emotions more often than I acted in accordance with them. So what was the point?
“You’re asking the wrong person,” I finally said. “Hesho might be able to say something profound.”
“I don’t want something profound,” M-Bot said. “I want your answer.”
Ouch. Well, I figured maybe that could be a compliment?
“Without emotions to react against,” I said, “some better things couldn’t exist.”
“Like?”
“Like courage, M-Bot. Fear creates courage.”
He thought on that for a while. “I think…maybe I understand that. You need opposing emotions in order to feel good ones?”
“Yes,” I said. “And beyond that, I think emotions help us understand our own decisions. You just told me that you know we have to leave, even though you don’t feel it.”
“So…” he said. “So your emotions can’t be your only guide. They exist to help you make some decisions, but not all decisions. In this case, our minds overruled them. Because we realized that if we didn’t continue the quest, many people would be in danger. Emotions are like a secondary processing unit that measures different kinds of input to offer a contrasting opinion and other options for proceeding.”
“That’s right,” I said. “See? You’re putting all of this together.”
“With effort. It seems so instinctive to all of you.”
“That’s because we’ve had emotions since we were born,” I said. “You’re comparing my experience of almost twenty years to your experience of having had emotions—freely, without counter-programming—for a few weeks. That considered, you’re doing extremely well.”
He pondered that. And as he did, the dash chirped.
Destination approaching soon.
We had nearly reached the final stop on Chet’s Path of Elders. The resting place of memories that belonged to the delvers themselves.
Chapter 41
The lightburst had grown larger and larger as we approached. By now it dominated the sky. Below, the fragments had grown even closer to one another, the space between them shrinking until it was gone. These ones we passed now had been crushed together, forced to interlock, with ridges pushed up near junctures. Like someone had decided to do a puzzle but had gotten bored, then shoved all the pieces together regardless of whether they fit.
The light was changing too. As we flew the last few minutes toward our destination, the sky faded from pink to a more pure white. And the ground…it all felt painted. Strangely, the lightburst hadn’t grown brighter—I could still stare directly into it—but by its powerful radiance the landscape below became whited, with long shadows stretching away from the center.
I frowned at these, leaning over to watch those shadows pass below. They seemed too…sharp. Like wedges cut in the light that stretched behind peaks in the landscape. They were so long—eerily stretched, with distinct, harsh edges. Shouldn’t the light from the higher-up portions of the lightburst prevent that?