Cytonic (The Skyward Series Book 3)

Part 2

I woke to the feeling of something nudging me. M-Bot? Yes, he was poking me with a drone arm.

I yawned, stretching. Curiously, my strange experiences the previous night were perfectly crisp in my mind. Talking to Jorgen, feeling his concern. Then overhearing the conversation between Winzik and the delvers.

Scud. Winzik was trying to make a deal with the delvers.

If he succeeded, the war would take a very, very bad turn.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “You have been asleep for ten hours, per my internal chronometer. Chet just got up and left the cave. I woke you, as you requested.”

I sat up in the dim light, my back stiff from resting on stone.

M-Bot hovered closer. “I,” he said, “would like to be acknowledged. It was exceptionally boring watching you two all night.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry to make you keep watch like that, but I slept more soundly knowing you were there.”

“Well, to be honest, waiting isn’t as bad for me as it is for a human. I can change how quickly time seems to pass for me by speeding up or slowing down my processor. I’m going to go take a cactus break. Let me know if you need me to do anything else super boring.”

He floated off out of the cave, and I followed. Chet stood on some of the higher rocks of the hills here, looking outward. A heroic pose, focused, determined.

I climbed up beside him and adopted a similar pose, staring across the expanse of flying chunks to the distant lightburst. Home of the delvers.

“Two hundred years,” Chet said. “And I’m finally going to do it. Walk the Path of Elders.”

“Why have you never tried?”

“At first, I didn’t know about it,” he said. “After that, I didn’t really understand what it was. Now…” He glanced at me. “I’ve never found a place I was afraid to travel, Spensa Nightshade. I always thought I’d be willing to explore everything and anything! But then I found something inside me, inside my head, that I didn’t understand.”

“I felt kind of the same way.”

“It all worried me,” he said. “Chet Starfinder, afraid to explore his own mind…” He glanced outward. “I can make a picture in my head of the entire belt. I can visualize it somehow, know my way to every fragment. That’s how it manifests for me—other than speaking mind to mind. What about you?”

“I can do the speaking thing too, obviously,” I said. “And more, I seem to be able to intercept thoughts that others send out, even when they don’t want me to. I can use what I hear, interpret it, use it in battle by instinct. Plus, I can hyperjump—moving instantly from place to place.”

“So it is possible,” Chet said. “That sounds extremely useful.”

I grimaced. “Less so when you’re as untrained as I am. Regardless, being able to see the landscape around you? Like you have…sonar? That sounds pretty awesome.”

“It’s useful for an explorer, I must admit!” he exclaimed, then pointed. “The fragment you need to reach is in that exact direction, but we’ll have to take a roundabout path, I’m afraid. We travel at the whims of the fragments, and can cross only when they bump against one another. I can see the route, fortunately. Eight fragments. We should be there in about a day’s time.” He looked at me and smiled widely. “Are you prepared, Spensa Nightshade, for an adventure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then onward!” Chet said, then slid down the rock slope and landed on the ground in an expert maneuver.

I followed almost as skillfully.

“Wonderful!” he said as I landed.

“I’ve got some experience caving,” I explained.

He led us off then, M-Bot zooming along behind as we struck outward. Over the next little while, I got a fairly good picture of this place—at least on the small scale. The fragments were of different sizes, but on average took around two hours to cross. And there was such variety to them. The first we traversed was covered in strange tall weeds with red tips. The next was dominated by towering rock formations rising high like sentinels. The third had enormous waterfalls that tumbled from heights and then flowed straight off the side of the fragment in some impossible continuous cycle.

The travel challenged me to the extent of my physical abilities. On the second fragment, we had to rappel down the sides of cliffs using the light-line. On the third we forded a river, then crawled through a tunnel behind a waterfall. The fourth fragment was a prairie with many ravines and was populated by beasts that looked like rhinoceroses, only with two heads and fearsome teeth. It was touch-and-go as we hid behind rocks while they wandered past, seeking prey. Chet explained they didn’t need to eat, but were instinctually driven to hunt.

The next fragment was rocky and barren, with only a few small trees for plant life. We had to wait on the far side to meet up with the next one—and while we stood there, Chet suddenly rushed us beneath the cover of a small scraggly tree with a thankfully thick canopy. Soon starships soared past—pirates on the lookout for slaves to capture.

Chet saw me watching them from beneath the trees, and must have noticed the hunger in my eyes.

“There is a pirate base a little beyond our first destination,” he explained. “If you are still so bold as to want to try, I believe we can acquire a starship there—through roguish means, naturally.”

I grinned at his phrasing, and then we scampered out—risking being spotted by the pirates—in order to catch the next fragment before it floated away. We skidded down the slope and leapt across together, reaching a swampy fragment with decaying trees and soft ground.

A real swamp! Places like I’d imagined from childhood, listening to Gran-Gran’s stories. They were all here, each landscape in microcosm, inviting me to explore. As we traveled, I began to feel an exhilaration—and something more, something deeper.

Confidence.

It felt like it had been forever. I’d spent weeks uncertain of myself as I infiltrated the Superiority, trying to act like another person, lying and sneaking. I’d been terrified that my personality faults would cause me to fail the mission, and thereby doom my people.

It was so satisfying to be able to do something that I was good at. I’d spent a decade exploring the caverns of Detritus, and had trained physically for the task. I could tell, from the way Chet spoke and acted, that he hadn’t anticipated my expertise in this—and he seemed to find it thrilling to be guiding someone who could keep up with him.

It made me feel wonderful. Like I could accomplish anything. I would walk this Path of Elders, and I would learn the secrets of the delvers. I’d bring this information back to my people, and together we would defeat the Superiority.

I could do it. I really could.

I loved that feeling.

“Spensa?” M-Bot asked as we moved around the perimeter of the swamp fragment—the footing was more solid here. “You appear more…alive than I’ve seen you recently.”

“I’m merely confident,” I said. “That we can do this.”

“I’m not,” he said. “It seems like so much. Chet says we’ll have to travel all the way inward to follow this Path. Pirates, the Superiority, the delvers… It’s a lot, Spensa.”

“Focus on what we can accomplish right now,” I suggested. “For the moment, all we have to do is get across this swamp.”

“Well, that’s easy for me,” he said. “I can fly.”

“See? One step at a time. You can do this. I can do this. Whatever it takes.”

He nodded by wobbling his drone up and down. “Okay!” he said. “Whatever it takes. My! That feels good. To at least pretend we’re in control! I like it. Is this how you feel all the time?”

I wished that were true, but I didn’t contradict him as he zipped out over the swamp, looking down at…

“A mushroom!” he shouted, hovering above one growing in the bog. “A real mushroom, Spensa!”

I stopped to watch him buzz back and forth. Being in a drone suited him. There was an energy to his personality that came out as he flew around me in a circle.

Chet walked back to join me in watching M-Bot. I even caught him smiling.

“He’s really not dangerous,” I said to Chet.

“His energy is a little contagious,” he admitted. “We’re almost there—only two fragments to go. The portal you seek is in some ruins.”

“Ruins?” I asked. “Like from an old mining operation?”

“No,” he said. “Though we’ll pass something like that on the next fragment. The ruins we’re hunting are older. Perhaps as old as this place.”

“Have you wondered how all of this got here?” I asked him. “This landscape, these fragments?”

“Indeed I have. There are legends, naturally. People think hyperjump accidents are behind some of it, or even the delvers. But lore says that some of this was here before either delvers or cytonics.”

I helped M-Bot harvest a sample of his mushroom and store it inside his “specimen box,” which was the cavity in the cleaning drone where it once held the dust it vacuumed up. The little drone hummed happily as we started out again.

We reached a larger river flowing over the side of the swamp fragment. Chet directed us inward instead of trying to ford it. Though the current wasn’t swift, he didn’t like the idea of potentially being swept off amid uncertain footing.

We continued on, leaping from one firm section of ground to another. After a half hour or so of this, Chet halted me by taking my arm. He narrowed his eyes at the next section of land, then shook his head.

“False land,” he explained. “See how it ripples? Sinkhole underneath that patch. This way.” He led me through some still water, where the stench of the mud was terrible. Soon we reached another long section of dry land.

“Are there any landscapes you haven’t traveled?” I asked him, impressed by how easily he guided us.

“Oh, I’m sure there’s something out there that I haven’t seen,” he said. “But I have traveled a great deal! I don’t like staying in one place—you lose track of time in here that way. I prefer new sights, new experiences! I only stay with others when I’m out of reality ashes. Once I have a few, I’m off!”

After a little more hiking, I spotted our next fragment: the penultimate one before reaching our destination. This one turned out to be another desert, but with vast dunes as tall as buildings. I narrowed my eyes. Didn’t sand worms live in dunes like that? Or at least giant scorpions?

Before we could cross over, however, Chet perked up. He turned, then pointed. There were more starships in the sky.