Брендон Сандерсон - Cytonic

“That sure would be a nice change…”

“And you still intend to follow the Path of Elders?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Then our journey begins,” he said, walking over and offering a hand to pull me to my feet. “Join me, Spensa Nightshade, as we head toward adventure and I do some explaining.”

“All right,” I said as we started across the desert. “First question. How can this place be the nowhere? I’ve been in the nowhere before during hyperjumps. I think I’d remember flying chunks of stone and monsters with teeth in their noses.”

“An astute observation. What you experienced before is the inside of the lightburst.” Chet spun around, both arms extended as he walked. “We are outside it now—in the belt, which is a boundary area. Things of our world—like time, individuality, matter itself—have leaked into the belt. Like how you get brackish water between an ocean and a river.”

“I’ve…never seen an ocean,” I said.

“Tragic!” he said. “Perhaps imagine two countries next to one another. Over time, the people living near the border might pick up the other country’s language. Start to practice some of its habits, customs, traditions. Well, that’s the belt: the part of the nowhere that abuts the somewhere—the ordinary universe—so has some of the same rules. Those who tossed you in here didn’t warn you?”

“I wasn’t thrown in,” I said. “I jumped in on purpose. To escape being captured.”

“Some might call that extreme,” Chet said.

“It was my warrior’s duty,” I explained, “to avoid capture, so that I could not be tortured into betraying my friends.”

Chet grinned. “I like the way you think, young woman. Honor, valor. From those I’ve met in here over recent years, I worried such ideals had been lost!”

“There is this galactic empire,” I told him, “called the Superiority. They…have a different perspective on battle.”

“I know the Superiority,” Chet said. “They have a large base in here for extracting acclivity stone.”

“And so they must get the stone out,” I said.

“Yes, but the only active portals for that are operated by the Superiority,” Chet explained. “From what I know of them, they are unlikely to allow access. They seem a rather controlling bunch, led by…some unsavory individuals.”

“They’re absolute jerks,” I agreed. The word made me sentimental and think of Jorgen. It was a stupid reaction, but it felt like years since I’d last heard his earnest voice.

I’d almost been able to go back to that. Instead I’d come here—a decision I desperately hoped was the correct one.

Please, Jorgen, I thought, stay safe. And be smarter than I’ve been.

Chet snapped a branch off a nearby dried-out shrub, and we stopped walking for a moment as he drew a wide circle in the sand, with a smaller circle at the center.

“Imagine this as the nowhere,” he said. “The lightburst is this circle at the center. All of this larger portion is the belt—where the fragments float. I’ve always thought it resembled a sunny-side-up egg, the yolk being the lightburst and the white being all the fragments.”

“Got it,” I said. “Where are we?”

“Right at the edge,” he said, stabbing the stick at the very rim of the drawing. “This is pirate territory. Specifically, we’re in the region claimed by the Cannonade Faction, near the border of Broadsider Faction territory. That’s where we can start the Path of Elders.”

“Which is…”

“When people come into the nowhere, they leave an impression,” he explained. “Memories, embedded into the stone of the portals. You can view these—and a long time ago, some cytonics organized a few of the portals into a kind of narrative. One walks the Path of Elders to see firsthand the lore of the ancient cytonics.” He hesitated. “I’ve never done it, but it supposedly requires you to travel all the way inward to the lightburst.”

I turned toward the enormous glowing sphere. “That…seems like quite a distance.”

“It’s a trip of roughly fifty thousand klicks.”

That was a daunting distance. Even in a Poco starfighter at full speed, it was a trip that would take many hours. On foot… Well, scud. We were talking years.

“So,” I said, “we really are going to have to find a way to steal a ship.”

“I’m looking forward to it!” Chet said.

“I’ll try not to distract us by going the other direction this time.”

“You made the correct choice,” he said. “Reality icons are worth more than ships. Unfortunately, I fear that even with a ship our journey will be difficult.” He drew a little more on his map of the nowhere. “I know where the Path of Elders starts—here in the rim, inside Broadsider territory. I can get us there. But to get any farther inward, we’re going to have to move through Superiority territory, which will be very difficult. They have long-range scanners and dozens of starfighters. If we try to fly through, they’re likely to intercept us.”

“I’m pretty handy with a starfighter,” I said.

“Well, I’m excited to see you fly, then!” he said. “The Superiority forces aren’t the best pilots. In fact, everyone in here tends to be people the Superiority forced in. Not all are exiles, but the workers are pressured into their jobs at the acclivity stone quarries at their base, Surehold.

“Most of the pirates are miners who have defected. The entire place is a mess, Spensa Nightshade. Full of desperate people trying to survive. To move inward along the Path, we’re going to have to sneak past them all. And then… Well, if we have to approach the lightburst, it’s going to get even worse.”

He pointed at the remainder of the space, past Superiority territory, inward toward the lightburst. “This is No Man’s Land. The fragments are more stable through this section, with less bumping or colliding. But this is delver territory.”

“Isn’t all of the nowhere delver territory?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” he said. “Out here in the belt, things are too much like the somewhere for them. They can’t see into this region well, and you can hide from them here. But if you get into No Man’s Land…well, it will be impossible to avoid their attention. I’ve heard of pilots in No Man’s Land seeing things that aren’t real. Or crumbling to dust.”

I thought it through, surveying the crude drawing. M-Bot hovered over, inspected it, and took a picture.

“What’s to the far right?” I said, pointing. “And the far left? Can you go all the way around?”

“Possibly,” Chet said, “but in those directions there are large expanses with no fragments. Empty sections are dangerous to cross, even with a ship. But the Path of Elders is forward, not to the sides. Still determined to walk it?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“That’s the spirit!” he said, standing.

“Once we do all this, there will still be one problem,” I said. “I’ll need to get home. If the Superiority doesn’t let me use their portals, then what?”

“Well…” Chet said. “Theoretically there’s a way out. A quite simple one.” He turned and looked toward the lightburst.

Right. That was the center of the nowhere—the place where I traveled when I hyperjumped. “If I get into the lightburst, I can jump home?”

“I believe so,” he said. “I’ve never dared get close enough. But it should work—it’s like a giant portal between dimensions, after all. I’ll admit, though, the lightburst intimidates me. Inside, there is no time. There is no place. It’s like…a single point somehow as vast as a universe.”