Брендон Сандерсон - Cytonic

Then, a few minutes later, it collided with the next fragment it encountered. Both fragments were made up of more rock than the one that had collapsed before—and so they crushed together, stone crumpling and bulging like the fronts of some of the starfighters I’d seen impact. The sound was incredible.

As I hovered in place, Peg slowly drifted up beside me in her shuttle. “Never seen anything like that,” she said privately over the comm. “I’m growing gludens. Though now that we’re safe, I’m kind of glad I get to watch it. This feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

I was sure that for most people, it would be just that.

“Peg,” I said, “we need to make our assault on Surehold sooner than planned.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Sitting here like this is tempting fate. The nowhere is changing in dangerous ways. Plus, I’m…getting too complacent. I want to be moving on.”

“All right, all right. Don’t toss tidos at me. Maybe we can move the timeline up.”

The fragments that had collided shattered into multiple pieces of acclivity stone. The largest portions stayed pushed together, fused in the center, while smaller bits went bouncing free, spraying out like enormous chunks of shrapnel.

“You know,” Peg said absently, “it’s almost like the nowhere just up and decided to try to kill us.” She laughed, though there was an edge to the sound.

“Let’s assault Surehold tomorrow,” I said. “Waiting will only give the Superiority a chance to notice that we’re gathering, preparing something. We’re ready. Let’s do it.”

Peg was silent for a time, and I couldn’t judge her body language, not in separate ships as we were. I tried to inch mine forward to glance in through the window of her tug.

“Peg?” I asked.

“All right. We’ll need to rush to get all the ships back together and do last-minute preparations. If we can manage that…then, yeah. Tomorrow. I’ll let the other faction leaders know.”

I got up the next morning eager, excited. I’d done a quick check-in with Jorgen to let him know what I’d overheard in regard to the delvers and Winzik. But I hadn’t stayed with him long; I’d known many of our team would be working all night on the ships. The pilots had been ordered to get a good night’s sleep, and so I had forced myself to do just that.

Indeed, the hangar was already a buzz of activity when I entered. Ground crew members were still dashing this way and that. By the large clock Peg had set up, we had two hours until departure—and there still appeared to be a lot to get done. Back home, I’d have left all these sorts of preparations to the professionals. That wasn’t how the Broadsiders worked though.

Instead I hurried to M-Bot’s ship, where Nuluba was working. She’d serviced the boosters and was just now putting the casing back on one of them. I sprang to help her lift the casing into place, and it occurred to me that this was a chance to do something I’d been meaning to for a while.

“Nuluba,” I said. “I…want to apologize to you.”

“Apologize, Spin?” she said, gesturing with one arm in a wide loop—something I thought was to express comfort. “You have made up for your theft of the ship.”

“It’s not about that,” I said. “It’s about how I might have treated you, particularly when I was first here. I…worry I was kind of abrasive to you.”

“Ah,” Nuluba said, using a drill to lock the bolts as I held the casing in place. “Yes, I did notice that. I assumed it was your natural human aggression.”

“It was more than that,” I said. “You heard about my past?”

“A freedom fighter,” she said. “From a human enclave.”

“Yes,” I said. “Most of our jailors were varvax, though we called them the Krell. And…well, I’ve never really gotten over that. Despite the fact that you’ve always been nice to me, I think I might have taken it out on you.”

“My, my,” she said, and I winced, thinking—even now—of Winzik. “That is very mature of you, Spin. Very mature and very wise. I cannot say I was so quick to reject my biases when I first met Maksim.”

“Really? You did it too?”

“Oh yes,” she said as we stepped away from the now-completed booster. “It is unfortunate, and I am embarrassed. I commend you for giving me a chance, Spin. If I had been imprisoned by humans for many years, I do not know that I would be so willing to accept one of them into my company.”

I smiled, and she waved her hands in response. How could I have ever hated this thoughtful creature? She was so calm, so relaxed. In a way, Nuluba represented something I’d never actually known: a person at peace with themself and their place in the universe. Or, well, the non-universe.

“You are ready to go,” she said, patting the booster. “Fully tuned. It was a pleasure.”

I looked at the ship, with its sleek shape and powerful boosters, and my excitement stoked further. “You’re always so serene with this work,” I said to Nuluba. “Whether it’s doing maintenance or taking inventory. Wouldn’t you like to fly one of these?”

“Please, no,” Nuluba said, gesturing with her fingers making a light rolling motion. A varvax laugh. “I like things simple.”

“Piloting can be simple.”

“No, pilots are too important,” she explained. “I like being ignored. That’s why I picked the job I did in the somewhere. I prefer to just sit in the corner and putter. It was…distressing that I caused so much of a fuss with my discoveries.” She hesitated, then grew more solemn. “Not that I’d go back. I hate the lies we’ve told.”

There was a heroism in those words, a type I’d never acknowledged. To me, being a hero had always been about fighting. But Nuluba reminded me of Cuna, the quiet diplomat who had done so much to resist Winzik.

“Before you suit up,” Nuluba said, pointing, “I believe Shiver wanted to speak to you.”

We still had a good amount of time until takeoff, so I dodged around Maksim as he jogged past with a spare power matrix, then entered the resonants’ corner of the room. Here, I always felt as if I were stepping up to a large geode. They’d leaked lines of crystal—like veins in stone—out from their ships, then over to this section. When I’d asked Shiver why, she’d explained that the crystals grew naturally, and so they needed to send them somewhere.

Each time they flew away, they broke connections to this place—but so long as they returned soon enough, they could reconnect. If they moved to Surehold, what would happen? Would this crystal network in the corner eventually crumble to dust?

Up close, I could distinguish their crystals from each other. Shiver was slightly more violet, and Dllllizzzz slightly more pink. They had grown over one another in a way I was led to understand was common among friendly resonants. The two beings chatted softly in their musical language; they did that almost constantly when near each other.

“You wanted to talk to me?” I asked Shiver, settling down beside one of her larger crystals.

“Yes, Spin,” Shiver responded. “I wished to thank you. For making this possible.”

“The assault today?”

“Indeed,” Shiver said. “Peg has been planning this for years. I…vibrate with joy, knowing the plan is finally moving forward. But I also wish to thank you on behalf of Dllllizzzz. If we are successful, we will again have access to the icon at Surehold—and the reality ashes. I maintain hope that having more of those, over the long term, will continue to help her.”

“How’s she been lately?” I asked, glancing toward the array of crystals.

“It is difficult to cleave that question, Spin,” Shiver said. “Sometimes she seems almost ready to speak. At the very edge of layered words, sentences. And then…she withdraws to unlayered words. Hints at meanings. I’ve heard true words from her only a handful of times now, including when she spoke to you.”