I hadn’t thought about what that was like for the flight, waiting in their ships. They’d known there was a bomb. Alanik had pulled Rig in to try to disarm it.
Oh scud. “Is Rig okay?” I asked. “He knows that it wasn’t his fault, right?”
FM held out a hand and wobbled it back and forth. “I mean, logically he knows. He is not an expert at defusing explosives. But he still blames himself.”
I should have said something to him. I was the officer in charge of that operation, and it was my responsibility to—
“We’re not talking about Rig either,” FM said. “The question is, do you blame yourself?”
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about it.
“But you know it isn’t your fault, right?”
I stared out at the ocean. The sun was starting to get lower in the sky, the light over the whole landscape turning an orangey-yellow.
I didn’t answer, and FM sighed. “What happened on the ship? Before the explosion.”
I closed my eyes. My memories felt fractured, slowed down and sped up all at once. “We split up,” I said. “I was taking fake Cobb to my parents to out him. Alanik went to release Gran-Gran. She was able to communicate with Gran-Gran, and Gran-Gran said she could sense Cobb, like, cytonically, even though she shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
“So something strange was going on with Gran-Gran even before they hyperjumped,” FM said.
“Yeah, I guess so. Alanik also said Gran-Gran was talking about hearing voices.”
Voices asking for help.
Oh scud.
Whatever had gone wrong with her, was it happening to me too? She’d somehow lost her powers because of it, and if I did the same—
“There’s more,” I said. “Those people in the tent are Gran-Gran and Cobb—at least, best as we can tell—but Gran-Gran doesn’t appear to be cytonic.”
“What does that mean?” FM asked.
“It means her mind isn’t…visible to us in the nowhere anymore. She’s lost her…vibration, I guess.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” FM said. “That’s bad, Jorgen.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She was fleeing a Superiority ship. Maybe it was a trap they left for anyone trying to hyperjump away? But Alanik and I didn’t get caught in it.”
Not yet anyway.
I remembered the strange things I’d felt when Alanik and I were looking for Gran-Gran and Cobb in the nowhere—the texture, like there were hundreds of beings around me, there one moment and gone the next.
There was something out there in the nowhere. Maybe it wasn’t the Superiority at all. “I wonder if it’s them,” I said. “The delvers. The voices didn’t sound like I would imagine a delver—”
“Wait,” FM said. “You’ve heard them? The voices that asked for help?”
Scud. “Yeah,” I said, rubbing my hands on my knees, trying to wipe off the sand. The stuff seemed to cling to everything. I wondered if we’d ever be free of it. “I heard them in the meeting. Right before I… Right before.”
“That’s not good,” FM said. “There’s something really weird going on, and you’re all caught up in it.”
“I know,” I said.
“And that’s the only reason I’ve let us get sidetracked for this long. You were telling me about what happened on the ship. You told me all about what happened to Alanik…”
“I went to find my parents,” I said. “It took me a while, because the ship was big and I took some wrong turns. Eventually fake Cobb got away from me and ran off. He seemed really eager to get out of there, though I didn’t know why until Alanik told me about the bomb.”
“Right,” FM said.
“By the time I found my parents, they were trapped in this room in the center of the ship. I could see them through the glass but it wouldn’t break, and all the doors were sealed shut.”
I saw my father’s face through the glass, his resignation when the Superiority announced they were going to be exterminated. My mother yelling at me to leave them, to escape, to save myself.
“The Superiority announced they were going to kill them,” I said. “Alanik and I tried to find a way to get them out, but there wasn’t one.”
“That’s not your fault,” FM said. “You had minutes at best, like Rig. You weren’t prepared for that and it isn’t your fault. The Superiority did this, not you.”
“My mother told me to go, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t listen to Alanik either. And right before Alanik pulled me out, my mother spoke to me through the glass—she said to do better than they did.”
“Stars,” FM said. “No wonder you feel pressure to stay in control of everything.”
I didn’t want to be in control. I just wanted to make sure the DDF was in the hands of someone who would keep our people safe.
“I didn’t want to leave them,” I said. “If Alanik hadn’t pulled me out, I would have died there.”
FM closed her eyes. “Thank the stars for Alanik then.”
I couldn’t say this next part. I couldn’t bring myself to form the words, especially not to FM.
Maybe it would have been easier if I had died there.
I looked out over the ocean.
I couldn’t think like that. My flight needed me. Cobb needed me. We had to figure out how to reverse whatever the Superiority or the delvers had done to him and get him back in charge of the DDF.
FM was right. My parents’ deaths weren’t my fault. But all the ways I was failing everyone now, falling apart when I should have been leading—
That was squarely on my head.
I stood up and brushed sand off my flight suit.
“You aren’t done talking,” FM said.
“Yes,” I said. “I am.” I couldn’t sit here being useless. Maybe FM was right. Maybe talking could change how I felt, but it didn’t do anything to help everyone else.
I couldn’t indulge in that. I couldn’t be useless. I’d already lost Spensa, lost my parents.
I couldn’t let it happen again, not to anyone else.
“Maybe for now,” FM said. “We’ll talk more later.”
Scud. I’d answered her questions. Wasn’t that enough?
I was almost glad to see Alanik headed my way with Nedd and Arturo. Juno floated along farther behind them. I didn’t want to answer their questions either, but at least they weren’t going to probe me about my feelings, especially in front of the kitsen.