“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.”
Scud, that broke my brain to think about. I took a deep breath. “Let’s get on the Path first.”
“Onward we go, then!” He pointed with his stick, like some general with a sword. “We’ll need to cross eight fragments to get to where the Path starts. But in relative terms, that’s right round the corner!”
We continued across the sand, and M-Bot went hovering off to investigate some of the local plants. Just walking was harder to do than I’d imagined. It took extra effort to move when the ground kept shifting beneath you. Yet I was excited. This was all so new, so interesting.
I fished in my pocket and brought out my father’s pin. I felt…serenity, having it in my hand. How odd.
Chet eyed it as he had before. Hungry. As if he physically couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. I trusted him well enough, but…well, that hunger made me tuck the icon away. Instead I brought out one of the reality ashes and handed it to him. It was merely a speck, but he took it reverently and tucked it into a pouch from his pocket. Then he held that pouch, breathing in and out, and visibly relaxed.
“You said people lose themselves in here without those,” I said. “Is that what was happening to that burl? The pirate whose face was…melting?”