Jorgen walked around the car, then sat down on the front bumper. “Whatever it is, I can help. I can fix it.”
“Don’t fix,” I said. “Just listen.”
“I . . . Okay.”
I walked into the garage and perched on the bumper beside him, looking out the gaping front hangar door. Up toward the sky, and the distant patterns of the debris field.
“My father,” I said. “。 . . Was a traitor.” I took a deep breath. Why was it so hard to say?
“I always fought against the idea,” I continued. “I had convinced myself that it couldn’t be true. But Cobb let me watch a recording of the Battle of Alta. My father didn’t run, like everyone says he did. He did something worse. He switched sides and shot down our own ships.”
“I know,” Jorgen said softly.
Of course he knew. Had everyone known but me?
“Do you know about something called the defect?” I asked.
“I’ve heard the term, Spin, but my parents won’t explain it to me. They call it foolishness, whatever it is.”
“I think . . . I think it’s something inside a person that makes them serve the Krell. Is that insane? My father suddenly joined them and shot down his own flightmates. Something must have happened, something strange. That’s obvious.
“Learning I was wrong about him has shaken everything I know. Ironsides hates me because she trusted my father, and he betrayed her. She’s certain I have the same flaw inside me that he had, and has been using sensors in my helmet to test it somehow.”
“That’s stupid,” he said. “Look, my parents have a lot of merits. We can go to them and . . .” He took a deep breath, and must have noticed the expression on my face. “Right,” he said. “Don’t fix, just listen?”
“Just listen.”
He nodded.
I wrapped my arms around myself again. “I don’t know that I can trust my own senses, Jorgen. There are . . . signs my father exhibited, before he switched sides. Signs I see in myself.”
“Like what?”
“Hearing sounds from the stars,” I whispered. “Seeing thousands of spots of light that I could swear are eyes, watching me. I seem to be losing control of everything in my life—or maybe I’ve never had any control in the first place. And . . . Jorgen, that’s terrifying.”
He leaned forward, clasping his hands. “Do you know about the mutiny aboard the Defiant?” he asked.
“There was a mutiny?”
He nodded. “I’m not supposed to know about it, but you hear things, when you have the parents I do. During the final days, there was a disagreement about what the fleet should do. And half of the ship rebelled against the command staff. The rebels included the engineering crew.”
“My ancestors,” I whispered.
“They’re the ones who flew us to Detritus,” Jorgen said. “Caused us to crash here, for our own good. But . . . there is talk, whispers, that the engineering staff was in collusion with the Krell. That our enemy wanted us pinned down, trapped here.
“My ancestors were from the Defiant’s science staff, and we also sided with the mutineers. My parents don’t want people knowing about the mutiny—they think it will only cause divisions to talk about it. But maybe that’s where this silly talk of a defect, and mind control by the Krell, started.”
“I don’t think it’s silly, Jorgen,” I said. “I think . . . I think it must be true. I think that if I go into the sky with the rest of you, I could . . . I could turn against you at any moment.”
He looked at me, then reached out and rested his hand on my shoulder. “You,” he said softly, “are amazing.”
I cocked my head. “What?”
“You,” he said, “are amazing. Everything about my life has been planned out. Careful. It makes sense. I understand it. Then there’s you. You ignore my authority. You follow your feelings. You talk like some Valkyrie from a scudding ballad! I should hate you. And yet . . .”
He squeezed my shoulder. “And yet, when you fly, you are amazing. You’re so determined, so skillful, so passionate. You’re a fire, Spin. When everyone else is calm, you’re a burning bonfire. Beautiful, like a newly forged blade.”
I felt a deep warmth rising inside me. A heat that I wasn’t prepared to feel.
“I don’t care about the past,” Jorgen said, meeting my eyes. “I don’t care if there’s a risk. I want you to fly with us—because I’m damn sure that we’re safer with you at our side than not. Mythical defect or not. I’ll take the chance.”
“Ironsides thought something similar about my father.”
“Spin. You can’t base decisions about your future on something we don’t understand.”
I looked back at him, meeting his eyes—which were the deepest brown. But with hints of light grey at the very centers, right around the pupils. I’d never noticed that before.
He let go of my shoulder suddenly, leaning back. “Sorry,” he said. “I went straight into ‘fix’ mode instead of ‘listen’ mode, didn’t I?”
“No, that was fine. Even helpful.”
He stood up. “So . . . you’ll keep flying?”
“For now,” I said. “I’ll try not to crash into you, except when strictly necessary.”
He smiled a distinctly un-Jerkfacey smile. “I should get going—I have to go get fitted for my graduation uniform.”
I stood up, and we looked at each other awkwardly for a second. Last time we’d had something nearing a heart-to-heart—back on the launchpad—he’d hugged me. Which still felt weird. Instead, I offered a hand, which he took. But then he leaned in, close to me.
“You aren’t your father, Spin,” he said. “Remember that.” Then he squeezed my shoulder again before climbing into his car.
I stepped back and let him drive off, but then found I didn’t know what to do next. Return to base for some PT? Hike to M-Bot’s cave, where he sat lifeless? What was I going to do with leave?
The answer seemed obvious.
It was past time for me to visit my family.
45
By now, I was used to the way people treated me up in Alta. They made space for a pilot, even a cadet. On the long street outside the base, the farmers and workers would give me friendly smiles or a raised fist of approval.
Still, I was shocked by the treatment I received in Igneous. When the elevator opened, people waiting outside immediately parted, letting me pass through. Whispers followed me, but instead of the harsh notes of condemnation I normally heard, these were awed, excited. It was a pilot.
Growing up, I’d practiced staring back when people looked at me. When I did that now, people blushed and averted their gazes—as if they’d been caught sneaking extra rations.
What a strange collision between my old life and my new one. I strolled along the walkway and looked up at the roof of the cavern, so far above. That stone didn’t belong there, trapping me inside. I missed the sky already, and it was so hot and stuffy down here.
I passed the smelting factories, where the ancient apparatus belched heat and light, turning rock into steel. I passed an energy plant that somehow converted the molten heat of the deep core into electricity. I wandered beneath the calm, defiant stone hand of Harald Oceanborn. The statue held up an old Viking sword, and had an enormous steel rectangle—carved with sharp lines and a sun—rising behind him.