I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. As I reached out with my cytonic senses, I could feel Alanik on the chair beside me, and Boomslug and Snuggles settling on my lap. I widened my focus and found the other slugs across the platform, and—dimly—the vibrations that indicated there were still more taynix down on the planet that we hadn’t been able to locate.
I should probably be down there looking for them myself, since I could sense them and the ground crews couldn’t. Maybe Cobb would use that as an excuse to send me away for a while once he returned. It would be better than bereavement leave. At least I’d have something to focus on, something to do.
“Okay,” Alanik said. “We’re going to reach away from Detritus. The universe is like a giant map, and we can examine places up close or at a distance. Do you know what I mean?”
“Not really,” I said. “I can focus in on one person’s mind, or sense the cytonic…vibration of a group. But I don’t see locations, only people.”
“People!” Snuggles announced. I thought she liked being included.
“Hmm,” Alanik said. “This is why you have a hard time hyperjumping, probably.”
“I can visualize a physical place in my mind,” I said. “Like I can imagine the trees of ReDawn, because I’ve seen them, and send that picture to Snuggles.”
“Snuggles,” Boomslug said affectionately.
“Forget about the places then,” Alanik said. “I think our experience of them is different. Instead, try reaching for people, but instead of looking for them, listen.”
That sounded just as nonsensical, but at least it didn’t require me to look for things I couldn’t see.
“When you say ‘listen,’ do you mean for things you hear? Or the way Spensa heard the stars, the way I heard the slugs. Like, the vibration of the universe?”
“Neither,” Alanik said. “Like when I speak in your mind. Listen for the voices of others. You can intercept their communications, whether it’s hypercomm or mind-to-mind. It all passes through the negative realm, and if you are passing through it at the same time…”
Okay. That made sense. “Thank you for explaining,” I said. “When Gran-Gran taught me this stuff, she mostly made me knead bread and told me to listen to the stars. It helped, weirdly, but it wasn’t exactly intuitive.”
“That’s not as bad a tactic as you might think,” Alanik said. “My training was similar. I can try to explain things to you, but in the end your intuition is the only way you will learn.”
I hated that. I liked things that could be explained, preferably with proven pedagogical techniques, written reference materials, and lots of concrete examples. Cytonics was the opposite of that in every way, and I couldn’t help but feel that whatever force was handing these powers out had given them to the wrong person when they picked me.
Spensa seized her powers and made use of them. I was floundering around in the dark.
Beside me I could feel Alanik’s mind as she expanded her senses, reaching out into the void. I tried to do the same, at first looking for other minds, then listening for voices.
I wondered if I could find Spensa that way, the way she’d reached out to me from the nowhere. My mind was passing through it, and if she was in there it made sense that I would be able to find her again. I hoped every day, and even more since the explosion, that I’d hear from her. I wanted evidence she was all right, news that she was finding a way to return.
But more than anything, I desperately wanted to hear her voice again.
I expanded my mind, listening.
And then, just barely, I heard a snatch of something. A voice in the nothingness. —solar flares on the—avoid the area—
“I heard something!” I said. “Something about a solar flare.”
“It’s a weather report,” Alanik said. “I found that one. It’s a Superiority broadcast among their hyperjumping ships, warning them about hazards as they navigate the galaxy.”
Of course Alanik had already heard it. But that didn’t change the fact that I’d found it. I’d given up hope that I would be able to hyperjump, but Alanik said every cytonic should technically have access to all cytonic powers, even if various ones could be harder for some than for others.
Maybe I wasn’t completely hopeless. Maybe I could still master this, or at least gain some passable skills.
I continued listening. The sounds were tiny blips in a vast area, like a taynix hiding among all the caverns of Detritus. I found another broadcast giving what sounded like navigational coordinates, and a ship captain complaining about some of his subordinates to his commander. These were all hypercomm signals—they didn’t originate in the nowhere. But if Spensa was in here, there had to be a way to reach her. Spensa, I thought. Are you there? Can you hear me?
“Stop that,” Alanik said. “You’re drowning everything else out.”
My face flushed. Oh. Right. Of course Alanik could hear that. She was sitting right next to me, literally searching for cytonic signals.
I can hear all of that too, Alanik said. It would be wonderful if we could find Spensa in here and find a way to bring her home, but perhaps we could focus on one matter at a time?
“Of course,” I said. “Sorry.”
I sat and listened to the echoing void of the universe, trying not to radiate any thoughts that would overpower Alanik’s search. I still wished I could search for Spensa, instead of combing through mundane hypercomm communications on the off chance someone might be sending anti-Superiority messages through the nowhere. The more I thought about this, the more it seemed like the odds of finding such a communication at the precise moment it was being sent would be one in a million. And it was frustrating to hear the Superiority using this technology like it was basic radio—they had made hypercommunication part of their civilization, while the rest of us were only now clawing our way out of the dark ages.
Spensa would be angry about that. She probably was angry about it. I wished she were here; she’d be better at this than I was. Spensa would probably—
Spensa!
I opened my eyes, blinking rapidly. That hadn’t been Alanik’s voice, or the slugs’.
Had I imagined it? After everything that had happened, was I losing my mind?
I reached out again, focusing on the voice. —please respond.
And then it started again. Spensa, human of Detritus—
“I found something,” I said.
Where? Alanik asked. I could feel her mind reaching out for mine, following me into the nothingness.
—return them! Please—