“Oh man, where to begin?” H’Jossu sounded relieved and excited that I was talking to him instead of hitting him. “Like, everything?”
“H’Jossu, this really isn’t the time,” Aela interrupted, the mechanical voice infinitely patient. “We’re going to be jumping soon, and I’m supposed to bring Sydney to the bridge. You should secure yourself in your room.”
H’Jossu nodded obediently, but then flashed me a grin that looked absolutely hideous on his mold-filled snout. “Total C-3PO vibes from this one, right?”
I forced a laugh and was relieved when Aela took my arm and led me into the next section of the ship. The corridor we entered was empty, and I let loose a long breath, happy to be done with extraterrestrial encounters for now.
“Sorry about that,” Aela said, sensing my discomfort. “The captain wanted to work up to you meeting them, but . . .” The wisp opened their hands and shrugged.
“A mold monster and a homicidal fox,” I muttered to myself. “These are your new friends.”
The audio sensors on Aela’s exo-suit must’ve been pretty strong. “Those are some harmful stereotypes I’d be careful about, Syd.” The wisp paused. “Although Zara is a touch homicidal. How did you know that?”
“Wild guess,” I replied.
One section later, we reached the Eastwood’s bridge. The nerve center of the ship was a circular room with a ring of chairs and consoles, all of them arranged around two central projections. The first was a holographic diagnostic of the Eastwood; I didn’t know what any of the floating symbols and readings meant, but the fact that there weren’t any flashing red lights or sirens seemed to indicate everything on board was in working order. The second projection was a complicated map of the cosmos and its interlocking systems. A blue line indicated our flight path. Over the next fourteen days, we’d be popping through three different galaxies before finally reaching Denza.
Reno and Ty were already on the bridge, seated at consoles next to each other. Ty’s eyes were heavy-lidded, his arms crossed and legs stretched out, looking like he might nod off at any moment. Probably suffering from the same rocket lag that was beginning to wear on me. Reno was parked in front of a monitor displaying a high-resolution live feed of Earth. There were two teenage humans, a guy and a girl, peering over her shoulder.
“That’s where I was born,” Reno was saying when I walked in. “A place called Florida.”
“Looks like a dick,” the guy said.
“Language, Cadet.”
“Looks like a penis.”
“Do you miss it, Captain?” the girl asked quietly.
“Hell no, I do not,” Reno replied brusquely. “You know how much shit I had to eat on a day-to-day basis back there, first in the air force and then at NASA? My goodness. Even if I could go back, it wouldn’t be until they put all the women in charge.” She spun in her chair, noticing that I’d entered. “They do that yet, Cadet? Put the women in charge?”
“Uh, no, Captain, I don’t think so,” I replied.
“Then I’ll stick to the Vastness, honey,” Reno said. She waved a hand across her console, wiping away the image of Earth.
The human guy with Reno strode toward me with his hand thrust out. I don’t think I’ve ever used this word before, but the dude was a total beefcake. He was my age, yet already more than six feet tall, blond-haired and broad-shouldered, his skin tanned golden. He looked like a Ken doll, basically. On Earth, he’d already have college football coaches chasing after him, promising a bright future as a keg-standing tight end.
“Hiram Butler.” He introduced himself and immediately yanked me into a bro-hug with a back pat that was hard enough to make me hiccup. “Welcome to the crew, new guy.”
It took me a second to realize he wasn’t speaking English but fluent Denzan. Thinking back on how he’d been studying the image of Earth with Reno, I quickly put two and two together. This guy hadn’t been born on Earth; he’d been born on Denza. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d look like Hiram if I’d grown up never knowing anything but supernatural strength. His last name was familiar, too. Rafe Butler was the hairy guy in the photograph with my grandfather. They must be related.
“Syd Chambers,” I introduced myself. After Zara and H’Jossu, I was relieved to meet another human, even if his grip crushed my hand. “Excited to be here.”
“Can’t wait to learn all about our ancestral homeland,” Hiram said. I thought I saw him rolling his eyes as he turned away from me.
The girl who had been standing with Hiram hung back with Reno. She wore a baggy sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over her uniform. There was something about her that I recognized. Maybe it was because, back on Earth, antisocial had been one of my default modes.
“Darcy Ward,” she finally introduced herself after a nudge from the captain. “Hey.”
“How’d the tour go?” Reno asked Aela, who was still standing at my side.
“I believe Sydney can now navigate the ship on his own,” Aela announced proudly. “He also encountered Zara and H’Jossu earlier than planned, but at least that means he’s now met the whole crew. We are ahead of schedule!”
I appreciated that Aela left out the bit where I punched off part of H’Jossu’s paw. “Wait. That’s the whole crew? This giant ship runs with only a dozen people?”
“A captain, a first officer, a chief engineer, a proctor, and eight cadets.” Aela ticked them off on their fingers. “More than enough, actually.”
“The ship’s AI handles the real difficult stuff,” Reno told me, then hit a button on her console. “Arkell? How we looking?”
Arkell’s voice crackled over the microphone, gloomy and curt. “All systems go, Captain.”
“Did you scan for Etherazi activity?” Reno asked into the comm.
“Of course I did,” Arkell snapped back.
“Whoa, there, don’t get snitty with me,” Reno responded, turning off her comm. “Wish we could replace him with an AI.”
Tycius stirred at the mention of Etherazi. “Have there been any sightings?” he asked.
“Nope,” Reno replied. “Been at least a year, and the institute’s cracked open eight new galaxies in that time. Maybe we finally eradicated the suckers.”
“Of course the Etherazi would disappear when I finally get into the Vastness,” Hiram complained, cracking his knuckles. “I never get to do anything cool.”
“Cool,” my uncle repeated dryly. “Battling interdimensional horrors that threatened to execute an entire species is cool. Beasts that would’ve driven our entire planet mad. Creatures that feed on misery.”
“Technically, we don’t know what the Etherazi feed on, or even what they call themselves,” Aela said in my ear. “They’re named for a Denzan myth about sea serpents that swallowed up the first explorers.”
“Fun fact,” I whispered back, focused on the exchange between Hiram and my uncle.
“I misspoke, sir,” Hiram said, acting chastened. But as soon as Tycius turned his attention elsewhere, he muttered to Darcy, “The new first mate is a real douche.”
I chose to ignore Hiram’s comment, but the guy was definitely in the running with Arkell for biggest dickhead I’d met in space.
Reno punched some instructions into her console, then began an announcement that echoed over all the ship’s comms. “All hands, prepare for intergalactic travel.” She turned in my direction. “First time through a wormhole can be a little trippy. You might want to grab a seat.”
I looked around at the unoccupied spots on the bridge and noticed that one of them was very unlike the others. The chair sat beneath a complicated mechanism that hung down from the ceiling—it was like a chandelier with a pair of goggles at the end. The thing reminded me of the multilens binoculars they used on you at the eye doctor, except these had the complexity of a nuclear reactor. Fanned out from the goggles were dozens of screens, all currently displaying empty expanses of space.
As I edged closer to the high-tech device, Darcy brushed past
me. “Can’t sit there,” she said quietly. “That’s the Wayscope.”
Aha. So that was the machine I’d be using to locate my father. Without thinking, I touched the ring case in my front pocket. “Oh cool,” I said to Darcy when I realized she was still looking at me.
“Sure, it’s cool,” she muttered. “If they let you use it.”
I didn’t know what Darcy meant, but the bitterness in her words made me take a closer look at her as she sat down next to Hiram. Her eyes were wider than normal, her fingers long, and the dark hair she tried to keep hidden beneath her hood glowed with a fluorescent sheen.
She was half-Denzan, too. Duh. My uncle had mentioned there’d be someone like me aboard.
Apparently, I was just standing there like a goofball, first staring at the Wayscope and then at Darcy. “Syd,” my uncle called. “Come on.”
I grabbed a seat between him and Aela.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just . . .” I nodded my chin toward Darcy. “She’s . . .”
“A hybrid,” Tycius said. “Born on Denza to a human father and Denzan mother.”
Before I could ask any follow-up questions, I felt a pressure on my sternum as the Eastwood subtly picked up speed.
“Say good-bye to the Milky Way, Cadet,” Captain Reno shouted to me.
A vid-screen that encompassed the far wall activated, displaying a live feed from the front of the Eastwood’s rocket. We were surging right into that rip in space, a place that both was and wasn’t, an invisible bridge between moments. For the moment, I forgot all about Darcy, the Wayscope, and all the other weirdos I’d met on board. I couldn’t look away.
We sailed into the wormhole. The lights on the bridge suddenly seemed solid, lances of illumination bouncing off my body. Some of the plants on the wall curved in on themselves while others expanded, leaves floating outward, bleeding into the wooden panels of the walls. I looked at my uncle—his eyes were impossibly wide, an almost euphoric expression on his face. I felt like I blinked out of existence, like everything blinked out of existence. I had the sensation of falling upward, of swimming into a gaping chasm, of time itself coming apart. All in the space of a breath.
And then it was over.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Jump complete, all systems normal,” Arkell reported over the comm. “Four mission days until our next jump.”
I stared at the screen. The raging storm of Jupiter, the pocket of calm around its hidden wormhole—it was all gone. What replaced it now was the Vastness. Space. Stars. The constellations were different, rearranged in a way that would’ve driven an astronomer nuts, although the space on this side of the wormhole, to me, looked pretty much the same as what we’d left behind. But I knew.
I knew I was in another galaxy.
“This system is called Hindra,” Aela offered helpfully from my side. “The sun’s a white dwarf. Three planets, all of them iced over. All fully surveyed by the Serpo Institute.”
“It’s a backwater,” Hiram said with a sigh. “Nothing to see for half a week.”
“You should get some rest,” Tycius said to me. “You look beat.”
“Yeah, sure,” I replied. “In a second.”
The others gradually filtered out, but I hung around on the bridge for a while, first waiting for the dying sun of this new galaxy to become visible, then staring into the bluish-silver star until my eyes got heavy. It was really sinking in. I was far away from home.
Or maybe the Eastwood was home now. Or maybe the Serpo Institute would be.
Or maybe the stars themselves.
Eventually, I drifted back to my room, this time without getting jumped by H’Jossu. The air in my cabin was cool and crisp, the lights already set at a warm dimness perfect for napping. I played around with the touch screen on my wall until I figured out how to bring a vid-feed of Hindra’s white dwarf on-screen. The new sun would be my night-light.
I took my father’s ring out of my pocket. The cosmological tether. I held the gold band between my fingers and peered into the gemstone, studying the blinking stars and swirling cosmos captured within.
“When I’m away, you’ll be able to look in here and find me . . .” That’s what my dad had told me. The promise that I dreamed of for so many years. Destiny.
It didn’t even have to be that big of a thing. I didn’t need a whole destiny.
I’d settle for an identity.
I’d been so many different people on Earth, lived in so many different places. But none of that was ever permanent. Sixteen years old, and I was still getting used to the idea of being Syd Chambers.
“I’ll find you, Dad,” I said aloud. “I’ll find us both.”
12
After the Jupiter wormhole, I slept for what felt like an eternity. When I finally staggered zombielike out of my bed, the vid-screen on my wall lit up with an incoming call from the bridge.
“Do you accept?” a mechanical voice asked.
“Uh, sure,” I replied.
My uncle Tycius appeared on-screen, looking more than a little refreshed himself, his hair smoothed back in a neat ponytail.
“You’re awake,” he observed.
“Barely,” I replied. “How did you know?”
“The ship’s been monitoring your vitals for the last twenty-four hours. The comedown from the high-speed travel drugs can be intense.”
“Twenty-four—?” I stretched and, as I did, felt a steadily building pressure in my bladder. “Damn. Was I in a coma?”
“Get yourself together,” Tycius said. “Aela will be by soon to continue your orientation. I don’t mean to rush you, but it’s required.”
After a pee that lasted longer than most sitcoms, I attempted to take my first shower since Earth. Operating the touch screen proved difficult, though, mainly because I forgot about my developing superstrength and jabbed my index finger right through the glass and into the wall. Sparks belched through the crack in the screen, but at least the hot water came on.
“Damage detected,” declared the ship’s AI. “A report has been made to engineering.”
“Uh-oh,” I said to myself cheerfully as I let the hot water pound the top of my head. It felt great to get cleaned up. I wasn’t sure if the water on the Eastwood was crisper and more refreshing than the polluted stuff on Earth, or if it was the newfound vitality coursing through me.
Either way, I felt amazing.
The door to my room chimed just as I finished getting my uniform on. I’d been expecting Aela, but instead got Arkell. The ship’s engineer glowered at me, a replacement panel for the one I’d broken tucked under his arm.
“Morning—er . . . afternoon?” My good vibes barely faltered under the glare from the scarred Denzan. “Sorry about the wall. I literally don’t know my own strength.”
“An untrained animal making a mess in the house,” Arkell muttered as he brushed by me.
“Okay, well, I’ll leave you to your work and casual racism,” I replied, popping into the hallway when I saw Aela’s door open across the way.
“Yes! I know that look!” Aela declared when they saw me. “It’s the look of a young hybrid male ready to begin learning about our universe’s many interesting species.”
I smiled at the swirling cloud behind the faceplate. “Wow. You really are great at reading organic facial expressions.”
“I know!” Aela replied. “Are you ready?”
“Sure. Which way to the lecture hall?”
Aela cocked their head. “Who said anything about a lecture? I’ll be putting you into a dreamlike state and guiding you through a tour of the galaxy’s major species.”
“A dreamlike state,” I repeated.
“A bit like an out-of-body experience,” Aela replied.
I shook out my limbs. “I think I just had one of those.”
“Excellent! Then you’re adequately prepared.”
Aela led me into their empty room, closing the door behind us. The wisp called up a touch screen o
n the wall and inputted some instructions. The walls and door shivered with a hydraulic hiss, like we were being sealed within a plastic bag.
“To do this, I have to leave my exo-suit. My chemistry is a very fragile thing,” Aela explained. “Any contaminants in the air could damage my structure and cause me to lose experiences.” They paused. “Do you want to take your clothes off?”
“Do I—?” I squinted at the wisp. “Why would I want to do that?”
“The room is going to sterilize you,” Aela said. “You’re going to get wet.”
“I just took a shower.”
“That was a waste of time.” Aela made an excited hurry up gesture. “Naked or not?”
I glanced up at the vents in the ceiling. “Clothes on, if that’s okay.”
“Suit yourself,” Aela said. “Ready?”
“Rea—”
With a whoosh, vents above and below let loose bursts of steam. The room was suddenly humid, filled with a smell like fresh aloe. Puffs of air burst toward me from every direction. My eyes stung, so I squeezed them shut until the process was over. For about ten seconds, it felt like I was standing in the middle of a car wash. At the end, my clothes were heavy with moisture, and my skin felt completely scoured.
“Whew,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this clean in my life.”
“Interesting!”
Aela checked the touch screen, verifying that the room was free of contaminants. I pushed a hand through my dripping hair.
“Perfect,” Aela said. “Now, just relax and breathe me in.”
“Breathe you in?”
“Did I not mention?” Aela brought their palm up to where their forehead would be. “Simply put, what I’m going to do is enter your body and then fire your brain’s synapses to share my experiences with you.”
I laughed. “Get out.”
“I will not,” Aela replied. “Ready?”
Maybe most people would’ve asked for more clarification here, before huffing a sentient gaseous entity of extraterrestrial origin. But I’d woken up on the right side of the damn bed. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.
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