My heart played tug-of-war between clinging to familiarity and letting myself fall into a seductive, glittering unknown.
“Hey,” Tev said, startling us. I hadn’t heard her approach. Her eyes darted between us, tinged with curiosity. “Didn’t you want to show me something?”
“Right.” I looked at Slip once more. “Thanks. I have some thinking to do.”
She casually saluted me with a couple of fingers and wandered away to the bridge.
“What was that all about?” Tev said as I took her hand and led her toward my quarters.
“You.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to regret having you two on board at the same time, aren’t I?”
I shrugged and smiled, letting her wonder.
How strange to be thinking about Slip and me sharing Tev’s affection, crossing paths on the ship. Happiness begets happiness. She really did want Tev to be happy with me. Witnessing such a genuine, easygoing approach to human connection, seeing how they behaved with each other and with me, made this all seem more feasible. The space Slip had created in my heart for this new paradigm cracked open a little wider.
“Okay,” I said as we stepped into my quarters. “Close your eyes.”
“I’d rather not.”
“You’re no fun.” I placed my hand over her eyes and she batted it away, closing them on her own as she muttered something under her breath about doing it herself. “Keep them closed.”
“I will, I will.”
Taking her hands in mine, I pulled them out in front of her and positioned them palm-up, to await one of the reclaimed plants. I collected the rosemary from under my bed where it was hiding, and though it probably wasn’t as lush and healthy as it had been under Tev’s care, with Nova’s help, I hadn’t done such a terrible job. Herbs must be hardy to withstand my black thumb.
Tev tilted her head and knitted her brows together as the scent of rosemary overpowered us. Before she could open her eyes and spoil it, I placed the bowl in her hands. “Okay.”
She didn’t look entirely surprised, but then I supposed a smell like that would give it away.
“You saved one.”
“Two, actually. And I had to.” I guided her to the bed and sat with her. “I know I was irresponsible and overeager, and my foolishness took your garden from you. I know it can’t replace the old one—”
She shook her head and brushed the plant with delicate fingers. “This is one of the most thoughtful things anyone’s done for me in a long time. Even if you did blow it up in the first place.”
“Really, I’m sorry—”
“I’m teasing.”
“You were just so mad, Tev. Honestly, I thought you were going to get rid of me, and I wouldn’t have blamed you.”
She set the bowl down on the floor, away from our feet, and placed my hand on her prosthetic leg. “You know why I was upset.”
“I didn’t know about your accident.”
“That isn’t the point. We could have lost the ship. Lost you.”
I was quiet for a moment. “Why the garden?”
“Pardon?”
“What did it mean to you?”
She shrugged. “Just a reminder of where I came from. I’ll be an old woman before I give up the sky, but sometimes I miss the cattle station. I needed a place that was for me, a pocket of home kept in secret. I don’t know, sounds silly I guess.”
I thought of Lai and the repair shop, of my parents on the research station. As much as I’d rather be out here than on Orpim or even in orbit around Adul, part of me missed my old life. All of me missed my family. “I think I get it.”
“Thank you,” she said. “For the rosemary. And for trying with me. For giving me a chance even though I’m not what you expected.”
A small laugh bubbled up in me. “How could I not? Look at you. Look at who you are. You make the sky more glamorous than it already was. I’d be a fool not to at least try to open my mind for you.”
A hearty laugh escaped her throat. “Glamorous. Not the word I’d use to describe myself, love.” She leaned in close to me, touching my jaw and whispering against my ear. “Thank you for stowing away, sky surgeon.”
Need for her suffused me, like sunlight. She was sunlight to me, she and the Tangled Axon, all brightness and hope.
I wanted to tell her that. To spill every truth from my lips like a prayer, everything I felt, and to tell her again and again: I love you, I love you, I love you, Tev Helix. But as I parted my lips to speak, I held back my words and kissed her instead, hoping she felt what I couldn’t bring myself to say again.
Because I realized then, despite all we’d shared and our days spent wrapped in the exquisite warmth of each other, she hadn’t yet said she loved me too.
Chapter Nineteen
At the breach, an armada awaited us.
More othersider ships than we could count blocked our path to the slice in the sky. From far away, they looked like a grid of lights in a net in front of the breach, pulsing in time with each other. Maneuvering past without Nova’s help was out of the question. After much jaw clenching on Tev’s part, she agreed to allow our safe passage to rest solely in my sister’s hands.
Nova stood next to Marre at the helm, eyes closed, hands on the console.
Tev, Ovie, Slip, and I left them to their task while we watched our approach from the observation deck.
“Please let this work,” Tev said under her breath.
Ovie whined in the back of his throat, shadow-tail tucked between his legs. It might have been funny to see a grown human whine like a puppy if he hadn’t had such a good reason to be afraid. Slip placed her hand on his back and rubbed in slow circles, fingers disappearing into the umbra of his canine-self.
Tev nervously toyed with her necklace, sighing and shifting her weight.
My sister had explained it to me: she would channel her consciousness along the smallest filaments of reality’s matrix, making minute adjustments around the Tangled Axon until she wove a space around us much like the ones Transliminal used to maneuver through our universe. Reality rolled between her fingers, conforming to her intention to hide us from the Transliminal armada. An illusion of invisibility. From their perspective, we would be nothing more than a faint shimmer in the black, if they saw anything at all. All the Tangled Axon’s fiery brilliance would be contained behind a veil.
Marre angled us between the othersider ships and powered the engine down to its lowest cycle, letting the Axon’s inertia ferry us forward.
A single breach in concentration would collapse the entire illusion.
Two Transliminal ships crested the horizon of the observation deck as we drifted past, rising like strange suns. Bright blue tangles of light ringed each vessel, pulsing and fluctuating over a core of metal that glinted from the illumination. A single tendril-ring would have engulfed us ten times over; we were insignificant compared to these enormous ghosts. Shadows raged and roiled between the rings of light and the metal ships inside. Storms of nothingness shivered in dark clouds, darker than the black.
I could feel the Tangled Axon and her crew hold its collective breath.
Almost there.
Just as we prepared to clear the armada and cross through the breach, one of the light-tendrils snaked out toward us, slicing through the Axon without warning.
Lightning exploded in my head when the ship cried out in fear, the sound of a hundred storms raging inside my skull. The five of us on the observation deck stepped backward, trying to avoid the wall of blue light slowly cutting through the observation deck. Humidity saturated the air like a cold, wet morning. The smell of salt. Of beach.
Time seemed to freeze. Tev grasped my hand and Slip’s as we continued backing up until our backs hit the far wall. Endless white-blue light stretched before us, permeating the Tangled Axon, stopping just centimeters from our faces. Cold wind whipped our hair, our clothes.
Shapes flickered beyond the light. Movement in the form of winged and hor
ned humans, shifting buildings along an alien coastline, enormous creatures I couldn’t recognize. Mere shadows dancing just on the edge of perception.
Then, a shift—like changing a net channel. Soft whispers and distant glissandos. Machines. Scents—sweet, acrid, tart, musky. Salt. So much salt-air. A flicker, and the scene changed again. Humidity tinged with a mossy, green smell. Human shadows holding objects I couldn’t recognize. Somehow, I knew: we glimpsed other worlds. Realities in which the othersiders had established a presence.
Energy gathered around us, like an intake of breath. Static ignited small sparks between strands of hair, fibers of fabric, even the air, humid as it was. The hair on my arms stood on end. Chills worked their way down my back. Something inside that Transliminal light beckoned me forward, calling me to it. Inviting.
The Tangled Axon tensed against our backs, desperate to expel the unfamiliar world gnawing at her hull.
Reality became nothing more than silence and held breath, coiled into a sharp point.
And then it detonated. All that power around us pulsed outward, ejecting the invading light. A strong gust of wind sucked us forward as the othersider ship snapped its tendril back into the light-tangle around the core body.
Just like that, we cleared the armada. We were over there.
Five people exhaled at once. I tried not to collapse and cry in sheer relief; I hadn’t fully realized how terrified I’d been.
“What was that?” Slip said, voice shaking.
“Other worlds,” Tev said. “I’ve seen them before, in experience booths on Spin. They’re some of the realities where Transliminal Solutions already established itself. We’re just one of many.”
The strangest thing about crossing the breach between realities? How utterly unremarkable it was to be on the other side. Other than the need for Nova to sustain the bubble around our ship in order for it to continue working, there wasn’t any appreciable difference. Not out in the black, anyway. Stars and dust were the same wherever you went, it seemed.
It was a good five minutes before we collected ourselves and left the observation deck, still haunted by what we’d seen. By the time we made it to the bridge, Marre was establishing an orbit around the nearest planet—home of the Transliminal Solutions capital city—while Nova concentrated on maintaining the ship’s invisibility at the same time that she wove my disguise around me. As before, my mind slipped away from me, only this time I knew what was happening. It gave me just enough wherewithal to try to at least look like I wasn’t high.
Nova couldn’t break her focus to say goodbye; I knew she was with me as she manipulated my body, my voice, my energetic signature. Just like on Spin. Except this time I was transformed into my sister, not a bipedal lizard. I wanted to get a little reassurance from her, but all I could do now was trust.
“Do anything you have to do to help Nova maintain her concentration,” Tev said as she boarded the shuttle behind me. “We can’t risk them detecting the Tangled Axon, or her.”
“Or me,” I said, twisting a band of shimmering fabric between my hands, trying not to make a face at the sound of Nova’s voice coming from my mouth. Even if this had been my idea, everything about it unsettled me. More than anything, I missed the soft fullness of my own body, the weight of my locs.
“I guess that means I can’t hit on her?” Slip said, hand on her hip. “Damn. I thought this was the perfect opportunity.”
“Funny.”
I laughed harder than the conversation warranted, then stuffed down the amusement. Behave like Nova, I coached myself.
“Be careful, Captain.” Slip pinched Tev’s chin, then looked past her and winked at me. “You too, surgeon.”
I gave her a thumbs-up with my new hand and tried focusing on Slip’s face, but the mist covering my mind made it difficult. The disorientation was tempered enough that I didn’t feel as far away as I did during our transformation on Spin, but the world seemed a little more difficult to process than usual, and I was slower to respond. I hadn’t even realized Tev had parked herself in the pilot’s seat next to me until she touched my hand.
“You okay in there?”
I smiled and almost pinched her chin the way Slip did because the idea amused me, but thought better of it. “Yeah. I just feel . . . weird.” My voice echoed in my head.
She laughed and cycled up the engine, beginning her pre-flight checks. “I have to admit, you look weird. Tell me if the effects start to get to be too much for you. We’ll turn right back around and figure something else out.”
“No.” I gripped the seat and moved my new clothes around to try to get comfortable in them, but it was a bit like using a broom to sweep up all the sand on a beach. “I’ll manage. I just have to get used to it for a minute. We have to do this.”
Tev tilted her head in a skeptical half-nod and prepared to launch. “Whatever you say, love.” She pushed the throttle forward and we departed from the shuttle bay, maneuvering across empty space over their bright blue planet until we met the stream of traffic heading into the atmosphere, one vessel at a time. Once parked behind an enormous luxury rental, Tev kicked her boots up onto the console.
“Might as well get comfortable. We’ll probably move five centimeters in ten minutes.”
I groaned. “Marre can’t wait that long. We’re going to be here forev—”
A male voice hopped onto our comm link. “Attention shuttle 431A-Red from Universe 58. This is Transliminal Traffic Control. Please respond.”
Tev sat up and pressed the transmit button. “I read you, Traffic Control.”
“You’ve been cleared for priority landing.”
Fear raked its fingers through me. Had they detected our lie?
“Fantastic!” Tev said. “May I ask why?”
“Birke wishes to personally welcome Nova Quick to the surface. Proceed to Transliminal Solutions headquarters.” He clicked off.
“Okay,” Tev said, adjusting our flight path and maneuvering the shuttle away from the queue. “Let’s go convince her to help our pilot.”
I looked down at my thin hands, the silver fabric draped over my legs, the perfectly silver-tipped toes peeking out from my sandals. “I can’t believe it worked.”
“Looks like being good at what you do runs in the family. Nova’s mind really is strong enough to convince them you’re her.” Tev gave me the lop-sided smile I loved so much. “Maybe too strong. I have to admit I don’t really like the smell of jasmine.”
I sniffed at my arm, the fabric of my dress. “I don’t smell anything.”
“That’s because you’re wearing it.” She turned back to the view screen and adjusted more controls. “Hang on.” The shuttle quaked for about fifteen seconds. “Compensating for atmosphere.”
As the shuttle stilled, I relaxed my death grip on the arm rests, and leaned forward just in time to see Transliminal’s capital city cutting across huge swaths of land in a complex geometry of light. Each bright band connected to several others, clustering in nests and nodes that shone like miniature galaxies. Strange how we lived in the long shadow of a place so luminous. I wanted to open the shuttle hatch and fly over the landscape, becoming a node of light unto myself, blazing across the sky.
Alana, I thought to myself while looking for something else to focus on. Don’t get lost.
A fabricated forest of metallic trees circled the TS headquarters, with a section cut out for priority landing. We made our descent.
“I’m just going to secure the shuttle,” Tev said. “Go ahead and disembark. Get some fresh air; I’m sure you need it.”
I kissed the top of her head, taking in the rosemary scent of her before stepping outside, grabbing all the extra fabric at the hem of my dress to avoid stepping on it. I couldn’t understand why Nova liked wearing something so impractical.
The air smelled different on their side of the breach. Too perfect.
No—too empty. As if it had been scrubbed clean of any evidence humans had walked through it. Frenetic b
lue and white light illuminated the surrounding trees, pulsing from inside the branches like blood and trickling out along the burnished “bark.” Each branch was more quicksilver than hard metal, swirling and changing in subtle movements. Transparent leaves glittered in the rising sunlight of an alien star. I touched a tree and the bark rippled out from my fingertips like liquid, shivering from trunk to glassy leaves, which plinked against each other like chimes. Eerie—but beautiful.
Tev disembarked from the shuttle and paused for half a step when she took in the surroundings, clearly alarmed by the surreal landscaping. She just wiped her hands on her shirt and headed toward me, glancing surreptitiously at one of the trees.
“Seems like there’s nothing organic on this planet except the humans,” I said, closing the distance between us. I was starting to get the hang of speaking coherently despite a clouded mind.
She snorted. “I have my doubts about them, too.”
“This is going to work,” I said. “Right? We’ll be fine.”
“Of course we will.”
Her smile was half-formed under the weight of the lie, but I didn’t push it. I just reached out (out, instead of up—so strange) and put my hand on the back of her neck, pulling her toward me for a kiss. “We’ll be okay,” I repeated, wanting to hear myself say it like I meant it.
She smiled at me in her crooked way and exhaled deliberately, nodding. “Yes. Also . . . ”
“Hm?”
“It’s too weird kissing you like this.”
I looked down at my thin silver-sheathed body. Pale white shimmer accented my hands and feet. Like this, I matched this place so seamlessly I looked like a flower dropped from the canopy. I turned my gaze to her again and smirked. “What, you’re not into the whole sister thing?”
“I like you better in boots and grease.”
Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel Page 26