Cytonic (Skyward #3)(21)

Scud. Winzik was trying to make a deal with the delvers.

If he succeeded, the war would take a very, very bad turn.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “You have been asleep for ten hours, per my internal chronometer. Chet just got up and left the cave. I woke you, as you requested.”

I sat up in the dim light, my back stiff from resting on stone.

M-Bot hovered closer. “I,” he said, “would like to be acknowledged. It was exceptionally boring watching you two all night.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry to make you keep watch like that, but I slept more soundly knowing you were there.”

“Well, to be honest, waiting isn’t as bad for me as it is for a human. I can change how quickly time seems to pass for me by speeding up or slowing down my processor. I’m going to go take a cactus break. Let me know if you need me to do anything else super boring.”



He floated off out of the cave, and I followed. Chet stood on some of the higher rocks of the hills here, looking outward. A heroic pose, focused, determined.

I climbed up beside him and adopted a similar pose, staring across the expanse of flying chunks to the distant lightburst. Home of the delvers.

“Two hundred years,” Chet said. “And I’m finally going to do it. Walk the Path of Elders.”

“Why have you never tried?”

“At first, I didn’t know about it,” he said. “After that, I didn’t really understand what it was. Now…” He glanced at me. “I’ve never found a place I was afraid to travel, Spensa Nightshade. I always thought I’d be willing to explore everything and anything! But then I found something inside me, inside my head, that I didn’t understand.”

“I felt kind of the same way.”

“It all worried me,” he said. “Chet Starfinder, afraid to explore his own mind…” He glanced outward. “I can make a picture in my head of the entire belt. I can visualize it somehow, know my way to every fragment. That’s how it manifests for me—other than speaking mind to mind. What about you?”

“I can do the speaking thing too, obviously,” I said. “And more, I seem to be able to intercept thoughts that others send out, even when they don’t want me to. I can use what I hear, interpret it, use it in battle by instinct. Plus, I can hyperjump—moving instantly from place to place.”

“So it is possible,” Chet said. “That sounds extremely useful.”

I grimaced. “Less so when you’re as untrained as I am. Regardless, being able to see the landscape around you? Like you have…sonar? That sounds pretty awesome.”

“It’s useful for an explorer, I must admit!” he exclaimed, then pointed. “The fragment you need to reach is in that exact direction, but we’ll have to take a roundabout path, I’m afraid. We travel at the whims of the fragments, and can cross only when they bump against one another. I can see the route, fortunately. Eight fragments. We should be there in about a day’s time.” He looked at me and smiled widely. “Are you prepared, Spensa Nightshade, for an adventure?”



“Absolutely.”

“Then onward!” Chet said, then slid down the rock slope and landed on the ground in an expert maneuver.

I followed almost as skillfully.

“Wonderful!” he said as I landed.

“I’ve got some experience caving,” I explained.

He led us off then, M-Bot zooming along behind as we struck outward. Over the next little while, I got a fairly good picture of this place—at least on the small scale. The fragments were of different sizes, but on average took around two hours to cross. And there was such variety to them. The first we traversed was covered in strange tall weeds with red tips. The next was dominated by towering rock formations rising high like sentinels. The third had enormous waterfalls that tumbled from heights and then flowed straight off the side of the fragment in some impossible continuous cycle.

The travel challenged me to the extent of my physical abilities. On the second fragment, we had to rappel down the sides of cliffs using the light-line. On the third we forded a river, then crawled through a tunnel behind a waterfall. The fourth fragment was a prairie with many ravines and was populated by beasts that looked like rhinoceroses, only with two heads and fearsome teeth. It was touch-and-go as we hid behind rocks while they wandered past, seeking prey. Chet explained they didn’t need to eat, but were instinctually driven to hunt.

The next fragment was rocky and barren, with only a few small trees for plant life. We had to wait on the far side to meet up with the next one—and while we stood there, Chet suddenly rushed us beneath the cover of a small scraggly tree with a thankfully thick canopy. Soon starships soared past—pirates on the lookout for slaves to capture.



Chet saw me watching them from beneath the trees, and must have noticed the hunger in my eyes.

“There is a pirate base a little beyond our first destination,” he explained. “If you are still so bold as to want to try, I believe we can acquire a starship there—through roguish means, naturally.”

I grinned at his phrasing, and then we scampered out—risking being spotted by the pirates—in order to catch the next fragment before it floated away. We skidded down the slope and leapt across together, reaching a swampy fragment with decaying trees and soft ground.