Starsight

by Brandon Sanderson

  “We can’t let this…,” Kauri said, sounding helpless. “Maybe we could return to the Weights and Measures? Have it fly us back to Starsight, to fight? But…the retreat is going to take time; the carrier needs to wait for those fighters to disengage. It could be half an hour before the ship gets back to the city.”

  Far too long. Starsight was doomed. All those people. Cuna and Mrs. Chamwit. Morriumur. Because of me. I felt…I felt like the delver had sensed my fury. Was that possible?

  “What have you done?” Brade demanded over the comm. I glanced to the side and saw her ship had stopped tumbling nearby. “What have you done?”

  “What I had to,” I whispered. “To save my people.”

  In so doing, I’d doomed another people. But would anyone blame me for that choice? I knew that even if Winzik’s ships did reach the delver in time, their “weapon” against it was merely a way of diverting its attention. They’d try to send it back here to destroy us instead.

  It was us or them.

  Brade’s ship vanished, slipping into the nowhere.

  “What do we do?” Vapor asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kauri said. “I…I…”

  There was nothing to do. I reignited my shield, then leaned my head back and accepted what was happening.

  Leave the Superiority to its own problems. They’d caused this. They deserved it. My only worry was for M-Bot and Doomslug. Surely he’d be safe. He was a ship.

  Regardless, what could I do? Us or them. I turned my ship around, away from the stars, to head back home.

  No.

  My hands moved off the controls.

  “This isn’t my fight,” I whispered.

  A hero doesn’t choose her trials, Gran-Gran’s voice said.

  “I don’t know how to stop it.”

  A hero faces what comes next.

  “They hate us! They think we’re only worthy of being destroyed!”

  Prove them wrong.

  “Um…Alanik?” Kauri asked, uncertain, moving her ship up beside mine.

  I took a long deep breath, then looked back at the stars.

  Scud. I couldn’t abandon those people.

  I could not run from this fight.

  “Bring your ships in close,” I said to the kitsen and to Vapor. “Touch your wings to mine if you can.”

  “Why?” Vapor asked, obeying. Her wing tapped mine, and the kitsen’s did so on the other side. “What are we doing?”

  “Stepping into the darkness,” I said.

  Then I flung us into the nowhere.

  Being two people was an uncomfortable experience for Morriumur. On the left, one could argue that Morriumur had never known anything different. On the right, one could point out that one’s separate halves—and the memories they had inherited—knew precisely how odd the experience was.

  Two minds thinking together, but blending memories and experiences from the past. Only some from each parent, a stew of personality and memory. Occasionally their instincts fought against one another. Earlier in the day, Morriumur had reached to scratch their head—but both hands had tried to do it at once. And before that, at the sound of a loud bang—just a dish being dropped—Morriumur had tried to both dodge for cover and jump up to help at the same time.

  This disjunction was growing even worse as the two halves prepared to separate and recombine again. Morriumur stepped toward the drafting pod, passing through a double row of family members—lefts on one side, rights the other, with agendered choosing either side. They held out the appropriate hand, brushing Morriumur’s own extended hands as they passed through the dark room.

  Morriumur was supposed to have two and a half months left, but after leaving the space force…well, the decision had been made to proceed early. This draft was not right. Morriumur’s parents and family agreed. Time to try again.

  Everyone said it wasn’t supposed to feel like a farewell, and that Morriumur shouldn’t see it as a rejection. Redrafting was common, and they had been assured it wouldn’t hurt. Yet how could one take it as anything but a rejection?

  Too aggressive, one grand had said. This will trouble them all their life.

  They chose to investigate a career very unbecoming of a dione, one pibling had said. They could never be happy like this.

  These same relatives gave Morriumur fond lip-draws, touching hands with them as if seeing them off on a journey. The drafting pod was much like a large bed, though with the center hollowed out. Shaped of the traditional wood with a slick polished interior, once Morriumur climbed into it, its lid would be affixed and a nutrient bath injected to help with the cocooning and redrafting process.

  Their eldest grand, Numiga, took both of their hands as they stepped up to the pod. “You did well, Morriumur.”

  “If that’s so…why have I failed to prove myself?”

  “Your job wasn’t to prove yourself. It was merely to exist and let us see possibilities. Come, you yourself returned to us and agreed the process needed to continue.”

  Morriumur’s left hand gave a curved gesture of affirmation, almost on its own. They had returned. Departed the docks while the others went to fight. Fled, because…because they’d been too upset to continue. Defending against delvers was one thing, but going to shoot down other pilots? The idea horrified Morriumur.

  You’d have been too frightened to fight a delver anyway, a part of them—perhaps one of their parents—thought. Too aggressive for dione society. Too paranoid to fight. Redrafting is for the best.

  For the best, another part of them thought.

  Morriumur stumbled, feeling a disorientation caused by the two separating parts of their brain. Numiga helped them sit on the side of the drafting pod, their deep reddish-violet skin seeming to glow in the candlelight.

  “It’s beginning,” Numiga said. “It is time.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “It will not hurt,” Numiga promised. “It will still be you who comes out, redrafted. Just a different you.”

  “What if I want to be the same me?”

  Numiga patted them on the hand. “Almost all of us went through a few drafts, Morriumur, and we all survived it. When you emerge again, you will wonder why you were so bothered.”

  Morriumur nodded and put both feet into the pod. Then they paused. “When I come back out, will I remember these months?”

  “Faintly,” Numiga said. “Like fragments of a dream.”

  “And my friends? Will I know their faces?”

  Numiga pushed them, gently, into the pod. It was time. Morriumur’s two halves were unraveling, the minds separating, and their personality…stretched thin. It was…hard…to…think…

  The chamber rocked with a sudden extended tremble. Morriumur grabbed the side of the pod, hissing out in surprise. Around them, the others stumbled against one another, crying out or hissing. People fell as the trembling persisted, until finally it grew still.

  What had that been? It felt like the platform had been hit by something—but what kind of impact could be so large that it would shake all of Starsight?

  Outside, screams sounded in the streets. Morriumur’s relatives climbed to their feet in a mess, pushing aside the drapings in front of the doorway. They opened it and let light flood the small dark chamber.

  Trembling, barely able to control their limbs, Morriumur crawled out of the pod. Everyone seemed to have forgotten them. What…what could be happening? Pulling themself up on the equipment near the pod, Morriumur got to their feet and stumbled to the door leading outside, where many of their relatives stood staring upward in a wide-eyed stupor.

  A planet had somehow appeared beside Starsight. A dark, dust-shrouded thing, with terrible lines emerging from within its black center. Deep red lights played beneath the dust, like eruptions of magma. It loomed over Starsight, a spectacle so va
st—so unexpected—that both of Morriumur’s minds reeled. How could that be there, interrupting the calming depths of space that had always been on the horizon?

  It’s a delver! one mind trembled. Run!

  Flee! the other mind screamed.

  Around Morriumur, relatives scrambled away, running—though how did you run from something like this? Within moments, only Morriumur was standing there before the building, alone. Their minds continued to panic, but Morriumur didn’t let go, and slowly their minds relaxed and knit back together.

  It wouldn’t last long. But for now, Morriumur looked up and exposed their teeth.

  * * *

  —

  Cuna gripped the rail of their balcony, trying to take in the awesome sight of the delver.

  “We’ve failed,” they whispered. “He’s destroyed Detritus. Now he brings it here to show off his power.”

  The scent around them turned sharply angry, like that of wet soil. “This is a disaster,” Zezin said. “You said…I didn’t believe…Cuna, how could Winzik do this?”

  Cuna gave a helpless gesture of their fingers, still staring up at the terrible sight. The awesome scale of the thing made it difficult to tell, but Cuna could feel the thing drawing closer, approaching the city.

  “He’ll destroy us,” Cuna realized. “The high minister is still in attendance. Winzik will take out the Superiority’s government, leaving only himself.”

  “No,” Zezin said, smelling of hot spices. “Even he is not so callous. This is a mistake, Cuna. He summoned it, but cannot control it as he assumed. It has come here of its own volition.”

  Yes. Cuna realized the truth of it immediately. Winzik wanted to be known as a hero; he would not destroy Starsight. This wasn’t just a mistake—it was a disaster of the highest order. The same foolishness that had made the humans fall.

  Ships began to stream away in a panic, and Cuna wished them speed. Maybe some would escape.

  It was a dubious hope. Starsight was doomed, and Cuna couldn’t help feeling an awful responsibility. Would Winzik have ever decided upon this course if the two of them hadn’t brainstormed a potential defense force, years ago?

  Embers began to launch from the delver, slamming into the shield around Starsight and bursting with incredible explosions. Soon the shield would fall.

  The air turned a sour scent of rotting fruit—sorrow and anguish from Zezin.

  “Go,” Cuna whispered. “You might be able to move quickly enough to escape.”

  “We…we will stop this from going further, Cuna,” Zezin promised. “We’ll resist Winzik. Clean up his mess.”

  “Go.”

  Zezin left. Figments could move quickly through the air, or even the vacuum. They both knew that alone, Zezin could perhaps reach a private ship in time to fly out beyond the shield and hyperjump away.

  An old dione, however…Was there anything Cuna could do to help? Send a last broadcast perhaps, exposing Winzik? Give courage to those fleeing? Was there even time for that?

  Cuna gripped the banister, looking out at the delver. Shrouded in its veil—glowing from its own light—the thing had a terrifying beauty to it. Cuna almost felt like they were standing alone before a deity. A god of destruction.

  Then, an incongruity finally ripped Cuna’s attention away. An impossibility amid the fear.

  A small group of fighters, just outside the shield, had appeared and now flew straight toward the delver.

  I streaked toward the delver, Vapor and the kitsen on my wings. In my mind, the lingering horror of the nowhere shadowed my memories—that had been a bad jump, with so many of them watching me. But the one specific delver that had been so close lately hadn’t been there. I could somehow tell the difference.

  It wasn’t hard to guess exactly where that delver was. It loomed just beyond Starsight, and had already begun launching embers by the hundreds into the shield. Chaotic emergency information channels said the city had opened the shield on the side farthest from the delver, allowing ships to escape.

  “Kauri,” I said, glancing at the flagging kitsen ship. “You’re trailing smoke.”

  “Our boosters are barely working,” she replied. “I’m sorry, Alanik. I don’t know how useful we’re going to be in a battle against those embers.”

  “Vapor and I should be able to manage it,” I said. “Fly back and see if you can get anyone’s attention on the military channels. We need the city to go silent. The delver can hear their radio signals. I don’t know how we’re going to drive the thing away, but I suspect it will be a lot easier if this city isn’t screaming at it.”

  “Understood,” Kauri said. “We’ll do what we can. Good luck.”

  “Luck is for those who cannot smell their path forward,” Vapor said. “But…perhaps today that is us. So good luck to you too.”

  The Swims Upstream broke off from us and started back. Vapor and I continued along just outside the atmosphere bubble. Beneath us, ships were swarming and trying to escape.

  “M-Bot?” I asked, trying the secret line the two of us had been using, connected via my bracelet.

  There was no response, and using my onboard sensors I was able to get a zoomed-in picture of my embassy building as we passed. The rooftop was empty. So maybe he’d gotten away somehow? Scud, I wished I knew.

  Together, Vapor and I approached the delver itself. It evoked an awful sense of scale—and was far more daunting than a mere planetoid would be. Embers emerged from the dust, then smashed repeatedly into the city’s shield, exploding soundlessly in the void—but some of the blasts were the size of entire battleships.

  “I can’t help churning upon myself a little,” Vapor said as we approached, “and thinking our training was horribly incomplete.”

  “Yeah,” I said. No training in a simulation could approximate the strange sensations the delver sent at me, a kind of crushing feeling upon my mind. It somehow heightened my fear, my anger, and my sense of horror. It was getting worse the closer we got.

  A small blip flashed on my proximity sensor.

  “What’s that?” Vapor asked.

  “It’s her,” I said, noting the ship flying ahead of us. I quickly opened a line. “Brade. You can’t take this thing on by yourself.”

  “I’m not going to let it destroy my home,” she said back. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to go after you.”

  “Ignore that,” I snapped. “Work with me for once.”

  “Alanik…you realize what I’m going to do if I reach the center? The only thing I can do?”

  Use the diversion weapon, I thought. Send it back toward Detritus again. “We have to send it somewhere else, Brade. We have to try.”

  She cut the line.

  “That one has always been a foul wind, Alanik,” Vapor said. “She’s…Oh. Um.”

  She’s human.

  “Cover me as we get close,” I said, hitting my boosters.

  We flew out from over Starsight, nearing the delver’s dust cloud. The only hope I had for a plan was to try to send the delver somewhere unpopulated. I’d established three hyperjump locations in my mind: Starsight, Detritus, and the deep-space location of the delver maze.

  So I only had one real option. I’d have to send it to the maze. But…surely it would just find nothing to destroy there, then immediately return to Starsight. What else could I do though? Maybe it would see the maze and be distracted by it? That seemed a frail hope, but it was the only one I had.

  Vapor flew out ahead of me and started shooting down the embers that approached. I slowed, and tried to reach out with my mind to the delver.

  It was…vast. The sensations coming off it smothered me. I could feel how it regarded us. The anger at all the buzzing noises we made. Those same emotions threatened to overwhelm me, alienate me, make me feel the same way it did.

 
I fought against that, feeding it the location of the maze, trying—as I’d somehow done before—to distract its attention. Unfortunately, before it hadn’t just been me. It had been a mixture of my emotion, the silence on Detritus, and the sound out in the void. The singing stars.

  The delver had come here because it knew the noises were greatest here. My current efforts to distract it were swallowed up by the emotion it radiated. I felt like I was screaming into a tempest, and try as I might, I couldn’t pierce the noise.

  I cursed, cutting off my attempts and boosting after Vapor, blasting an ember that almost hit her.

  “We need to get inside,” I said. “We need to find its heart.”

  Vapor fell in next to me, and together we hurtled into the dust. Visibility dropped to nearly nothing, and I had to fly by instruments. We’d been warned we would need to do that, but nothing in our training had indicated how creepy it would be to enter this dust.

  As we flew through that silent cloud, which flashed periodically with red light, my sensors started to go out. My proximity screen started to fuzz, giving me only the briefest warnings when something was drawing close. Embers emerged as burning shapes, indistinct and terrible.

  Vapor and I stopped fighting the embers, instead just trying to dodge as they attempted to slam into us. They’d fall in and trail after us, occasionally streaking forward with bursts of speed. I felt like I was trying to outrun my own shadow.

  The pressure on my mind grew worse and worse the closer we drew to the delver itself. Soon I was gritting my teeth against it—the sensations were so overpowering that they affected my flying. I barely got out of the way of one ember, but put myself into the path of another.

  Frantic, I speared a third with my light-lance, which fortunately pulled me out of the way. But when I looked up, I couldn’t see Vapor. My sensors were a jumble of static, and the only things I could make out around me were moving shadows and bursts of red light.

  “Vapor?” I asked.

  I got a jumbled response. Was that her over there? I followed another shadow, but only got further lost in the dust storm. I glanced the other direction, and saw what I was sure was an explosion.