“It’s for Keller.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to stay.”
“Do you want me to come with you, then?”
“I’d rather be alone.”
She stands there, helpless in the face of my loss, helpless to do anything but say, “Okay.”
I climb into Moon Dancer, and Vera lets me go.
I don’t head back to the detachment.
I think maybe I mean to, but when I get Moon Dancer into the air—her control panel lighting up, the needles flicking eagerly over the faces of the dials—I find myself flying in a different direction. Keller’s seat is empty in front of me. The Master’s words jangle around my head.
It means something, that he gave you that.
The anger—stars. It sometimes feels like I’m made of it. Like rage and hurt are the only things keeping me alive. Keller gave me his lifestone to protect me, then went off and got himself killed.
Well, I don’t want it. I’m giving it back.
I shut off my tracking systems and turn Moon Dancer toward Venthros. For a while, I just fly. Fly, and try to breathe. I’m starting to suffer some space lag from all the constant travel, and nausea rises in the back of my throat. I open myself to the sensation, focus on it, the agitation in my stomach, the saliva pooling in my mouth. It’s a relief to know it’s notgrief nauseaorI-want-to-die nausea.Just space lag. So common and familiar and unrelated to Keller.
By the time Venthros comes into sight, I’m on the cusp of being truly sick. The atmosphere around the planet is ashy, hazed in smoke from the eruption. I descend through the smog and zip toward Mount Kilmon. Its top has been blown off so many times, it’s beginning to resemble a tree stump. I note the destroyed land around the volcano’s base, the blackened forests, some of the fields still on fire. Crews of people work to extinguish the flames. Everything has an orange sheen.
I land Moon Dancer in the foothills under the volcano and step outside without running an air quality report. I already know what the instruments will tell me. It can’t be good to breathe in all this smoke.
I look around the quiet rock formations. Black. Some of them shiny.
There are passages into the volcano, carved over the years by the members of the Order. I researched them back on The Bargainer when Keller and I weren’t speaking because I was losing my mind and I thought stuffing my brain with more knowledge might help me forget I was miserable.
I miss those days. I would crash Moon Dancer into another no-man’s-planet if it meant I could go back to them.
I leave my spaceship in the foothills and choose the largest tunnel, following it into the labyrinth. I didn’t bring a flashlight, but light filters in from cracks and crevices overhead. I cough; the ash is irritating my lungs. I’m just thinking maybe I should go back to Moon Dancer and grab my oxygen mask when I spot a flash of metal, half-buried in dried lava.
It’s a heat collector.
I hear the sound of my own feet grind to a halt. The noise of it echoes against the tunnel walls.
I don’t know what I’m doing here.
It feels like I’m watching myself from above as I traverse the uneven ground and approach the collector. It’s crammed in what must be one of the volcano’s secondary vents, because this chamber is too small to be Mount Kilmon’s true center, where the lava flow would have erupted up through the crater. The cavern is charred and craggy. The eruption is long over; there’s no lava in sight. I step closer, heart in my throat, and peer through the collector’s window.
I don’t know what I’m expecting to find. My thoughts have become like all this ash, floating without direction. I can’t really see much through the glass, so I rub away the grime with my fist.
There’s someone in there.
A corpse, my mind tells me.
No.
I’m shaking. My heart is beating so hard, I feel it in my skin. I’m going to have to break the lava that’s hardened around the collector, because it’s caked the door shut. I start looking for a rock or stick to use beforeremembering that Moon Dancer has an emergency pack on board, which includes a shovel.
I almost don’t want to leave. My brain is telling me if I walk away and come back, the heat collector will be gone. If that’s Keller inside—is that really Keller inside?—I’ll have no chance of…
Retrieving his body,my mind tells me.
No,says that voice again.
