My mind is blank.
My classmates and teachers, maybe my brother and Dad, now Guardian Origene—so many of our people lost in one night. I feel as if their screams are still echoing through the universe, filling my head with their voices.
Nishiko and Deke are as frozen as I am, and the three of us listen to Kai’s quiet sobbing like it’s an alien language we’ve only just begun to learn.
Mathias continues in a low baritone. “We’ll dock at a satellite called Oceon 6. Admiral Crius is there, organizing our House’s disaster response. He’s Guardian Origene’s Military Advisor, and he’s ordered all surviving Cancrian Zodai to report, and that includes you Acolytes.”
“Who’ll be our Guardian now?” asks Kai.
“We’ll find a new one. It’s our first priority.” Mathias turns to Nishi. “You’re Sagittarian?” She nods. “See me after we dock. We’ll try to arrange your transport home.”
He gives the rest of us another steady inspection, and I guess we must look like lost souls, because his eyes soften. “Wherever we are, whatever happens, Cancer sustains us. She is our Center. Find her now in your hearts.”
“What about the people living on Cancer?” I ask, my voice cracking.
When he answers, I get the sense Mathias is trying not to panic us. “The Lodestars foresaw the tsunamis, and the evacuation has already begun. Even now, dive-ships are transporting islanders down to our underwater stations, which are deep enough to remain stable.”
His dark indigo eyes swirl like whirlpools of the Cancer Sea. “Of our House’s three thousand Zodai, fewer than four hundred have survived. Everyone who’s left is on their way to Oceon 6, same as us.”
Kai sniffles, and Deke looks ill. “How do you know all this?” asks Nishi. “We couldn’t connect to anyone on my Tracker or their Waves.”
The Sagittarian version of a Wave is a Tracker. Since they’re such nomadic souls, the Tracker is a wristband that projects holographic data and also functions as a locator. It’s so Sagittarian families can track their loved ones across the Zodiac.
Mathias speaks softly. “I don’t use a Wave. I have my own communication system.”
“The Ring?” asks Nishi, her innate curiosity irrepressible. We’ve all seen the Lodestars on campus whispering into invisible microphones, but none of us know how it works. It’s technology that’s exclusive to the Zodai.
“Since we have so few Zodai left, and as you are what remains of the pool of candidates, you might as well learn as much as you can, as fast as you can.” He spreads his right hand and shows us his Ring. It’s just a plain steel band—or so it seems. On closer inspection, there’s a faint flickering glow around it.
“It looks like steel, but it’s metallic silicon. Like an Ephemeris, the Ring acts as an extrasensory antenna for picking up Psynergy. Only instead of using it to read the stars, the Ring uses Psynergy to link my conscious to every Zodai in the galaxy—what’s called the Psy Network.”
“I read that a person’s Psynergy signature becomes visible in the Psy Network,” says Nishiko. “What’s it look like?” Just like in class, while the rest of us are trying to process the current lesson, her questioning nature is already pushing us toward the next one.
“It’s different for each of us. As you know from your studies, Psynergy is a combination of your psychic energy—which determines your ability to do things like read the stars and access the Collective Consciousness—and your astrological fingerprint. Your fingerprint is on your birth certificate, and it’s a snapshot of Space at your moment of birth: the location of the stars, the rotation of the planet, the pull of the moons, an infinite number of factors. Since there can never be two of the same fingerprint, every Psynergy signature is unique—but it can still be veiled or altered in the Psy.”
“Why does that matter?” asks Nishi.
By now, Deke would be groaning audibly and begging our teacher to ban Nishiko from speaking for the rest of the lesson—but he doesn’t seem to be taking any of this in. He looks how being Centerless feels.
“It matters for the same reason falsified holograms matter: You can’t be sure who you’re talking to. The better you are at Centering, the easier it will be for you to distinguish people’s signatures so you can be certain of who’s listening. We Zodai are only human, so the Collective Conscious can’t help but reflect our flaws.” Mathias is showing remarkable patience, especially under the circumstances.
“If it’s like reading the Ephemeris, how in the world will we see a signature?” asks Kai. “It’s hard enough just seeing the stars move.”