21
Anlyn pulled out of Edison’s embrace as the hyperdrive traces flared up on the nav screen. She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. Edison glanced at her screen and grunted at the results.
“We just missed them!” Anlyn said.
Edison brought up a different display on his own screen and typed something on the keyboard. The info showed on Anlyn’s as well, but she couldn’t read any of the numbers. Still, she didn’t have to know what they said. The intensity of the signatures was more than enough.
“This is impossible,” Anlyn said. “You don’t see traces like this except for right after someone jumps. These are too fresh to be—”
“They’re a week old,” Edison said.
“No, love, these are brand new.” She hit the zoom button, bringing the scope out. The traces were spread throughout the entire system. Hundreds of them. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“The computer says they’re a week old, and it has a destination.”
“A destination? They all go to the same place?”
Edison grunted. “You’re right. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“What? Where do they lead?” She hated not being able to read the screen, relying on just the raw images.
Edison flipped over to the nav chart, pulling it up on both screens. He zoomed in on a single point.
“Here,” he said.
Anlyn couldn’t read the name under the object, but she recognized the symbol from Bern charts. It was a star. A class V star.
“They jumped into a star? So the traces are blowback.” Anlyn shook her head. “That explains the strength and age. Maybe they are a week old. But still, why would they . . . why jump into a star?”
“I’m not a big fan of the prophecy,” Edison said. “You know that. But I also don’t like coincidences. Do you think—?”
“That the Bern are gone? Mass suicide? No. Only because I’ve learned to not jump to my favorite conclusions.”
“Give me an alternative.”
“Okay . . .” Anlyn thought for a moment. “They scuttled their ships before moving off, keeping them out of our hands.”
Edison frowned.
“Or they . . . maybe it was a waste-disposal program.”
“Only if they were disposing themselves of ships. A dozen of these signatures come up as the same class and model as this one.”
“Maybe there’s a rift in the center of that star!”
Edison shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. The mass in the star would just leak out to the other side. No, I think they did it on purpose. Maybe they figured out some way to slingshot past your barrier. They could be attacking Drenard right now.”
“Don’t say that. And we were on Drenard a week ago. I—should we still go explore one of these stations, or should we jump along a few trade routes until we bump into someone? There’s a ton of settled worlds on this map.”
“What about jumping after them?” Edison asked.
“What? Jump into the center of that star? Have you melted your mind?”
“It was just a suggestion,” Edison said. “Then again, think about it, think about where we are. This is the front line of the Bern-Drenard war. We’re standing in the trenches of the most important standoff in your history. Do you really think they just left? Or that they killed themselves? I think it’s more likely they aren’t here because the front has moved elsewhere.”
“I know you hate it when I say this, but I don’t understand. Even without the English.”
Edison blew out his breath, then sucked in another deep one. “At almost the exact instant your Circle voted to change a tactic that has been in place for thousands and thousands of years, the moment they decided to move out of their arm of the Milky Way, the Bern disappear? Like I said, I loathe coincidences more than I hate prophecies.”
“More?” Anlyn asked, doubting him.
“Absolutely. A prophecy might be nothing more than a prediction, or a well-reasoned theory with flowery language. A major coincidence like this? I just don’t buy it.”
“What they did, if these scans are correct, it seems suicidal,” Anlyn said. “Desperate. Like something we should be celebrating instead of getting worried about.” Anlyn looked from the screens to the orbital base they had been approaching. “I say we go check out that station, maybe broadcast our message a few more times.”
Edison lowered his brows, peering at the distant station. Eventually, he nodded. “That seems logical. Still, something tells me we should follow them, but perhaps there is more to that than just jumping to a precise spot. A modification of some sort . . .”
“Exactly,” Anlyn said, not enjoying his line of reasoning. She turned to one of the stations and increased thrust. Edison adjusted the SADAR for her so she could see any major debris in the way. But no matter how much he played with the gain, the SADAR remained dominated by the hyperdrive traces: bright, big blooms of pixilated energy.
They were like the ghosts of something fierce, haunting the dark closet Anlyn had been taught to fear her entire life. But now, having stepped through that mystical and lore-filled door, she had found the closet to be perfectly empty, a prospect somehow worse.
As they approached one of the traces, she felt her cold side dominat-ing. The absence of the bad men—not knowing where they were right then—was far more powerful than their presence. It was as if they could be around any corner, or off doing worse things than merely lurking in her imagination.
Anlyn found herself holding her breath as she flew through the hyperdrive trace, a hollow feeling in her chest matching the ghostlike apparitions hanging in the void. As she pierced the image, she thought about what would drive someone to jump into the center of a star, and the fear she had felt when Edison had hinted at doing just that.