“As you like to say, whatever works.”
“We have two more stops that I know of. One to drop Wheatles and his crew off on their home planet, and the other to find Ixtha. Any chance you can give me clues for what we’ll be facing when we get there?”
“A hero’s welcome.”
Sighed. “I meant when we got to Ixtha, not when we dropped off Wheatles and Company.”
Mephs patted the top of my head. “Keep on thinking right. And remember—I will always have faith in you. You have survived the nonsurvivable. Now, you can do anything.” And with that, he was gone.
Opened my eyes. All the colors of the Pantone Matching System were floating around me. “Are you alright?” Lilith asked worriedly. “You were passed out for longer than I’d have expected.”
“Fine, just having my usual weird dream experience.” Considered the dream. “Do you know about the DreamScape?”
“Yes. Were you in that?”
“Unsure. So, if you promise you’re sticking around to tell me about that lost solar system, we should probably help the others get the coordinates for Ignotforsta so that we can get those folks home.”
“I can do that without you. While waiting for you to wake up, Mother confirmed that they no longer see me as a threat. And you should probably rest longer.”
“Okay.” Yawned. “Wow. Yeah, I guess this all took a lot out of me.”
Lilith laughed. “I took myself out of you, and that is tiring for the vessel. You rest, I’ll be back shortly.” She sparkled off.
Tried to go back to sleep. Nada. Probably because I wanted confirmation or denial. Got up and headed for the supply closet. Closed the door tightly behind me. “I know that, despite everything, someone had to be helping us.”
Algar appeared. “Why would you say that? You prepared impressively. And you had a superconsciousness assisting. What else could you have needed?”
“We were inside a freaking sun. I have to figure that we only survived that because someone snapped their fingers and made us invulnerable.”
“Oh, I doubt it. I’m sure it’s possible, but that seems rather far-fetched.”
Considered things. “Or else someone planted a memory of an event that Wruck never actually experienced.”
“That seems possible,” Algar said noncommittally. “Or it was as he said, buried and needing to be nudged out.”
“Someone might have given Lilith the suggestion to match frequencies with Yoko Ono, too. Maybe SuperBun got some tips, as well. Bottom line, I don’t think we went in there without protection.”
“Perhaps you did,” Algar said. “Wouldn’t that be impressive?”
“Impressively unlikely.”
He shrugged. “Star surfers are real. That’s not their real name, at least, not the name they call themselves, but they exist. And they do just as John Wruck said—they go into stars. Sentient stars only, though.”
“How is it there are sentient suns, planets, and moons?”
“It’s a fascinating galaxy. Most of them are.”
Gave up. “Thanks for making that memory a positive one for John.”
“Well, whoever did it, I’m sure they saw no reason to cause pain.”
“Yeah, about that. What do we do with the Anti-Mother?”
“There are worse things than death.”
“Yeah. She’s in a prison like they want to put you in, isn’t she?”
“Oh no. Hers is far more humane. But it’s still a cage.”
“So we should kill her?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Ugh. Why will no one tell us the right thing to do?”
Algar patted my knee. “Why would we do that, when the person who thinks right is right here?” Then he snapped his fingers and was gone.
“I wasn’t done. Why did you give me, then take away, a large manila envelope?”
No reply, but an envelope appeared where Algar had been sitting. Picked it up. Looked like “the” envelope, seeing as it had the same marks from being inside my purse that the other had.
Heaved a sigh and pulled out the contents.
“Holy crap.”
CHAPTER 87
ONCE AGAIN FREAKING WITH no one to talk to about the information I was sitting on. Well, staring at. Same difference. And I needed help interpreting why I had this information, too, and what, exactly, said info was trying to tell me.
Decided that I needed to get this envelope back into my purse pronto, though. Used hyperspeed to get back to our rooms, which were happily still void of anyone else. Shoved the envelope into my purse, then tried to figure out what to do.
“Kitty,” Mother said, “we are preparing for takeoff.”
“Um, is there any way in the galaxy that you’ll let Jerry handle my position for this part of the trip?”
“Are you still tired from birthing Lilith?” Mother asked solicitously.
Lied like the human I was. “Yes. Really tired. I’m worried about my reflexes. And things.”
“Then, in this case, yes. You will need to recover by the time we’ve identified where Ixtha is, however.”
“Promise I’ll be fine by then.”
“You may have time.” Mother sounded worried. “I still cannot reproduce the coordinates.”
“No worries, I have some ideas.” Did I ever. No clue if those ideas were any good, of course, but hope liked to spring eternal.
“Good. Please strap in, just in case. All beds have the ability to become crash couches.”
“Gotcha and will do. You can sign off in here, by the way, I don’t need monitoring.”
“As you wish.”
“Thanks, I’ll call if I need you.”
The intercom went dead. Hadn’t been paying attention during the trip to see if I could actually tell when the com system was off, so just took it on faith that the reprogramming Hacker International had done was working.
There was no way I was lying down. Not because I wanted to be tossed around the room if things were bad, but because I was only going to have a short time before someone came looking for me.
On the plus side, this was going to give me an opportunity to do what I’d been lax about doing for too long.
Went over to the thing that had been created for me on Cradus—a really amazing standing three-way mirror. Spent some time doing little adjustments while I sat exactly in the middle of the mirrors. Even if it didn’t work, this was the most beautiful three-way mirror in existence, made of silver with gold filigree, pewter trim, copper backing, and mercury mirrors. Had no idea how the mercury was held in place, but it rippled if I touched it.
Finally got the mirrors into place and used the lovely lead locking mechanisms I’d asked for to hold it as I wanted. Just in time—felt the ship beginning takeoff.
Jumped onto the bed and was able to get under the automatic restraints at the last moment. Good thing, too, since this takeoff was more like the one we’d had leaving Earth and I was definitely being pressed deep into the mattress.