Today I train twenty students at a time, and some of them learn faster than others. Turns out I was right—the young ones learn like Argus, but the older jumpers take longer, and a couple of them can’t seem to grasp the shift, even after hours in the simulator with me. A veteran jumper named Ashley seems broken with disappointment.

“I know it’s different,” she says tearfully. “But I don’t understand how.”

I’ll keep working with her over the next few days, but I suspect she’s never going to get this. Her career as a jumper is done. I’m sorry as hell to have done this to her, but maybe I did her a favor. People rarely quit our profession voluntarily, so maybe now she has a chance at a normal life. Given the addictive nature of the job, she’ll probably turn to chem and burn her mind out that way. But she has a chance, however slim, at something else.

She storms out of the session angrily, muttering curses, as I welcome the next batch of students. It will be my last of the day because I’m finding this more tiring than I expected, especially with the veteran jumpers. Some of them mutter at having to deal with me; I hear whispers of murderess and vile bitch. I pretend I don’t hear it.

I fire up the nav chair and the console, waiting for them to join me inside. They do so with varying levels of eagerness. Most of them erect partitions so I don’t glimpse their emotions, but others take pleasure in showing me their scorn. I ignore them and focus on the colors streaming in my mind.

Clear your thoughts, I instruct the group. And then, as I showed Argus, I demonstrate how things have changed, the paths subtly altered. A couple of young jumpers catch on right away, and of those two, a girl flashes the same message I did. Perfect duplication. After her display, glimmers of understanding echo through the web. She can teach. We run the drill several more times until well over half the jumpers jacked in understand the difference.

Not surprisingly, it’s the girl who caught on first. She’s eager to test herself, and she performs the jump flawlessly.

A general sense of assent, underscored with a hint of confusion and resentment. The old Farwan jumpers aren’t happy with change, and even less so at my hands. I was the one who destroyed their world the first time, after all.

We drill until I sense that their exhaustion outstrips their ability to focus. At that point, I dismiss the class and jack out. But I ask my prodigy to stay behind.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Faye.” She’s shy, unable to make eye contact. Or maybe she’s afraid of me. I have a reputation these days.

“You have a talent for pattern duplication. How would you like to teach?”

She shakes her head. “I want to jump. Just as soon as I can get back out there.”

“You can go back to jumping after we get the rest of the navigators back up to speed,” I say persuasively. “It could mean the difference between life and death for some of those colonies waiting on supplies.”

Yeah, that struck the right note. She pales. “I guess I could stay a couple of weeks and help out.”

“I need you,” I tell her bluntly. “We’re facing a challenge unlike anything that’s happened in all the turns since we discovered phase-drive technology.”

She nods. “I’m in. Just tell me what I need to do.”

Over the course of the month, Faye and I train the classes together. In time, she becomes skilled enough to handle the younger, fast-adapting jumpers on her own. We develop a testing system to make sure the navigators who leave the program are competent enough to handle jumps, and gradually, interstellar travel resumes.

But more and more jumpers turn up; it seems like the job is endless.

Luckily, we find a few old-school folks who can teach the new beacons but are too set in their ways to want to use them to travel. So they’re content taking jobs passing along patterns they will never use themselves. These days, I rarely have a moment to myself, running from class to class, or supervising a test. That’s just as well, because as long as I’m secluded here, I don’t have to think about what’s going on in the greater world.

I slam into Vel on my way to an exam; it seems like ages since I’ve seen him. Honestly, I have no sense for how long it’s been because I’m running on a twenty-four-hour schedule. I sleep little, and thanks to the nanites, I can get away with it for longer than most humans without going crazy. They take up the slack, sharpening my mind.

“You are pushing yourself too hard,” he tells me.

“I broke it. I have to try to fix it.”

“You bear too much guilt.” Hit said it first—in a different way—but coming from Vel, who knows me better, it carries more weight.

“I blame March.” It’s not wholly a joke. Before loving him, it never would’ve occurred to me to take on so much. I lived party to party, jump to jump. Most would argue he made a better person of me, but I’m not as happy as I used to be.

“Come. I have something to show you.” Without asking my permission, he calls another teacher and instructs him to take over.

I raise a brow but don’t protest. This is unlike Vel enough that I’m curious what he has in store. So I follow him through the school halls, down to the comm center. He commandeers the controls from the man working there, and tells him, “I believe it is time for your break.”

It would take more bravery than most can muster to tell an Ithtorian no, so the guy scarpers, leaving Vel in charge of the various screens. He tunes them to public bounce channels without another word. With growing puzzlement, I watch.

Five minutes in, I understand. There’s no news about Sirantha Jax or the six hundred soldiers. The public is now focused on a representative from a world that just joined the Conglomerate, who apparently has seven wives, though that’s against the laws on New Terra. There’s a big debate about whether his whole family—legal on his colony—can accompany him to sessions in Ocklind without facing social censure. Though the Conglomerate promises to uphold all religious and political freedoms, they cannot mandate that the natives behave in a friendly fashion. The representative is crying prejudice and discrimination in his interview; he’s the new nine-day wonder.

“It’s not news anymore,” I admit. “That doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten . . . or forgiven. Nor should they.”

With his customary bluntness, he says, “It is more to the point to ask whether you have forgiven yourself.”

I’m sure he knows I haven’t. It’s a steel shard, lodged in my heart, not because I feel I made a mistake but because so many paid for my decision with their lives. I never wanted that kind of power. I only ever wanted to jump.

“Sirantha,” he says gently, “you may work yourself to death, and it will not bring those soldiers back. You try to atone, but you do not mourn. You must cede their loss and give them over to the Iglogth.”

He’s wise—and he’s right.

“I don’t know if I can,” I whisper. “I’ve seen some tough times, but this is the worst because I can’t get their families out of my head. I must be such a monster in their eyes.”

In a lightning gesture, he lashes out with a claw, drawing a shallow X over my heart. The blood wells through my sliced shirt, and for a moment I am too shocked to move. I can’t believe Vel hurt me. I would’ve sworn he never, ever would. I guess this means he hates me, too. The agony sears way more than it should for the size of the wound, burning from the betrayal, and tears spring up in my eyes.

When I see my pain reflected in his side-set eyes, I know why he did. So I can cry. Even though it hurt him, too, he gave me the wound that permits me to let go. It’s a selfless thing, because I can see by the twitch of his mandible that it injured him, too. He has a friend’s blood on his bare claws, a horrendous thing—and lovely, too.

My sobs, when they tear free, wrack me from head to toe. He draws me to him, all smooth chitin, cool and hard to the touch. There should be no solace in it, but there is because he’s Vel, and he took my pain for his own. Now he must live with the knowledge he harmed someone he cares about—and that’s not lightly done for one who lives as long as he. I respect his bravery and fortitude more than ever.

For I need this scar over my heart to remind me. Crazy as it sounds, if I can bear the wound on my body, it lessens what I must carry on my soul. How he knew that about me, I cannot fathom.

But he did, and it helped, and I weep in his arms, as though all the light in the world has died.

Tomorrow we arrive at Nicu Tertius, but that’s only the beginning. There are seven state homes, and four are designated for Psi training. They’re all in different cities, and my problem is compounded by not knowing the boy’s name. If they left Svetlana attached to his file as birth mother, that will simplify matters, but Farwan is notorious for excising such information to prevent Psi from wondering about their pasts. I can ask for a genetic search, as his markers should be fairly similar to mine, but that will take time, and it’s hard to restrain my patience, particularly after this long haul.

I wouldn’t admit this to anyone but you, but I’m afraid of what will happen to me when we land on Nicu. It’s illogical, but I fear an instant regression to the monster I was before. The jungles on this world hold more ghosts than anyone could imagine; I killed so many men here, and they didn’t even get a proper service. We left them wherever they fell, so their bones just worked their way down into the mud.

Right now, I wish I’d stayed because I want you at my side. That sounds pretty selfish, but I don’t mean it that way. You just never needed me that way; I said it to you once as I was leaving—that you love me, but you don’t need me. You don’t lean. But I admire that about you, and I could use some of your strength right now.

Thinking of you. Love you still and always.

I used to dream of Doc and Evie, and how they died down on Venice Minor, but now I dream of grimspace. There’s an ache in my bones as if I’m dying by millimeters each day I spend on this planet. I don’t know how people live like this. I met a girl once who didn’t attend school; she spent her whole life on ships. She was educated by AIs like Constance, and that sounded like the best thing in the universe to me. Imagine the wonders she saw, every single day. But she told me she just felt trapped on that ship and unable to form lasting relationships. It’s so strange how one person’s heaven is another’s hell.

Things are progressing well enough here. Soon I’ll have a complete team of teachers, and I can go on my way. Our graduates are already making their way onto the Star Road to get the shipping lanes moving at normal speed again. I feel for the colonies that are withering because of the slow supply shipments. I did that. But I can’t help wondering when it all ends. You said I’m strong, and that I don’t lean, but if you were here, I’d tip my head against your chest. How much must I give before we can be together? I live for the day when we can fly away into uncharted space, away from the paparazzi and the rumors and speculation. I don’t want to be famous—or maybe that should be infamous—anymore.

Mary, I miss you. And don’t worry, you’re not going to fall back into old patterns. I can say that with complete certainty because you’d never do anything to hurt your nephew. You’ll do whatever it takes to find him and see him safe. I know you.

Love and miss you always.