That was all navigation was, identifying two points and traveling the most likely route between them. The math, the ships, the drive, were only tools that enabled people to travel more easily. But what if, what if… What if they’d been missing something all along?
He put his hand flat against the door that would not open for him. Given this point in space had a finite value, and some other point in space also had a finite value, and an equation could be found describing a relationship between them, and the path between them could be collapsed, the distance between them could be made into nothing. He could step through the door.
He’d done this a hundred times, sitting in the navigator station of the Drake. He knew the process so well, his training had ingrained it in him so thoroughly, it was part of his mind, second nature, as unconscious as dreaming.
Captain Scott said, “Greenau, do you have our heading?”
“Yes, sir. Transferred to your monitor.”
And the matrix was there. He could touch it. He could put his fingers inside it, work it open wider, stretch it open, and he could climb through and out, away from here. He dug with his fingers to make the area wider, to make a doorway. He should have listened to Dora. People would be able to travel across the galaxy with a thought. No more ships, no more danger. When he stepped through the door, he’d find Keesey and show her she was wrong, that there was more happening here than a neurophysiological disorder. Humanity was on the cusp of learning something it couldn’t yet control. The navigators who were patients here were only the first pioneers, sacrificed for the pursuit of knowledge. Mitchell felt proud to be in their company.
Only a little more, and the point would be wide enough for him to climb through.
“Lieutenant!”
The sound was a shockwave rattling his ears.
“Lieutenant Greenau! Mitchell!” Baz appeared out of nowhere. No—he’d opened the door, and he shoved Mitchell back, grabbing his hands.
Mitchell tried to explain. “No, it’s all right. I know what I’m doing. It’s all in the mathematics.”
“Mitchell, focus on me. Focus.”
That was what Keesey had said to Morgan. Mitchell looked at Baz, the cleanshaven face lined with worry. Mitchell’s gaze furrowed with confusion.
“Mitchell, look at your hands.”
He did, as Baz lifted them to hold before him.
They were bleeding, the fingertips shredded, bits of torn flesh dripping red. Mitchell lurched, trying to get away from the vision, but they were his own hands, and they followed him.
He fell against the wall, breathing hard, his arms rigid before him.
Baz touched the door controls. The door shut, revealing a red stain, blood smeared across the metal from the point through which Mitchell had been trying to escape. He’d rubbed his hands raw and bleeding against the door. Where he’d seen a jump matrix, there’d been nothing.
So what had there been when he directed the Drake to those coordinates, the ones he’d been so sure were safe?
“Come on, Mitchell. Come on, buddy.” Baz manhandled him off the floor, got him to stand, and walked him, puppet-like, to the infirmary. He murmured condescending encouragements. Mitchell heard them only distantly. He kept staring at his hands, which were the wrong color.
This time when he woke up, he was restrained. His hands, still stiff and sore from treatment, rested at his sides. He couldn’t move his legs. He lurched up anyway, thinking he must have been imagining it, that he couldn’t really be tied to the bed. He got his shoulders off the padding, then had to stop, because no matter how much he pulled and strained, he couldn’t move any farther.
He rattled his hands to make the bindings rub and squinted against the searing light that lanced pain through his mind. His whole head throbbed.
“Please,” he said, clearing a hoarseness from his throat. “Turn the lights down, please. They’re too bright.”
“The lights aren’t on, Mitchell,” said Doctor Keesey’s voice, but he couldn’t see her, couldn’t even tell where she was. She might have been close by and whispering. He winced. He knew he was in the infirmary. It smelled like the infirmary. He didn’t know anything else.
“I don’t understand.” The rich tone of despair in his own voice startled him. The voice came from another place, far from here, a place he hadn’t yet arrived.
Someone touched his arm, and he let out a startled yelp, because he hadn’t heard anyone approach the bed, but someone must have. Another dose of sedative warmed his blood, soothed his muscles, and he fell asleep gratefully.
Another voice woke him, this one speaking very close by.
“I don’t have much time, Mitchell. But I wanted to talk to you. You did it, didn’t you?”
He opened his eyes and was more relieved than he could have imagined to see the beds, supply cupboards, and equipment of the infirmary around him, gray and lurking in the dimmed to near-nothing light.
Dora was leaning on the bed, speaking close to his ear.
“Dora.” His mouth was sticky, his throat dry. His wrinkled jumpsuit scratched against his skin, his scalp itched, and he suspected he smelled ripe. He felt like an invalid, too sick for the luxury of a shower.
“Easy.” She rested a hand tenderly on his arm. “Mitchell. You have to tell me how you did it.”
“Did what?”
“Saved Morgan. You saw him—the orderlies were talking about it. You saw his soul pass on. That was what you saw, wasn’t it? He jumped to the next phase, and you saw it, and you’re getting ready to follow him. I want to know how you did it.”
Mitchell stared at her, meeting her wild-eyed gaze. Her fingers clenched on his jumpsuit, like she expected him to help her somehow, even though he was the one strapped to the bed. One of her hands had a fresh white bandage wrapped around it.
“You aren’t supposed to be here, are you?”
“I cut my hand. I did it so they’d bring me here.” She displayed the bandage. “I had to talk to you. You have to tell me what you saw.”
“I don’t know what I saw, Dora. I don’t know.” His visual cortex was damaged…
“But you do. You’re special. You are, Dalton says so. Tell me about Morgan. Tell me.”
Baz or one of the doctors must have been in the next room, distracted while Dora stole in to speak with him. Dora’s urgency must have meant she didn’t have much time until they discovered her and returned her to her quarters. Which meant Mitchell didn’t have much time, either.
He had to learn to the truth.
“Dora, untie me. Undo the straps, please. Then I’ll tell you.”
Nodding slowly, she touched the straps, studied them a moment, then moved to a control panel at the head of the bed. She tapped a couple of keys, and the tension on the straps released. He could move his feet, and by wriggling his hands he freed his wrists.
Dora held his hand and pressed something flat into the palm.
“I took Baz’s wristband. He didn’t notice. You’re going to follow Morgan, aren’t you?”
“Maybe, maybe—”
“Dora!” Keesey called, reprimanding, from across the room. “Dora, I asked you to wait in the chair.”
Mitchell wrapped his hands around the loose straps and hoped the doctor didn’t examine him too closely. Dora didn’t move until Keesey called again.
“Dora.”
Slowly, Dora stepped away, her gaze still on him, not wavering, until she reached the doorway where Keesey was waiting. The doctor was a shadow, indistinct in the room’s dimness, but he recognized her shape, her posture.
“Mitchell?” she said. “Are you all right?”
He swallowed back a laugh. “Not really.”