I felt a deep warmth rising inside me. A heat that I wasn’t prepared to feel.

“I don’t care about the past,” Jorgen said, meeting my eyes. “I don’t care if there’s a risk. I want you to fly with us—because I’m damn sure that we’re safer with you at our side than not. Mythical defect or not. I’ll take the chance.”

“Ironsides thought something similar about my father.”

“Spin. You can’t base decisions about your future on something we don’t understand.”

I looked back at him, meeting his eyes—which were the deepest brown. But with hints of light grey at the very centers, right around the pupils. I’d never noticed that before.

He let go of my shoulder suddenly, leaning back. “Sorry,” he said. “I went straight into ‘fix’ mode instead of ‘listen’ mode, didn’t I?”

“No, that was fine. Even helpful.”

He stood up. “So… you’ll keep flying?”

“For now,” I said. “I’ll try not to crash into you, except when strictly necessary.”

He smiled a distinctly un-Jerkfacey smile. “I should get going—I have to go get fitted for my graduation uniform.”

I stood up, and we looked at each other awkwardly for a second. Last time we’d had something nearing a heart-to-heart—back on the launchpad—he’d hugged me. Which still felt weird. Instead, I offered a hand, which he took. But then he leaned in, close to me.

“You aren’t your father, Spin,” he said. “Remember that.” Then he squeezed my shoulder again before climbing into his car.

I stepped back and let him drive off, but then found I didn’t know what to do next. Return to base for some PT? Hike to M-Bot’s cave, where he sat lifeless? What was I going to do with leave?

The answer seemed obvious.

It was past time for me to visit my family.

45

By now, I was used to the way people treated me up in Alta. They made space for a pilot, even a cadet. On the long street outside the base, the farmers and workers would give me friendly smiles or a raised fist of approval.

Still, I was shocked by the treatment I received in Igneous. When the elevator opened, people waiting outside immediately parted, letting me pass through. Whispers followed me, but instead of the harsh notes of condemnation I normally heard, these were awed, excited. It was a pilot.

Growing up, I’d practiced staring back when people looked at me. When I did that now, people blushed and averted their gazes—as if they’d been caught sneaking extra rations.

What a strange collision between my old life and my new one. I strolled along the walkway and looked up at the roof of the cavern, so far above. That stone didn’t belong there, trapping me inside. I missed the sky already, and it was so hot and stuffy down here.

I passed the smelting factories, where the ancient apparatus belched heat and light, turning rock into steel. I passed an energy plant that somehow converted the molten heat of the deep core into electricity. I wandered beneath the calm, defiant stone hand of Harald Oceanborn. The statue held up an old Viking sword, and had an enormous steel rectangle—carved with sharp lines and a sun—rising behind him.