“Yeah,” she drew the word out, “that’s a tight move, Ben.”

“Naecia thinks she can do it if you all can pull enough power. I trust her.”

“As do I. Still...”

“I’ll have enough of a head start. I’m not worried.”

I was very worried. I prayed Patton had been able to draw the Scythin into a crisscross of Aszerat. Once they realized the Chime was a fake, they’d be super pissed and head back our way. In the meantime, two things had to happen. First, I had to fly the Silent Child as far away as possible. The Scythin, having been duped once, would return to the Timelance and give chase. Then Naecia had to use the Switch to move the entire city, which meant plugging the machine into the city’s main power. Even though I’d located a conduit, I didn’t even know if such a thing was possible.

Then – and this is the part at which Izairis had rightly directed her doubts – assuming they were able to pull enough power, Naecia would to try to jump Aszerat, the entire moonsized city, to the exact point in space where it would subsume the Silent Child into its vacant middle, all before the Timelance caught up with me. I would quickly dock – effectively becoming part of the city – and she would engage the drive one last time to get us as far away from the Timelance as possible. At that point, we would proceed with our plan to have non-Stringer Patton dispose of the Chime, and also explain to an entire city of millions that although they were now in a new galaxy they’d never heard of, their lives had been saved.108

“I gotta go,” I said, having a hard time believing that I was really leaving.

“Yeah,” Izairis said, keying in a combination. “I’m removing the docking clamps. Tell the ship to maintain static.”

I hesitated, momentarily forgetting the instructions she’d already given me on how to do that.

“You just talk to her.”

“Ship, stabilize yourself when the clamps let go.” A metal echo sounded from below and the ship micro-adjusted itself to remain squarely in the berth.

“You’ll need to work on your brevity,” she said. “Now go.”

“Good luck, Izairis. Look out for Patton will you? He’s gonna be torn up that we didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“You’ll see him soon, Ben.” And then she was gone down the ramp.

I sat in the captain’s chair and surveyed the control screen which showed a map of Aszerat, my current location, and the stars beyond. “Fly out a little bit and turn around.”