Grimspace Read Online Free PDF

know it’s a bad idea to run unprotected.
    We haven’t made the jump yet, and I can feel the phase drive powering up, the trembling hum of the seat beneath my fingertips. And then March plugs in beside me, and I can feel him in ways I never wanted to. There’s no give to him, even here, but I sense a self-deprecating humor that I didn’t expect, and it gentles him, making him easier to bear.
    You ready? He doesn’t need to say it any more than I need to vocalize my response. At this moment, we’re beyond all that. We’re pilot and jumper, and we’re going forth together.
    Now.
    The world opens up to me, an orchid unfurling at accelerated speed. I think of it as the primeval soup from whence all life originally came, a maelstrom of chaos and energy, sights the human mind isn’t supposed to be able to parse, let alone convert into coherent images that can be used to navigate.
    Because of the J-gene I can sense the beacons, feel them pulsing like sentient life, and perhaps they are, for all I know. Perhaps if we could find their frequency, we could converse with them and discover we’ve long been diving down the gullets of cosmic dragons and shooting out their cloacae to somewhere else, and guess what, they aren’t exactly happy about it. On second thought, some mysteries simply shouldn’t be delved into.
    He senses my directives in the same oblique manner in which I’m conscious of his hands on the controls. I feel him making adjustments according to what I see, a symbiosis that’s never seemed more miraculous than this moment. It’s an eternity; it’s a heartbeat, and grimspace gazes back at me, scintillant and impossibly alluring.
    That’s the bait in the trap, you want to stop focusing on yourself and you want to explore in ways that aren’t corporeally possible. For the first time it occurs to me—perhaps burnout isn’t such a dreadful thing. Perhaps it’s nothing to fear at all, simply another doorway opening.
    No. That’s March. Rare for a pilot to risk breaking a jumper’s concentration, but I sense frissons of tension rippling through him, soul deep. That’s how a navigator thinks, preparing herself for the last run. You’re not there. You’re not.
    Instinctively, I reassure him. I don’t know why he gives a shit. But it hurts him to think of leaving me here. I feel it, crashing over me in waves he can’t quite subdue. Maybe it’s transference. He’s grieving, too…for Edaine, who was his friend, if not his jumper, for someone named Svet, and for another navigator whose name I don’t know. I glimpsed his myriad losses before his walls came up, and I don’t know when I ever saw someone so alone.
    Before this moment, I never thought about what it’s like for a pilot when his jumper leaves him behind. End of the flight, and she’s still in the nav chair beside him, but she’s gone. The spark, radiance, whatever made her unique. Gone. I know what it’s like to be left behind. And that’s rare for a jumper; we don’t have long life expectancies.
    Almost there.
    Gravitational pull. My mind’s wide-open, full of flares, sheer artistry that even the best pilot cannot comprehend. At its most basic level, the universe is beautiful. We’re about to slingshot through our target beacon and back out to straight space.
    I’ve done it.
    Distantly I know that the ship’s trembling beneath me again, readying itself for the second jump. And then feel it, the instant before I go blind again. Leaving grimspace hurts. But then, what doesn’t?
    We should be just a short cruise away from Lachion. So many outposts spring up along the Star Road, and the only thing that comes close to the feeling after a solid run is free fall. For this moment, I don’t even mind that March is here, sharing my pleasure, that I’m making him feel good because I do. But he’s not