I glared at him.
“If it’s not that, it’s gotta be something just as seedy,” Byung-Ho said, making a placating gesture with one hand. “Like looking for treasure, or smuggling for mercenaries, or dealing with traders from the Jeweled Worlds. I’ve heard it all.”
“I would never!” I said indignantly. Raiders from the Jeweled Worlds attacked the Thousand Worlds from time to time, but that didn’t stop less scrupulous people on our side of the border from illegally buying goods from their traders.
“Whatever it is, you must be one tough cookie. Either that, or desperate.”
He was right about the desperate part. I didn’t dare tell him about my brother, though. I had no idea what kind of trouble Jun had gotten himself into, or whether he really did know where the Dragon Pearl was. I definitely didn’t want to lead a stranger to such an important artifact, even if that stranger happened to be helping me.
“It’s for my family,” I told him, because I had to say something. “We’re poor, and I want to do my part to help.” I said it like I was ashamed of it, which grated on me—maybe because it was true and I was ashamed of it. I’d finally gotten away from home—Jinju was dwindling to a speck behind us—but the memories of omnipresent dust and threadbare clothes and worn-out furniture would always haunt me.
Byung-Ho nodded. “Well, you’re not the first adventurer to go into space seeking her fortune,” he said. “And the Red Azalea has friends at Gingko Station. There’s no direct Gate there, but the fastest route will take us there in two hops.”
Even steaders like me knew the basics of space travel. In order to cross vast distances, you had to use a special stardrive to punch your way through a local Gate. Each Gate only connected to a handful of nearby ones, so voyages could involve a lot of hopping. Plus, starships had to be recharged between jumps. For this reason, spaceports had sprung up near Gates to cater to travelers. Jinju’s Gate didn’t see much activity; right then I was grateful it existed at all.
“I’m warming up the jump drive,” Byung-Ho added.
“How bad will it be?” I’d heard stories of what it was like to pass through a Gate. Some people got sick. Others were tormented by dreams that were reputed to be half prophecy, half nightmare. Seasoned spacers got used to the visions over time, though they tended to become superstitious about them. Certain Gates had reputations for causing more unpleasant experiences than others. Jinju’s Gate was supposedly one of the worst.
Byung-Ho shook his head. “You’ll see soon enough. Try not to be too loud, if you’re a screamer.”
“I never scream.”
He wasn’t paying attention. “Drive’s ready.” He pointed to the blue flashing indicator on his panel.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that the battered freighter was eager to make the jump. In the old stories, older even than the Thousand Worlds, a humble carp could become a dragon by leaping up a waterfall. If a fish could dream of upgrading, I didn’t see why a starship couldn’t, in its secret crystal heart, have ambitions, too.
“Here goes nothing,” Byung-Ho said. He pulled a lever and the ship surged forward.
At first I thought nothing had happened. The ship seemed to freeze in place. Then a great swirl of shimmering rainbow colors, like on an abalone shell, spun around us. I closed my eyes, but the colors followed me, as though they had seeped behind my eyelids and pressed their patterns into my brain. If I concentrated on the patterns, I could almost read them.
I saw faces, indistinct at first. Then one of them drifted close, smiling sadly. I gasped as I recognized it from the silk portrait I’d lost earlier that day. Dad! He opened his mouth as if to say something, and I leaned forward, eager to hear it.
Instead, his mouth gaped wider and wider, and his teeth grew longer and sharper, like knives. His face sprouted fur with orange and black stripes, and his brown eyes turned amber. He’d morphed into a tiger. He lunged for me with a snarl.
I shrieked and jerked back.
“Bora?” Byung-Ho said.
So much for my not being a screamer. I opened my eyes and stared out the viewport. “I’m okay,” I said weakly. No trace remained of the gorgeous swirling colors, or my father’s face, or the ferocious tiger. Instead, there was only a dead staticky gray. Just nerves, I told myself. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if the vision had been a warning.
While we were Gating, we wouldn’t be able to exit the ship, not even to make repairs. Gate space was harmful to living creatures. I hoped the Red Azalea wouldn’t choose now to break down. There had to be repair robots on board in case of an emergency, but I didn’t want to have to find out.
“Bora!”
Byung-Ho had to say it twice to break me out of the trance, because I still wasn’t used to going by my cousin’s name. “Good,” he said roughly. “I was starting to worry.”
“About what?”
“Some people get lost in the patterns,” Byung-Ho said, “and they don’t come back. It’s not as common as the rumors claim, but it’s worst the first time you enter a Gate. You looked like you were drifting away.”
I shivered, remembering the tiger about to bite my head off.
“Well,” Byung-Ho said, “we’ll be recharging for a while now. While we wait, let me show you around the rest of the ship. Maybe you can make yourself useful.”
I should have known that even in space I couldn’t escape chores.
I’d already seen the cockpit. The Red Azalea also had a tiny office in the ship’s midsection, which Byung-Ho said I wasn’t supposed to enter; cramped living quarters with bunks for four; a kitchen and a dining area; an engine room, which I also wasn’t supposed to mess with; and a cargo hold in the rear.
The stacks of crates in the hold made me curious. Byung-Ho hustled me past them and set me to scrubbing the deck in the dining area. I stifled a groan, especially since some of the marks on the floor and walls weren’t dirt. They looked like blaster burns, and I was pretty sure no amount of elbow grease would get rid of those. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to volunteer to paint the whole deck, either.
I scrubbed at the scuffs and stains for an hour, until my back hurt so much I couldn’t take it anymore. Byung-Ho didn’t check on me the entire time. At home, someone would have nagged me about doing a better job. It was nice not to have to live up to my relatives’ standards anymore. But I would have preferred to spend the hour learning how to operate the ship. I guessed Byung-Ho didn’t want me to know too much.
I returned to the cockpit. Byung-Ho reclined in his chair, snoring peacefully. I slid into the copilot’s seat and took the opportunity to explore the help system. I knew I couldn’t master everything overnight, but I had to start somewhere.
In the middle of puzzling out the engine-status symbols, I, too, slid asleep. I couldn’t help it. I was used to working long hours, but today had been longer than most, and it had included way too much excitement.
I dreamed of dragons snaking from red to blue and back again, of worlds spinning topsy-turvy in the deep black of space, and of the Gate swallowing us in a swirl of pearly colors. The dragons led me down to a planet wreathed in white mist, making me shiver even in the depths of sleep. White was the color of death and mourning. I glimpsed Jun at a cliff’s edge in the distance, staring up at the sky, and I ran after him, shouting his name. He turned and waved, but I never managed to get any closer. . . .
Despite my disconcerting dreams, it would have been a refreshing sleep if I hadn’t woken to an alarm so loud it gave me an instant headache. “Go away, Bora,” I mumbled, forgetting that I was supposed to be Bora.
My annoying cousin would have been an improvement over reality. “Wake up!” Byung-Ho said, sounding worried. “The first hop went without any problems, and we’ve just completed the second one.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I said. My strange dreams must have resulted from our entry into the second Gate.
He gestured at the sensor panel, which showed four rapidly approaching red dots. “Not likely. We’re stuck in-system until we’re charged up, and unless I’m mistaken, those are mercenaries. I hope you spent some time familiarizing yourself with the weapons system.”
“I couldn’t, because—” My retort died in my throat when Byung-Ho suddenly jerked a lever and the Red Azalea shuddered to one side to begin evasive maneuvers.
“Too late now,” Byung-Ho said. “You’re going to have to learn on the fly.”