We’ve stepped into his office, the door closed behind us. He takes a seat at his large desk, and I sit opposite. It’s so funny to see him on the other side of authority, the director of this place. To me, he’ll always be my apprentice jumper; maybe this is similar to having children.

A long, frustrated breath escapes him. “I can’t teach it. I can navigate the new signals, but I can’t show anyone else like you showed me. I’ve just been buying time with bullshit exercises to ‘prepare their minds,’ hoping they’d cut you loose. But it’s been so long now that I think they suspect something’s wrong.”

Frag me. There might be some truth to the accusation that I held the whole galaxy hostage. If they’d executed me, it would’ve crippled grimspace travel for turns to come. But I can show them all how to read the way the beacons pulse now, just like I did Argus. It will be time-consuming, but it’s doable, and maybe along the way, I’ll come across a jumper who can teach it alongside me. Unfortunately, I know of no test to identify that capacity.

“All right,” I say, switching to work mode. “How many jumpers are here for training?”

“Over five hundred, but more arrive every day.”

“Then strictly speaking, from a facilities standpoint, how many jumpers can jack into a training chair with me at one time?”

“No more than five.”

I tap the comm. “Dina, are you still in range?”

“Dammit,” she replies. “I knew it was too good to be true. I’m not getting a vacation, am I?”

“I’d appreciate your help here. I need you to figure out a way to patch twenty training chairs into one nav chair, and all processed through the same console.”

“Like I did on the Triumph, times twenty?”

“Pretty much.”

“You don’t want much, do you?”

“I would love you forever if you could swing it.”

“You’ll love me forever anyway.” I hear her giving instructions to the drive-bot, then she adds to me, “I’ll be there in fifteen. Need to grab my tools first.”

“I would be glad to assist,” Vel adds. “I have some mechanical aptitude.”

To say the least. He knows more about gadgets and gizmos than anyone I’ve ever met, save Dina. And when they work in concert, there’s nothing they can’t accomplish. I’m feeling better about this already.

“This is doable?” Argus asks.

“Very. Here’s what I need you to do now. Tell the students to take the rest of the day off because tomorrow, they start wrapping up their training.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Absolutely. We’ll work through the night to make all the necessary adjustments.” I do a little math in my head. “I can probably do five classes a day, which means it’ll take me a bit less than a week to handle the ones already on hand. I’ll need your help prioritizing by those who arrived first. I trust you took notes?”

“Yes, I have plenty of records. I just didn’t know what to do with them after I failed my first attempts to show them the difference.”

I laugh softly. “You get high marks for stalling.”

He shrugs. “I really just want to jump.”

“You’ll be in demand, don’t worry. There will be shipping companies that’ll pay you a fortune at this point to get their goods moving again.”

“I’m ready for a job like that,” Argus says. “Relatively low pressure.”

“Had enough of the thrills, chills, and death-defying?”

His young face grows somber. “Esme died in the attack on Venice Minor.”

I remember her; she was the young blonde with whom he celebrated his first solo jump. Though I don’t say so aloud, he now knows what it’s like to be a jumper. Death stalks us through our days, taking those we love as if in warning not to forget how great a hold it has on us. Loss rides us from birth to grave, endless shadow cast over the euphoria that burns in grimspace.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

“It stopped being a game then.” He’s older now. I should’ve noticed at once, but I was focused on sorting the training situation here.

“Did you love her?”

He gives the question thoughtful consideration, then shakes his head. “I didn’t bother getting to know her enough to say. I was just having fun.”

“And now you’ll never know if it might’ve been something.”

“Exactly.”

“We all lost people we loved on Venice Minor, and we can only go on as they would’ve wanted. Suffer the aftermath. War is bloody and awful . . . It leaves terrible wreckage to clear away. There are no heroes, only survivors.”

“That’s not what they believe on Lachion,” he says. “They sing of great battles and people who died well for their clan.”

“Do you still believe that’s true?”

“No. After what I’ve seen, I don’t see how it could be good or glorious.”

I feel sad for him, as he’s grown too much, and he can never return home. He cannot believe in their stories. But maybe a better life awaits Argus elsewhere, after a long career as a jumper. I can hope for that, even if I do not believe. Navigators like us don’t wind up surrounded by our grandchildren, full of satisfaction at a life well lived. Like most, he will die in the nav chair, unable to speak a farewell to those who love him.

A small part of me pricks up in protest. Times, they are changing, and that may alter his end, too. Despite Doc’s death, his gene therapy lives on. Unlike Evie, he wasn’t paranoid about theft, and I know where he backed up his data. We can use his science to save jumpers from burnout. Maybe one day, there will be no dire tales about what happens to navigators who give too much to grimspace.

But first things first. I’ve got to prepare this facility for training in volume, then run the classes. Gene therapy can wait until after there’s FTL movement on the Star Road again. I give Argus a list of things he needs to requisition, and he’s happy to have a job he can do while he’s on the ground. The stress flows away from him as I take charge; I can only imagine how tough it’s been for him to pretend he could do what they demanded of him.

Half an hour later, Vel and Dina show up, tools in hand, ready to begin revamping the existing equipment. By this point, I’ve learned the school layout, so I lead the way to the training room, which is inadequately equipped for the number of experienced navigators who need to be retrained. If I can’t find someone who can teach the new signals alongside me, then I’ll be stuck here for the foreseeable future. That would be just as bad as prison.

“Thanks for coming,” I say, as they set up.

Dina dismisses it with a wave of her spanner. “No problem. The sooner we finish here, the sooner we can move on.”

We. She might not realize it, but that word means everything to me. It means I have friends who will stick by me, no matter how rocky it gets. I know better than to mention it, though, or she would rib me unmercifully. She hasn’t changed that much.

Soon, workmen deliver chairs and cables, stacking the crates three deep against the far wall. While Dina and Vel go to work, I unpack, sorting the gear as best I can. If I were better with my hands, I’d help them with installation, but I suspect I’d just end up creating more things for them to fix. So it’s better I just facilitate setup.

As it turns out, I wasn’t kidding when I told Argus we’d work through the night, but by morning, we have twenty training seats successfully patched into one nav chair. With Vel’s help, I tweak the programming to reflect the new pulses. That takes several more hours as I tinker, looking for precisely the right pitch. It’s a lot of trial and error, until I find the correct setting.

After that, I wake Argus to test them, and he tries them one at a time while I sit in the center. Each time he joins me, I sense his tension easing a little more. He knows I’ll handle the situation; I’m humbled to realize the depth of his faith, even after the mess I’ve made.

“It looks good,” he says, after we complete the testing. “Are you going to be up to doing the first classes today?”

“Probably not,” I admit. “I’m pretty tired, and I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot.”

“Another day won’t kill them. I suspected you wouldn’t want to start so soon, so I gave them two days off instead of one.”

I give him a tired, admiring smile. “You’re not just another pretty face. Well played. But I’ll definitely take the first class tomorrow morning.”

“Will it be as fast as it was for me?”

“I have no idea. We’re breaking new ground, here. Some may not be able to learn at all, for all I know. If they’ve been jumping too long, their brains may not be able to hold the new patterns.”

“So you think the fact that I’m relatively new helped me?”

“Maybe. I won’t be able to extrapolate until I see more.”

To my surprise, Argus hugs me. “Thanks for saving my ass.”

“I’m the one who put you in this situation. It’s the least I can do.”

He shakes his head. “The least you could do is run. But you wouldn’t.”

No. That’s not me. Not anymore.