Duncan silently listened to the voices in his mind. There were Vana and Morris's steady, reliable reports, Lucretia's helpless complaints, and sometimes Shirley's loud fussing and Nina's tireless reminders—these voices that crossed vast distances of time and space were like warm anchor chains. Even after the two "avatars" he had left in the city-state gradually failed, they still firmly anchored him to reason and humanity.
Then, he temporarily ended his communication with Vana and the others and slowly walked across the deck, past the stairs and ramps at the stern, until he reached the towering stern bridge.
Miss Doll was still standing quietly on the bridge, both hands tightly gripping the dark helm. Her unfocused eyes stared straight ahead, while countless invisible threads extended from her body, linking her to the Lost Homeland beneath her feet and the illusory projection of the New Hope high above.
Thin wisps of fog suddenly spread across the deck from every direction, flowing and gathering.
Duncan noticed the strangely appearing fog and instinctively frowned. Then he realized that the grayish-white background in the distance seemed to be gradually "cracking"—vast banks of mist had appeared at the end of that uniformly textured "passage," and deep within the mist lay nothing but emptiness.
Almost at that instant, he heard that intermittent, blurry voice: "Jump complete..."
The Lost Homeland gave a slight shudder, but there was none of the obvious jolt from suddenly entering some kind of "medium" that had accompanied their previous arrivals at boundary nodes. The passage shattered soundlessly, and endless thin fog filled the surroundings in the blink of an eye. The next second, Alice, who had been steering the ship, blinked, and the doll's consciousness suddenly returned to her body.
"Captain!" Miss Doll looked at Duncan, her face instantly breaking into a delighted,