WHEN I EMERGED from the negative realm, escaping from the ire of the eyes, I stood in the infirmary room I’d fled when I left the humans. It was empty, the overhead lights turned off.
The first time I’d hyperjumped to Detritus, I’d been shot down by the automated weapons that guarded their planet. My wounds had mostly healed while they kept me unconscious here—not that I was inclined to thank them for keeping me in a coma. I was still technically supposed to be taking it easy, and felt twinges in my abdomen if I overdid it.
Thankfully, hyperjumping wasn’t physically strenuous.
I pressed my back against the wall by the window so I wouldn’t be visible from the hall, then reached out, trying to find Jorgen. The building around me buzzed with a surprising amount of cytonic energy. At first I wondered if the humans had far more cytonics among them than I’d previously supposed, but no, these minds felt different, their energy more subtle—like the difference between a large fruit and a tiny seed.
Potential cytonics perhaps? If the humans had this many, they’d be formidable allies indeed.
I found Jorgen’s mind, with two of the smaller resonances hovering near him.
I made it, I said. Thank you for your help.
Oh, good, he said. I lost track of you, and I thought maybe something bad had happened.
Several bad things, in fact. I need to talk to you, I said. Can you come alone? He’d wanted to alert his commanders to my presence, and maybe he already had. But I wasn’t eager to speak with them again until I had someone on my side, given how poorly things had gone last time.
Where are you?
He couldn’t locate me, then. That wasn’t a surprise. He was untrained, and of all the cytonics on ReDawn, I was by far the best at picking out locations and individual cytonics in the negative realm. I sent him a picture of the infirmary room.
Jorgen paused. Can I bring FM?
That human woman. I’d liked her. Yes, but only her.
On my way, Jorgen answered.
I wished I’d been able to choose someplace with more space, where I might be able to get a look at the humans before they found me. But I had the key to their inhibitor now, so they wouldn’t be able to stop me from leaving again if it came to that.
But if I left, I’d be no better off, with no way to help retake our base and no leverage to inspire the rest of the Independence military to do the same.
I tracked Jorgen as he moved through the building, first away from me, and then closer. The door to the infirmary opened, and Jorgen and FM stepped in, shutting the door behind them. FM’s hair was lighter, similar to an UrDail’s though it had an odd golden quality to it, while Jorgen’s was dark and tightly curled. The cuts on his face were almost healed, the bandages gone. FM drew a curtain across the window, and they left the lights off.
They weren’t any more eager to be caught by their commanders than I was.
“Alanik,” FM said. She had one of the translation pins they’d found in my ship, though it barely changed the sound of my name. I spoke fluent Mandarin, which was a human language still in use on ReDawn, but these humans spoke English, and I only knew a few words of that one. “You came back! We didn’t think you would.” FM smiled. Her face looked so strange, all naked skin with no protrusions, like the bone ridges had been filed off. “It’s good to see you again. How are you feeling?”
It took me a moment to realize she was referencing my injuries. Last time she’d seen me, I’d been in a hospital bed.
“I’m well,” I said. “And you?”
“Um, we’re fine,” Jorgen said. “We’re glad you’re back, but—what are you doing here?”
Straight to the point then. I liked that, but it was the opposite of what my espionage trainer, Finis, had taught me before I’d left for Starsight. Many species were suspicious of direct requests. They saw them as too aggressive. I wasn’t much of a spy, but I was the only cytonic who could answer the summons by hyperjumping in my own ship, and who could have the chance to hyperjump back out again if things went wrong. I’d failed, and these humans had succeeded in my place.
If they wanted to be aggressive that was fine by me, but I hadn’t forgotten everything Finis had taught me.
“I need help,” I said. “And I’d like to offer assistance in return. Your people are in a poor position with the Superiority.”
“That’s an understatement,” Jorgen said. He was about to go on when two brightly colored animals appeared on his shoulders—sluglike creatures with bulbous heads and spines running down their backs. One was yellow with blue spines and the other red with black stripes, and each emitted one of the smaller cytonic resonances I’d felt before.
Had those animals just hyperjumped?
“Jorgen!” the yellow one said.
I took a step back into the corner.
They also talked?
“Hi, Snuggles,” Jorgen said. The pin translated “Snuggles” as a cuddling action, but the slug looked too spiky to cuddle with to me. Jorgen shot an irritated glance at FM. “I thought you were working on that stay command.”
“We’re working on it,” FM said. “Gill is getting pretty good, but—”
“Gill!” the yellow slug said, and then it disappeared and reappeared again on the floor by FM’s feet with a second yellow and blue slug in tow, this one with blue markings framing its head.
“Yes,” Jorgen said. “I see that Gill is great at it.”
“To be fair,” FM said, “that wasn’t his fault.”
“Gill!” Snuggles said triumphantly.
Jorgen sighed, and FM pulled a fabric sling out of her pocket, wrapping it over her shoulder. She picked up the slug from the floor and tucked it into the pouch, petting it on its spines.
I stared at them all. “What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a taynix,” FM said. The creature leaned toward me out of the sling. Its body was long and thin, like the wood leeches that sometimes infested the bark of the trees back home.
I was familiar with several alien species, but not one that looked like this. “Are they intelligent?” I asked.
“Yes,” FM said.
“Sort of,” Jorgen corrected her.
“Not as intelligent as humans,” FM allowed. “They don’t actually talk. They repeat things we say.”
“Things we say!” Gill said.
“Yes, like that,” FM said. “Thanks, Gill.”
“And they hyperjump,” I said.
Jorgen closed his eyes. “Yes. So much for not revealing all of our secrets immediately. Thanks a lot, Snuggles.”
“Snuggles!” Gill repeated.
This was officially the strangest meeting I’d ever had, but at least I’d already learned something. “The creatures are cytonic,” I said. “I can feel them in my mind.”
“Yes,” Jorgen said. He peered around the side of the curtain, like he was afraid we would be overheard. “But don’t try to communicate with this one.” He indicated the one riding on his shoulder. This taynix was red with black stripes down its sides and black spines running down the center of its back. “He’s… temperamental. I can’t go through that again.”
“Again!” the red slug said. Its voice was deeper than the others, and somehow more disconcerting.
“But you’re not here to talk about slugs,” FM said. “You said you needed help? I’m surprised you’d come to us, after the way you were treated last time.”
“I don’t want to judge your whole people by the actions of a few,” I said carefully. “I would not like it if you judged my people by the actions of some that I know.”
FM smiled. “I’m glad you feel that way.”
They both watched me expectantly. We’d certainly been through the small talk portion of the conversation that Finis recommended, even if we’d been talking about teleporting slugs, which was definitely not part of my espionage primer. “Some of my people have decided to align themselves with our common enemy,” I said. “I think both our peoples could benefit from an alliance.”
FM and Jorgen looked at each other. “I agree,” Jorgen said carefully, “but I don’t have the authority to make one.”
I’d been too aggressive. Maybe humans were more like the peoples Finis had prepared me to address. “But you are a cytonic,” I said. “Surely you have some sway in what your leaders decide.”
Jorgen and FM exchanged another glance. “Is that what it’s like on your planet?” Jorgen asked. “The cytonics are in charge?”
“Not in charge,” I said. The Unity leaders weren’t cytonic, and neither was Rinakin, though he was the highest ranked Independence official. “But we are respected for our powers.”
The Unity leaders respected the cytonics who sided with them, at least.
“Things are different here,” Jorgen said. “Our people are afraid of cytonics. The Superiority has used them against us in the past.”
Of course they would, if given the opportunity. “So you see that the Superiority is not to be trusted.”
“Yes,” FM said. “We’ve been fighting them for decades. You said you were afraid we would trust them, but they haven’t even offered us peace. We are looking for allies though, and there’s a former Superiority Minister in residence here who—”
“They are here?” I asked. The Superiority sent representatives to ReDawn of course, under the guise of checking on our progress as a people. They were like squirrel keepers checking the cages. They never came too close, in case we would bite.
“Cuna isn’t in good standing with the Superiority,” FM said quickly. “The Superiority tried to kill them, and we rescued them. We’re not looking to join the Superiority, Alanik. And we do need allies against them.”
That was good. If this Cuna had turned against the Superiority, they might have information my people could use. “Is Cuna cytonic?”
“No,” Jorgen said. “Aside from Spensa, we only have two cytonics. Spensa’s grandmother and myself.”
That was important information, and he probably shouldn’t have given it up so easily. I needed to keep them talking, see what else I might learn. If they decided not to send help, at least I’d be armed with more information. This was going much better than our last conversation, when that angry woman threatened to keep me as a prisoner.
“Spensa still hasn’t returned from Starsight?” I asked.
Jorgen took a deep breath. “She did. But she’s… gone again.”
“How did she go there without drawing attention to herself?” I asked. “She sent a message to my people saying she was pretending to be me, but her ruse should have been discovered immediately. How was she able to disguise herself?” I’d been in shock and in pain when I’d given Spensa the coordinates. I’d never been clear on the details of how she’d managed to use them.
“We had a ship with advanced holographic technology,” Jorgen said. “Technology even the Superiority doesn’t have. Spensa was able to use a hologram to make herself look like you.”
“That is clever.” A resource like that could be used to walk right onto the Council tree and break Rinakin out without the use of cytonics.
“It was,” Jorgen said. “But the ship didn’t make it back from Starsight. We can’t use that trick anymore.”
Another broken branch.
“What are you hoping to gain from an alliance with us?” FM asked.
I set my shoulders. This was the opening Finis had taught me to look for. A direct inquiry to my intentions, an invitation to announce what I needed. Time to get to the point, to beg them to send a military force back with me. Quilan wanted to capture me first, but he wouldn’t wait forever before he transported the rest of the resistance to the Superiority. I didn’t know what they would do with us.
I also didn’t want to find out.
“Your people know very little about cytonics,” I said. “I don’t know everything, but I could offer more instruction than you have now. As for what I need—the Superiority already believes that my people are working with yours, because Spensa was discovered to be a human disguised as an UrDail. They’ve demanded we turn in our human co-conspirators, but of course we have none, so instead our government wants to turn me and other resistance members over to them instead.”
“They’re going to turn over their cytonics to the Superiority?” FM asked. “That seems unwise.”
“They’ve already captured our faction’s High Chancellor, who champions independence for ReDawn. By turning him over to the Superiority, those who seek unification will find themselves unopposed.”
“They’re trying to use the Superiority to take out their political enemies,” Jorgen said. “Because that can’t go wrong.”
FM shook her head. “Two birds with one stone, the saying goes.”
The pin didn’t have a direct translation for that first part. “What’s a bird?” I asked.
“A flying animal,” FM said. “We don’t really have them anymore. They were a thing from Earth. You don’t have birds on ReDawn?”
“We don’t have creatures that fly,” I said. “Anything that strays too far from the trees without an atmospheric generator will choke on the miasma.”
Both Jorgen and FM blinked at me.
They clearly had no idea what I was talking about, but it was also beside the point. “As for what I hope to gain, I’m hoping that your people would be willing to help me defend mine against the Superiority.”
“We can’t promise you anything,” Jorgen said. “But if you’ll come with us to talk to our admiral—”
“Is this the woman who tried to interrogate me?” I asked. “I’d hoped to avoid involving her.”
“You’ve met Admiral Cobb, but he didn’t get to say much,” FM said. “He’s… much more reasonable than Jeshua Weight, the woman you ran from. But yes, she will probably be there, especially if you want to meet with Minister Cuna.”
I doubted Jeshua Weight was going to want to work with me. I knew her type—always reaching for power, never wanting to extend any in return. “And if your leaders refuse an alliance?” I asked.
Jorgen and FM exchanged another look. “There’s nothing we can do for you without their permission. That’s not the way it works here.”
“Here!” chimed the red slug on Jorgen’s shoulder.
“Not now, Boomslug,” Jorgen said.
“Boomslug!” sang both yellow slugs, and they hyperjumped onto Jorgen’s shoulders with the red slug. All three slid off and rolled onto the ground at his feet.
The pin translated “Boomslug” to mean a mollusk that explodes.
That was ominous.
Jorgen shook his head. “We really need to get them to only do that when they’re given the code word.”
“Rig and I are working on it,” FM said. “But I think they like each other more than they like caviar, so it’s slow going.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I didn’t think these two were going to help me unless I spoke to their leaders. At least this time I was in a better position. They knew I wasn’t their prisoner, and an alliance would be advantageous to us all.
I’d come this far. I wasn’t going to go home without trying everything.
“All right,” I said. “I will speak with your admiral.”
“Good,” Jorgen said. “I really think we can all benefit from working together. I could use some coaching in cytonics, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I noticed,” I said. All cytonics had slightly different capabilities, but I could show him the basics at least. At some point, we all had to figure out the nuances of our powers on our own.
“So that’s settled, then,” FM said. “I can wait here with you while Jorgen sets up a meeting, if you want.”
“Please,” I said, and Jorgen returned Gill to FM before leaving to talk to his leaders.
I hoped my meeting with them went better this time, because otherwise I had come a very long way for nothing.
