“So, um…,” I said to Morriumur as I dug into my salad. “You said you’ve been alive, um, two months?”
“Yes!” Morriumur said. “I will be born in three months, as a baby, though I will retain these memories as I grow. Or…well, I hope to be born in three months. Whether or not I can enter the final stage of the birthing process will depend on whether or not my family members agree that this personality is a good one to add to their ranks.”
“That’s…Huh.” So strange.
“Different?” Morriumur offered. “I realize that this is not the way most species do things.”
“I don’t want to be offensive,” I answered carefully, “but yeah, it’s a little odd to me. I mean, how does it work? Do you have two brains right now?”
“Yes, I have two of most internal organs—though the extra arms and legs were absorbed during the cocooning process, and my parents’ brains are linked together for now, acting as one.”
Wow. What a strange conversation.
“If you don’t mind,” they said, “you have the look of a race that uses sexual reproduction, with two different sexes, male and female?” When I nodded, they continued. “That is one of the most popular biological templates in the galaxy, though no one is certain why. Could be parallel evolution. I prefer the theory that you all have some common ancestors who spread through the stars using cytonic hyperjumps long before you even had stone tools!”
I sat up straighter. “Cytonic hyperjumps, you say?” I asked, as innocently as I could.
“Oh, you probably don’t know about those!” Morriumur said. “People used to be able to hyperjump using just their minds. It was very dangerous, but I find it an interesting theory as to why some species from different planets look similar. Don’t you agree that would be exciting, if it could ever be proven?”
I nodded. Maybe I could learn something about myself here. “I wonder how they did it? Do you know anything about the process?”
“No,” they said. “Just what’s in the books—and the warning that it’s dangerous. The texts are very careful not to talk about specifics.”
Drat. I looked closely at Morriumur, and could tell—now that I thought to check—that the left and right halves of Morriumur’s face had different features. Two people had actually melded together somehow, creating Morriumur—an individual who was larger than most diones I had seen, but only by a few centimeters. The couple must have shed a lot of mass during the…the pupation?
I realized I was staring, and looked back down at my salad with a blush. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Morriumur said with a laugh. “I can only guess how odd it must seem—though I find it odd that so many species reproduce your way, without ever even trying out the personality of the new child. You’re left with random chance! I, instead, can interact with my extended family, and they can decide if this is a version of me they like.”
I found something about that to be distinctly unsettling. “And if they don’t? Like you, I mean.”
Morriumur hesitated, then poked at their own food. “Well, then when I enter the cocoon in three months, my parents will decide that I’m not quite right. They’ll pupate again, and I’ll emerge with another personality. The extended family will try that version out for five months, and we’ll eventually settle on a version of me that everyone likes.”
“That sounds dangerous,” I said. “I mean, no offense, but I don’t think I like the implications. Your family can just keep shaking up your personality until they get something they approve of? I don’t think anyone would have approved of me.”
“Non-diones always say things like that,” Morriumur said, sitting up straighter. “But this process has created for us a very peaceful society, of prime intelligence. It…does put stress upon me to prove myself, however.” They waved toward the room full of pilots. “That has pushed me to do something extreme. As I told you, this version of my personality is a little…aggressive. I thought, what if I show my family that this is a good thing? Maybe it was impulsive of me to join the call for pilots, but with only three months left, this seemed the best way to prove myself.”
“But…” I started to object, then trailed off as I noticed that someone new had entered the dining hall. Well, a group of someones—some fifty kitsen, each maybe fifteen centimeters tall. The furry creatures marched up to our table, most wearing little white uniforms of a naval style, their fluffy tails sticking out the back.
I stifled a smile. They seemed to be a powerful spacefaring race that had shown bravery and loyalty in combat. But…scud, they were also really cute.
They stopped at the empty chair next to me, and several raised a ladder against it. Others scurried up, then placed another ladder leading to the table’s top. Finally, Hesho—still wearing his formal red silk clothing—climbed up the ladders onto the tabletop. He raised a paw to me, fingers clenched in a fist. Seeing him up close, I could make out the pattern of red on his white fur snout, a color repeated in the fringe of his long, pointed ears.
“Alanik of the UrDail!” he said, his translation collar projecting a bold, deep voice. “Today, we feast to our victory!”
“Captain Hesho of the kitsen!” I said, mimicking his closed-fisted gesture. “Did you only just arrive at lunch?”
“We fetched our own vittles and brought them here,” he said. “We cannot trust a Superiority cafeteria to have proper feasting materials appropriate to our station.”
Another kitsen arrived with an oversized chair, which they placed on the tabletop for Hesho to settle into, his bushy tail sticking out the back. Others brought a small table, which they set in front of him and draped with a tablecloth.
“So,” Hesho said, looking from me to Morriumur. “We are colleagues now, we three? Shall we make a formal pact of mutual aid and support?”
I glanced at Morriumur. “I don’t know that I’d thought about it that much,” I said.
“We will need trustworthy allies if we are to survive future engagements,” Hesho continued. “Though to be honest, I do not know if having a dione in our small fleet will aid our progress or hinder it.”
“Probably hinder,” Morriumur said, looking down at their plate again. “The officials will push me harder than they would a member of a lesser race.”
“Then the kitsen shall welcome this extra difficulty,” Hesho said solemnly. “Perhaps it will prove, finally, that we are worthy to become full citizens of the Superiority.”
“Do we have any idea what happens next?” I asked them. “We passed their test, right?”
“Next we’ll be trained to fight the delvers,” Morriumur said.
“Which means what?” I asked. I still had no idea what I was in for.
“It is hard to say,” Hesho said. “I don’t believe any of us expected the test today to be as brutal as it was.” As he talked, another group of kitsen arrived with steaming plates of food, which they arranged on Hesho’s table. One, wearing a silken dress, cut his food and began feeding it to him. The others busily set up feasting materials on the tops of several of the chairs at our table.
“The Superiority is odd,” Hesho continued around bites of his tiny steak. “Its officials will work very hard to protect the pristine and peaceful lives of innocents, but once you step outside the bounds of propriety, their retribution can be swift and brutal.”
“The Superiority is wise,” Morriumur said. “It has stood for centuries, providing safety and prosperity for billions of beings.”
“I do not contest those facts,” Hesho said. “And my people are eager to have our citizenship level increased. Still, you cannot dispute that some departments—particularly the Department of Protective Services—can show a disturbing lack of empathy.”
I nodded, and the table fell silent. As we ate, I found my focus drawn to something that I must have been feeling all along. The…call of th
e stars. Starsight’s cytonic-suppression field had quieted it, but out on this station I could hear the song again. I couldn’t distinguish what was being said, but that sound in the back of my mind meant this station was sending out communications.
I set down my fork and closed my eyes, imagining myself flying among the stars, as Gran-Gran had taught me. I felt myself drifting. Maybe…maybe I could follow those invisible trails. Did some of them lead to Detritus, and the Superiority forces posted there?
But there was nothing that gave me a clue toward that end. I did feel something else nearby though. A kind of humming familiarity. What was that?
Brade, I realized, recognizing the feeling from earlier. She’s not in the room, but she’s near.
I opened my eyes and glanced around. The bustling room was filled with aliens eating and drinking—or in the case of some very strange rocky creatures, pouring liquid on their heads.
The sensation was coming from outside the room. I made an excuse to the others, saying I needed to find a restroom. Morriumur pointed the way, and I ducked out of the dining hall, glancing in the direction Morriumur had indicated. A string of doors ran down the hallway here, each with a sign identifying the kind of disposal unit contained therein.
I glanced in the other direction, where Brade’s cytonic sensation seemed to be coming from. There were no guards that I could see, so I slipped away down the hall.
The feeling got stronger as I reached a door off to the side. It was cracked, and I peered in to see that indeed, Brade was there. And she was speaking with a group of dione officials, as well as Winzik.
I crouched beside the door, trying to listen to what Winzik and the other officials were saying inside.
“Hey!” M-Bot said in my ear, nearly making me jump. “Spensa, what are you doing?” I gritted my teeth, concentrating on the sounds from behind the door. “Oh!” M-Bot said after a moment. “Are you hiding? What’s wrong? I was computing our flight back to Starsight. Weren’t you going to go release secretions in the lavatory? Spensa, did you release them in an inappropriate place? Is that why you’re hiding?”
“Shut up,” I whispered as softly as I could. “I’m trying to spy.”
“Oooooohhhh,” M-Bot said.
The others were speaking too quietly for my translator to pick them up. I could hear muffled voices, but couldn’t make anything out.
“Do you maybe want me to enhance your bracelet’s auditory reception capacities, then wire the translations directly into your ear, so your pin won’t give you away?” M-Bot asked. “This will help you spy more efficiently.”
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“Fine. No need to be terse.”
He wirelessly shut off my pin, then began piping the voices from the other room directly into my earpiece. My bracelet’s sound pickup was much more sensitive than the pin’s or my normal hearing, and M-Bot was way better at isolating voices from background chatter.
“—should have seen that this would be such a disaster,” one of the officials was saying. “These drone pilots were trained to fight against the humans at the Detritus preserve! They came out shooting far too aggressively.”
“These casualties are unfortunate.” That was Winzik’s voice, which had a calm tone to it. “But you needn’t worry about repercussions. This was an accident, not an act of aggression.”
“There are a dozen dead!” another official said. These diones sounded far less calm in private than they had outside, when talking to that gorilla burl. “The poor families!”
“Those poor families will be destroyed entirely if we don’t prepare a fighting force to resist the delvers,” Winzik said. “My, my. My department’s suppressors will deal with any outcries of injustice. You have done your duty well.”
“Yes, well…,” another official said. “I guess, as long as you think the test worked…But was it necessary for you to bring your human here, Winzik? She makes me uncomfortable.”
“My my, Tizmar,” Winzik said. “You worry far too much. And about the wrong things! Consider instead the Department of Species Integration and their insistence on entering several very aggressive species into our contest. Cuna is up to something here. That newcomer, Alanik, uses human combat strategies. Her people are dangerous from their long association with the scourge, and should remain isolated.”
I frowned as I leaned against the wall—then felt something. A mind pressing against my own.
“What?” said an official inside. “What is wrong? Why is your human standing up, so alert like that? She’s properly trained, isn’t she?”
Idiot. If I could “hear” Brade with my senses, then of course she’d “hear” me back. I spun and scrambled back down the hallway. Sweating, I slowed down to walk back into the dining room. I tried to be nonchalant as I sat down at our table.
A moment later, Winzik appeared in the doorway, looking around the room. As I slipped back into conversation with Hesho and Morriumur, from the corner of my eye I could see that the Krell’s faceplate pointed in our direction, lingering on us. Then he retreated.
A short time later, a group of dione officials entered the room bearing tablets. They moved through the tables, talking to the pilots, giving instructions.
“And here we have Alanik,” said a dione official with crimson skin as they arrived at our table. “The noncitizen! You performed quite well in the test. Excellent flying, and rescuing others in need? Delightful. We have organized you in a flight with the Big Enough and its crew. I assume you’ll find this acceptable?”
I glanced at Hesho, who stood up and clapped once. It…seemed like a sign of assent?
“I’d like that,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Now,” the official said, scrolling their tablet screen and reading. “There is a matter of some…sensitivity I would discuss with you two. We have added another member to your flight. A skilled and capable pilot. Very skilled.”
“Then we shall welcome them!” Hesho said. “Who is this person?”
“It’s a human,” the official said.
Morriumur gasped softly, putting their hands to their face. Hesho immediately sat back down in his seat, and a kitsen appeared with a fan and began fanning him rapidly. I tried my best to look surprised and horrified.
“Now, you needn’t be worried!” the official continued, speaking quickly. “This human is fully licensed. I will provide you with documentation.”
“Why,” Hesho said, “would we be training to fight one evil by using another?”
“Yes,” I said. “Those things enslaved my people for decades! I wouldn’t think you’d set them loose on the galaxy.”
“This human is very well trained,” the official said. “We need to test whether she can fight delvers.”
“What if this human is perfect at fighting them?” Hesho asked. “Will you create flights and fleets only of humans? This is hiring the wolf to guard your sheep. In the end, you will still lose your sheep.”
I found that metaphor curious. Had he actually used the words wolf and sheep? Or had he spoken alien words that got translated into something similar in English?
Either way, I wasn’t sure what I thought of Brade joining our flight. She was a cytonic. Would she be able to, with time, tell that I was secretly human? I had the suspicion that she was being assigned to my flight specifically to keep an eye on me.
At the same time, she probably understood much more about being cytonic. She might know the secret to making my powers work properly. She might…be able to explain to me what I was. What we were.
“I’m sure,” I said slowly, “that the Superiority knows what it’s doing.”
“My people have a long history with the humans,” Hesho said, settling back beneath the fanning of his servant. “Back in the days when we still had shadow-walkers, our people walked between our world and Earth, the human homeworld.
This is a bonfire awaiting a spark.”
“If this is not an acceptable situation, Your Majesty,” the dione said, “we can remove you from the flight rolls.”
“I would, of course, have to ask my people,” Hesho said. “As I am not their king, but simply one equal among many in a perfectly legal democracy.”
The other kitsen around him nodded vigorously in agreement, even while one fanned him and another served his food.
“So this means we passed the test for sure,” I said, diverting the topic. “We’re going to be trained to fight the delvers?”
“Yes,” the official said. “We’ll send a shuttle to pick you up tomorrow at 1000, Starsight time. It will deliver you to our training grounds. I’m afraid you’ll need to leave your own starships behind and train on our equipment, though we’ll have an appropriate vessel prepared for the kitsen, Captain Hesho.”
Superiority ships. Exactly what I was hoping for. I still didn’t know how I was going to find a chance to steal a hyperdrive from my new ship, let alone get it to M-Bot and jump us back to Detritus, but at least I’d taken one major step toward accomplishing that goal. Though I’d want to triple-check to make certain my hologram disguise would stay in place if I strayed too far from M-Bot.
“To be extra careful regarding the human,” the official said, “we’ve placed a figment in your flight. You might have noticed that one was attending this test. This individual prefers to be addressed as a female, and has asked that you call her simply Vapor.”
Hesho sat up at this. “A figment, you say?” he said, tapping his furry chin with a single clawed finger. “This is some comfort, at least.”
Huh? What was this? A “figment”? I looked around, trying to see if I could pick out what they were referencing. However, before I could ask, the official continued speaking.
“Excellent,” the official said, then pointed absently at Morriumur. “Now, you. Please follow me, and I’ll tell you about your placement.”
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