Cytonic (The Skyward Series Book 3)

I got up the next morning eager, excited. I’d done a quick check-in with Jorgen to let him know what I’d overheard in regard to the delvers and Winzik. But I hadn’t stayed with him long; I’d known many of our team would be working all night on the ships. The pilots had been ordered to get a good night’s sleep, and so I had forced myself to do just that.

Indeed, the hangar was already a buzz of activity when I entered. Ground crew members were still dashing this way and that. By the large clock Peg had set up, we had two hours until departure—and there still appeared to be a lot to get done. Back home, I’d have left all these sorts of preparations to the professionals. That wasn’t how the Broadsiders worked though.

Instead I hurried to M-Bot’s ship, where Nuluba was working. She’d serviced the boosters and was just now putting the casing back on one of them. I sprang to help her lift the casing into place, and it occurred to me that this was a chance to do something I’d been meaning to for a while.

“Nuluba,” I said. “I…want to apologize to you.”

“Apologize, Spin?” she said, gesturing with one arm in a wide loop—something I thought was to express comfort. “You have made up for your theft of the ship.”

“It’s not about that,” I said. “It’s about how I might have treated you, particularly when I was first here. I…worry I was kind of abrasive to you.”

“Ah,” Nuluba said, using a drill to lock the bolts as I held the casing in place. “Yes, I did notice that. I assumed it was your natural human aggression.”

“It was more than that,” I said. “You heard about my past?”

“A freedom fighter,” she said. “From a human enclave.”

“Yes,” I said. “Most of our jailors were varvax, though we called them the Krell. And…well, I’ve never really gotten over that. Despite the fact that you’ve always been nice to me, I think I might have taken it out on you.”

“My, my,” she said, and I winced, thinking—even now—of Winzik. “That is very mature of you, Spin. Very mature and very wise. I cannot say I was so quick to reject my biases when I first met Maksim.”

“Really? You did it too?”

“Oh yes,” she said as we stepped away from the now-completed booster. “It is unfortunate, and I am embarrassed. I commend you for giving me a chance, Spin. If I had been imprisoned by humans for many years, I do not know that I would be so willing to accept one of them into my company.”

I smiled, and she waved her hands in response. How could I have ever hated this thoughtful creature? She was so calm, so relaxed. In a way, Nuluba represented something I’d never actually known: a person at peace with themself and their place in the universe. Or, well, the non-universe.

“You are ready to go,” she said, patting the booster. “Fully tuned. It was a pleasure.”

I looked at the ship, with its sleek shape and powerful boosters, and my excitement stoked further. “You’re always so serene with this work,” I said to Nuluba. “Whether it’s doing maintenance or taking inventory. Wouldn’t you like to fly one of these?”

“Please, no,” Nuluba said, gesturing with her fingers making a light rolling motion. A varvax laugh. “I like things simple.”

“Piloting can be simple.”

“No, pilots are too important,” she explained. “I like being ignored. That’s why I picked the job I did in the somewhere. I prefer to just sit in the corner and putter. It was…distressing that I caused so much of a fuss with my discoveries.” She hesitated, then grew more solemn. “Not that I’d go back. I hate the lies we’ve told.”

There was a heroism in those words, a type I’d never acknowledged. To me, being a hero had always been about fighting. But Nuluba reminded me of Cuna, the quiet diplomat who had done so much to resist Winzik.

“Before you suit up,” Nuluba said, pointing, “I believe Shiver wanted to speak to you.”

We still had a good amount of time until takeoff, so I dodged around Maksim as he jogged past with a spare power matrix, then entered the resonants’ corner of the room. Here, I always felt as if I were stepping up to a large geode. They’d leaked lines of crystal—like veins in stone—out from their ships, then over to this section. When I’d asked Shiver why, she’d explained that the crystals grew naturally, and so they needed to send them somewhere.

Each time they flew away, they broke connections to this place—but so long as they returned soon enough, they could reconnect. If they moved to Surehold, what would happen? Would this crystal network in the corner eventually crumble to dust?

Up close, I could distinguish their crystals from each other. Shiver was slightly more violet, and Dllllizzzz slightly more pink. They had grown over one another in a way I was led to understand was common among friendly resonants. The two beings chatted softly in their musical language; they did that almost constantly when near each other.

“You wanted to talk to me?” I asked Shiver, settling down beside one of her larger crystals.

“Yes, Spin,” Shiver responded. “I wished to thank you. For making this possible.”

“The assault today?”

“Indeed,” Shiver said. “Peg has been planning this for years. I…vibrate with joy, knowing the plan is finally moving forward. But I also wish to thank you on behalf of Dllllizzzz. If we are successful, we will again have access to the icon at Surehold—and the reality ashes. I maintain hope that having more of those, over the long term, will continue to help her.”

“How’s she been lately?” I asked, glancing toward the array of crystals.

“It is difficult to cleave that question, Spin,” Shiver said. “Sometimes she seems almost ready to speak. At the very edge of layered words, sentences. And then…she withdraws to unlayered words. Hints at meanings. I’ve heard true words from her only a handful of times now, including when she spoke to you.”

“I don’t think I understand. Layered words, and unlayered words?”

“I apologize,” Shiver said. “Let me reverberate. We can make different crystals vibrate with different tones, and language is always two or more of those together. Dllllizzzz makes single tones. More ideas than true words.

“It is communication, and I can investigate her feelings, comfort her, encourage her. But her responses are rarely true words, more the tones we make while learning. This is our equivalent of what you would call ‘baby talk.’ Yet Dllllizzzz is old. Older than I am. And she flies a ship just fine.”

I nodded, studying the overlapping lattices of blue crystals, with pink or violet undertones. I’d seen Shiver help with repairs—a few days back, she’d overgrown part of Peg’s shuttle looking for a short. It was incredible the level of detail Shiver could sense with her crystals—though actually doing repairs took her much more time than it took someone motile. She could technically grow as many “arms” as she needed, but moving things usually involved encasing them in crystal and then growing that crystal to reposition the object.

I found it amazing that the resonants had developed space-age industry under those limitations. But I guessed when members of your species commonly lived thousands of years, you had other advantages. And there was something hardcore about an entire civilization made up of singing crystals. Even the wildest of Gran-Gran’s stories couldn’t compete with the universe’s biodiversity.

Admittedly though, I was still miffed about the whole sand worm thing.

“Could reality ashes actually help her?” I asked.

“I hope so,” Shiver said. “But it has been—some time? Much time?—since we found her.”

“The icon,” I said. “At Surehold. What does it look like?”

“A small child’s toy. It is kept on display, to help the workers feel comfort. It’s…beautiful.” She paused. “It appeared with Peg when she was thrown in here. But she was prevented from taking it when she rebelled. I think part of her eagerness to capture the base has to do with reclaiming it. Spin…I know that you and Chet have been looking for something among the Broadsiders. Something that was taken. An…icon?”

I didn’t respond immediately. She knew?

“You were captured with an unusual amount of reality ashes,” Shiver said. “And though Chet has been subtle, I am better than most at subtle interaction. You lost an icon. You think it stolen?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I buried it outside before sneaking in here the first time. Now it has vanished.”

“Then I have, perhaps, news for you. I helped Peg recover her icon several times at Surehold. Icons are bits of the somewhere, and respond in odd ways to being in here. Spin, they sometimes seem to get disjointed from this place—as if out of phase with the movement of fragments.”

“Which means…”

“They move on their own, on occasion. As I said, it feels as if they’ve gotten out of sync with the regular fragment motions. You find them outside safes, or in rooms where you didn’t leave them. It is rare, but I’ve seen it happen. It’s possible nobody took your icon—and I think that if one were here, Peg would have sniffed it out and told everyone. She’d insist we share the ashes. It is her way.”

That was curious news. I mulled on it a moment, and found I was glad. Perhaps I didn’t have to worry about a thief here—other than myself, naturally. But what if the icon had fallen into the void? Or vanished and appeared on another fragment entirely?

In that case, I’d never find it. I’d have to rely on our remaining ashes to get us out of here. That was possible—they should last long enough—but still, I felt a sense of loss. It hadn’t really been my father’s pin—but it had been important to me nonetheless.

As I pondered that, Shiver’s mention of Peg brought another question to mind. “Does Peg really have…a tree?”

“Yes. So do her sons, whose trees were grown from fruit on hers. The tenasi symbiosis is a beautiful thing, and I often resonate with it. You should be able to see the tree soon, as it still grows at Surehold. Those there would never destroy a tenasi tree, no matter how bad the blood between us and them. Once we arrive, you can see the icon for yourself as well.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said. “But…icons, Shiver. What are they?”

“I have no idea,” Shiver said. “This place is strange in a lot of ways, isn’t it? But I’ll tell you this, looking at that icon I always felt as if it had a soul. Like it was a fragment of our world in the same way the delvers are a fragment of this one.”

What an odd way to describe it. I stood up, intending to extricate myself from the conversation with Shiver, who would continue to chat endlessly if you let her. I always felt so awkward excusing myself—but…well, she seemed to think all motile species were a little rude anyway. When you literally couldn’t walk away from your neighbors, you learned to be polite.

“Before you go,” Shiver said, “I…admit I have a request for you, Spin. Please do not think me forward, but I suspect you intend to leave this place. Not this region, but the nowhere entirely.”

“I do,” I said. “People need me in the somewhere.”

“I’ve never known anyone to leave without Superiority permission,” Shiver said. “And even those cases are rare. But my request is in regard to Dllllizzzz. Peg worries that once someone is that far gone, only getting out can help them. So if you do escape…will you see if you can find a way to open a path for Dllllizzzz and me? For her sake?”

“That helps?” I asked. “I mean…our memories…return if we leave?”

“I believe so,” Shiver said. “At least, the few people at the base who left and came back in seemed to have recovered some, if not all, of what they lost during their time here.”

“I’ll try,” I promised. “Chet is going with me, and we’ll be able to see firsthand if someone without any memories gets them back once outside.”

“Thank you. That is all I can ask. Getting out through Surehold would require negotiations with the Superiority, and I do not trust them. I do not believe it would be safe to leave that way, no matter what they promise. I don’t think the other pirates care; they prefer it in here, away from the concerns and problems of the somewhere. I am not the same. And Dllllizzzz… She needs help. She wants out. I can feel from her vibrations it is so.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said, then glanced to the side as Peg announced that there was less than an hour left. Time to suit up.

“Fight well, Spin,” Shiver said. “And I shall do the same. Thank you again for your time with us.”

I went running to clean up and get on my flight suit. I spent the next twenty minutes doing preflight checks and getting a final okay from Nuluba and Maksim to go into combat. As I finished, I spotted Chet standing down below, helmet under his arm. He’d taken off his sling last night, and his arm seemed mostly healed.

“With your permission,” he said, “I should like to fly with you today, Spensa.”

“It might get a little crazy,” I said.

“I understand crazy better than you may assume,” he replied. “And…well, I had RayZed take me out last night to run me through g-force training. I feel like I remember things better from long ago, ways to help my body withstand. Even if not, however, I prefer to join you. To be frank, I’m worried about the delvers. They failed in their attack yesterday. They will try something else.”

I nodded. “Let’s go, then.”