Evershore (Skyward Flight: Novella 3)

Alanik brought me to one of the small meeting rooms. At the head of the square table sat the weirdest chair I had ever seen. It looked as if it was made entirely from tree branches, sanded and polished and warped into twisting shapes that stretched up the back in a spiraling pattern. As I got closer I could see that it was a continuous carving from a single large piece of wood.

“Did you bring that here?” I asked.

“Yes,” Alanik said. “It was Arturo’s suggestion. I was saying that I find your furniture strangely square, and he said that if I was going to spend hours searching for Gran-Gran and Cobb in the negative realm, I might as well bring myself back a comfortable place to sit. It’s my favorite from my own home.”

The seat was polished wood rather than a cushion, and Alanik folded herself onto it with her legs tucked under her.

There was another chair in here—which did look squarish beside hers, but it had cushions covered in a plain brown fabric, and looked much more comfortable to me. I wondered if Arturo had been using it. They seemed to be spending a lot of time together.

I sank into the chair. “I don’t know if I’m going to be any help at this.”

“If you’re willing to try,” Alanik said, “it can’t hurt.”

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. As I reached out with my cytonic senses, I could feel Alanik on the chair beside me, and Boomslug and Snuggles settling on my lap. I widened my focus and found the other slugs across the platform, and—dimly—the vibrations that indicated there were still more taynix down on the planet that we hadn’t been able to locate.

I should probably be down there looking for them myself, since I could sense them and the ground crews couldn’t. Maybe Cobb would use that as an excuse to send me away for a while once he returned. It would be better than bereavement leave. At least I’d have something to focus on, something to do.

“Okay,” Alanik said. “We’re going to reach away from Detritus. The universe is like a giant map, and we can examine places up close or at a distance. Do you know what I mean?”

“Not really,” I said. “I can focus in on one person’s mind, or sense the cytonic…vibration of a group. But I don’t see locations, only people.”

“People!” Snuggles announced. I thought she liked being included.

“Hmm,” Alanik said. “This is why you have a hard time hyperjumping, probably.”

“I can visualize a physical place in my mind,” I said. “Like I can imagine the trees of ReDawn, because I’ve seen them, and send that picture to Snuggles.”

“Snuggles,” Boomslug said affectionately.

“Forget about the places then,” Alanik said. “I think our experience of them is different. Instead, try reaching for people, but instead of looking for them, listen.”

That sounded just as nonsensical, but at least it didn’t require me to look for things I couldn’t see.

“When you say ‘listen,’ do you mean for things you hear? Or the way Spensa heard the stars, the way I heard the slugs. Like, the vibration of the universe?”

“Neither,” Alanik said. “Like when I speak in your mind. Listen for the voices of others. You can intercept their communications, whether it’s hypercomm or mind-to-mind. It all passes through the negative realm, and if you are passing through it at the same time…”

Okay. That made sense. “Thank you for explaining,” I said. “When Gran-Gran taught me this stuff, she mostly made me knead bread and told me to listen to the stars. It helped, weirdly, but it wasn’t exactly intuitive.”

“That’s not as bad a tactic as you might think,” Alanik said. “My training was similar. I can try to explain things to you, but in the end your intuition is the only way you will learn.”

I hated that. I liked things that could be explained, preferably with proven pedagogical techniques, written reference materials, and lots of concrete examples. Cytonics was the opposite of that in every way, and I couldn’t help but feel that whatever force was handing these powers out had given them to the wrong person when they picked me.

Spensa seized her powers and made use of them. I was floundering around in the dark.

Beside me I could feel Alanik’s mind as she expanded her senses, reaching out into the void. I tried to do the same, at first looking for other minds, then listening for voices.

I wondered if I could find Spensa that way, the way she’d reached out to me from the nowhere. My mind was passing through it, and if she was in there it made sense that I would be able to find her again. I hoped every day, and even more since the explosion, that I’d hear from her. I wanted evidence she was all right, news that she was finding a way to return.

But more than anything, I desperately wanted to hear her voice again.

I expanded my mind, listening.

And then, just barely, I heard a snatch of something. A voice in the nothingness. —solar flares on the—avoid the area—

“I heard something!” I said. “Something about a solar flare.”

“It’s a weather report,” Alanik said. “I found that one. It’s a Superiority broadcast among their hyperjumping ships, warning them about hazards as they navigate the galaxy.”

Of course Alanik had already heard it. But that didn’t change the fact that I’d found it. I’d given up hope that I would be able to hyperjump, but Alanik said every cytonic should technically have access to all cytonic powers, even if various ones could be harder for some than for others.

Maybe I wasn’t completely hopeless. Maybe I could still master this, or at least gain some passable skills.

I continued listening. The sounds were tiny blips in a vast area, like a taynix hiding among all the caverns of Detritus. I found another broadcast giving what sounded like navigational coordinates, and a ship captain complaining about some of his subordinates to his commander. These were all hypercomm signals—they didn’t originate in the nowhere. But if Spensa was in here, there had to be a way to reach her. Spensa, I thought. Are you there? Can you hear me?

“Stop that,” Alanik said. “You’re drowning everything else out.”

My face flushed. Oh. Right. Of course Alanik could hear that. She was sitting right next to me, literally searching for cytonic signals.

I can hear all of that too, Alanik said. It would be wonderful if we could find Spensa in here and find a way to bring her home, but perhaps we could focus on one matter at a time?

“Of course,” I said. “Sorry.”

I sat and listened to the echoing void of the universe, trying not to radiate any thoughts that would overpower Alanik’s search. I still wished I could search for Spensa, instead of combing through mundane hypercomm communications on the off chance someone might be sending anti-Superiority messages through the nowhere. The more I thought about this, the more it seemed like the odds of finding such a communication at the precise moment it was being sent would be one in a million. And it was frustrating to hear the Superiority using this technology like it was basic radio—they had made hypercommunication part of their civilization, while the rest of us were only now clawing our way out of the dark ages.

Spensa would be angry about that. She probably was angry about it. I wished she were here; she’d be better at this than I was. Spensa would probably—

Spensa!

I opened my eyes, blinking rapidly. That hadn’t been Alanik’s voice, or the slugs’.

Had I imagined it? After everything that had happened, was I losing my mind?

I reached out again, focusing on the voice. —please respond.

And then it started again. Spensa, human of Detritus—

“I found something,” I said.

Where? Alanik asked. I could feel her mind reaching out for mine, following me into the nothingness.

—return them! Please—

“I hear it,” Alanik said. She focused on the words as they repeated again—it was an ongoing signal being broadcast on a loop. As we listened, the words became more and more clear.

Spensa, human of Detritus! the message said. This is the Swims Upstream! We have your humans and would like to return them! Please respond.

“They have our humans and would like to return them?” I said.

“That’s what they said.” Alanik frowned. “Do they mean Cobb and Gran-Gran?”

“Or other humans,” I said. “We don’t know if there are other prison planets like ours, or if we’re the only ones left.”

“If they found an entire planet of humans, would they really be contacting Spensa to return them?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what ‘Swims Upstream’ is. I don’t have any idea who’s trying to reach us.” The Superiority knew about Spensa, and that she was connected to our planet. They knew she’d disappeared, and they were no doubt trying to find her. This might be an attempt to bait her into the open, the way they did to my parents.

I supposed there was some comfort in knowing that if she was stuck in the nowhere, she couldn’t fall into that trap.

“I can pinpoint the coordinates,” Alanik said. “I could give them to the taynix in your hypercomm, so you could respond.”

“Should we respond?” I asked.

“It’s a lead,” Alanik said. “The only one we have. And if they do have Cobb and Gran-Gran…”

I reached out for the message, listening to it play again. “Can you teach me how to pinpoint the message?” I asked. “Can we respond directly?”

“You said you weren’t sure you should respond. Don’t you want to run this by your commanders? I thought that was your answer for everything.”

Alanik had me figured out. “Yes,” I said. “But I want to know what’s possible. These are skills I need to learn, even if I don’t know if we should answer this particular message.”

“Listen then,” Alanik said. “You know how you can tell which mind is mine in the negative realm? You don’t try to speak to me and accidentally reach the taynix. You can even tell the individual slugs apart, can’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “At first I got them confused, but now I can tell one from another, as long as I’m familiar with them.”

“Places are like that too. They each have their own individual…feeling. And even if you can’t see the whole of the universe, you should be able to recognize the difference in sensation.”

“Like the vibrations,” I said. And…now that she said it, I did feel a distinct vibration coming from the message.

Could I use that to communicate with it? Could I speak to the recording as if it were a person? “If I tried to talk to it, would anyone hear me?” I asked. “It’s a hypercomm, not another cytonic.”

“It depends on whether there’s a person listening on the other end,” Alanik said. “But you could try.”

She was right that we should loop Stoff in on this. I wanted to keep an eye on things, make sure no one came up with any new terrible ideas in Cobb’s absence. But I couldn’t leave either the DDF or the National Assembly in the dark completely. I might be stretching the limits of my authority lately, but if I started keeping secrets from my superiors I’d be breaking them entirely.

Still, none of them were cytonics. Even if I looped in Stoff, Alanik and I would still be the only ones who could communicate with these people.

I focused on the vibration of the recording, trying to treat it as if it were the mind of another cytonic, or one of the taynix. Can you hear me? I asked.

The recording stopped abruptly, right in the middle of a sentence.

Hello? a voice said on the other end.

Scud. They’d heard me. The voice felt different than a full cytonic mind, but I was able to target the vibration.

Is this the human planet Detritus?

If I told them they’d reached us, would that give anything away? The Superiority already knew where we were. It is, I said, but I left it at that.

The message changed. Human! it said. This is Kauri of the kitsen, captain of the Swims Upstream! Can you put me in touch with Spensa?

“Interesting,” Alanik said.

“What’s interesting?” I asked.

“That they’re a kitsen,” she said. “Or they claim to be one. They’re another of the species the Superiority believes to be lesser. They’re small furry creatures, not unlike tree squirrels, but they’re as intelligent as UrDail. I’ve never met one, but I’ve seen a picture. They look…adorable.”

So I was either talking to a Superiority trap, or a tree squirrel that knew Spensa. I wasn’t sure which was more disturbing. “Okay,” I said. “You’re right that we should bring this to the attention of Command. This is too sensitive to handle on our own. We need to go to the comms people with this, and let Stoff know.”

“If you’re sure that’s wise,” Alanik said.

I wasn’t sure it was, but I also wasn’t ready to strike out entirely on my own. I was merely watching over the DDF for Cobb until we could find him.

Let me speak with my superiors and get back to you, I said.

We eagerly await your return! the voice said.

“If they are a squirrel, they’re a very enthusiastic one,” Alanik said.

“True.” I focused one more time on the vibration of the transmission. Alanik said she could give it to Fine in the hypercomm, but I wanted to learn to do this too. I waited until the vibration felt familiar, the way I could find Alanik’s mind quickly now that I knew her. And then I pulled my mind back to Detritus, where I could feel the buzz of the taynix all around, and then toward the room where I could feel Alanik sitting next to me.

As I drew inward, passing by the minds of the taynix on the platform, the area around me suddenly felt…denser. Bumpier, like it was filled with a hundred raised ridges in the otherwise empty space. They were there, and then as I focused on them, spontaneously absent.

“Did you feel that?” I asked.

“Feel what?” Alanik said.

“That…texture. Like there was suddenly something else in the nowhere with us.”

“Something in the nowhere? Like the eyes?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. Scud, I hoped what I’d felt wasn’t some sign of an impending delver attack. “Maybe it wasn’t in the nowhere exactly. More like I could feel something through the nowhere, all around us. Not more cytonics, but—”

Alanik stared at me, shaking her head. “I didn’t notice anything. I don’t feel anything here but you and the slugs.”

“Maybe I imagined it then.” The idea that I was losing my mind was somehow less scary than the thought of some other new thing emerging from the nowhere to haunt us. “I need to talk to Cuna and Stoff, to figure out what we’re going to do next. If the kitsen are really reaching out to us, we have to follow up on it.”

Whatever Stoff’s motives, I hoped he continued to be accommodating.