Evershore (Skyward Flight: Novella 3)

I was still on edge when Kauri led us to the senate assembly, held in an arena built into the cliffside. The arena was an enormous space for the kitsen, containing hundreds upon hundreds of small padded seats carved into the sandstone, ascending up to the ceiling at the back of the room. There was barely space for Alanik to stand, and I had to hunch my shoulders to avoid scraping my head.

The floor at the bottom of the seats provided enough space for a few of us to sit. The others stayed on the beach, while FM, Alanik, and I all tried to squeeze in together. We’d used the lack of space to leave Cuna out of the meeting, but in reality I was afraid of what they might say.

We had to sit with our knees tucked up to our chests to fit all three of us. A kitsen floated on a small platform with a raised wall around it, like a cup we might drink out of on Detritus. The cup had a microphone attached to the front of it like on a podium.

“I am Adi, director of the senate,” the kitsen said. “It is my job to ensure that the proceedings progress in an orderly fashion. You will not speak unless you are asked a direct question.”

“Will we be given an opportunity to plead our case?” I asked. “We’re trying to retrieve our friends and offer an alliance, and if we aren’t allowed to speak—”

“You may be called upon to speak if there are questions,” Adi said. “Please do not speak out of turn.”

We may be. Stars, I hoped Kauri had this under control.

The kitsen senators began to file in, all wearing silk robes of a similar style. The colors varied widely, and I wondered if they were based on personal preference, or if they indicated what region the kitsen was from. We’d landed on this island, but we’d passed over hundreds more. As the hall began to fill, I noticed physical differences in the kitsen as well. Some had longer ears and smaller snouts, while others had darker coloring to their fur. A pair in the back each had an ear notched as if ceremonially cut, and one that took a seat toward the front had a row of silver earrings pierced all the way up to the tip on one side.

“That’s a lot of kitsen,” FM whispered beside me. “Are you going to do the talking if there are questions?”

“I appointed you our diplomatic specialist,” I said. “You should do it.”

FM took a deep breath. “Okay. But if I say something wrong, I’m a little afraid Goro’s champion is going to run me through with a sword. It’s not easy to get in and out of here. We wouldn’t be able to escape.”

“I’ll talk, if neither of you wants to,” Alanik said.

“No,” FM said. “I can do it. But…”

Goro arrived, riding on his disc with his champion beside him. He’d left the rest of his entourage outside. The champion’s sword was still sheathed, and I hoped it would remain so.

Goro lowered his platform to be even with the bottom row of chairs, presumably so he wouldn’t block the view of any of the senators. This put him alarmingly close to Alanik’s knees, but she didn’t seem intimidated by him.

It was hard to be intimidated by something so small, but that didn’t mean I wanted his champion charging our ankles with a sword. Diplomatic disaster or not, someone could get seriously hurt, and it could be one of us.

Adi called the meeting to order. Only about a third of the senate seats were filled, but I imagined there were probably senators who were away, or who hadn’t been able to gather on such short notice. A lot of the kitsen were watching us suspiciously, but none of them were advancing on us with weapons drawn, so this was still an improvement.

Until they started to speak.

Adi gave both Goro and Kauri the floor, which surprised me. I’d sat through enough boring assembly speeches that I expected this meeting to be much the same. But instead, Goro and Kauri entered into a sort of debate.

“These human invaders,” Goro said, “must be dealt with. Given our long and violent history with them, we know what language the giants speak. They must receive the only communication they understand—a swift and violent lesson by combat. Their kind has brought only ruin upon our shores, and it is up to us to visit vengeance upon all our enemies.”

FM leaned over and whispered to me. “He says violence is the only language we speak, but he’s the one who keeps trying to attack us.”

That was an interesting argument. I wanted to hear more, but it was apparently Kauri’s turn.

“The humans aren’t our enemies,” Kauri said. “They have come by my invitation to collect their friends who arrived here by accident, and who are even now receiving medical treatment. They also bring with them a promise of an alliance, which they have already established with the UrDail.”

Most of the audience eyed Alanik, and Alanik stared back at them, stone faced.

She wasn’t any better with people than I was, but at least she didn’t go around referring to them as lesser. She leaned over to me. “You could just fight him,” Alanik said. “He is literally asking for it. Any of us could beat him in combat.”

“If we do that,” FM said, “we’ll only solidify their image of us as dangerous, violent, and aggressive. All the things we’re trying to prove we aren’t.”

Besides, the kitsen were fast and trained in dueling. I wouldn’t put it past them to get a good blow in on one of us and seriously injure us. I doubted they’d manage to kill us, but I didn’t want any of it on my conscience.

If Spensa were here, she would have seen it differently. She would have dueled the kitsen and probably won spectacularly, and would have somehow spun that victory into an alliance. But she wasn’t here, and I was doing the best I could.

“Of course they say they come in peace,” Goro said. “But we all know what humans are like.”

“I don’t think we do!” Kauri said. “Humans invaded us in the past, but these humans have a common enemy in the Superiority. I was there when Winzik summoned a delver to destroy the humans.”

“It was in that battle that we lost our most Honored and Revered One Who Was Not King!” Goro said. “If we had not meddled in interstellar affairs, he would be with us even now.”

“It was Lord Hesho’s decision to answer the Superiority’s call,” Kauri said. “Do you question his will?”

Goro sputtered. “No, but—”

Kauri continued as if Goro hadn’t interrupted her. “The delver immediately turned on Winzik’s own people, but still he persists. He offered us a path to primary citizenship, but we were only pawns meant to enact his violence for him. If we don’t begin to forge alliances, we will stand alone when the destruction comes.”

“This is fearmongering,” Goro said. “The humans are the real threat.”

Kauri replied and the two of them went on, arguing back and forth.

Juno, the kitsen lorekeeper, sat in the front row near my feet. I leaned forward and whispered to him. “Is it always like this?”

Juno leaned toward me. “No,” he said. “Our senate is young. Before we lost our king he made the decisions, instructing our people how to vote. It was easier then for us to arrive at decisions. Our wills were aligned, and we had unity.”

Alanik bristled a little at the wording, but I saw his point. That was the way the DDF worked. Our admiral made the decisions, and the rest of us carried them out. We could act quickly that way, and decisively.

But it also meant we could swiftly make the wrong decision, if the person at the top made the wrong call.

I thought about what Arturo said, that our lives were easier when we could think about things simply. We had to kill the Krell because they were trying to kill us. There was no moral ambiguity, no diplomacy to navigate. I supposed after a fashion my parents had been doing something brave, trying to pioneer a new way.

In other circumstances, they might have been heroes.

Goro looked ruffled, like he felt he was starting to lose the argument. “We must settle this matter decisively,” he said. “Allow my champion to fight a champion of the humans’ choosing. Our might will decide the victor.”

He seemed to have only that one argument, and I noticed no one in the senate had brought a champion with a sword. We hadn’t seen anyone else dressed like Goro in the city either. He was the only one insisting that a trial by combat was a reasonable course of action.

“The humans have already said they mean us no harm,” Kauri said. “They don’t want to fight with us. A physical fight between kitsen and giant would only cause unnecessary pain.”

“To them maybe!” Goro said. “My champion will fell the giant like our heroes of old! They will not stand before the blades of—”

Yeah, his argument was starting to reach the fever pitch of someone who knew they were losing. But the senate members hadn’t given their opinions yet, so why would he be?

Goro looked over at me and seemed…confused.

Was he trying to bait us into fighting him? That would certainly make his argument easier.

Kauri followed his gaze and I raised a hand, indicating that I wanted to speak.

“For my next argument,” Kauri announced, “I would like to introduce the witness testimony of Flightleader Weight.”

Goro hunched a bit, looking disgruntled.

“Jorgen?” FM whispered. “What are you doing?”

“Trying something,” I said.

“This is preposterous,” Goro mumbled. “A human should not speak to the senate.”

“Kauri is allowed to enter the testimony of another to make her argument for her,” Adi said imperiously. “Flightleader Weight, you may speak.”

Stars, I wished I was more prepared for this. I’d have preferred to have FM do it, but there wasn’t time. She was right. If we gave even the slightest indication that we would participate in Goro’s duel, we solidified their already terrible preconceptions of us. “On behalf of my people,” I said, “I’m sorry for what you’ve suffered at human hands. But we aren’t interested in fighting you.”

“They arrived with destructors on their ships,” Goro said, “and they expect us to believe—”

“You will wait your turn,” Adi admonished him, and Goro snarled a bit but shut his mouth.

“Our destructors are used in defense,” I said. “Of ourselves and of our allies. And we would very much like you to be our allies.”

Goro’s furry little brow bunched, and his champion leaned over and whispered something to him, though Goro waved her off.

Kauri gave a triumphant little smile. “I rest,” she said. And she nodded to me.

Goro had been trying to bait us into something. And if we’d risen to the bait and fought his champion, we would have proven everyone right about us. Goro clearly wanted that. Was it because our presence weakened his power, or did he think he was doing his people a favor by trying to reveal our true intentions?

“Very well,” Adi said. “The argument is over. We will now hear from the senate.”

Kauri turned around and raised her fist at me, in a gesture I was coming to recognize as both a greeting and approval.

Goro floated closer, his champion standing beside him with her gauntleted arms crossed. “I don’t know what your game is, human,” he grumbled.

“I don’t have a game,” I said. “Except to bring our people home, make peace with you, and coordinate a resistance against the Superiority.”

Goro narrowed his beady little eyes at me. “Your people never looked at us as allies before.”

“And I’m sorry for that,” I told him. “But we aren’t them. We’re concerned about your welfare, and the welfare of all the species the Superiority claims are lesser.”

I looked over at FM and she nodded her approval. Stars, maybe I was getting some of this right at least.

“Hmph,” Goro said, crossing his arms to mirror his champion. “Well, we will see.”

Paws waved in the air all around the room, and Adi floated her microphone over to them, allowing the senators to speak.

The first few senators focused on Goro’s argument—his right to challenge newcomers to a trial by combat. Several felt there was no harm in granting his request—though they all seemed to regard it as odd—and suggested we should be obliged to appoint a champion or leave the planet in disgrace. The kitsen with the rings in his ears said that Goro had no authority over Dreamspring or the surrounding island, so his challenge was invalid. Goro would need to wait and reissue it if one of us set foot on his island, which had another long name I didn’t quite follow.

Stars, it was getting hot in here. We were inside the rock, where it should have been cooler, but the heat of so many bodies in one place was starting to make the room humid and stuffy.

I looked over at FM, who was listening to the kitsen speak with obvious and growing concern. “This isn’t going well,” she said to me.

She was right. Instead of focusing on what I’d said about peace, the conversation was getting bogged down in the disputed legality of Goro’s request. And in between, senators began to comment on the bigger issue—dare they defy the Superiority by working with us? That would mean throwing away all their progress toward primary citizenship. They gave up their monarchy for that, which they all seemed to consider a great sacrifice.

“Lord Hesho gave his life to try to further our cause with the Superiority,” one of the kitsen with a notched ear said. “How can we dishonor his sacrifice by abandoning his quest?”

Kauri squirmed like she dearly wanted to argue with that, but both she and Goro remained silent, which I gathered was the rule.

We had not been given permission to speak again, and we hadn’t interrupted. I simultaneously wished someone would ask our opinion and was unsure of what I would say.

If Spensa were here, she’d say something. She wouldn’t be able to sit here and listen to this without telling them how wrong they were. She wouldn’t worry about finding the right words—she’d trample forward on moxie alone, and it would work, because Spensa was amazing like that.

And somehow she had confidence in me. Stars, I could have used a little of that confidence right now. I let my mind slip into the nowhere, searching for her. Alanik was sitting right here, and while I didn’t hear her in the nowhere, I also didn’t want her to open her mind and hear me, so I stayed quiet, looking, listening.

The kitsen senators continued to argue, but I caught only snatches.

“—Superiority has the power. Who are these humans, that they think they can win—”

The nowhere was quiet as ever, devoid even of that strange raised texture I’d encountered on Platform Prime.

There was something though, there in the emptiness. Not Spensa, but…an image of her. She was…cleaning a part from a starfighter. I couldn’t see the area around her, but I could see her, and could sense…her loneliness. And a feeling of concern for her that wasn’t mine. It came from the image, from the nowhere.

Stars, was the nowhere concerned about Spensa? It was only a strange place, it couldn’t think or feel—

Could it?

The kitsen went on, the arguments getting more heated as they went.

“—threaten our way of life. We shouldn’t be working with any of them, unless we want—”

The image of Spensa faded. It hadn’t seemed like it came from Spensa herself, but I had no idea where—or who—it had come from. It was gone now, and I couldn’t find it again.

“—destruction for us and all our kin. If we aren’t careful—”

An image welled up in my mind—the Superiority ship where my parents died, cut to ribbons and expanding ever outward against the blackness of space.

I shoved it down, reaching through the nowhere again. Spensa was in here somewhere. I’d found that image, I should be able to find her. Even if we couldn’t talk, I wanted to know she was there—

That vibration I’d felt before grew stronger, a cytonic resonance from somewhere on the island. And then, loud in my mind, a voice cried, HELP US! and I visibly startled.

Other than Juno, who looked up at me in alarm, the other kitsen didn’t seem to notice. Both FM and Alanik did though, and they turned to me.

Are you okay? Alanik asked.

Fine, I said. I drew back into myself. That voice—it had come from the nowhere, but it wasn’t Spensa. I didn’t know who it was. Maybe Gran-Gran? But she was here on Evershore, not in the nowhere.

Scud, why was it so hot in here? The sandstone walls felt like they were closing in on me. I wanted to escape, but I couldn’t slip out. I’d have to crawl through the scudding doorway on my hands and knees again. What kind of message would that send?

I tried to focus on the words of the senator who was speaking, a very large kitsen with brown tufts at the ends of his ears.

“—if our most Honored One Who Was Not King were here, he would surely agree that—”

“Do not profane the name of the One Who Was Not King!” another interrupted. “In his wisdom, he would surely have said—”

Stars, they all seemed to have an opinion of what their not-king would do if he hadn’t died in the battle with the delver. Did we kill him? We very well might have.

And when they invoked his name, they sounded uncomfortably like me trying to convince Vice Admiral Stoff of what Cobb would do if he were here.

Stars, was this what I sounded like? Like I was merely trying to win a scudding argument, making the specter of Cobb agree with whatever I said?

Jorgen, Alanik said again, are you okay?

I’m fine, I said, and I cringed, glad FM couldn’t hear me.

You aren’t fine, she’d said. You can’t be fine.

She knew. Stars, everyone probably knew. I was trying to hold everything together, but it was all slipping through my fingers and—

Help us! the voice in the nowhere said again.

Stars. It didn’t sound like Gran-Gran. Who was that? Didn’t they know I couldn’t help anyone, not my flight, not even my parents?

“Our lives are stable here,” a greying kitsen said. His skin was loose around his face, and he carried a small cane that he leaned on while he sat. “Why would we risk angering the Superiority? We should be working with them, or we will end up hunted like the humans have been, and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.”

Damn it. The kitsen might have easier lives than we did. They might be able to choose to go play on the beach in the afternoon, or have feasts, or duel each other needlessly because they were squabbling and bored, but if it drove them to that kind of thinking then it was a luxury that bred carelessness. My parents had wanted that kind of luxury for me, for us, and they’d reached for it—and that was why they were dead.

I saw my mother’s face behind the glass, resigned to her fate.

Do better than we did.

But we weren’t doing better. We were having the same damn argument again.

Help us! the voice said from the nowhere. No, voices. There were many of them. Maybe they weren’t real. Maybe it was my own mind conjuring up all the people I was failing—Cobb and my flight and all the people on Detritus who were going to die because I didn’t know what I was doing.

I can’t do better, I thought to my mother. She couldn’t hear me. She wasn’t here with us. She wasn’t in the nowhere. She wasn’t anywhere. She was gone, and soon the rest of us would be too and it would be all my fault.

I tried to take a deep breath, but I couldn’t. The room was stifling, and the walls were closing in, and that Superiority ship exploded and contracted again and again in my mind, the bits of debris flying outward into the void. There was a hollowness in my chest where my soul used to be, where the part of me that loved my parents—that cared and felt—had been kept. Now it was nothing but emptiness, and for the first time I was glad Spensa wasn’t here. I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t want her to see. The shame of it all coiled inside me and then exploded outward like the Superiority ship—

Boom.

Bits of the nowhere ripped through my mind, coalescing into physical waves and bursting out like shrapnel from a bomb. The explosion caught the platforms on which Kauri and Goro were hovering and pitched them to the side, dumping the kitsen to the floor. Adi’s cup tilted wildly, bits of the sides chipping off. The force of it knocked several of the kitsen in the front rows back in their seats.

Alanik grabbed me by the arm. She seemed unharmed but—

What just happened?

Snuggles and Boomslug suddenly appeared at my feet. “Boom!” Boomslug said. The senators were all staring at me, and many of them began to talk at once. The pin couldn’t parse what they were all saying, but I gathered that not one of them was happy with me.

“What the scud was that?” FM asked.

“Mindblades,” Alanik said. “Jorgen, how did you—”

“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.” Saints and stars, I’d just been talking about peace and now I did this in the middle of a diplomatic meeting?

“Boom,” Boomslug said again, and he started to nuzzle my ankle as if in sympathy.

He hadn’t done this. He and Snuggles had felt it through the nowhere and had come to comfort me. I’d somehow manifested mindblades in the middle of a room full of scudding diplomats and now—

“Order!” Adi called. “The house will come to order!”

Goro regarded me with satisfaction. “Now you see!” he bellowed from the floor, close enough that the pin managed to pick him up. “The humans speak only the language of violence! It is the only means they’ll respond to!”

I couldn’t catch all of it, but several of the kitsen raised their fists in that gesture of solidarity.

Stars, I’d ruined everything. “That’s not true!” I said. It came out louder than I wanted it to, my voice overpowering Adi’s as she called for order.

“That’s not true,” I said again, and the senators began to quiet. Several of them had scrambled over the backs of their seats to use them as shields. “We’re not here to hurt you,” I said. “We only want you to understand that we have tools to fight the Superiority. It is possible for us to beat them, but only if we work together.”

That was a lie on two fronts. I hadn’t done that on purpose as a display of power and I didn’t know if we really had the power to defeat the Superiority, even together.

But Saints and stars, I was in it now. “I understand. It’s a lot to ask for you to side against the Superiority. I know they have better ships and better technology. But that’s been true since long before I was born, and my people have been successfully resisting them for eighty years! We don’t know anything about you or your culture, but we know about them, because we have fought them and we have survived. We don’t want what happened to us to happen to anyone else. We don’t want anyone else to be hunted, to have to live in hiding, to be killed in droves every time you so much as stick your heads out of the ground.”

The kitsen’s eyes widened as they watched me, and several of them laid their ears back in what I thought might be fear. I didn’t know if it was still me they were afraid of, or the Superiority, but I’d made this mess. I’d insisted on coming here. I’d scudding lost control in the middle of the most important diplomatic meeting I’d ever been in, and stars, I had to fix it.

“You may feel like you have peace and prosperity here, but Kauri is right. The Superiority is trying to make a deal with the delvers, and they’re going to come for anyone who opposes them. This might be our last chance to resist before they have the power they need to control every planet in the galaxy. How long do you think your planet will last without allies?”

FM put a hand on my arm, and I startled. Scud, was I messing this up? But beside me, she smiled and nodded.

Keep going, Alanik said in my mind. You have to convince them.

The kitsen watched me in shock, but not one of them had complained yet that I was speaking out of turn.

I didn’t know if I could convince them, especially after what I’d just done—stars, what had I done?—but I had to try.

“We tried to reason with the Superiority,” I said. “They offered us a treaty, and we sent a delegation to sign the deal.” My throat closed, but I spoke through it. “The Superiority offered us peace and then locked our leaders up in a ship and blew it to pieces. Half our government is gone. I will not fight you, because I have had enough of senseless violence and death. If you want, we will collect our people and go. But before we do, I want to offer you the opportunity to join us. The UrDail already have! The Superiority made a deal with the UrDail—and then visited their planet with a battleship bent on destroying them. This new Superiority government, that’s what they do. And if you try to reason with them, they’re going to come for you, too. And I don’t want to see it happen again. Not what happened to—”

My voice broke.

“—to my people.”

To my parents.

The room was so hot, but my hands felt cold. My vision blurred. I couldn’t stay here anymore. I had to get out.

“Thank you,” I said. And I stood, my neck bent to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling, then moved in a crouch down the aisle and got down on my hands and knees to crawl through the double doors out of the chamber.

The cool air hit my face, and I squinted against the bright sunlight.

I turned toward the beach, careful not to step on anyone or anything, and ran away as quickly as I dared.