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.
Four
Alanik followed me up to talk to Stoff, and I didn’t stop her. Stoff had the entire DDF behind him, and I wanted a little strength in numbers of my own. I would have called in the whole flight if I’d thought it would help.
Stoff was sitting in his office—he’d left the admiral’s office empty in Cobb’s absence, which I took as another sign he wasn’t looking to usurp Cobb’s position.
“We’ve found a transmission from a hypercomm, sir,” I said. “Someone called Kauri looking for Spensa.”
“Is it the Superiority?” Stoff asked.
“It could be,” I said. “But they claim to be a kitsen. We have the coordinates for the message, so we can try to reach whoever it is by hypercomm. The message said they have our humans and they’d like to return them. It could be Cobb and Mrs. Nightshade, but we don’t know for sure.”
“Thank you,” Stoff said. “If you get the hypercomm set up, I’ll speak with them.”
“I’d like to talk to them, sir,” I said. “Alanik and I made the initial contact, and if they really are a kitsen, that might be another group we could approach about an alliance. Cobb put us in charge of making alliances, so we should have the clearance to do so.”