“Would you like me to contact her?” I asked.
“We should at least warn her,” FM said. “Maybe we should take her with us.”
I paused, reaching toward the planet below. Into the planet, beneath the surface, through the underground caverns where the humans lived.
A voice reached out to meet me.
Alanik? it said.
So she’d heard of me. I spent so long unconscious on this platform, it made sense.
Yes, I said. Your government is considering a deal to turn their cytonics over to the Superiority. Do you need us to rescue you?
What followed wasn’t words exactly, but a strong sense of reluctance. Detritus is not our home, Gran-Gran said. But these are my people. I won’t abandon them.
Jorgen left to help me, so I felt the need to defend him. Jorgen didn’t abandon them, I said. He’s gone for help. You could come with us.
I didn’t know Gran-Gran, but I wasn’t about to let an old woman to be given over to the Superiority. Besides, we could use another cytonic. The more we had on our side, the more we evened the playing field with Unity.
They are coming for you, Gran-Gran said. You need to go.
Who? I asked. Quilan and the other UrDail cytonics couldn’t hyperjump, but the Superiority cytonics could.
Did they know we were here?
Go, Gran-Gran said. A warrior fights. She does not yield, and she does not abandon her people.
I nodded. “She wants to stay here,” I said. “She knows they might try to use her as a bargaining chip, but she won’t abandon Detritus.”
“Is that a good idea?” FM asked.
“If it’s Gran-Gran’s idea, you won’t talk her out of it,” Rig said.
“I can respect her decision,” I said. “But she says they’re coming for us. I don’t know who, but we need to go.”
“I still think we should try to get more of the slugs out before we go,” FM said. “There are dozens of them here with the other pilots.”
“The entire military isn’t going to desert,” Rig said. “We’d only put ourselves in danger trying to convince them.”
“Jorgen can get them to answer him, right?” I asked. “What if I called them to come to me? Do you think they’d do it?”
“Depends,” Rig said. “They might be attached enough to their pilots to stay. They’d be more likely to come if you promised them something like caviar.”
“I have a little,” FM said. “Not enough to feed them all. If you promise them caviar and we don’t deliver, that’s bad for their training, but not as bad as being given to the Superiority.”
I grabbed a large box of algae strips on the shelf. “We could bring these. The people on Wandering Leaf are going to be getting hungry, so we should probably bring some for them anyway.”
“Good idea,” Rig said, and he picked up a jug of a white substance.
“Custard,” FM said. “Kimmalyn will be happy.”
“If I’m going to try to call the slugs, it’ll draw attention,” I said. “We should do it from the ship, so we can leave immediately afterward.”
Rig looked at FM, as if to ask if we were actually doing this.
“I think you should,” FM said to me. “I don’t feel good about leaving them here, even with their pilots, when we don’t know if the other flights will defend them.”
“They probably won’t,” Rig said. “The assembly has come down pretty hard on you guys for what you did, and Cobb has had to go along with it.”
“All right,” I said. “I can jump us to my ship in the landing bay.”
I pulled us through the negative realm beneath those strangely distracted eyes. We were only going a short distance, but space didn’t work the same in there. If we were dealing in relative distances we should have spent a much shorter time in the negative realm compared to when we jumped from ReDawn, yet we hung there for a moment and then emerged out the other side in the large hangar next to my disassembled ship. Through a large skylight, I could see the platforms above and snatches of the sparkling shield that encased the planet.
“You’re sure you can make it fly again?” I asked Rig quietly.
“It’ll take me a bit,” Rig said, “but yes, I can.”
“It’s got a better chance of working than the one you left with last time,” FM added.
“Last time!” Gill trilled, and FM shushed him.
“Wait, what happened to that one?” Rig whispered.