“Good. Now reach out farther. Stretch yourself over the space of the planet. See if you can find the Unity cytonics. Now that you have the key to the inhibitor, you should be able to find them.”
“It’s easier when I’m closer to the source,” Jorgen said. “When I heard the taynix below the surface of Detritus, there were so many of them, so it was louder—”
“Try, Jorgen,” I said. “Stop focusing so much on what you aren’t able to do, and try.”
I felt his presence in my mind as he reached out. I hate this, Jorgen said. I can’t do enough.
“There you go,” I said. “You can reach me. Now try to find others. And be quieter while you do it. They don’t know yet who you are, and we don’t want to give them that information unless it benefits us to do so.”
“You heard that?” Jorgen said. He sounded embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to send what I was thinking—”
“You have to be careful not to broadcast when you’re making contact,” I said. “But now try the meditation you learned before. Instead of reaching for my mind, reach out into the negative realm that surrounds us, out across the planet.”
Jorgen was quiet for a long time, while Boomslug tucked itself in the crook of his elbow and snored softly. After a while I thought Jorgen might have fallen asleep sitting up.
“I can feel the other taynix,” Jorgen said finally. “I can’t find any other cytonics—and there’s a space somewhere in the distance, a space that feels…solid. Like I can’t reach into it.”
I followed him across the miasma. Yes, there it was. On the far side of the core, on the side of the planet in a night cycle.
“The Council tree,” I said. “Inhibited by the other cytonics.” I wondered if they’d done that as a precaution once our inhibitor went up. They wouldn’t be able to maintain it all the time, but they must be worried about what we had planned.
They wanted us to believe they were in control, but they were still afraid of us, which meant they weren’t. Not entirely.
“I need to learn how to make those inhibitors,” Jorgen said.
“You learned how to find a place that’s been inhibited,” I said. “You might be happy for that first.”
“It’s not enough,” Jorgen said.
I understood what he meant. It would never be enough until the fight was over and his people were safe. “Focus on what you have,” I said. “We can work on it more, but I think you should sleep first. Tiring yourself out will only make you more frustrated. And when you’re frustrated, it’s much more difficult to learn.” And dangerous, if you started manifesting things like concussion bolts and mindblades.
Jorgen didn’t argue. “That makes sense. Thanks, Alanik.”
Now I felt inadequate. Jorgen and his team had risked everything to help me, and I’d hardly shown him anything.
It’s not enough, he’d said. I felt the same.
“Get some rest,” I said.
“Good night,” Jorgen said, and he left me staring up into the red-violet glow of the sun against the miasma above.
Seventeen
I had a hard time following my own advice, and so I spent a good portion of the sleep cycle lying awake, listening. Sometime while the humans were all asleep, I caught a communication traveling through the negative realm.
—everything in hand— Quilan was saying. —give us time—retrieve Alanik—
—give us the rogue cytonic and her allies—if that proves difficult for you—set up a government who can.
I drew a deep breath. Quilan was still trying to pacify the Superiority, but he had a storm in a bottle, and any moment the glass might break. He was holding them off for now, but if they grew tired of waiting we were going to pay the price.
We had to make our move tomorrow, with whatever resources we had to work with.
I woke in the morning unsure of how much sleep I’d actually gotten, though I was still glad we’d taken the time to rest. Tired pilots were sloppy pilots, and sloppy pilots lost matches. Or in this case got themselves killed.
While the humans were eating, I used the radio in Jorgen’s ship to check the frequency Nanalis had used to broadcast the message from Rinakin. It was a Unity channel, one they often used to send messages to their people, despite Superiority admonitions that we keep wireless communication to a minimum. I wondered how long that would last once they gave the Superiority more influence over ReDawn. I wondered if they would regret it.