“Don’t forget about me,” Arturo said. He flew close on my wing, like he wanted to be sure I remembered he was tagging along.
As if I could forget.
When I reached out for Naga’s mind, I realized that Chubs had snuggled around my waist and fallen asleep.
In a starfighter. In the middle of a battle.
I was glad someone had been able to find some peace. It wasn’t going to be Naga, as I reached out for its mind, giving it cytonic coordinates near the Council tree, but far enough away we wouldn’t be immediately spotted.
“Tell Naga to go,” I said to Arturo over the radio.
“Naga, go,” he said.
Arturo’s ship blinked out of existence, and I followed.
Nineteen
We passed through the negative realm and back into our reality, staring out into the purple darkness of the night sky. There were no stars peeking through the miasma, not this deep. Merely a cloudy darkness with patches of violet and red, like someone had put a multicolored blanket over the sun.
It was nearly dawn on this part of the planet. The Council tree stood out in the distance, the walkway lights of the city pathways blinking through the reddish cloud between us.
“Stars, I’m never going to get used to how strange this is,” Arturo said over the radio.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I said.
“So scudding beautiful,” he agreed. “They make our trees look like infants. Those used to seem impressive to me. Most of our plants grow in vats.”
I reached out toward the Council tree. Quilan would know I’d disappeared, of course. He’d guess what I was doing. But the other cytonics were moving away from us now in the direction of Tower. They’d boarded ships in a hurry. Quilan was worried.
He was right to be. I’d left a group of humans with a superweapon outside one of ReDawn’s major population centers.
“The other cytonics are leaving,” I said. “Do you think Jerkface will keep his promise not to fire on the tree?” I was proud I remembered to use the callsign over the radio, though I still didn’t quite understand the purpose.
“He will,” Arturo said without hesitation. “Do you worry he won’t?”
Yes, I did. But admitting it felt like weakness.
“Your callsign,” I said. “It’s…Amphi?”
“Amphisbaena,” he said.
My pin didn’t translate it. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a dragon from Old Earth mythology. I picked it because it’s fearsome and it flies.”
“If I need a callsign I’d like something that flies,” I said. “That seems logical.”
“It doesn’t have to be something logical,” he said. “It can be anything you want.”
That seemed more difficult though. To pick from anything. “We don’t have creatures that fly on ReDawn. They wouldn’t survive the miasma.”
“Yeah, well, we never had real dragons either. There are other things that fly though, real or not. Like eagles. Or angels.”
“I’ve heard of those!” I said. “Flying humans from your old religions. When my people first met yours through the negative realm, some of them thought we were angels. Others thought we might be devils. Like angels but evil, right?”
“That’s true. But you’re more of an angel though, right? I don’t like thinking we’ve made a deal with the devil.”
He said it jokingly, but it was the kind of joke that had the bite of truth to it. “An angel then,” I said. “Definitely.”
“It suits you,” he said. “An angel with a great big sword, coming down to exact justice.”
I wasn’t sure that was what I was, but the idea of wielding a sword of justice against the Superiority was appealing, so long as it was a metaphorical one. I had no desire to get into an actual fight with such a crude weapon.
“One moment,” I said. “I’m going to check on Rinakin.”
I tuned my radio to the channel he was broadcasting from. He was still there, talking with one of the Unity orators about the trade benefits of capitulating to the Superiority. I ran the signal through my ship’s location device, then switched to my channel with Arturo.
“Rinakin is still broadcasting from the Council tree,” I said. “The signal is coming from the area of his old residence. His primary residence is far from here, but he has a place where he stayed when he was on the Council, before he lost the election.”
“What are we flying into?” Arturo asked. “Do they have gun emplacements? Other defenses?”