Obviously. We were both in danger. “You need to come with me,” I said. “I’ll explain everything, but let me take you out of here before the Superiority realizes I’m here.”
“That’s just it,” Rinakin said. “You have to come with me. I have a ship we can use. I’ll tell you everything on the way.”
I blinked at him. Had he used the exact line on me that I’d used on him? And why didn’t he seem at all concerned about whether or not I’d rescued his family? “I really think we should have this conversation somewhere else.”
“Of course. As I said, I have a ship—”
Hairs rose on the back of my neck. Something was wrong here. “Rinakin,” I said. “Where did I go when I left?”
“What?” Rinakin said.
“Where did I go?” I asked. “When I left here. Where did you tell me to go?”
“You went to get fighters, and you brought them to rescue our allies at Hollow,” he said. “I heard all about it. You’ve done very well.”
“Okay,” I said. “Where’d I get the allies, Rinakin?”
“Alanik,” Rinakin said. “Time is of the essence—”
“I know,” I said. “So tell me where you told me to go when we last spoke.”
Rinakin sighed, and then he moved one of his hands to a device on his wrist. I took a step back, afraid it might be a weapon.
But he simply depressed a button.
My cytonic senses abruptly stopped, like I’d gone instantly blind. I was lost, alone, isolated, unable to reach out for the company of the endlessness of everything. Rinakin had a taynix box here somewhere. He’d activated a cytonic inhibitor.
“You’re not Rinakin,” I said, mostly for the benefit of Arturo.
The person who was not Rinakin smiled.
Twenty
“You’re not Rinakin, but you look just like him,” I said. “How are you doing that?”
He smiled at me again and leaned back in his chair, like he wasn’t worried at all about what I was going to do next. That meant he probably had backup on the way, perhaps alerted by the inhibitor, or by another button on his wristband. From there they’d be able to drag me off to their ship, and then to the Superiority.
I hoped Arturo would stay silent. If they didn’t find him, at least he and Naga would be able to return to the platform if I didn’t find a way out of this. I didn’t expect them to mount a rescue, but at least—
A crash sounded from the office behind me, and I closed my eyes.
Not-Rinakin stood. “Did you bring someone with you?” he asked. He edged around me, keeping his back to the wall as he moved down the hallway so as not to turn it on me or the source of the noise.
I should try to make a run for it—
But I couldn’t leave Arturo to be taken. I followed not-Rinakin down the hall. Maybe we could surround him. Maybe we could—
Not-Rinakin turned into the doorway to the office, where little bits of a piece of one of Rinakin’s decorative vases lay in fragments on the floor. Not-Rinakin had barely taken a step into the room when he took a punch to his knee and an elbow to his gut, and went flying onto his backside on the hallway floor.
I moved toward him to kick him while he was down, but not-Rinakin lifted his hands in surrender. “Human! So aggressive! Stop, please!”
Arturo stood in the doorway, shaking his hand. “Ouch,” he said. “That scudding hurt. How did Spensa make it look so easy?”
“Easy!” Naga added.
Not-Rinakin tried to scramble to his feet, but Arturo raised his fist, and he sank to the ground again, protecting his face. I grabbed his wrist and pulled off his bracelet.
With a click of a button the inhibitor was gone, and the universe came to life around me again, like it had suddenly burst into song. With a second click the image over not-Rinakin’s body dissolved, revealing a dione with bright crimson skin.
“Oh, scud,” Arturo said.
This time I kicked the dione. Hard. They moaned and clutched their side.
“Where is Rinakin?” I asked. We didn’t have much time, but with the inhibitor down we could get out much faster.
“You won’t find him here,” the dione said. “They took him away not long ago.”
Oh no. I put a hand on Arturo’s shoulder and sent Naga the coordinates of the cockpit of my ship in the miasma. She was either getting used to me or was very aware of the danger we were in, because she went without Arturo’s permission this time.