“Alanik!” they yelled through the glass. “I don’t know what Winzik plans to do with us—”
“He plans to blow us up!” I yelled as I moved by. “We’re working on it.” I hauled open the doors at the end of the hall, searching for the inhibitor. I found a custodial closet and a room with a couple of old broken chairs. At the end of the hall was another door, this one locked.
I stepped back and kicked it with all my might. The handle snapped on the third blow, and I tore it off and dragged the door open.
There, inside, was a taynix box. I opened it, and a blue and green slug tumbled to the floor.
The cytonic inhibition faded. Alanik, Jorgen said in my mind. I can’t get to them. The Superiority people all fled, and you disappeared, and I can’t—
On my way, I said. I didn’t waste time running down the hall again. I hyperjumped back to the room with Cuna and grabbed them roughly by the arm.
Get Cobb out, I sent to Gran-Gran. She must have already been prepared to do so, because they disappeared before I even finished the thought. So she could hyperjump. That was good. One less thing for me to do in the unknown time before this ship exploded.
“Snide, take me to Drape,” I said, and Cuna and I passed beneath the unseeing eyes as we jumped to the control room on Wandering Leaf. I deposited Cuna at the feet of a somewhat-less-surprised Rig, and then Snide and I hyperjumped back to the Superiority transport ship, this time to the storage room where we’d landed originally.
I took off at a run toward the area of the ship where I could sense Jorgen. I could feel his panic even before I reached him. He stood in a narrow observation room overlooking a tiered meeting hall that was clearly designed for a large assembly of people. Fake Cobb seemed to have escaped from Jorgen, because I didn’t see him here. There were a dozen or so humans on the other side of the window, including Jeshua Weight, who stood right against the glass. One of the other humans—a man who looked like an older version of Jorgen—hefted one of the chairs and threw it at the glass.
It must have been some kind of reinforced plastic, because it didn’t break.
“Humans of Detritus!” a voice said. It was coming from a loudspeaker inside the room, but was loud enough that we could hear it even from here. “For your years of resistance, you have been judged too aggressive to live. You will meet your end for the good of all. In our graciousness, we will end your lives swiftly. Your pain will be brief. Your deaths will be broadcast to your planet, so that they may mourn you. You may have a moment to say your goodbyes.”
“How benevolent of them,” I said.
Jorgen beat his fists against the window. Inside the room, I could see the politicians starting to panic.
As they should. We couldn’t get them out of there. The Superiority might be satisfied with merely enslaving my people, but the humans?
Them they were going to destroy.
“We have to find that inhibitor,” I said, and Jorgen nodded, moving toward the doorway.
I tore down the hallway in the opposite direction. But there weren’t many crevices in this part of the ship—and all the other inhibitors had been inside the zone they inhibited, not outside of it. While there was a door on every side, they were all locked, and reinforced far better than the closet.
I ran the circle around the meeting room until I met up with Jorgen, and then we double-checked the areas we’d each checked before.
None of the doors would give, no matter how hard we beat on them.
When we reached the viewing room again, Jeshua still stood at the glass. She turned around, glaring at Jorgen.
“Look for a box,” he shouted through the glass at her. “A box with a taynix in it!”
Go, she mouthed at him.
Jorgen shook his head, beating on the glass with his fists again.
“Go!” Jeshua yelled through the glass at Jorgen. Her voice was faint, but I could make out what she said next. “Do better than we did.”
We weren’t going to be able to save them. There was nothing more we could do here.
I put a hand on Jorgen’s shoulder. He still had Snuggles in his sling. He didn’t need me to pull him out.
“She’s right,” I said. “We have to go.”
“No!” Jorgen shouted. There were tears running down his cheeks now.
He wasn’t going to leave, but I couldn’t let him die here.
I didn’t take chances with the slug. I reached through the negative realm to the hangar on Wandering Leaf, and I pulled.
Through the negative realm, I heard a scream.