Cytonic (Skyward #3)(56)

“I thought I’d hit on something so important. Something revolutionary. Proof that our definitions of aggression didn’t match statistical models. I spent years gathering my information, thinking I’d be heralded as some great mind.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You presented it to your supervisors, and they immediately tossed you in here.”

“There wasn’t even a trial,” Nuluba whispered. “By the way they talked, what I’d done was dangerous, subversive. Merely looking for evidence that might contradict long-held beliefs was seen as aggressive.” She put her hands to her sandstone helmet. “I don’t know what they told Vormel, my mate. I didn’t get to see him again. I just…vanished.”

Maksim reached over and took Nuluba by the shoulder to offer support. Dllllizzzz vibrated her crystal, low and sonorous, a…comforting sound. The varvax gestured in thanks.

Scud. She really was what she said, wasn’t she? An unimportant bureaucrat caught up in something bigger than she was. I felt uncomfortable, realizing how I’d viewed her. I’d done it before, with other varvax. It was hard not to see in them the people who oppressed mine for years. Even still, even knowing what I knew.

Watching them console her, I felt like an intruder.

I’d known camaraderie like this. Expressed it, cherished it. A night spent with the other women in my flight, who refused to let me return to my cavern exile. Evenings together reminiscing about those we’d lost. In a powerful moment, I saw their faces. Kimmalyn, Nedd, FM, Hurl, Arturo. Jorgen…

Scud, I missed Jorgen. I found myself reaching out with my cytonic senses. Why hadn’t I been able to locate him again in my dreams? As always, when I tried to reach him intentionally, I found only that other presence. That familiar one that had been nearby, like a spirit watching over me. It was more distant now. And angry at me for some reason? Was it the delver I’d contacted? Or…something more personal?



I know it was foolish, but I couldn’t help feeling it was connected to my pin. And my father.

I excused myself as the others continued to comfort one another. Their genuine emotion made me feel sick. As I moved over to the bins where I could store the salvage I’d separated, I spotted something I’d missed earlier. Someone large sitting in the shadows near the closed hangar doors.

Peg. Captain of the Broadsiders. How had I missed her sitting back here? The thick-bodied alien looked particularly predatory in the shadows. And she was watching me. I didn’t need to see her eyes to know that.

Right, then. I took a deep breath and strode over. I hated feeling like people were watching me, thinking about me, but saying nothing. Better to confront them.

Of course, a similar attitude is what got me into my initial fistfight with Jorgen. So maybe I could take it a little more carefully this time?

“Captain?” I said as I reached her. “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? Oh, I don’t know, Spin.” Peg laced her clawed fingers in front of herself. She had an almost reptilian appearance, though her skin was a thick hide instead of scales. “Words. You fit in well with the others. Adapting better to this than any other I’ve known. I hadn’t thought you were one to grow heknans. I thought you most certainly to only have muluns…”

“I still don’t know what that means, Captain. My pin refuses to translate the words. How do your people…grow…these things?”

“Sit,” she said, gesturing toward a folding chair.

I did as I was told.

“Your pin could be set to translate these idioms,” the captain explained. “But you obviously do not know how. It is irrelevant. My tree is distant now, and since I was forced into exile, I can barely feel it or the fruit it grows.”

“I’m…sorry?” I said.



“No need for yendolors,” the captain said, settling into her larger chair across from me, plainly built for one of her stature. She gestured with a clawed hand toward the members of Cutlass Flight. “They are good people, human. Better than you expected to find, yes?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

The captain’s voice grew softer. “I have watched you, Spin. I know you are a soldier, which is curious. The Superiority doesn’t often throw actual fighters in here. The government claims to hate the aggressive, but it has use for the useful, we might say. They grow so many venmals. You’d say it differently: that they have much hypocrisy.”

“I don’t disagree with that,” I said.

“I want you to go,” Peg said. “I don’t want you to bring trouble to these. Tonight, I will arrange for you to be unwatched. You may walk away so long as you take nothing with you that belongs to us.”

The words hit me like a brick to the face. She knew. Well, she suspected. And she understood that I was dangerous. Admittedly, I felt a little thrill. This enormous beast of a person found me intimidating?

“You’re wondering,” Peg said, “if this is a trap, to try to lure you to run so I can have proof you are untrustworthy. But we both already know you have grown too many kitchas for staying here. You have killed. Those here, most of them never have.”

“You’re pirates,” I said. “I saw your kind dogfighting others.”

Peg leaned forward. “I have killed, Spin. I have grown the kitcha. The fruit of the murderer. And I can recognize my kind. You will leave.”