Evershore(Skyward #3.1)(18)

I couldn’t hear what Kimmalyn said—she didn’t have a translator pin, so she wouldn’t have been understood anyway. But then the kitsen stepped back and Kimmalyn lifted the rock—which was only half the size of her palm, but still enormous for the tiny creatures—and set it in the rear of the truck.

One of them tipped its nose up at her, and I hoped that was a gesture of thanks. We didn’t need to be accused of property damage or delivering insults. The kitsen we’d met so far didn’t seem like they’d appreciate being condescended to.

“Do you think she should be doing that?” I asked FM.

“She’s not hurting anything,” FM said.

Cuna walked up behind us. “Compassion is universal,” they said. “It’s seen in all cultures, though it is communicated differently.”

FM sighed. “I suppose there might be some cultural norm we’re not aware of, but any of us could break one of those at any time and cause an interstellar incident.”

“Scud, our lives have gotten weird,” I said.

“That’s the truth,” Arturo said, following us up the road. “It was simpler when we were fighting the Krell.”

Simpler, but also stagnant. Our people had spent eighty years fighting for our lives, which meant we had very specialized skills. We were a well-oiled survival machine, but we lacked something these people had. It wasn’t happiness exactly. We had that, even if it was tempered by pain and fear.

Prosperity maybe. Peace. I wondered if this was what we would have seen on ReDawn, if we’d spent any time in their cities.

Kauri had drifted ahead of us a bit, and she hovered back, watching us. “Do you need to stop and rest?” she asked. “I’m sorry if I’m outpacing your human endurance.” Her shipmates were walking up the path on foot, and they seemed fine. They ran many steps to our one, but they didn’t seem to be tiring.

“No, we’re fine,” I said. “Just appreciating your beautiful city.”

“This used to be the home of Hesho, the Most Honorable and Magnificent One Who Was Not King. He died in the battle with the delver at your planet.” She gave a little sigh. “We miss him. The Superiority insisted that we needed to transition to a democracy in order to advance to primary citizenship, and I think that change was good for us. But I wish Lord Hesho had remained here with us to see the initiative of his people. He and his ancestors before him served us well for centuries.”

Kauri continued to lead us up the path, and the pinnacles of the city of Dreamspring came into view. The cliff had been split into little vertical ridges, the effect uneven enough to be natural rather than kitsen-made. The rock was full of holes and walkways so the kitsen could duck from tunnel to tunnel all across the cliff face of the upper city. The city only rose in height along the cliff face; in front it opened into a sprawling urban landscape that filled the stone area between the sheer cliff and the sand of the beach.

Here along the wall, our faces were even with the higher stories of pathways and tunnels. Scud, we wouldn’t fit in their buildings. We couldn’t sit down in their homes with them or enter their shops. I imagined what we would feel like on Detritus if ships full of sixty-foot giants suddenly arrived. They’d be unable to fit in our elevators, unable to visit our caverns.

We’d be terrified. It was a miracle that the kitsen had welcomed the humans in the past. And those humans had taken advantage of their trust—that wasn’t our fault, but we were responsible for overcoming that history now.

“Kauri,” I said, “I know you need to speak to your senate, but where will we even be able to meet with them?”

“Our senate meets in a large auditorium,” Kauri said. “We can welcome you there, but you’ll have to remain on the floor. I’m afraid we don’t have any chairs that will accommodate you. We destroyed all the humans’ dwellings after they were expelled from our planet in the Second Human War. Perhaps we could find some sturdy tables for you to sit on.”

I worried about our ability to sit on even the sturdiest of kitsen tables. Like FM said, we didn’t want to cause any interstellar incidents. “We can sit on the ground,” I said. “If there’s room.”

“As long as that wouldn’t be too much of an insult,” Kauri said. “We wish to meet with you as equals, but we do not know your customs.”

“No,” I said. “No insult. Where exactly are Cobb and Gran-Gran?” They wouldn’t have fit inside these buildings either. And if they were unconscious—stars, they wouldn’t fit inside a kitsen hospital.

“Our feasting grounds are just beyond the turn of the cliff, and the tent with your people is beyond those,” Kauri said. “We might be able to put up another tent large enough to shade you while you eat, but the first one took us quite a bit of effort to construct.”

“It’s not necessary,” I said. “Please, take us to Cobb and Gran-Gran.”

We took a narrow road across the clearing in front of the cliffs, the roads continuing to empty as we passed through. When we reached the other side of the city, the road turned toward the beach again, and Kauri presented the feasting grounds, which were basically a wide stretch of sand with stone tables and small gazebos set against the cliff. Some of Goro’s people—I recognized them by their armor—were filleting fish as big as they were and loading them onto conveyers that rolled into ovens carved out of the cliff face.