Evershore(Skyward #3.1)(19)

“Scud, I don’t know if we can eat the food here,” I said.

“What are those things?” Alanik said, staring at the fish. “They look…slimy.”

Huh. They wouldn’t have fish on ReDawn, I supposed. We had some that we raised in vats, and a few that lived wild in underground lakes.

“Those are fish,” Cuna said. “They pull them from the ocean and eat them. You will be better off trying the fruit.” They gestured to the bowls and platters being laid out on the banquet tables. “It should be palatable to your people.”

Alanik did not look thrilled, though she’d been polite about the food we’d given her on Detritus, despite most of it being made out of algae.

“If you want to leave some of your people here you may,” Kauri said. “The tent near the hospital is up ahead.”

“That sounds good,” I said. I waved to Kel and Winnow—our medtechs—to join us.

I looked over at Alanik. The kitsen seemed to react better to her, since she wasn’t human. “Come with me?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Do you want me to come?” FM asked.

“No,” I said. “Stay here and maybe do some diplomacy?”

FM gave me a withering look.

Cuna wandered over to the kitsen, observing their cooking. I lowered my voice. “Try to make sure Cuna doesn’t insult them too much,” I said. “And that Nedd doesn’t volunteer to duel creatures one-tenth his size, all right?”

“I can try to make sure he doesn’t volunteer again,” FM said.

“Good. I do not need that on my conscience.”

FM turned to the others and directed them out onto the beach.

The burrow that Kauri said held the hospital was enormous, towering up into the air. There were many small doors into the complex itself, none of which an adult human could fit through. The kitsen only needed a small fraction of the head clearance humans did.

Kauri led us to a tent that had been erected out front. It looked like many smaller tents had all been affixed together on long poles, creating a structure perhaps three meters long by two meters wide. The roof was about the height of my shoulders, so when Kauri maneuvered her platform near the entrance and pulled back the tent flap, I had to stoop to look inside.

There, on two platforms so low to the ground that I thought they might originally have been kitsen banquet tables, lay Cobb and Gran-Gran. Their bodies had been covered with many blankets layered over each limb and across their torsos.

Kel and Winnow both ducked inside, and Kauri continued to hold the tent flap open as they examined Gran-Gran and Cobb. They were both breathing, I was relieved to see, but their eyes were closed, and one side of Cobb’s face was covered in bruises. Some medical equipment was attached to the side of the tables, and kitsen wearing little white robes and hats were surveying it. One stood on a ladder that reached to about the height of my knee, changing out the tiny bottle on what looked like a makeshift IV pole.

At least they were alive and had already received medical attention. “You’ll want to get them home to your people, I imagine,” Kauri said.

“Yes,” I said. “We brought a medical transport ship, and our medtechs will supervise the transfer.”

Alanik was watching them both with concern on her face, and she shook her head. “I’m still not sure that’s Becca Nightshade.”

I blinked. The person in the bed looked like Spensa’s grandmother. “Why do you say that?”

“Because she isn’t cytonic,” Alanik said.

I reached out, trying to sense the vibration I always felt near another cytonic. I could feel waves of it rolling off Alanik.

But she was right. Nothing from Gran-Gran. Farther out, I could feel our taynix still in our ships, but no other cytonics.

But there was something, a vibration coming from the cliffs behind us. Not the concentrated frequency of a cytonic mind, but more like a…cloud of something.

“Do you feel that?” I asked. “The strange buzzing from behind the cliffs?”

Alanik frowned. “No,” she said. “I’m not finding any cytonic presence here.”

That was odd, and I had no idea what it meant. I moved past Winnow to Gran-Gran’s bed and brushed the blanket off her hand on one side and then the other, checking for hologram bracelets.

There weren’t any. And if the Superiority were trying to trick us, where was the spring for the trap? I reached up and brushed Gran-Gran’s hair with my hand. It moved exactly as I expected it to.

“I think that’s her,” I said. “But you’re right, her cytonic abilities seem to be gone. What happened to them? And why did they end up here?”

“Gran-Gran was behaving strangely before she hyperjumped,” Alanik said. “She told me she could tell where Cobb was on the ship, which doesn’t make sense. He’s not cytonic, so she shouldn’t have been able to find him through the negative realm.”

That was strange. “But you knew it was her then,” I said. “Because you were familiar with her mind. So was I. She wasn’t a Superiority fake.”

“She also said she was hearing voices calling to her, asking her for help,” Alanik said. “She asked if they were my people.”

I narrowed my eyes. That could have been the Superiority interfering with her cytonics. Like what happened to Spensa’s father.