Evershore(Skyward #3.1)(25)

I looked over at FM, who was listening to the kitsen speak with obvious and growing concern. “This isn’t going well,” she said to me.

She was right. Instead of focusing on what I’d said about peace, the conversation was getting bogged down in the disputed legality of Goro’s request. And in between, senators began to comment on the bigger issue—dare they defy the Superiority by working with us? That would mean throwing away all their progress toward primary citizenship. They gave up their monarchy for that, which they all seemed to consider a great sacrifice.

“Lord Hesho gave his life to try to further our cause with the Superiority,” one of the kitsen with a notched ear said. “How can we dishonor his sacrifice by abandoning his quest?”

Kauri squirmed like she dearly wanted to argue with that, but both she and Goro remained silent, which I gathered was the rule.

We had not been given permission to speak again, and we hadn’t interrupted. I simultaneously wished someone would ask our opinion and was unsure of what I would say.

If Spensa were here, she’d say something. She wouldn’t be able to sit here and listen to this without telling them how wrong they were. She wouldn’t worry about finding the right words—she’d trample forward on moxie alone, and it would work, because Spensa was amazing like that.

And somehow she had confidence in me. Stars, I could have used a little of that confidence right now. I let my mind slip into the nowhere, searching for her. Alanik was sitting right here, and while I didn’t hear her in the nowhere, I also didn’t want her to open her mind and hear me, so I stayed quiet, looking, listening.

The kitsen senators continued to argue, but I caught only snatches.

“—Superiority has the power. Who are these humans, that they think they can win—”

The nowhere was quiet as ever, devoid even of that strange raised texture I’d encountered on Platform Prime.

There was something though, there in the emptiness. Not Spensa, but…an image of her. She was…cleaning a part from a starfighter. I couldn’t see the area around her, but I could see her, and could sense…her loneliness. And a feeling of concern for her that wasn’t mine. It came from the image, from the nowhere.

Stars, was the nowhere concerned about Spensa? It was only a strange place, it couldn’t think or feel—

Could it?

The kitsen went on, the arguments getting more heated as they went.

“—threaten our way of life. We shouldn’t be working with any of them, unless we want—”

The image of Spensa faded. It hadn’t seemed like it came from Spensa herself, but I had no idea where—or who—it had come from. It was gone now, and I couldn’t find it again.

“—destruction for us and all our kin. If we aren’t careful—”

An image welled up in my mind—the Superiority ship where my parents died, cut to ribbons and expanding ever outward against the blackness of space.

I shoved it down, reaching through the nowhere again. Spensa was in here somewhere. I’d found that image, I should be able to find her. Even if we couldn’t talk, I wanted to know she was there—

That vibration I’d felt before grew stronger, a cytonic resonance from somewhere on the island. And then, loud in my mind, a voice cried, HELP US! and I visibly startled.

Other than Juno, who looked up at me in alarm, the other kitsen didn’t seem to notice. Both FM and Alanik did though, and they turned to me.

Are you okay? Alanik asked.

Fine, I said. I drew back into myself. That voice—it had come from the nowhere, but it wasn’t Spensa. I didn’t know who it was. Maybe Gran-Gran? But she was here on Evershore, not in the nowhere.

Scud, why was it so hot in here? The sandstone walls felt like they were closing in on me. I wanted to escape, but I couldn’t slip out. I’d have to crawl through the scudding doorway on my hands and knees again. What kind of message would that send?

I tried to focus on the words of the senator who was speaking, a very large kitsen with brown tufts at the ends of his ears.

“—if our most Honored One Who Was Not King were here, he would surely agree that—”

“Do not profane the name of the One Who Was Not King!” another interrupted. “In his wisdom, he would surely have said—”

Stars, they all seemed to have an opinion of what their not-king would do if he hadn’t died in the battle with the delver. Did we kill him? We very well might have.

And when they invoked his name, they sounded uncomfortably like me trying to convince Vice Admiral Stoff of what Cobb would do if he were here.

Stars, was this what I sounded like? Like I was merely trying to win a scudding argument, making the specter of Cobb agree with whatever I said?

Jorgen, Alanik said again, are you okay?

I’m fine, I said, and I cringed, glad FM couldn’t hear me.

You aren’t fine, she’d said. You can’t be fine.

She knew. Stars, everyone probably knew. I was trying to hold everything together, but it was all slipping through my fingers and—

Help us! the voice in the nowhere said again.

Stars. It didn’t sound like Gran-Gran. Who was that? Didn’t they know I couldn’t help anyone, not my flight, not even my parents?

“Our lives are stable here,” a greying kitsen said. His skin was loose around his face, and he carried a small cane that he leaned on while he sat. “Why would we risk angering the Superiority? We should be working with them, or we will end up hunted like the humans have been, and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.”