Evershore(Skyward #3.1)(57)

I pictured the vines and touched them each in turn, trying to see which would shift and which held fast. I was able to bring one to the side, creating the smallest part in the jungle of them, but there were more vines on the other side, ones I couldn’t reach.

I couldn’t do this alone. I needed help.

I reached out to the old kitsen on the other side of the portal, trying to show her what I saw. Her mind seemed to receive it, as if she also knew the barrier well, had been over these same vines thousands of times. I showed her the ones I could move, and I felt her study them.

And then the ones on the other side began to shift.

I focused on the vines I could control, feeling the vibrations, holding fast the ones that supported the entire structure while manipulating those that only supported tiny bits of it.

“You are completely relaxed,” Juno said.

I breathed in rhythm with the vibrations. I wasn’t relaxed, but I was calm. I was at peace. I was the power.

And then all at once, the smooth surface of the portal cracked open, and a kitsen hobbled through. Her fur was greying and her skin was so wrinkled it folded down over her eyes. She pushed it back and looked up at us.

And then a dozen more followed.





Eighteen


More kitsen crowded into the area in front of the portal, all blinking at each other and at us. Several of them hummed with a cytonic vibration, though some of the younger-looking ones didn’t. Non-cytonics who’d been born on the other side of the portal, who’d lived their whole lives there.

Juno nearly fell off his platform. He bumped his stack of books and had to snatch at them to keep them from sliding over the edge. He started fumbling through his book, like perhaps he needed a meditation to calm himself.

“Human!” the one with the wrinkled skin said to me. “Are you the one who released us?”

“Yes,” I said. “I can’t believe…I can’t believe that worked.”

I looked down at Cobb and Gran-Gran, but they lay still with their eyes closed. Scud, had it not worked for them?

No. Wait. I could feel something, a signature emanating from Gran-Gran.

That had to mean…

Cobb stirred, and then he coughed. Kel bent over the screen that showed his vitals.

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“He’s improving,” Kel said.

“Will he wake up?”

“I don’t know. But if he does, he’ll be in no condition to help. We should get them home to Detritus.”

Stars. Of course he wouldn’t be in any condition to lead. He’d spent the last two days with his mind disconnected from his body.

A loud boom sounded through the walls of the library, as if the stone above us had been struck—probably by a falling starfighter.

Zing turned the radio back on, and the airwaves were a mess of talking.

I didn’t want to take the time to sort that out. Alanik, I said, how’s it going with those reinforcements?

The UrDail flights have joined the battle, she said. What are you doing down there?

Found us some more backup, I said. Cuna had bent down to the level of some of the kitsen cytonics and was conversing with them quietly. I hoped to all the stars in the sky they weren’t calling them “lesser.”

That’s good, because we need help.

Scud. Sitrep?

Three more carrier ships. No planetary weapons yet, but Arturo is worried. Something about a bomb.

Oh no. What bomb?

He said he spotted a ship with a strange flight pattern.

My whole body went cold. I focused, widening my reach—

And I found the impressions again, the minds of the pilots, all flying around in what felt like disarray.

No, there was a method to it. Arturo had them divided into flanking groups and the flights were working together, though I couldn’t pinpoint the strategy at a glance. If Arturo had seen what I thought he’d seen, I didn’t have time to consider it. I found his mind flying near Alanik. As I drew closer I could feel his focus, his determination.

And his terror. He didn’t know where I was, wasn’t sure what they should do. He spotted that ship again, moving slowly in a familiar pattern he’d never wanted to see again—I could see it in his mind. We’d fought a lot of those ships in our days as cadets, though we hadn’t seen one since we’d driven the Krell away from the surface of Detritus.

It looked like a lifebuster.

Amphi? I said.

I felt Arturo startle.

Jerkface? he said. Are you in my scudding head?

Apparently, I said. You saw a lifebuster?

Yeah. It’s moving slowly like they do, but it’s headed toward Dreamspring. Kimmalyn and Nedd are keeping an eye on it.

I closed my eyes. A bomb of that size could take out the whole island, maybe more. Such an impact would have been big enough to cave in the caverns below the surface of Detritus—I didn’t want to see what it would do to the kitsen city, how far the devastation would reach.

We’d have to be very careful taking that down.

When I opened my eyes again, several of the kitsen cytonics had disappeared and the others were moving toward the exit. Juno had landed his platform and was powering up some of the floating disks that would let them reach the top library shelves, and the kitsen cytonics were boarding them.

They were going to help, but if we let a bomb hit the city that wouldn’t be enough to stop it.