ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)(35)

    “It wasn’t an accident,” FM said. “It was a logical choice.”

“And we’re trying to get them to only do it if we say their names first as a command,” Jorgen continued. “But sometimes they mess up and someone says something like, I miss H-O-M-E, and their slug takes them to the engineering bay on Platform Prime. Which is only an inconvenience if they were, say, in the mess hall or something.”

Kimmalyn sighed. “But it’s a lot more annoying if you were about to climb into a cleansing pod, naked as the day you were born.”

“Not that she would know,” FM said.

“Bless the stars of those startled engineers,” Kimmalyn added.

“So now we’re reduced to spelling basic words,” Jorgen said. “When we could have picked something more unusual for the code word.”

“So you say the word,” I said, “and the slug hyperjumps with you? That’s convenient.”

“When it works it’s awesome,” Jorgen said. “When it doesn’t it’s annoying at best.”

“Humiliating at worst,” Kimmalyn said.

“It could be life threatening,” Jorgen insisted.

“Hey,” FM said. “You and Rig were the ones who said we should stick with the same word when we trained the rest of the slugs for simplicity’s sake.”

“We’re still working with them,” Jorgen said. “We only had a short time with them before you arrived. But so far they will all go H-O-M-E when they’re asked. Some of them will also take us out a couple of kilometers if we tell them to J-U-M-P.”

“I don’t know what that means, either,” I said. “I don’t think the pins know how to spell.”

    “It’s the word for leaping up in the air,” FM said. “Also the second half of hyperjump, which they don’t seem to recognize as a command, thank goodness. They’re all a little better at only doing that command when we say their names first.”

“Probably because they’d rather go H-O-M-E than hop somewhere random,” Kimmalyn said. “Wouldn’t we all?”

“Are those the only commands they answer to?” I asked. The humans were freely giving up the details on how to use their hyperdrives, but I wasn’t going to point this out to them.

“If you want to do anything else,” FM said, “you need a cytonic. Jorgen can ask the slugs to hyperjump anywhere he can see, or anywhere he can visualize that the slugs can recognize. The rest of us are limited to verbal commands, which we have to drill beforehand. The slugs pick it up pretty quickly, and they understand some basic abstract concepts like danger. We’re working on a bonding program. That’s why we keep them with us in slings—though engineering is working on a backpack as well. The idea is that even if the pilot can’t give a command, the slugs are attached enough to their pilot partners that they want to pull us out of danger, and are familiar enough with us to understand what might be helpful and what won’t.”

“That seems like a lot to ask of a slug.”

“Slug!” Gill trilled softly.

“It is,” FM said. “But they’re doing great at it. Aren’t you, Gill?”

“Gill!” Kimmalyn’s slug said, and immediately appeared on top of the dash in front of FM, extending itself up to peer at Gill in FM’s sling.

    “Good girl, Happy,” FM said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a tin of a slimy-looking substance. The taynix eagerly ate it off her finger, despite Gill’s best efforts to nudge its way in and take some.

“That’s the other command they know,” Jorgen said. “They can recognize each other’s names and go find each other, regardless of distance. So even if Alanik didn’t want to go to Detritus to get Rig—”

“Are we learning how useless we are without the engineers again?” Sadie asked, walking up behind us with the others. “I thought we knew that already.”

“You’d think,” T-Stall—or Catnip—said. “But it turns out there is no limit to the number of times we have to learn obvious things.”

“Speak for yourself,” the other one said. “I knew it already. I was simply waiting for the rest of you to catch up.”

Arturo followed behind them with Nedd. He didn’t acknowledge me at all, as if our conversation had never happened.

It was entirely reasonable for him not to trust me. But it still bothered me that he didn’t, though he was justified—smart, even—in thinking I might betray them.

“Does anyone else feel…heavier here?” Nedd asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Our planets have a slight gravitational difference. I noticed that on Detritus. I don’t think it’s enough of a difference to matter.”

“It matters to my quads,” Nedd said. “I feel like I’ve been doing laps around the orchard at Alta.” He blinked at me. “You probably don’t have orchards, since you live on trees.”

    “We do, actually,” I said. “We graft smaller trees into the branches of the large ones. They also grow naturally in places where the bark has disintegrated into debris.”

FM handed Kimmalyn’s taynix back to her. “I was hoping looking at the tech might spark something, since I’ve spent a lot of time listening to Rig talk about this stuff. But no. Still don’t know enough to be useful.” She looked over at Jorgen. “It’s possible that Command doesn’t know Rig was in on us leaving. I don’t want to get him in trouble.”