ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)(46)

“Okay,” Arturo said.

“But I think they would oppress us.”

“And they’re not oppressing you now?” Arturo asked.

“No, they are,” I said quickly. “They withhold the secrets of hyperdrives from us, try to control how we use cytonics, tell us what aspects of our culture are ‘lesser’ or ‘advanced.’?”

“Do you really want to fight a war with them just because they’re critical of you and refuse to share?”

“It’s not that,” I said. “They actively try to stop us from learning. They tell us that wireless technology is dangerous, that cytonics are dangerous—but they became a powerful civilization through the use of those same resources. By denying us access—it’s not only that they won’t help us, it’s like they walked through the door and then locked it behind them.”

Arturo nodded. “Still,” he said, “what do you need that technology for, if you want nothing to do with them? Wouldn’t that be the only reason you’d need it? To interact with them?”

“We need it to fight them,” I said. “Because we don’t want to be under their control. Because we’re not ‘lesser.’ We’re intelligent, and we have a right to direct our own lives and our own future. We’re not trying to take over from the Superiority. We only want to exist without their interference and their…judgment.”

    Arturo nodded. I got the feeling he wasn’t arguing with me. He was trying to understand. “And that’s worth it to you,” he said. “To risk war, to risk them deciding to exterminate you after all. To risk your life and the lives of everyone you love, the lives of your whole people. To avoid being judged by them.”

“It’s not only that they judge us,” I said. It was so hard to define, but I felt the resistance to everything the Superiority stood for like it was a part of me. “It’s that they judge us and find us wanting. And if we cooperate with them, it’s like we’re admitting they’re right. That we are lesser. And we’re not. We are equal beings who deserve to be treated as equals. And I would rather risk everything than capitulate, because I can’t deny that to myself. It would kill me to do it.”

Arturo met my eyes, and he nodded. I thought…maybe he respected that answer. At the very least he accepted it.

“What about you?” I asked. “Why are you here?”

“I was ordered to be here,” he said.

“You were not-ordered,” I said.

“Right, but Jorgen is my flightleader and I followed him.”

The way I remembered it, the rest of them dragged Jorgen along until he caught up to the idea.

“So you disagree, then. You don’t think you should have come.”

Arturo hesitated. Maybe he was worried about expressing disagreement with his superior, but he seemed to have a more familiar relationship with Jorgen. I thought there was more to it.

“Do you wish you were back on Detritus?” I asked. “Helping your people to broker a peace deal?”

    He was quiet for a moment, staring out the window into the miasma. “No,” he admitted. “I think we’re doing the right thing, helping you.”

I nodded. “Yes. You are.”

“Maybe not the smart thing,” he said. “I worry we’ve chosen the losing side on both your planet and mine, and I’m afraid that this is going to go terribly wrong for all of us. But I don’t like the idea of bargaining with the people who’ve been murdering us for generations. I don’t like the idea of peace talks with the beings who’ve been keeping us in a cage.”

I smiled. He understood then. “Giving in to them feels like deciding to die slowly.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “But you’re right that it feels like admitting we’re lesser. Like we’re saying we deserved the way they treated us, and we’re willing to simply forgive and forget.”

“The Superiority likes that idea,” I said, “so long as we’re always the ones doing the forgetting.”

Arturo nodded, staring out at the miasma again. I liked the way he thought about things. The fact that he did think about them, while so many people on both his planet and mine were willing to swallow the easy story without worrying about whether it was a true one.

“Did you choose to be a pilot?” I asked. “Your people are at war, but you can’t all be fighters.”

“No,” Arturo said. “They say we’re all part of the war effort no matter our job, and maybe that’s true in a way. But being a pilot gets you a lot of respect. A lot of disadvantaged people want to pass the pilot’s test for the opportunities it affords them, but for me it was expected. My parents have a lot of connections, a lot of…social power, I guess. And to maintain the empire, I had to be a pilot.”

    “That makes sense,” I said. “You have to prove you are the best.”

“They didn’t want me to stay and prove it,” Arturo said. “I nearly got killed when I was a cadet. My parents pulled strings, got me my pin early so I wouldn’t have to keep flying.”

“But you are flying.”

“Yeah,” Arturo said. “My parents weren’t happy about it. Neither was my girlfriend. They all felt like I’d done my part. But I hadn’t, you know? I hated the thought of slinking back to the caverns and benefiting from the deaths of my friends, people I knew and liked. It felt like cowardice, hiding when I should be out there fighting.” He shook his head.