“What?” I said, suddenly alert. “Morriumur isn’t with us?”
“They shall be placed in their own solo flight,” the official said. “As is appropriate.”
Morriumur stood up slowly, looking sad. “I enjoyed speaking with you, Alanik.”
“No,” I said, feeling my face flush with outrage as I stood up. “We’re a flight. Morriumur stays with us.”
Both Morriumur and the official looked at me with shocked expressions. Well, let them be shocked. I folded my arms. “What good is a flight of one? Leave Morriumur with us.”
“You already have four in your team,” the official said. “This is the number we decided as a flight size.”
“Surely there isn’t an exact multiple of four in this room,” I said, gesturing to the pilots filling the tables around us. “Besides, we’re already a strange flight with a human in it. So we could use the extra pilot with us, in case the vicious creature turns against us.”
“Well,” the official said, rattled as they typed on their tablet, “well, I guess we can rearrange.” They glanced up at me warily, then went back to typing. “Just be ready for the shuttle pickup tomorrow. A Superiority flight suit will be issued to you and will arrive in the morning. You’ll be delivered back to Starsight each evening, so will not need to pack changes of clothing, but if you require sustenance at midday, be prepared with your own food supply. Be on time in the morning.”
At that, the dione turned and hurried away.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Morriumur said to me. “I came into this knowing that I’d be isolated.”
“Yeah, well, I rarely let go of someone once I have my teeth in them,” I said. “It’s the warrior’s way.”
“What a…profoundly disturbing metaphor,” Morriumur said, settling back down. “Thank you, in any case. I should like to not be on my own.”
“Wait,” I said, looking around our table. “They said four people were in our team. Who is this Vapor they mentioned?”
“It’s me,” a quiet whisper of a voice said. I jumped, and turned to look, but no one was there. I was hit with the striking scent of cinnamon. Burned cinnamon, actually.
“Welcome, unseen one,” Hesho said, standing, then bowing low. The others of his crew did likewise.
“You’re…invisible?” I asked, surprised.
“I am a figment,” said the soft feminine voice, and I realized I knew that voice. I’d heard it before.
“The drone ship that helped me save Morriumur!” I said. “You were on that ship.”
“Figments,” Hesho said, “are known to be able to infiltrate ships and take control of them.”
“So, are all the drones piloted by…by people like you?” I asked.
“No,” the disembodied voice said. “There aren’t many of us. I simply took control of one of the ships for this test, against the will of its remote pilot.”
Incredible. But what was she? A smell? Was I talking to a smell?
The distinct scent trailed away, but I didn’t know if that meant Vapor was leaving, or…something else? I found the idea of a creature that I couldn’t see to be distinctly disturbing. Who knew when she would be watching us?
The lunch was breaking up, creatures from other tables filing out to return to their ships. Hesho bade us farewell with gusto, then climbed down the ladders set up by his crew. Together, the group of over fifty diminutive foxes gathered their things and trotted out the doors.
Morriumur and I followed, eventually emerging out into the open air at the top of the station. Black sky overhead, speckled with stars. Ships were launching a few at a time for the flight back to Starsight.
I bade farewell to Morriumur, then walked over to M-Bot and hauled myself up onto his wing so I could get into the cockpit.
“Some engineers came to try to inspect me while you were below,” M-Bot said, “but I scared them away by making it seem like they’d accidentally tripped an alarm system.”
“Good thinking,” I said.
“It was kind of like a lie,” he said. “I can do it, as you said. Under the right circumstances.”
As we prepared to take off, I felt something against my mind again. I glanced to where the sensation seemed to be coming from, and noticed a set of partially opened hangar doors. I could see a shadow standing inside. Brade—watching my ship.
“I don’t like the idea of you going off on your own tomorrow,” M-Bot said. “Flying another ship.”
“Jealous?”
“Maybe! It would be cool if I could feel that. But more, I think it’s dangerous. We’ll need to double-check your bracelet’s holographic projector. Its CPU should be able to manage your hologram without my aid, but we’ll want to observe it first. It would be better if I could go with you.”
“I don’t really see that we have a choice,” I said as I lifted us up and away from the platform. “We need to get our hands on a Superiority ship.”
“It’s possible they won’t give you one that can hyperjump,” M-Bot said. “At least not at first.”
“I considered that,” I said. “But if I can gain their trust, there’s a good chance they’ll relax their security around me. I might not be given a starfighter that can hyperjump, but I’ll likely be near one. If I can’t steal a hyperdrive, perhaps I can at least get some photos of one.”
“Photos won’t get us home.”
“I know. I’m still working on that.”
As we flew toward Starsight and I thought it through, I realized that I’d inadvertently been given a backup plan. Winzik and the others had just assigned me to the same flight as their pet human. Did Brade know there was an entire planet full of humans like her, only free? Might she be willing to escape there, if I gave her the right opportunity?
If I couldn’t steal a hyperdrive from the Superiority, maybe I could instead steal away one of their cytonics.
I settled M-Bot into place on the top of our embassy on Starsight, then sat back in my seat, suddenly exhausted.
Being Alanik was taxing. I was accustomed to just going with my gut and doing what seemed natural for me. It had gotten me through life well so far. I’d admittedly earned the occasional bump or scrape, but I’d never had to worry about pretending to be someone other than myself.
I sighed, finally hitting the canopy release and standing up to stretch. The embassy didn’t have a ground crew to pull over steps for me, so I climbed out onto the wing, then hopped down.
“Overall,” M-Bot said to me, “I think that went well. We’re not dead, and you actually managed to get into their military.”
“By the skin of my teeth,” I said, grimacing as I remembered the burl gorilla alien who had thrown the tantrum and been kicked out. That would have been me if I’d gotten to Winzik a tad earlier.
“Do your teeth have skin?” M-Bot asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, walking over and hooking up M-Bot’s charging cords and network link. “Not sure where the saying comes from, actually.”
“Hmmm. Oh! Well, it’s from an English version of the Bible. That’s a really antiquated version of the Book of Saints, from Old Earth.”
I got the last cord hooked up, then traipsed down the steps. Doomslug trilled at me excitedly from the bedroom when I checked on her. I’d set up a litter box for her and some chopped mushrooms, which, judging by the crumbs left, she’d found acceptable as a meal. I gave her a scratch, then noted a little light on the wall. It was blinking, indicating that I had a delivery, so I tromped down to the bottom floor and checked the delivery box. Before flying out this morning, I’d made a few orders to test my requisition abilities.
Inside the box, I found a bundle of new clothing in my size, along with some toiletries. I grabbed everything and headed up to the kitchen, where I fried a small algae patty and ate it in a bun. Then I walked back to my bath
room. It was still a little strange that I had one all to myself. Scud, I had this entire building all to myself—well, myself and my pet slug, who insisted I give her another head scratch as I passed her in the hall.
In the bathroom’s mirror, I looked at myself. Or, the illusion of Alanik that I wore. Doomslug doesn’t notice I’m not wearing my real face, I thought. She obviously worked by scent and sound, as she didn’t have eyes. It hit me that my disguise was even more tenuous than I’d thought. What about that creature Vapor, who was a scent? Did I have to worry she’d know I was human?
I groaned softly, feeling weighed down. I flipped off the lights, then—with a sigh of relief—took off my hologram bracelet. Though M-Bot had scanned the place for spy devices, I wanted to be extra careful, so I kept the bracelet on at all times.
For now, I wanted to be myself. Even in the dark. Even alone. Even for just a little while.
I cleansed, and it felt luxurious to not be pressed for time. Back on Detritus, it seemed I had always been running to some training exercise or another. Here though…I could simply rest and let the pod’s cleansing agents wash me.
I finally pulled myself out, then sighed and put the bracelet back on. I turned on the light and pulled a set of loose, generic clothing from my bundle. They looked kind of like the scrubs that medical personnel wore. I figured these would make good all-purpose work or sleeping clothing.
I sorted through the toiletries. Hopefully the people watching my requisition orders wouldn’t wonder why I’d forgotten my toothpaste. Though I’d checked with M-Bot before ordering everything, I still had an amusing time looking over the warning label on the back of the tube. My pin translated the words, and it listed which species in the galaxy would find the toothpaste toxic. Running a galactic empire seemed to carry a lot of strange problems I’d never considered.
Brushing my teeth in front of the mirror, I found the toothpaste actually had a nice minty taste to it, way better than the bitter stuff we used back home. Such were apparently the benefits of having an actual economy and infrastructure, instead of being forced to repurpose ancient biorefineries to manufacture toothpaste.
My hair was longer than I used to keep it, and was fortunately about the length of Alanik’s, inching past my shoulders. I’d kept it short when I’d been young, partially because I’d hated the color. Heroes from Gran-Gran’s stories had all had raven-black hair or golden-flax hair—maybe the occasional fire-scarlet color thrown in for variety. Nobody in those tales had dirty-brown hair.
It was white now though, with the hologram on. I ran my fingers through it, and the illusion really was perfect, with each individual strand recolored. My expressions also mapped quite well to Alanik’s face, and I couldn’t feel anything different when I poked my skin, though I knew that my features and hers weren’t the same.
The only things that were off were the bone ridges Alanik had under her eyes and along the sides of her face. Those were pure illusion, and if I stuck my finger into them, the hologram distorted. Still, the bracelet was good enough to make my hair seem to brush against the ridges—instead of clipping through the center of them—when the two touched.
I stared at myself in the mirror, smiling, frowning, trying to find some error in the way it all looked, but it was an excellent illusion. I could almost believe I was wearing makeup.
It was no surprise when I found myself thinking about Alanik. Had she worried about how to fit her hair into her helmet? What would she think of me imitating her?
Don’t trust their peace…their lies…
I brushed my hair, then trailed out into the hall and down the stairs to my bedroom.
“Ah,” M-Bot said to me. “You’ll be interested to read this. We’ve just received a communication back from Alanik’s people, sent—supposedly—via secure but unmonitored Superiority channels.”
“I don’t doubt for a moment that they read it anyway,” I said, settling down at the bedroom’s desk. “Let’s see what it says.”
M-Bot displayed the message at the desk’s workstation, translated to English. It gave a bland response to our bland rundown of events. Which was promising—it didn’t seem they’d immediately contacted the Superiority. “And is there an encrypted, hidden message? Like the one we sent?”
“Yes,” M-Bot said. “It’s a very interesting cypher, based on the number of letters in each word mapped to a one-time pad message with the key in your pin. Completely unbreakable without the pin. I guess that’s more than what you want to know. Anyway, the encrypted message simply says: ‘We want to speak to Alanik.’ ”
“Send back a report on today’s test, and encode, ‘She will contact you when she is well. For now, I am embedded among the Superiority, imitating her. Please do not give me away.’ ”
“Sounds like a reasonable response,” M-Bot said. “I will construct that message.”
I nodded, walking to the bed. I really needed some sleep, and yet when I thought about lying down, I realized that I wasn’t tired. So I settled into a chair beside the window instead and looked down the skyscraper-lined street of Starsight. I watched all those people out there move, flow. A million different goals. A million different jobs. A million creatures who saw me as one of the most dangerous things in the galaxy.
“M-Bot?” I asked. “Can you hear those people down below, on the street?”
“Not sure,” he said. “Um, that was a lie. I can totally hear them. How was my lie though?”
“Try not to tell people that you’re lying immediately after you do it. It ruins the effect.”
“Right. Okay. Then…Um, not sure.” He started humming.
“Could you maybe not practice your lying right now? It’s getting a little annoying.”
“Spensa,” he said. “You’re not supposed to like it when I lie. Right? How do you know when to do it and when not to?”
I sighed.
“All right, fine,” he said. “I have advanced surveillance equipment. From this height, I might be able to isolate audio from people on the street, though it’s no guarantee and will depend on interference. Why?”
“I just want to know what they talk about,” I said. “There aren’t any Krell raids for them to anticipate. Do they talk about manufactory jobs? About the humans? Maybe the delvers?”
“I’m scanning for a sampling,” M-Bot said. “It seems, for now, they talk about normal things. Picking their kids up from care centers. Ordering ingredients for dinner. The health and training of their pets.”
“Normal things,” I repeated. “Is all of that…normal?”
“That seems like it would depend on a large number of variables.”
I stared down, watching everyone move. The people walking past displayed that same lack of urgency I’d noticed when I’d first flown in. This place was busy, but only because there were so many pieces moving at once. Individually, it was peaceful. Normal?
No. I couldn’t believe it. This was the Superiority, the empire that had practically destroyed humankind. They were the ones who funded Winzik and his Krell domination of my people. These were the monsters I’d spent my life training to fight, the faceless creatures who had lurked in the sky, bombing our civilization centers and bringing us nearly to extinction.
Starsight was one of their primary trade and political hubs. This place had to be a front intended to make it seem like life in their empire was peaceful. How many of those people passing on the street were in the Superiority’s employ, directed to act innocent? It seemed so obvious, now that I thought about it. This was an act, a way to give outsiders a false impression of how great the empire was.
Well, I wouldn’t believe their lies of peace and prosperity. I’d seen how they treated the pilots at the test today. All those people on the street, they were culpable for what had been done to my father and my friends.
These weren’t just simple people, goi
ng about their simple lives. They were my enemies. We were at war.
“Spensa,” M-Bot said. “Not to be a nag, but it has currently been fifteen hours since you have slept and—as you’re adjusting to this station’s sleep cycle—I recorded only four hours of actually restful sleep for you last night.”
“Yeah, so?” I snapped.
“You get cranky if you don’t sleep.”
“No I don’t.”
“Do you mind if I record your tone for later, to use as evidence against you in a future disagreement?”
Scud. Arguing with a machine was an unreal level of frustrating. He was probably right, but I also knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I tried. For reasons that he, no matter how smart, would never be able to understand.
Instead, I changed into the generic work jumpsuit that had arrived in that bundle of clothes I’d ordered, and went back up to the rooftop. The jumpsuit felt like a flight suit—thick, canvaslike material with a fit that was snug, but not too tight. Comfortable, utilitarian clothing. The best kind.
“Spensa?” M-Bot said as I walked over to the ship. “You’re not going to get yourself into trouble somehow, are you? We aren’t flying off to—”
“Relax,” I said. “We can’t let their ground crews get too close to you, which means I’m going to have to keep you maintained.”
“Now?” M-Bot said.
“I want you in tip-top shape in case we need to make an escape.” I checked the little maintenance locker on the rooftop and found some basic supplies, including a grease gun filled with vacuum-rated lubricant. I grabbed that and walked back to him. “M-Bot?” I asked. “How did you learn about that phrase I used? About the teeth? Did you have it in your databases?”
“No,” he said. “I got it from the Starsight information archive. There’s a great deal in here about Old Earth, from before it vanished—more than the fragmented databases your people have.”
“Can you tell me about it?” I asked, using the gun to begin greasing the joints of his wing flaps. “Some of the things we don’t cover in school, you know?”
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