Starsight

12

“My scan is complete,” M-Bot said. “I have deactivated the surveillance devices I found inside the building, and I’m pretty sure I found them all.”

“How many were there?” I asked as I poked around the top floor of the embassy building myself, turning on lights and looking through cabinets as I did.

“Two per room,” M-Bot said. “One obvious one hooked up to the network. They would likely feign surprise if you complained that you’d found it, claiming it was just part of the automation of the embassy. Then each room had a second on a separate line, hidden carefully near a power outlet.”

“They’ll find it suspicious that we disconnected those.”

“They might find it surprising that we found them, but in my experience—which is, granted, full of holes and half memories—this is the sort of thing that we’re supposed to politely ignore they did, while they’ll politely ignore our interference in their plans.”

I grunted, entering what was obviously a kitchen. Many of the drawers and things were labeled. Turned out I could hold my translator pin toward text, and it would read out for me what the words said. One faucet was labeled water, another was labeled ammonia, and a third saline. It seemed this place was set up to accommodate a variety of different species.

M-Bot had been right about the private launchpad on the embassy’s roof. Once I’d landed him, I’d plugged him into the datanet, and I’d started looking over the building from the top down. I had left Doomslug in the cockpit for now.

“I’m taking a general imprint of the datanet,” M-Bot continued, “which will hopefully let us mask which information we’re searching for, in case they’re monitoring our requests. There’s a surprising amount on here. The Superiority seems very free with information—though huge holes do exist. There is nothing about cytonics, and there are government warnings shutting down any discussion of hyperdrive technology.”

“It’s how they control their empire,” I said, “by deciding who gets to move where, and who gets to trade. I suspect that if a species falls out of favor, their taxes for travel suddenly go up—or they suddenly find that transports are visiting their world far less often.”

“You’re quite astute with the economics of that,” M-Bot noted.

I shrugged. “It’s not so different from what the caverns did to my mother and me, preventing us from joining normal society by forbidding us to hold real jobs.”

“Curious. Well, you seem to be right about how they maintain power. I also found an interesting tidbit about their technology level, specifically regarding holograms. The Superiority seems to be about equivalent to your people in that area—and nothing I’ve been able to find indicates they have access to stealth and holographic technology equal to mine.”

“So . . . ,” I said. “No small hologram projectors like in my bracelet?”

“No. From what I can determine, they won’t even know to watch for what you’re doing. As far as they know, that technology doesn’t even exist.”

“Huh. Then where did you get it?”

“I have no idea. They hate AIs though. So maybe . . . maybe I was created to be able to hide. Not just from the Superiority, but from everyone.”

I found that strange, even a little disturbing. I’d assumed that once we escaped Detritus, we’d find that everyone had ships like M-Bot.

“Anyway,” he continued, “do you want to get a rundown of what I found about the Superiority?”

“I suppose,” I said.

“There are five main species leading the government,” he said. “Three you’re unlikely to encounter—there are very few in residence on Starsight. So we’ll leave out the cambric, the tenasi, and the heklo for now. Most relevant to you are the varvax, which you insist on continuing to call the Krell. They are the crustacean creatures with the exoskeletons. The other species is the diones. They’re the species that Cuna belongs to.”

“Some are crimson, others blue,” I said. “Is that like humans, with our skin tones?”

“Not exactly,” M-Bot said. “It’s kind of like a gender distinction.”

“The blues are boys, the reds girls?”

“No, their biology is very different from yours. They have neither sex nor gender until they breed for the first time, whereupon they form a kind of cocoon with another individual. It’s really quite fascinating; as part of the breeding process, they merge for a time into a separate third individual. Regardless, after breeding, they become red or blue, depending. They can initiate a change in other ways, if they wish to be considered unavailable for some reason—while the dark purple color is the skin tone of one who has not mated, or who has broken their pair bond and is seeking another mate.”

“That sounds convenient,” I said. “A little less awkward than the way we do it.”

“I’m certain, being organic beings, they’ve made it far more complicated than I just explained,” M-Bot said. “You do always seem to find ways to make relationships awkward and embarrassing.”

I thought about Jorgen, who must be worried about me, even if he had told me to go. What about Kimmalyn? Cobb? My mother and Gran-Gran?

Focus on the mission, I thought. Steal a hyperdrive. Come flying home with salvation in tow, to the praise of my allies and the weeping of my enemies.

It was harder to think with such bravado now that I was here, alone, way out of my depth. I suddenly felt isolated. Lost, like I’d strayed into the wrong branch of a cavern while exploring, then run out of light. A scared little girl who didn’t know where she was or how to get home.

To distract myself, I continued my search of the embassy. My own paranoia made me check each room just in case—and the next one I looked into was a bathroom that had a variety of interesting tubes and suction devices to accommodate different anatomies. There was something impressive and disgusting about it all at once.

I left the bathroom and passed back through the kitchen. There were plates and utensils here, but no food. I’d need rations to plan properly.

“Cuna mentioned requisition rights,” I said. “Can we get some supplies delivered?”

“Sure,” M-Bot said. “I’ve found a page with nutritional and dietary explanations. I should be able to find something that won’t kill you, but which someone of Alanik’s race would order, as to not arouse suspicions. Say . . . some mushrooms?”

“Ha. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten that whole mushroom thing.”

“Once I reprogrammed myself to make you my official pilot, that subroutine stopped running so often. I think my mushroom cataloging impulse must be related to my old pilot’s last orders, though I cannot fathom why. Anyway, shall I get you some food?”

“Enough for a day or so,” I said. “I hope to steal a hyperdrive quickly.”

“Wouldn’t it be wiser to stock up, so that you at least appear to be settling in for the long term?”

Scud. He was obviously way better at thinking like a spy than I was. “Smart,” I said. “Do that instead.”

I climbed down the steps to the second of the three floors of the building. The rooms here all appeared to be sleeping quarters that had hastily been set up with beds of the type Alanik’s species used. Cushioned with a bed frame that was shaped kind of like a nest, pillows all around the outside. I found one room with large tubs and a closet that had all kinds of ropes and other equipment, which I assumed could be affixed to the ceiling hooks if rooms needed to be transformed to accommodate some form of arboreal species. I’d seen several of those on the streets.

“Food ordered,” M-Bot said. “I got the ingredients raw, as I figure you’d rather make it yourself than trust what you’re being given.”

“You know me too well.”

“I’m programmed to notice behavior,” M-Bot said. “And speaking of that . . . Spensa, I’m worried about some aspects of this plan. We don’t know what the test to become a Superiority pilot will entail—there are very few details in the information Cuna left.”

“I suppose we’ll find out tomorrow. Passing a flight test is, I think, the least of our problems. At least that I can do without needing to fake my way through it.”

“A valid point. But sooner or later, Alanik’s people are going to grow concerned about the fact that she’s not reporting back to them. They might contact the Superiority and ask what happened to her.”

Great. As if I needed more stress about this mission. “Do you think we could find a way to send a message to Detritus?” I asked. “We could relay my status to Cobb and have him ask Alanik—if she wakes up—to contact her people for us?”

“That would be convenient,” M-Bot said. “But I have no idea how to make it happen.”

“Then why are you bringing all this up?” I snapped.

“I’m not trying to argue with you or make you upset, Spensa,” M-Bot said. “I’m just pointing out realities as I see them. We’re in the middle of something very dangerous, and I want us to be fully aware of potential complications.”

He was right. Arguing with him was like punching a wall—something that I, admittedly, was capable of doing during my more frustrated moments. That didn’t change the truth.

I explored the bottom floor quickly, and confirmed it was a collection of meeting rooms. After that, I climbed back up to the third floor and the kitchen, which had a window looking out along the street. It seemed so peaceful, with those gardens and people going lazily about their business.

Don’t trust their peace, I thought at myself. Don’t show weakness. Don’t let down your guard. I’d been met with nothing but lies since I’d landed here—people pretending they weren’t part of some enormous war complex bent on destroying Detritus. I knew the truth.

I picked up the tablet and scanned the information Cuna had left about the test. As M-Bot had said, there weren’t a lot of details. There was going to be some kind of mass tryout for the piloting program. Most of those invited were already members of the Superiority—lesser races with secondary citizenship, normally not allowed to serve in the military.

Cuna had specifically reached out to Alanik’s people for some reason, inviting them to send a representative. According to these details, I was supposed to bring my own ship and be ready for combat. The document said that if I passed the test, I’d be given a Superiority starfighter and would be trained to fight delvers.

A Superiority starfighter would mean Superiority technology. Hopefully a Superiority hyperdrive. I could secretly rip the hyperdrive out of the starfighter, then install it in the space M-Bot had for one. And then the two of us could zip home.

This was my only way forward; the only way forward for my people. And maybe, somewhere along the way, I could learn more about what I was—and why the delvers were so interested in cytonics.

If the Superiority is preparing a weapon to fight the delvers, I thought, this mission could be even bigger—and more important—than we assumed.

I had to do it. Isolated or not, untrained or not, I had to make this work. Jorgen said he trusted me. I had to show myself the same level of trust.

It began with what I knew best. A piloting test.