ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)

“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.”

“We could try to bring him out and then return him without anyone knowing,” Jorgen said again. “We might need Alanik’s help for that, though. If we use the H-O-M-E position to hyperjump in, that will be obvious. My mom might even have people staking it out, waiting for us.”

“I want to go,” FM says. “I can explain the situation to Rig.”

“Any of us could explain the situation to Rig,” Nedd said.

“Yes,” FM said slowly. “But he trusts me.”

“He trusts all of us, doesn’t he?” Nedd said. “Except maybe Alanik. No offense, Alanik.”

“Why would I take offense to that?” I asked. “It’s factual.”

“See?” Nedd said. “I knew I liked you.”

Arturo gave Nedd a look I couldn’t quite read.

“Alanik could go get Rig,” Jorgen said. “And FM could go with her to explain the situation. Is that all right with you, Alanik?”

Was I willing to take someone with me when I walked onto a platform full of people who now probably considered me a criminal? “Yes, of course,” I said.

    “I can jump straight to Rig on my own though,” FM said. “Gill is really good at finding his slug.”

“I still want you to take Alanik with you,” Jorgen said. “We think Gill will be able to get back easily, but I don’t want you stranded on Detritus, facing court-martial.”

“Wait,” Nedd said. “Why is Gill really good at finding Rig’s slug?”

“Because we’ve drilled them so many times,” FM said. She looked a little pink, and sounded defensive.

“Okay,” Nedd said. “But we’ve practiced with all the slugs. We’ve practiced so many times that I think maybe I could find these slugs in the nowhere—”

“You couldn’t,” Jorgen said.

“Leave it, Nedd,” Arturo said.

“But I’m just saying—”

“I hear what you’re saying!” FM said, too loudly.

Everyone stared at her.

She sighed. “Our slugs are really good at finding each other because Rig and I are dating, and we use the slugs to visit each other so we don’t have to deal with awkward questions, because we weren’t ready to tell everyone. There. Now you know.”

“Oh,” Nedd said. He always seemed to have something to say about everything, but now he seemed abashed. Based on the reactions of the group, I guessed that Jorgen and Kimmalyn already knew, and T-Stall and Catnip didn’t care.

“Are mate-pairs taboo in your culture?” I asked. “You all seem very embarrassed to talk about them.”

    “Not taboo,” FM said. “But…personal.” She looked at me. “Do the UrDail always speak openly about these things?”