Starsight

They stopped at the empty chair next to me, and several raised a ladder against it. Others scurried up, then placed another ladder leading to the table’s top. Finally, Hesho—still wearing his formal red silk clothing—climbed up the ladders onto the tabletop. He raised a paw to me, fingers clenched in a fist. Seeing him up close, I could make out the pattern of red on his white fur snout, a color repeated in the fringe of his long, pointed ears.

“Alanik of the UrDail!” he said, his translation collar projecting a bold, deep voice. “Today, we feast to our victory!”

“Captain Hesho of the kitsen!” I said, mimicking his closed-fisted gesture. “Did you only just arrive at lunch?”

“We fetched our own vittles and brought them here,” he said. “We cannot trust a Superiority cafeteria to have proper feasting materials appropriate to our station.”

Another kitsen arrived with an oversized chair, which they placed on the tabletop for Hesho to settle into, his bushy tail sticking out the back. Others brought a small table, which they set in front of him and draped with a tablecloth.

“So,” Hesho said, looking from me to Morriumur. “We are colleagues now, we three? Shall we make a formal pact of mutual aid and support?”

I glanced at Morriumur. “I don’t know that I’d thought about it that much,” I said.

“We will need trustworthy allies if we are to survive future engagements,” Hesho continued. “Though to be honest, I do not know if having a dione in our small fleet will aid our progress or hinder it.”

“Probably hinder,” Morriumur said, looking down at their plate again. “The officials will push me harder than they would a member of a lesser race.”

“Then the kitsen shall welcome this extra difficulty,” Hesho said solemnly. “Perhaps it will prove, finally, that we are worthy to become full citizens of the Superiority.”

“Do we have any idea what happens next?” I asked them. “We passed their test, right?”

“Next we’ll be trained to fight the delvers,” Morriumur said.

“Which means what?” I asked. I still had no idea what I was in for.

“It is hard to say,” Hesho said. “I don’t believe any of us expected the test today to be as brutal as it was.” As he talked, another group of kitsen arrived with steaming plates of food, which they arranged on Hesho’s table. One, wearing a silken dress, cut his food and began feeding it to him. The others busily set up feasting materials on the tops of several of the chairs at our table.

“The Superiority is odd,” Hesho continued around bites of his tiny steak. “Its officials will work very hard to protect the pristine and peaceful lives of innocents, but once you step outside the bounds of propriety, their retribution can be swift and brutal.”

“The Superiority is wise,” Morriumur said. “It has stood for centuries, providing safety and prosperity for billions of beings.”

“I do not contest those facts,” Hesho said. “And my people are eager to have our citizenship level increased. Still, you cannot dispute that some departments—particularly the Department of Protective Services—can show a disturbing lack of empathy.”

I nodded, and the table fell silent. As we ate, I found my focus drawn to something that I must have been feeling all along. The . . . call of the stars. Starsight’s cytonic-suppression field had quieted it, but out on this station I could hear the song again. I couldn’t distinguish what was being said, but that sound in the back of my mind meant this station was sending out communications.

I set down my fork and closed my eyes, imagining myself flying among the stars, as Gran-Gran had taught me. I felt myself drifting. Maybe . . . maybe I could follow those invisible trails. Did some of them lead to Detritus, and the Superiority forces posted there?

But there was nothing that gave me a clue toward that end. I did feel something else nearby though. A kind of humming familiarity. What was that?

Brade,

I realized, recognizing the feeling from earlier. She’s not in the room, but she’s near.

I opened my eyes and glanced around. The bustling room was filled with aliens eating and drinking—or in the case of some very strange rocky creatures, pouring liquid on their heads.

The sensation was coming from outside the room. I made an excuse to the others, saying I needed to find a restroom. Morriumur pointed the way, and I ducked out of the dining hall, glancing in the direction Morriumur had indicated. A string of doors ran down the hallway here, each with a sign identifying the kind of disposal unit contained therein.

I glanced in the other direction, where Brade’s cytonic sensation seemed to be coming from. There were no guards that I could see, so I slipped away down the hall.

The feeling got stronger as I reached a door off to the side. It was cracked, and I peered in to see that indeed, Brade was there. And she was speaking with a group of dione officials, as well as Winzik.

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