“Do you know anyone we can reach out to with the hypercomm?” FM asked Cuna. “Other species we could make an alliance with?”
Cuna shook their head, laying their hands flat on the conference table. “I have tried to reach my contacts, but some have gone underground. Others might side with Winzik, so I have to be careful whom I reach out to. Your hypercomm does not have the data banks that mine did, and without the coordinates to reach the others—”
“We don’t know their radio frequencies, basically,” I said.
“Precisely,” Cuna said. “I have allies among the figments, if we can reach them.”
“We might be able to do that cytonically,” Alanik said. “Though if we try to reach out to the wrong people, we might set ourselves up to walk into another Superiority trap.”
I nodded. We couldn’t approach other cytonics indiscriminately. “You can monitor hypercommunication though, can’t you?” I asked Alanik. I hadn’t been able to figure out how to do that yet, but Alanik seemed to do it easily. “You could see if you can find any anti-Superiority communication, and we could try to pinpoint the frequencies of the people who are sending them and contact them as potential allies.”
“Most of those who oppose Winzik won’t be using hypercomms,” Cuna said. “The lesser species don’t have access to them, and those who do will be afraid of being overheard.”
Alanik looked like she might punch Cuna if they called her “lesser” one more time.
“If it’s the only idea we have,” FM said, “then it’s still worth a try.”
“I agree,” I said. “And we don’t have to ask Stoff for resources to try it, so that’s even better.” I turned to Alanik. “I’d like to help canvass for hypersignals,” I said. “You’ll have to teach me, but I’ve caught on quicker to the communication skills than hyperjumping.”
“Of course,” Alanik said. “I’d be happy to have your assistance.”
I hoped I would be of assistance, but we were getting desperate, and until we found Gran-Gran I was the only other cytonic we had.
Rig knocked on the doorframe to the conference room. His yellow hyperslug, Drape, peered over his shoulder from his perch in one of the new backpacks Engineering had devised. A boomslug—as everyone had begun calling them, even though technically it was Boomslug’s name—peered over his other shoulder.
“Are you carrying one of those around now?” I asked. That was strange. We’d mostly left the boomslugs alone, except for Boomslug. Everyone else was too worried about triggering the mindblades.
Rig shrugged, and the slugs bobbed along with the gesture. “Boomslug saved my life back on Wandering Leaf, so I thought we should try to keep more of these guys around. For purely experimental purposes, of course. I’m definitely not carrying a slug as a bodyguard.”
I couldn’t blame him if he was.
FM smiled at Rig. The two of them were scudding adorable, which lately made me want to punch things. Spensa’s influence, probably. “He named this one Squeeze.”
Of course. FM had taken glee in naming my hyperslug Snuggles before she assigned her to me. If I hadn’t already bonded with Boomslug, they no doubt would have tried to push Squeeze on me as well.
Cobb would tell me I should have more of a sense of humor about myself. He was usually right.
“Did you need something?” I asked Rig.
“Just wondering if FM was available to run drills with the slugs,” he said. “We’ve got Stardragon Flight ready to practice with the new keywords.”
The other flights had been less than thrilled when FM stole some of their taynix, but she was largely forgiven now that the assembly had lost most of the other taynix to the Superiority. We hadn’t secured enough new slugs to outfit all the flights yet, and any new ones we found in the caverns would have to start their training from scratch.
Which meant I shouldn’t keep them from it. If she was busy, FM had less time to worry in my general direction. “Yeah, we’re done here,” I said. “How is the platform exploration going?”
“The team is still working on it,” Rig said. They were looking for more platform control rooms like the one on Wandering Leaf. It was similar enough to the platforms on Detritus that it seemed likely we might have some with similar capabilities. More platforms that could hyperjump or fire hyperweapons would be a valuable asset. “There is a lot of junk in the debris belt, and a lot of platforms to search.”
“I understand,” I said. “Let me know if you find anything.”
“Will do,” Rig said as FM pushed her chair away from the table and moved to join him. Rig didn’t report to me officially, but we were all in a holding pattern until Cobb returned, so sharing information only made sense.
“Are you ready to look for signals now?” I asked Alanik.
“Yes,” she said. “But not here. These chairs are too square. It’s distracting.”
I didn’t have a chance to ask what she meant, because Alanik had already stood up from her…square chair and marched out of the conference room.
I scooped up Snuggles and Boomslug and followed Alanik, as she seemed to know where she was going. I hoped I’d be able to help. I had to do something, because if I didn’t, the tragedies we’d suffered would only be the beginning.
Three
Alanik brought me to one of the small meeting rooms. At the head of the square table sat the weirdest chair I had ever seen. It looked as if it was made entirely from tree branches, sanded and polished and warped into twisting shapes that stretched up the back in a spiraling pattern. As I got closer I could see that it was a continuous carving from a single large piece of wood.
“Did you bring that here?” I asked.
“Yes,” Alanik said. “It was Arturo’s suggestion. I was saying that I find your furniture strangely square, and he said that if I was going to spend hours searching for Gran-Gran and Cobb in the negative realm, I might as well bring myself back a comfortable place to sit. It’s my favorite from my own home.”
The seat was polished wood rather than a cushion, and Alanik folded herself onto it with her legs tucked under her.
There was another chair in here—which did look squarish beside hers, but it had cushions covered in a plain brown fabric, and looked much more comfortable to me. I wondered if Arturo had been using it. They seemed to be spending a lot of time together.
I sank into the chair. “I don’t know if I’m going to be any help at this.”
“If you’re willing to try,” Alanik said, “it can’t hurt.”