Starsight полностью

“My parents met here,” Morriumur said. “About five years ago. They’d been coming as children for many years, but it wasn’t until they were just out of training that they actually started talking to each other.”

“And they decided to pair?”

“Well, first they fell in love,” Morriumur said.

It was obvious. Of course the diones could love. Even though it was hard to imagine something as human as love existing between these creatures who were so strange.

A few Krell children ran past, wearing smaller suits of armor with two extra legs, perhaps to make it easier for the young crablike creatures to keep balanced upright. They waved arms wildly with excited joy. This . . . this is the Superiority . . . , I told myself. Those are Krell. They’re trying to destroy my people. Stay angry, Spensa.

But these children couldn’t lie. Perhaps the adults could keep up a charade like I imagined everyone here doing. The children killed that idea.

For the first time since arriving, I let my guard drop. Those children were just children. The people walking through the park, even the Krell, weren’t all plotting my destruction. They probably didn’t even know about Detritus.

They were people. They were all just . . . people. With strange carapaces or odd life cycles. They lived, and they loved.

I looked at Morriumur, whose eyes were glistening with an emotion that I instantly understood. Fondness. A person remembering something that made them happy. They didn’t smile—they made the dione thin-lipped expression—but it was the same somehow.

Oh, Saints and stars. I couldn’t keep up the warrior act any longer. These weren’t my enemies. Some parts of the Superiority were, of course, but these people . . . they were just people. Mrs. Chamwit probably wasn’t a spy, but was instead really just a kindly housekeeper who wanted to see me fed. And Morriumur . . . they just wanted to be a pilot.

Morriumur just wanted to fly. Like me.

“You’re an excellent pilot,” I told them. “Really. You have picked up on all this so quickly, it’s incredible. I don’t think you should give up. You need to fly to prove to the Superiority that people like you are needed.”

“Are we, though?” Morriumur asked. “Are we really?”

I looked up, watching globes of water rise—undulating—into the air. I listened to the children of a hundred species, and their joyful noises.

“I know a lot of stories,” I said. “About warriors and soldiers from the cadamique, my people’s version of holy books.” M-Bot had been briefing me on terms from Alanik’s people that I should try to sprinkle into my conversation. “My grandmother would tell these tales to me—some of my first memories are of her voice calmly telling me about an ancient warrior standing against the odds.”

“Those days are behind us though,” Morriumur said. “In the Superiority at least. Even our training against the delvers is just a hypothetical—a plan for something that will probably never happen. All the real wars are done, so we have to plan for the maybe-halfway-implausible conflicts.”

If only they knew. I closed my eyes as water splashed down, causing children to squeal.

“Those old stories have a lot of different themes,” I said. “One, I never quite understood until I started flying. It happens in the epilogues. The stories after the stories. Warriors who have fought return home, but find they no longer belong. The battle has changed them, warped them, to the point where they are strangers. They protected the society they love, but in so doing made themselves into something that could never again belong to it.”

“That’s . . . depressing.”

“It is, but it isn’t, all at once. Because they may have changed, but they still won. And no matter how peaceful the society, conflict always finds it again. During those days of sorrow, it’s the aged soldier—the one who was bowed by battle—who can stand and protect the weak.

“You don’t fit in, but you’re not broken, Morriumur. You’re just different. And they’re going to need you someday. I promise it.”

I opened my eyes and looked to them, trying to give the dione version of a smile—with lips pressed tight.

“Thank you,” they said. “I hope you’re right. And yet at the same time, I hope you aren’t.”

“Welcome to the life of a soldier.” A thought struck me. A stupid one, maybe—but I had to try. “I just wish my people could help more. I’ve been invited to try out as a pilot because some parts of your government recognize that they need us. I think my people could be your people’s warriors.”

“Maybe,” Morriumur said. “I don’t know that we’d want to put that burden on your people.”

“I think we’d be fine,” I said. “All we’d really need to know is . . . how to hyperjump. You know, so we could properly protect the galaxy.”