“I can arrange that,” Kauri said. “If you will follow the Swims Upstream, we will take you to see your people.”
“Thank you,” I said. Hana raised her fist to us, and Kauri and her people traveled across the sands again to their ship.
“That was surreal,” FM said.
I nodded. “Not the welcome I expected to receive.”
But they were taking us to Cobb, and none of my people had yet found themselves on the wrong end of a kitsen blade, glinting or otherwise.
I supposed that meant we were doing okay.
Six
We flew along the shoreline and landed beside the Swims Upstream on another beach below the cliffs that sheltered the towering city of Dreamspring. The stone cliffs had clearly been worn over time into fins and ridges by the wind, the sandstone striped with hundreds of red-orange layers. I directed the flight to leave their taynix in the boxes in their ships—the kitsen knew about hyperdrives, but I still didn’t want to advertise that we had so many of them. I left Snuggles and Boomslug out of their box, but gave them a stern instruction to stay. I wanted at least one hyperdrive we could access in a hurry if things went wrong, so it was worth the risk that they’d disobey.
I joined Kauri, and my flight and the medtechs followed after us around a bend in the cliffside. The beach down the way was covered in kitsen who appeared to be playing in the surf and relaxing on the sand, at least until they spotted us. We were giants to them, and I watched carefully where I stepped, not wanting to flatten any picnic spots.
These kitsen were enjoying themselves, completely oblivious to the war with the Superiority. We were interlopers, bringing the conflict with us.
It was coming for them regardless, but it still felt tragic to disturb the peace. I wondered what it was like to live that way, in a place where taking a trip to the beach to sit and enjoy yourself was an option on any given afternoon.
The concept seemed alien, but stars, it must be nice.
The kitsen gathered together, watching us. Some appeared frightened, others curious, but none attacked us. Kauri floated out in front, waving both paws at the other kitsen. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but they seemed to believe she had us under control, because no one else came after us demanding that we duel their champion to the death.
We walked up a narrow path toward the city—no, it was a wide road to them. The path was lined with small mound-shaped structures cut into the rock or formed out of intricately worked sandstone. The structures had arched doorways with tiny stone or metal doors affixed to them. Some had signs in a language I couldn’t read, while others had little pots of flowers sitting on the doorsteps or in boxes hanging from circular windows.
“Saints and stars,” Sadie said somewhere behind me. “This is so cute!”
She wasn’t wrong. It reminded me of a story my mother had told me when I was a child, about a man named Gulliver who traveled to a land full of little people who were wary of him because of his size. He befriended them, but was later kicked out when he doused a fire in the palace by peeing on it.
As a child I’d found that part of the story hilarious. Now I thought maybe the little people had a point.
I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked up the hill at the mountainous city. As the road ascended, the little burrow structures began to pile up, dug into the walls of the cliff or sculpted one on top of another into tiny hills with doors on all sides and at all levels. I wondered if they opened into tiny multi-floored houses, or if each entrance went to a separate room isolated from the others. As we walked, little kitsen hovercars pulled over to the side of the road to allow us to pass. They chattered at each other, some too far away or faint for the pin to translate, though I did catch a few words.
“—humans returned!—”
“—don’t look threatening—”
“—can’t trust them, look how they—”
“—dione with them, does that mean—”
I glanced back and found that Kimmalyn had stopped, bent down beside what looked like a landscaping shop with barrels and stacks of bricks and groundcovers, all organized by type. A kitsen waited out front while two others used a large metal winch to load a huge decorative rock into the back of a hovertruck.
I couldn’t hear what Kimmalyn said—she didn’t have a translator pin, so she wouldn’t have been understood anyway. But then the kitsen stepped back and Kimmalyn lifted the rock—which was only half the size of her palm, but still enormous for the tiny creatures—and set it in the rear of the truck.
One of them tipped its nose up at her, and I hoped that was a gesture of thanks. We didn’t need to be accused of property damage or delivering insults. The kitsen we’d met so far didn’t seem like they’d appreciate being condescended to.
“Do you think she should be doing that?” I asked FM.
“She’s not hurting anything,” FM said.
Cuna walked up behind us. “Compassion is universal,” they said. “It’s seen in all cultures, though it is communicated differently.”
FM sighed. “I suppose there might be some cultural norm we’re not aware of, but any of us could break one of those at any time and cause an interstellar incident.”
“Scud, our lives have gotten weird,” I said.
“That’s the truth,” Arturo said, following us up the road. “It was simpler when we were fighting the Krell.”
Simpler, but also stagnant. Our people had spent eighty years fighting for our lives, which meant we had very specialized skills. We were a well-oiled survival machine, but we lacked something these people had. It wasn’t happiness exactly. We had that, even if it was tempered by pain and fear.
Prosperity maybe. Peace. I wondered if this was what we would have seen on ReDawn, if we’d spent any time in their cities.
Kauri had drifted ahead of us a bit, and she hovered back, watching us. “Do you need to stop and rest?” she asked. “I’m sorry if I’m outpacing your human endurance.” Her shipmates were walking up the path on foot, and they seemed fine. They ran many steps to our one, but they didn’t seem to be tiring.
“No, we’re fine,” I said. “Just appreciating your beautiful city.”
“This used to be the home of Hesho, the Most Honorable and Magnificent One Who Was Not King. He died in the battle with the delver at your planet.” She gave a little sigh. “We miss him. The Superiority insisted that we needed to transition to a democracy in order to advance to primary citizenship, and I think that change was good for us. But I wish Lord Hesho had remained here with us to see the initiative of his people. He and his ancestors before him served us well for centuries.”