Starsight

I suspected what would come next, but was still horrified when it happened. The guards took the struggling prisoner and forced their face to touch the dark sphere. The protester began to stretch, then was absorbed into the darkness.

The technician collapsed the sphere. As everyone left, I spun on Cuna. “Why?” I demanded. “Why show me this?”

“Because,” Cuna said, “before your stunt today, you were my best hope at stopping this abomination.”

“You seriously expect me to believe that a Superiority official cares what happens to ‘lesser species’?” I spat the words, perhaps too fervently. I should have been political, kept my emotions in check, tried to get Cuna to talk.

But I was mad. Furious. I’d just been forced to watch an exile, maybe even an execution. I was mad at myself for getting caught, frustrated to finally know the secret to hyperdrives—to be so close to bringing the secret back to my people—only to be

threatened by Cuna. That was why they’d brought me here, of course. To warn me what awaited me if I didn’t obey.

Cuna stood up. I was short compared to average humans, so Cuna towered over me as they walked to the glass, then rested a blue hand against it. “You think of us as being of one mind,” they said. “Which is the exact flaw held by many in the Superiority itself. Presumption.

“You may choose not to believe it, Alanik, but my entire purpose has been to change the way my people view other species. Once the secret of hyperdrives escapes our grasp, we will need something new to keep us together. We won’t be able to rely on our monopoly on travel. We need to be able to offer something else.”

Cuna turned toward me and smiled. That same creepy, off-putting smile. This time it struck me, and I realized something.

Had I ever seen any other diones try to smile?

It wasn’t a dione expression. They pulled their lips tight into a line to express joy, and they bared their teeth to express dislike. They gestured with their hands sometimes, like the Krell. I couldn’t think of any of the others, Morriumur included, ever smiling.

“You smile,” I said.

“Isn’t this facial expression a sign of friendship among your people?” Cuna asked. “I’ve noticed you have similar expressions to humans. I’ve practiced for the day when I get to speak with them and offer a hand of peace. I thought the same expressions might work on you.”

They smiled again, and this time I saw something new in it. Not a creepiness, but an unfamiliarity. What I had interpreted as a sign of smugness had been an attempt to put me at ease. A failed attempt, but the only sign I could remember—in my entire time here—of a dione trying to use one of our expressions.

Saints and stars . . . I’d built my entire gut response to this person on the fact that they couldn’t smile right.

“Winzik and I conceived the Delver Resistance Project together, but with very different motives,” Cuna said. “He saw a way to get access to a true, actively piloted starfighter corps again. I saw something different. I saw a force of lesser species serving the Superiority—protecting it.

“Perhaps it is foolish imagining, but I saw in my mind’s eye the day when a delver might come—and a person like you, or the kitsen, or some other species saved us. I saw a change in my people, a moment when they began to realize that some aggression is useful. That the different ways species act is a strength of our union, not a flaw in it. And so, I encouraged you to join us.”

They waved at the room that had held the black portal. “The Superiority is deceptively weak. We exile that which doesn’t match our ideal of nonaggression. We encourage species to be more and more like us before they can join, and there are good ideals among our people. Peace, prosperity for all. But at the cost of individuality? That we must find a way to change.”

They rested their fingers on the window again. “We have grown complacent, timid. I fear that a little aggression, a little strife, might be exactly what we need. Or else . . . or else we will fall to the first wolf that sneaks past the gates.”

I believed them. Scud, I believed Cuna was sincere. But could I trust my own assessment? The fact that I’d so grossly misread their expressions reinforced this idea. I was among aliens.

They were people, with real love and emotions, but they also—by definition—wouldn’t do things the same way humans did.

Who could I trust? Cuna, Vapor, Morriumur, Hesho? Did I know enough to trust any of them? It felt like a person could spend a lifetime studying other species and still get this sort of thing wrong. Indeed, Cuna’s attempts at smiling were proof of that exact idea.

And still, I found myself reaching over and pushing back my sleeve. I undid the little latch on my bracelet that kept me from pushing the button accidentally.

Then—taking a deep breath—I deactivated my hologram.

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