Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

6

Cole woke up sore. Full-body sore. It felt like he’d just played two games of galaxy ball with no pads on.

He tried to sit up, but the muscles in his stomach spasmed—cramping up and sending him crashing back down on the bed.

The very soft bed.

Sitting up hadn’t worked, so he rolled onto one side and surveyed his surroundings from there. He recognized the place. Or a place like it.

Lisbon.

He and some friends had broken into a five-star hotel, posing as busboys. The lobby, the hallways, everything had looked just like this. He must be in one of those rooms, or in a place just like it.

He rolled onto his back, soaking up the luxuriousness of the sheets and the perfect mattress; he closed his eyes and felt some of his stiffness slide away. When he opened them and looked down at his toes, he noticed the chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Thousands of crystals were arranged around hundreds of tiny lights, all twinkling like stars through carboglass.

Cole followed the light to the walls, which appeared to be made of a mottled-yellow marble. A darker material, some species of wood, cut up the expansive slabs with window sills and support beams. Above the sills, large panes of glass allowed natural light to pour in, bathing the room in a warm glow.

Slowly, Cole pulled his legs out from the thick covers and worked them to the edge of the bed. It took some effort and a few grunts to get his body to comply. What it really wanted to do was stay there for a week, recuperating.

He swung his feet over the edge—they dangled a meter from the ground. The soreness in his calves and quads warned him not to do it, that they couldn’t promise to catch him if he jumped from such a height. Heeding the warning, Cole rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself backward, sliding toward the ground. The silk sheets slid together like layers of grease.

Yelping, Cole clutched at the heavier blankets, falling to the ground and pulling them after. They barely slowed his crash before smothering him. He swam through the fabric, emerging in a heap of finery that spilled across a landscape of lush carpet, the material piled so high it looked like it need to be mowed.

Cole fought another round of temptation, his body urging him to lie flat on the soft surface, tangled up in silk. Grudgingly, though, he pushed himself up on sore muscles and stood, swaying slightly. Now that he was out of bed and upright, his nakedness felt awkward. He reached down, slowly, as an old man might, and fumbled for one of the sheets.

He attempted to knot the fabric around his waist the way the Glemots had taught him, but the fabric was so slick, it was impossible to tie. It wouldn’t even stay draped over his shoulders, slipping off like beads of water on fur. After some experimentation, he finally settled on a few wraps around his waist, holding the material together with one hand.

Eager to know where he was, Cole approached the window to peer outside. Even from a meter away, however, he couldn’t see through the harsh light lancing into the room. It was just a plane of bright whiteness, nothing beyond. He leaned close and reveled in the heat radiating through; it reminded him instantly of the hot Mediterranean days of his childhood. He closed his eyes and let the heat loosen his muscles. It felt like two suns pouring their energy into him.

Two suns. Drenard. That’s where he was. The L1 between the twin stars. What had happened?

Cole leaned forward and covered his face with one hand, straining for the images. A fleet closed in on SADAR; there was a thud as two hulls locked together; Molly saying something funny. Soldiers.

The last images he had were like scenes from an action holovid: the Drenard guarding him and Walter had raised his menacing lance. The other soldier in the hallway fired off an energy beam into Edison’s room. Then another. Cole couldn’t see the effects of those blasts, but he clearly saw the one that caught him in the chest.

He remembered going down. His body vibrating. The sound of his skull cracking on the decking. He slid one hand around the back of his head and felt the lump; just the slight brush against it sent another thunderbolt through his head.

Where was everyone else?

Cole turned from the window—he couldn’t make out anything through it anyway—and looked to the doors arranged around the enormous room. He went to the nearest one first and found a closet. There were hooks and arms up high and cubbies with baskets in them below. Cole pulled a few out, but they were all empty. He took a moment to snug the silk sheet tighter around his waist and went to the next door.

That one opened into a bathroom twice the size of his quarters on Parsona. He stepped inside. The floor looked like wood, but felt like stone. There were knots and wavy lines in the material, yet it felt cool under his feet. Cole spun back around and looked at the door. It looked like a loose-grain wood, but touching it gave him the same crisp jolt that only marble invokes. He pressed on the door with one finger, and it moved silently and effortlessly.

Cole left this curiosity for later and turned to the high counter with the mirror above it, hoping to find some water to drink. The surface was made of the same strange material and came almost to his chest. He gave himself a comical appraisal in the mirror, hitched his sheet tight with one hand, and leaned over to survey the deep bowl cut out of the stone.

The only feature beyond the basin were three cylinders vertically slotted in a neat row. Cole twisted the one on the left, and it spun freely, but did nothing. He pressed down on it, then tried pulling it up. The plug slid out of the hole easily and water began flowing through the channel and splashing into the basin. Steam rose from the fluid; he didn’t need to touch it to verify the danger.

He replaced the cylinder and pulled the one on the far right. There was a gurgle, then he was rewarded with bone-chillingly cold water. He forced his sore calves to lift him to the stream, wiggling his stomach up on the edge of the counter so he could reach a sample. It tasted excellent; he drank it in large sideways gulps as it dripped from his cheek and ran back toward his ear.

Raising his head, Cole wiped the moisture from his chin, then cupped one hand and gathered enough to splash on his face and push through his hair. There weren’t any towels nearby, so he made do, wiping himself dry with the edge of his sheet.

Cole picked up the plug from the counter and dropped it back into place, stopping the flow of water. The workmanship was remarkable, to create stone that could prevent seeps while sliding so smoothly. He ran his hands along the counter as he turned toward the exit, walked back to the bedroom and gave the door a slight push, watching it intently as it swung shut with a satisfying click.

This place was outrageous. Cole felt like he could soak it in without an ounce of stress. Surely his friends were being treated just as well.

Was this their thanks for rescuing Anlyn? Or were the Drenards trying to make up for the spot of miscommunication from earlier?

He double-checked his silky coverings and went to the next door. It stood alone on the adjoining wall, right across from the foot of the bed. Larger than the other two, Cole’s innate sense of layout and aesthetics suggested this one would open into a marble hallway. He could imagine the plush runner that would lie beyond, Molly padding down the middle of it, a silk robe fluttering behind. She was probably coming right then to pull him by the hand, the two of them rushing off to see marvelous, alien, things.

I’m back on Glemot, Cole thought to himself, more of the dull aches in his muscles and joints slipping away. He reached for the gold-colored doorknob on the massive slab of rock and it clicked open with a twist. Making sure he had his silk sheet tightly clutched, Cole pulled the door toward him and began to step around it—into the exact hallway from his imagination.

But the gold bars that ran vertically through the doorway were too narrow to squeeze through. Cole looked them up and down, confused. One hand reached out to touch the cold metal barrier in his way. He lingered on the poor design of the passageway before it finally hit him:

This wasn’t Glemot.

It was Palan.

7

Cole shouted down the hallway. He tried Molly’s name first, then ran down the list of crew and friends, thinking of each. Hopefully they were rolling around in their beds, enjoying their captivity with all the bliss ignorance could provide.

But, now that he knew, what was he supposed to do? Lie in bed and wait on his captors? Or was he even being held here? This seemed like an unlikely prison. Perhaps the bars were for his safety? To keep something from getting to him!

The thought put a shiver up Cole’s spine. It seemed the only way to solve the paradox presented by the room. It was too lush for ill intent, but obviously he wasn’t meant to go anywhere else. Until he found out for sure, Cole decided to choose the option that made the lump on the back of his head cease its pounding. He was here as a guest, he decided. Protected in a room he’d never be able to afford for the rest of his life.

He was going to enjoy it.

He returned to the bathroom to investigate the larger basin sunk into the floor. Dropping the silk sheet, he knelt and inspected the three stone stoppers along the wall. Going with his hunch, he pulled the center one out and warm water began flowing into the large rectangular pit. He let it fill a meter up, adding quite a bit of the pure hot water as well. When it was deep enough to cover him, Cole replaced the stoppers and lowered himself into the steaming pool.

“If this is prison,” he said to himself, “I’ll join Walter in a life of crime.”

Almost instantly, the soreness from his capture began melting away. He let out a long groan of pleasure and forced his legs straight, elongating every muscle and tendon to allow the heat in. He lay like that for over an hour, hovering on the border between sleeping and waking, his brain not able to dream or think. Just be.

It wasn’t until his hands felt callous from the pruning that he decided he’d had enough. He rubbed them up across his face and through his hair, pushing tepid water across his skin. With a series of protesting grunts, he pulled himself out of the tub, then removed the stopper by his feet.

The liquid relief swirled away with happy gurgles; he moved in front of the mirror and began stretching, both arms raised high as his muscles cooled. Looking at his reflection again, Cole noticed he’d lost a bit of muscle over the last month. He was too lean. Being on the run didn’t seem conducive to good health, and eating out of pouches had taken its toll.

But his face… it looked right. He looked like he ought to look. Happy. Relaxed. He wished Molly could be there to feel it with him, to see him in such good spirits.

Then he remembered he was completely nude.

He grabbed the silk sheet and tried to wipe away most of the water before wrapping it around him. After attempting a few more configurations, he gave up again. The “garment” was destined to be a precarious wrap on his slender hips, one hand formed into a fisted buckle.

Back in the bedroom, he checked the bars again and found everything as impenetrable as before. He looked around for anything meant to entertain, and found nothing. Going back to the large window, Cole pressed both hands to the glass and cupped his face. He still couldn’t see anything through the blinding glare.

The silk sheet hit the floor.

He bent to pick it up, wondering if he should just poke two holes in the fabric, drape the damn thing over his head, and walk around like a ghost.

Surveying the room one more time, Cole figured this was one of the most perplexing jams he’d ever been in. He was being forced to luxuriate in conditions beyond his upbringing. Nobody seemed to be expecting anything of him right now. He could crawl back in bed and sleep for days or take another bath until he was one giant wrinkle.

But those bars made it hard to relax. Especially since he didn’t know what they were for.

As tempting as it was to laze around until the answers came, Cole decided to prepare for the worst. He went back to the bathroom and drank as much water as he could, then splashed some on his face to jolt his senses. Setting his bed-sheet aside, he launched into a standard-grav exercise routine: stretching, push-ups, sit-ups, and an hour of tai chi.

The Drenards came for him just as he was switching from his tai chi routine to shadowboxing. He threw out his fists in snappy jabs, the head in the mirror ducking and weaving to avoid each blow. Combining uppercuts, elbow strikes and body-blows, he imagined a roomful of foes coming at him one at a time. With each punch, he blew out his breath, tightening his stomach muscles to absorb every possible counter from his opponent.

His grunting and hissing, and the squeaking of his feet on the cool marble, masked the sound of the gold bars retreating into the jamb. Cole threw a few new combos together and worked on a feint that would set up his uppercut—just as the massive aliens crossed the plush carpet and arrived at the open bathroom door.

It wasn’t until one of them spoke that Cole realized he had visitors—and that he was dancing around with no clothes on. He whirled around, his hands still up in a defensive posture.

The Drenard in the doorway cooed pleasantly, but the sight of his lance sent a zap of fear through Cole’s spine. Around this guard stepped one of the ornate Drenards dressed in layers, but this time with an additional cloak that covered his arms, a gold braid tied around his waist to link the open sides together. His longer tunics were pulled up through this belt and folded over, freeing his hands.

It could have been the same male from the ship, Cole couldn’t be sure. The red band around his blue head was different, but the face looked similar, as alien races tend to do until you get to know them. The large alien approached on bare feet and held out a small bundle. He continued to make the pleasant sounds that had disturbed Cole’s exercises.

Cole accepted the proffered gift; it was a colorful tunic, similar to one the guard was wearing. He draped it over his head and the hem almost went to the floor. He looked back to the Drenard, whose identical tunic barely fell to his knees.

Turning to glance at himself in the mirror, Cole saw a little boy playing dress-up—a pauper pretending to be a prince. He decided it was more humiliating than being stark naked.

The Drenard waved at him, breaking his spell and gesturing toward the door.

“Fine,” Cole said. “Lead the way.” He waved a hand toward the door and followed the large alien into the bedroom. The obligatory escort of double guards, each with a ferocious lance, formed up on either side. Cole cast a wary glance at them, happy to see the infernal devices aimed at the ground. He was also ecstatic to see the bars in the doorway were up.

The cloaked alien led the two guards into the hall, then turned and looked back at Cole. He shrugged, mostly to himself, and strolled out to join them. Judging from the odd mix of treatment thus far, he figured they were either going to lead him to a sumptuous feast or a torturous interrogation.

But certainly not both.

8

The Drenards led Cole down the ornate hallway, past a series of marble doors with lowered gold bars, until they came to a doorway that stood open. They waved inside where he found a table hewn out of the now-familiar grainy rock. It was covered with plates and bowls of foodstuffs, but only a single chair sat before it. The Drenards moved Cole to the chair, then gestured to the victuals, almost as if to say “whatever you subsist on can be found here” rather than “look at all the yummy stuff we made for you.”

Cole sampled a few things and didn’t find any of it too unpleasant.

“Thank you very much,” he offered.

None of the Drenards budged. Cole could sense they were waiting for him to get his fill before whatever came next. He felt tempted to draw the meal out, to stall for time, but the cold politeness was unbearable, and his curiosity growled louder than his stomach. He really wanted to know whether they considered him a prisoner or a cherished guest, so he ate just enough to energize him for the day before pushing the bowls away, making several hand gestures he hoped would suggest “no more.”

The leader nodded and said something to the other two in that gentle voice of his. The guards strapped their lances across their backs and began clearing the table; another Drenard entered with a second chair and topped Cole’s water up.

Having the large creatures swirl around him in furious activity completed the young prince illusion from the bathroom mirror, making him feel extra ridiculous. Even more so when he was “crowned” a few moments later by yet another Drenard male, who came in and showed him a red headband just like the one his escort wore. The thing was held reverently for Cole to see, then the alien reached up and placed it around his forehead—arranging it just so.

The rough material itched his scalp; Cole reached up to scratch it, but the Drenard pushed his hand down gently. He decided it was best to quietly bear the discomfort.

While the new Drenard tended to him, the others finished cleaning up, their movements uncannily orchestrated. Every action was performed with a precision that reminded Cole of his own military training. When the maneuvers finally completed, he found himself left in the room with just the presumed officer seated across the table. A glass of water stood before the Drenard, full, and sweating slightly.

“My name is Dani Rooo,” Cole thought.

But why did he think that?

His right hand came up to touch the red band, as if it knew the answer.

“No it’s not. My name is Cole,” he thought to himself.

“Hello, Cole.” The Drenard across from him opened his mouth and made a funny shape with it. The voice in Cole’s head was his own, but they weren’t his words.

“You have to think on the surface, or speak aloud. I cannot hear you unless you’re forming the words in your head.”

An image flashed in Cole’s head. A woman. Aunt Carol? Crazy aunt Carol who heard voices. Gods, he hadn’t thought about her since he left Portugal. What in the world made her come to mind?

“Let’s start with where you found Anlyn Hooo, Cole.”

Now he understood how Aunt Carol felt. His own voice was in his head, and it was telling him to do things. He had a powerful urge to grab the red band and throw it across the room.

But something told him that wouldn’t be a wise move.

“Can you hear me?” Cole thought it out loud in his head.

“Very good. Now, where did you find Lady Hooo?”

“How does this work?” Cole asked, unable to concentrate on the alien’s question with so many of his own, both sets of thoughts jumbled up in the same head. “Do you speak English?” he added, tossing another on the pile.

Dani Rooo leaned back in his chair. There was silence in Cole’s head for a moment.

“Do you know why life forms are so similar, Cole?”

It seemed a bit off-topic, but he was interested in playing along. Not so much by the question—a classic in xenophilosophy—but by the tone of his own voice. It was as if the alien across from him knew the answer and was just testing him.

“Because they’re the simplest solutions to common problems? Problems of survival?”

Dani made the shape with his mouth from earlier. Cole labeled the expression a “smile,” then realized he no longer had to guess.

“Do you find my answer funny?”

“No. But it does make me happy. Women and youth are not very good at keeping secrets. The combination almost guarantees a spill of information. With Lady Hooo unconscious, there’s no way of knowing what you know or don’t know.”

“Trust me,” Cole thought to Dani, “I know less than nothing. Why don’t you fill me in—how’s Anlyn? Am I a prisoner here? Where are my friends? And how are you talking in my head?”

Dani leaned forward and placed both hands, wide apart, on the table. “Whose soldiers are outside the door, boy?”

They stared at one another for a while. Both thinking—but deeply. Silently. Dani leaned back again, folding his hands in his lap. “Forgive my outburst. I am worried for Lady Hooo as well; as such, I am not myself. According to Lady Fyde—”

“Molly?! Where is she—?” But Cole couldn’t force his thoughts to rise above the alien’s.

“—insists that you rescued Anlyn from captivity, and if this is true, you deserve an answer. So. I will give you one before we begin our session. One answer, an honest one, to any question you like. And then you will begin responding to my questions.”

Cole considered the offer. In his heart, he wanted to know where Molly was and whether she and the rest of the crew were safe. His natural curiosity, however, wanted to riddle the inner workings of the red bands. Meanwhile, the philosopher in him shouted down the rest, wanting to know the root of common forms, the riddle that taunts every theory in the field of biology and serves as the foundation for all major religions.

These questions and more rattled around in Cole’s head. He saw the muscles in Dani’s vast neck twitch under his blue skin and could sense—could almost know—that he was becoming impatient. It just made it harder for Cole to think. To choose.

Panic spilled over his litany of queries, drowning them, making it impossible to pick the best response. The pressure to get it right dried his mouth out. He felt as if something important was taking place—and he was about to blow it. He reached for his sweating glass of water.

Dani leaned forward, mirroring his movement, his mouth contorting into a new expression. “Well?” The strong and confident version of Cole’s voice sliced through his worrisome thoughts.

Then, in a flash, Cole’s very confusion provided the answer he was looking for. It dawned on him that he was being offered a single answer from Dani, but that didn’t mean it would be the last question he ever asked anyone. Many of the trivial ones would be answered in time, if he was patient. In fact, the reason he had an impossible time choosing was because he didn’t know the trivial from the profound. And that was the question.

Cole’s hand, still frozen in the shape of a cylinder, stopped short of the dripping glass of water. He brought his other hand up and clasped the two of them together. Leaning toward Dani, he forced a calm thought to the surface:

“My question is this—” Cole took a deep breath.“Which question should I have asked?”

Dani froze for a moment, then his mouth changed into something new. A shape with teeth. One of his large, powerful hands shot up into the air between he and Cole and came crashing down with lightning speed. When his flat palm hit the stone table, it rang out like a cracked whip, an impossibly high note ringing in the air for too brief a time to have been so loud. The glass of water leapt up, throwing a small wave over the lip to join the puddle of condensation below.

Dani’s entire body shook, his cooing transforming into a growl as throaty pockets of air moved back and forth through his vibrating cheeks. The Drenard raised his hand from the table, pointed at Cole, then made a fist. He shook his head, which roared with the vibrato of a small engine. He waved his fist in the air and hit the table with it again.

Cole leaned back in his chair, distancing himself from the display. When Dani shot out of the seat across from him, he wondered if he’d been wrong—if he really did have only one question left in him. But Dani didn’t rush around the table in attack, he strode out of the room and into the hallway, fighting to form words through the amplified and gruff cooing sound.

Swiveling in his chair to watch the alien go, Cole felt his body surge with adrenaline, preparing for danger and defense. He heard Dani struggling to give commands to someone outside, the sound of coarse hacks mixing with the forced purring of their language.

Less than a minute later, his interrogator returned and stood in the doorway, a beverage of some sort in his hand. The Drenard took long swigs from it, his physical attack subsiding.

“Dani?” Cole squeezed the mental word through a crack in his confusion.

His interrogator raised one hand and continued to drink. “I am fine. I just haven’t laughed that hard since I was your size. It felt… amazing.”

Dani lowered the glass and tilted his blue head slightly to one side, took a deep breath, then let it out. “There are two ways I could answer your question. If I answer it honestly, I will cheat you, for the truth is: that was the question you should have asked. I only realized this as soon as you thought it to me.

“I could satisfy my end of the bargain by admitting this, couldn’t I? I could point out that you did ask me the right question and you would get nothing. But your choice suggests something interesting: that you are looking for the beginning of a path, rather than a method of skipping to the end. And even though you will never walk down the trail you seek—not now that you are here with us on Drenard—I would like to reward you with more answers than I initially promised.”

Dani took another long pull from his stone cup, studying Cole over the lip. When he was done, he made a popping noise with his mouth, jerked his head to the side, and formed in Cole’s head what he assumed were the same words:

“Come with me,” Dani thought.

Cole stood, the surge of fear draining away, and followed Dani into the hallway. Two armed guards framed the door, but Dani acted as if they weren’t there. He turned left, away from Cole’s room and further down the long passage. Cole hurried to keep up, having to nearly jog in order to match the alien’s long strides.

As they hurried past room after room, Cole noticed more than half had gold bars lowered in front of the door. He read them as “occupied” signs, wondering which one Molly was being kept behind.

He wondered it too loudly.

“She’s not on this hall,” said the voice in his head. “Males only. Women have an extremely important status in our culture, unlike your own. Ah, so many answers that I feel like giving you now. Even if Anlyn pulls through and confirms our worst suspicions about you, I will always respect you for that single insight.” Dani looked down at the carpet. “And the laughter,” he added.

Cole glanced up at his walking companion, his head just above the Drenard’s elbow. It felt strange to be having a conversation without eye contact and in the near-silence of their bare feet shuffling through the lush pile of the runner.

“You have yet to answer the question,” Cole reminded his unusual captor, “nor have you asked me what you want from us. We just came to drop off a friend and get some supplies—”

“We will sort that out when and if Anlyn recovers—and all of my hopes are that she will—but you will not be leaving Drenard anytime soon. We cannot allow that. Anlyn should know this, which is why we find the story you and your friends are giving us a bit hard to believe. Especially since there are… inconsistencies.”

Cole wondered what this meant as they reached the end of the hallway. Dani paused in front of the massive door that spanned the width of the passage; he turned and addressed the consternation on Cole’s face and in his thoughts. “Forget these things for now.” The alien waved one hand and reached for the door with the other. “You will have many years to dwell on them here. But first, let me show you where here is,” he thought.

With that, Dani pushed the large door open and entered the next room. Cole followed—and stepped into a prism, a carpeted cube of dancing lights. The wall across from them was identical to the one they had just passed through, yellowish marble bisected by a closed door. Cole scanned for the source of the spectacle. It was the wall to his left, revealed as Dani allowed the door to swing shut. The entire face was transparent glass, or crystal even. His human brain had a difficult time absorbing the view beyond.

It was a sunrise—or sunset—that defied his own understanding of what potential beauty that meteorological event could possess. The colors banded gradually through every hue imaginable. Between neighboring buildings, he spotted a horizon gilded with gold; it turned through the oranges and reds, but there were colors between that Cole’s boy-brain simply had no vocabulary for.

His feet took him closer to the sight, as if of their own accord. He craned his neck up as he neared the glass, watching the last of the deep violets as they were absorbed into the black of space. What made the sight truly unique was the way the colors moved. It was a sunrise or sunset in action. Waves rippled up now and then to make the rainbow shimmer, like the Northern Lights of Earth, but brighter and with more color, all of it sqeezing between towering buildings to all sides.

“Wow.”

It was all he could think. He wondered how it translated in Dani’s head, if it came across as a soothing coo or a baby’s babble.

“The view is better from the roof,” Dani thought.

Cole didn’t believe him. He wouldn’t until he saw it for himself.

Dani strode across to the wall opposite the glass and called for a lift. Cole followed. He walked backwards, still riveted by the sight. The elevator arrived just as he did and Dani guided him in, thinking bemused thoughts at the mesmerizing effect his planet had on another human.

Cole grunted as the elevator doors squeezed the colors away. The lift moved—and fast. He could feel it in his legs, still weary from the exercise. Despite the obvious speed with which they were traveling, the ride was a long one, and both men rode in silence, mental and otherwise.

When Cole felt himself lighten several kilos, he knew the ride was almost over. The doors opened, and he followed Dani into the morning, or twilight, air. Not knowing which time of day it was irked Cole; he needed a label for what he was seeing, as if the word might bottle some of the splendor. As they walked toward the side of the building facing the glorious sight, Cole asked Dani in his head: “What time of day is it?”

“There are no days here,” Dani replied.

Cole barely heard his own voice give him the answer. It was more beautiful on the roof.

All around them stood a transparent barrier shielding out what sounded like a powerful wind. Cole could hear it race through holes in the enclosure above, a crisp zephyr descending to swirl around them. The walls held back the air, but there was nothing obstructing the view all the way to the horizon; he saw none of the other buildings that had been crowding the view from the room below. Here, Cole could gaze from one edge of the horizon to the other, and in no two places could he find the visual feast repeated.

He pressed his head to the glass and peered down, spotting the rooftops below. Observation platforms dotted most of the structures, which got progressively shorter as they went toward the horizon, stepping down so each building behind had a view. The city didn’t go very far into the distance, he saw. No more than a dozen kilometers, possibly less—the height made it impossible to gauge.

He turned to his interrogator-turned-tour guide.

“No days?” he asked.

“It’s hard to turn away from this sight at first. I know. It takes many years to become used to it, to take it for granted, even. However, to understand, you need to walk with me and look at the other two views.”

Staggering backwards again, his eyes locked on the dancing lights, Cole slowly moved with Dani—reluctant, yet curious.

“Drenard is like the moon of your Earth. One face is gravitationally locked with our two stars, just as only one side of your moon ever looks down on your planet.”

They stood in front of the glass that ran down one of the building’s sides. Dani fell silent for a moment and looked down at his feet. “You are the second human I’ve had this conversation with. On this very rooftop.” He looked at Cole and continued to think aloud. “It was an accident then. My being up here nothing more than mere chance. And now—” He stopped and made the coughing sound from his fit of laughter. “I am considered a human expert, sent to deal with you and the girl.”

“Molly—?”

Dani raised his hand, his thoughts overpowering Cole’s. It wasn’t pleasant to be shouted down with one’s own voice, Cole decided.

“I’m sorry to drift off like that. The similarities to that old conversation took me back to better times. My people are extremely sensitive to symmetry. Look at why.”

He pointed out the glass at the line of buildings stretching off in the distance, converging like the train tracks in Portugal Cole grew up near. Both men thought back to ten years ago, but their memories were a galaxy apart.

“Drenards live on a line. A border between light and dark. That way,” he pointed back to the colors, “is a boiling land where even shadows can turn to ash. And over there,” he nodded to the darkness opposite, “you have a frigid wasteland where your breath will freeze in your lungs.” He paused and looked back over the city stretched out toward forever. “Most of our people choose to live on better planets now, but this is where we evolved. Along a thin halo—a temperate respite—crushed between two extremes.

“There’s another significance inherent in the shape of our habitat. It isn’t just a line, it’s a circle. It’s the root of our fondness for symmetry. For things that repeat themselves.” He turned and faced Cole. “The universe is like this. Our lives are like this. I’ve been here before, just like this. And if you look hard, you will see the same story playing out in your life. Things beginning and ending the same way. The same conflicts with the same resolutions. It keeps going, but not on its own. Each cycle requires work.”

“I don’t understand,” Cole responded. “Why are you showing me this? What’s the question I should’ve asked?”

Dani turned away from him and peered through the glass. “You remind me of him,” he thought. “The only other human I have spoken with like this. He brought so much hope. But that’s not why I think of him, it’s that neither of you seem anything like the… humans our war department deals with every day.”

Cole tried to force another question through, but the Drenard’s thoughts were too powerful.

“I cannot speak of the war, so do not ask. Come and look at what I love about the rooftops.”

Dani led them to the next side of the building, the one opposite the shimmering rainbow. Some of the colors bled around the elevator structure, stray bands of subdued prettiness that rode the glass overhead. But once they reached the far side, the spectacular view was just a throbbing memory. Now they were overlooking the dark side of Drenard, the sky bursting with stars and fuzzy galaxies.

A thick swath of unbelievable density let Cole know they were looking toward the center of the Milky Way, right along the width of the galaxy. Billions of pricks of light stood out; he could even see the glow of a pink nebula, the color of planets forming. The sight made him feel a long way from home and choked him up inside. One hand went to the cool glass while his thoughts warped back to Earth.

The two men fell quiet again, Dani giving Cole a minute to absorb it all—or perhaps the Drenard was taking a moment for himself.

It was the human that broke the mental silence:

“Beautiful,” he thought, unable to know the soothing purr this word translated to in Dani’s head.

“Beautiful, yes. And even more dangerous, my friend. Nothing lives on the surface. Well, almost nothing. The fire on the other side fuels the life of our planet and drives many of our customs with its ancient and inhospitable landscape. Over here, we find the absence of everything. Just powerful winds which are nothing more than the air being sucked from the cool low pressure to rush toward the rising heat.

“I brought you up here so you could look at yourself, Cole. And to give you an honest answer to your sage question. Up here, my boss will not hear and there is no guard to trust with a secret.” He turned to face Cole. “You are very much like a Drenard,” he thought. “You have a hot side and a cold side and you use them to balance one another. I feel your anger, mostly when you dwell on the well-being of your friends. And I also feel your patience, which you use to temper yourself. I believe you are one of the few of your kind that is trying to live on a line, just as a Drenard must.”

Dani turned from Cole to gaze at the stars, then his eyes drifted down to the planet’s surface. Cole looked as well, out over the shadowed land as black as ruined Glemot. His own voice was clear in his head as Dani thought: “The question you should have asked, Cole, and that I would not have been allowed to answer, is this: what is fusion fuel made of?”

Cole rolled this around in his mind for a moment. “You’ve gotta be kidding,” he thought to Dani.

The alien nodded slowly. “It’s the start of a path, young friend, and one that leads far over the horizon. You can’t see the end from here because of the long walk. Now let’s get below before my superiors become suspicious.”

He turned and walked back across the roof, leaving behind a confused and disappointed human.

And not for the first time in his life, nor in that same spot, Dani thought.

Quietly.

9

On the long ride back down, Dani explained the circumstance of their captivity. They would not be allowed to leave Drenard. Ever. But their stay would be made as pleasant as possible until they died of old age. If Anlyn woke and verified their story—or other evidence came to light that absolved Parsona’s crew of her disappearance from Drenard and the condition in which she returned—the friends would be allowed to visit with one another. Until then, they were to be kept apart to prevent collusion of any sort.

Cole took this as well as he could. The idea of not leaving Drenard didn’t sting as much as it might have. It would be disastrous for Molly, who was now on a quest to find her father and do her ship’s bidding, but all Cole wanted was for his friends to be safe, to find a place where they could stop running long enough to catch their breath. Perhaps they had found just such a spot there on Drenard, the home of their enemy.

He knew this feeling would waver over the years to come. It would not be easy to convince Molly to stay put and remain safe, rather than rush off and get killed in another wild adventure, searching for her lost past. In a way, the Drenards would be doing him a favor by forcing her to remain there. It would probably take an entire race of powerful beings to buttress Cole’s will if she asked him to leave, to break out of another prison and go on the run once again.

Cole glanced over at Dani and hoped he wasn’t thinking too loud.

They stepped out of the lift and turned to the long, carpeted hallway. Cole forced safer thoughts to the surface: “I have to ask about the red band,” he thought to Dani.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to assist you in their duplication. There are few secrets my people guard more closely than their operation. And that’s saying a lot.”

“Of course,” Cole conceded, “I’m actually more interested in the philosophical underpinnings. Theories of universal language acquisition were long ago crushed on Earth. Linguists found—”

“Your linguists know less than nothing,” Dani interrupted. “Besides, the answer you are looking for has more to do with biology—with the reason all forms in this galaxy are almost identical.”

Cole saw an opening for more answers and pressed the point. “You said something about this before—”

Dani made a gruff coughing sound. “Excellent attempt, but I was merely deducing what you didn’t know.”

They arrived at Cole’s room; the bars were still up. Dani opened the door and held out his hand, his eyes focused on Cole’s forehead.

He didn’t want to give it up, the band or the line of questioning. “Why are we so similar?” Cole thought.

He watched the fingers in the outstretched hand curl into a blue fist. Dani fell silent for a moment, looked up and down the hall, then relayed a cryptic answer: “I have become an expert, as much as a Drenard can, on your planet Earth. What fascinated me the most was the way its plates move, how they shift continents over time. Where once, they were bunched up, now they are far apart.” Dani paused and scanned the hallway. “Our galaxy—even our universe is like this. It wasn’t long ago that things were much closer—in a strange sense of the word.

“Information used to flow back and forth between worlds, even between galaxies. Sometimes it still does. Take the pouched mammals on your Southern continent: they are unique, but similar to the other fur-covered animals elsewhere. Information was shared, but eventually those plates grew apart. For the same reasons, our galaxy is dominated by common forms.”

Cole looked at Dani’s fist, then met his gaze. “You’re talking about homology. Divergent evolution. But how is that possible? How, over such vast distances—?”

Dani peered down the hall and thought to Cole without looking at him. The words came soft, like a mental whisper: “Are you familiar with extremophiles?”

“Yeah,” Cole answered, “small organisms that live in acid, or deep in the crust, or around thermal vents.”

“Keep your thoughts soft. Yes, but you have it backwards, friend. We are the extremophiles. We live between the cold and hot, up in the wild weather and under an assault of radiation. A thermal vent is safe by comparison, a stagnant niche. Our planet, like your own, is dominated by invisible creatures, smaller than one of our own cells. They rule the universe, much as your genes rule your own behavior.”

The fist blossomed into a palm, insisting. “There, I’ve thought too much.”

Cole reached up, but before he could peel the red band from his head, he heard one last compliment.

“You’ve taken the next step down that path,” Dani thought.

The “days” that followed were marked by the window in his room. The pane would glow to full strength, then fade to black in what Cole quickly recognized as artificial aesthetics. They fed him twice a day on an exacting schedule; Dani joined him for every morning meal. During one of these sessions, he asked Cole if the twenty-four hour cycle pleased him. Cole had to explain to his friend and captor how very little sunlight he and most humans got back home, which turned into an interesting conversation about the universality of youth.

Amazing topics such as these were welcomed. It dawned on Cole one day that he was furthering Dani’s research, and wondered what his instructors at the Academy would say about his inability to withstand such a pleasant interrogation. They would likely point out what a dupe he’d been to fall for the comfortable bed, the lavish meals, the blatant good-cop/bad-cop routine.

The prison bars, gilded with gold, would undoubtedly become official Navy policy for softening up detainees. Cole had no doubt they would’ve mocked him for his performance, right before they airlocked him for committing treason.

He had little doubt this was taking place, that his friendship with Dani—formed out of mutual respect and a fondness for philosophical musings—was nothing but a ploy. He even wondered, with every topic they covered, if the data gathered would one day be used to invade Earth, kill and maim his fellow humans, or just turn the tide of a major battle.

If such were the case, he would be devastated, but he would be surprised. Something about the red bands, the ability to share thoughts directly, overcame all else. There was a level of trust, of connecting, that Cole would never have imagined he’d enjoy so much. One night, alone in bed, he imagined sharing the experience with Molly, of hearing her thoughts over the red bands.

But then, knowing what she might hear in return, it gave him pause…

Four days went by. The exercise and the conversations with Dani the only variables. Everything else remained the same.

Until Anlyn woke up.

The first sign was a slap on the stone door during Cole’s morning bath. The break in the routine startled him; he reached for a towel and dried himself hurriedly, expecting guards to barge right in.

Instead, there was another bout of insistent slapping. He fought the urge to yell, “Coming!” in English and hurried to the door, twisting the edges of his towel together to hold it in place.

The first thing he noticed as he pulled the door slowly toward him was the gold bars. They were still in place.

Then he saw his next surprise:

Molly.

The bars didn’t stop them; the cold metal just became a part of their embrace. For days, Cole had been holding back a dam of emotions, knowing that worry would not do her any good even as it eroded his own strength away. He could feel that all break, spilling through the gaps in the barrier.

Molly started crying, her head resting on his arm. He reached through the bars, encircled her, rubbed her back, and pressed a corner of his forehead against hers. Tears of joy streaked down his cheeks.

When she said his name, it sounded like honey tastes. And it was great to hear English spoken in someone else’s voice. Especially hers. She started rambling and Cole let the sound of it wash over him:

“Anlyn’s gonna be okay,” she said. “She woke up yesterday, verified our story. They told me last night and said I could be the one to tell you. Oh, gods, how I’ve missed you—” She sniffled and tried to calm herself down. Cole glanced down the hall at her silent Drenard escorts, lances in hand.

Molly broke off and snuck one hand back to wipe at her face. She smiled up at Cole, flush with embarrassment. “I’m a mess,” she said.

“You look great,” he assured her.

She laughed once and looked away. “I have to go,” she said sadly. “They want to talk with each of us over one more meal. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

Cole could just grin and nod. He watched her pad away, her shapeless Drenard tunic somehow riveting—her long limbs moving with ease and the whites of her bare feet winking back at him as they flew up from the carpet. He could have bent the solid bars and walked right through, he was sure of it. He could feel it welling up in his chest, his arms, his cheeks.

He finally shut his door, went back to the bathroom and finished drying off. Then he got dressed and sat on his bed, staring at the soft artificial light glowing through the window, waiting for it to get brighter, willing the false day along as fast as it could go.

When the Drenards came for him that evening, Dani was not among them. Two guards led Cole down to the interrogation room and waved him through the door. He was the last to arrive.

Molly jumped out of her chair and wrapped him up in a tight squeeze. Edison sauntered over and slapped at his shoulder hard enough to knock Molly out of the embrace. Walter, of course, stayed in his chair, his mouth already full of food. His only greeting was to wave a large piece of meat back and forth.

“Where’s Anlyn?” Cole asked.

“Alert, but unwell,” Edison grumbled. “A personal visit is currently under some degree of consideration.”

Cole rested his hand on his friend’s back. “It might’ve been my fault,” he said. “The alterations to Walter’s old suit and all. I’m really sorry. I’m just… I’m glad she’s okay.”

Edison swiped at his cheeks, too choked up to say anything.

Molly waved Cole into the empty seat on her side of the table; she kept one hand on his arm as they ate, as if terrified of losing contact with him. They dug into the usual fare, but Cole couldn’t believe how much better it all tasted with his friends around. They traded snippets and stories. Edison had some singed fur on his chest that everyone had to see, and they all agreed with Walter that the beds slept extraordinarily well. Molly went on for a solid ten minutes on the bathtubs, how ingenious the plumbing system was, how hot she could stand the water, and the fact that she’d practically been living in the thing.

Nobody mentioned the rooftop and its perpetual sunrise, so Cole didn’t either. Still, each of them seemed to know much that the others didn’t. Their individual personalities had steered the sessions along unique paths. Walter could tell them more about the gold bars, the doorknobs, and marble than the rest of them combined. Through large and rapid bites of food, he told his friends about how the planet used to spin and be full of trees and life, but that over billions of years it had wound down like a clock due to the pull of the two stars, and how all the trees were petrified and that massive machines quarried them out of the dark side of Drenard.

“It’ss jusst rock,” he said, “yet it’ss pricselesss!” He hissed this last word through his teeth, one of the few English words with such a construction that Palans repeated with relish.

As Walter tore into another plate of food, Cole noticed Edison picking at his plate, his eyes level but focused on something in the distance.

“Cuisine not up to your standards?” Cole asked. “Miss the dehydrated stuff from the ship already?”

Edison shook his head quickly and returned to eating.

Molly set down her fork. “What’s up?” she asked him. “Is it Anlyn?”

He nodded.

“She’s gonna be okay, right? Isn’t that what you heard?”

Edison shrugged his massive shoulders, his reluctance to speak uncharacteristic and troubling. Molly wiped her mouth with her napkin and reached a hand across the table. “Is it something else? Do you want to talk about it?”

The Glemot remained still a moment, looked up at her, then to Cole. “Unsound reasoning to transport Anlyn to this destination,” he finally said.

“Why?” Cole asked. “Isn’t this where she wanted to come?”

Edison remained silent.

“I wouldn’t have if I were her,” Molly said, picking up her fork. “Not after learning about Drenard culture from Dani.”

“What are you talking about?” Cole asked. “They practically worship women here. They put them on pedestals, for Pete’s sake.”

“They aren’t raised up on platforms, darling, they’re hoisted in cages. Gods, no wonder I feel so connected to her, she’s dealt with the same stuff I have. Except, here, the males are even more disproportionately large, so the women aren’t allowed to do anything for themselves—”

“Good idea,” Walter said.

“It sounds like hell, to me,” Molly countered.

“Too much like the Academy?” Cole asked.

She turned back to him. “It was more than the Academy.” She looked away, the mood of the feast shattered. “You wouldn’t know what it feels like,” she muttered.

“What what feels like? Being small? Defenseless? Scared?” Cole pushed his plate away from him and lowered his voice. “The next time you ask me about my childhood, I promise I won’t dodge it, okay?”

Molly nodded as the table fell silent, save for Walter’s smacking sounds as he inhaled another plate of food.

“Sso, you guyss hear about the Wadiss?” he asked between shovelfuls.

Cole looked across the table and noticed Edison’s strong reaction to the word, his fur bristling.

“Highly adapted to the calefactōrius hemisphere,” the Glemot said excitedly. “And symbolic trinkets of entry to Drenardian racehood. Female Wadis—”

Edison went on, his voice droning like the roar of distant thunder, coming in never-ending rolls. Cole picked at his food and zoned out as Edison and Walter compared notes on the little critters, which he best understood to be some sort of desert lizard.

He daydreamed while the others gabbed about the creatures. After Walter finally had his fill of food, Drenard guards entered to clear the plates. Dani arrived soon after, accompanied by another large Drenard wearing one red band and holding another. The Drenard with the band crossed to Edison, who bristled with recognition and leaned forward to have the device put into place. It was the first time Cole had seen one of the silent conversations from the outside, and it was a bit eerie: two beings looking at each other in silence, nodding, moving their arms, making faces.

Whatever they were thinking, it didn’t take long. The band was removed from Edison’s head, and he rose from his chair, turning to his friends: “The large delta of positional coordinates X and Y; X being Anlyn and Y being—”

“Whoa, buddy. Deep breath,” Cole said.

The poor cub tried again, concentrating, “The distance separating Anlyn and I is to be decreased immediately.”

“That’s wonderful!” Molly squealed, jumping up to embrace him.

Cole rose as well and touched paws with his friend. Walter pressed his finger into a smear on the table, and then placed it in his mouth, sucking at it idly and staring at the far wall.

After Edison followed the Drenards out the door, the three original Parsona crew members were left alone as the last of the dishes were removed.

“The bedss are nicse here,” Walter said. Again.

Molly nodded. “Yeah, so what’s our plan, guys?”

“Plan?” Cole asked. “Our plan was to find someplace safe where people would stop shooting at us—”

“They shot us,” she reminded him, pointing at the open door.

“Okay, but it must’ve looked pretty bad, the way we barged in. Besides—” Cole eyed her suspiciously. “Wait a minute—are you planning another jailbreak?”

Walter nearly stood up in his chair at this. “No jailbreak,” he said, waving his arms level with the ground. “No way.” He pointed straight down at the table. “Walter stayss here. Forever. Eatss and ssleepss.”

Molly held out a hand to calm him down. “I agree with you. Both of you. It is nice and safe here. And comfortable.” She turned to Cole and narrowed her eyes. “But there are certain things I need to do. Important things.”

Her father, Cole thought. And Lucin’s hints of a war-stopping secret. She would never be happy here, he realized. Pampered and comfortable weren’t viable options for her. He could see it on her face: dire things screamed at her from within, things that needed doing.

He felt sick to his stomach thinking about his plan to keep her here. To protect her. He’d planned on putting up a fight when this conversation came up. To employ the same paranoia that had saved them several times since they’d left Earth. Now he felt miserable for even considering it. He should’ve been thinking about what Molly wants, not focusing on his own selfish desire to keep her safe. His mistake, it dawned on him in that moment, was in assuming Molly shared his primary concern: her safety. But she was just like him, thinking about other people’s well-being more than her own.

He reached under the table and found her hand. Gave it a gentle squeeze. He felt more connected to her right then than he ever had in their hundreds of hours in the simulator.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Of course. You’re right. But no more mention of it until I bring it up, okay?” He glanced up at the chandelier dangling over the table.

Molly nodded as if she understood. Walter hissed, confused. It reminded Cole that the last time they’d escaped a prison, it had been with help.

Only, he wasn’t sure they had that luxury this time.

He gave Molly’s hand one last squeeze and rose from the table; he strolled out to the guards in the hallway, insisting he think with Dani.

The view from the roof was just as amazing the second time, if not quite as startling. Cole looked out at the colors with a twinge of sadness. Maybe Dani was right. After many years, the alien sight might become familiar, then normal. Perhaps it could eventually become banal.

Cole concentrated on the view, and on the sensations it stirred. He noted how the waving colors made him feel right then. He tried to store the memory away, preserving it against the erosion of time.

While he corralled the experience, Dani considered his plea.

“I cannot help you,” the Drenard finally thought back. “However, I do understand that you would not be perfectly happy here. Most Drenards choose contented lives elsewhere and only come on vacation or for official matters. I am one of the few natives that never considers leaving. And non-Drenards? They’re not allowed to leave. Ever.”

“What about the other human, the one you brought up here. Did he die on Drenard?”

Dani hesitated. “I’m not allowed to say.”

“Is he still here? Still alive?”

“I cannot say. I’m sorry.”

Cole turned toward the hot side of Drenard, squinting his eyes into the bright display, working to temper himself—to remain cool. He took a deep breath from the moving air wafting in from above and felt his tensions melt away.

Dani reached out and placed his hand on Cole’s shoulder in a rare moment of contact. “Non-Drenards are never allowed to leave,” he repeated.

It was fortuitous Cole had steadied his nerves.

Otherwise, he would never have noticed the subtle inflection of “non” in his own voice.

10

“I know how to get out of here, but it won’t be easy,” Cole said.

Molly leaned back on a wall of pillows while he sat cross-legged on the foot of her bed, his hands in his lap. The gold bars were in place and her door had been shut, but Cole knew his words were probably traveling out to someone, somewhere. The good thing about his planned escape was that technically—it was legal.

“How?” Molly asked.

“We have to become Drenards.”

Molly grabbed one of the pillows beside her and swung it at Cole, nearly knocking him off the bed.

“Don’t mess with me like that,” she said.

He righted himself, not laughing at all. Molly’s indignation turned to shock, mixed with something else. “Gods! You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m serious,” Cole said. “And if you’d stop assaulting me and listen, I’ll explain.”

“Alright,” Molly said, placing her stuffed weapon in her lap and resting her elbows on it. “Tell me.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think we would be the first to do it. I’m pretty sure other species have. Maybe even another human. And get this, every kid born here isn’t really considered a Drenard until they capture a Wadi Thooo—”

“A whati who?”

“The lizards Edison and Walter were going on and on about.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand half of what Edison was saying, only that he was excited. Did you follow any of it?”

“Not an ounce, but I got a little information from… someone else. And I think I know why Edison is fascinated with them.”

“Why?” Molly asked, leaning forward.

“I think he already had plans on becoming a Drenard. Maybe for Anlyn.”

Molly fell silent, looking down at the comforter as if reading the words there, trying to make sense of them. Cole held up his arm in case it was a feint on her part, setting up another blow from the pillow.

“For Anlyn?” She looked up at Cole. “Why? Does he love her? Does she love him?”

“How would I know? I hate that kinda talk, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Molly agreed. “It’s silly, especially after such a short period of time. Right?”

Cole nodded slowly. “I guess. Still, I’ve seen them together and I know there’s something there, something that formed between them while we were on Earth. It’s the only reason I can think of for why he’d be so interested in the creatures.”

“Maybe he’s just looking for a way out of here.”

“Then why not tell us? No, I think it’s something else. I think he’s trying to impress a girl. And either way, even if I’m wrong, we need to do this if we want to get out of here. The Drenards were never gonna tell us about the rite. I’m sure they’d feed us twice a day and give us all the bubble-baths we want, but that would be the rest of our lives.”

“So how do we become Drenards?”

Molly smirked as she said it, either not convinced or still finding the concept amusing.

“It’s pretty simple, actually. Each of us goes beyond the terminator—the line between sunlight and darkness—”

“I know what a terminator is,” Molly interrupted. “I was in the same class.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. So you travel beyond the terminator and through the canyons on the light side, you catch one of these Wadis—which is some sort of lizard—and you bring it back here. A council or something will judge the size and quality of the thing and determine what sort of Drenard you’ll be. It’s just a ritual, really.”

Molly frowned. “I guess that means the females here aren’t ever considered Drenards, because Dani’s told me enough about their society to know there’s no way they would let their precious little girls go out and risk their lives to hunt whati whatevers.”

“Well, you might not like this, but it’s actually really good news for us. A loophole, if you will.”

“Oh, gods. What is it?” Molly droned.

“Wadi Thooo eggs. They count. And the eggs are laid close to the terminator, where the rock is coolest. It is a technicality, but if we go to the canyons, grab an egg each, and bring them back here—we’re free to go. They know from Anlyn that we haven’t done anything wrong, and Dani will vouch for us. I think he has a soft spot for humans.”

“Some of us,” she corrected. “I suppose the boys go in further and capture a live lizard?”

“I don’t know if they capture them alive or not; I’m not concerned with that stuff. Edison might know.”

“How’re we gonna do this if we aren’t allowed out of our rooms except to visit one another?”

“All we have to do is initiate the rite. They have to allow us. They look at us as children, anyway, so we’ll fit right in. And hey, just because they’re bound to let us try, I don’t think they’ll appreciate us asking. A lot of Drenards are gonna be upset if we pull this off.”

“When we pull it off,” she corrected him.

Edison wasn’t back from visiting Anlyn by the time they gathered for their next meal. Cole went over the plan with Walter, who seemed excited, not of leaving the planet, but of pulling a “Jog and Flog.”

“What’s a Jog and Flog?” Cole asked him.

“A kinda heisst,” he hissed. “Big on Palan. And call them ‘Wadi Thooo,’ not lizsardss, bad on my earss.”

“Fine,” Cole said. “If we’re all in agreement, I say we get it over with. Once we get this out of the way, we’ll find Edison and Anlyn and see about getting out of here.”

Nobody had any objections.

They ate in silence, with their own thoughts. After the meal, Cole went to the guards in the hallway and requested Dani’s presence by repeating his name aloud. When the old interrogator joined them, he had a set of red bands in hand.

“We would like to quest for Wadi Thooo, to prove our worth as Drenards,” Cole thought to Dani.

The interrogator played the shocked and confused part well, demanding to know where Cole had heard of their tradition, how much the humans knew of it. Cole lied and said he learned of it from a Bel Tra and that he would say no more.

Neither of them knew how successful their ruse would be, or if anyone was even “listening.” It may all have been for Dani’s benefit—to clear his conscience by accepting an alternate version of reality.

After pretending to demur, Dani said he would pass the request on and let them know the following morning. As he said this, and just before Dani held out his hand for the red band, Cole saw something flash across the interrogator’s face. Or maybe he heard it in Dani’s thoughts, down deep where only a quiet mind could hear.

Cole handed the band over, searching his friend’s face, sensing there was more he wanted to say. A warning, perhaps.

The bad feeling lingered as he returned to his friends.

11

Once again, Dani was not with the group that arrived the next morning. Instead, there were four guards with lances and two other Drenards wearing the layered tunics with ornate cloaks on top, the outermost tunic pulled up and tucked over the belt. Both of the latter also had red bands around their heads; one of them reverently held out another to Cole.

He had never put one on himself, but he knew the seam went in back. He adjusted it until it felt as if it lay in its habitual place, and his own voice soon filled his head with thoughts.

“Human boy, do you really wish to initiate the Wadi Thooo Drenard rite of passage?”

“Yes.” He tried to think it with a powerful calmness, but it sounded meek—even in his own head.

“Very well. Follow us.”

The two officials spun, their cloaks spreading out and rustling into one another. They marched toward the end of the hall, and Cole hurried after. In the room with the lift shaft, Walter stood waiting with two more guards; the boy fidgeted with his tunic and kept adjusting the red band on his head.

The two officials instructed them to wait, then disappeared through the hallway leading to Molly’s room.

“Hello?” someone thought in Cole’s head.

“Is that you, Walter?”

“Haha.” The boy laughed, but with Cole’s voice. “Your esses sound funny, too!”

Cole looked at Walter’s metallic face and found it difficult to reconcile his own voice with the Palan’s thoughts. He didn’t seem near as annoying without the hiss and the creepy way his mouth moved. Cole knew there was no way they’d be allowed to take the bands with them, but couldn’t help but think how nice they’d be for alien relations. Or just for inter-crew relations, for that matter.

When Molly came out with the officials and her own red band on, Cole fought to control his thoughts, to keep them deep. Especially seeing how the loose tunic moved around Molly’s body, exposing parts of her side through the wide opening below her arms—

He tore his eyes away, focusing on Walter’s face. He could hear the boy starting to greet Molly, but the officials were able to dominate all their thoughts.

Fortunately, for Cole.

“Follow us,” one of the Drenards said; it was impossible to know which one.

They were told it would take half of one of their Solar days to travel to the staging area. After a long descent in the lift, they exited into an extremely busy lobby. Drenards, all males and all wearing variations of the colorful tunics, walked purposefully from one place to another. Almost all of them took a keen interest in the alien precession, but were polite enough to not gawk. Much.

Cole looked around for Dani, or a sign of Edison, but found none of the latter and wasn’t sure he’d recognize the former in a crowd. The blue planes that made up the Drenard face had distinguishing details too fine for their unpracticed human brains.

“Where’s Edison?” Cole heard one of his friends ask the guards—

There was no reply.

The guards maintained a protective ring around them as they were escorted across the shiny floor of petrified wood. Cole tried to get a glimpse of the planet through the lobby glass, but all he could see was crowds of people and maybe another building beyond. They were led down a flight of moving stairs and to a platform crowded with Drenards. Cole spotted two small females among them. He also noted that both had several large males encircling them. Protectively.

Behind the crowd, a transparent tube ran the length of the platform, instantly recognizable to Cole as some sort of transportation. Their group waited in a tense hush, Cole wondering if the silence was due to their presence.

After a few minutes, their ride appeared—a long metallic lozenge that slid to a noiseless halt. The glass tube parted in several places with the pop of a pure vacuum taking a whiff of air, then the transport’s inner doors opened and disgorged an array of colorfully garbed Drenards.

Their escorts kept them pressed to one side as the two crowds fought to switch places.

Cole watched these new arrivals startle at the sight of them, their glances pulled away quickly, then transforming into sideways stares. A shiver ran up Cole’s spine; the raw number of deadly Drenards crowded around him felt nothing like the few he’d gotten used to in the rooms above.

Then it occurred to Cole that they were this planet’s enemy as well. He imagined what sort of stir it would cause to lead two Drenard captives through Grand Central Station in New York. He remembered what he’d felt when he first saw Anlyn in the Darrin system, and it made him feel ashamed. He glanced at Molly, whose eyebrows were down, her forehead wrinkled in thought.

Once inside the transport, they were given plenty of room. After pulling away from the platform, the vehicle slid to a stop at one station after another, repeating the process of unload, load, gape. Cole felt like a specimen on display. Some sort of alien protozoa in a glass test tube.

After a half dozen or so stations, however, he went from feeling like a scientific curiosity to something more like a zoo animal. The clusters of adult professionals gradually morphed into large groups of Drenard youth, as if thousands of field trips were converging on the same locale.

Even at their age, Cole noticed the boys were significantly larger than the females, but not quite as big as the officials and guards serving as their escorts. The young females were just a bit smaller than Anlyn, which shocked Cole. It occurred to him that he didn’t even know how old Anlyn was, nor if she was even officially a Drenard yet.

Molly turned to one of the guards and raised her hand. “Will we be performing the ritual in a group?” she asked, breaking a long mental silence.

“No more questions,” was the response. Cole could see Molly’s shoulders sag as she bit her bottom lip and looked up at him.

He shrugged and widened his eyes. Already, this was not feeling like the best idea.

They stopped at a few more stations, Cole’s ears popping at each one as the vacuum in the tube section filled, squeezing extra air between the door’s seals. When they arrived at the next one, and every passenger on the transport started crowding toward the door, he figured it for the end of the line.

The guards confirmed this, leading them onto the platform. They held Cole’s group up as the last of the children trotted up the steps. By the time they went into the lobby above, most of the young Drenards had already exited the building. Cole could see them through the wide expanse of glass along one wall as they were herded into lines and loaded into land vehicles similar to buses but with aerodynamic domed hulls that stretched nearly to the ground. The metallic panels covering the things gleamed in the colorful sunrise raging beyond them.

Cole watched Molly and Walter gape at the display, enjoying their reaction even though he was nowhere close to immune himself.

The guards waved them toward the door. To either side, small packets of Drenard youth stood marveling at the colors beyond, too excited to even notice the humans. Several of them cooed excitedly, and one of the larger children held up a recording device of some kind. Cole assumed these kids hailed from other Drenard planets. This is the biggest day of their lives, he thought.

Then he wondered if everyone else had heard him.

Outside, the segregation continued as their small group found themselves waved into a large shuttle alone. As soon as they’d seated themselves along the uncomfortable benches lining the walls, the vehicle lurched into motion, heading off in a different direction from the other shuttles.

“I’m feeling unwanted,” Cole muttered to Molly. “Are you feeling unwan—?”

“Silence!” the voice rang harsh in Cole’s head, and he noticed Molly flinch as well. Hearing himself like that made Cole think back, wondering if he’d ever raised his voice with Molly before—maybe in the simulator, once? He resolved to never do it again. It sounded awful. Alien.

More silence ensued, and the bands, with all their latent potential, made it unbearable. Any time surface thoughts bubbled up, one of the Drenards would force them back down. Not thinking, Cole found, required immense concentration, or the sort of daydreaming that came only when it wanted to, not when forced. He gazed through the glass of the domed vehicle as they drove out toward the hot side of the planet, trying to lose himself in deeper, more silent thoughts.

The temperature in the shuttle rose noticeably as they drove across the desert. They followed a mostly flat road cut through the small rises, old metal bridges taking them over the shallow gullies. The gullies seemed to grow deeper and wider as they snaked toward the twin suns. In the other direction, they petered out to almost nothing as they twisted toward the city.

After a good number of kilometers, the shuttle turned parallel with the terminator, ushering them far away from the crowds of other hopeful Drenards.

Cole and Molly sat with their shoulders pressed together, each trying not to think too loudly. Heavy gusts of wind would occasionally rock the massive vehicle, causing the occupants to sway as if choreographed. Through the window, Cole followed wisps of fine dust as it hurried after the violent winds. The pent-up power outside the shuttle grew ferocious as they inched closer to the dual suns.

It wasn’t long before Cole felt naked with just a tunic on. Defenseless. Another gust slammed the shuttle and everyone swayed in time, bare shoulders rubbing against each other. The gaiety from the station and the excitement of the Drenard youth had disappeared—moving in the opposite direction. Left alone was a single transport pushing sideways through the wind and filling with a sense of dread.

Losing himself in his new assessment of the inhospitable land, Cole didn’t see the squat building until they were nearly upon it. The driver parked on the sunward side, out of the wind. Even so, an angry breeze whistled into the shuttle as the doors cracked open. As he filed out into the cool air, Cole could hear it battering the rear of the small building, tearing around the corners before whipping through his hair. Everyone’s tunics flapped noisily in the persistent blow as they hurried inside, and above all these sounds, Cole could hear an eerie moaning working its way upwind, coming from the canyons beyond.

The two guards took up positions by the entrance, on either side of an old, large stain that spread out from the door and across the carpet. The two officials waved the group further inside.

“This shelter is for alien use only,” one of them thought. “It has been closed for many of your years; it was reopened for your companion one of your solar days ago. You will rest for one of your nights, and then gear up and depart on the Rite.”

Heads nodded to affirm that they heard and understood. The thinking continued: “The rules are few and simple. Do not follow one another. Do not assist one another. Choose your own path and capture your own Wadi Thooo. If, in the extremely unlikely event you come across one of our youth that has wandered over this far, please do not interfere with his or her quest. The only advice you will get from us is to stick to the shadows, capture your Wadi Thooo, and try to return safely.”

Cole seriously doubted the sincerity of the last bit of advice, even hearing it in his own voice.

Molly raised her hand up to her shoulder. “What do you mean by ‘your companion’?” she thought.

One of the two officials looked at her, his face expressionless and a chilly blue. “The one you call ‘Edison.’ He requested the rite after meeting with Lady Hooo. You will no doubt be sad to hear that he entered the canyons almost one of your days ago and has not been seen since.”

The thinker turned away from them to begin the tour of the facilities. The other official looked at Molly gravely.

“Only Drenards can become Drenards,” he thought to all of them.

After a brief tour, the red bands were taken back, and all three initiates were locked in separate quarters. Even with Anlyn’s testimony absolving them of any crime, they were still non-Drenards on the race’s home planet. Certain rights were not yet theirs to enjoy.

Cole slept fitfully on one of the two small blue cots in his room. When he felt like it should be morning, he got up, splashed some water on his face in the adjoining bathroom, and started his stretching routine.

His internal clock must have been off by several hours; it was that long before his hosts stirred and unlocked the doors. Molly was already up, but they had to go into Walter’s room to wake him.

A simple meal awaited them, along with some water. Around bites, Cole explained to Walter the reason for the heavy winds, how the heat from one side of Drenard rose, leaving a vacuum, into which the air from the cold side rushed.

Although the boy had asked, he began nodding at the answer as if he already knew it all—a habit of the boy’s that drove Cole crazy.

After the meal, the initiates were led to the gear room and assigned new suits and booths in which to change. First, a cloth underlayer went on, followed by the outer lining. These were silver, like foil, and extremely light. The shoulders were a tad low to suit the Drenard frame, which left a pooch of material bunched up on either side. Otherwise, the fit seemed to satisfy the officials.

Next came the boots, and there was a massive assortment of them. Walter had a great time digging through them, hunting for the newest-looking pair. Cole and Molly found some that fit and laced them up over the bottom of the suits. As they moved around and busied themselves with these tasks, the shiny material rubbed on itself and made a racket of sharp hissing. It sounded like three or four Palans on a looting spree.

Once they were suited up, they surveyed one another and took turns giggling. But back in the commons, all levity soon drained away. The Drenard guards stood at attention, the officials rigid and stoic. Cole, Molly, and Walter remembered why they were here—the seriousness of the ritual—and adopted a demeanor to match.

With much ceremony, each of them was given a small version of the guard lance. They lacked a trigger, Cole noted—just solid metal with a point on one end and a hook on the other. Next, each received a cloth map more than half a meter to a side depicting the canyons beyond. To Cole, the layout of the ditches resembled a vascular system or an upside-down tree. Thin and narrow lines, thousands of them, grew larger and fewer in the direction of the suns. A dot of blue ink represented their location in the shelter.

Red bands were passed around for final instructions, their voices filling their heads: “We will wait for two of your days. Not even Drenards can survive in the canyons for much longer than that. Since none of you are expected to enter our caste system or work in Drenard society, do not take unnecessary risks.”

Molly raised her hand. “Have you heard from our friend? Is he okay?”

“The Judges he came with were resting when we arrived yesterday. Now they have gone.”

“Gone where? To help him?”

“They gave him two of your days,” was the response.

“So he’s still out there?” Molly glanced at Cole. He could tell she cared less and less about this ritual, more concerned with Edison. He could practically hear her feelings through the band.

“I’m sorry to say that he would be dead by now,” an official said.

“Concern yourself with not joining him,” came another thought. The two officials stepped to the side and gestured toward the door.

The sky beyond bled rainbows through the glass. The trio shuffled toward the haunting, gorgeous sight, passing over the large stain in the carpet. One of the guards opened the door and the other held out his hands. “Return the bands,” he thought.

They did, and the three friends exited into a strange world full of howling winds and a chorus of moans from the distant canyons. With the bands gone, they found themselves feeling more alone than ever before, the flapping of their suits loud in their ears, no thoughts in their heads but their own.

The Rite of Wadi Thooo had officially begun.

12

The three of them split up outside the building, Molly walking straight ahead while Cole angled right, the direction from which their shuttle had come. Walter went to the left.

Once beyond the break provided by the shelter, the wind began pushing against their backs, propelling them forward. Cole tried to keep the direction of the breeze in mind as he found his pace; the hike back was going to be much more difficult than the walk in.

“Good luck and be safe,” he thought to Molly, then remembered she couldn’t hear, the habit of the red bands not yet worn off.

As he marched along, the loose folds in Cole’s suit seemed to flap louder and louder. The noise rose from rustle, through various states of annoyance, and on up to sonically painful. He chose a small gully to follow and looked forward to descending into a canyon to see if the breeze would be reduced. As strong as the wind felt, the gale on the prison rooftop had sounded much stiffer. Whether that was due to altitude or the city serving as some sort of buffer, he couldn’t tell.

Less than a kilometer into the hike, the moaning from the canyons could be heard again over the loud flapping from his suit. It sounded as if the entire land was clutching its belly, doubled over and dying. Then the wind freshened, and his suit drowned out the haunting sound once more.

Cole held out his arms, gathering the wind at his back, allowing it to push him along. It felt like he was sliding down a rock incline, shuffling his feet to keep from falling. He was almost going too fast when he came to the terminator, the line separating night from day.

Pulling his arms in quickly, he leaned backwards into the gusts to keep from being thrown forward into the light. Kneeling, Cole marveled at how defined the shadow was, even though it must be cast by a ridge some dozens of kilometers distant. He leaned down to get a closer look. Ahead of him, waves of heat rose off the rock like smoke, the lit areas of stone baking in the sun. Cole thought about how long the rock endured that state, no respite from the glancing rays, no time to cool off for hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of years.

He waved his hand through the sunlight and felt just a slight difference in heat. The air remained cooled by the wind from the dark hemisphere. He set his lance down and pulled one hand inside his metallic sleeve for protection. Reaching out, he pressed a finger to the sunlit rock.

A crackle and a hiss made him snap his arm back. He looked at his sleeve and gaped at the melted spot of fabric, then waved his finger in the air to cool the burning. There was no way he could step out in that.

He left the disappointing gully, which he could see deepen well into the sunlit side of the planet, and walked along the edge of the terminator. The landscape rose and fell, casting the border between night and day into a jagged and dangerous line. He kept his distance, wary of the steaming stone, until he came to one of the canyons.

Worn by the eternal flow of wind, it was deep enough, and angled just right, to provide a thin path of shade along one wall. Cole leaned over the edge and peered into the steep-walled ditch. Off toward the city, it grew shallow, becoming a rut. In the opposite direction, it deepened into an impressive-looking canyon, one edge lined with shade.

He dropped his lance down, making sure it landed flat, then lowered himself over the edge. Careful not to rip his suit, he pushed off with his toes to clear the rock face, then dropped the last few meters into a crouch. The rising walls on either side gave immediate comfort. He hadn’t realized how much that wide expanse of land had him on-edge until he descended out of it.

Pulling out his cloth map, he determined, with a modicum of confidence, which line he had entered. He tightened his grip on the lance and started walking into the daylight side of Drenard, following the thin trail of shadow that clung to the base of the low cliff.

Molly was half a kilometer down her own canyon before she first noticed the holes. Several centimeters in diameter and scattered along the cliff wall, they seemed to be the source of the persistent whistling and moaning that filled the land. Molly peered into one of them, but it was too dark to see inside. She pulled her hood back and lowered her ear to one of the larger ones, pressing her head against the rock. A scratching noise seemed to emanate from inside, but over the wind, the flapping of her suit, and the agonized cry of the canyons—it was hard to tell.

Thus far, she had seen no signs of life in the canyons. The thick waves of heat rising up from the stone floor and the occasional dust-filled gusts, were the only things moving besides her and her racing thoughts—most of which orbited Edison. Which gully had he gone down? Was his furry hide suited for this atmosphere? She kept an eye peeled for one of these ceremonial lizards, but she was far more interested in finding her friend.

The canyon Molly had chosen to explore stretched ahead in a roughly straight line. At a slight angle to the eternally setting sun, it cast a shady path on one side over a meter wide. It wasn’t until the canyon turned in the other direction that she realized how tricky navigating this labyrinth would be. Her dark trail of coolness petered out ahead of her just as an impossible-looking shadow led across the lit canyon to the other side.

Molly stared at the black strip in the middle of the scorching rock. It had no apparent cause. She leaned away from the wall and looked up the canyon, toward the shimmering waves of light. In the distance, something glinted in the sunlight. Something metallic. It was far away, but she could see it spanning the canyon, high up the cliff faces, from one side to the other. It blocked the sunlight, casting a solid pathway down to her location.

It was a bridge made of shade!

Somehow, the Drenards had installed a metal column further down the canyon, in just the right spot to provide a path to the other side. Molly stepped out onto the dark strip and felt an immediate difference in the heat moving down the center of the canyon, the air warmed by the blistering rock. Her mouth, already parched, felt full of sand. She licked her lips, but the moisture just burned in the dry cracks that had already formed, stinging like venom. She took a few more steps toward the center—

A gust hit her suit suddenly, nearly blowing her into the boiling stone to the side. She dropped her lance and fell into a crouch, fighting to regain her balance. Both hands went out to the shaded bridge to steady herself, the fabric of her suit flapping and trying to carry her away. Molly made herself as compact as possible, inhaling a deep, dry breath as she waited for the wind to subside.

As it did, she looked to her lance, which thankfully landed mostly in the shade. She pulled it back in and reached out, mostly out of curiosity, to prod the other end with a finger. It wasn’t just hot, it would have burned her had she continued to touch it. In only a few seconds of exposure.

Swallowing a dry breath, Molly looked up at the ten meters of bridge remaining. She decided to stay on all fours, pushing the lance ahead of her, using a wide base to compensate for the changes in the wind’s intensity. The air in the center stifled, even with the movement and the cooler temperatures from the night side blowing through. Sweat dripped from her face, precious fluids splattering down in front of her. Now and then, small beads were carried deeper into the canyon by the wind—out into the harsh sunlight. Molly watched them evaporate before they even reached the ground.

When she got to the other side, she collapsed against the rock wall and glared across the innocent-seeming line of shadow. The seriousness of her task struck her for the first time. Wadi Thooo was not a simple symbolic ritual—it was a true rite of passage. A test of will. A stroll through a foreign landscape suddenly had become a fight for survival. By crossing that narrow bridge, Molly had removed the easy, uninterrupted path of shade that led back to safety.

She no longer had room to run.

Glancing along the strip of shade ahead of her Molly saw not a path, but a ledge. A fall from it would be no less dangerous than from a great height.

The thought made her dizzy as she rose. She kept one hand on the cliff wall, grasping at the holes in the stone for balance. Gathering her wits, she made sure her map was tucked snugly in her sleeve, and pushed forward, keeping the lance to the sunlit side where it was ready to brace her if another gust attacked.

The problem was, she had become so concerned with the danger on that side of her, that Molly didn’t notice something else: the holes in the canyon wall were getting bigger.

Walter stood in front of the first hole he could fit his hand inside. He was hot, tired, and annoyed by the wind. He had already walked almost half a kilometer, including several hundred meters down a partly shaded canyon. The Rite wasn’t as exciting as he thought it would be, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to leave the planet, anyway. He’d mostly come along to keep an eye on Molly and make sure Cole wasn’t bothering her with all his boyfriend nonsense.

He grumbled to himself about this when something in the hole pricked the end of his finger. His annoyance instantly flared up into fear, and then fury. He balled up his hand into a protective fist, but this just expanded his thumb, making it impossible to jerk his arm free.

Walter went kinetic; he created an even tighter fist and yanked furiously on his captured arm. Dropping his spear, he flattened his other hand on the rock, pushing and pulling at once, his torso twisting in desperation.

Whatever it was, it got him again on one of his knuckles. He tried to shout above the wind, but his throat was too dry. He whimpered and pleaded and pulled, begging the cliff to release his hand, when suddenly it popped free.

Walter staggered backwards and fell, the top of his head landing out in the direct sunlight, a sizzling sound coming from the back of his hood where it touched the rock. He screamed and rolled to the side, his scalp seared with pain, a brief glimpse of Drenard’s twin suns burned into his vision.

The frightened portion of him longed to huddle in the shade, to cower and shield himself. But a different part, something from his father, rose up inside. It was angry at being hurt. It was the boiling rage his uncle had been known to stoke up, use for nefarious means, then beat back down after it bubbled over.

He looked at his fingers—two of them were streaked with blood. Walter felt an overwhelming urge to inflict damage in return. To lash out.

Grabbing his lance off the rock, he stood up and shoved it deep inside the offending hole. Rattling it in all directions, he pushed in and out and found enough mad wetness in his throat to toss threats in after whatever had done this to him.

Something within shrieked back. A wail—pitched high and piercing—shot out of the hole like a bullet. The noise put a shiver up Walter’s spine, but he shoved the lance in further, feeling something softer than rock under one of his stabs.

The blare from within the hole went up even higher and louder—then fell silent.

Walter leaned on the rock, panting furiously. He could feel the wind fluttering his hood, the material pulling on his scalp where the two had melted together. His head pounded with the heat and the danger, his hand tingling from what must be a toxin of some sort. He wanted to cry or scream, but had the moisture for neither.

He looked at the hole, the lance still sticking out of it. Grabbing the lance, he lifted it up to the center of the tunnel and pushed it in as far as he could. When he brought it down, he could feel it rest on something soft. He pulled the lance back, scraping the thing across the bottom of the hole and out where he could reach it.

He grabbed the Wadi Thooo and brought it into the shade. The thing was still alive. Four legs, terminating in sharp claws, twitched slightly. A long, scaly tail with a sharp tip spun in a feeble circle every now and then. Its tapered head lolled to one side, two tongues hanging out past rows of overlapping teeth. The thing’s back was covered with iridescent hues that shimmered like the Drenard sunset, especially across two bony stumps that rose up from its shoulder blades.

Walter could feel a pulse of life in the creature, its round and white belly expanding and contracting in his hand. The thing was no more than eight inches long, from tip to tail. He felt sorry for the Wadi as it seemed to weaken in his hand, its pale life barely distinguishable within.

Then he saw the blood trickling from his fingers and across the lizard’s belly. His knees felt weak from the strain of his battle. Looking at the Wadi’s rows of teeth, seeing his own blood on them, drained whatever empathy Walter had for the damn thing.

He made a fist, tightening his fingers around the soft underbelly, and squeezed the life out of the small beast. A raspy croak came out of the creature’s mouth, fading into a sigh.

The small noise was carried off in the wind, drowned out by the howling of the canyons.

Satisfied—gloriously so—Walter turned to the narrow path and began retracing his shadowy steps. He marched toward the night side of the planet, back in the direction of the shelter, his head held high.

He was a Drenard now.

Cole crossed over the third bridge slowly; he’d had quite a scare on the last one after the first bridge lulled him into a false sense of windless security. He quickly learned to drag the hooked end of his lance across the ground, helping him brace for the gusts.

As he approached the other side of the canyon, he noticed the strange holes in the side of the cliff had grown to nearly the size of his head. He still couldn’t see inside of them or puzzle out their geological origin; he figured he’d keep going until the holes were big enough to explore, if they even increased to such a size. Surely the lizards they were looking for would choose to live in these natural caves rather than scurry across the baking stone.

Tracing the cliff wall with one hand, Cole stumbled upon a remarkable sight: the remains of a tree frozen in the face of the canyon. Split open and petrified, its pulpy interior had long ago been replaced with solid rock. He rubbed the grainy surface, the texture reminding him of his sink counter and the frigid, refreshing water that flowed from it. He wondered how long it had been since the planet was in motion and covered with life.

He was so focused on the beautiful patterns in the shaded rock, he didn’t see the glistening eyes that appeared in the hole above him. They sparkled in the ambient light reflecting off his suit. Wrapping two sets of claws over the lip of the hole, the creature tensed itself up, prepared to defend its lair.

But Cole turned and surveyed the heated rock to his left. He looked at his map again and saw how a few other canyons would merge with his own a few kilometers ahead. He gripped his lance and set off deeper into the lighted land, desperate to find a Wadi Thooo.

Molly knelt down in front of one of the holes and peered inside. She leaned close, but the light on the shaded side of the canyon only filtered in a few decimeters. Beyond that, it was just mysterious blackness emanating a weak moan. She considered reaching in to her shoulder and groping past the darkness for an egg-filled nest, but the thought of sticking her hand that deep sent a shiver up her spine.

The wind abated for a moment, pitching the moaning even lower. The sound made the deeper parts of the canyon creepier, the small caves more ominous. Molly felt a twinge of fear before kicking herself for being such a wimp. She felt positive Cole and Walter weren’t having any problems with their hunt, so she needed to soldier up. If Drenard youth could do this, so could she. In fact, she didn’t want to come out of this with any old Wadi—she needed to make sure hers was bigger than Cole’s. She’d never hear the end of it otherwise.

She moved on, keeping an eye out for any movement up and down the canyon. At the next bridge, she sat down in the shade to adjust her boots, a loose lace nearly tripping her up during her last crossing.

She pulled her hood back a little and secured a double knot in the laces, then noticed her reflection in the side of her boot, her face smudged with sweat and dust, the skin beneath pink and sunburned, even though she hadn’t left the shade. She checked her reflection, turning her head side to side—then got an idea.

Pulling off her boot, she rested her lance in her lap and began weaving the laces around the hooked end. She tied them off around the shaft and cinched them tight, adjusting the angle a little.

Molly stood and walked back the way she’d come, to a hole about the height of her eyes and a little larger than the others. She peered into the darkness, her nose almost inside the lip.

“Hello?” she called into it, her voice ringing metallic as it reverberated in the cylinder of stone.

She heard no response over the wind and the groaning canyon.

Stepping back, she wiggled the boot on the lance one more time to make sure it was secure, then extended it into the sunlight.

The flash nearly blinded her. She’d naturally been looking right at the boot as she reached it beyond the shade, and the thing just happened to be angled right at her face. She turned her head away from the blinding light and nearly dropped the lance, cursing herself for not moving it out at a safer angle. Gradually reopening her eyes, Molly saw an image of the boot everywhere she looked—a white shape dancing in the center of her vision.

She tried to blink it away as she dragged the lance back into the shade. Leaning against the rock wall, she rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, the sound of her lids against her dry eyes like the click of claw on stone. She squinted across the canyon and waited for her vision to return to normal.

Pulling the cloth map from her sleeve, Molly traced her finger across the branching lines. She had no idea where she was now—the canyon had split and joined too many times to keep up. Getting out of here, however, should be as simple as leaning into the wind.

Worthless as a guide, then, she wiped the map across her face, soaking up the sweat. She peeled her hood off the rest of the way and swiped the cloth down her throat, absorbing the moisture that had gathered in the depression at the top of her sternum. After wicking up as much as she could, she folded the damp cloth several times and placed it on the nape of her neck, the evaporating sweat cooling the blood that flowed up to her head, the pointed ends of the makeshift handkerchief hanging around in front, dripping precious wetness down her suit. Molly tucked the tips inside her collar, letting the water run down her belly and chest, pulling away even more heat.

With her vision returning and the wind cooling her exposed head, Molly rose to give her improvised flashlight another try. She moved the boot out into the sunlight again, this time looking toward the rock wall while she adjusted the angle. A bright spot of white sunlight splayed out near her knee. She experimented with different ways of maneuvering the lance until she felt some degree of control over the beam.

Moving the light up the wall, she brought her head level with the large hole and directed the reflection until it shone straight down it, illuminating an interior acclimated to eternal shade.

She looked in.

Something else was looking out.

13

After another kilometer of arduous hiking, Cole finally found a hole big enough to crawl inside. He felt utterly convinced a family of these lizards would make their home in a nice, cool cave like this. If not, he wasn’t sure he could wander much further into the daylight. He’d been marching for dozens of kilometers, certainly further than Drenard children could be expected to go.

He had explored a few holes with his lance along the way, scraping nothing but rock. If he couldn’t find anything in the cave, he’d start heading back, searching the ground he’d already covered.

Crawling inside, he felt immediately refreshed in the cooler air. The sweat chilled his skin, giving him a renewed vitality; he berated himself for having just considered giving up. He paused in the entrance and enjoyed the echo of the canyon’s moans as they filtered through the rock around him.

The air felt less dry in there as well, like moisture was somehow stored up in the stone.

Looking deeper into the hole, Cole wished he had some way of making a fire or shining a light; he didn’t want to step on these little critters if he could avoid it. At this point, he would take the easy way out happily, bringing back a Wadi Thooo egg rather than a juvenile or an adult.

Once he felt somewhat rested, Cole pushed his lance ahead of him and began crawling into the darkness. After a few meters, he looked back, comforted by the circle of light behind him. He was accustomed to the blackness of space, but the absence of illumination ahead was different. It pressed in on him from all sides, and with the weight of solid stone behind it, rather than the vacuum of the cosmos.

Cole froze, imagining the rock giving way and collapsing on his back. He would be trapped there, unable to breathe. He could feel his stomach crawl up his neck in panic; he took a deep breath and hurried the wild thought out of his mind.

He concentrated instead on his environment. The details. Under his hand, he could feel the walls weren’t perfectly smooth—they had even indentions running along their length. It didn’t feel like erosion or anything geological. A deep part of his brain worked on this problem as he scrambled deeper inside.

A noise.

Cole whipped the hood off to free his ears. What was that sound?

Something poked him right between the shoulder blades, making him spin to his back in fear. He tried to get his lance out from underneath him, and he could feel a draft of air descending from the ceiling.

Another tap on the chest. The sound of his metallic suit crinkling as something struck. Cole reached down with one hand and felt something wet.

He brought his hand up to his face. It didn’t smell. He touched his finger to his tongue, but couldn’t taste anything. Another drop hit him.

Cole reached up into the darkness, searching the ceiling for the source, but his hand kept going up, further than the tunnel was wide. He tried to sit up—and banged his head on the rock, falling back down.

“Damn!”

He rubbed his forehead and another drop impacted his suit.

Reaching up again, Cole found the large hole his hand had entered. He could feel a ledge encircling the lip and a thin stream of fluid gathered on it. He probed just over his head and noted the hole didn’t extend quite that far, could feel where he had bumped it.

He tested the fluid again and felt certain it must be water. Fresh water. Just a trickle, as if condensation collecting from somewhere. Perhaps the difference in temperature between the cave and the canyon? Could moisture gather on the cool rock and run together through these strange holes?

Cole reached for his map and soaked up as much of the fluid as he could. He squeezed the cloth over his tongue, letting some of the juice run into his mouth.

It felt great.

Refreshing.

He wiped the cloth over the rim, looking for some more moisture; he gathered it up, unappreciative of how natural and universal that tendency would be in other living things…

When Molly saw the two eyes, further apart and larger than she thought they’d be, she jerked her head back in fear.

The eyes launched out after her.

She tried to bring her lance around, but the boot tied to one end made the weapon unwieldy. The creature was on her head before she could even react.

She dropped the lance and brought both hands up, clawing back at the thing clawing her. It was in her hair, then back around her head and inside her hood, and everywhere at once. She could feel slices of agony across her face as claws opened her flesh to the dry, dusty air. As soon as she got one hand on it, she felt a sharp pain as teeth sank down to bone, gnawing on her wrist. She screamed and pushed away from the wall, falling to the ground in a heap. The vicious thing thrust off her, scampered up the wall, and wiggled into its hole.

Molly looked at her hand—it was dripping blood and burning as if on fire. She touched her face and felt the scratches, the pads of her fingers coming away slick with more blood. The sight of so much of it made her feel faint. Reaching behind her neck, she groped for her map, a perfect bandage—but it wasn’t there. She rolled over on all fours, looking around on the shady path.

The handkerchief was gone.

That damn thing had stolen her map.

No, she realized, it stole my sweat!

These things go after wetness. And they’re much bigger than she thought they’d be. Meaner, too.

Molly peered up the wall at the dozens of holes gaping back at her. She glanced left and right and saw hundreds, thousands more of them ranging up and down the canyon. Looking over her shoulder, across the river of sunlight and at the other wall, she realized she was surrounded.

The holes weren’t a geological feature—they’d been chewed out of solid rock!

And they got bigger the further in the canyons they went.

The rite of passage, the way Drenards might use this as the basis of a hierarchical society, it all made perfect sense. For all Molly knew, she’d stumbled into the realm of upper-middle management, or higher. And they’d sent her there with no instructions, completely ignorant. They probably didn’t expect any of them to return. She thought of Edison again and wondered what had happened to her big Glemot friend.

Meanwhile, the eyes came back to the edge of the hole, looking for more water.

Molly picked up her lance and ran, one foot bare, past hundreds of holes—and into the wind.

Cole held the moisture in his mouth and just let his body absorb it. He lay on his back, his head pointing into the unknown. Beyond his feet, he could see the small disk of sunlight that marked his way in.

He reached up to gather some more water when a shape moved across the circle of light.

Or was that his foot? No. There it was again.

It was either really big or really close. Or both.

But that didn’t make any sense. He had come in that way without passing anything.

Cole held his breath, one hand still up in the lip of the hole above him, when he realized what had happened: there was no telling how many shafts he’d passed before he stumbled on that one.

He shoved his map into the neck of his suit and reached for the lance. He held it out in front of him, pulling his feet in to scoot backwards, deeper into the hole.

The thing moved across the entrance of the tunnel once more; he could see its outline. These were not the little lizards that Dani had described. Cole wasn’t sure if he should crawl toward it with his lance and attack—or retreat into the darkness. He decided to move back and see if it would scamper up the dripping shaft; maybe it’d stop for a drink and become an easy kill.

Shuffling backward, Cole felt empty space below his hand and nearly fell down the hole cut out of the floor behind him.

“Damnit!” he uttered. One hand went into the shaft, his other arm collapsed with the unexpected shift in weight. Cole fell back on his shoulder blade, his arm wrenched at an odd angle.

He lost his grip on the lance, and it became pinned beneath him.

The silhouette froze.

That noise just came from its favorite drinking spot.

The large Wadi Thooo rushed forward to defend its territory—its precious resources.

Molly ran, leaning into the wind, until she came to the first bridge of shade. She had a full-blown fear reaction raging through her body—every hole seemed poised to spit out a legion of attackers. She could feel hundreds of invisible beasts stalking her heels, ready to run up her back and claw her to death at any time.

The sight of the bridge crushed this imaginary fright with an immediate one. She came to a panting halt, fell to her knees, fought to regain her breath. Facing the wind, she allowed it to push air deep into her lungs, but it was dry and chalky, offering little relief. She glanced over at the holes in the wall beside her, then back to the narrow path of cool rock.

She needed to get a hold of herself.

She needed to get her boot back on.

Fumbling with the knots, she tried to work the thing free from the lance. She constantly shifted her eyes up to the holes, not comforted in the least by the many kilometers of them she’d walked by without incident. They were all a threat after that last encounter.

By the time she worked the laces free and forced her foot back into the boot, her heart had calmed down somewhat, her adrenaline subsiding. She inspected her wounded hand, touched the gashes in her face—she needed to concentrate.

It’s just an alien landscape and some pesky critters, she told herself. I came out here to get one of them, and that’s what I plan on doing.

She nodded, sealing the resolution as she peeled the protective suit down to her waist, working her arms free. The outfit was designed to retain moisture, to protect her from direct sunlight, but she didn’t plan on falling out of the shade. She worked the suit all the way down over her boots, leaving her in just the white jumpsuit liner underneath.

Using the sharp end of the lance, she cut the material at her waist, ripping it all the way around herself before pulling the fabric over her head. She still had her legs and hips protected and her boots on, but was otherwise naked. The wind on her sweaty body felt good, cooling her off a little, even though it was mostly a hot, dry breeze.

She cut one of the sleeves off and dabbed her face with it. The material stuck to her flesh, jerking on her clotting wound as she pulled it back. She winced as a jolt of pain shot down her spine, making her dizzy. The sleeve came away spotted with blood. She decided to leave her face alone and tied the fabric around the wound in her hand instead. Dried tracks of red already ran in jagged trails from wrist to elbow, but the bandage would prevent any more from leaking out.

Just that little bit of first aid made her feel better. Stronger. More in control.

Holding up the metallic fabric, Molly looked at a distorted reflection of her gashed face. The blood streaked back to her ear on one side, but didn’t seem to be flowing anymore. She thought about the thing that had done this to her. All for a few drops of salted water. She wondered if it had meant to harm her this much, or if it had meant to harm her more. Was the violence indiscriminate? The thoughtless scampering of a thirsty creature?

She wanted to catch one and find out.

Molly used the torn top of the jumpsuit to soak up the sweat running in rivulets down her bare chest. She approached one of the holes cautiously. It was roughly the same size as the last one she’d messed with, perhaps a little smaller. She placed most of the moist material on the lip of the hole and kept a grip on the sleeve. With the metallic suit wrapped around her other hand, like a gauntlet, she propped her lance against the cliff within easy reach. Just in case it came to that.

The trap was set. She didn’t know how long it would take, so she concentrated on the most minor of sensations: the sweat evaporating from her body in the wind, the constantly shifting dying sounds that groaned through the canyons, the stinging of the wounds on her face.

She fell into a trance of patience and control—of hypervigilance.

And waited.

The silhouette reached Cole as he tried to free himself from the hole behind him. It came up his legs with the heft of a small gator, not like a lizard at all. Cole wrenched his hand from the hole and reached up with both arms to fend the thing off.

Loud, snapping jaws fought through his hands. He clutched at the thing’s neck and tried to keep the gnashing, clacking teeth away from his face. Sharp claws raked his chest, ripping the fabric of his suit open and stinging his skin underneath.

The beast clambered forward, its legs scraping the sides of the tight tunnel, forcing Cole back toward the hole. Not knowing how far down it went, he strained back against the creature, pushing himself closer to the dangerous maw and furious, lashing arms.

The thing’s hind legs tore into Cole’s thighs, finding better purchase in suit and flesh than they did with hard rock. Cole couldn’t believe the thing’s strength; it was half his size but felt twice as powerful. His arms vibrated with the effort of holding back the attack. When he felt like they were about to give out, he let them. Using the last bit of energy they possessed, he directed the monster up toward the ceiling and allowed his head to fall back in the hole behind him. He felt the momentum of the animal’s anger propel it over his head.

The beast landed with a shriek on the other side of the shaft; he could hear it scratch madly to right itself—to rejoin the battle. Cole felt for the hole above him, stood up inside of it, then stepped onto the wet lip, balancing the weight of his body on the edge of his boots. He tried to shake some feeling back into his tired arms as a shape moved along below him, back in the direction he needed to go.

He took some deep breaths, leaning into the damp wall. He tried reaching up, but the shaft went beyond his hands. He needed to go down for his lance, anyway.

The question was, did he go after the Wadi? Or take his chances going deeper into the cave? Would the tunnel taper to an end, or would it open out into the neighboring canyon? The only way he could fight one of those things was outside these blasted tubes of rock. They had the advantage of leverage here, and his only weapon was useless if he couldn’t swing it around.

Cole didn’t want to wait for the thing to figure out he’d ascended the shaft. He wasn’t sure how long he would last without tending to his wounds, anyway, so he lowered himself back down as quietly as he could. Glancing to the exit, he saw the dark shape slinking back and forth across the distant light. Looking the other way, he couldn’t make out an end to the tunnel. He decided he would explore a little, let the thing hunt for him in the wrong direction while his strength returned.

Grabbing his lance off the tunnel floor, Cole stretched across the hole he had nearly fallen through and moved silently into the blackness.

Behind him, he left a trail of moisture.

Thick, and slowly clotting.

It seemed as if an hour passed before Molly’s shirt twitched.

She jumped in front of the hole and lunged in with her protected hand, but there was nothing there. It must have been the wind.

She rubbed fresh sweat off her body and put the lure back in position.

More time went by. She felt completely alone and removed from the rest of the universe. Even the agonized moans that called out around her did nothing to provide any sense of company. Her only companions were the twin stars and the fixed shadows they cast, their unmoving nature turning every second into a trapped eternity.

Focusing on the shirt, Molly tried to make it the sole entity in her awareness, but the sight of her own valuable fluids dripping down the rock wall distracted her. Tormented her. The precious trickle evaporated long before it reached the ground, a miniature waterfall that led nowhere—just faded out of existence.

Her shirt moved again. The twitch coincided with a slight gust of wind, so she assumed it was another false alarm, but then the entire lure disappeared into the hole as if sucked inside a vacuum.

The sleeve made a loud, ripping noise.

“No!” she muttered, lunging for the hole. She pulled gently with the sleeve as her other arm dove in after the disappearing shirt.

As soon as she touched the creature tugging on the lure, she felt it focus its energy on her. It felt smaller than the last one she’d fought, wrapping itself around her hand and trying to tear through the fabric. Molly pulled it out of the hole and the thing shrieked at her. It was as long as her forearm and twice as thick. She fell to the ground, pinning it on its back, its teeth fighting through the layers of her makeshift glove.

Molly gripped the sleeve of the wet lure and flung it in circles around her other hand, protecting it. She used it to hold the creature’s jaw, trying to figure out if there was a safe place to hold a Wadi where it couldn’t bite her.

She briefly considered putting a knee on its belly and forcing the life out of the thing, but it was smaller than the last one, and this wasn’t the same monster that had gashed her face and hand. In fact, both of them were just looking for water, a craving Molly could easily understand.

She castigated herself for being weak, but a silly urge overcame her: she had to get this creature back to the shelter, alive, and only then release it back into the shade. The challenge fixed itself in her mind as a way to beat this inhospitable land. A way to prevent it from beating her.

Using some of the suit material hanging off her right hand, she started wrapping the Wadi’s mouth, sealing it tight. The poor thing began panting out of its long nose, its soft, white belly rising and falling with quick breaths. But at least it stopped fighting as madly; its legs just pawed at the air, looking for something to push against.

Molly clenched her left fist and squeezed some of her sweat out, allowing it to run into the Wadi’s mouth as it strained against the binding. This made it twitch a little more at first, clawing for the fabric with its front paws, before it finally settled back down.

She took her first good look at the specimen, the iridescent scales along its back and arms glowing, even in the shade. Two bones protruded from the back of the thing’s shoulders, stumps with no discernible purpose, like vestigial limbs. She worked quickly, trying to not get distracted by the beauty of the thing; she wrapped her flapping suit around the creature’s entire body, tight enough to hold it still, but hopefully not so tight it couldn’t breathe. She pressed the bundle to her bare chest.

The Wadi kicked a few more times, struggling against the metallic material, but Molly had it under control now. She could cradle it with one arm and pin it to her body as she soaked up more sweat. She dripped the fluids into the small crack along its mouth and felt the creature go limp with every drink.

Molly had no idea how long the thing—or herself—would survive without proper water. Salt-free water. She double-checked the bundle to make sure the Wadi was secure before giving her lance a long look. She couldn’t carry both, which meant risking her life in an attempt to preserve the strange animal’s.

Turning around, she surveyed the first of many shady bridges that awaited, strong gusts tearing across it and down the blistering canyon. Molly crouched low and set off across the narrow path.

She left behind her only means of defense, propped up against the pockmarked stone. Both her arms tended to the prize against her chest as a harsh, hot wind ripped across her bare back.

Cole worked his way across the next hole he discovered in the tunnel’s floor. Looking over his shoulder, he could no longer see the light from the entrance. It had been lost around a bend, or perhaps something blotted it out. His hand slipped in a puddle of water and another series of drips pelted his back. He didn’t linger to refresh himself.

He crawled forward, the tunnel not getting any bigger or smaller. Cole hoped that meant it bored clear through to the next canyon. He stopped scrambling along and patted for his map, reassuring himself he still had it. As soon as he did so, he heard it: something moving behind him.

He took off as fast as he could crawl, the stupid lance slowing him down and forcing him to move with his knuckles on bare rock. When something bumped into the bottom of his boot, he kicked back at it, making solid contact and setting the tunnel on fire with screeches of animalistic rage.

Cole concentrated on moving away from the sounds, groping ahead for more holes in the floor, hoping the ceiling wouldn’t start constricting down around him. Once again, he felt the amount of solid stone on all sides, the fact that dozens of these things could be coming—homing in on the racket he was making.

His vision spotted with fear.

No. He wasn’t seeing stars. That was light!

Two spots, both perfect circles, as if the tunnel forked ahead. Cole hugged the right side and ignored the pain in his knees and shins, scrambling along as fast as he could. Behind, the angry, high-pitched sounds grew into peals of fury. There was no way he would get to the exit before it clawed up his back.

Cole dropped to his belly and spun over, bringing his knees up to his chin.

When he saw the blackness shift in front of him, he shot himself straight, kicking into the center of the rock tube.

It was poorly timed. Instead of landing a full blow, the thing slammed into the bottom of his extended feet. The creature made a vicious noise; Cole tried stabbing his lance toward the sound. It made a hit, but unfortunately it was the dull, hooked end. He had brought the spear into the tunnel expecting to defend ahead of himself—and the length of the weapon made it impossible to spin it around.

The impact must have stunned the thing, as the noise stopped and nothing clawed at him. Cole lurched back toward the dual lights, his body on fire from the constant impact of rock on bone.

Weary arms propelled him forward as the light ahead gradually grew brighter and bigger. Then, more scraping sounds came from behind—approaching fast.

The last ten meters were as psychologically painful as they were physically demanding. Cole began to lunge, rather than crawl, throwing the spear ahead of him and launching himself with his legs. On the third push, his arms failed to support him and his chin scraped the floor of the tunnel. He could hear the large animal clawing up behind.

Leaving his useless spear where it lay, he pushed himself toward the light.

The very bright light.

When Cole saw the thin wedge of sunlight shining into the lip of his exit, he realized what a huge mistake he’d made. He’d assumed the tunnel would come out on a shaded path, but it didn’t. It faced the eternal day.

There is no solace out that hole, he realized. And the lizard was almost on him.

He didn’t have his spear anymore. Cole tried to kick the thing again, but it had learned: he heard it scampering along the ceiling above him. He moved forward, closer to the steam wafting into the hole, and rolled onto his back just as the creature dropped down. It landed on his thighs and came straight for his throat.

Cole pushed on the squirming beast, which just forced him closer to the deadly light. He could feel the heat from the twin suns where they baked a thin slice of the tunnel’s interior. The giant lizard strained for his neck, pawing at the sides of the tunnel to push forward.

It drove Cole’s head into the sun.

It felt like his hair was set on fire. His hood was still bunched around his neck, leaving his ears open for danger, but his scalp exposed. Cole tried to retract his head down into his shoulders, but this just let the lizard’s snapping jaws get closer to their prize.

He had to save his scalp, no matter the cost. He stopped pushing on the lizard and threw his forearm across his neck, just as he pulled his head out of the light. The lizard bit down on it immediately, locking its jaw above his wrist—teeth grinding against bone.

Cole let out a feeble scream. He grabbed one of the beast’s arms, and with both hands, he lifted it over his head and out of the hole. The pain on his exposed flesh was intense, like some sort of toxin coursing through his arm, but the lizard had it worse. The thing hissed as it cooked, the white underbelly frying in the direct light. It tried to twist its back toward the rays, but Cole had its arm gripped tight; he moved the tender spot around even more.

The jaw finally loosened, its teeth sucking noisily out of Cole’s arm. He attempted to pull the wounded animal in by its leg, but the weight was too much, his own arm at too unusual an angle.

His prize slipped out of his grasp and fell down—into the direct sunlight.

14

Molly continued to forge her way through the dry wind. She was pretty sure the shade bridge she’d just crossed was the last one, and the air seemed to be a bit cooler as well. Trudging forward, her shoulder bumping along the side of the canyon, she dreamt of the shelter beyond the terminator.

She dreamt of glass after glass of water, even of hearing how much smarter Cole and Walter had gone about their rites.

The bundled Wadi squirmed against her chest; Molly squeezed a little more moisture in its mouth. The thing had been acting more and more content for the past few kilometers. That, or it was slowly dying.

Her thoughts drifted to Edison, any hope of rescuing him evaporating with the last of her body’s water. She imagined being ten times the size of a Glemot, able to scoop him up and cradle him in her arms. She thought of the way he’d done this for Anlyn, the way she was trying to do this for the Wadi. She felt large and small at the same time, able to do so much for one, and almost nothing for the other.

When the leading edge of the terminator came into view, Molly confused it for another bridge at first. It filled her with a moment of panic, then she saw that the blackness went on and on.

She sobbed with relief.

Raw exhilaration overcame her as she crossed the line from day to night. She was tired, wounded and dehydrated. She was several kilometers from the shelter. But she felt free. She could walk in any direction she wanted. She could lay down on the cool stone in the center of the cursed canyon, the walls of which grew shorter and shorter toward the horizon.

Molly picked up her pace. The squat building she needed to reach—where Cole could nurse her back to health—should be just a few more kilometers, straight ahead. Clutching the Wadi against the chill, she lowered her head into the steady gusts and marched toward the glow of lights from the city beyond the horizon.

Behind her, the canyons wailed, almost as if mourning her departure.

Cole finished bandaging his arm with a torn piece of shirt. He couldn’t decide what to do next. It was a long crawl back to the safe side of the tunnel, but at least there were watering spots along the way where he could clean his stinging wounds and quench his thirst.

The problem was: he was in no shape to fight another of those things. If he encountered one during the long march upwind, he’d be mauled for sure. Beyond surviving and escaping the canyons with his wounds, there was still the matter of having a Wadi to complete the rite.

One had just died within a few meters of him, close enough to hear its shrieks, but there was no way to claim his prize.

Or was there? Cole grunted and rolled to his knees. It was slow going with only one arm, but he made his way back to the discarded lance. Tossing it ahead of him, he moved to the edge of the light leaking into the mouth of the hole.

He took his time replacing the metallic hood and adjusting it. He also pulled his left hand down into his sleeve, gripping the lance through the material. Moving the weapon out into the direct sunlight, he let the rays hit his hand. It was just like his experiments back at the terminator—the suit protected him from the light, at least temporarily. He just had to be sure not to touch the heated rock.

Inching forward, Cole rested on his damaged arm as close to the steaming marble as he could. Once again, the lance was turned the wrong way. This time, he needed the hooked end, and it faced away from the mouth of the tunnel. He extended the long weapon all the way out the hole in order to spin it in his hand.

With the awkward fabric spoiling his grip, he almost dropped the thing as he rolled it around in mid-air. As it bobbled out of his grip, he lunged and seized it at the last minute, grunting from the effort.

He shook his head with relief, then angled his face away from the sun before sticking it out to look down for the Wadi. As his exposed face passed by the lip of lit rock on its way out into the air, the heat radiating up reminded him to be careful.

The moaning outside the hole went up an octave as a gust of wind coursed through the canyon. Cole peered down the wall and spotted the Wadi, charred black in places, its skin melting off where it touched bare rock. He lowered the lance, the hook sinking into the soft and bloated belly with a sharp, puncturing sound. He pulled himself back inside the hole and used his injured arm to help hoist the lifeless beast up, dragging it into the protective shade.

He let out his held breath, then pulled in a new, hot, dry one. He had his Wadi Thooo.

But he was a long way from becoming a Drenard.

The lights in the shelter were on, making it easy to spot even against the glow of the city beyond. Several shapes moved inside. Molly hoped one of them was Cole.

A hundred meters from the structure, the door burst open and Walter ran out, his tunic flapping in the wind. As he rushed to join her, Molly noticed the bandage around his head.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper in a windstorm.

Walter didn’t seem to hear.

“I’m not allowed to help you!” he shouted, falling in beside her and matching her weary pace. “I’m a Drenard!” he added.

Molly could feel Walter leering at her bare arms and back; she had no cover other than the bundled Wadi across her chest, but she was too exhausted to care.

“Where’s Cole?” Molly shouted, but her words were dry paper tossed into a blaze.

The last dozen meters were marched in silence. The Wadi had stopped moving nearly an hour earlier. Molly felt sad for the little creature. It was strange, but she felt as if she’d bonded with the poor thing during their long march to safety. Safety for her, at least.

The Drenard guards were kind enough to open the doors for her. Molly stumbled across the threshold and sank to the stained carpet, the sudden absence of wind leaving a dull roar in her sore ears. She bent all the way forward until her forehead touched the soft floor, her small, motionless companion nestled between her stomach and thighs.

Exhaustion overwhelmed her, the end of the ordeal bringing an emotional release. She sobbed with relief, but there wasn’t enough water in her body to form the tears that normally accompanied the sounds. Blue hands moved all around her, joined by a chorus of cooing. Someone draped a blanket over her back and grasped her shoulders—someone else took her bundle away. A glass of water came to her lips, the wetness burning her cracked skin.

The Drenards surrounded her—tending to wounds and helping her to another room. In her haze she saw flashes of Walter, scurrying in and out of the way, but no sign of Cole.

She kept asking everyone where he was, but without the bands, none of the words were relayed.

All she had was a head full of her own, terrible, thoughts.