Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

15

Molly awoke in an unfamiliar room. Her entire body was sore, her stomach hollow. She reached up to her head and felt a tugging at her arm, looked down at the IV taped to her vein, confused.

The ordeal from the previous day came back like a foggy dream. She sat up and a Drenard guard stiffened in the chair by the door. Their eyes met and his head bowed slightly, his chin dipping down toward his tunic. Molly looked at his lance, its point touching the floor.

She had a strange first thought: I lost my lance.

Swinging her legs over the side of her bed, she followed the tube leading out of her arm, up to the canister of fluids attached to the wall. As she slid her weight down onto wobbly legs, the guard came over to assist her. He popped the canister off its mount, held it aloft, then stood back a few paces. Molly thought about reaching for the blasted thing and doing it on her own, but both of her arms felt too heavy to raise, much less support something else.

She checked the coverage of her tunic and saw that it was a new one. Longer and more colorful, a straight-fitting dress laced up both sides with ribbon.

In the bottom of her vision, she could see something white on her face. Molly reached up and felt the bandage on her left cheek, saw the wrapping on her wounded hand. She shot the guard a look and shuffled toward the door.

As soon as she emerged, one of the officials rose and strode over to help support her. The two Drenards guided her to a soft chair in the lobby, and Molly saw they had the area to themselves. She settled into the upholstery and looked down at the bandage on her wounded hand. It no longer stung from the toxins.

An official approached her with a red band, the sight of it filling her with joy. It was like a mute watching someone return with their voice.

“Hello?” she thought, testing to see if it was in place.

“Hello, Lady Fyde. Congratulations on completing the Drenard Rite of Wadi Thooo.”

“It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting,” she thought, injecting as much venom in the tone as she could. “How are my friends? Is everyone back? Has Edison—has he shown up?” She had so much to ask, and not all of it kind. She rested her head back against the chair and reveled in the ability to think her mind, rather than speak it. Her mouth still felt full of sand and every muscle in her body ached.

“The little one returned very quickly with his Wadi Thooo. Not much of a specimen, though. The other human has not returned. Your large companion has been gone too long, I’m afraid. This last will likely sadden Lady Hooo greatly, she—”

“Anlyn?”

“Informally, yes. I believe she had feelings for the hairy one.” The cadence and vocabulary were strange, different than Dani’s, but still in her own voice.

“I have feelings for them both,” Molly thought. “We need to go look for them.” She tried to think it forcefully. She leaned forward as if to rise, but her body refused to cooperate. It was weaker than her will.

The Drenard official raised a hand, and the guard paused halfway between helping her and halting her.

“You are not in any shape to go back out there, Lady Fyde. And even if you were, the Light Side is no place for a female Drenard. I would not allow you to risk yourself.”

“Those are my friends!” Molly pointed toward the window, her hand heavy as a brick.

“And they assumed the risks that go with the Rite—”

“That’s crap! You told us nothing! You sent us out to die!” Molly found it easy to scream in her thoughts. Her throat even formed the words—she could hear them in her jaw. Her fist felt lighter as she shook it at both male Drenards, aliens more than twice her size.

The guard looked away, out the window and toward the bright canvas of colors. The official hung his head low, showing a humility Molly had not seen out of any of these people. Not even Dani.

“We apologize, Lady Fyde. We have been discussing this since you returned from your Rite. We were told lies about you. I think we even lied to ourselves about you.”

Molly had no idea what he was thinking about. She tried to force up one of the questions roiling below her surface thoughts, but they were tangled with one another.

The official supplied one of his own before she could unknot them: “Do you know why Lady Hooo ran away from Drenard?”

Molly shook her head. “I didn’t know she did. I always assumed she was captured, a prisoner from the war—”

The official bristled at this, his shoulders coming up to his ears; his eyes were wide, his mouth frozen in a lopsided grimace. “Our women do not go to war. Ever!” He shook his head and ran his long blue fingers down the front of his tunic, calming himself. His chest rose and fell with deep breaths before he continued: “Lady Hooo ran away from Drenard. She has been forgiven, but it was a great sin. It was a very bad thing she did.”

“Why did she run away?” Molly asked, but she already suspected the answer. She’d practically guessed it during that reunion dinner in the Drenard prison.

The guard turned to the official and the official nodded. Molly realized, all of a sudden, that she had no idea which one she was communicating with. Both, perhaps?

“Lady Hooo is a very important person,” one of them thought. “Any son of hers will be fourth in line to the Drenard throne. She was to marry Bodi Yooo two years ago—”

“Who’s Bodi Yooo?” Molly forced in.

The two Drenards exchanged another glance, then her own voice continued in her head:

“Bodi is a very important member of the Circle, our governing body. He is the official that okayed your rite of passage. He is also one of the two men that brought your large friend here and oversaw his Rite.”

“What?”

“We are sorry, Lady Fyde. We were instructed to give you no guidance for the Rite. We were told to give you a lance and our oldest maps. No water. No food. And—”

There was a moment of silence in Molly’s head. It brought the sound of wind wrapping around the shelter into focus.

“—and we were told that none of you would ever become Drenards. That all of you are as weak as our women but without the grace that makes them so wonderful and so important to protect.”

“You brought us here to die.”

Nobody answered. She had said it out loud. To herself.

“You brought us here to die,” she repeated. In her thoughts and for everyone to hear.

“And you have proven us wrong. You brought back a female Wadi Thooo—alive! It is an incredible sign for—”

“My friends are going to die because of jealousy? Because we’re aliens? We brought Anlyn here because she’s our friend. To help her. And her fiancée is going to kill us rather than thank us?”

Everyone’s thoughts fell silent. Molly looked through the glass at the alluring bands of colors waving in the desert heat. Reaching up, she touched the bandages adhered to her face. She would absorb as much fluid as she could and then set off in search of Cole.

“We are sorry—”

Molly grabbed her red band and tossed it off in disgust. She seized her IV canister and rose to fix a glass of water and search for solid food.

The two Drenards stared at each other as she rummaged through the pantry. She didn’t care what they were thinking. She grabbed some protein bars and juice pouches, both wrapped up in reflective foil and likely meant for initiates to take out on their rite. She slammed them on the counter in disgust. She felt on the verge of covering her face and crying—or throwing something. Yesterday’s ordeal, combined with this rage and sadness, filled her with one brand of energy while it drained away another.

She left the rations on the counter and turned toward the preparation room to gather a new set of gear. Before she went, she spun on the Drenards, wanting them to see the anger on her face…

But it evaporated like sweat on boiling stone.

A shape could be seen beyond the glass, framed against the shivering colors in the sky.

Hunched over and shuffling, it stumbled forward, but Molly would have recognized him even as a dot on the horizon.

Cole.

She dropped the IV canister, ripped the needle out of her arm and moved as fast as she could around the counter and toward the door. The Drenard guard hurried over to stop her, but the official shot up and grabbed his arm, pulling him back.

Molly exploded out of the shelter.

The two Drenards turned their backs, not wanting to know if any rules were violated, and willing to swear before the Circle if they had known: that none were.

It was the longest fifty meters of her life. The breeze slid through her tunic and the cold stone shocked her feet, but she didn’t care. In the soft glow of light radiating out of the shelter lobby, she could see Cole—and a mixture of heartbreak and joy overwhelmed her senses. She couldn’t even hear the winds or the distant groans from the sun-baked canyons.

Cole dropped something from his shoulders as she approached, then practically fell into her arms. She didn’t know where she got the strength to catch him—but she did.

He smelled like burnt meat, hot skin, and sweat. Molly was just glad to feel his warmth. She cried and rubbed his back and said something over and over again. It was the third or fourth utterance before she even heard it, before she recognized her own voice, if not the words:

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

He pressed his cracked and dry lips to her neck, resting them there, unable to purse them or even create enough moisture for a kiss. Molly could hear him trying to talk. To whisper something in response. But his voice was not strong enough, his mouth too dry.

Molly didn’t care. She knew what he was saying.

She wrapped him up even tighter, squeezing him with a new strength, a power she didn’t know she had.

When she realized how stupid she’d been to not bring a juice pouch to him, and that the embrace was keeping him away from the medical care he needed, Molly broke free and reached for the thing he’d dropped.

Cole stopped her. Gave her a look.

She understood.

He grabbed one end of the object and Molly recognized it as a larger version of her Wadi. Much larger. She felt a wave of panic and fear at the sight of the beast, at the sudden knowledge that Cole had fought with it. The emotions were too late to do any good, but they tortured her anyway, useless fear chemicals pumping through her bloodstream. She could taste them like metal on the back of her tongue.

Turning to the shelter, she led the way, breaking the wind in two for him. Through the glass, she could see the Drenards with their backs to the windows, ignoring her and Cole. Molly forced aside a new wave of anger and jerked open the door, holding it as Cole staggered across the threshold and fell forward into the lobby, crashing against the carpet.

Molly hurried inside to help him, but he was already on his back, pulling his vanquished foe up his body, its tail crossing the doorway just as the glass barrier slammed shut.

Immediately, the two Drenards went into action, calling out with loud, soothing sounds.

Another guard came out of the sleeping quarters, and several pairs of hands—human and alien—lifted Cole. As a group, they took him to the first-aid room and placed him on the same table Molly had recently vacated. What was left of his heatsuit and underbarrier were cut off, his arm swabbed cleaned for a needle. Molly held his other hand and brushed his brown hair back from his handsome face. Grime and scrapes made one side look like it had been dragged across rough stone.

His lips parted; his tongue moved across them, running over the open splits. He looked up at Molly and smiled, which made the cracks look even worse. She hushed him, cooing like a Drenard as several blue hands tended to his wounds.

It took almost an hour to clean and dress his myriad scrapes. Several ointments had to be added to each wound, and a few of the larger gashes in his thighs and across his chest needed stitching. The damage to his forearm required special attention. Molly had to look away as they opened it up and flushed it with water. Normally, she had no problem with the sight of damaged flesh, but there was something about knowing that this flesh was his.

By the time they were done, Cole was fast asleep—whether due to the drugs in the IV, the pain, or the exhaustion—Molly couldn’t tell. She pulled a chair close to the bed and held his hand, stroking the back of it as fluids dripped into his system. One guard acted as if he would stay, but a look from Molly cut across their language barrier, articulate in a thousand tongues.

The couple was left alone while Cole slept and Molly thought. Thought about what they had gotten themselves into on their enemy’s home world. Thought about how much Dani had known of the politics involved. About whether Edison could be alive out there and the best way to find him. She imagined flying Parsona into the desert, landing on the buttes, and using the loudhailer to call for him. She had no doubt the taboo against such actions were strong, but she didn’t care.

Cole slept a long time, and Molly’s mind zoomed out, focusing on an even larger picture. Her supposed mother was still trapped in a computer, her father in need of rescue. And a pointless war needed to end. Less serious but still troubling: her old nightmares had returned ever since arriving on Drenard, and they would likely plague her until she returned to the ship or found her family.

Then there was her own Navy, who made their every move constricted and dangerous; by now they must be doggedly searching everywhere for Parsona.

It seemed no place in the galaxy was safe.

In a very short period of time, she had visited places that few would ever see, and they all looked the same in that regard. Everyone seemed to be out for themselves and she and her friends were just in the way.

Molly found herself growing sleepy; she began dwelling on how nice it must be to not care. How much easier if only she didn’t feel the impulse to do what was right by others. It would be such a simple life.

Simple and lonely…

16

Molly awoke in the first aid room, curled up in the large chair, alone. Both medical beds stood empty. At first she thought Cole’s return had been a dream, then noticed the remnants of his clothes balled up in the trashcan and signs of heavy bandaging strewn across one of the tables.

She stood up from the chair, stiff and sore as she had been the day before—but a new pain gnawed at her. A healthy one. Hunger. A renewed appetite.

She left the first aid room and checked the initiate quarters Cole had used their first night there.

Empty.

She went out to the lobby and found Walter digging into a steaming plate of food.

“Man, that smells wonderful,” she said, her voice sounding somewhat close to normal.

Walter snapped his head up to look at her. “It’ss your Wadi,” he hissed.

She froze, her face flushed with heat.

“Jusst kidding,” Walter stammered, seeming to get that the joke hadn’t gone over well. He crammed another bite into his sneer. “You want me to make you ssome?”

“I’ll do it,” Molly murmured. She grabbed one of the packages from the pantry and looked at the symbols on the silver wrapper. It was more of the Drenard writing her mother had shown her: piles of sticks that she couldn’t believe anyone could discern at a glance.

She looked at Walter and his sneering broadened, his eyes wide as if waiting on something.

“Show me,” she sighed.

The small Palan dropped his utensil and scurried over to her side. He busied himself with buttons on the electric oven and placed the packet inside, arranging it carefully. He constantly glanced at Molly to make sure she was watching appreciatively.

“Where is everybody?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Time iss funny here. I can’t tell if we sshould be awake or assleep.” The machine beeped and Walter moved the package to a plate, opening it up carefully and spilling the food out. “Ssome Drenardss left sseveral hourss ago. They took much sstuff with them.” He rummaged for utensils in a drawer and presented them to Molly.

“Thanks,” she said, more out of habit than feeling. She plopped down to eat while Walter beamed at her. She could see over the counter and through the glass that the shuttle was still parked up front, out of the wind. “Have you seen Cole?”

Walter frowned. He pointed straight up. “Outsside,” he hissed.

Molly dropped her fork, grabbed a juice pouch and ration bar from the cabinet, and went out to find him and drag his butt back to bed. She pulled the glass door open and squinted into the dancing colors. There was no sign of him.

“Up here.” The words drifted down on the wind, barely audible.

Molly turned around and looked up; Cole sat at the edge of the flat roof, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

“There’s a ladder on that side,” he said. The blanket shifted, a hand gesturing vaguely from within.

You idiot, Molly thought as she ran around the side of the shelter. She climbed up the ladder and walked across the flat roof to Cole, kneeling down beside him. “What are you doing up here? You should be in bed.” She adjusted the blanket around his shoulders.

“I should be out there,” he croaked, the blanket slipping down again as he pointed toward the horizon.

“And you’d be dead in a minute. Flank, Cole, you’re probably gonna die up here. You do know this canister isn’t doing anything if you don’t hold it up, right?” Molly grabbed the IV container and rested it by her shoulder.

“They’re going for Edison,” he said. “I should be helping them.”

“He’s alive?” Molly sat down next to Cole and put her head close, obviating the need for him to strain his voice.

Cole nodded. He looked over at Molly and managed a weak smile, then tried to open the blanket to allow her inside. She put her free hand on him, keeping him wrapped tight.

“How do they know?” she asked.

“They have a tracker of some sort, or a sensor. I stumbled out last night, or whenever, and found a bunch of them arguing over it. I grabbed a band and asked them what they were doing.”

“I think they were planning on all of us dying out there,” Molly said.

Cole nodded again. “I tried to go with them, but they were insistent. Told me to stay with you.” Cole looked over at Molly. “The way they were talking about you… what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. I just about died out there. I came back with one of the Wadis and asked about you. I got pissed and tore the band off my head.”

“You did something.” He looked to the horizon again. “They’re acting different.”

“I know. I don’t like it.”

“I do. They’ve been acting like robots up ’til now. Not like Dani. What I saw this morning, it was like they cared about something.” There was a pause while Cole licked his lips and took a deep breath. “I just wish I was out there.”

“I know you do. Stop talking. Here, I brought you some juice.” Molly set the IV down long enough to rip the juice packet open; she pushed it into one of his hands as it snaked out of the blanket. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into coming inside, can I?”

He shook his head slowly, moving the packet of fluids back and forth so he could keep sipping.

“Well, can I rethink the blanket offer, then?”

Cole peeled it open and Molly sat beside him. She moved the IV canister to her other hand and draped her arm around his back. He wrapped the blanket around her, and they wiggled to get it closed.

They both looked to the horizon. The sky would have looked so beautiful if it were over any other landscape. A landscape more alien to them. Molly tilted her head to the side and rested it on Cole’s shoulder.

“I meant what I said last night,” she said. “Or whenever it was.”

Cole stopped sipping from the pouch. “Me, too,” he said.

“Yeah, but I couldn’t hear you over the wind.”

“That’s okay,” Cole mumbled. “I still said it. And I meant it.”

She lifted her head. “Say it again.”

Cole leaned away to look at her. When their eyes met, she saw he was going to protest, or make an excuse—

“I love you, Molly Fyde.”

She pulled his shoulder back under her cheek and closed her eyes, allowing the strange and alien words to wash over her again and again.

They were alien, but in some ways… it sounded to her like something he’d said a million times before.

Cole shook her awake. The blanket was falling off them and the bandage on her face had stuck to his tunic. He said something, but it floated away on the wind. He pointed after the words, as if she could still catch them on the breeze.

She followed his finger and saw what he was gesturing toward: a group of figures marching back toward the shelter. They moved along in a wide pattern, walking very slowly. It was hard to make out any detail, but there was something about their pace or posture that didn’t resonate as a successful rescue operation.

This was the sad plodding of a hearse, not the eager anxiety of an ambulance.

Molly felt Cole trying to get up, to race after them, but he could hardly speak, much less run. She knew he was in no condition to help. Besides, there were plenty of idle bodies already out there. She pulled him tight and gave him a stern look, but he looked rapt, leaning forward, trying to pick out a familiar shape.

At this distance, they were all dark blobs silhouetted on the dimly lit rock. As they got closer, however, Molly could see a figure in the center.

It was laboring.

Molly felt a jolt of hope. It could be Edison, tired and hurt, but it could also be a Drenard. The figure pulled something along. A large shape—at least as big as a Glemot.

And it wasn’t moving.

Cole saw it too and twisted feebly away from Molly. She threw the blanket off and handed the IV canister to Cole, hoping it would slow him down. She beat him to the ladder and clambered down, racing off toward the group.

Molly concentrated on the central figure as she ran, but when she got close, one of the guards on the perimeter caught her and held her back. She slapped at him, her tunic flapping in the breeze, mimicking the swinging of her wild arms, but the large male effortlessly pushed her toward the shelter, cooing sharply into the wind.

Molly couldn’t see around his wide body, and she had to know what that was being drug across the ground. Forced backward, nearly tripping over her heels, she turned to see Cole stumbling and falling on the rock halfway between her and the shelter.

In her head, she screamed. But nobody could hear.

The large Drenard caught her and lifted her into strong, blue arms. She welcomed it, clawing up and peering over the guard’s shoulder to see if her friend was there.

She looked to the ground, expecting to see Edison’s dead body, but it was bigger than her friend. It was the size of an adult Glemot, a Wadi Thooo that must’ve been four meters long.

No—Longer.

The thing’s tail was off the ground, leading up into the air, over the shoulder and clutched in both hands of…

Edison.

Molly gasped and pawed at the air for him, but his eyes were down, his entire body sagging with fatigue. She could see large patches of blood matted across his fur. Every step appeared to be pure torture, like a mountaineering video she’d seen once with men who had to test every foothold before leaning forward into the next.

Why wasn’t anyone helping him?

She beat at the chest of the Drenard carrying her, but was too tired and weak to make the gesture anything more than symbolic. Strong arms pulled her tight and carried her along.

When the group reached Cole, she saw someone scoop him up as if he were a child. Molly brought her hands up to her face and screamed into them, wailing with the sound of a heavy wind, passing over holes in stone.

17

The next day, a second shuttle arrived. It rocked in the wind before pulling into the lee of the shelter. Molly and Walter and a few of the Drenards stopped eating their meal to watch. Cole was in the first aid room taking a turn with Edison, whose strength was gradually returning.

The two officials put their utensils down and walked out to greet the new arrivals. Molly recognized Dani through the glass; he and another official stepped through the door and out of the wind.

“Is that your interrogator?” Molly asked Walter, nodding at the Drenard with Dani.

“Yesss.”

Molly fought the urge to go and greet them. The last twenty hours had been tense. Her crew was still healing, still determining who they could trust. The Drenards had been extremely kind and deferential, but their miracle ointments worked only on the physical wounds. None of her crew particularly cared to don a band and listen to the Drenards explain themselves. Instead, they huddled together around Edison’s bed and strengthened their bonds with one another, swapping Wadi stories and marvelling at each other’s trials. When Walter showed the mild burn on the back of his head, Cole and Edison had acted suitably impressed; Molly pretended to be horrified. He had beamed with the pride of a true warrior.

Which is why, hours later, as Dani entered and crossed the lobby toward Molly, she rose and went to the first aid room instead. She still didn’t know if she could trust anyone beyond her friends.

She heard Cole and Edison in an animated discussion before she pushed through the door. The conversation pinched off into silence at the sight of her.

“Done eating already?” Cole asked.

“Lost my appetite. Dani just pulled up with some other officials. I was scared of what I’d say to them.”

“So you came to get me?” Cole lifted his eyebrows and tilted his head. “I sure hope you don’t think I’m gonna be Mr. Polite.”

“No, I just didn’t wanna be out there.” She walked over and squeezed one of Edison’s hands.

The back of his bed was raised; he smiled at her. “My performance in such a conversation would exceed system resources,” he said.

Molly patted his arm and beamed at her friend. “I have no idea what you just said.”

“They have him on some pretty strong drugs,” Cole explained.

“Surpassing pharmaceuticals,” Edison said.

Molly laughed. “You said it, buddy—”

The door opened, slicing another conversation in half. Although Dani walked in alone, Molly saw several other brightly garbed males in the hallway. He held a red band out to her, but Molly shook her head and turned back to Edison. The pup’s eyes were wide, his brow furrowed into ridges. The look said so much—so clearly. She glanced to Cole, whose lips were pursed tight. He raised his eyebrows, leaving it up to her.

“I don’t want to find out it was him,” she told them both.

Cole nodded and reached across Edison to accept the ribbon. He checked inside to find the seam and lined it up with the back of his head.

“Hello, Dani,” he thought.

“I was told on the way over, Cole. I am so sorry—”

“You’re the one that hinted at this as a way out of here—”

Dani lifted both hands, showing Cole his palms as he shot a glance toward the door. “Careful,” he thought to Cole. He gestured toward Edison. “Your friend already knew about the rite from Anlyn. Before your ship arrived in the system. I talked to his Questioner on the way here. Edison asked about nothing else for two days.”

Cole interrupted him. “What does that have to do with—”

“Cole, listen. I had no idea it would be like this. If I had known they were bringing you to this shelter, I would have—”

“Why? What is it about this shelter?” Cole felt impatient, and was surprised to find he could force his thoughts on top of Dani’s. He watched Molly idly scratch Edison’s arm, her eyes narrowed.

“This area isn’t used for alien initiations,” Dani thought. “It’s… special. There aren’t any eggs here; it’s not a well-populated area; there’s not much water—it doesn’t matter, it’s just that I would have known something was wrong if they told me where you were being taken. I should have been checking anyway. I am sorry.”

“He’s sorry,” he told Molly aloud.

“Yeah. Me, too,” she spat back.

Dani kept his thoughts to himself. Cole sighed, mulling over what Molly had said about her last conversation with the officials, the part that had upset her.

“Was this all about Edison and Anlyn?” he asked Dani.

The Drenard Questioner nodded.

In the human fashion, Cole noted, so many of their quirks rubbing off on him.

“I spoke to Lady Hooo yesterday,” Dani thought. “After we were summoned and while the party formed to look for your friend.” He indicated Edison again.

“His name’s Edison,” Cole offered.

“Actually, that is in question right now, I am happy to report. And it goes to the heart of the matter. His name might be Lord Campton, according to his Questioner and a member of the Circle. Records are being—”

“Lord Campton?” Cole looked at Edison. “What have you done?” he asked.

“Who, Edison?” Molly asked.

“Dani’s referring to him as Lord Campton.”

Edison spoke through the drugs and his overly verbose brain: “The specimens have already been cross-referenced and compare favorably for my betrothment?”

“Your what?!” Molly and Cole said together.

Dani started to think something, but Cole raised his hand.

“Anlyn and I are to be legally unioned if the specimen acquired point two radians ago surpasses that of Bodi’s from eighteen radians ago.”

Cole looked to Molly for help, but she appeared just as confused as he.

Then he thought of something. “Can I borrow your band?” he asked Dani.

The Drenard hesitated, giving Cole a serious appraisal. Then he gingerly removed the band and handed it over as if it were encrusted with precious jewels.

Cole helped Edison put it on.

“Can you hear me, buddy?” he thought.

“Clearly.”

“Say something else.”

“What do you want me to say?”

Cole gave Molly a thumbs up and a big smile.

“What is this about you marrying Anlyn? Who’s Bodi?”

“Bodi is Anlyn’s fiancé. But she doesn’t want to marry him. She wants to marry me.”

“And you want to marry her?” Cole had no idea their relationship was that serious. He glanced at Molly and thought about how many years they’d known each other, the hundreds of hours in the simulator and the crazy few weeks they’d just had together. Despite all that, he’d only told her how he felt after being frightened that he’d never again get the chance.

“Yes. She and I understand each other.”

Cole laughed. He found that hard to believe.

Edison went on: “The only way I could do this was to outrank her fiancé, who had laid claim to her.”

“So you went and tried to get yourself killed?”

Cole glanced over to Molly, her forehead lined with creases. “He almost killed himself over a girl,” he told her.

“My auditory functions are still operational,” Edison said, smiling.

“And who are you to judge?” Molly asked Cole.

“That’s not the same thing, you keep saving my butt, so I—”

“It’s okay. Just let me know when you boys get to something important. Like whether or not it’s safe for me to have my back to the door.”

Cole shook his head and focused his thoughts for Edison: “Pretend we’re talking about something else—I just… I need to know why you felt like you had to do this. Why you didn’t come to me for help.”

“I’m sorry. I never thought you’d end up out here. And I didn’t know it’d be this dangerous, either. Somehow, Bodi found out what we were up to… maybe Anlyn and I shouldn’t have been talking aloud about this when we thought we were alone. I didn’t even know that was Bodi with us until Molly told me.”

Edison scratched at the bandage on his forearm.

“The problem was, nobody knew precisely how big Bodi’s Wadi measured. Those things aren’t public record. But knowing the position he was given, Anlyn told me it’d be about my size. So I needed one bigger.”

“Why? What does that change?”

Edison broke into a huge smile, flashing his large, square teeth at Cole. “If I outrank him, I can claim Anlyn for my wife.”

“And you really think you love her?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. But she wouldn’t come back to Drenard unless we tried. It was the only way she would return. And we needed a safe place to go—”

“You did this for us, as well?”

“No. No. I do like Anlyn. I think I’m in love with her.” His smile faded, his brow drooping. “And it’s not like I’m gonna meet any nice female Glemots, is it?”

The reference to his race’s genocide, an occurrence in which Cole and Molly unwittingly played a huge part, stung. But so did the idea that Edison would take this risk to help them without consulting them first.

Dani waved to get Cole’s attention; he rocked nervously from one foot to the other.

Cole patted Edison’s shoulder. “Thanks, pal,” he said out loud.

Dani took his band back eagerly and affixed it to his head.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“I think Anlyn’s jealous boyfriend nearly got us all killed.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. When I found out what was going on, I enlisted the help of three Circle members and the other Questioners and brought them straight here. Two of them are Anlyn’s uncles. We can trust them. When we left, we didn’t even know if your friend would be found at the time, but we wanted to look at the Wadis and settle these issues immediately.”

“Issues? What’s there to figure out besides weighing the damn things, or measuring them, and telling Bodi to back off?”

Dani shifted his weight around. His eyes darted to Molly for a second. “There is also her Wadi to consider.”

Cole looked at Molly. “Hers?”

“Yes. The Wadi she brought back is alive, docile, and… Well, we believe she is a juvenile that has never taken a mate, never reproduced. This, and the fact that she’s much older than a baby, but not quite an adult, The Circle will take as a great sign. A momentous occasion. Especially since the discoverer is human.” He looked at Molly again, his eyes flashing. “And now a Drenard.”

Cole turned to stare at her as well. Perplexed. He furrowed his brow… hard. One of the bandages on his head tore free.

“What?” Molly asked.

“Your Wadi is alive,” he said, pressing the tape back in place. “I think that means something to them.”

“Alive? But I thought—” her voice trailed off into thought.

Cole wished he could listen in.

He turned back to Dani. “This is a good thing, though, right?”

“Possibly. In some ways. All of you are going to be considered Drenards, and what happened here will become a legend one day, I am certain of that. But… I can’t imagine they will let her off the planet now. She will mean too much to too many people.”

“Are you kidding?” It was a deep but powerful thought. Cole groaned aloud.

“What is it?” Molly asked.

“We might be stuck here, even after all that work.”

18

The Drenard officials cobbled together an impromptu ceremony in the rarely used shelter. Normally, such an occasion called for banners, custom tunics, and symbolic lances too long for practical use, but Dani had agreed to force the issue and try to get them off-planet before Molly became a cause célèbre.

They gave the four friends fresh tunics to wear, signifying their status as Drenards and their place within the culture. Each was unique, thrown together from borrowed layers of material from the officials.

Naturally, they had to take turns agreeing with Walter that his was by far the most important-looking in order to settle him down.

“Befitting a supply officer,” Molly managed to tell him with a straight face.

The four friends knelt in a line while lances were passed around and alien words were spoken. Not a moment of the ordeal made sense to Molly, but she didn’t mind. Her focus was on getting off that planet, and she wasn’t yet sure she should feel proud to be a Drenard.

After a round of deep bows from the officials, directed at the young foursome, a second ceremony began. They ushered Molly forward as a large red box was produced and placed on the carpet with great care. Pushed toward the box, blue hands on her back, Molly wondered what was expected of her. Dani held his palms together, then pantomimed a lid being opened, his hands hinging apart.

Molly knelt in front of the box, imagining a special tunic of some sort. Despite her anxiety to leave as quickly as possible, she found herself tingling in anticipation as she fumbled with the box’s small, unintuitive clasp.

Someone behind her shuffled nervously. The entire lobby had fallen deathly silent.

Finally, the clasp came free. Molly cracked the top—and then the lid exploded open. She stumbled back, yelping, as the Wadi inside leapt out and attached itself to her chest, its claws pricking her through the layers of tunics.

Walter hissed furiously from behind her. Edison roared.

Molly turned and raised a hand to calm them down. All eyes were on the creature scrambling up her torso. She could feel her cheeks cramping from smiling so hard, her body flushed with excitement.

She tried to wrap her arms around the thing, but the Wadi wiggled out and scampered up to her neck, its tail swishing contentedly. She patted its head while a tongue darted out, as if tasting the air.

She turned to face Dani, her vision blurred with tears of joy. “Can I keep her?” she asked.

Even without the bands, she felt like Dani understood. And the answer was even more clear as the officials removed the Wadi from her tunic, peeling away each claw as the thing clutched desperately to her.

“Why?” she asked, as they returned the Wadi to the box. The poor creature writhed in protest, its limbs pushing at the edge, its head twisting back to look at Molly.

They shoved it inside and the lid slammed shut, just as a desperate, croaking sound emanated from within.

The display horrified Molly, but the members of the Circle seemed extremely satisfied. They conferred in the gentle bubbling of their language while Dani presented a red band to Molly, both ceremonies clearly at an end.

“We need to go, Madam Fyde,” he thought, once she had it in place.

“It’s over? Can I—?”

“It is over. And no, you cannot keep the Wadi. It will go to the Royal Zoo and be kept on display. But let’s hurry—Bodi and his allies on the Circle are heading this way from the train depot. We need to avoid them if at all possible.”

Molly gave the red box another glance as it was shuffled out the door. Soft thumping noises resonated from within. She felt sick with the poor Wadi locked away like that, even sicker that it would be put on display rather than set free.

The look on Dani’s face told her it was no use arguing. She turned to her friends.

“We need to go,” she told them.

The four of them boarded one of the shuttles. Dani and Walter’s Questioner joined them, as well as the three Circle members, one of whom cradled the red box in his lap. A guard settled into the driver’s seat and began fiddling with the controls. The large half-circle of a vehicle rocked slightly as everyone settled among the rows of benches.

Molly got comfortable and peered through her window, watching the guards load into the other shuttle. They looked like a small Marine contingent gearing up for war. Their shuttle would set off toward the train station to intercept Bodi’s group, which reportedly had refueled and turned around after hearing of Molly’s and Edison’s completion of the rite.

The shuttle with Molly and her friends, meanwhile, would head directly for the city, meeting another shuttle to transfer some fuel, before proceeding on to a defense spaceport. The Circle members, two of which were related to Anlyn, would log the new Drenards into the planetary system—and they supposedly would be cleared to leave.

Molly wondered how and where they would meet up with Anlyn and whether she was being protected from Bodi’s scheming. She also was having trouble believing they really would be allowed to fly away, not with so many people after them. Her trust of the Drenard people was on the wane.

The driver snapped the door shut, locking out the wind, and took them around the shelter. He headed straight for the glowing city over the horizon.

Molly had so many more questions for Dani, but the red bands had been taken, along with her ability to communicate. The frustration of not being able to speak, of having relied solely on human tongues and their wide adoption, fixed her resolve: she was going to learn some other languages. Maybe get her mother to teach her Drenard.

She wondered if her mom had had a similar experience years ago and if that was why she had taken up the alien language.

The shuttle lurched side to side in the oncoming breeze, the occupants swaying together. The sound of gusts roaring against the metal hull became deafening at times. Molly sat with Cole, their hands interlocked, her eyes fixed on the red box in the Circle member’s lap.

Cole asked Edison how he was feeling, and Molly heard something about “meeting expectations” and “being up to spec.” She smiled at Walter, who was bugging his Questioner for a red band and pantomiming a complaint. One of the first bumps had spilled red juice down his new tunic, and he kept inquiring about a fresh one.

After what felt like several hours, the tall buildings in the distance seemed no nearer than they had been. New, smaller buildings had come into view—so Molly knew they were approaching the horizon—it was just a testament to how far away the city lay. And how tall those buildings must be, stretching up since they couldn’t build out. The only structures out this far were tall towers with five blades—an ancient windmill farm. The rusting hulks hung against the black sky, monuments to an age before fusion power and fuel cells.

“Seems like a lot of prime real estate,” Molly mused aloud, her forehead pressed to the glass.

“They can’t build out here,” Cole told her.

“Why not? Seems shady enough.”

“You and Dani didn’t spend much time on planetary astronomy, did you?”

“Ha. No. I spent our time together trying to convince him the Drenard treatment of women belittled them rather than honored them.”

“Gods. I’m glad I wasn’t there for that one.”

“Why? You just would’ve seen us staring at each other in silence. Well, with my arms waving now and then.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, you would’ve been miserable. But you would’ve been taking my side, right?”

Cole sighed for effect. “I would’ve been saying whatever you wanted me to say, Madame Fyde.”

Molly slapped at Cole’s shoulder playfully. “See? You sound just like them!”

“See why you never learned about this planet? You can’t stay focused. Typical—”

“You say anything gender-related, and my jabs are gonna turn into haymakers, buddy.”

Cole held up his hands in mock surrender. “Can I tell you why they can’t build out here?”

“I guess,” she said, her arms crossing in mock anger.

“It’s because there are two Drenard stars. They have overlapping cones of light the planet swings through.”

“So they have seasons?”

Cole laughed at this. “Yeah, I guess. Summer and Summest.”

Molly rolled her eyes.

“It isn’t really seasons, not like we have. Dozens of our years go by before the two stars orbit each other and the planet lines up just right for the terminator to move. Then it’ll stay like that for dozens more years. There are probably Wadi shelters on the other side of the planet that you can’t get to right now ’cause they’re baking in the heat for another cycle.”

“Wow.” Molly turned and gazed through the window, thinking on these cycles. “How much you wanna bet,” she asked Cole, “that all the old species on this planet were migratory at some point?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“Any ideas about where that water came from in those caves you were in?”

“I haven’t had a chance to ask Dani about that. Probably condensation. If some of those tunnels go all the way to the cool side, you might get a convection current—”

“Look!” Molly interrupted.

It was the other shuttle, parked on a small rise and facing them, waiting. There was an armed Drenard male standing by the large vehicle, his tunics flapping in the breeze. He waved at their driver, who raised a hand in response. Their shuttle slowly pulled past the parked one and swerved to line up on the other side.

Molly watched the Circle Members lean together and converse in low tones. Edison had his head against his window, softly snoring, while Walter ran down the aisle toward the rear glass so he could get a better view of the recharging process. The guard outside waved their driver back until the flattened sterns of both vehicles were just a meter apart, lined up for the energy transfer.

“Should we step out and stretch our legs, see if we can help?” Cole asked.

“I’d rather stay inside,” Molly said. She watched Walter press his metallic face to the rear of the shuttle, peering down. Beyond him, through both sets of glass, she could see several shapes moving in the other vehicle.

“Besides,” she said, “something doesn’t feel—”

She was about to say right, just as things started to go very wrong.

Armed Drenard guards spilled out of the other shuttle and marched around toward theirs. One of the Circle members that had ridden with Molly’s bunch stood outside the door of their shuttle; he urged the soldiers forward, waving his blue arm frantically.

“Cole—”

“I see it.”

“Edison, wake up!”

Molly moved into the aisle and turned to the one armed guard they had on their side.

The guard raised his lance.

But not in the direction she’d hoped.

And Molly finally saw just how wrong things were about to get.

19

The world slowed down, coming to a halt like a Drenard day. Molly saw Dani yelling at the official with the red box in his lap. The third Circle Member stood in the aisle, facing Molly’s group with his hands wide, palms out. Their driver watched from the front of the shuttle, his lance parallel to the floor and pointed back their way.

Without bands, there was no way to ask anyone what was going on. Dani seemed furious about something. The other Questioner approached the front of the vehicle and the driver. Out of the corner of her eye, Molly could see the line of guards advancing up the side of their shuttle.

What a perfect plan, she thought. The Circle members had sent Dani’s contingent of guards in one direction while they led them, defenseless, into a trap in the middle of nowhere. Before she could fully admire the scheming involved, the world around her burst back into motion. A cacophony of soothing sounds—Drenards arguing in their cooing tongue—rang out. Behind her, Molly could hear a fierce and throaty roar.

“Easy, Edison,” she heard Cole say.

Spinning in the aisle, she saw Cole, bent over the back of his seat, trying to keep Edison restrained. Walter remained by the back glass, but he was looking forward, trying to hiss something.

He pointed, his arm quivering, at Molly.

Or past her.

She whirled around just as the driver’s lance arced out, cutting Walter’s Questioner in two. The upper half of the Drenard’s body kept going forward, arms flailing, while the lower half kicked back between the rows of seats. Both halves trailed ropes of gore, glistening wet with blood.

Molly’s eyes burned from the bright flash. She felt someone grabbing her around her neck and looked down to see a blue arm across her chest.

Through the haze, she watched Cole leap forward, wide-eyed and wild looking. Molly tried to tell him to not try anything, but in slow motion he and Edison started moving over the seats to launch a suicidal attack on the front of the bus. The Circle Member that had Molly pinned began dragging her to the front, cooing something in her ear.

Her back was toward the danger: the guard in the front of the bus. She tried to wiggle around to see what he was doing, but the best she could manage was to look sideways. Her captor dragged her past Dani, who remained frozen in his seat, his arms up in the universal stance of submission. His eyes locked with Molly’s as she was pulled by. Then she saw him glance down at something—something ahead of him. It came into view as she was pulled closer to the front of the shuttle.

The red box.

The third Circle Member clutched it with one hand; his other one held a small device leveled at Dani, a gun of some sort.

Molly reached up and grabbed the arms holding her across her chest. She gripped them as she tightened her stomach muscles, pulling her knees to her chin, her feet high off the ground. The Circle Member started pulling her forward faster now; she was almost out of range before she had time to act.

She lashed out with both feet, aiming for that frustrating clasp. The kick drove the red box into the abdomen of the Circle Member.

The air rushed out of the elder Drenard.

And something else rushed out of the box.

The Wadi Thooo was free!

She shot from her prison and under a ledge of some sort, looking for a dark place. The air was full of scents. Many of them. More than she had ever smelled in close proximity. Some were tendrils of fear, leading back to their source as vividly as colored columns of smoke. Other smells were bright arms of rage and deceit, smells the female Wadi knew well. Male smells. Powerful odors from big Wadi. But she’d fought plenty of large Wadi in her day. The males of her kind might grow large with age, but the females grew wise.

And she was older than she looked in those ways.

She kept her moisture tongue tucked in its pouch and flicked her scent tongue in wide patterns through the air. There was another smell here, fainter than the others, and new. Not as primal and dominant as those she’d known for so many cycles of the two lights.

It was the good smell. A trace of kindness floating in the air, thin as a single ray of light and surrounded by all that reeking blackness given off by fear and rage.

The Wadi stuck her head out from under the ledge and sniffed it all in, her tongue sampling the many wisps of mingling emotions, all wrapped around one another. There was much going on—much feeling—but she could see exactly where they all led. Could tease them apart like bright plumes of smoke emanating from holes in the rock.

Another bright flash erupted by Molly as the driver’s deadly lance lashed out again, this time in the direction of her friends. The bolt arced toward Cole and Edison, splitting between them and shattering the transparent shield out of the rear of the shuttle.

Walter fell to the ground, showered with chunks of glass. Edison roared and grabbed his arm, smoke rising from his fur, but he and Cole renewed their push forward. Molly yelled for them to stop as Dani continued to struggle with the stunned Circle Member, trying to wrestle his small weapon away—

Something rushed at Molly’s head, something small and fast. It pushed off her shoulder and went right by her ear. The blue arms clutching her chest flew away, pawing the air above her.

Molly threw a high elbow, back into the stomach of her captor. She was the closest one to the front of the shuttle, so it was up to her to get to that guard. She needed to attack an armed male Drenard.

Alone.

She didn’t pause to think about it. Spinning around the Circle Member, she took three large steps, vaulted over the remains of the Questioner in the aisle, and threw herself at the driver.

He brought the lance around from Cole and Edison to fend off the new threat.

Molly crashed into the large blue arm holding the lance; it was like trying to tackle a marble column. The guard’s other hand came around and grabbed at her tunic. She found herself climbing a rock face, looking for purchase, kicking off a large blue knee and scampering toward the head high above.

The guard seized one of her arms and wrenched it, filling her entire body with pain. Molly cried out, then looked up to see the Drenard sneering back down at her. Both combatants had open mouths—one in the effort of causing pain—the other in the resulting agony.

Molly felt herself slipping, forced down by the strength in that one arm. The other brought the lance up to lash out at her two friends, threatening to cut them in half. Molly saw the handhold she needed but wasn’t sure if she could reach it. She lunged against gravity and the powerful blue grasp, stretched her body out, one arm extended as long as it could, her hand shaped into a hook.

Three fingers went into the Drenard’s mouth; she pulled his jaw down with all her weight, could feel sharp teeth sinking down to the bones in her fingers, but they just improved her grip, her flesh hanging on a line of razors.

The chin snapped down and another flash from the lance went wide, exploding through the side of the shuttle. Molly pulled herself up as the grip on her arm loosened, a confused shock rippling through her towering blue enemy. She pulled her other arm free and made a fist, her thumb out and stiffened. She drove it as hard as she could into the Drenard’s large eye, the only visible weakness on the alien’s massive frame.

Warm fluid splashed back onto her hand and coursed down her arm. She pulled back to strike again when someone grabbed her from behind.

“Watch out!”

Cole pressed her flat as another shot flashed through the air, right where she’d been. She found herself sandwiched between the fallen Drenard and Cole, her cheeks crushed from both sides. Her eyes faced the shuttle steps where several guards held lances, trying to work their way aboard single file.

Molly felt Cole roll off her and pull her away from the driver. Edison took their place on the prone guard and began doing something brutal with his claws.

“Let me go!” Molly yelled, trying to fight off Cole, but her shoulder hurt too much.

Another light flashed at the front of the shuttle. Molly spun, expecting to see Edison cut in half, but he was holding the driver’s lance, had it leveled at the open door. Smoke and screaming billowed in from outside.

Cole stumbled backward; Molly pushed off him and ran forward.

“Help Dani!” she shouted over her shoulder. She didn’t look back to see how that was going—there was too much she needed to do at the front of the shuttle. The guards outside still had them trapped, and in a vehicle that didn’t have enough fuel for an escape!

Edison knelt on top of the dead driver, his lance pointed at the smoke by the door. Molly squeezed around him and threw herself in the driver’s seat. There were dozens of buttons and indicators on the dash; she knew Walter or Edison would be able to tell at a glance how to operate this thing—

Then she saw something familiar. A single black handle rising out on the left side that looked like a standard flight control. Molly hoped logic guided Drenard design aesthetics and grabbed the joystick. Movement to her right distracted her—another guard making a charge on the shuttle, his lance raised and ready to lash out. He was almost in the door when Molly jerked back on the control stick.

The shuttle lurched in reverse, driving the jamb of the door into the guard, sending him spinning.

No sooner had the shuttle shot into motion—it crashed to a dead stop, slamming violently against the rear of the shuttle behind them.

Edison fell backward into the aisle, and Molly was nearly thrown to the ground. She spun out of the seat, dazed, and grabbed handfuls of Edison’s fur, helping him up.

“The glass!” she shouted, pointing at the lance.

“Acknowledged.” He lumbered back down the aisle, stepping over several dead Drenard. The sight of so much violence and blood stunned Molly, but the sounds of guards rallying outside forced her back into action. She took a step toward the rear—

And something flew up from one of the dead Drenards and latched onto her tunic. Molly nearly fell back in panic before she realized what it was: the Wadi. The creature pulled herself up Molly’s tunic and curled around her neck.

Behind them, feet stomped into the shuttle. Molly saw Cole helping Dani, who looked injured but otherwise okay. She ran to them, urging them both toward the rear, where another burst of light flashed, followed by an explosion of glass. Molly looked up to see Edison tossing Walter from one shuttle to the other. The Glemot turned to beckon them forward, looking incredibly fearsome in his tunic, the long metal lance waving about.

Molly and Cole pulled Dani with them as they struggled toward the rear. Molly heard a lance crackle—a now familiar and sickening sound. A bench to her side exploded in a cloud of fabric and stuffing, the hair on the back of her neck standing at attention from the static discharge. Ahead of her, Edison made to retaliate, but there wasn’t a clear shot. He waited until Molly, Cole, and Dani reached him, then finally fired an electrical blast forward, providing some cover.

Dani went through the abutting windows first, stepping over the matching and crushed jambs. Cole helped Molly through next, yelling at Edison to get a move on. Molly didn’t waste any time. The guards outside could see through the glass and tell what they were doing. She saw two of them race along the outside of the fuel shuttle, trying to get to the open front door.

Taking off in a sprint, Molly pumped her weary legs. She was in a footrace with the figures outside—one unarmed human female rushing toward the same finish line as two armed Drenard males. The Wadi across her shoulders wrapped its tail tightly around her neck, holding on, but also making it difficult to breathe, its little claws digging in and burning.

She didn’t have time to see if Cole and Edison were through the improvised escape hatch. They were or they weren’t—they all were dead if she faltered. Passing the last bench, she threw herself around the side of the driver’s seat and slammed the control handle forward as hard and fast as she could. Outside, the first guard came into view, lance raised. She felt the hair on her arms tickle as the thing charged, the point aimed inside the doorway.

And then he was gone. Electric motors flew into gear, propelling the shuttle forward, knocking the lance to the side and sending the blast out over the empty wasteland. Molly held the lever forward, hurtling them, unguided, away from the fracas. She peered back down the aisle toward the rear.

Cole and Edison were there, holding themselves against the jamb of the glass, the lurch forward having nearly sent them out through the opening.

She signed as they clutched one another, regaining their balance.

Safe.

20

Molly rested in the bench behind the driver’s seat. The hand she’d injured in the guard’s mouth was wrapped in strips of torn tunic; her good one was intertwined with Cole’s. Ahead of her, Dani drove with one hand, his right arm black and singed from a glancing shot. Without the bands, they couldn’t tell how bad his injuries were, or if it was the gun or lance that had caused them. Molly had tried to tend to the wound while he steered, but he had waved her away.

The other shuttle had given chase for a few kilometers before its fuel cells ran completely dry. Molly and Cole had debated on whether it was even safe to be heading for the city and who they could trust. Dani, they were sure of. Both Questioners had risked their lives for them—one paying the ultimate price.

In the end, they decided to leave their escape up to Dani, who had to be as paranoid as they after that last trap. Part of Molly was too exhausted to care, eager to have someone else decide. She looked down in her lap where the Wadi lay, curled up and content. Walter had found some food supplies and juice pouches scattered from the crash; the lizard had sucked one of them dry and then fallen asleep.

Every now and then, Dani craned his neck around to gaze at the thing, his eyes wide in wonder.

Leaning forward, Molly looked across the aisle to check on Edison. He’d been tinkering with his lance for the past hour, using his adaptable, prehensile claws to inspect its innards. Molly cautioned him twice to watch where he pointed the thing—she could only guess at what sort of modifications he was making. As if the things needed to be more deadly. She tried to shake the image of Walter’s Questioner out of her mind—his body cut in half, guts spilling everywhere, the putrid odor—but couldn’t quite do it.

As soon as they pulled onto a paved road along the city’s outskirts, the ride improved immensely, and the shuttle became less noisy. A breeze continued to waft in from the broken window in the back, cooling the sweat on Molly’s neck. She squeezed Cole’s hand as they passed a glass dome with trees and plants inside.

“I see it,” he said.

The strange sights outside had Molly longing to ask Dani more about his home planet. But even if she had the means to communicate with him, he seemed too lost in his own thoughts to have hers intrude. Then again, if his morose and contemplative demeanor had anything to do with having been betrayed, she could certainly give him some advice on that. Even if it was just to warn him that it never got easier to take.

For a few kilometers, they continued to approach the distant band of skyscrapers. Then, Dani turned to the right and merged onto a busy road dozens of lanes across. Molly watched the lights illuminating the highway fly by, then followed the vertical poles ahead as they converged on the horizon. She pictured the wide swath of pavement and steel stretching all the way around the planet, like a wedding ring around a finger. She imagined one could drive in a straight line, forever, ending up right where they started. Circumnavigating Drenard would be one endless trip through an unchanging, dawn-soaked city. As boring as that seemed, she felt a strange compulsion to do it, driving all the way around, just to say she had.

Compared to Earth freeways, the traffic was heavy, yet swift. Molly watched Cole’s head spin to follow the odd vehicles that went past, sorting out shapes and models and doing boy-brain things. She was far more interested in spotting the people inside the shapes.

Smaller females that made her think of Anlyn could be seen riding in the back. Children often had their faces pressed to the glass, watching the large shuttle rumble past. Every now and then, blue eyes would widen and flash as they spotted Molly—a human! Disbelieving shock would register on their pale faces and then be lost, replaced with the see-through reflection of Molly’s own image in the glass.

She could see Cole’s reflection in the window as well, looking past her. When their eyes met, they smiled at each other’s reflections. An old habit from the simulator.

They spent almost an hour on the road, moving at a blistering rate of speed. Molly felt tiredness creeping into her head, tugging at her eyelids, but her heart was still racing, her body too keyed up, her accelerator pinned. She wouldn’t be able to sleep until they were safe, even though such states usually ended up being illusory.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Cole asked.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just tired. I feel like we haven’t stopped running in over a month.”

“Yeah. Except for whenever we’re in prison.”

Molly laughed. “I guess we should start appreciating that time a little more.”

“No thanks,” Cole said. “At least when we’re running, we’re together.”

Molly faced him and batted her eyes sarcastically. “Awww. Aren’t you romantic?”

“I’m serious. In fact, that’s what I’ve been thinking about for most of the ride. Along with why this planet doesn’t seem to have any billboards.”

Molly looked out her window to confirm his observation.

“If I hadn’t gone on that trip to Palan with you, what would the rest of my life have been like?”

“Peaceful?” Molly offered.

“Boring, more like. Or empty. I don’t know. Forty years of crunching jump numbers, if I was lucky and didn’t get blasted out of the sky.”

“Why are you thinking about stuff like that?”

“Because I’ve nearly died a few times in the past two days.” He released her hand and rubbed the back of the Wadi as if to remind her of one of those times. “And I’m not freaked out by it. Not like I should be.”

Molly watched his hand slide across the colorful scales between the two protruding stumps on the Wadi’s back. “Do you feel numb or something?”

Cole looked over at her. “No. The opposite. I feel really alive. There’s something about being around you, but I—” He paused.

“But you what?”

“I’ve always felt it a little bit. Even back at the Academy. I always felt like you were special. Different. And back then I thought it was because—”

“Because I’m a girl?” she offered.

“Yeah. But not… that. Not the way I feel about you now. Not at first.”

He stopped petting the Wadi and rubbed his face with both hands. “Man, it’s so hard to explain. And not because I can’t say it—it’s like I just don’t understand it. All I’m saying is that I feel like I’ve lived a good life just by being around you. As friends, and now… whatever else we are.”

Molly reached over and cupped his far cheek, pulling his head around to face her.

“Just tell me you love me. That’s what you’re feeling. That’s what the words are for.”

“I love you,” he said. “I do. But it’s more than that. I promise. When I figure it out for myself, I’ll explain it to you.”

“You do that, handsome.” And she leaned over to give him a kiss.

The Wadi in her lap stirred, sniffing the air. Now that was an emotion she hadn’t sensed in several shifts of the two lights.

The defense spaceport came into view well before they got there. Tall, streamlined shapes stood vertical against the waving tapestry of colorful, sun-setting lights. The shiny hulls scattered the hues in all directions, mixing the beauty of natural wonders with well-planned, artificial forms. The accidental and the engineered played off one another to the betterment of both.

They had to pull through a guard station to enter the facilities. As they queued up in a line of boxier vehicles, Dani turned around and showed them his palms, cooing calmly. Molly hoped he was right if he was trying to convince them that everything was okay.

They filed up to the gate, and a long conversation with the guard ensued. To Molly, the Drenard looked no different than the men they’d battled with several hours earlier. She looked over at Edison and saw the fur dancing in waves across his arms, one of which draped over his seat where she knew his lance lay hidden.

But the gate opened without a fight, the guard waving them through and directing them off to the side.

When they rounded a row of hangars and Molly saw Parsona sitting gracefully on the tarmac, she nearly burst into tears. The ship had gone from representing a lost past and deceased parents, to standing for a hopeful future—one that contained the possibility of reuniting with them.

In some ways, the ship was becoming her mother. Text on a nav screen already felt like the closest thing to a female role model she’d ever had. And the motherly doting—annoying at first—had been sorely missed over the past few days. Molly found it heart-wrenchingly tragic that the only kids who truly appreciated their parents seemed to be the ones who had already lost them.

“Thank gods,” Cole muttered at the sight. Behind them, Walter hissed with delight and scooted up the aisle to get a closer look.

All their excitement paled in comparison to Edison’s reaction as Anlyn descended Parsona’s loading ramp. He growled with delight and nearly crushed Walter in his rush to the door. The shuttle was still moving, but Edison turned and roared at Dani, who was compelled to thumb the door open.

Edison bounded out, almost falling as he fought to match his inertia, his legs pumping him toward Anlyn, who raced out to greet him.

Molly’s eyes filled with water as she watched the two friends swallow each other up. Edison pulled Anlyn off the ground and swung her side to side, feet and tunics waving with delight. Molly squeezed Cole’s hand, recalling the way it had felt to be reunited with him after the Wadi Thooo rite.

Walter stood by the door, hissing at having been stampeded. As soon as the shuttle lurched to a stop, he filed out and hurried toward the ship, waving at Anlyn before disappearing inside. Molly and Cole exited ahead of Dani and waited their turn to greet their friend.

Edison finally set her down, and she turned to face them. She looked… different. All Molly had seen her in was the rags of a slave, Cole’s t-shirts, or one of Walter’s modified flight suits. Here she was, decked out in colorful regalia, her posture erect and proud. She stood beside Edison and commanded attention, despite the difference in size.

Cole stepped forward and gave her a big hug, but Molly saw her looking past him, concentrating on the creature perched on her shoulder.

“So it is true!” Anlyn whispered. She smiled at Cole as she pulled away from him, walking over to Molly with her hand out and shaking. She cooed to the Wadi in her native tongue.

“Hello, Anlyn,” Molly said.

Anlyn broke her pale blue eyes away from the Wadi to meet Molly’s. “I’m so sorry you got mixed up in this,” she said.

Molly put a hand on Anlyn’s arm, squeezing it affectionately. “Don’t be. I’m glad. I’m happy for you and Edison.” She smiled up at him. “I just wish we’d known, so we could’ve helped you.”

“I know,” Anlyn said. “I didn’t plan on… on arriving in a coma. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. I… I was fine one minute, and then I just blacked out. I woke up here and—”

“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine, now. Right?”

Anlyn frowned. “Eventually, perhaps, but not right now. I’ve already heard the reports about the Circle Members and their ambush. The government is going into shock, and rumors are spreading about you and—” she glanced at the Wadi wrapped around Molly’s neck. Its tongue flitted out into the air.

“I haven’t named him, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“It’s a she,” Anlyn said. “If that were a male—” she chuckled in Dani’s fashion, the first time Molly had ever seen her laugh. “—you’d be crushed!”

Dani joined in with her, panting as he came up behind Molly. The spot of levity slightly cracked the dour mood. Molly turned to him, remembered he couldn’t speak English, and looked back to Anlyn. “Can we leave? Is there anything we need to do before we go?”

Anlyn and Dani spoke in Drenard, and the seriousness in her face returned. She turned to Molly. “You can go. Planetary Defense probably wouldn’t attack you right now, even if the Circle demanded it.”

“You? You mean we, right? You’re coming with us. Dani, too.”

Anlyn shook her head. She reached a hand out and grabbed a fold in Edison’s tunic, as if anchoring him in place as well. “I can’t, Molly. I need to stay here. Sorting out the Circle will take time, and I’ll be needed.”

“Oh, my gods, I completely forgot. You are like fourth in line for the throne or something, right?”

Anlyn formed a small circle with her mouth and clucked, shaking her head sadly. “Wrong on two counts, I’m afraid. If I were a male, perhaps. Or if I chose to produce a male—which I will not. And I’m second in line, now. The stir we’ve caused is not just because of your Rite and the Wadi, but the news in the last hour that two of my uncles are dead.”

Molly felt her stomach sink. “Uncles? Oh, gods, Anlyn. I’m so—”

Anlyn waved the thought away with her thin, blue arm. “Don’t be,” she said. “If you will not allow me to apologize for their attempt to kill you, I’ll not hear you explain your self-defense. I heard the wireless report from the guards you stranded, and I know how to translate their lies. I’ve been around Circle members all of my youth, and I am fluent in that language.”

Edison followed up Anlyn’s crushing news with another emotional blow: “My proximity to Anlyn will remain decreased,” he told Molly.

And she understood. All too clearly.

Stepping forward, she pressed herself into his tunic, her friend’s paws wrapping around her back. Molly remembered the last time they’d held each other like that, just a few weeks ago. Edison had asked to join her crew aboard Parsona—and now he was leaving.

She felt the Wadi move from her shoulders and attach itself to Edison. Pulling away, she wiped her cheeks and laughed as the colorful creature scampered to the top of Edison’s head. It swung its neck back and forth, as if taking in the commanding view.

“Ascertain its function,” Edison pleaded, his hands comically frozen halfway to his head.

Cole laughed. “I think it just laid claim to you, pal.” He reached up and coaxed the Wadi down to Edison’s shoulder. “Now do me a favor and hold off on the wedding for a week or so. As soon as we figure out what’s going on with Molly’s parents, I’m coming back to be your best man.”

Edison cocked his head at the expression. “Best by what metric?”

Anlyn patted him. “I’ll explain later.” She started to say something to Cole, then stopped. Instead, she embraced him, and Molly could hear her sweet whisper: “Take care of Molly.”

“I will,” said Cole. “And you take care of Edison.”

The Wadi leapt back to Molly’s shoulders, the movement hardly startling for once. Anlyn turned back to the creature, her eyes lit up. She seemed mesmerized by the sight of the living, docile Wadi.

“Be very careful with her,” she advised.

The tone suggested a responsibility Molly wasn’t sure she wanted to bear.

“Should I leave her with you?” she asked. “How will she survive if we pull Gs or lose cabin pressure? I should leave her here with you, shouldn’t I?”

Anlyn shook her head. “I don’t think you could if you wanted to. You’re bonded, the two of you. Besides, the Gs shouldn’t be a problem, but atmosphere might. She can crawl in my old suit if she just needs some air to breathe. Either way, trust me, she’s less safe here right now.”

Molly nodded. “I wish you didn’t have to stay.”

“I know. Me, too. But there’s something bigger going on than any of us. Something that involves trillions of lives and thousands of galaxies. I thought I could run away from that, avoid duty and take care of myself, but I was wrong. In fact, I was wrong to want to.”

“I don’t understan—”

“It’s okay. Your mother does. She’s been through this before and can explain a lot. I’ve given her permission.”

“My mother? What have you two been—?” She didn’t know how to finish the question.

“She and I have spent most of the last two days together. Talking. I had some Defense Port engineers make a few changes that helped us out, and they should serve you as well. But I’ll let her tell you about them.”

Molly felt a tinge of jealousy, betrayal even, with the passing of secrets, the idea that someone else knew her mother more intimately than she. An alien, no less. She fought these negative emotions down, comforting herself with the knowledge that her mother had company the past few days and had stayed abreast of events.

Anlyn reached out and squeezed Molly’s arm. “Thank you for setting me free,” she said.

Molly felt the tears welling up in her eyes, her heart racing and empty. She leaned in to hug Anlyn.

“Thank you for saving my life,” she told her friend.

Molly and Cole watched the cargo door close on the three friends they were leaving behind. Walter stomped around behind them, opening cubbies and storing away the food and supplies that had been loaded into the ship. He had already changed into his flightsuit, and after the door sealed, Molly and Cole moved off to don theirs.

In her room, Molly shrugged off her filthy tunics and suited up, expecting the worst. The Wadi sat on her dresser and looked at the mirror, bobbing its head up and down while she changed. She laughed, wondering what the creature thought of its reflection.

Scooping the Wadi up, she left her room and heard Cole in the lazarette cycling up the thrusters. Making her way to the cockpit, she performed a quick systems check. Everything looked good. She wondered about radioing for clearance, but wasn’t sure how to communicate with the tower. As soon as Cole returned and gave her a thumbs-up, she lifted off the tarmac and arced away from the band of buildings ringing the planet.

Parsona rose up through the atmosphere, out toward the colorful horizon. Before breaking the ionosphere, the twin Drenard suns popped into view, bathing the cockpit in a warmth that seemed gentle, innocuous even.

While they waited for the hyperdrive to spin up, Molly navigated through the outbound buoys, waiting for an attack that never came, flying past menacing ships that spun in place, not even radioing her, just watching.

She tried to concentrate on the gauges—then saw the fusion fuel at one hundred percent, which gave her some tenuous sensation of freedom.

They were back on the run, but at least they had fresh legs.

She began visualizing the half-dozen jumps it would take to get to Dakura, but she did so in her head, leaving the nav screen free to check in with her mother. She pulled the keyboard out and typed:

MOM?_

“Mollie?”

The voice came out through the radio speakers, scaring the hyperspace out of her and Cole both. Cole reached for the mic as a reflex, obviously thinking they were being hailed. Molly jerked her hands away from the computer; the Wadi scurried to the back of her seat.

“Mollie?” the voice said again.

“Hello?” Cole asked.

“Is that Cole?”

Cole turned to Molly. “I told you she could hear us!’

“I can now,” the ship said—her mom said. It was a pleasant voice, not chipped and halting the way her old reader used to spit out text. It sounded natural, as a computer might if it could generate sounds from scratch.

“Is this what Anlyn did?”

“Yes. And more. I can see now.”

“What do you mean?” Molly asked.

“They tied me into the SADAR unit. And the cargo camera. Oh, Molly, it was all I could do not to say something when you guys boarded, but I knew it was best to explain on the way.”

“You can see through the cargo bay cam?”

“Yes. And you are so beautiful, Molly. Just as I imagined you.”

Molly reached forward to turn the volume down and power the cockpit door shut. She pulled up the cargo cam and saw Walter strapped to his seat, playing his videogame contentedly.

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Can we keep these upgrades between the three of us for now?”

“Of course, sweetheart, but may I ask why?”

“You can. And I’ll tell you later.”

“Take your time. Speaking of time, having something to look at paces it for me, like a little clock. The agonizing wait between sentences is gone. And I can read the old ship’s logs from the nav computer, the entries your father and I wrote—”

“That’s great, Mom. After we jump out of here, I’m gonna need to ask you some questions.”

“Of course. And I’ll be happy to tell you what I can.”

“Can?” Molly glanced at Cole. “Because of what you know or because of what you’re allowed to say?”

“Some of both,” her mother said, the worry in her voice not sounding artificial at all.

21

The stars shifted positions, and Parsona exited hyperspace.

Molly looked down at the Wadi in her lap, wondering if it was going to throw up on her flightsuit as it experienced its first bout of hyperspace. The curious creature just flicked its tongue and looked at the dash as if it were already bored of space travel.

“Ninety four percent,” Cole advised Molly.

“Plenty. Should be enough to get to Dakura and then back to Lok. We’ll fill up in Bekkie.”

Cole leaned forward and peered at the star charts. “Keep in mind that we aren’t going in a straight shot, though. We can’t risk leaving the Drenard arm of the Milky Way anywhere along the center. The Navy’ll be looking for us.”

“It should still be enough. If we jump out to here, we can make a really long jump across the arm divide to here; there’s not much mass out there to throw us off.” Molly marked rough waypoints on her screen so Cole could see them on his.

The cockpit door slid open, and Walter stuck his head inside. “What are you guyss doing?” he asked.

Cole turned. “Just planning out our run to Dakura, buddy.” He said it with sincerity, impressing Molly once more with how hard he kept trying to make friends with Walter.

His reward, she noted, was the boy’s familiar sneer.

He turned to Molly. “Can I hold the Wadi?” he asked.

“Why don’t you get a juice pouch and see if she’s thirsty?”

He scampered back to the galley, and Cole and Molly exchanged a look. The Wadi flicked a tongue out at the dashboard.

“You really need to name her,” Cole said, nodding at the Wadi.

“I know, but the pressure’s killing me. Anlyn and Dani seem to think she’s important somehow.” Molly thought for a second. “Do I have to give her a last name with a bunch of o’s? Just for tradition?”

“How about Collette?”

“How about not.”

Walter ran back in with a juice pouch and peeled the suction tube straight. He leaned over the flight controls and waved it in front of the Wadi. The creature sniffed the air and crawled up Molly’s flightsuit, wrapping itself around her neck.

“I guesss sshe issn’t thirssty,” Walter hissed sullenly.

“It’s okay,” Molly told the Wadi, peeling its tail off and handing it to Walter. The boy took the thing at arm’s length and hissed playfully at it.

“Be very gentle with her.”

“I will,” Walter promised. He walked out of the cockpit, the Wadi’s arms pawing at the air.

Molly tapped Cole on the elbow. “Can you take the next shift?”

“Yeah, sure. You gonna get some sleep?”

“I wish.” Molly grabbed her helmet off the rack above her head. “I need to have a talk with Mom. Keep an eye on the cargo cam, would you?”

“Sure thing. You okay?”

Molly leaned over Cole’s chair and kissed his cheek. “I’m fine. I promise. I just have some questions I want answered.”

“Take your time. I’ll radio you before our next jump. I’m doing a slow spool—I’m worried we might’ve damaged the drive with so many emergency cycles earlier. So it’ll be a few hours before we can jump again.”

“Perfect. You get some rest up here. If you can.” Molly entered the cargo bay and saw Walter holding a juice pouch over his head, the Wadi swinging its claws at it.

“Don’t tease the Wadi, Walter.”

“Yesss, Captain.”

She glanced up at the camera in the corner of the cargo bay and gave Cole a stern look. Just in case he was watching.

Molly plopped down on her bed and pulled her helmet down tight. She didn’t bother locking the collar, and she left the visor open to breathe the ship’s air. Crossing her legs, she keyed the radio mic, hoping this would work.

“Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

The voice sounded just as pleasant through her helmet as it had in the cockpit.

“We need to talk.”

“I have plenty of CPU cycles to devote to you— Oh, we’re on your private channel. Is this about Cole? Because I don’t know that I’m ready for that talk—”

Molly brought her palms up to her helmet in disbelief and embarrassment. “Mooom! Ew, noooo. I do not want to talk about Cole. We barely kiss—”

“I just want you to be safe—”

“You want me to be safe? Good, because that’s what I want to talk about. No more secrets, Mom. I mean it. If you knew what I’ve been through the last two days—”

“I do know.”

“You know what? Just what Anlyn told you? Because I don’t think even she—”

“Molly.”

“What?”

“Your father went through the same ordeal.”

Molly had a sudden impulse to plug in her suit and enrich the O₂. She gasped for a full breath, shaking her head. She tried to voice her disbelief, but all she could squeeze out was a small “No.”

“I’m sure your experience differed from his somewhat, but I think I know what you’ve been through.”

“Dad? He—A Drenard? And… and it was more than the rite, Mom. Politicians wanted us dead. I’ve had to help kill people with my bare hands!”

“As have I. It’s what the Navy trained us for. It’s why your father and I wanted you to stay with Lucin, to join the Academy.”

“You planned that? I thought you were dead!”

“It’s complicated.”

“You keep saying that.” Molly could feel her head sweating in her helmet; she reached across her bunk and lowered the air temperature. “Try and explain it to me. Tell me about Lok, about my birth, about where you’ve been. Tell me where Dad is and how I can help him. I’m sick of groping about like a blind person.”

“Give me a minute,” Parsona said.

Molly grabbed a pillow and put it behind her neck. Leaning back, she sandwiched it between the bulkhead and her helmet. “Take your time,” she told her mom. “We aren’t jumping into Dakura until I know what we’re getting ourselves into.”

“Sometimes it’s better to not know what you’re getting yourself into,” Parsona said. “When I was stationed on Lok, I had no idea what lay ahead. I may not have gone if someone had told me. Even if they’d told me how important my work would be. Even if it meant not having you, I don’t know if I would’ve been brave enough to go.

“I met your father on my second day there. But of course, I was having to act as if we’d been together for years—”

“Wait. You weren’t there on your honeymoon? Did Dad lie to me about everything?”

“No, darling. Not everything. The honeymoon was the cover the Navy cooked up. They thought they had everything planned out, as usual, but then they couldn’t even manage to get us on the same flight to Lok. The mission was a mess from the start.

“I thought I knew everything about your father. I spent months with a reader loaded up with his files and bio, memorizing every detail about him. He was doing the same for me, of course, like two illegals marrying for an Earth permit. That part of the mission scared me more than any other, I think. We were both scared, as I found out later. Scared we wouldn’t like each other, that the ruse would be a strain.

“But nothing in those files prepared me for what I felt when I first met him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s hard to explain. Or maybe not. Maybe you felt the same way when you met Cole—”

Molly laughed. “I doubt it. I thought he was a jerk at first. That was my default expectation at the Academy. But we got paired up in the simulators— No, I don’t think that’s right, actually. I do remember feeling something when I met him. He was so handsome, but there was something else. A confidence, but one you could believe in. Like an assurance that had been paid for in full.”

“That’s it!” Parsona said. “That’s what I felt with your father. Of course, he used to say he saw the same things in me—”

“What were you guys doing on Lok?”

“Please understand, there are some things I can’t tell you. And it isn’t because I don’t trust you, I promise. I’ve seen you; I know it’s you, but there are other people I don’t trust.”

“Like who?”

“Almost everyone.”

“Ha. I think I can appreciate that.”

“Molly, what your father and I uncovered on Lok is bigger than any of us. We’ve both had to make some tough decisions, choices I wouldn’t wish on anyone else—”

“Like what decisions? Like having me?” Molly felt ridiculous saying it, but the words hung in the air as if someone else had uttered them. She heard their echo and felt angry and sad.

“Yes. Choosing to have you was one of the hardest decisions we made. It nearly killed me. The decision, I mean… but I don’t regret that choice. I never have. I—”

“Where are you, Mom? Are you still alive somewhere? I don’t want to talk to a computer.”

“Alive? Possibly. Or probably. My body is most likely still alive on the moon of Dakura.”

Molly tried to reach into her helmet to wipe the tears out of her eyes, but the visor wasn’t designed with that in mind. “You have to tell me what I’ll find on Dakura, Mom. I’m not jumping in there if I don’t know what to expect.”

“Of course. I had planned on it. When I say Dakura, I actually mean the large moon that orbits the privately owned planet.”

“Someone owns an entire planet?”

“Arthur Dakura does. Or did. It was sixteen years ago. I was very sick, and your father was willing to do anything to save me. You were a few months old when a man we hardly knew arranged to have me taken to Dakura.”

“The doctors there were able to help you?”

“Yes. But they aren’t the kind of doctors you’re thinking of. Not all of them, anyway. The colony on the moon was founded by Arthur and funded with his vast fortune. He wanted to find a way to cheat death, so he concentrated on the human brain, decoding it, teasing apart the programming like a hacker might reverse engineer some software—”

“Why? How would that let him cheat death?”

“Because—and I can only explain it as it has been explained to me—all we are and all we feel is just filtered through the pathways of our brains. If you keep the brain healthy and ticking, feed it the right programming, you can make it feel alive forever.”

Molly grabbed the pillow from behind her head; her helmet thunked back against the bulkhead. She pulled the pillow into her lap, grasping and releasing fistfuls of fabric anxiously.

“Are you like that, Mom? Am I gonna see your brain in a jar or something like that?”

“No, dear. Well, not exactly. I mean… I look at you and I see a brain in a very lovely jar, a beautiful shell designed to protect it, keep it nourished, move it out of danger. They left me in my own jar, if that makes any sense.”

“I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

“What I’m about to tell you next will likely make you feel worse, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, gods, Mom. What?”

“I haven’t been completely honest with you about what needs doing on Dakura, sweetheart.”

“You said we needed to go there because you’re missing some of your memories.”

“That’s mostly right. But it’s more like misplacing a set of keys. A copy of very important keys. And now we need to make sure nobody else finds them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sweetheart. When we get to Dakura, I need you to kill me.”

22

Molly nearly ripped the pillow completely open. “Do what?” she asked, hoping she’d misheard.

“I need you to kill me. The old me.”

“What in hyperspace for? I thought we were going to rescue you!”

“Sweetheart, you already have rescued me. The real me is the one in here, the one that spent the last few years with your father. The old shell we left behind—”

“Your body.”

“Okay, the body we left behind… it was dying. The man that helped us, he had Arthur’s doctors hook me up to their computers to keep me alive. We thought it was a favor for us, but later, your father realized the man did it for himself. It was years before your father could find a way to steal a copy and install it in the ship.”

“Who was this guy? Why would he do that? And why go back to kill your body? Why does it even matter?”

“We didn’t think it would, your father and I. But years later, we found out who that man was. He isn’t a very nice man. In fact, he isn’t a man at all.”

“Wait—what? Who—or what is he?”

“He’s our real enemy, not the Drenard. That is… it’s hard to explain. We have a complicated past with him, your father and I. You, as well, for that matter.”

“Me?”

“He’s the reason you’re here. He helped deliver you.”

“Deliver me where?”

“Deliver you. As a baby. Your father never told you about your birth?”

“I was six! The only thing I ever asked him about was you, but it just made him quiet.”

“Of course. Poor Mortimor, he always blamed himself…”

“So, who is this guy? Why was he there when I was born?”

“He was following us. Your father and I were tracking down some men for the Navy, and we led him right to them.”

“And he’s not human? What is he?”

“He’s one of the—he’s a burglar, that’s what he is. A simple crook trying to break into our galaxy and open a back door so he can let in—” Her mom fell silent.

“Let in what?”

“I can’t say. I’m sorry. And we’re getting off-topic, anyway.”

“That’s fine with me, because I don’t wanna talk about killing you. The old you, I mean.”

“If I’m—if she’s even still alive. And if we don’t get there before this man does, it might not matter.”

“If it’s been sixteen years, how do you know he hasn’t already?”

“Because he hasn’t had sixteen years; he’s had half a year. And he isn’t the only person that would be interested. Besides, if he’d already accomplished what we aim to prevent, we would know.”

“Gods, Mom. What in the galaxy could you know that’s so important?” Besides how to speak Drenard, she thought to herself.

“It’s difficult to say how much my old self has put together in that brain of hers. It took years for your father and I to realize that all the pieces were there, and stewing. And for all that time, there was nothing we could do about it. You have to believe me, destroying that old body of mine is more important than rescuing your father. And it’s best if you start thinking of that shell as a jar and me as your mother. Neither is easy, I know.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Molly said. “And I still don’t understand what you could know that’s so important.”

“When your father and I were on Lok, there was a popular game show from Earth that was all the rage—”

“Pick That Door,” Molly said.

“That’s right! You’ve seen it?”

“Re-runs on flat panels, not the holovids. And just once or twice—I really hated that show.”

“Yes, well, so did everyone else, but we all watched it. Do you remember the gist of it?”

“Yeah. It was dumb. There were two doors. One had a vacation package to a distant planet and the other had something dangerous from the same planet, like a wild animal or a noxious gas. They described each in detail and the contestant chose to open a door or just go away with nothing.”

“That’s about right. And actually, you make it sound more interesting than it was.”

“What’s your point?”

“Well, dear, that’s what I know. I know which door to open.”

“For a game show?!” Molly nearly tore her helmet off in disgust.

“No, sweetheart. Of course not. For real.”

“Real doors?”

“Oh, yes. And there are terrible things behind one of those doors. Things that other people, some of them in our own Navy, are dying to let out. I know where one of those doors is, and so does… my former self. She also might know what fusion fuel is made of, which could lead to problems.”

“I can’t believe either is more important to you than rescuing Dad.”

“If we don’t do this first,” Parsona said, “the hell your father’s living in will be the only safe place in the universe. Sweetheart, if we fail—there’ll be nowhere to rescue him to.”

Molly wasn’t sure what to make of the plan. She half-expected to arrive at Dakura and discover she’d been played a fool the entire time. Cole’s doubts about her mother’s artificial existence gnawed at her. She tucked her helmet under her arm and went to speak with him, but as she entered the cargo bay, she saw Walter and the Wadi, and froze.

“What are you doing?” she cried, rushing toward them. Walter had a red band around his head and he was attempting to fit another one around the Wadi’s. “Where’d you get those?”

Walter looked up at her with an innocent expression. “I’m trying to talk to the Wadi,” he explained.

“And where did you get those?” she asked again.

Walter looked at the ribbon in his hand, as if he needed to confirm what she was talking about. “During the fight in the sshuttle. Finderss keepersss.” Walter touched the one around his head. “Thiss one iss mine.”

Molly reached down to pick up the Wadi. It leapt to her arms before she got all the way there, wrapping itself around the back of her neck.

Its tongue flicked out twice. Once in Walter’s direction and once to touch Molly’s cheek.

Walter pouted at the loss.

“I’m going to need to keep those.” Molly indicated the band in his hand and the one on his head.

“They’re mine,” he insisted. His metallic-colored face flushed with a dull glow.

“And they can stay yours, but I’m going to keep them in the cockpit, okay? They’re too important to play with like toys.”

Walter looked devastated. “I’m the ssupply officser,” he said.

“And I’m the captain,” she reminded him, her hand out.

Walter took the band off his head and placed them both in her palm. “It wassn’t working, anyway,” he said, consoling himself.

Molly wrapped her fingers around the bands and marched to the cockpit.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on the cargo cam for me,” she said to Cole as soon as she entered.

“No problem—” Cole spun in his seat. “Wait. You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you? But he’s been right there this whole time—” he stopped and stared at the red bands in her hand. “Where’d you get those?”

“Walter stole them. He was playing dress-up with the Wadi.”

Cole gestured at the security screen on the dash. “Like I could tell that from this.” His eyes narrowed. “Can your mom hear us fighting?”

“Probably not. Not with the mic turned off.” Molly placed her helmet on its rack, and the Wadi moved to the back of her seat. She climbed over the control console and slumped into her chair. “Hyperspace on ice,” she murmured, looking down at the bands.

“What’s the big deal? He is a born pirate, you know.”

“Yeah, no… gods, I don’t know.” Molly dropped the bands and rubbed her face. She tested her theory: “Mom?”

There was no response.

“Do you need to talk?” Cole asked.

Molly turned to him. His thick, perfectly shaped eyebrows formed twin arcs of concern over his green eyes. Molly reached over and squeezed his arm. “Mom told me why we have to go to Dakura.”

“Something about her memories, right?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t want them back.”

“What, then?”

“She wants them erased. Permanently.”

Cole looked out the carboglass at the stars while Molly told him what she’d learned, what little of it made sense to her. The only thing she left out was her mom’s mention of fusion fuel, and maybe knowing what it was made of.

It didn’t seem important at the time.