by Hugh Howey
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.
