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 . . .