“Of course,” Cole conceded, “I’m actually more interested in the philosophical underpinnings. Theories of universal language acquisition were long ago crushed on Earth. Linguists found—”
“Your linguists know less than nothing,” Dani interrupted. “Besides, the answer you are looking for has more to do with biology—with the reason all forms in this galaxy are almost identical.”
Cole saw an opening for more answers and pressed the point. “You said something about this before—”
Dani made a gruff coughing sound. “Excellent attempt, but I was merely deducing what you didn’t know.”
They arrived at Cole’s room; the bars were still up. Dani opened the door and held out his hand, his eyes focused on Cole’s forehead.
He didn’t want to give it up, the band or the line of questioning. “Why are we so similar?” Cole thought.
He watched the fingers in the outstretched hand curl into a blue fist. Dani fell silent for a moment, looked up and down the hall, then relayed a cryptic answer: “I have become an expert, as much as a Drenard can, on your planet Earth. What fascinated me the most was the way its plates move, how they shift continents over time. Where once, they were bunched up, now they are far apart.” Dani paused and scanned the hallway. “Our galaxy—even our universe is like this. It wasn’t long ago that things were much closer—in a strange sense of the word.
“Information used to flow back and forth between worlds, even between galaxies. Sometimes it still does. Take the pouched mammals on your Southern continent: they are unique, but similar to the other fur-covered animals elsewhere. Information was shared, but eventually those plates grew apart. For the same reasons, our galaxy is dominated by common forms.”
Cole looked at Dani’s fist, then met his gaze. “You’re talking about homology. Divergent evolution. But how is that possible? How, over such vast distances—?”
Dani peered down the hall and thought to Cole without looking at him. The words came soft, like a mental whisper: “Are you familiar with extremophiles?”
“Yeah,” Cole answered, “small organisms that live in acid, or deep in the crust, or around thermal vents.”
“Keep your thoughts soft. Yes, but you have it backwards, friend. We are the extremophiles. We live between the cold and hot, up in the wild weather and under an assault of radiation. A thermal vent is safe by comparison, a stagnant niche. Our planet, like your own, is dominated by invisible creatures, smaller than one of our own cells. They rule the universe, much as your genes rule your own behavior.”
The fist blossomed into a palm, insisting. “There, I’ve thought too much.”
Cole reached up, but before he could peel the red band from his head, he heard one last compliment.
“You’ve taken the next step down that path,” Dani thought.
••••
The “days” that followed were marked by the window in his room. The pane would glow to full strength, then fade to black in what Cole quickly recognized as artificial aesthetics. They fed him twice a day on an exacting schedule; Dani joined him for every morning meal. During one of these sessions, he asked Cole if the twenty-four hour cycle pleased him. Cole had to explain to his friend and captor how very little sunlight he and most humans got back home, which turned into an interesting conversation about the universality of youth.
Amazing topics such as these were welcomed. It dawned on Cole one day that he was furthering Dani’s research, and wondered what his instructors at the Academy would say about his inability to withstand such a pleasant interrogation. They would likely point out what a dupe he’d been to fall for the comfortable bed, the lavish meals, the blatant good-cop/bad-cop routine.
The prison bars, gilded with gold, would undoubtedly become official Navy policy for softening up detainees. Cole had no doubt they would’ve mocked him for his performance, right before they airlocked him for committing treason.
He had little doubt this was taking place, that his friendship with Dani—formed out of mutual respect and a fondness for philosophical musings—was nothing but a ploy. He even wondered, with every topic they covered, if the data gathered would one day be used to invade Earth, kill and maim his fellow humans, or just turn the tide of a major battle.
If such were the case, he would be devastated, but he would be surprised. Something about the red bands, the ability to share thoughts directly, overcame all else. There was a level of trust, of connecting, that Cole would never have imagined he’d enjoy so much. One night, alone in bed, he imagined sharing the experience with Molly, of hearing her thoughts over the red bands.
But then, knowing what she might hear in return, it gave him pause . . .
Four days went by. The exercise and the conversations with Dani the only variables. Everything else remained the same.
Until Anlyn woke up.
The first sign was a slap on the stone door during Cole’s morning bath. The break in the routine startled him; he reached for a towel and dried himself hurriedly, expecting guards to barge right in.
Instead, there was another bout of insistent slapping. He fought the urge to yell, “Coming!” in English and hurried to the door, twisting the edges of his towel together to hold it in place.
The first thing he noticed as he pulled the door slowly toward him was the gold bars. They were still in place.
Then he saw his next surprise:
Molly.
The bars didn’t stop them; the cold metal just became a part of their embrace. For days, Cole had been holding back a dam of emotions, knowing that worry would not do her any good even as it eroded his own strength away. He could feel that all break, spilling through the gaps in the barrier.
Molly started crying, her head resting on his arm. He reached through the bars, encircled her, rubbed her back, and pressed a corner of his forehead against hers. Tears of joy streaked down his cheeks.
When she said his name, it sounded like honey tastes. And it was great to hear English spoken in someone else’s voice. Especially hers. She started rambling and Cole let the sound of it wash over him:
“Anlyn’s gonna be okay,” she said. “She woke up yesterday, verified our story. They told me last night and said I could be the one to tell you. Oh, gods, how I’ve missed you—” She sniffled and tried to calm herself down. Cole glanced down the hall at her silent Drenard escorts, lances in hand.
Molly broke off and snuck one hand back to wipe at her face. She smiled up at Cole, flush with embarrassment. “I’m a mess,” she said.
“You look great,” he assured her.
She laughed once and looked away. “I have to go,” she said sadly. “They want to talk with each of us over one more meal. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
Cole could just grin and nod. He watched her pad away, her shapeless Drenard tunic somehow riveting—her long limbs moving with ease and the whites of her bare feet winking back at him as they flew up from the carpet. He could have bent the solid bars and walked right through, he was sure of it. He could feel it welling up in his chest, his arms, his cheeks.
He finally shut his door, went back to the bathroom and finished drying off. Then he got dressed and sat on his bed, staring at the soft artificial light glowing through the window, waiting for it to get brighter, willing the false day along as fast as it could go.••••
When the Drenards came for him that evening, Dani was not among them. Two guards led Cole down to the interrogation room and waved him through the door. He was the last to arrive.
Molly jumped out of her chair and wrapped him up in a tight squeeze. Edison sauntered over and slapped at his shoulder hard enough to knock Molly out of the embrace. Walter, of course, stayed in his chair, his mouth already full of food. His only greeting was to wave a large piece of meat back and forth.
“Where’s Anlyn?” Cole asked.
“Alert, but unwell,” Edison grumbled. “A personal visit is currently under some degree of consideration.”
Cole rested his hand on his friend’s back. “It might’ve been my fault,” he said. “The alterations to Walter’s old suit and all. I’m really sorry. I’m just . . . I’m glad she’s okay.”
Edison swiped at his cheeks, too choked up to say anything.
Molly waved Cole into the empty seat on her side of the table; she kept one hand on his arm as they ate, as if terrified of losing contact with him. They dug into the usual fare, but Cole couldn’t believe how much better it all tasted with his friends around. They traded snippets and stories. Edison had some singed fur on his chest that everyone had to see, and they all agreed with Walter that the beds slept extraordinarily well. Molly went on for a solid ten minutes on the bathtubs, how ingenious the plumbing system was, how hot she could stand the water, and the fact that she’d practically been living in the thing.
Nobody mentioned the rooftop and its perpetual sunrise, so Cole didn’t either. Still, each of them seemed to know much that the others didn’t. Their individual personalities had steered the sessions along unique paths. Walter could tell them more about the gold bars, the doorknobs, and marble than the rest of them combined. Through large and rapid bites of food, he told his friends about how the planet used to spin and be full of trees and life, but that over billions of years it had wound down like a clock due to the pull of the two stars, and how all the trees were petrified and that massive machines quarried them out of the dark side of Drenard.
“It’ss jusst rock,” he said, “yet it’ss pricselesss!” He hissed this last word through his teeth, one of the few English words with such a construction that Palans repeated with relish.
As Walter tore into another plate of food, Cole noticed Edison picking at his plate, his eyes level but focused on something in the distance.
“Cuisine not up to your standards?” Cole asked. “Miss the dehydrated stuff from the ship already?”
Edison shook his head quickly and returned to eating.
Molly set down her fork. “What’s up?” she asked him. “Is it Anlyn?”
He nodded.
“She’s gonna be okay, right? Isn’t that what you heard?”
Edison shrugged his massive shoulders, his reluctance to speak uncharacteristic and troubling. Molly wiped her mouth with her napkin and reached a hand across the table. “Is it something else? Do you want to talk about it?”
The Glemot remained still a moment, looked up at her, then to Cole. “Unsound reasoning to transport Anlyn to this destination,” he finally said.
“Why?” Cole asked. “Isn’t this where she wanted to come?”
Edison remained silent.
“I wouldn’t have if I were her,” Molly said, picking up her fork. “Not after learning about Drenard culture from Dani.”
“What are you talking about?” Cole asked. “They practically worship women here. They put them on pedestals, for Pete’s sake.”
“They aren’t raised up on platforms, darling, they’re hoisted in cages. Gods, no wonder I feel so connected to her, she’s dealt with the same stuff I have. Except, here, the males are even more disproportionately large, so the women aren’t allowed to do anything for themselves—”
“Good idea,” Walter said.
“It sounds like hell, to me,” Molly countered.
“Too much like the Academy?” Cole asked.
She turned back to him. “It was more than the Academy.” She looked away, the mood of the feast shattered. “You wouldn’t know what it feels like,” she muttered.
“What what feels like? Being small? Defenseless? Scared?” Cole pushed his plate away from him and lowered his voice. “The next time you ask me about my childhood, I promise I won’t dodge it, okay?”
Molly nodded as the table fell silent, save for Walter’s smacking sounds as he inhaled another plate of food.
“Sso, you guyss hear about the Wadiss?” he asked between shovelfuls.
Cole looked across the table and noticed Edison’s strong reaction to the word, his fur bristling.
“Highly adapted to the calefactōrius hemisphere,” the Glemot said excitedly. “And symbolic trinkets of entry to Drenardian racehood. Female Wadis—”
Edison went on, his voice droning like the roar of distant thunder, coming in never-ending rolls. Cole picked at his food and zoned out as Edison and Walter compared notes on the little critters, which he best understood to be some sort of desert lizard.
He daydreamed while the others gabbed about the creatures. After Walter finally had his fill of food, Drenard guards entered to clear the plates. Dani arrived soon after, accompanied by another large Drenard wearing one red band and holding another. The Drenard with the band crossed to Edison, who bristled with recognition and leaned forward to have the device put into place. It was the first time Cole had seen one of the silent conversations from the outside, and it was a bit eerie: two beings looking at each other in silence, nodding, moving their arms, making faces.
Whatever they were thinking, it didn’t take long. The band was removed from Edison’s head, and he rose from his chair, turning to his friends: “The large delta of positional coordinates X and Y; X being Anlyn and Y being—”
“Whoa, buddy. Deep breath,” Cole said.
The poor cub tried again, concentrating, “The distance separating Anlyn and I is to be decreased immediately.”
“That’s wonderful!” Molly squealed, jumping up to embrace him.
Cole rose as well and touched paws with his friend. Walter pressed his finger into a smear on the table, and then placed it in his mouth, sucking at it idly and staring at the far wall.