After Edison followed the Drenards out the door, the three original Parsona crew members were left alone as the last of the dishes were removed.
“The bedss are nicse here,” Walter said. Again.
Molly nodded. “Yeah, so what’s our plan, guys?”
“Plan?” Cole asked. “Our plan was to find someplace safe where people would stop shooting at us—”
“They shot us,” she reminded him, pointing at the open door.
“Okay, but it must’ve looked pretty bad, the way we barged in. Besides—” Cole eyed her suspiciously. “Wait a minute—are you planning another jailbreak?”
Walter nearly stood up in his chair at this. “No jailbreak,” he said, waving his arms level with the ground. “No way.” He pointed straight down at the table. “Walter stayss here. Forever. Eatss and ssleepss.”
Molly held out a hand to calm him down. “I agree with you. Both of you. It is nice and safe here. And comfortable.” She turned to Cole and narrowed her eyes. “But there are certain things I need to do. Important things.”
Her father, Cole thought. And Lucin’s hints of a war-stopping secret. She would never be happy here, he realized. Pampered and comfortable weren’t viable options for her. He could see it on her face: dire things screamed at her from within, things that needed doing.
He felt sick to his stomach thinking about his plan to keep her here. To protect her. He’d planned on putting up a fight when this conversation came up. To employ the same paranoia that had saved them several times since they’d left Earth. Now he felt miserable for even considering it. He should’ve been thinking about what Molly wants, not focusing on his own selfish desire to keep her safe. His mistake, it dawned on him in that moment, was in assuming Molly shared his primary concern: her safety. But she was just like him, thinking about other people’s well-being more than her own.
He reached under the table and found her hand. Gave it a gentle squeeze. He felt more connected to her right then than he ever had in their hundreds of hours in the simulator.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Of course. You’re right. But no more mention of it until I bring it up, okay?” He glanced up at the chandelier dangling over the table.
Molly nodded as if she understood. Walter hissed, confused. It reminded Cole that the last time they’d escaped a prison, it had been with help.
Only, he wasn’t sure they had that luxury this time.
He gave Molly’s hand one last squeeze and rose from the table; he strolled out to the guards in the hallway, insisting he think with Dani.
••••
The view from the roof was just as amazing the second time, if not quite as startling. Cole looked out at the colors with a twinge of sadness. Maybe Dani was right. After many years, the alien sight might become familiar, then normal. Perhaps it could eventually become banal.
Cole concentrated on the view, and on the sensations it stirred. He noted how the waving colors made him feel right then. He tried to store the memory away, preserving it against the erosion of time.
While he corralled the experience, Dani considered his plea.
“I cannot help you,” the Drenard finally thought back. “However, I do understand that you would not be perfectly happy here. Most Drenards choose contented lives elsewhere and only come on vacation or for official matters. I am one of the few natives that never considers leaving. And non-Drenards? They’re not allowed to leave. Ever.”
“What about the other human, the one you brought up here. Did he die on Drenard?”
Dani hesitated. “I’m not allowed to say.”
“Is he still here? Still alive?”
“I cannot say. I’m sorry.”
Cole turned toward the hot side of Drenard, squinting his eyes into the bright display, working to temper himself—to remain cool. He took a deep breath from the moving air wafting in from above and felt his tensions melt away.
Dani reached out and placed his hand on Cole’s shoulder in a rare moment of contact. “Non-Drenards are never allowed to leave,” he repeated.
It was fortuitous Cole had steadied his nerves.
Otherwise, he would never have noticed the subtle inflection of “non” in his own voice.
10
“I know how to get out of here, but it won’t be easy,” Cole said.
Molly leaned back on a wall of pillows while he sat cross-legged on the foot of her bed, his hands in his lap. The gold bars were in place and her door had been shut, but Cole knew his words were probably traveling out to someone, somewhere. The good thing about his planned escape was that technically—it was legal.
“How?” Molly asked.
“We have to become Drenards.”
Molly grabbed one of the pillows beside her and swung it at Cole, nearly knocking him off the bed.
“Don’t mess with me like that,” she said.
He righted himself, not laughing at all. Molly’s indignation turned to shock, mixed with something else. “Gods! You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m serious,” Cole said. “And if you’d stop assaulting me and listen, I’ll explain.”
“Alright,” Molly said, placing her stuffed weapon in her lap and resting her elbows on it. “Tell me.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think we would be the first to do it. I’m pretty sure other species have. Maybe even another human. And get this, every kid born here isn’t really considered a Drenard until they capture a Wadi Thooo—”
“A whati who?”
“The lizards Edison and Walter were going on and on about.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand half of what Edison was saying, only that he was excited. Did you follow any of it?”
“Not an ounce, but I got a little information from . . . someone else. And I think I know why Edison is fascinated with them.”
“Why?” Molly asked, leaning forward.
“I think he already had plans on becoming a Drenard. Maybe for Anlyn.”
Molly fell silent, looking down at the comforter as if reading the words there, trying to make sense of them. Cole held up his arm in case it was a feint on her part, setting up another blow from the pillow.
“For Anlyn?” She looked up at Cole. “Why? Does he love her? Does she love him?”
“How would I know? I hate that kinda talk, don’t you?”“Yeah,” Molly agreed. “It’s silly, especially after such a short period of time. Right?”
Cole nodded slowly. “I guess. Still, I’ve seen them together and I know there’s something there, something that formed between them while we were on Earth. It’s the only reason I can think of for why he’d be so interested in the creatures.”
“Maybe he’s just looking for a way out of here.”
“Then why not tell us? No, I think it’s something else. I think he’s trying to impress a girl. And either way, even if I’m wrong, we need to do this if we want to get out of here. The Drenards were never gonna tell us about the rite. I’m sure they’d feed us twice a day and give us all the bubble-baths we want, but that would be the rest of our lives.”
“So how do we become Drenards?”
Molly smirked as she said it, either not convinced or still finding the concept amusing.
“It’s pretty simple, actually. Each of us goes beyond the terminator—the line between sunlight and darkness—”
“I know what a terminator is,” Molly interrupted. “I was in the same class.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. So you travel beyond the terminator and through the canyons on the light side, you catch one of these Wadis—which is some sort of lizard—and you bring it back here. A council or something will judge the size and quality of the thing and determine what sort of Drenard you’ll be. It’s just a ritual, really.”
Molly frowned. “I guess that means the females here aren’t ever considered Drenards, because Dani’s told me enough about their society to know there’s no way they would let their precious little girls go out and risk their lives to hunt whati whatevers.”
“Well, you might not like this, but it’s actually really good news for us. A loophole, if you will.”
“Oh, gods. What is it?” Molly droned.
“Wadi Thooo eggs. They count. And the eggs are laid close to the terminator, where the rock is coolest. It is a technicality, but if we go to the canyons, grab an egg each, and bring them back here—we’re free to go. They know from Anlyn that we haven’t done anything wrong, and Dani will vouch for us. I think he has a soft spot for humans.”
“Some of us,” she corrected. “I suppose the boys go in further and capture a live lizard?”
“I don’t know if they capture them alive or not; I’m not concerned with that stuff. Edison might know.”
“How’re we gonna do this if we aren’t allowed out of our rooms except to visit one another?”
“All we have to do is initiate the rite. They have to allow us. They look at us as children, anyway, so we’ll fit right in. And hey, just because they’re bound to let us try, I don’t think they’ll appreciate us asking. A lot of Drenards are gonna be upset if we pull this off.”
“When we pull it off,” she corrected him.
••••
Edison wasn’t back from visiting Anlyn by the time they gathered for their next meal. Cole went over the plan with Walter, who seemed excited, not of leaving the planet, but of pulling a “Jog and Flog.”
“What’s a Jog and Flog?” Cole asked him.
“A kinda heisst,” he hissed. “Big on Palan. And call them ‘Wadi Thooo,’ not lizsardss, bad on my earss.”
“Fine,” Cole said. “If we’re all in agreement, I say we get it over with. Once we get this out of the way, we’ll find Edison and Anlyn and see about getting out of here.”
Nobody had any objections.
They ate in silence, with their own thoughts. After the meal, Cole went to the guards in the hallway and requested Dani’s presence by repeating his name aloud. When the old interrogator joined them, he had a set of red bands in hand.
“We would like to quest for Wadi Thooo, to prove our worth as Drenards,” Cole thought to Dani.
The interrogator played the shocked and confused part well, demanding to know where Cole had heard of their tradition, how much the humans knew of it. Cole lied and said he learned of it from a Bel Tra and that he would say no more.
Neither of them knew how successful their ruse would be, or if anyone was even “listening.” It may all have been for Dani’s benefit—to clear his conscience by accepting an alternate version of reality.
After pretending to demur, Dani said he would pass the request on and let them know the following morning. As he said this, and just before Dani held out his hand for the red band, Cole saw something flash across the interrogator’s face. Or maybe he heard it in Dani’s thoughts, down deep where only a quiet mind could hear.
Cole handed the band over, searching his friend’s face, sensing there was more he wanted to say. A warning, perhaps.
The bad feeling lingered as he returned to his friends.
11
Once again, Dani was not with the group that arrived the next morning. Instead, there were four guards with lances and two other Drenards wearing the layered tunics with ornate cloaks on top, the outermost tunic pulled up and tucked over the belt. Both of the latter also had red bands around their heads; one of them reverently held out another to Cole.
He had never put one on himself, but he knew the seam went in back. He adjusted it until it felt as if it lay in its habitual place, and his own voice soon filled his head with thoughts.
“Human boy, do you really wish to initiate the Wadi Thooo Drenard rite of passage?”
“Yes.” He tried to think it with a powerful calmness, but it sounded meek—even in his own head.
“Very well. Follow us.”
The two officials spun, their cloaks spreading out and rustling into one another. They marched toward the end of the hall, and Cole hurried after. In the room with the lift shaft, Walter stood waiting with two more guards; the boy fidgeted with his tunic and kept adjusting the red band on his head.
The two officials instructed them to wait, then disappeared through the hallway leading to Molly’s room.
“Hello?” someone thought in Cole’s head.
“Is that you, Walter?”
“Haha.” The boy laughed, but with Cole’s voice. “Your esses sound funny, too!”
Cole looked at Walter’s metallic face and found it difficult to reconcile his own voice with the Palan’s thoughts. He didn’t seem near as annoying without the hiss and the creepy way his mouth moved. Cole knew there was no way they’d be allowed to take the bands with them, but couldn’t help but think how nice they’d be for alien relations. Or just for inter-crew relations, for that matter.
When Molly came out with the officials and her own red band on, Cole fought to control his thoughts, to keep them deep. Especially seeing how the loose tunic moved around Molly’s body, exposing parts of her side through the wide opening below her arms—
He tore his eyes away, focusing on Walter’s face. He could hear the boy starting to greet Molly, but the officials were able to dominate all their thoughts.
Fortunately, for Cole.
“Follow us,” one of the Drenards said; it was impossible to know which one.
••••
They were told it would take half of one of their Solar days to travel to the staging area. After a long descent in the lift, they exited into an extremely busy lobby. Drenards, all males and all wearing variations of the colorful tunics, walked purposefully from one place to another. Almost all of them took a keen interest in the alien precession, but were polite enough to not gawk. Much.