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.