Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

“The view is better from the roof,” Dani thought.

Cole didn’t believe him. He wouldn’t until he saw it for himself.

Dani strode across to the wall opposite the glass and called for a lift. Cole followed. He walked backwards, still riveted by the sight. The elevator arrived just as he did and Dani guided him in, thinking bemused thoughts at the mesmerizing effect his planet had on another human.

Cole grunted as the elevator doors squeezed the colors away. The lift moved—and fast. He could feel it in his legs, still weary from the exercise. Despite the obvious speed with which they were traveling, the ride was a long one, and both men rode in silence, mental and otherwise.

When Cole felt himself lighten several kilos, he knew the ride was almost over. The doors opened, and he followed Dani into the morning, or twilight, air. Not knowing which time of day it was irked Cole; he needed a label for what he was seeing, as if the word might bottle some of the splendor. As they walked toward the side of the building facing the glorious sight, Cole asked Dani in his head: “What time of day is it?”

“There are no days here,” Dani replied.

Cole barely heard his own voice give him the answer. It was more beautiful on the roof.

All around them stood a transparent barrier shielding out what sounded like a powerful wind. Cole could hear it race through holes in the enclosure above, a crisp zephyr descending to swirl around them. The walls held back the air, but there was nothing obstructing the view all the way to the horizon; he saw none of the other buildings that had been crowding the view from the room below. Here, Cole could gaze from one edge of the horizon to the other, and in no two places could he find the visual feast repeated.

He pressed his head to the glass and peered down, spotting the rooftops below. Observation platforms dotted most of the structures, which got progressively shorter as they went toward the horizon, stepping down so each building behind had a view. The city didn’t go very far into the distance, he saw. No more than a dozen kilometers, possibly less—the height made it impossible to gauge.

He turned to his interrogator-turned-tour guide.

“ No days?” he asked.

“It’s hard to turn away from this sight at first. I know. It takes many years to become used to it, to take it for granted, even. However, to understand, you need to walk with me and look at the other two views.”

Staggering backwards again, his eyes locked on the dancing lights, Cole slowly moved with Dani—reluctant, yet curious.

“Drenard is like the moon of your Earth. One face is gravitationally locked with our two stars, just as only one side of your moon ever looks down on your planet.”

They stood in front of the glass that ran down one of the building’s sides. Dani fell silent for a moment and looked down at his feet. “You are the second human I’ve had this conversation with. On this very rooftop.” He looked at Cole and continued to think aloud. “It was an accident then. My being up here nothing more than mere chance. And now—” He stopped and made the coughing sound from his fit of laughter. “I am considered a human expert, sent to deal with you and the girl.”

“Molly—?”

Dani raised his hand, his thoughts overpowering Cole’s. It wasn’t pleasant to be shouted down with one’s own voice, Cole decided.

“I’m sorry to drift off like that. The similarities to that old conversation took me back to better times. My people are extremely sensitive to symmetry. Look at why.”

He pointed out the glass at the line of buildings stretching off in the distance, converging like the train tracks in Portugal Cole grew up near. Both men thought back to ten years ago, but their memories were a galaxy apart.

“Drenards live on a line. A border between light and dark. That way,” he pointed back to the colors, “is a boiling land where even shadows can turn to ash. And over there,” he nodded to the darkness opposite, “you have a frigid wasteland where your breath will freeze in your lungs.” He paused and looked back over the city stretched out toward forever. “Most of our people choose to live on better planets now, but thisis where we evolved. Along a thin halo—a temperate respite—crushed between two extremes.

“There’s another significance inherent in the shape of our habitat. It isn’t just a line, it’s a circle. It’s the root of our fondness for symmetry. For things that repeat themselves.” He turned and faced Cole. “ The universe is like this. Our lives are like this. I’ve been here before, just like this. And if you look hard, you will see the same story playing out in yourlife. Things beginning and ending the same way. The same conflicts with the same resolutions. It keeps going, but not on its own. Each cycle requires work.”

“I don’t understand,” Cole responded. “Why are you showing me this? What’s the question I should’ve asked?”

Dani turned away from him and peered through the glass. “You remind me of him,” he thought. “The only other human I have spoken with like this. He brought so much hope. But that’s not why I think of him, it’s that neither of you seem anything like the… humansour war department deals with every day.”

Cole tried to force another question through, but the Drenard’s thoughts were too powerful.

“I cannot speak of the war, so do not ask. Come and look at what I love about the rooftops.”

Dani led them to the next side of the building, the one opposite the shimmering rainbow. Some of the colors bled around the elevator structure, stray bands of subdued prettiness that rode the glass overhead. But once they reached the far side, the spectacular view was just a throbbing memory. Now they were overlooking the dark side of Drenard, the sky bursting with stars and fuzzy galaxies.

A thick swath of unbelievable density let Cole know they were looking toward the center of the Milky Way, right along the width of the galaxy. Billions of pricks of light stood out; he could even see the glow of a pink nebula, the color of planets forming. The sight made him feel a long way from home and choked him up inside. One hand went to the cool glass while his thoughts warped back to Earth.

The two men fell quiet again, Dani giving Cole a minute to absorb it all—or perhaps the Drenard was taking a moment for himself.

It was the human that broke the mental silence:

“Beautiful,” he thought, unable to know the soothing purr this word translated to in Dani’s head.

“Beautiful, yes. And even more dangerous, my friend. Nothing lives on the surface. Well, almost nothing. The fire on the other side fuels the life of our planet and drives many of our customs with its ancient and inhospitable landscape. Over here, we find the absence of everything. Just powerful winds which are nothing more than the air being sucked from the cool low pressure to rush toward the rising heat.

“I brought you up here so you could look at yourself, Cole. And to give you an honest answer to your sage question. Up here, my boss will not hear and there is no guard to trust with a secret.” He turned to face Cole. “You are very much like a Drenard,” he thought. “You have a hot side and a cold side and you use them to balance one another. I feel your anger, mostly when you dwell on the well-being of your friends. And I also feel your patience, which you use to temper yourself. I believe you are one of the few of your kind that is trying to live on a line, just as a Drenard must.”