Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

“Where’s Edison?” Cole heard one of his friends ask the guards—

There was no reply.

The guards maintained a protective ring around them as they were escorted across the shiny floor of petrified wood. Cole tried to get a glimpse of the planet through the lobby glass, but all he could see was crowds of people and maybe another building beyond. They were led down a flight of moving stairs and to a platform crowded with Drenards. Cole spotted two small females among them. He also noted that both had several large males encircling them. Protectively.

Behind the crowd, a transparent tube ran the length of the platform, instantly recognizable to Cole as some sort of transportation. Their group waited in a tense hush, Cole wondering if the silence was due to their presence.

After a few minutes, their ride appeared—a long metallic lozenge that slid to a noiseless halt. The glass tube parted in several places with the pop of a pure vacuum taking a whiff of air, then the transport’s inner doors opened and disgorged an array of colorfully garbed Drenards.

Their escorts kept them pressed to one side as the two crowds fought to switch places.

Cole watched these new arrivals startle at the sight of them, their glances pulled away quickly, then transforming into sideways stares. A shiver ran up Cole’s spine; the raw number of deadly Drenards crowded around him felt nothing like the few he’d gotten used to in the rooms above.

Then it occurred to Cole that they were this planet’s enemy as well. He imagined what sort of stir it would cause to lead two Drenard captives through Grand Central Station in New York. He remembered what he’d felt when he first saw Anlyn in the Darrin system, and it made him feel ashamed. He glanced at Molly, whose eyebrows were down, her forehead wrinkled in thought.

Once inside the transport, they were given plenty of room. After pulling away from the platform, the vehicle slid to a stop at one station after another, repeating the process of unload, load, gape. Cole felt like a specimen on display. Some sort of alien protozoa in a glass test tube.

After a half dozen or so stations, however, he went from feeling like a scientific curiosity to something more like a zoo animal. The clusters of adult professionals gradually morphed into large groups of Drenard youth, as if thousands of field trips were converging on the same locale.

Even at their age, Cole noticed the boys were significantly larger than the females, but not quite as big as the officials and guards serving as their escorts. The young females were just a bit smaller than Anlyn, which shocked Cole. It occurred to him that he didn’t even know how old Anlyn was, nor if she was even officially a Drenard yet.

Molly turned to one of the guards and raised her hand. “Will we be performing the ritual in a group?” she asked, breaking a long mental silence.

“No more questions,” was the response. Cole could see Molly’s shoulders sag as she bit her bottom lip and looked up at him.

He shrugged and widened his eyes. Already, this was not feeling like the best idea.

They stopped at a few more stations, Cole’s ears popping at each one as the vacuum in the tube section filled, squeezing extra air between the door’s seals. When they arrived at the next one, and every passenger on the transport started crowding toward the door, he figured it for the end of the line.

The guards confirmed this, leading them onto the platform. They held Cole’s group up as the last of the children trotted up the steps. By the time they went into the lobby above, most of the young Drenards had already exited the building. Cole could see them through the wide expanse of glass along one wall as they were herded into lines and loaded into land vehicles similar to buses but with aerodynamic domed hulls that stretched nearly to the ground. The metallic panels covering the things gleamed in the colorful sunrise raging beyond them.

Cole watched Molly and Walter gape at the display, enjoying their reaction even though he was nowhere close to immune himself.

The guards waved them toward the door. To either side, small packets of Drenard youth stood marveling at the colors beyond, too excited to even notice the humans. Several of them cooed excitedly, and one of the larger children held up a recording device of some kind. Cole assumed these kids hailed from other Drenard planets. This is the biggest day of their lives, he thought.

Then he wondered if everyone else had heard him.

Outside, the segregation continued as their small group found themselves waved into a large shuttle alone. As soon as they’d seated themselves along the uncomfortable benches lining the walls, the vehicle lurched into motion, heading off in a different direction from the other shuttles.

“I’m feeling unwanted,” Cole muttered to Molly. “Are you feeling unwan—?”

“ Silence! ” the voice rang harsh in Cole’s head, and he noticed Molly flinch as well. Hearing himself like that made Cole think back, wondering if he’d ever raised his voice with Molly before—maybe in the simulator, once? He resolved to never do it again. It sounded awful. Alien.

More silence ensued, and the bands, with all their latent potential, made it unbearable. Any time surface thoughts bubbled up, one of the Drenards would force them back down. Not thinking, Cole found, required immense concentration, or the sort of daydreaming that came only when it wanted to, not when forced. He gazed through the glass of the domed vehicle as they drove out toward the hot side of the planet, trying to lose himself in deeper, more silent thoughts.

The temperature in the shuttle rose noticeably as they drove across the desert. They followed a mostly flat road cut through the small rises, old metal bridges taking them over the shallow gullies. The gullies seemed to grow deeper and wider as they snaked toward the twin suns. In the other direction, they petered out to almost nothing as they twisted toward the city.

After a good number of kilometers, the shuttle turned parallel with the terminator, ushering them far away from the crowds of other hopeful Drenards.

Cole and Molly sat with their shoulders pressed together, each trying not to think too loudly. Heavy gusts of wind would occasionally rock the massive vehicle, causing the occupants to sway as if choreographed. Through the window, Cole followed wisps of fine dust as it hurried after the violent winds. The pent-up power outside the shuttle grew ferocious as they inched closer to the dual suns.

It wasn’t long before Cole felt naked with just a tunic on. Defenseless. Another gust slammed the shuttle and everyone swayed in time, bare shoulders rubbing against each other. The gaiety from the station and the excitement of the Drenard youth had disappeared—moving in the opposite direction. Left alone was a single transport pushing sideways through the wind and filling with a sense of dread.

Losing himself in his new assessment of the inhospitable land, Cole didn’t see the squat building until they were nearly upon it. The driver parked on the sunward side, out of the wind. Even so, an angry breeze whistled into the shuttle as the doors cracked open. As he filed out into the cool air, Cole could hear it battering the rear of the small building, tearing around the corners before whipping through his hair. Everyone’s tunics flapped noisily in the persistent blow as they hurried inside, and above all these sounds, Cole could hear an eerie moaning working its way upwind, coming from the canyons beyond.

The two guards took up positions by the entrance, on either side of an old, large stain that spread out from the door and across the carpet. The two officials waved the group further inside.