Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue

It all felt like a waking dream. The fear receded; she wasn’t going to be eaten. Still leaning against the large, soft paw behind her, she studied the other Glemot. The wide teeth looked square and friendly viewed straight-on. The massive face, three times the size of a human’s, divided itself with a mammoth smile.

“My reference label is Watt,” the Glemot said. “Uttering that sound will guide my attention to the speaker.”

“Molly,” she muttered, watching the other Glemot secure the sling to her shoulder. Her arm was swollen and multi-colored. Two smooth sticks were tied alongside her lower bones, secured with braided straw-like threads. There was some kind of paste on her skin—she touched it with her other hand, expecting it to come away sticky, but the stuff was stiff and dry. She looked down her body at the long white robe, the same material as the tent, and the twined grass that secured it around her.

Cole.

“My friends—” she blurted out.

“A unit of your companions is ambulating within five hundred meters of your location. Do you desire for this range of proximity to decrease?”

Molly had to repeat the sentence in her head several times. She felt like a drunk being taught quantum mechanics. She shook her head to clear it, then realized this gesture may be taken for an answer.

“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely. Increase proximity, or decrease the range. I’m sorry, can I just see them? Does that make any sense?”

“Extreme accuracy, low precision. Come.”

The Glemot behind Molly helped her down from what she saw now to be a chiseled stone table in the center of the tent. This Glemot was smaller than the other.

“Whitney,” it said, holding its hand to its furry chest. Its voice wasn’t quite as low and Molly automatically thought of Whitney as a female, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it proved to be the other way around.

“Molly,” she repeated as she accepted the help down. It was a good two-meter drop. She looked back and found her head level with Whitney’s abdomen. Molly felt like a child. The surface of the stone table was higher than her head. The restraints hanging from the rock surface took on a positively humane aspect from this perspective, meant to keep her from falling.

Whitney moved to a slit in the fabric. She held back one side, creating a wedge of bright light, and waved Molly through. She complied and stepped, blinking, into a vista that made it difficult to breathe.

The tent stood on the crest of a gradual rise. Several varieties of green grasses covered the hill in a lush carpet sweeping down to the forest below. Molly could see a thin blue ribbon of water sparkling in the sunlight. It curved around the base of the hill and fed into a calm lake. She scanned its shore, thick with trees, all of the same species: tall, straight, and thrusting proudly into the blue sky.

Dotted across the green were little spots of color from wildflowers. Molly could see small creatures bobbing on the breeze, diving in and out of the grasses. The sunlight shimmered everywhere, reflecting off the lake in a plane of sparks—it even flashed off the waxy grass.

It was quite simply the most beautiful setting she’d ever seen. The haze in her head vanished, replaced with an overwhelming but pleasurable sensation. Every one of her senses popped from the overload. Fighting her awed lack of breath, Molly sucked in a huge lungful of fresh air, a gift from an atmosphere filtered thousands of times a day. The extra oxygen sent pinpricks of light dancing in her vision, filling her weary bones with a powerful energy.

On either side of her, similar tents spread out along the rise. Dozens of Glemots bounded about on powerful legs the size of small trees. Two smaller ones wrestled, rolling down the hill in a furry ball. Pots hung over cooking fires, the smoke wafting up into the cloudless blue. Molly, her cheeks sore from smiling so wide, turned to Whitney. The Glemot nodded back, seeming to understand what she was thinking. Somehow, these incredible beings were not completely inured to the gift that surrounded them daily.

Shielding his eyes with one paw, Watt peered up at them from further down the hill. He waved, beckoning them along. Whitney set off and Molly followed eagerly, all hints of danger dissolving. She had to skip and bound and let gravity suck her along to match the pace of the two casually-strolling giants. Nearly tripping on her white robe, she hitched it above her knees with her good arm and labored to keep up. She felt like a pixie from a children’s book, frolicking in a land where everything was too big.

Near the stream below, Molly saw a clump of Glemots huddled together. It took her a moment to spot Cole, lost as he was among their larger forms.

“Cole!”

He turned and smiled. She rushed down the hill as he leapt to his feet and ran up to meet her.

They were both out of breath as he swept her up in a tight embrace.

Molly leaned into him, her cheek on his chest as tears welled up in her eyes. She fought them back and squeezed him as hard as she could with her good arm, ignoring the pain in the other as it was pressed between their bodies.

Cole kissed the top of her head. She thought she could get used to this feeling. Broken arm and all.

When they pulled out of the hug, Cole grasped Molly’s shoulders and gave her a stern glare. “Now stop trying to impress me, doofus. Every time you do something brave you just end up passing out like a sissy.”

Molly slapped one of his arms away with her free hand as choice insults piled on top of questions. She longed to know what had happened, what she’d missed, but Whitney and Watt were continuing down to the stream, and Cole pulled her after them.

“We’re interrupting a Council meeting,” he whispered. “They’ve been letting me hang out and listen in.”

“Where’s Parsona ?” Molly asked.

“There’s good news and bad news, I’m afraid. We’ll talk about it later. For now I want to hear what they’re going to do about the Leef Tribe.”

“The what?” But they were almost on top of the group now, and Molly had to file the question away for later.

One of the largest Glemots continued to talk as she settled herself on the grass. Parts of his brown fur were turning black in wide ridges along his arms and legs. The language was English, but the jargon was so technical and obtuse, she could hardly follow. It sounded like politics and planning, so her brain turned off and she soaked in her surroundings instead.

Beside her, Cole leaned forward and seemed to hang on every word. Molly rested on her good elbow, her hand idly stroking the long, wide blades of grass. Insects the size of her thumb flitted about in the lush carpet, an unseen world going about its day right beneath her.

The two wrestling youths tumbled down to the stream and splashed one another. At one point a Council member grunted something in their direction and they chased each other away. Molly thought one of them had been studying her and Cole with some degree of curiosity.

She looked around for signs of Walter, wondering where he and Parsona were. Not knowing was torturous, but she could tell from Cole’s posture that he couldn’t be interrupted. He was rapt. Molly tried listening in again and could only catch a few words here and there.

Then, something flashed in her peripheral, breaking the surface of the lake. Molly turned just in time to see a giant splash, a plume of white shooting up from the rippling water. She didn’t see what it was, but it must have been big .

She left her gaze on the sparkling water. Searching the shore, she could easily imagine building a little fort up in those straight trees with a long dock reaching out into the water. She and Cole would live and play here for the rest of their lives.