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.
Cole looked around for Dani, or a sign of Edison, but found none of the latter and wasn’t sure he’d recognize the former in a crowd. The blue planes that made up the Drenard face had distinguishing details too fine for their unpracticed human brains.
“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.