Dragonsdawn (13 page)

“Perhaps you’re right,” Pol said, giving his head a little shake.

“Tinkering isn’t something lightly undertaken. You know how many efforts abort or distort.” Bay smiled to ease her gentle chiding.

“Tinker?” Sean came alert.

“They didn’t mean you, silly,” Sorka assured him in a low voice.

“Why would you want to . . . ahem . . . manipulate,” Jim Tillek asked, “critters that have been doing quite well in protecting themselves for centuries. And us.”

“Out of the stew of creation so few survive, and often not the obvious, more perfectly designed or environmentally suited species,” Pol said with a long patient sigh. “It is always amazing to me what does win the evolutionary race to become the common ancestors of a great new group. I’d never have expected anything as close to our vertebrates as wherries and dragonets on another planet. The really strange coincidence is that our storytellers so often invested a four-legged, two-winged creature in fantasy, although none ever existed on Earth. Here they are, hundreds of light-years away from the people who only imagined them.” He indicated the sleeping Duke. “Remarkable. And not as badly designed as the ancient Chinese dragons.”

“Badly designed?” the seaman asked, amused.

“Well, look at him. It’s redundant to have both forelimbs and wings. Earth avian species opted for wings instead of forelimbs, though some have vestigial claws of what had once been the forefinger before the limb became a wing. I’ll grant you that a curved rear limb is useful for springing off the ground—and the dragonet’s are powerful, with muscles into the back to provide assistance—but that long back is vulnerable. I wonder how they arrange their mechanics so that they can sit up for so long without moving.” Pol peered at the sleeping Duke and touched the limp tail. “There is one slight improvement: the excretory hole in the fork of the tail instead of under it. And there are dorsal nostrils and lungs, which are a distinct improvement. Humans are very poorly designed, you know,” he went on, happy to be able to exercise his favorite complaint to a rapt audience.

“I mean, surely you can see how ridiculous it is to have an air pipe—” He touched his nose. “—that crosses the food pipe.” He touched his rather prominent Adam’s apple. “People are always choking themselves to death. And a vulnerable cranium: one good crack, and the concussion can cause impairment if not fatality. Those Vegans have their brains well protected in tough internal sacs. You’d never concuss a Vegan.”

“I’d rather have bellyaches in my middle than headaches,” Tillek said in a droll tone. “Though, from what I saw once, some of the other Vegan operating mechanisms are exceedingly unhandy, particularly the sexual and reproductive arrangements.”

Pol snorted. “So you think having the playground between the sewers makes more sense?”

“Didn’t say that, Pol,” Jim Tillek answered hurriedly with a glance at the two children, though neither were paying the adults much heed. “It’s a bit handier for us, though.”

“And more vulnerable. Oh my, oh my, there I go again, falling into the lecture attitude. But there are endless ways in which we humans could be profitably improved . . .”

“We are doing that, though, aren’t we, Pol, dear?” Bay said kindly.

“Oh, yes, cybernetically we do, and
in vitro
we can correct certain gross genetic mistakes. It’s true that we are allowed to use the Eridani mentasynth, though personally I don’t know whether our response to it is a boon or not. It makes people too empathic with their experimental animals. But we can’t do much yet, of course, with the laws that the Pure Humans forced through to prohibit drastic changes.”

“Who’d want to?” Tillek asked with a frown.

“Not us,” Bay assured him hastily. “We don’t have that kind of need on this world. But I sometimes feel that the Pure Human Life Group was wrong to oppose alterations that would permit humans to use those water worlds in Ceti IV. Lungs exchanged for gills and webbing on hands and feet is not that great or blasphemous an adaptation. The fetus still goes through a similar stage
in utero
,
and there’s good evidence for a more aquatic past for adults. Think how many planets would be open to humans if we weren’t so limited to land areas that met our gravitational and atmospheric requirements! Even if we could provide special enzymes for some of the dangerous gases. Cyanides have kept us out of so many places. Why . . .” She threw up her hands as words failed her.

Sean was peering at the two specialists with some suspicion.

“Campfire talk,” Sorka told him sagely. “They don’t mean it.”

Sean snorted and, carefully positioning his two brown dragonets, rose to his feet. “I plan to be up tomorrow before dawn. Best time to catch the dragonets feeding and know who’s minding the nests.”

“Me, too,” Sorka said, standing.

Tillek had rigged shelters well above the high-tide marks, protection against the sudden squalls that seemed characteristic of the early summer season. Thermal blankets had been stitched into sleeping bags, and Sorka gratefully crawled into one. Duke, without apparently waking, accommodated himself to her new position. She had a little trouble falling asleep because, for a while, the beach seemed to heave beneath her, mimicking the motions of the waves.

A little warning chirp from Duke roused her. Snores drifted over from the adults, but as her eyes grew accustomed to the predawn darkness, she saw Sean rising. She could just see him turn his head toward her and then westward. With an economy of movement he crept to the ashes of the previous night’s fire and rummaged quietly in the supply sacks, taking several items which he stuffed into his shirt.

Sorka waited until he was out of sight and then she rose. Then, after taking a pack of rations and one of the red fruits they had gathered before dinner, she left a note telling the adults that she and Sean had gone to check nests and would be back soon after dawn to report.

As she trotted along the beach, she ate the red fruit, discarding the blemished side where a mold had gotten at it, just as she had once eaten windfall apples and thrown away the brown bits back on Earth. At a little distance from each of the nests, she had piled small cairns of white, ocean-smoothed stones so that she could find each clutch without stepping into it. She found the first two with no problem and hurried toward the third, the one she thought might be a gold’s nest. There was a faint trace of brightness in the eastern sky, and she wanted to be hidden in the bushes before day actually broke.

It was wonderful to be alone, and safe, in a part of a world that had never felt the tread of feet. Sorka had studied the EEC survey reports and maps often enough to know that those intrepid people had not been on that particular beach. She exulted in the special magic of being first and sighed at being so privileged. Her earlier desire to be able to tag a special place with
her
name had altered to a dream of finding the most beautiful spot on the new world, a really unique place for which she, too, could be remembered. Better still would be for the colonists to wish to name a mountain or a river or a valley after Sorka Hanrahan because of something special that she had done.

She was so lost in that dream that she nearly stumbled over the cairn and into the half-buried clutch. Duke saved her from the error with a warning cheep.

She stroked his little head in gratitude. If she could alter one thing about Duke, it would be to give him speech. She had learned to interpret his various noises accurately and was able to understand what other dragonets said to their owners, but she wished she could communicate with Duke in a common language. But someone had said that forked tongues could not manage speech, and she certainly did not want any drastic changes in Duke—especially not in his size. Any bigger and he would not fit on her shoulder so comfortably.

Maybe she should have a chat with the marine rangers who worked with the dolphins. They communicated with one another about complex matters. It was just as likely that the dragonets did, too, judging by the way they had routed the wherries. Even Admiral Benden had commented on it.

Thinking of the hero of Cygnus, she decided that she, too, must use careful strategy and hide her tracks. The gold dragonets were a lot smarter than the stupid green ones. She found a thickly fronded branch from the underbrush and covered her footprints in the dry sand, retreating into the brush before making her way back to a good vantage point close to but obscured from the beach and the nest.

Dawn coincided with a cheerful morning chorus as a fair of dragonets swooped down to the foreshore. Only the gold approached the nest; the others, brown and bronze and blue, remained a discreet distance from it. Watching their bodies outlined against the white sands, Sorka could appreciate the difference in their sizes. The golden female was the largest, taller in the shoulder by the span of two fingers than the bronzes, who seemed to be the next in size, though one or two of the browns were nearly as big. The blues were definitely smaller, moving with quick nervous steps, examining seaweeds, discarding some and hauling others toward the nest with many smug chirps. The bronzes and browns seemed to be discussing something, murmuring and cheeping to themselves while the blues were clearly interested only in what might be edible. Or were they? The nest was being surrounded by a circle of weeds. When it was completed, the browns and bronzes got busy, depositing the scuttling sea things she had seen at Duke’s hatching.

With an almost peremptory screech, the gold female rose from the nest, swooping down over the heads of the bronzes and browns and dipping wings at the blues as she raced toward the sea. The others followed, not as gracefully, Sorka thought, but swiftly. She saw them climb over the gently lapping surf and then suddenly dive at the waves, chirping triumphantly as they fished. Then, abruptly, they all disappeared. One moment they were there, suspended above the ocean; the next moment the sky was completely clear of flashing dragonet bodies. Sorka blinked in astonishment.

Then she had an idea: If the eggs were that close to hatching, and if she could get one back to Bay Harkenon in time for her to feed it, Bay would finally have a creature of her own. The scientist was a nice, kind lady, not the least bit stuffy like some of the section heads were, and a dragonet would be a companion to her.

Sorka didn’t think about it any further; she acted. Darting out of her hiding place, she streaked to the nest, made a grab for the nearest egg on the top of the pile, and scurried as fast as she could back to the underbrush.

She was only just in time, the branches still swaying from her swift passage, when the dragonets were back again, in what seemed to be greater numbers than before. The little golden one landed right by the eggs while bronzes, browns, and blues were depositing helplessly flapping fish within the seaweed circle. Suddenly the welcoming chorus began, and Sorka was torn between the desire to watch the magical moment of hatching and the need to get her purloined egg to Bay in time. Then she felt the egg, which she had tucked under her pullover for warmth and protection, move against her skin.

“Don’t you dare make a sound, Duke!” she whispered harshly when she heard Duke’s chest begin to rumble. She caught his little jaw between her fingers and glared straight into his faceted eyes, which had begun to whirl with happy colors. “She’ll kill me!”

He clearly understood her warning and hunched closer to her, clinging with sharp nails to her hair and hiding his face against her braid. Then she crawled backward from the beach edge until she was screened sufficiently to risk standing up. Dead fronds and branches tangled her feet as she ran, and she encountered a disheartening variety of thorny bushes and needly plants. But she plunged on.

When she could no longer hear the cries of the dragonets, she turned west and crashed back out to the beach. She pelted down the sands as fast as she could, ignoring the stitch in her side in deference to the antics of the egg beating at her ribs. Duke circled about her head, keening with obediently muted anxiety.

Surely she must be almost back at the camp. Was that the first cairn she had passed, or the second? She stumbled, and Duke cried out in terrible alarm, a shrill strident shriek like the cries of the peacocks that had inhabited her father’s farm, a ghastly sound like someone in extreme agony. He swooped, tugging valiantly at her shoulder, as if he himself could support her.

His shriek had been sufficient to rouse the sleepers. Jim Tillek was the first one to struggle to his feet, which got tangled in the bag for the first few steps. Pol and Bay were more laggard until they recognized Sorka.

Sorka, ignoring both Tillek’s urgent queries and helping hands, staggered to the plump microbiologist, dropping heavily to her knees and fumbling to get the egg into Bay’s hands for she could feel a crack beginning to run along the shell.

“Here! Here, this is yours, Bay!” she gasped, grabbing the astonished woman’s hands and closing them about the egg.

Bay’s reaction was to thrust it back to Sorka, but the girl had thrown herself toward the supply packs, rummaging for something edible, fumbling to open a packet of protein bars and break one into tiny pieces.

“It’s cracking, Sorka. Pol! What do I do with it? It’s cracking all over!” Bay exclaimed uncertainly.

“It’s yours, Bay, an animal that will love only you,” Sorka said in gasps, floundering back with full hands. “It’s hatching. It’ll be yours. Here, feed it these. Pol, Captain, see what you can find under the seaweed for it to eat. You be bronzes. See, watch what Duke’s going after.”

Duke, chirping with exultation, was dragging a huge branch of seaweed up from the high-tide line.

“Just bundle the seaweed up, Pol,” Tillek said moments later as he demonstrated.

“It’s cracked!” Bay cried, half-afraid, half-delighted. “There’s a head! Sorka! What do I do now?”

Twenty minutes later the risen sun shone on a weary but excited quartet as Bay, with the most beatific and incredulous expression on her face, cradled a lovely golden dragonet on her forearm. Its head was an ornament on the back of her hand, its forearms loosely encircled her wrist. Its distended belly had support from Bay’s well-fleshed limb, its hind legs dangled by her elbow, and its tail was lightly twined around her upper arm. A slight noise, similar to a snore, could be discerned. Bay stroked the sleeping creature from time to time, amazed by the texture of its skin, by the strong but delicate claws, the translucent wings, and the strength of the newborn’s tail about her arm. She constantly extolled its perfections.