The animated hologram of the animal disappeared, leaving only Brianne on screen, and the camera pulled in closer to her for emphasis of what she had just said and what she would say next. “I believe that this species can be carefully introduced on the planet Lacerta by means of controlled breeding in designated preserve areas under optimal conditions to prevent them becoming a destructively invasive species.
Under my plan, a conservatory will be created for one cralowog, captured from Torado IV. This specimen, a female, will be transported to the conservatory, decontaminated to free it of any alien microorganisms and parasites, and carefully monitored. The conservatory will be a sealed environment with plant life compatible with the cralowog’s system. Lacerta is known to have the best and most efficient climate control technology in Commonwealth space, which will be crucial to creating the optimal conditions to which the animal can adapt for breeding.
Once the cralowog has acclimated to its new surroundings and is ready, my plan further calls for the female specimen to be mated with a male which will be brought to Lacerta from the Interstellar Menagerie of the planet Cardax III. Once breeding has successfully begun, other conservatories will be built on Lacerta, and other captured specimens will be introduced to begin creating a new population of cralowogs, gradually reversing the danger to the species. This will be a long and painstaking process, and it is one to which I’m ready to commit myself—with the support of the Quist Foundation.”
Conran and Donar took all of this in, having read the supporting data in Brianne’s files. She had accounted for every detail, including projections of the length of time the phases of the project would take. It was a long game indeed. The work would go on for decades. The first few years alone would be spent building new habitats in different places on Lacerta and making further expeditions to Torado IV to collect more specimens. It was an ambitious, long-term project. And it was a project on which the Quist brothers were sold.
If they had met Brianne in any other context—socially or even, perhaps, in some other business or professional endeavor—there was no question as to what their intentions would have been. They would absolutely have pursued any opportunity to get to know her more intimately. They would positively have made every effort to take her to bed—both of them, together. It was who they were. They were male weredragons, and when they saw a female, their own kind or human, unspoken-for by any other partner, assuming she was attracted to males, they wanted her in bed and would not rest until they were resting post-coitally with her.
This was the nature of male Lacertans, which all of known space knew full well. To be sure, Brianne Heatherton knew it herself. It was the reason why so many women of Earth and its colonies and territories came to this planet. Lacerta was a legendary hotbed of desire, the sexiest planet with the most beautiful males in the galaxy.
Brianne Heatherton had pitched her passion project to a world of passion. But the Quist brothers took the work of their family’s philanthropic foundation—and its reputation—most seriously. No matter the beauty of this human scientist, no matter what urges this brilliant woman stirred in them, they had both resolved to draw a solid line at any attempt to do with her as they would do with any other beautiful female. This one time, this one female had to be out of bounds.
“Hologram off. Bring up the lights,” Conran commanded the room’s systems. At once, the image of Brianne Heatherton disappeared, and the room resumed its regular lighting. Conran turned to his brother and said, simply and decisively, “We’re doing this.”
Donar nodded softly, making a frown that meant the opposite of a frown. “Absolutely,” he agreed, “we’re doing this.”
Within twenty-four hours, Brianne Heatherton was notified of the Quist Foundation’s acceptance of her plan and was summoned to the planet Lacerta to begin work.
And that was what brought Conran and Donar Quist to where they were now, soaring and circling above the fruition of Brianne’s carefully conceived and detailed plan, gleaming below them in the morning light of Catalan. Today, the first stage would begin in earnest.
CHAPTER THREE
The Quist mansion had three dining areas, the largest of which was the banquet hall and ballroom. Then, there was the main dining room, where most luncheons and dinners were served. The smallest and most intimate of these spaces was the breakfast room, essentially a balcony enclosed by glass, with stone flooring and potted flowering plants and trees from different parts of Lacerta.
For breakfast, Donar and Conran dressed in standard Lacertan garb, Conran again in warm colors and Donar in cooler hues. Over the morning meal, Brianne took the opportunity to learn more about her handsome benefactors.
“We’ve been running the family’s business affairs as well as the Quist Foundation for the last four years,” Conran explained.
“Yes, since our parents retired to the higher mountains where most of the elders go,” added Donar. “They’re mostly hands-off, we’re all hands-on.”
“That is an awful lot of responsibility for the two of you,” said Brianne. “I’m the hands-on type myself, but not with administrative and corporate-type things. I’m more the type to be in there doing the actual work…,” she caught herself and looked embarrassed across the table at them. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you don’t actually work. That was a bit thoughtless…”
“It’s a different kind of work, that’s all,” Donar shrugged it off. “And to be honest, I’m with you. My main interest is the interplanetary ecological and environmental projects that we fund, which is what brought your project to our attention to begin with. I prefer to be out in the field, actually helping the things that our money supports, and letting my brother take care of seeing whom the money goes to and what it does.”
“Which is his way of saying he enjoys the company of animals better than people,” Conran jibed. His brother looked over at him, cocking an eyebrow at the little dig.
“Animals are simpler to deal with in some ways than people,” said Donar with a mock defensiveness. “Animals don’t put conditions on things. They’re never crooked or devious, and they don’t have ulterior motives.”
“And yet,” Brianne gently pointed out, “the two of you and all of your people are part animal. Or that is, you have a human self and an animal self.”
“It’s ironic, I know,” Donar allowed.
“There’s something I’ve always wondered about Lacertans,” Brianne said thoughtfully over her cup of coffee imported from Mars. “From the time you’re about a year old, you live in two bodies. What do you like better, being a dragon or being a man? And if you had to give up one, which would it be?”
Conran put down his fork, Donar swallowed his mouthful of Centaurian bacon, and they considered this for a moment. Conran was the first to answer. “Well…,” he began, “to be human is to be sentient—intelligent. It means that you know who you are, you understand what you are, and you get to choose the way you’re going to be in the world, and you can make changes in the world—for good or for bad. For good, if you’re wise, which I try to be. I don’t think any being that experiences sentience wants to give it up.”
“But there’s a freedom about being a dragon,” said Donar, “that you don’t have as a human. You know, since the first time a primitive human watched a bird take off, people have wanted to fly. And they’ve done it—but only with devices and gear: gliders, airplanes, spaceships, flying suits, artificial wings, that kind of thing. Man has never had the natural, inborn power to fly, but I think he’s always wanted it and always envied whatever could fly. Being a weredragon, you get to live the dream, so to speak. I don’t think any of us would give that up either. Best of both worlds: be a man and a dragon. The brains in both bodies, the wings in one body.”
“Maybe that’s what makes some humans come here wanting to drink the water without the inhibitors and become Lacertans themselves,” Brianne guessed.
“Well, as you know, we have very good laws and regulations an
d a whole screening and counseling process for that,” Conran reminded her. “And the majority of them don’t make the cut. We don’t want our planet overrun with nouveau weredragons, and we don’t want to be responsible for that happening to the rest of known space either. It took generations of hard work to make the world we have. We’re very protective of it.”
“I can understand that,” said Brianne.
“So, what about you?” Donar asked. “Have you ever thought about being one of us? Did you ever wonder what it would be like to make the change—assuming you got through the screening, of course?”
“It’s honestly never occurred to me,” Brianne replied, grinning. “I’m perfectly happy as a human, and I’ve always been perfectly happy just working with animals.”
“Really?” Donar asked, grinning with one corner of his mouth.
“Really,” Brianne replied with certainty. “I enjoy being just who I am—as much as you enjoy being a dragon some of the time and having the company of animals.”
Donar smiled a little more deeply at that. “There are some things about the company of humans that I wouldn’t give up. In some things, I find it best to be a man.”
Conran fixed his brother with a mildly scolding look. Donar could feel Conran’s eyes on him and peered over at him, cocking his eyebrow again. Brianne looked off a bit with a little grin of her own. If there was no double entendre earlier in the evening, there certainly was one now. She was at this moment rather keenly aware with whom she was sharing breakfast—and what else they could easily be sharing if they were to disregard professional boundaries. There was no escaping it. In the company of Lacertan men, the potential for any exchange to turn sexual was always understood.
“Getting back to your project,” Donar diplomatically said, “our ‘guest’ is just what I was talking about before. The cralowog—what do you call her…?”
“I’ve named her Damara,” Brianne reminded him.
“Right—Damara. Just like all animals, she’s a totally less complicated creature than we are. What is her life about? Climbing trees, swimming, eating, being mounted by a male cralowog, having little cralowogs, taking care of them ’til they can fend for themselves, then off they go to do what she did. None of the mess and fuss and duga dung that human life is full of.”
“And you think that’s actually better than human life?” Brianne wondered.
“Better? That’s a subjective call. It’s just not as complicated. I like no complications.”
“And what about all the things your brother was talking about? The benefits of being intelligent—well, being fully sentient; I think cralowogs do have a native intelligence about them. What about that?”
“When you’re intelligent,” Donar said, “you have an ego. And an ego makes you want things that aren’t simple, the way they are for an animal. It also makes you think you’re better than the animals, better than nature…,” he looked over at his brother, “like some people we won’t name, whom we happen to be related to.”
Conran was about to take another bite of bacon when he stopped and put it down, mildly mortified. “Now, why do you want to bring them up?”
“To make a point,” replied Donar.
“Well, it’s a point that I’d rather leave out of the conversation. They’re not here, and they’re not involved in the family business anymore.” He looked across the table at Brianne and said, “I assume you know who it is we’re talking about.”
With another swallow of her coffee, Brianne acknowledged, “I do. And if I were you, I wouldn’t want to talk about them either.”
“The cralowog,” said Donar, “is at least part predator. But even being a predator, it’s simple. A natural predator doesn’t take anything from nature except what it needs to live. Unlike some humans—and some of our people. Our cousin Xorian and his sons…”
“You mentioned your parents retiring to the higher peaks,” Brianne said. “Is that where Xorian is now?”
“I assume he is, after everything that happened,” Conran answered. “And he’s welcome to stay there after what it took our parents to smooth over what they did.”
“And what about his sons?” Brianne asked. “They're too young to have retired. Where have they gone?”
Conran replied, “The last I heard, Xorian divided up the share of the family fortune that they all had left—of which they’re not getting another decimal—and his sons had just left the planet. We haven’t heard anything from any of them in months. Frankly, I’m in no hurry to hear from any of them again. The Quist family name took a hit from that whole poaching scandal, and it took a lot of careful public relations to grow back the raw scales that it left. Xorian can stay in the peaks, and those sons of his can cause whatever trouble they see fit on some planet far from here and far from our business interests and our money.”
“You really disowned them completely?” Brianne asked. “Not that I blame you, but still…family and all…”
“They were a discredit to our nest,” Conran said sternly. “Our parents made it clear (and I agree with them) that they’re out of the nest and cut off.”
Brianne shrugged. “It seems a bit of a shame, that’s all.”
“In a Lacertan family,” Conran maintained, “we preserve the name and integrity of the nest. We have business and philanthropic interests across the Commonwealth. Illegal hunting by one, or a few, reflects on the entire nest. Xorian and his brood had to go.”
“We grew up with them,” Donar added. “They were always a little more aggressive than the rest of us—aggressive even by dragon standards, and we know we’re part predator. But we’re dragons of honor, after all. Conran and I have good memories of when we were broodlings, visiting with Uncle Xorian, playing with our cousins. But they crossed a very bad line. I was sorry about it, sorry to see them go—but the integrity of the nest comes first.”
“We have a reputation in this galaxy,” Conran added firmly. “If other nests here on Lacerta, other planets, other business interests in the Commonwealth, were to turn their backs on us, we’d still be wealthy, but our future would be so much less than it ought to be. Our standing in the galactic community would dwindle until all our money made hardly any difference at all. We’re one of the most prominent and prosperous nests on Lacerta, Brianne. And we mean to stay that way.”
“And helping you succeed in your project will be another big achievement for us,” said Donar. “And now, I’m just about ready to see Damara come out into her new world. Are you?”
“More than ready,” Brianne agreed, smiling broadly. “Let’s get out there.”
Putting down cups, flatware, and napkins, the Quist twins and Brianne Heatherton excused themselves from the table and quickly took their leave of the breakfast room.
CHAPTER FOUR
Burton Hawkes and Sondra Kimura stood patiently under the conservatory dome, knowing they would not be waiting there for long. They faced the large, opaque silver bubble sitting there in the grass between them and the lake beyond, a far more durable object than it appeared to be. The moment to burst the bubble was fast approaching.
“She’ll be all right,” said Burton confidently. He was a brown-skinned, short-haired, solidly muscular man. “The hibernation procedure before we put her in for decontamination went without a hitch. Brianne left nothing to chance.”
“I know she will,” agreed Sondra, an Asian woman with short black hair. “I’m not worried. I’m just…I don’t know what to call it. It’s a bit like being a parent with a child in the hospital. Except this was about making sure the ‘child’ isn’t sick, not about making her better.”
“She’ll be fine,” Burton said, repeating his point. “And we’ve checked the conditions in the dome so many times and found everything the way it needs to be; nothing’s going to go wrong. Brianne would never have allowed anything to go wrong.”
The dome of the conservatory had a ceramic-metallic portal set into the lower rim on one side. Burton and Selina, riding in a to
pless hovercar, had accessed the interior of the dome through the portal and set down just a few steps away from where they were standing. A whirring sound welled up from the distance, letting them know that another vehicle was skimming in from about a kilometer and a half away, where they had entered.
The comm units in their coveralls gave forth a tone. Burton looked over at Sondra, silently asking, You want to get that? Sondra understood the unspoken question. She touched a surface on her sleeve.
From Sondra’s sleeve unit came Brianne’s voice. “How’s it looking?” she asked.
“All looks good, just as you’d expect,” replied Sondra.
“Good,” replied Brianne’s voice. “We’re just a few seconds away.”
Burton looked off in the direction from which they had come and saw the shape of another vehicle, larger than the one they had ridden in, moving quickly towards them. He nodded in that direction, and Sondra looked and saw it.
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