"Don't let it eat you!" Phuck shrieked from the spindlings. The dragon jerked up her head, drawing in a deadly breath that could shrivel and then incinerate the leaves. Nevertheless, she could still try, her instinct was to protect Diem, and if she aimed well enough, she might be able to fry the overseer.
As pleasing as it seemed at the moment, Diem knew it wasn't a good idea. He knew how to handle Phuck. A different overseer might not be so manageable.
"Quiet!" Diem snapped over his shoulder. He raised his arms, capturing Forge's attention again. He swept his limbs toward the ground in rhythmic strokes, until the dragon finally relaxed with his coaxing. Her chin touched the ground again and the breath she'd taken was released, in a torrent of steam, from the downward flaps behind her jaw. Her exhale left black scorch marks on the ground.
The hens were a tremendous blessing—Phuck usually bartered for two eggs at a time from Ice House, which Diem incubated and trained. But six hens, obtained without any loss, meant that in three season's time, Phuck may be independent of Pluto. And Phuck had promised Diem that he would liberate Fly House. There was no way of knowing if Phuck could do it, but Phuck had increased Diem's portions all along as he said he would. Since Diem had nothing, there was nothing to lose but hope.
"Where are the hens?" Phuck hissed from the trees.
This time, the dragon jumped to her feet and puffed a hot breath across the spindlings over Diem's head. The heat shriveled the leaves and sent them raining down on Phuck like dead bullets. He groaned as they pummeled him, but when the dragon heard him, she pulled in another breath, so the Plutian finally shut his mouth.
It took Diem several moments to calm the dragon again, but this time, although he kept his eyes on the sheathen, he spoke aloud to Phuck, in tones that also soothed Forge.
"I'm going to tell her she can release the hens. Now, don't say a word. Just listen as I whistle and when you see them, stay quiet or she could kill us both."
Diem knew that wasn't exactly the truth, but he didn't want Phuck thinking the dragon had been trained to kill Plutians on command. Diem had never used the command and didn't know if he'd ever be able to, but it relaxed him to know the option was there if he needed it.
Phuck remained squatted in the trees. Diem began another slow, melodic whistle, different from the first two. It wavered and dipped like playing a reed. It was a beautiful sound, the sound even a bird might make, if there were any left on Earth.
Forge seemed to love the sound. She sat up, exposing the hard kernels of her underbelly armor. The lower half of her belly relaxed, the front of a hard pouch pulling away from the softness of her gut beneath, to reveal the tiny snouts of the hens poking up from the protective pocket.
"Atta girl," Diem encouraged her gently. The mighty dragon stayed upright and poised as the hens made their way out, onto the ground, her eyes watching the human with a softness that Diem thought no Plutian would ever believe.
The hens, all seven of them, skittered about, stumbling over and climbing on one another, raising the dust all around them. The hens were as high as Diem's calf now, growing fast but still clumsy. One suddenly focused in on Diem and advanced, scratching its small talons in the dirt.
It was a challenge to Diem and no matter how young the hen was, its claws could shred Diem with one swipe. But there was a way of handling hens, as nerve wracking as it was. Diem planted his feet and held his chin high, standing his ground as the young dragon advanced. He only hoped the overseer would stay quiet in the burnt trees. Panicked hens were prone to indigestion, and one sound from Phuck might cause the hen to burp a fireball that could potentially singe off Diem's entire face. Otherwise, all there was to do was stand his ground and show the young that he was not afraid. Show the young that Diem was the one to be feared.
The first few feet, the hen came with head high, tiny nostrils blasting enough flame to light as large as the fire beneath a House kettle. Diem stood rooted, his eyes roving over the ground at his feet, searching for what he would need. The next couple of feet, the hen slowed its gait, its eyelids stuck wide open as it considered the man in front of it.
Diem locked his own body in place; even the twitch of a muscle could startle a snort of fire from the hen that could disfigure him forever. The next steps were the most crucial to his survival, but he knew this dance well and he knew how to ensure that a hen respected and followed him loyally.
He waited until the young dragon froze, preparing itself to attack. A rivulet of sweat licked a path down Diem's arm.
In a sudden burst, the hen charged. Diem swooped down, scooping up a rock.
Wings splayed, the hen was nearly upon him when Diem fired the rock, aiming right between the young dragon's eyes. The rock slammed into the hen's head before it could open its mouth to clamp down on the man. The hen stopped only a foot from Diem, where it swayed.
Diem was ready to jump out of the way. He hoped the strike had been hard enough, but if it hadn't, he was about to get a furnace blast. The hen staggered and fell, its head at Diem's feet.
He let out a long exhale.
The other hens, watching from beneath Forge, blinked at the hen lying at Diem's feet. Diem quickly knelt and put his hand on the unconscious hen's head. The weaker siblings scuttled forward then, their scorched caws sounding defeated as they watched the most aggressive hen, allowing Diem's touch.
Once the hens gathered around Diem, he reached out one at a time and touched their heads too. The dragons ducked their heads beneath his palm and their tongues licked the air around him, memorizing his scent. After he had touched the top of each of their heads, Forge dropped back down to the ground, laying on her side. Her exhales from the flaps at her jaw made the air humid. The hens moved away from Diem, frolicking together and nestling in close to Forge when the play got too rough.
"You can come out now," Diem called to Phuck. The overseer's voice wafted weakly from the spindling trees.
"What about when that one wakes?"
"My hand will be on its head as it wakes," Diem assured him. "I am its master now."
Phuck stepped carefully from the spindlings. He'd seen this whole process a few dozen times, but he was never comfortable with it. Most likely because he'd tried to do it on his own once, after observing Diem. It had been a blessing that Diem had happened upon him and intervened, since Phuck had been standing in the field, with a hen advancing and blowing bursts of flame right at the overseer. Phuck didn't have the sense to throw the rock in his fist, so Diem picked one up and hurled it instead. He caught the hen at such an angle that the animal went down, but got back to its feet. It took two more rocks before the hen fell unconscious and by that time, Phuck's clothing was burned right off him, along with all his hair.
The hen beneath Diem's palm opened its eyes and rolled them up, focusing on the human overhead. Diem smiled at the creature, taking in the unique markings on its neck. A Samoan fighting dragon, just like Forge. Diem's tone was gentle and soothing.
"Hey there," he said. The hen's tongue licked out toward Diem slowly, tasting the heat the man gave off, memorizing it. "Your name should be Trouble."
"His name should be Four Extra Sacks of gorne, since that's what I'll pay your House for him," Phuck said. Diem took his hand from the hen's head.
"Oh no, this hen isn't like the others and you know it," he said. "This is a Heathen and worth three times as much."
Phuck snorted, making a show of bending to look at the hen's throat, although as the heathen sniffed the Plutian, he snorted. Phuck skittered back into the trees to avoid being cooked.
"So it is," Phuck said. "But this tiny hen is not worth three times as much. Twice as much, maybe..."
"Don't plow the drait on me, Phuck. You know you'll get four times as much since he's also a fighting dragon."
"If you are able to train him."
"When have I not been able to train a dragon?" Diem scoffed and he knew there wasn't one instance that Phuck could name.
Diem was the only man
of all the Houses that had had a flawless record of breaking and training the dragons for the Plutian trade. That was what made Fly House so prosperous. It wasn't just that his House met the quota required by Pluto, or that Diem's dragons were so reliable that the dragons produced on Earth were considered prime.
For his work, Rha Diem was paid with the right to harvest enough gorne to keep his House from starving, and enough ice or fire seeds to last them through the coming season. There was also an ever-changing variety of tools, necessary for sustaining life functions. Some seasons there were looms available, or cooking utensils, at other times there were tools for cutting the spindling or the glue for adhering the spindling leaves so the rains or snow or bugs wouldn't get in so easily. Tools were hard earned and the Plutians made sure that the Houses were not only slow to acquire them, but that tools most certainly broke if a House was showing signs of becoming too independent. It was rumored that Span's House mates were enlisted for jobs like that.
"You do not need to train a heathen to mate. They do it on their own," Phuck said. Diem believed he was trying to sound nonchalant. Diem knew better. He'd been duped by Phuck before, but Wind had told him just how valuable the male dragons were. For all the trouble Wind caused, at least she'd brought him that bit of useable information.
"We both know the true value of a heathen is not just his ability to mate," Diem said. "After all, one heathen can mate a dozen swol in less than a fortnight. The price for a mating dragon is incredible, but we both know that a heathen's unique ability to defend and attack is what makes them so expensive. If all your gossip is true, the Samoan is the best at fighting the Plutian's Gall dragons."
The Plutian's mouth hole dropped open and shut, open and shut, as he fished for a lie that could smudge Diem's truth. According to Phuck, Pluto was the only planet in any solar system with Gall dragons, the most deadly dragons in the universe. Although most Plutians were skittish of dragons, certain Plutians were born and raised to be fully-suited riders of the dangerous breed. Many were killed training the beasts and others were experienced riders that the unreliable Galls still turned on. But Samoan heathens were more reliable and natural predators of the Galls, it could wipe out most or all of Pluto's Gall fleet once it was full grown. This heathen would be extremely valuable for trade, but Phuck would have to be careful who acquired the dragon, as it could put Pluto in jeopardy.
Diem paused, his own grin constant and satisfied that he'd pinned the overseer into a very valuable corner.
"I can increase your gorne for the year..." Phuck bartered.
"I don't want gorne."
"What else is there for you to want?"
"I want my family's freedom."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
July 25, 2095
Maeve noticed two weird things when she opened the new door at the farthest point of the Archive: the room was really long, and the low ceiling was nothing but raw metal girders and hard packed dirt. It was odd to see an unfinished room in the Archive. Maeve ducked inside, the loose clods of dirt floor crunching beneath her boots.
Something rumbled overhead. Close. Maeve starred up at the ceiling. How close to the surface could this place be? The ceiling quivered. Then it shook like a damn runaway train was racing over the top of it.
Maeve shot back to the door, bracing herself in the frame. The tremor disappeared as fast as it came, but what was left behind drew Maeve back into the room.
What looked like a row of domed lights, oddly white with scales like albino artichokes, were now lodged in the ceiling. Maeve dodged her flashlight beam around the walls, but there were no switches and no wiring. She was positive the lighting fixtures hadn't been up there a minute ago and since they hadn't, it could only mean that somebody was up there, pounding them down into the unfinished ceiling.
Right?
But something about the lights sure as hell didn't seem right. For one, they weren't lit. They were only an iridescent white color that glowed in the dark room.
Maeve crept across the floor until she was just to one side of the protruding light. She pointed her flashlight beam straight up at it. There were no openings around the edges; the overhead lights were a perfect fit. She reached up with her flashlight and tapped on the thing. What she thought would be the glass covering over a light bulb was hard as concrete and maybe thicker than a sidewalk.
A sidewalk might make sense and Maeve's hope gave a little leap at the thought, but then, what kind of sidewalk had round, iridescent bulbs on the bottom?
The ceiling rumbled again and Maeve skittered back to the door frame. She held fast as the tremor passed, just as it had the first time.
This room made her change her whole game plan. After a few moments, she went out and closed the door. She made her way back down the twists and turns of silent Archive corridors, no longer searching for the outlying outer doors, but instead, to find Casper Bergen.
***
The last person Maeve was in the mood to hear was Steven, but there he was.
"Where have you been?" He rose from a chair in Supply as Maeve entered the room. More were awake. Three strangers were gathered at one of the tables, two others hunched under blankets at another. The blank shock made the new faces smooth when they tipped their face toward her. Their eyes saw her, but didn't. They couldn't have been awake very long.
"They're waking up in heaps," Amber said, appearing at her elbow. She was holding cans of beans and grapefruit sections.
"If heaps are five of them," Steven said, reaching for the cans. Amy came out of the pantry with the can opener.
"Five's a heap," she said.
"Five is a heap." Maeve nodded, distracted. "Where's Casper?"
"He's in the chamber room," Steven said grimly. "He's trying to wake them up."
"I thought you can't do that?"
"You can't," Amber said. "Or, at least, you shouldn't. We came out here so we wouldn't have to listen to it."
"Did he wake them up?" Maeve motioned to the people at the tables.
"No. They woke up on their own," Amy said. "The other ones...they're just dying."
Maeve didn't ask any more questions. She strode across Supply and threw open the doors to the Chamber Room.
"Casper!" she shouted across the room. His head poked up from behind one of the chambers, four rows back.
"I'm right here. Did you need something?"
"What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm trying to expedite the decompression sequence, but the chambers aren't recognizing the code."
Maeve crossed the floor too quickly to be prepared for what she saw. Some of the chambers were no longer lit inside. Her gaze was drawn, magnetized, to the dark windows. The faces inside were not peaceful. They were anything but. Maeve spun, seeing the dead all around her. Six, at least.
"STOP!" she shrieked as Casper reached for the latch of another chamber. He froze, looking at her with a mild curiosity.
"I think I have it, but I have to open them to know for sure," he said simply. She leapt forward, throwing herself over the top of the chamber. He'd have to pry her off first.
"These aren't experiments! These are people! You are killing people! Mothers and fathers and daughters and sons!"
Casper stepped away from Maeve with a sigh.
"I understand that, but they might all die if I don't figure out how to decompress them first. I have to try."
"Trying? This isn't a quiz where you can erase your mistakes. You can't just try."
"There isn't anything else I can do. They're all going to die if I can't figure out how to save them," he said. "Given the alternative, I believe they would want me to try."
"Who?" Maeve asked. "The Archive? The huge staff that isn't here? Or do you mean the people in the chambers? Because I'm damn sure I wouldn't have wanted you to experiment on decompressing me, if it meant I ended up dying a horrible death!"
"But you would want it, if I were able to save you," he said, his voice pained. "It might be their only chance."
"Didn't you tell me they'd wake up on their own when the gases ran out?"
"I may have, but there was new research—right before I became an Experimental. The Archive was trying to remove the side effects people experienced upon waking. There were mental issues in every patient who successfully gained consciousness. The lab found and isolated the chemical in the composition that produced the insanity and we replaced it." He caught his lip and bit down on it before he began again. "But the substance that replaced the original chemical also had an effect. When the gases would deplete on their own in the chambers, it no longer provided a safe decompression. The gases paralyzed the body and a natural depletion of the gases caused an adverse reaction with the lungs. The oxygen depletes; the organ slowly collapses..."
"Holy shit! Are you telling me they suffocate?"
Casper nodded, with a long, miserable blink. Maeve's eyes rushed over the tops of the chambers that extended off into the dark.
"You didn't wake up the people who are in Supply now?"
"No. They woke on their own. I've administered Oxycort, as we did in the lab, to prevent the reaction, but it's not working. I've been trying to reenact the waking sequence they just experienced, by comparing the readouts and trying to match the conditions supplied, but there is a problem. The chamber bugs are tampering with the stabilizing systems."
"Then you have to stop. You can't keep testing theories," Maeve said.
"I have to."
Her voice was deep and sure. "It's not your place to play God."
"You think God would still want me to stand back and let them die, if I might be able to save some of them? Or would God want me to save as many as I could? Don't people usually say, even if I could just save one life, it would be worth it?"
The solutions were as right as they were wrong. Whether they were good or not depended on their outcome.
"You are not God, Casper," she said. "Not even one more. If they're waking on their own, then let them. But you're not opening even one more chamber. They have as much of a chance without you as with you. If they wake or if they die, it's not going to be your fault anymore."
The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Page 11
