by Leslie Chase
Cautiously, she let go of the patch. It didn't move. Just to make sure, she sprayed a layer of sealant over the top of it to make certain it would hold when the pressure came back. Then, finally, she let herself relax. The worst had passed.
Suddenly, she was acutely aware of Zardan's hands on her waist, his powerful arms holding her up so that she could work. The bulk of her suit was between them, but still she blushed, unable to stop herself imagining him touching her skin directly. There's still another hole to patch, she told herself, but her imagination wouldn't listen. What would those powerful hands feel like? Could she risk finding out?
He must have felt her tense. Setting her down on the ice, he took a quick step back and looked at her, his strange alien eyes intense. Gillian knew that she was blushing, but she couldn't look away. The adrenaline hit of the alarm was wearing off now, and she felt her body start to shake. I should go inside. There's more work to be done, dammit.
All she wanted was to throw herself into Zardan's arms and let him hold her while the terror wore off.
"Sis?" Harry's voice crackled over the radio. "Sis, can I switch the air back on?"
The moment passed, and Gillian broke eye contact with the shifter, her blush deepening. I can't afford to be weak, she told herself. Harry's relying on me.
Fighting down her weakness, she turned her back on Zardan and marched towards the airlock. Her feelings were too confused and the sooner she was inside and away from this moment, the better.
The farm's control room looked like a bomb had hit it, appropriately enough. The rush of air leaving the dome had thrown papers everywhere, and everything was in chaos. One corner of the room was an unsightly glob of sealant where Gillian had emptied the remains of the can over the patches they'd put on the hole.
It was overkill, but Gillian wasn't taking any chances with the leak. Now that they'd pumped the air back in, the room stank of the sealant, the thick acrid scent giving her a headache. But at least there was enough air to breathe and the recycler was back in action. Automatic cutouts had kept most of the crops sealed from the breach, and that seemed to have saved them. Gillian shuddered to think how close they'd come to losing everything.
That feeling only got worse as Zardan told her what he'd seen.
"A bomb?" Gillian had listened to Zardan's explanation with growing horror. "That bastard tried to bomb us?"
"Yes." Zardan looked uncomfortable, and Harry's face darkened with anger. Gillian hadn't wanted to include him in this meeting, but it concerned him as much as it did her. It felt wrong to keep him outside.
"If I hadn't moved it, it might not have gone off," the dragon shifter continued in an angry growl. "I might have killed you both by accident."
"If you hadn't moved it from the oxygen pipe, it would have destroyed the atmosphere recycler for sure," Gillian said, cutting off his apology. "Then we'd definitely be dead, so don't blame yourself for what the bad guys did."
"Yeah," Harry said. Of the three of them, he seemed the least affected by their brush with death. Gillian felt terrified, Zardan looked furious at both the people who'd planted the bomb and himself, but Harry looked excited as well as angry. "You saved our lives. You beat up one of the bad guys. Come on, Zardan, you did great."
Zardan shook his head and looked across the table at Gillian. All she could do was shrug. Maybe teenage boys processed this stuff differently? Harry seemed to think that this was a wonderful adventure, but all Gillian could think was that Danforth would hardly stop here. The bank would be back, and next time they might try to be subtle.
"The bomb isn't my main worry," Zardan said. "The bigger issue is who planted it. A dragon working for a human bank and trying this? I can't believe it, even of Karaos. He might be a nasty son of a zrell, but he has his pride. There's more going on, and I don't like it."
"I can hardly imagine that a human bank would do something like this, either," Gillian said. "Foreclose on us, sure. That's what banks do. But this? Killing us and wrecking the farm doesn't make any sense, does it? There are thousands of miles of ice up here. If they want to start from scratch, they could just stake a claim somewhere else."
Zardan frowned, and the two of them were silent. It really didn't make any sense, on either side. The idea that a dragon shifter would take a job as a leg breaker for a bank didn't seem right to Gillian, and she couldn't see how the bank hoped to make money out of this mess. Wasn't that the whole point of a bank? There had to be profit here, somewhere that she couldn't see it.
"So that means there's a reason they want this land," Harry said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Gillian and Zardan looked at him, and he grinned excitedly. "Come on! Hidden dragon treasure, or some kind of alien weapon, or something. Got to be, right?"
Gillian opened her mouth to tell him to shut up automatically, but then she paused. Could he be right? Could there really be something hidden under their ice? They'd scouted it out when they first arrived, of course, but the ice went down for miles. She couldn't rule out the possibility that they'd missed something buried deep under there.
"The dragon attack where you two met, maybe they thought you were getting too close to what they're looking for. That makes sense, doesn't it? More sense than them randomly attacking you."
"Perhaps," Zardan said, frowning. Gillian could feel some deep pain in him as he spoke and wanted to comfort him somehow. She didn't know what was hurting him, but she wanted it to stop. "Perhaps you are right, Harry. The technology of my people interferes with yours, perhaps that's what caused your problem with the robot."
Zardan scraped his chair back and stood, pacing back and forth across the room. The ugly mess of sealant across the wall behind him reminded Gillian of the stakes they were playing for each time he walked past it.
"I've already told you that, before the ice came, this land belonged to my family," he said finally. "Now I'm the last of the House of Herendar, and this estate is mine by Imperial law. There was a lair here, a settlement, family. The ice will have crushed it over the centuries, I'd expect, but perhaps there's something down there that Karaos and Danforth are looking for.
"Ancient dragon ruins?" Harry's eyes lit up as he spoke. "Maybe with a doomsday weapon hidden inside? Or a princess sleeping in stasis? That would do it. Do you think she needs to be woken with a kiss?"
"Harry," Gillian said, a note of warning in her voice. She could see Zardan tensing at her brother's words, and didn't want to antagonize him. It couldn't be easy, thinking about the family he'd lost, and Harry's jokes couldn't be helping.
After a moment Zardan relaxed with a strange noise, almost but not quite a laugh. "No princesses, boy. No one in stasis. My family didn't have anything like the royal stasis chamber that kept the Emperor and his Dragon Guard alive through the centuries. No one else on Mars did, that's why we're the only survivors."
The empty loneliness in his voice was bleak enough to hurt, and Gillian fought down the urge to run to his side and comfort him. He's still trying to claim my family's lands out from under us, she reminded herself. Maybe he's nicer about it than Danforth, but that doesn't change the fact that he wants to take our farm.
For damned sure he's nicer to look at, part of her whispered, and she felt herself flush as she crossed her arms. It was true, but not relevant. She tried to be firm with herself, to look away from him, but it wasn't easy. Maybe it was just that she wanted to distract herself from the danger they were in.
She hoped that was it. It was easier to deal with than the idea that they were fated for each other somehow.
"What else could they want here?" she asked, hurriedly trying to move the conversation onward. Anything to avoid the awkward silence. "Is Harry right for once?"
"Hey," Harry objected. But Zardan took a deep breath and answered.
"It can't be as simple as that," he said, measuring his words as he looked back at the two of them. His violet eyes sparkled as he thought. "There are a lot of untouched ruins on Mars if that's all t
hey're after. No need to risk trouble by killing for the land. But yes, Harry, I think you're right and it has something to do with the Herendar lair. It's too much of a coincidence, otherwise."
Gillian turned to the window, looking out over the frozen wasteland beyond. The ice was too thick to make out anything under it, and for the first time she felt like it might be hiding a mystery. That deep under the valuable drinking water might something else, hidden and dangerous. Is this how Harry feels all the time? Seeing mystery and adventure around every corner?
She wished it was as much fun for her as it seemed to be for her brother. Instead, it just seemed like a dangerous mess, something that would kill them all.
"Do not worry," Zardan said, startling her as he appeared beside her at the window. "I will keep you safe from whoever plans to take this land from you."
"You've said that, but how?" Leaning against the cold glass, she sighed. "I guess I owe you my life again now. Harry's too, this time."
"You owe me nothing." The anger in Zardan's voice startled her, and she looked around to see him looming over her. But his anger wasn't directed at her, Gillian could feel that. She was inside the circle of his rage, and his fury was for those who had tried to harm her.
"If my family has left something here that endangered your family, then that's my responsibility to put right," he said, voice hard as iron. "Even if you weren't my mate, it would be my duty. Since you are my mate, there is nothing in the universe that would stop me protecting you."
The intensity of his speech rocked her. It wasn't that he meant what he said — she'd already known that. But the emotion that he was expressing, the passionate way he spoke about protecting her, made Gillian feel safe. That was unexpected.
This is ridiculous. He's one dragon, and an injured one at that. You can't rely on him. None of that seemed to matter, though. It was impossible to look up into those eyes and doubt that he would keep her from harm. Her body felt safe, even if her mind was still afraid.
It didn't help that he was calling her his mate. She understood what that meant, roughly — the dragon shifters believed that they had perfect partners waiting for them, ordained by fate or some such. It sounded like nonsense to Gillian, but one look at Zardan's eyes told her that he took it seriously.
He's not just claiming the land, he's claiming me too. Gillian didn't know how she felt about that, but she wasn't in a position to turn down his help. Just as long as the dragon shifter didn't get any ideas.
Sighing, Gillian nodded. "Okay. I'm not admitting that I'm your mate or anything, mind you. Or that you own this land. Or, well, anything."
"I know," Zardan said patiently. "You've made that very clear."
"Then fine, we'll work out what's going on and deal with it together. But you're not in charge, understand?" Gillian glowered up at Zardan, daring him to make something of her tone. It was hard to keep herself focused when he was this close, his powerful arms looking so inviting. She'd be safe in his embrace, protected.
And helpless. I am not giving in. Nope. I'll take his help if he's offering, but that's all I'm doing.
"Very well." Zardan nodded seriously, apparently oblivious to the struggle inside Gillian.
"Dammit, stop being so reasonable," she snapped, and she was sure, just for a second, that the hint of a smile passed over his lips. She flushed, caught in a mix of anger at him and something else. The smile suited him, and she wanted to see more of it. Dammit.
12
Zardan
Exploring the farm was going to take forever, Zardan thought. Even if he'd been able to fly, it was a big area to search, and on foot it was going to be impossibly slow. Walking was, he decided, a stupid way to travel.
"How do you humans put up with this?" he asked as he pulled himself up onto another ridge of ice. "It's so slow."
Harry laughed, his voice tinny over the radio. "I guess we're not used to anything else? I mean, we've got the robots, you can ride one if you're going to stick to flat terrain."
"That would defeat the purpose of this search," Zardan said. If there was something to be found here, it would be somewhere the robots hadn't already surveyed. Or it would be buried deep enough that they wouldn't be able to find it without specialist equipment. Equipment they didn't have and had no way of getting, so it was pointless to worry about it. That didn't stop him, of course.
Perhaps it is futile. Can we really hope to find anything like this? Every landmark he might have recognized was under miles of ice now, useless to him. He could be standing directly above the Herendar lair and he'd have no way of knowing it. Perhaps this whole expedition was a waste of time and energy.
"Are you two done bickering? Because we've got a lot of ground to cover and not much air to waste." Gillian's voice took away his doubts in a moment. There was something about it, even over the radio, that gave him purpose. He refused to fail her.
The three of them had set out in different directions around the ice farm, heading out over the unexplored regions in the rough direction the errant robot had traveled. Now they were all out of sight of each other, but with the farm to relay their signals they could stay in touch and coordinate the search. It was the best way to cover ground, but so far there hadn't been much to see.
"I don't think this is going to works, sis," Harry said after another few minutes, static hissing behind his words. "I can't see anything. I don't even know what I'm looking for."
"How else are we going to find what they were here for? If you've got a better idea, I'm listening." Gillian snapped. Zardan could hear the tension in her voice and wished he knew how to comfort her. The best way would be to get her some answers, he thought. It might not be easy, but he couldn't give up.
"Maybe if we had some clue what it was, we'd have a place to look?" Harry sounded dubious, and bored. The excitement of looking for dragon treasure hadn't even lasted an hour once it turned into work. "Did Number Five stumble on something? But why would it only turn up now?"
"The ice breaks apart every summer, as it warms up," Gillian said slowly, thinking the problem through. "And then it refreezes. Could that have exposed something?"
"The cracks don't usually go all the way to the ground under the ice, though," Harry replied. The static seemed stronger on his end, and it was hard to make out some of the words. "It couldn't have uncovered a secret dragon city, could it?"
"We never built high," Zardan said, trying to remember the estate. He hadn't visited it that often, despite being stationed on the same planet. It's funny how we can take things for granted. I assumed I had all the time in the world to see my family. Now whatever's here is all that's left. He shook himself and continued. "The lair was underground, dragons like caves. But something might have been lifted off the surface, I suppose. If the ice froze around it, that might carry it upward?"
"There was a big rift near where I found Number Five," Gillian said. "I remember being worried that it'd fallen down there, just before I spotted it. So, maybe?"
"It's worth checking out," Zardan agreed, scanning the frozen horizon. There was no sign of anything interesting here and he had no idea what he was looking for. Having a specific area to search might help.
Remembering the map they'd used to divide their search areas, he realized that Harry was the one looking in that area. "How about it, Harry? Can you see that rift?"
A burst of static made Zardan wince and turn down the volume on his headset. Whatever Harry tried to add to the conversation was lost under it. "Try that again, Harry?"
"I said that —skrk—" the signal dissolved into static again, and Zardan turned in the direction Harry had gone. He couldn't see anything.
"What's blocking the signal?" Gillian asked, worry clear in her voice. "Harry? Harry, answer me!"
Zardan's heart hammered as he peered in the direction the human male had gone. He was nowhere to be seen, but the icy surface was uneven enough that it wasn't surprising.
Gillian was shouting into the radio as though volume would
cut through the static, and he could hear her gasp for breath as she hurried to her brother's aid.
"He's probably fine," Zardan told her as he turned that way too. Despite his calm words, he broke into a run.
"Then why can't we hear him?" Fear and anger filled Gillian's voice.
"Something's interfering with the radio, that's all," he replied. "Our technology can do that to yours, I think. Perhaps he's close to whatever they were looking for?"
"Or perhaps he's fallen and broken the radio," Gillian said, grimly refusing his attempt to comfort her. "I knew we shouldn't have let him come along."
Telling Harry to stay put would have been pointless, and they both knew it. At best he'd have sulked, and at worst he'd sneak out to 'help' them search. But Zardan knew that Gillian wouldn't want to hear that. Better to save his breath for running.
Harry's trail, when he found it, was clear. The boy seemed to delight in taking the toughest route through the area they'd assigned him, and his spiked boots had scarred the ice where he climbed the strange white surface of the frozen cliffs. He saw Gillian in the distance, making her way towards him. He tried to hail her, but another wave of static made it almost impossible to make out her reply.
At least that implies that Harry didn't damage his radio, Zardan thought with a little relief. Though why the boy didn't turn back when he realized we couldn't hear him I don't know.
The ice rose ahead of him and Zardan pulled himself up only to look down into a sudden, deep drop. This must be the rift they'd been speaking about, and it was impressive, seeming to go down for miles into the ice. He'd seen bigger gaps from the air, but somehow it was different when his feet were on the ground. This must be how humans feel about heights all the time, he thought with a small sympathetic shudder.
