Friendly Fire

by Michelle Levigne

  "Because you aren't worried?"

  "Hmm, maybe." M'kar studied the cup, swirled it around once more, and downed it to wash the last of the anise residue from her mouth.

  "Brain thawed out or untangled or whatever?" Brea waited until M'kar thought for a moment, then nodded. She picked up the tablet again and handed it to her. "I suggest just dictating, thinking aloud, and arranging everything later. If you try to put some order to things from the start, you're going to give yourself another headache."

  "What sort of impressions is everyone else getting from our visitors?"

  "Friendliness, curiosity, hunger to learn. It's funny -- odd funny, not entirely amusing -- that each crew has one specific drac attached to him or her. That drac basically ignores everyone else, no matter how we try to bribe them to come sit on our shoulders or eat from our hands."

  M'kar bit back an angry rebuke. First, because it was just plain foolish to allow alien creatures to make physical contact, and then to put themselves within scratching or gouging range of the dracs' long, sharp talons. True, the examinations of Cobalt and Poki had revealed no inimical bacteria or parasites or even venom. That didn't mean something didn't exist inside the living dracs that could kill, or just seriously maim them. Granted, she had let Granny ride on her shoulder, but she had experience and instinct and the ability to mentally shove really hard at the first hint of threat.

  Her second reaction was a flash of anger with herself. After all, as the strongest animal-focused Talent on the ship, it was her job to clear the dracs for safe socializing. But she had been flat on her back, surviving a multi-voiced interrogation.

  "Each drac that assigned itself to one of our crew had two or three other dracs who flew back and forth between them. And I swear, there were bigger dracs that met up with those, and then reported to Granny."

  "Why would they need to report -- did anyone record the sounds they made? Why would they need to report if their communication is telepathic?"

  "We did indeed record, and a lot of it was in ranges and frequencies inaudible to the Human ear. I'm tempted to bring Treinna and her crew down here, to see if they can start translating the drac language."

  "If we determine the dracs are anywhere near the sentient minimums … we are in a lot of trouble."

  "It might already be too late. Genys wants you to ask if anyone other than the Corona crew ever landed. And before you ask, we’ve been trying with our personal pests, but they just can't jump the gap. They get impressions of being adored, but nobody has had anything remotely resembling communication, other than you."

  "Joy …" M'kar said with a sigh.

  She flinched when she stepped out of the tent and every visible drac in the camp, nearly forty, seemed to squeal and rise up in the air and turn to look at her. She braced for another assault that had invaded her sleep all night, but a shrill chattering cut through the air and sent all the dracs in their myriad colors back to the people they had seemingly been assigned to. The chattering modulated into sweeter crystalline chimes, and she turned to look for the source as it drew closer. Granny swooped down and flew three slowing circles around her. M'kar had the distinct impression the little elderly drac was asking permission … to land, if she wasn't mistaken.

  Yes. Please. Welcome. She just hoped the landing pad wasn't her head, which still felt a little swollen and tender, despite Brea's miracle cure tonic.

  Granny let out another series of chimes, up and down the scale, and folded her wings just short of smacking M'kar's ear, landing with a soft thump on her shoulder. Her talons pierced M'kar's uniform, but stopped just short of piercing her skin. Just like Poki had.

  You're a lot more aware and linked into us than we think, aren't you?

  Granny winked, all three sets of lids closing on just one eye.

  "Okay, Granny, what is it you want to tell me? Or do you want to learn more from me? Anything you didn't learn while you were poking around in here?" M'kar rubbed her temple. A chuckle nearly burst from her when the silver drac seemed to shrug and hang her head a moment. "Yeah, well, the first time you're learning to run some new equipment, there are bound to be mistakes. Somebody said we're like being in a zoo, but the other way around for a change -- we're the specimens and you and your tribe are examining us. So that makes me the head specimen and you're the zookeeper. What's the first trick you need me to learn?"

  Granny chirped and raised her head and looked around the camp, where most of the activity had slowed. M'kar caught a few wide-eyed looks from her crewmates. She laughed, realizing what an odd picture she presented, especially since she was talking to the drac as if she expected the matriarch to understand every word she said. A background humming had settled into her mind, creating a bridge between her and the drac. Maybe it had been forged during the long night of having her mind invaded and examined. Maybe it was just another aspect of her Talent adapting to the situation. Whether the bridge or link was stronger on her side or the drac's, time would tell.

  With a twist of her head, Granny indicated a direction and M'kar walked. Granny chirped softly, folded her wings back, and settled more securely on her shoulder. The long tail wrapped once around M'kar's neck. The hide was soft and warm, and there was a slightly bony ridge along the bottom of the tail where she could feel the creature's rapid pulse against her skin. There was something comforting about the sensation.

  Please, Enlo, if this is a trap, if there's something dangerous here, protect us?

  M'kar nearly stopped short when she realized what a colossal error she had nearly made. How many times had her teachers on Le'anka lectured their students on the necessity of flooding every use of their Talents with the proper mindset of petition and submission? Enlo had given them their psionic gifts and varying levels of strength and different abilities for a purpose. The only way they could deploy those gifts to the optimum use was within Enlo's plan -- and how could they know Enlo's master plan for the universe and for their lives if they did not reach with their minds and souls to the All-maker regularly?

  More important, and applicable to this situation: What made her think Enlo would protect her from stupid risks if she didn't ask for guidance, if she didn't test each unknown situation and put it under his guidance?

  Feeling somewhat foolish, M'kar let the drac guide her, responding to the turns of the long elegant neck and the clear directions pointed out by the arrow-shaped head. As soon as they were outside the camp, escorted by two Security crew about four meters behind her, M'kar stopped and lifted Granny off her shoulder. The little drac made a large handful, but she chirped complacently and looked perfectly relaxed, gazing into her eyes.

  "In Enlo's name and for his honor …" M'kar swallowed hard and fought not to glance at the two guards, who at least had the discretion to keep the distance between them.

  She felt like a child reciting spells contained in old fables, but she had read too many accounts of other Talents who had met disaster by skipping this vital, cautious step. They had trusted their own impressions or feared to offend, and got themselves and their friends into deep danger, if not killed.

  "I call on Enlo's power and grace to bind any danger you present, to remove any illusions you would use to blind our eyes. Enlo, I am your servant, entrusted with great gifts. Let me see danger, let me sense evil, make me the first wall of defense for all of us here." She swallowed hard again, looking into the little drac's eyes, softly spinning rainbow of shimmers. "Granny, are you in Enlo's will and grace, or are you danger and evil?"

  The chirping softened and deepened to a croon that vibrated in M'kar's facial bones. Tears pressed at the backs of her eyes, under an overwhelming impression of something sad and sweet and compassionate and … forgiving. That last impression came through the strongest. It confused her. The crooning grew stronger, as Granny extended her long neck and rubbed her head against M'kar's cheek.

  A sputter of laughter escaped her as she understood.

  "Yeah, well, I know I'm being paranoid, but that's
part of my job. I have to make sure you really are friendly and you really do like us, and we're not going to wake up tomorrow and find out we've been turned into brainless slaves, you know?" She shifted Granny back to her shoulder. This time the drac's tail wrapped twice around her neck. "Too much of that with the dymcraits already. Thanks for forgiving me."

  M'kar dreaded having to write all this down in her report. There were just some things she couldn't put into words. Fortunately, her captain understood, as they had worked together on different landing parties and field surveys. So much of M'kar's Talent worked with impressions, emotions, gut instinct. Touching the minds of animals, even semi-sentient ones, went beyond language.

  By the end of the day, M'kar had a few details clarified, and felt ready to report to the Defender when she met with Brea and Decker and the other team leads. The planet-ship link sat in the center of the table in the clear area between all their tents.

  "Essentially, they let young dracs go with the Corona because there were children on board. Granny pretty much confirms that the dracs encouraged bonding, but didn't let the children near their youngest ones because it wasn't wise or safe or healthy. Generally, it isn't good for baby dracs to bond with children."

  "Interesting," was all Genys would say for a few moments.

  Those at the table and those in the conference room on the Defender discussed theories and the reams of data generated by the landing party. M'kar didn't need to see her captain's face to know what Genys was thinking. The fear for the children of the Defender, the chances of some bond forming between them and the dracs that could endanger their lives, had eased. It wasn't totally dealt with, though. This was only the first day of studying the creatures, learning about their hierarchy and rudimentary culture, and communicating with them. Recordings of their trills and chirps and chatter, combined with visual and medical scans taking place at the time of the communication, had been sent up to the ship for the linguists to work on. That alone would take luns, at best. M'kar hoped Treinna and her team would have fun.

  "So, how are you feeling, specifically?" Genys asked, when the discussion wound down. "If a bond is forming between you and Granny, strong enough that what affects one of you affects the other, would you know it? Could you break it without damaging either of you? If the Academy and other authorities in the Alliance determine they're a danger, I don't want to have to strand you or anyone else caught in a bond on an interdicted planet."

  "I get the impression from Granny that she is their voice, their clearinghouse, because she is the oldest, has the best control, and is safest from bonding. They keep the youngest away from us because they’re still learning control." M'kar rubbed at her temples with the index fingers of both hands. "I'm still untangling impressions, images. Still trying to get it clear in my head before I can put it into words."

  "Your gut instinct is a lot more accurate than most people's scientific analyses," Brea said.

  "And a lot easier to understand," Decker added, with a touch of growl in his voice. That earned grins around the table and a few whispers of chuckles from on the ship. The Security chief's loathing for diplomats and bureaucrats and people who "said with fifty words what sane people could say in ten," was well known.

  "My impression is that the mental linking is part of their learning process. It's how they train their young. How they keep them under control, maybe even protect them. Like the bond goes two ways."

  "Could the dracs grow out of the bond, as they mature?" Genys asked.

  "That's the theory."

  "That matches with some of what we've learned from today's scans," Brea said. "It'll take decs before we know everything there is to know about drac biology, but we've determined some patterns. The dracs partnering directly with our people are larger, with steadier brainwave activity. They are older, more mature, and safe from bonding with the people they are studying. The ones that act as messengers are younger, with wider fluctuations in brain wave activity. Not that we've gotten any of them to sit still for more than a minute at a time so we could analyze them. Every time we do, an older drac comes and scolds them away. I got scolded a couple times myself, like I was breaking some sort of anti-fraternization rule." She chuckled.

  "All right, my estimation of their sentience, their … well, their moral code, their sense of responsibility, just went up about twenty points," Genys said. "I dare anyone to disagree that their awareness of the danger, their ability to monitor each other and themselves, to operate as they do and interact with us, that's intelligence."

  "Is it enough to put the planet under general protection orders?" Decker said.

  "It's enough to make me worried what happens if other governments find out about this place."

  "We only know a fraction of a percent about this world," Sulinn said from the far end of the table, where she and her team had been murmuring and taking notes and comparing data streaming across their tablets since the beginning of the meeting. "We may be in the garden spot of this world. The dracs might be protecting us from big, nasty predators and poisonous plants and parasites. Or those nasties haven't noticed we're here yet."

  "Or we could be safe because our biology is poisoning the rest of the world, spreading through the air and ground and water as we speak," Brea offered. "Something like a natural repulsor field."

  "That too. We're too new to this place to make any decisions, even the ones we consider moral and responsible. What if we need to protect the rest of the universe from this planet?" She shrugged her wide shoulders and tipped her head just enough the overhead lights gleamed off her ebony shaven head.

  "I know this is -- I hope this is -- a question that doesn't need asking," Genys said, when the silence rang around the table, everyone absorbing the import of Sulinn's words. "How much have any of us asked Enlo for guidance?"

  M'kar flinched, and her face warmed as she remembered her moment of embarrassed epiphany this morning.

  "Tress and her friends sat with me during chapel after dinner. Mostly it was to find out when they could come down and meet the dracs," their captain continued. "A couple of them want to know if the dracs have souls, and if they do, do they have worship like we do? I was just cowardly enough to pass them off on their parents and the counselor team. But it reminded me that we get into a bad habit of just haring off on our rescue missions or surveys or whatever and just assume Enlo is guiding us …" She sighed. "But my grandmother used to say that Enlo is first of all a gentleman, and he doesn't go where he isn't invited."

  M'kar felt slightly vindicated when others indicated they had forgotten something so basic. What bothered her, though, was the variety of reactions among those around the table. Some had a touch of grudging admission, as if they found the whole topic uncomfortable.

  She made a mental note to send a separate communication to Te'ar, a friend among the ship's counselors. Times like this reminded M'kar that not everyone assigned to E&D ships, searching for the Gatekeepers and the answer to unlock the Gates, was as firmly devoted to Enlo's teachings as the Academy leadership wished. Master Reydon had told his students on numerous occasions that only unity of mind, heart, and resolve would bring success in their quest. United service to Enlo and devotion to the All-maker's teachings were essential.

  ~~~~~~

  "What just happened?" Grego asked the next afternoon, turning with most of the others in the open area outside the survey camp, to watch Granny streak away.

  As one, everyone seemed to turn to look at M'kar. Just moments before, the little silver drac had been hovering in the air, level with her eyes, chirping with eagerness. Privately, M'kar suspected the matriarch drac wouldn't let any of her swarm communicate with her.

  "I asked how they could breathe fire." M'kar reached out with her Talent to try to follow the humming sense of the old drac's mind. She couldn't really see the silver dot in the distance. "I asked her to show me how they did it."

  "So asking that frightened her? Maybe ticked her off?" Decker stomped over to stand n
ext to her and look for Granny in the distance. "That might be a good thing. Kind of an ingrained response not to do it. You know, kind of like training primitives to be afraid of our weapons, so they don't steal them."

  "How is it a good thing if dragons are afraid to breathe fire?" Brea wore a very clear smirk. That generated grins on other faces. Baiting Decker was something of a hobby for some members of the crew, especially when it came to questions that were in the well, duh! category. "Wouldn't it be to our benefit if our little friends could defend us if something big and nasty came tearing out of the jungle at us?"

  "If they've gotten to a point where they teach their kids not to breathe fire, then maybe there's no need for them to defend against something big and nasty. Maybe they took care of the problem, had a kind of war a long time ago, so there's nothing big enough and nasty enough to need them to breathe fire," the Security chief shot back.

  M'kar felt like her jaw would hit the packed dirt of the camp. If she wasn't mistaken, that was a sparkle of laughter in Decker's eyes, totally incongruous with his growl. Granted, she had never been this close when Decker baiting commenced, but was it possible he enjoyed the verbal tussles? She glanced at Brea. To her surprise, the medic's amusement faded away.

  "Didn't think of that," she admitted.

  "Incoming." Grego pointed, then squinted. "Didn't we determine they can teleport?"

  "Yeah," M'kar said.

  "How come they don't?"

  "If you could fly, wouldn’t you show off as much as possible?" Decker said.

  The tiny silver dot of Granny grew closer, faster. Her nearly translucent wings were a blur, and she seemed to be having trouble with her stability, so she created a corkscrew effect flying straight ahead. What did it reveal about the drac's thoughts? Did it have something to do with that black cluster of leaves in her foreclaws?