The Dragon Circle

by Irene Radford

  Certainly Loki had shared his bed with more than a few women in the last five months. Konner, too, had sampled several. Kim had been satisfied only with Hestiia. But none of the village women had to be forced and few had been virgin. Vastly underpopulated before Hanassa’s sacrifices depleted their numbers, the Coros had learned to value the birth of children and expanding the gene pool more than worrying about the identity of the father. In a communal village, no child was ever orphaned or disparaged for not knowing his father.

  Then, too, the men of this planet took parental responsibilities seriously. Few children were born out of wedlock, but the first one often came three or four moons early.

  “Now that tale is just a mite too tall to believe,” Sanchez snorted. “Who would think you three thieves are gods?”

  “The locals don’t know our history,” Kim said. He heaved himself to his feet.

  “Time to report to the lieutenant. Saunders, bring in the others,” Sanchez said. “I imagine Pettigrew will relish locking the infamous O’Hara brothers into the deepest hole, in a heavy gravity hold aboard Jupiter and throwing away the key. We’ll have you tried, convicted, and into psychological rehab before the next landfall.” She grabbed her rifle away from Saunders and gestured with it for them all to stand and march up the tunnel. “Which one of you stole our lander?”

  All three brothers stared at her blankly. Konner willed his mind away from all thoughts of a transport vehicle. Any vehicle. He thought of Dalleena’s big brown eyes and long dark hair. He thought of her quick intelligence and her courage in the face of the unknown.

  “Without the lander, how are you going to get back to the Jupiter?” Konner asked mildly.

  “We’ll find a way to hot-wire your shuttle, if they don’t send down a second boat to retrieve us,” Saunders said confidently.

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” Konner muttered. He glared at the kid from beneath lowered eyelids.

  On the trek back to the upper levels Loki kept up a friendly banter with the kid Saunders, lauding the charms of the local women. The three additional techs who joined them kept rapt attention on Loki’s tales.

  When they arrived at the hatch of the shuttle, a frantic quality permeated the men and women who bustled about, taking readings with sensors, jumping in and out of Rover and reporting back to the lieutenant who lay on a stretcher in the shade of one of the house-sized boulders. Long shadows nearly filled the bowl now that the sun came close to setting behind the western ridge.

  Lieutenant Pettigrew struggled to sit up as Sanchez spat her report to him.

  Instead of uniform trousers, his legs were now encased in a series of bandages. Konner looked up to the ridge where the dragon had deposited the man this morning. Sure enough the setting sun glinted off the rusting razor wire the original colonists had strung during the civil war that nearly destroyed the entire population.

  He hoped the man’s tetanus boosters were up to date. They were a long way from a new supply of any but the most basic of natural medicines.

  “Which one of you stole my lander?” the lieutenant screamed at the three O’Hara brothers.

  Konner and his brothers strove to return his glare with blankness.

  “Don’t answer that,” the lawyer, Sasha Demochitsky called from a knot of IMPs on Pettigrew’s other side. In a flash of images, Konner knew everything about her, including her passion for defending the downtrodden, convinced that the GTE accused bushies of invented crimes just to persecute them.

  “You mean you didn’t parachute down from your cruiser?” Loki asked. His eyes were wide and he sucked on his cheeks to avoid outright laughter. The way his eyes twinkled, he must be having a gay old time.

  “You know damn well we didn’t,” the lieutenant began to froth at the mouth. He spat out the precious moisture.

  Sanchez looked as if she wanted to spit, too, but conserved her bodily fluids for more important things.

  The techs just found the sky fascinating.

  “What do you know of the local cultures?” the anthropologist with the singsong voice rushed up to the brothers and shoved a recorder into their faces. “Are they ready to join the GTE or will they need persuasion?”

  Arthur Singh, Ph.D. The title was as much a part of the man’s identity as his name. Konner did not need to read this man’s mind to know his prejudices against all bushies.

  “Had any luck starting up Rover?” Konner looked over his shoulder at his shuttle, ignoring the anthropologist.

  He saw three figures in the cockpit shaking their heads. “Didn’t think so. We can fly all of you out of here. Our village women are preparing a hot dinner with lots of fresh water and ale. The river valley offers a much more pleasant climate, too. You and your men can refresh yourselves while you wait for someone to come get you.”

  A number of the people now milling about licked their lips.

  These twenty IMPs had no true shelter and no conditioning to endure the extremes of the desert climate. In about twenty minutes the air would begin to chill as the sun set.

  “What’s our guarantee that you three won’t attempt to escape again?” a sergeant asked. He stepped between Konner and the still spluttering lieutenant.

  Konner had no trouble reading his name tag, Duggan. The Tambootie must be wearing off if he couldn’t pluck the name from his mind.

  “I must advise you . . .” Both men cut off the lawyer with a glare.

  Corporal Sanchez relaxed a little. She clearly felt comfortable with Duggan’s leadership. But not Pettigrew’s.

  Konner wondered which family had purchased Pettigrew’s commission in the Imperial Military Police. How many promotions would their largesse buy? Mid-thirties and still a lieutenant. He’d not go much farther without a lot more money. And how could Konner and his brothers use that information to implement their plot?

  “I’ll see you all in hell before I, or my men, fly anywhere with you, O’Hara, unless you are in chains in the brig!” Pettigrew snarled. He lunged to his knees, grabbing at Konner’s wrist. His fingers clamped tight, like force bracelet restraints.

  His touch sent sharp pains through Konner’s arm to his brain. The horizon tipped and twisted. Colors reversed. Pettigrew’s head blanched to a grimacing skull.

  Konner’s head buzzed. His stomach roiled. And his heart felt crushed within his chest.

  In that moment, with a trace of the Tambootie still augmenting his senses, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Pettigrew would die and Konner would be responsible.

  CHAPTER 19

  KIM FOUGHT the urge to kneel beside the lieutenant and draw some of the poison out of his wounds from the razor wire. No sense in broadcasting his healing talent to skeptical IMPs.

  “Lieutenant Pettigrew has become feverish from his wounds,” Sergeant Duggan announced. Then he faced all three brothers equally. “Mr. O’Hara . . . um . . . et al . . . I will gladly delay your arrest for smuggling dangerous and outlawed substances, for resisting arrest, for unauthorized exploration of a lost colony, and for . . . whatever else is on the books against you and your brothers if you will fly us to a more hospitable place where we can get help for Lieutenant Pettigrew.”

  “And get communications working,” a tech advised him. “This place is just plain weird. I can’t get a signal in or out.”

  Kim found it interesting that the man had not asked them to use the shuttle to take them all immediately back to the cruiser in orbit. Why?

  “We have enough fuel and lift to get us all back to our village,” Loki said. “I’m the pilot in the family.” He immediately marched toward Rover and entered the shuttle. Half a dozen troops followed him, holstering their weapons.

  “We will, of course, need to use your communications equipment to signal Jupiter once we are clear of the magnetic disturbances here in the crater,” Duggan continued.

  “We expected as much,” Kim replied. But they’d not get much use out of the system. Kim would make certain of that.

  “Ah, Mr. O
’Hara,” Sanchez insinuated herself between Konner and the sergeant. “What was that creature that nearly killed Lieutenant Pettigrew, and how did you control the beast?” She cleared her throat. “An interesting potential weapon.”

  Konner smiled. “Irythros is very protective of me. He acts on his own initiative. Dragons don’t take kindly to control.”

  ”Just be glad Iianthe was not here,” Kim added. ”The purple-tip dragon dislikes strangers even more. Especially strangers who brandish weapons indiscriminately.”

  Lieutenant Pettigrew screamed something incoherent.

  Sergeant Duggan gestured to another IMP with a medical caduceus on her collar. The blonde woman sprayed something directly into the lieutenant’s face. He fell back against his makeshift litter with a thud and a grin on his face. The medic looked around as if daring anyone to question her cavalier application of strong sedatives.

  “Drag . . . dragon!” Saunders and three other recruits within earshot crossed themselves. Paused. Repeated the gesture and began murmuring prayers.

  Kim smiled.

  This plan might work after all.

  The sun was well down below the rim of the crater before all twenty of the IMPs were crammed into the shuttle. Sergeant Duggan and Corporal Sanchez elected to stand behind Loki and Kim, peering over their shoulders and marking every touch they made on the interfaces. Saunders took up a post in the cramped corner of the cockpit. He maintained a proprietary air about the O’Haras, as if they were his personal prisoners.

  The engines fired to life at Loki’s first command. The sensors and communications responded easily to Kim’s touch.

  “How’d you get a commercial shuttle to give readouts like that?” Sanchez gasped. “You’ve got every one of Jupiter’s comm satellites on line and we aren’t even out of the bowl yet?”

  “Who says we have to leave original equipment intact?” Kim smiled at her.

  “But the manual . . . ?”

  “Got lost on the first shakedown run,” Kim muttered.

  “Bet Commander Leonard would give her eyeteeth for an array this accurate aboard Jupiter,” Saunders said.

  “Engineer Jorges would go flapdoodle and faint at the violations to the manual,” Duggan chuckled.

  The flight back to the village seemed to take forever. With the heavy load and limited fuel, Loki kept the speed and altitude low. The grumbles and mutters of discomfort from the main cabin grew louder with each kilometer. Then a few of the IMPs standing near portholes gasped. They were flying over the Great Bay. Phosphorescent life-forms crested the waves. In the diminishing daylight, the ocean sparkled and danced. A behemoth breached and splashed back into the depths right below them.

  “Quite a place,” Duggan said, his voice tinged with awe.

  “We’ve kept the local culture primitive,” Kim said.

  He wanted to say “unpoisoned” but bit his tongue.

  “Makes them more malleable,” Loki chimed in.

  “They think these clowns are gods,” Saunders added, as if he knew everything about the situation—or at least more than the sergeant.

  “So we are landing half a klick away from the village and cloaking the shuttle,” Kim explained. “And we would appreciate all of your people keeping their instruments and weapons holstered when in contact with our people. Your anthropologist should back us up on that.”

  “From what I hear, there’s another instrument we don’t have to keep holstered,” Saunders said on a deep blush.

  “Keep it to yourself,” Sanchez barked before Kim could.

  Suddenly, this part of the plan did not seem so good. Kim knew what they had to do, but to expose Hestiia and the rest of the Coros to these crude . . . barbarians . . . Marines!

  Loki killed the internal and external lights.

  “Brace yourselves. This isn’t going to be pretty or comfortable,” Loki called out. The shuttle bumped the ground, bounced, tilted, and thudded into place. All of the IMPs teetered and crashed into each other. The three O’Hara brothers shared a mischievous glance. They were strapped in and weathered the rough landing with ease.

  ”We’re gonna crash!” A voice screamed in the back.

  Surreptitiously, Loki moved his hand to another control while Duggan and Sanchez were righting themselves.

  “Hey! The hatch won’t open,” a voice called from the cabin.

  “Get us out of here. Life support is going down.”

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “Lights! I can’t see.”

  Duggan shoved aside the metallic cloth curtain that separated the cockpit from the cabin. “Quiet down!” he ordered the troops. “We’ll get you out in due order.” Then he turned a malevolent visage upon all three brothers. “Open the damn hatch before I forget that all life is sacred and throttle the three of you with my bare hands.”

  “Certainly, Sergeant,” Loki replied as if nothing were wrong at all. He touched a different control. All of the lights came on in a blinding glare.

  Kim edged his hand toward the red triangle in the corner of his interface. Once the men were outside, he could render them all unconscious with a quick blast of the sonics.

  Konner shook his head at him. “Not yet, little brother. Don’t reveal your cards until the last chip is played.”

  “You’ve been quiet since we took off,” Kim said.

  Duggan bellowed orders for the orderly dispersal of his troops. Kim did not think anyone heard his own comment over the noise.

  Suddenly the cockpit emptied of excess people and noise. Even Loki had disembarked. The silence seemed alien.

  “How did you live with yourself when you killed that man?” Konner asked suddenly.

  Kim searched his brother’s face for signs of distress that triggered his question. The incident had happened years ago, but he’d never told his brothers until after Loki had been forced to kill Hanassa. Like Kim, Loki had shared the moment of death with his victim, nearly willing himself to die in the process.

  “I had to go through the motions of living. For Mum. For you and Loki. I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, day after day. Why? Did you kill someone on your adventures today?”

  “No. I have not killed a man yet. But I had a precognitive experience. Must have been induced by the Tambootie. I haven’t done the deed and I already feel as if my guts have been ripped out.” Konner slumped.

  Kim had never seen him so upset. So . . . reduced.

  “Then maybe you don’t have to kill anyone. The one thing I have learned from experimenting with psi powers and Tambootie: the future is fluid. The few glimpses we get are warnings of one possibility. Each choice we make opens dozens of new possibilities. Maybe you were granted the premonition so you won’t kill another human being.”

  “I certainly hope you are right.” Konner looked a little brighter, a little less fatigued.

  “Come on, big brother. Let’s go get some supper.” Kim slapped Konner on the back and urged him out of the shuttle.

  Outside, they found the IMPs grumbling about the hike across open country to their destination. Duggan commandeered Kim and his brothers to handle the lieutenant’s litter along with the medic. They led the way toward home.

  Home. Kim savored the word. This forgotten planet three sectors off charted space had become home. The villagers and Hestiia were his family now. He never wanted to leave, even to see Mum one more time and explain to her why he had to stay.

  Mum would get over his absence. He didn’t want Hestiia to try to get over it if he left.

  The savory smell of roasting meat and vegetables reached the troop before they sighted the cooking fires. All around Kim, men and women started licking their lips and hastening their steps.

  “I thought you told the girls no meat,” Konner whispered to Kim across the litter from him, and heedless of the medic in front of Kim.

  “I did.”

  “Meat won’t stop this greedy bunch of hypocrites,” the medic snorted. “Every bush planet we encounter,
that’s the first thing they head for. I can’t convince them they don’t need meat to satisfy their nutritional needs. I can’t tell them anything. They are too busy bickering among themselves to listen to anyone. You think the class system at the Emperor’s court is strict? Try getting workshirts to sit down at the same table in the officers’ mess with cleanshirts. Try getting the defense team to talk to the prosecution. Try getting forensics to talk to the Marines. Or one anthropologist to agree with the other on the time of day or day of the week. Then there’s Captain Leonard and Judge Balinakas.” She looked as if she wanted to pound her fist into someone’s jaw—anyone who got in her way.

  “In that case, half the plan is already implemented.” Konner quirked up half his mouth.

  But his smile did not convince Kim. “Must have been one nasty precog episode,” Kim muttered.

  “It was.”

  “Getting a headache yet?” he asked. His own head had begun to throb. Withdrawal from the Tambootie. He’d only ingested a small amount of the oils. His mouth salivated at the thought of tasting the oils again, of feeling the flavors burst upon his tongue and open his senses. His hands began to shake.

  Just how addictive was the drug?

  “Sometimes it takes a month to get the stink of meat out of the ship,” the medic continued her litany of grief. “Even with the best air scrubbers available.”

  Kim looked closer at her uniform. In the gloom he thought he saw a name tag that said “Lotski.” Did she have any gamma blockers in her kit to break addictions? Maybe all he needed were a few judiciously placed micro amps to the affected brain synapses. Then he could use the Tambootie with impunity.

  The troop crested the last low hill before the village. The glow from the central fire lit the ridgeline.

  “Duggan,” Loki called the sergeant. “Best my brothers and I lead the group. Don’t want you punctured by a spear or brained by a club. The blacksmith totes a really mean hammer.”

  The IMPs halted their plunge down the hill to wait for Kim and his brothers. The weight of the litter had slowed them down considerably. Or was it reluctance to let these invaders into their home?