The Dragon Circle

by Irene Radford

  The harbormaster himself leaned back in his Lazyformer® while he shifted icons around on his holo screen. Vessels and cargoes moved from box to box, indicating times and docks at the orbiting space station above Aurora. Shuttles indicated the ferrying of goods and personnel between the station and the big FTL vessels in orbit and the surface. Dock crews and equipment moved from the shuttles to assigned warehouses. Customs officials scuttled behind the operations every step of the way.

  Martin’s detective wiggled his way around the desk and stared at the screen from behind the harbormaster’s shoulder, examining every aspect of the operation. Martin watched from the viewpoint of the doorway—without ever leaving his Lazy-forme® in his own suite.

  A communication icon popped into the habormaster’s screen. The port official froze his manipulations to touch the icon with a single fingertip.

  Before the caller could appear on the screen, the detective used the interruption to step into the screen behind a warehouse.

  Martin sensed his man working his way from one place of concealment to the next while the harbormaster yelled at one of his underlings for having lost a box of freeze-dried artichoke hearts intended for Melinda Fortesque. The Terran delicacy would not grow on Aurora. Melinda loved them and imported them regularly. Only she, on all of Aurora could afford the exotic food.

  The calendar in the corner of the harbormaster’s screen blinked twice and faded. A replica appeared in the center of Martin’s screen, the harbormaster’s office disappeared. The entry barring Konner O’Hara and his ship Sirius from landing on Aurora or docking at the space station for anything other than emergency repairs and medical service was still circled in red and remained on today’s date. No one had moved it back to two weeks from Tuesday.

  Martin breathed a sigh of relief. Deftly, he moved the item again to three weeks ago and recalled his detective.

  He expected the man to walk out of the screen. Instead, a glowing green blob of light appeared at the bottom of the screen. It grew rapidly, expanding with many flashes of red, yellow, and purple flames bursting from its edges. Three seconds later, Melinda Fortesque exploded onto the screen. A lock of her sleek brown hair strayed from her coif and drooped over her brow. Her green suit jacket rode her shoulders slightly askew and a scuff marred her green shoes.

  Whatever she had been doing had demanded all of her attention and energy.

  “Yes, Melinda?” Martin ripped off his VR gear and faced his mother, trying desperately to school his face into impassivity.

  “Martin, you have no business snooping around the docks.” She didn’t say he had no business using the Super Snooper™ software.

  “But, Melinda, I wanted to know if my birthday present has arrived yet.” Not a total lie.

  “Konner O’Hara will not be bringing you anything. That man will never pollute our planet again.” She nearly hissed in her anger. With a snap of her fingers, her red-circled entry moved to today’s date with a permanent ban icon beside it.

  “But, Melinda, he’s my friend. Last summer he promised to come to my birthday party!”

  “Last summer?”

  “He’s a counselor at my camp.”

  “Not anymore! He will be fired and blackballed as of today. And you are grounded. No more networking. I’m putting a lock on your screen. The only work you are authorized to do from now on is schoolwork. And don’t try to get past me with your snooper software. It’s outdated. I have the only copy of the upgrade. That’s how I traced your activity. Now get back to your assignments. I believe you have wave differential homework. I shall also replace your tutor for allowing you too much free time for this—this disgusting activity.”

  Melinda dissolved from the screen, leaving Martin with a pile of graphs and equations. All traces of the pedcycle and his detective vanished along with Martin’s hopes for escaping Aurora and his mother.

  The one I should trust but cannot because he smells wrong seeks to deceive Stargod Konner. He plots in secret with the Invaders. What can I do? I dare not kill this man. Dragons have made a pact not to kill these lesser beings. The rogue dragon, Simurgh, hunted them for many decades with malice rather than hunger. We will not follow his behavior. What to do? What to do?

  Loki woke with a smile on his face. Until Sanchez spoke.

  “I hope you realize that last night does not mean I want any kind of commitment from you,” she said.

  Loki looked up through heavy eyelids. She stood over him, literally, feet braced on either side of his knees, hands on hips, and her lustrous dark hair cascading down her back.

  She had donned her uniform shirt and underwear, scanty undergarments at that, but left off the trousers and boots. A magnificent Amazon.

  Part of Loki thrilled at her stark beauty. The rest of him recoiled from her strength and decisiveness. In a brawl or wrestling match she might come out on top. He’d never lost either.

  Sanchez reminded him of Pryth. He could not trust Pryth. Taneeo had warned him against the woman.

  “Who said anything about a commitment?” Loki shrugged. “We were just celebrating the harvest. These people make any excuse they can to celebrate.”

  “If this place is as underpopulated as initial scans indicate, the influx of twenty newcomers to swell the gene pool is also cause for major celebration.”

  Loki stared at her without comment, wondering what leap of logic she would take next. Would she land on his side of the struggle for control of the planet? Or would she be like Pryth and betray him?

  He’d trust Mum before he trusted Pryth or Sanchez.

  “Though I did notice at the end of the evening all of the couples were strictly local,” Sanchez continued. “Most of my people are passed out around the remnants of the bonfire. I seem to be the only one who got lucky. Strange behavior for people more interested in genes than parenthood.”

  Loki nearly choked. “You noticed.”

  “Yeah, I noticed a lot of things. Like your people stole all of our comm units. I figure Captain Leonard will send down a rescue boat as soon as dawn reaches that volcano, our last known location. When they don’t find twenty IMPs and three prisoners, and a lander, they’ll come looking for the rest of us and spot your shuttle. What level of tech are you planning to bring these people up to? I presume you’ll find a way to stall it just short of industrialization.”

  “What?” Loki sat up, scooting backward and drawing up his knees so that she no longer trapped him. “The . . . uh shuttle is cloaked. They’ll never find it.”

  Sanchez shrugged, dismissing his comment. “You and your brothers aren’t as dumb as Lieutenant Horatio Pettigrew. But your plan to entice the entire crew dirtside and then keep them here so your precious little Utopia remains a secret is obvious.”

  “Only if you say so.” Loki stood up, ready to bolt around her and out the door. He should be whispering enticements to this woman to induce her to stay. Instead she laid out her plans as if organizing a battle.

  “Why would you want to stay here, if, that is, I was planning such a thing?” he asked. He really did want to know, besides distracting her.

  “Because back home my family is poor, and bushie. I enlisted ten years ago. Graduated first in my class at Basic and every bit of training since. If I’m lucky, I might make sergeant in another ten years. Meanwhile, dome-breathing rich boys like Horatio Pettigrew buy into a commission and get promoted every time the family comes up with more money. I figure I can sign on with some petty king here and command an entire army.” She shrugged as if her explanation were obvious.

  The movement drew Loki’s attention to her well proportioned attractions. He had a sudden image of her striding into battle, wearing only a sarong and carrying a sword and ax, yelling obscenities at her enemies. His body grew tight with longing.

  “How many IMPs will follow you?” Loki stepped closer, ready to kiss Sanchez with all the passion he’d reserved for Cyndi if she gave the right response.

  “I can count on fifteen. Five already
dirtside, ten more on board. Duggan is the one we have to convince. Give him a job he can sink his teeth into and he’ll bring at least one hundred troops to our side. Marines, communications, and forensic. Our other anthropologist will go bush at the least provocation. Don’t count on Singh for anything.”

  “And I have just the job for Duggan,” Konner said. He poked his head around the curtain that divided the cabin. Dalleena’s head appeared just below his. Neither of them had on much in the way of clothing.

  Instead of surprise, Loki registered satisfaction at the evidence of a growing relationship between the two. Konner needed human companionship. He spent too much time talking to his crystals and machines.

  “What job?” Loki and Sanchez asked in unison.

  “Something big and dangerous that is keeping the biggest port city on this planet from growing outside some very stout walls.” Konner stepped into Loki’s half of the cabin, pulling on his trousers as he talked. “And your rescue boat will not find the shuttle. I’ve got it cloaked.”

  “Like your mother ship. Best sensors in the galaxy and we couldn’t locate it. Not even by looking where there appeared to be nothing.” Sanchez grunted with something akin to admiration.

  “Did you find another ship in orbit, possibly a small one-man merchant vessel?” Dalleena asked.

  Where had she come up with the vocabulary?

  “No, but I did hear reports of a fireball hot enough to burn cerama/metal. Hate to think what could trigger a fire that hot on this primitive place.”

  “Sam Eyeam,” Konner breathed. “Did he and the second beacon survive?”

  “Second beacon still beeping, last I heard,” Sanchez replied.

  “What?” Loki took a step closer to his brother.

  “Tell you later.” Konner grabbed his shirt and finished dressing.

  “Could Irythros set fire to Sam Eyeam’s ship?” Dalleena asked. She moved closer to Konner as if seeking shelter.

  “Unknown.”

  “Irythros, the dragon?” Sanchez looked as if she needed to grab a weapon.

  “Yeah, a dragon,” Loki replied. He began to make connections. Sam Eyeam, the name most black-market merchants took to hide their true identity. A dirtside ship on fire. A dragon in the vicinity.

  And a second beacon.

  He shuddered and resisted crossing his wrists and flapping his hands. He did not want to think about the possibility of a human being caught in that blaze.

  “If we open up that port to more than a small portion of the coast,” Konner continued, “we’ll have the beginnings of a major trade network. We need trade to grow to a high medieval level of society and technology.”

  “You’ll also need sailing ships and some primitive navigation,” Loki mused. Better to concentrate on future plans than dwell on yesterday’s horrors.

  “I’ve got just the people you need for that.” Excitement glowed in Sanchez’s eyes. “You two just signed on your first ally.” Suddenly she looked quite beautiful.

  Loki wanted to trust her. He really did.

  CHAPTER 22

  ”THERE’S A ROGUE dragon preying on trading caravans,” Konner told Sergeant Duggan. He made up a reason for the port city to remain huddled behind stout walls.

  He sat beside the blond sergeant on matching rocks near the communal fire. Konner absently stirred his morning porridge with a wooden spoon. The grain mixture was sweetened with berries and fresh milk. Normally, he gulped his breakfast, too concerned with what he had to do that day to think about the fuel he put into his stomach.

  Now he contemplated how well the cereal “stuck to his ribs.” He often went five or six hours after breakfast without even thinking about food.

  If he thought about what he needed to do today, he’d feel guilty about the lies and deceptions he spread among the IMPs.

  “What concern of mine is a rogue dragon?” Duggan asked. He, too, stared at his bowl. “This is really good. I could make a fortune packaging and selling this back home.”

  “The GTE won’t let anyone make a fortune on food.” That at least was the truth. He had to give each and every member of the Jupiter’s crew a vested interest in preserving this planet. “The powers that be will move in their corporate employees to run the farms. All surplus goes into Imperial warehouses for distribution.”

  “Smugglers could make a great deal of money . . .”

  Konner turned a blazing smile on the man.

  “But we’d have to keep this planet’s existence a secret from the rest of the galaxy,” Duggan finished for him.

  “How big a cut do you want?” This was the hard part. Talking money when all Konner wanted was to grab Dalleena and run for Aurora. Martin’s fourteenth birthday approached. Two weeks from today. Would the crystals aboard Sirius be ready?

  Rover ran low on fuel. He needed to steal the next lander from Jupiter and drain its fuel cells.

  “Not certain you can give me what I truly want,” Duggan said quietly.

  “This planet is under populated. You could claim a big hunk of it and crown yourself king.”

  “Can you get my parents and my wife and kids out of debt indenture?”

  “Shit! Which planet?” Only fringe worlds of the Galactic Free Market (translate that as pirates) still practiced debt indenture. Konner and his brothers had taken refuge on most of them at one time or another.

  “Mehican V.”

  “Shit.” The worst pirate world in the known galaxy. No laws. No rulers. Just bullies lording it over weaker folk. Weaker translated as poorer, less cruel, or less self-serving. Debt indentures might as well be slaves working mines and factories in bleak conditions.

  “Yeah. Shit. Only reason I signed on with the IMPs was to earn some cash to pay off the debt. Trouble is the interest grows faster than my annual salary.”

  “You help us and the first profit goes to paying off those debts.”

  “What about your own profit? Heard you three are trying to bribe your way back to citizenship. You need to clear your names. Going to take a heap of A dols to do that.”

  “Auroran currency is the most stable in the Empire. Melinda Fortesque owns all of Aurora and therefore all of the A dols. She has a big grudge against me. Getting my hands on any of her money is next to impossible.” Going to be hard enough to liberate his son from the woman’s greedy claws, even if he won legal custody.

  “Do we need to take care of this rogue dragon in order to open up more farmland?”

  Konner took a deep breath before spitting out his next lie.

  He couldn’t do it. Duggan was being honest and helpful.

  “Truth is, I don’t know what is preying on the largest port city we’ve found. I do know that we need those trade caravans to bring produce to a central market.”

  “Let’s go scout the territory.” Duggan stretched up and stood. He looked at his bowl quizzically. “We supposed to wash these or something?”

  “Big cauldron beside the fire. Filled with warm water and a root that makes good suds. Also a fine antibacterial.” Konner stood and added his own empty bowl and spoon to the mix. “Uh, rinse your spoon and keep it. Along with your utility knife. We all carry our own utensils. That way we don’t deprive someone else of theirs if we happen to be away from home.”

  “We’ve got mess kits aboard the lander . . .”

  “Ditched it.”

  “In the ocean?” Duggan looked pained. “We could have cannibalized it for tools, bedding, canteens, rations . . . survival.”

  “I know. Hurt like hell to kill a machine, but it had to be done. I couldn’t let Jupiter find us too quickly by locking sensors onto the lander. But now I can’t even steal fuel from it.”

  “Shit! Now what do we do?”

  “Set a trap for the next lander?” Konner grinned at his new friend.

  “Guess we better find something to do away from camp before Pettigrew starts bellowing orders.” Duggan rotated his shoulders and surveyed the perimeter of the tidy village.

&nb
sp; “And Arthur Singh, Ph.D, tries to convert us to the joys of rejoining civilization.”

  They both grinned at the man who stretched groggily on the other side of the fire. His turban tilted over one eye and his uniform looked as if a dragon had stepped upon it. He held his head in his hands and moaned.

  “Hangover,” Duggan said and pointed the anthropologist toward the bright-eyed medic who was dispensing analgesic sprays to all comers. “His first, I think. Guess he didn’t recognize your local brew as alcoholic since it didn’t come with a label. He’s big on putting labels on everything, including people.”

  “Pryth has taken Lieutenant Pettigrew to . . . ah . . . her bosom so to speak. We won’t worry about him for a while.”

  “Pryth?”

  “Local wisewoman and healer.”

  “Big—?” Duggan held his hands in front of his chest, cupped.

  “That’s our Pryth. Earth Mother personified. She won’t take any nonsense from him and she’ll probably keep him restrained to let his wounds heal.”

  “Can’t exactly call her an ‘Earth Mother’ since we aren’t on Earth.”

  “We’ve been thinking about that. Haven’t agreed on a good name for this planet yet. We certainly need something better than MKO-IV.”

  “Something close to the heart.” Duggan grew silent for a moment while he stared at the flames beneath the cereal cauldron. “Jupiter is very close to Captain Leonard’s heart. As long as there is a ship in orbit and a chance to fly it home, Amanda Leonard will not leave Jupiter.”

  Was he envisioning his ship going down in flames?

  “All we have to do is get the orbit to decay. Once it passes through the outer layer of atmosphere, the green diatomaceous plants will eat the hull beyond repair. We have to bathe Rover every time we return from visiting Sirius.”

  “Not enough.” Duggan shook his head. “She’s smart. She knows that ship inside and out. You don’t have enough firepower to take it away from her. You have to destroy the king stone before Leonard communicates with civilization. As long as the king stone is intact, this enterprise is in danger.”