A cheer went up from the crowd, evoking a glare from Dobraton. Zealon waited a moment for silence to prevail before she continued. "What my mother began, I shall continue," she said. "The will of the people shall determine our future, not your small circle of followers. Such a small minority cannot control the entire population of a city if they do not choose to cooperate."
Undaunted, Dobraton shot back, "We control the water, and when the water no longer flows from The Shrine of the Desert, the people of this city will see that I, and I alone, am in control. Thirst and hunger will bring about cooperation."
I almost laughed out loud as it occurred to me that Dobraton probably didn't know about the true Shrine of the Desert—and Wazak had the keys...
"You may attempt to maintain control in that manner, but it would be a serious mistake," Zealon stated firmly. "The people would not stand for it."
She was right about that, because Dobraton's plan was sure to backfire on her. She might try to maintain her death grip on the city, but it wouldn't last. On any world, oppression breeds discontent, and discontent breeds rebellion; we would only end up fighting this battle again at a later date. The trouble was, some of us might not be left alive to fight it. This had to end blood-lessly, or too many would die.
"There is knowledge which you have not been privy to," Zealon went on. "The water cannot be stopped at the source."
"Perhaps not," Dobraton conceded, "but we could control who received it."
"You could try" I said with a chuckle. It was said more under my breath than anything, but Dobraton must have had excellent hearing.
"Why do you laugh, Terran?" Dobraton demanded, putting an emphasis on the word "Terran," which made it sound like an insult. "If I have my way, you will be among the first to die—along with those... cats."
If the way she'd said "Terran" was insulting, the word "cats" sounded downright obscene, and it brought my anger back in full force. She could threaten to kill me all she liked, but the tigers were off limits.
"Yeah, right, bitch" I snarled. "Go ahead and kill us all! That's your answer to everything, isn't it? Somebody doesn't agree with you, you kill them—just like you killed Scalia." I took a deep breath and added, "And you know something, sweetheart? You should fuckin' fry for that! And speaking of fries, have fun telling all these people they'll never get to eat at a McDonald's as long as they live. Then see how happy and cooperative they are."
A murmur went up from the throng. "McDonald's?" they whispered.
"Yeah, that's right!" I shouted. "A McDonald's! Every planet in the known galaxy probably has at least one—except for Darconia! Think about it, now—crispy, salty fries and hot, juicy hamburgers—but you'll never get a taste of them. Ever."
As a rallying cry, it was a bit odd, perhaps, but I waited while the whispers grew, then someone began a chant in a loud voice that sounded decidedly female— and surprisingly human. In a matter of seconds, the chant became a tail-thumping, weapons-clashing roar.
Zealon gave it a few minutes and then held up a hand for silence—and she got it, too. Immediately. "This is but one example to demonstrate the desire for change," she said, her voice ringing out across the sand. "Contact with other worlds and other cultures will enrich us all, and we shall take our place among the great planets of the galaxy." She paused there, taking a deep breath for emphasis. Oh, yes, Scalia had taught her well. "As Queen, I shall reopen The Shrine of the Desert. No longer will it be open only to the privileged few, but to all comers." Pausing again, she smiled. "Our people want a McDonald's, Dobraton. And since you are not willing to give it to them, I will."
The cheer that went up from all sides was deafening, and the crowd—her "guard" included—backed away from Dobraton to leave her standing alone in the middle of the desert floor. Dobraton was overthrown.
Never underestimate the power of the golden arches.
Chapter 20
In the wild display of jubilation which followed, it's a wonder no one got squashed. The Darconians themselves probably weren't in any danger, but being part of a mob of happy, tail-thumping, back-slapping dinosaurs is not something I would recommend to anyone less sturdily built than they are. Tychar and I wound up getting thrown off our drayl when one of the Darconians bumped into it, and when a hand reached down to pull me to my feet, I was astonished to find myself looking up into the dancing eyes of a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired human female.
"Captain Jacinth Tshevnoe, at your service," she said gaily. "Though my friends—and some of my enemies—call me Jack. And this guy here is my husband Carkdacund, also known as Cat. You must be the piano teacher." Taking a quick glance at the general revelry going on all around us, she added, "Damned if I know when this melee will end, but it seems kinda dangerous for us Terrans right now. We should probably get the heck outta Dodge while we can!"
I stood up and stared back at her in surprise, but my jaw dropped when I saw the man standing behind her. With his waist-length black curls and devilishly fanged grin, he was undoubtedly Zetithian.
My gasp might have been lost in the tumultuous cheering, but I believe Tychar heard me screaming at him. "Hey, Tychar!" I yelled as I spun around to locate him. "Take a look at this guy!"
Tychar was still in the process of extricating his flowing robes from the drayl harness and at that moment, obviously decided to dispense with them altogether. Backing away from the drayl to pull it off over his head, he turned to face us wearing nothing but his collar and a pulse rifle.
"Ooo, nice one!" Captain Jack said approvingly as she gave him the once over. "Not scarred up at all! Not anywhere near as handsome as Cat, of course, but still pretty nice. And I love the hair!"
Tychar seemed puzzled for a moment before he finally saw the man she was referring to and let out a yell even louder than that of any of the Darconians.
"Wazak said there were two of them," Jack commented as the two men hugged each other like a pair of long-lost friends. "They're brothers, right?"
"Yeah," I said, still staring at the one called Cat in disbelief. "Trag's around here somewhere."
"Holy shit!" Trag exclaimed as if on cue. "It's Cark!"
Leaping from his drayl and nearly knocking Nindala off in the process, Trag joined in the group hug.
"And not just him, either," Jack said, laughing. "I believe you know Leo, too!"
"Great Mother of the Desert! There's another one?" I screamed as a Zetithian man with golden-brown hair approached and, to the shouts of "Lecarrian!" from the tigers, joined in the reunion.
"Yeah," Jack replied. "Picked him up on Utopia, along with his wife." Putting a hand up beside her mouth, she added confidingly, "And she's a real witch, too."
"Oh, stop it, Jack," said Leo's wife as she swept a lock of her thick, dark hair from her lovely face. "And yes, I'm a real witch," she admitted, "but one with actual powers, mind you—not just a bitchy woman."
"Yeah, so watch out what you say to her," Jack advised. "Those pretty green eyes of hers can set you on fire."
I wondered if the withering glance she shot at Jack was capable of setting her to smoldering, but the witch apparently had better control of her powers than that. "I'm Tisana," she said, holding out a hand. "You must be Kyra."
"Yeah," I replied absently as I shook her hand, still mystified that these people were not only standing in the middle of the Darconian desert as if they belonged there, but seemed to know a whole lot more about what was going on than I did.
"We've been in touch with Wazak ever since the coup," Jack said in answer to my puzzled expression. "I'm a trader," she explained. "We were here to check out some of their stones when Dobraton decided to get uppity." She grinned engagingly, adding, "Nothing for it but to organize a counter-rebellion!"
"And how did you do that?" I asked faintly, though it shouldn't have surprised me, because "Captain Jack" looked to be capable of just about anything.
"Oh, you know, give them a little taste of this and that," she said
with a casual wave. "I'm not sure, but I think it was the Hershey bars that did it, wouldn't you say, Tisana?"
The witch nodded but added dryly, "That, and the fact that you told them I'd roast them alive if they didn't join up."
"'Course, it could have been the video games," Jack added reflectively. "Would you believe they'd never seen any?"
"Hey, these people are vegetarians and they don't even make fruit salad," I remarked. "And in all the time I've been here, I've only seen one computer, so the video game thing doesn't surprise me either—and I know they don't have chocolate!"
"They were a bit iffy about the White Castles, thinking that McDonald's hamburgers would be better," Jack went on. "'Course, that's a matter of personal taste. I like them both, myself," she confided with a shrug. "Even the vegetarian versions."
"Don't mind Jack," Tisana said with a roll of her sparkling eyes. "She'll eat anything."
"That is not true!" Jack exclaimed. "I'm just not as picky as you. Now, Cat, on the other hand, is partial to sweets, which for a member of an obviously carnivorous race has always seemed a bit odd to me."
"It's only because they were slaves and never got any," Tisana put in. "Your Zetithians were slaves, too, I believe?"
She had directed her question at me, but the sight of four Zetithians standing together—especially when my own was naked—had me slightly distracted, so it took a moment for me to reply.
"Yes," I said. "Queen Scalia owned them, but they were more like pets than slaves. She treated them very well."
" Cat and Leo were pretty beat up when we found them," Tisana said fondly. "But they recovered quickly."
"Yeah," I agreed. "They look great." And they did— breathtakingly so.
The din had begun to subside slighdy as the Darconian hoards began to move back toward the city. I saw Dobraton being marched off to God knows where— didn't really care, either.
Jack moved closer. "So, which one is your boyfriend?" she asked.
"That one," I replied, pointing to Tychar. There was no point in denying it, because if all Zetithians were like my tigers, Jack and Tisana had to know firsthand just how irresistible they could be. Quoting Trag, I added, "Trag's just a bad boy I like to—" I broke off there, for some reason deciding that it might be best not to say anything further. Didn't want to ruin his reputation—or mine.
"Oh, come on, now!" Jack urged. "Don't leave us hanging. We know what our guys are like. Tell us about yours."
"Well," I began tentatively, "they were coming off of a twenty-year dry spell, so I... had to... you know... I mean, there were two of them..."
"Oh, my God, you did them both!" Jack exclaimed.
"At the same time?" Tisana squealed.
"Well, yeah, but only once—"
Jack started to say something else, but the guys were heading our way.
"They have been talking about us again," Cat said with a knowing nod. "Whenever they are alone together, they talk about us."
I shook my head sadly. "You poor, unfortunate guys," I mocked. "It must be awful for you."
The one called Leo smiled. "But we retaliate by talking about them."
"Comparing notes?" Tychar remarked. "Well, your Terran women are lovely, of course, but my Kyra—" Pausing for a moment, he smiled at me, sending delightful shivers running up and down my spine."—looks and smells and feels like love."
Trag groaned, pulling at his hair. "Stop reminding me! I've got to get off this fuckin' planet!"
"You could hitch a ride with us," Jack suggested. "We'll head back to Earth eventually, and I'm sure you could find a woman there. You might not believe it, but I know of some ladies who are putting their daughter's names in a pot for a chance that they'll get one of our sons."
"A lottery?" I scoffed. "They aren't that—" I broke off there, because I knew she was right. It would be the only way to thin out the multitude of women who would want one of them. It was a bit like breeding rare and highly prized dogs, and everyone wanted a puppy of their own—except the Edraitians, of course. They seemed to be immune to Zetithian charm. Their loss...
"I might just do that," Trag was saying. "You don't happen to need a pilot, do you?"
"Still insisting that you can fly anything?" Cat asked with a wry smile.
"Well, yeah," Trag said defensively. "I mean, I'm sure I still can. After all, I'm a natural!"
"You couldn't get that old freighter off the ground," Leo reminded him. "Which is why we were captured."
"You don't still blame me for that, do you?" Trag said, aghast. "Shit! I make one little mistake..."
"And if you had not, then we would not be here," Tychar said gravely. "If we had been able to launch, we would have been shot down, not captured."
"So, essentially, he saved your lives," Tisana observed.
"Yes, I believe he did," Tychar said, his smile displaying the warm affection he felt for his brother.
"So, I'm a hero, then?" Trag said brightly. "A real hero?"
Leo rolled his eyes. "He always did have delusions of grandeur."
"But only about flying!" Trag grumbled. "And at least I didn't go around waving my sword yelling, "I am the greatest!" all the time."
"You did that?" Tisana said to Leo with surprise. "I don't believe it! You've always seemed so... modest."
"Once," Leo insisted grimly. "I did that once— after winning a tournament. He never would let me forget it."
"Well, you're all heroes as far as I'm concerned," I said roundly. "And I do mean all of you! Even Sladnil."
"Who's Sladnil?" asked Jack. "One of the Darconians?"
"No," I replied. "He's one of the slaves, actually." Glancing around, I finally spotted him hobnobbing with Refdeck. "There he is, over there with the little guy who looks like a toad."
Jack, who struck me as being just about the toughest woman I've ever met in my life, took one look at Sladnil and turned as white as a glowstone.
"Oh, God!" she said with a shudder of revulsion. "He's a Norludian! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's one of them! They really creep me out!"
Nindala, who had remained silent up until that point, lifted her elegant chin and said haughtily, "He is my lover!"
While we all watched in astonishment, Nindala turned her drayl and rode out across the desert, her bushy red hair waving in the wind. When she stopped to pick him up, Sladnil made her a sweeping bow before climbing up to ride behind her, his suction-cup fingers gripping her bare, blue arms. As they rode off toward Arconcia, Sladnil looked back at us and grinned.
"So long, suckers!" he yelled.
"Interesting choice of words," I remarked to no one in particular. "Norludian, huh? So, tell me, Jack, why do they creep you out so much?"
"You don't want to know," she said with another shiver. "I mean, you really don't want to know!"
As I gazed out at the two of them riding off across the desert, knowing that I couldn't even begin to imagine a stranger couple, I said, "You're right, I probably don't, at that. So tell me more about Cat."
Regaining her color, she grinned wickedly. "I found him in the slave market on Orpheseus Prime wearing nothing but chains."
This mental image alone was enough to make me choke on my own spit, but I knew I could top her story. "Tychar and Trag were wearing nothing but collars and cock rings when I first saw them," I said. "And I had an orgasm when Tychar smiled at me."
Tisana shrugged. "I think you've both got me beat," she said. "Leo was about half dead and in rags when I first saw him."
"They are talking about us again," Cat said to Leo.
"Better get used to it," I said, slipping an arm around Tychar's waist. "Of course, you guys know how to shut us up."
"Yes, we do," said Tychar. Gazing after the dwindling crowd of Darconians, he added, "We should return to the palace."
"It's funny hearing you say that," I remarked. "After all, you were a slave there."
"But not anymore," he said. "I belong to you now, Kyra. No matter where
we go, I am your lover, your protector, and above all, your slave." Drawing me close, my tiger kissed me gently, melting my very bones, just as he always did.
And still does.
Epilogue
Changes have been rampant since the Battle of Arconcia—though a lot of people will tell you it wasn't really a battle at all, since there was no loss of life, not even Dobraton's. Having been there, I disagree, for it was as much a battle of wits as any war. As far as Dobraton was concerned, I was of the opinion that if she had been killed, it would have been no more than she deserved, though I thought a more fitting punishment would have been to teach her to say, "Would you like fries with that?" and have her serve each and every customer who walked in the door of the new McDonald's for the rest of her life. While this may not sound like a particularly harsh sentence, it probably would have killed her in mere weeks because they did more business in that first month than any McDonald's in history—and it's quite a long history! Still, I would have liked to have seen it—and I did suggest it—but was forced to admit that it probably would have caused a riot, because the lines would have been moving too slowly.
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