Dragons in the Stars

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  "Of course," Ar whispered. His fingers hesitated over the controls. "We don't need to do this, you know."

  She weighed her fears. "We'll try . . . just a little."

  "Okay." Ar touched the switch and sat back.

  Jael felt her breath go out in a long sigh. She felt an inward melting sensation. A feeling of relaxation and well-being filled her. It was indeed gentle, unthreatening. She imagined the wind outside the bubble, caressing them and floating them away into this scene of staggering beauty, this land of majesty and grace. She imagined herself floating on that wind like the marten's centaur. As she gazed into the distance, the peaks and valleys, the contours of rock and ice and sky, seemed to merge into her own being. She felt that the world out there was alive, that they were sharing in one life energy that flowed around and through this place high in the mountains.

  And beside her, she was aware of Ar. Clendornan, new-found friend. She was aware of his companionship, of his feelings for this land, this place of ancient geologic violence and astonishing peace. She felt herself drawn toward him, sensing that here indeed was someone she could trust, someone who could give her warmth . . . warmth and companionship . . .

  Like the pallisp . . .

  "Turn it off, please," she whispered. She was not even aware of the desperation in her voice until Ar's hand darted out to flick off the device, and the feelings of wariness that had so quickly grown in her began to fade. She was aware of Ar looking at her in puzzlement, and perhaps hurt. Her own eyes were focused on the opposite peak, on infinity, on the spaces that were slowly growing cold and vast again, magnificent but distant. Distant and safe.

  After a minute, she looked at Ar. His clear, purple-retinaed eyes were watching hers. She didn't know what to say, except . . . "I'm sorry." But what she was sorry for, Ar could not know, could not understand. How could he?

  "I perceive your feelings," Ar said finally, his voice a lonely sigh of wind. "I have unwittingly stirred sorrow. I am sorry, Jael."

  It's not your fault. You can't know. No one can know.

  "Is there anything I can do?" he asked, gesturing helplessly to the mountains and valleys, as if they somehow possessed the powers of comfort that his instrument had not.

  Can you take away the past? she thought hopelessly. Can you take away the pallisp and what it has done to me? "Perhaps," she whispered very softly, "we should return now."

  "From this beauty?" he said, his voice a lament.

  She nodded. Yes. From this beauty. From this awesome, terrifying beauty. She closed her eyes and nodded again.

  She heard and felt nothing, but when she opened her eyes, the bubble was in flight, arcing through a windswept pass between two peaks, speeding back toward the spaceport.

  Chapter 17: Remembrance

  SHE SPENT what remained of the afternoon alone, scowling in thought and wishing for things that could not be—wishing for a captain she'd not have had to kill, for a father she did not have to forgive, for a dragon who could make it all happen by magic. By evening, she'd been alone with her thoughts long enough. Vowing that this time she would be honest and open with him, she sought out Ar.

  She found him in the rigger hall dining room, picking at a cakelike substance that had been provided for dessert. His eyes followed her as she approached his table. Neither of them spoke, but his mouth formed a tentative crinkled shape as she paused; she set her tray down and took a seat across from him. She didn't know what to say, or how to start, so she simply nodded self-consciously and began to eat. Ar remained silent, poking at his dessert.

  "It seems," Ar said suddenly, as she was halfway through her rice with beancurd sauce, "that there is a problem when you are confronted by something that makes you feel emotionally warm in a certain way, or perhaps too close to something."

  She paused in her chewing, nodded, and continued eating.

  Ar watched her, glancing down at his hands once in a while, perhaps so as not to stare at her. He seemed ill at ease, making a soft muttering sound. Probably he thought he'd stepped over some human boundary again. Nevertheless, he tried again. "Is there a chance that you might want to air the problem, or perhaps use another person for feedback, or as a source of context?"

  She was just starting her dessert at this point. She frowned, considering his question—which she understood to mean, Do you want to talk about it? She nodded. Before Ar could say anything else, she took a bite of the cake. It tasted like moldy bread. "Aack," she said, spitting it out onto her plate and hurriedly covering it with her napkin. "Is this a bad joke?"

  For an instant, Ar seemed puzzled. He rubbed the left ridge of his skull, where his hair was thinnest, with his fingertips. His eyes seemed to darken flickeringly. Finally, after swallowing some water to get rid of the cake taste, Jael laughed at his expression. "I didn't mean you," she said. "The cake. I meant the cake."

  "Ah."

  "And yes, I would like to talk to you. But you must be—that is—well, patient. It's not easy, everything that I . . . might want to say. I want you to know that beforehand."

  "I understand."

  "Well, I'm not sure that you do, really. When we were up on the mountain today, there were some rather strange things going on in my mind." Her face grew hot. "Well . . . I don't actually know how to explain it. I'm not sure I understand it either, you see." She looked down at her plate, and pushed at the repulsive dessert with her fork. "But I think I . . . want to."

  "Good."

  She laughed uneasily. "You might not say that once you've heard it all."

  The Clendornan carefully brought his fingertips together. "I guess that's what we'll have to find out. Isn't it?" And he echoed her laugh, but his laugh was a hiccupping sound, from deep in his throat. It sounded odd, coming from someone who seemed so solid and strong and . . . if he were Human, she would have thought him quite masculine. She didn't know what he was as a Clendornan.

  With a shrug, she said, "You know someplace we can talk?"

  * * *

  The place they found was a suite near Ar's room, in the nonhuman rigger dorm. As they walked over, Ar explained the housing policy here, noting that Clendornan were housed separately from humans, despite the similarity of their physiological needs. He thought it a little silly, if not outright discriminatory, but there were advantages to the arrangement, as well. The nonhuman section was greatly underused at present, which meant that more spacious quarters were available. He didn't know why the nonhuman population was down; it might just have been part of some natural cycle of interstellar commerce. It did, however, make things lonely sometimes.

  "I had a friend here who was a Pendansk," he said. "You know the Pendansk?" Jael shook her head. "Very tall, spindly fellows, with narrow faces. Low-oxygen breathers. We weren't really suited for rigging together, but I enjoyed his company until he rigged out with another Pendansk, a few weeks ago. Here we are."

  They entered a small sitting room, musty with the smell of some prior inhabitant. It was quiet and secluded, and that was all Jael cared about. Ar fussed, making two cups of Clendornan tea. Jael sipped the sharply aromatic blend. To her surprise, the flavor was quite delicate, reminiscent of lemon-grass. She waited a few moments after swallowing—mindful of allergic reactions—and when she felt nothing, went ahead and took another sip. The gesture, the ritual of drinking the tea, was soothing.

  Ar asked if a log fire would be all right, and a fireplace and crackling fire appeared in the center of one wall, between the stuffed chairs. Jael could feel the heat from the holo, and could have sworn that she smelled burning wood. "Ah, that's good," Ar said. "We don't have fireplaces on my world. But they are a wonderful invention, one of humanity's true gifts to civilization. I try to enjoy them whenever I'm on a human world." He tilted his angular, top-heavy head and gazed into the flames. The flickering light danced within his eyes.

  Jael nodded. She felt the same way, though she would have preferred the real thing. Still, the movement of the flames calmed her spirit. As she stared i
nto the heart of the fire, she began to think again about what it was she wanted to tell Ar. Somehow, gazing into the fire, the prospect of sharing her feelings no longer seemed so frightening.

  She began to talk. It was hard at first, partly because she didn't know where to start. "I flew with Mogurn because he was the only one who would give me work," she explained. But that wasn't what she wanted to say, really. Now that she'd brought it up, however, she felt she had to explain about her father's reputation on Gaston's Landing and how it was a truly parochial colony where more than one person's career had been ruined by rumor. Ar listened silently, apparently following the thread, as she digressed even further. "I had one good friend there, my cousin Dap, who was a rigger too. Is a rigger. Except that we had a problem just before I left with Mogurn. And that's why . . . well, when we were on the mountain, and you turned on that enhancer, I had such a reaction . . . ."

  She became breathless talking about Dap and the dream-link, partly because the memory still disturbed her, and partly because she was avoiding other things that she needed to talk about—Mogurn, for instance, and his attempt to enslave her with the pallisp. And his more direct attempt at domination, when the pallisp had railed.

  But Ar was a patient and gentle listener, and in time she got around to describing Mogurn. What she didn't get around to was something that she was afraid even Ar wouldn't believe. But it was never far from her thoughts.

  * * *

  The fire was crackling low, as the holo-logs burned. Ar touched the switch to put on another log. As the flames climbed higher again, he peered at her with his liquid eyes. "Is there something missing from this story?" he asked softly, giving no sign that he was tiring of listening to her. She looked at him as though she didn't understand what he meant. "Perhaps I have listened carelessly. But I still do not understand why this Mogurn was so angry with you. Was it only because you rejected his pallisp?"

  "He was furious when I said I didn't want it anymore," she insisted, though she knew perfectly well what Ar was driving at, even if Ar didn't.

  "Well, what was it that enabled you to break free of the pallisp? You said that you were becoming addicted to it. It sounds like a truly frightening instrument—and I do understand now why you were so cautious up on the mountain, although the enhancer we were using was entirely different from what you have described."

  Jael blinked, gazing into the fire. In the dancing flames, in the glowing coals at the heart of that fire, she could almost swear that she saw the stirrings of . . . dragon magic. She sighed, nodding. She knew that now was the time, if ever there was a time, to tell him about Highwing. But she had trouble starting again, because this was so much more difficult to explain. Ar waited, silently. Eventually the silence itself seemed to prod at her until the story she'd been longing to tell began to rise up, to bubble up, in her heart. "Ar," she asked softly, "do you know of the legends of dragons that live in space, in the Flux, along the mountain route to the southwest of Lexis?" As she spoke, she felt the memories stirring to life.

  In Ar's silence, she sensed his puzzlement. "Well, the legends are true," she whispered, and she didn't stop until she had told him the entire story of her encounter with Highwing: how he had saved her from the other dragons; how he had looked into her soul, and their spirits had become entwined in friendship; how the dragon, through his gifts of sight, had helped her to begin to break free of some of her inner demons. By the time she was finished, her voice was strained and cracking, her eyes brimming with tears.

  Neither of them spoke for a while after that. She dabbed at her eyes, feeling embarrassed—until she remembered that Ar wasn't human, and somehow that reassured her. Somehow, she didn't mind making a fool of herself in front of a nonhuman, as she would have with one of her own kind. She didn't know if that made any sense, but it was how she felt.

  At last she looked up into Ar's gentle, curious gaze and wondered if he believed her, or could believe her. She wondered if anyone at this starport could believe her. She had burdened Ar with a great deal this evening. But . . . he was her test case in this, as well as being a new friend. His gaze was luminous with empathy, but there was a certain reserve. "Well?" she murmured at last.

  Ar stroked the upper ridge of his skull for a moment. "That," he said finally, "is a very moving story. I am awed by the imagery—by the vividness of your emotional awakening—by the changes you began to experience within yourself. It was splendid, is splendid. A truly inspiring example of rigging."

  "Well—thank you. But, Ar . . ." she began, and stopped, suddenly uncertain.

  "It must have seemed very real to you, Jael. As real as if literally true." Ar closed his liquid eyes and reopened them.

  He didn't understand, then. Didn't believe her. "Ar," she said softly, trying to make her voice strong and steady. "It was real. Those things happened to me. I'm not making it up."

  The Clendornan eased his head to one side. "I'm sure it was extremely real to you, Jael. And that is the mark of a powerful rigger."

  She felt a pressure in her forehead. Was this how everyone would react? She was grateful that she had not risked trying to convince the police. Bad enough with a friend. "No, Ar, you're not getting the point."

  "But I do understand the phenomenon."

  "No, you don't."

  He gazed at her. "Please . . . what don't I understand?"

  Jael felt terribly inarticulate. After all she had just told him . . .

  "The images you cast were extremely vivid, as you—"

  "Ar, it was not just images. That's the whole point!"

  "Jael, wait." There was a groan of distress in Ar's voice. "Please. We must take care to distinguish myth from reality. Now, I hold myth and imagination in the highest esteem. They help us to deal with our reality, to understand it in ways that may sometimes be clearer than literal definition."

  "Ar, I'm not talking about that."

  He continued without hearing her. "But you must know which is which. Of what benefit is the symbol if we confuse it with the object? What is the use of a map if we confuse it with the territory it represents? But isn't that the challenge of rigging—to map the territory imaginatively, and to know the territory by the map—because we can never really know it directly? That's why an experience like yours is so moving, because it pushes to the very edge, until the two become nearly inseparable."

  Ar's words were so earnest, and his insistent redefining of her words so acute, that she found herself thinking, Why am I so sure? But she was sure; she knew what had happened to her. Didn't she?

  The Clendornan paused, staring at her. His voice lost its steadiness. "Do I need to apologize again? I sense that I'm causing you confusion. I'm not reacting the way you'd expected, or hoped."

  "Well—no."

  "But you wouldn't want me to speak dishonestly."

  "Of course not." Jael groaned, wondering how this had all become such a confusing jumble. Why'wasn't it clear? Why couldn't he believe her?

  Ar stroked the ridge of his head, considering. "You wish me to accept the literal reality of what you experienced on that flight?"

  "Yes! That's what I've been telling you!"

  He was silent a moment longer. "I have never heard anyone speak of such a thing, Jael. Not seriously, soberly, I mean. It is . . . difficult."

  "I know!" She sighed, "That's what the library says, too. But the library's wrong! Damn it, Ar, do you think I would have let Mogurn get that mad at me for something that was just imaginary, for something that I could have turned on or off at will?"

  Ar rocked back. "I wouldn't assume that you could turn any image on or off at will, under any circumstances. If the image is powerful enough, if it is convincing enough—"

  "That's not it, Ar!"

  The Clendornan fell silent. "Well, then, there is really no way to know, is there?"

  "If you'd just believe me—"

  "Objectively, I mean. For someone who wasn't there when it happened, there's no objective test to separate imagin
ation from reality."

  Jael shrugged unhappily. "I guess not. I guess there isn't." She sat back and stared at the fire, at the flickering, unreal burning of the holo-flame, and thought, I know the difference. Don't I? She looked at Ar again. "Don't you think it's possible that I could make that distinction?"

  Ar's lips slowly formed into a half crinkle. "Of course, Jael. But this is my nature—analytic. Please forgive me. I cannot help being who I am." Jael started to answer, but Ar waved her to silence. "Still, I perceive that you believe very strongly. And though I know you but little, I respect you. I will consider, Jael. I will consider as best I can."

  Jael nodded into the flame. That was about all she could ask, wasn't it? Wasn't it?