Daughter of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  From the look on her mother's face, she must have succeeded a little too well. "This is hard enough, Kira. I have to ask a big favor of you."

  "This isn't about the Imperials again, is it?"

  "No. It's about that boy you met. The one from Urth."

  "Jason?"

  Mari gazed steadily at Kira long enough to make her nervous. "Yes. Jason is the only person from that ship who has told us anything. We need to know a lot more."

  "I told you everything that he told me," Kira said.

  Her mother took a deep breath. "Maybe he would tell you more if he had another opportunity. To talk to you. Here."

  "Why would he come here?" Kira asked, confused.

  "If you asked him to visit—"

  "What?" Kira leaned back abruptly in her chair, staring at her mother. "You want me to ask an insufferable boy from Urth to…go on a date with me?"

  Mari spoke with forced calm. "Kira, it's not a date. You won't have to go anywhere. We'd have him come to this house, give you two some time alone—"

  "Some time alone? I cannot be hearing this! Why should I agree to that?" Kira demanded.

  "Because he told you some very important things the last time you saw him," her mother said. "But we need to know more."

  "I am not—" Kira began, her temper flaring.

  "Listen!" When her mother used that daughter voice, even Kira stopped talking. "Your father has been talking to other Mages. The foresight about the ship from Urth is increasingly warning of great danger to this world and to Urth. Whatever they are doing or planning to do could cause great harm." Mari paused again, looking at Kira. "I can't tell you to do this. But I am asking you."

  She looked back at her mother, guilt flooding her. Kira knew of the sacrifices her mother had made for others. What was this compared to what her mother had gone through? "All right," Kira said. "It's not like you're sending me to slay a dragon."

  "Thank you, dearest," Mari said, smiling at her. Kira felt her face warming from embarrassment as her mother continued. "You know that you didn't have to."

  Kira looked at the floor. "You didn't have to save the world. This isn't anything like that, and you need me to do it. So it's sort of like a job, isn't it? And, judging by my mother and my father, people in this family aren't very good at saying no when they're needed to do a job."

  "No, we're not. I'm proud of you."

  "Why? I'm not… I haven't…"

  "Kira." Her mother leaned close, gently touching Kira's face. "I know how hard it is living with…that person who is also me. The daughter of Jules. I can never get away from her, either. Don't let that make you think less of who you are."

  Kira looked back at Mari, staring into her mother's eyes. "I don't know who I am."

  "Who do you want to be?"

  Kira sat at her desk after her mother left, frowning at her reflection in the room's mirror. Who did she want to be? She'd never be her mother. Just like now. Her big, important job was a date with a very awkward boy. Her mother had slain dragons, and she went on difficult dates. "That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it?" she asked her reflection. "Mother saves the world, and I try to be nice to an obnoxious guy so he'll tell us a few more things."

  Kira spun her chair about, gazing out the window, wishing that she could fly away to some place that had never heard of Lady Mari or the daughter.

  How could Urth be in danger from something on Dematr? What kind of danger did the strange people on the ship pose to this world?

  If she could help answer those questions, she'd have to try. Kira realized that in that much, at least, she was her mother's daughter.

  Chapter 3

  Kira had decided that the definition of awkward had to include calling a ship from another world on a far-talker, while her parents hovered nearby, and asking to speak with a boy she barely knew to invite him over. She wondered how much harder it would have been to fight a dragon instead.

  Standing outside as night fell, Kira thought that for something that wasn't supposed to be a date, it felt suspiciously like a date. "If he tries to touch me, I am going to hurt him," she told her mother.

  "Don't do any permanent damage," Mari replied.

  "I won't." Sometimes her mother was almost cool. "Remember not to say anything about what he told me until he indicates it is safe," Kira told her mother and father.

  Something that resembled an egg the size of a large coach came into view in the sky, flying straight for the house. The egg stopped directly overhead, then dropped to land gently not far from Kira. As with the bigger Urth ship, an opening suddenly appeared in the side, this time revealing Jason seated within.

  He swaggered out of the egg. "Pretty cool, huh? I, uh, brought you something." Looking both worried and bashful, he offered her a small package.

  A gift? From a boy she hardly knew? Kira glanced at her mother, who indicated it was up to Kira. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she accepted it.

  Forcing a smile, Kira pried open the box, which at least was reassuringly just a box rather than some amazing technological device. Inside was an earring identical to the one she had worn the day the Urth ship arrived. Kira stared at it, then at her mother. "It's…it's jewelry. Jason, I can't accept this."

  "Jewelry?" Mari gasped.

  Jason's worry increased. "Um…yeah…It's an exact copy of the one you—"

  "The only time a boy and a girl give each other jewelry is when they are very, very serious about each other," Kira said.

  "What?" Jason's brief expression of terror almost caused Kira to laugh despite her upset. "No, that's not how it is on Earth. It's just a little thing. It doesn't mean— I wasn't trying to— I mean, it doesn't mean anything. No. That's wrong. Uh, friendship. It's just to supposed to…to symbolize friendship between our…worlds," he finished with a frantic note to his voice.

  "We understand," Kira's mother said, her voice calm and reassuring. "Thank you for the thought. But it wouldn't be appropriate."

  "Uh…but you have to…I have to…" Jason's expression changed. He looked down at the earring, his hands moving slightly before him. "Oh. Sure. Okay. I'm sorry. I wouldn't do anything to make…Kira…feel…anything."

  "Welcome, Jason," Kira's father said. "We do not mean to intrude, and will leave you and Kira to talk."

  "Me and Kira?" Jason got that panicked look again. "Senior Executive Vice President Talese Groveen asked me to…to let you know that she would like to talk to you again. In person. And…and if there's anything I can tell you to, uh, reassure you about our, um, intentions, to just, uh, ask."

  "We're happy to offer you the hospitality of our home," Mari said. "I do admit that we were surprised to learn that your ship did not come from any government on Urth."

  Jason shook his head. "No. It's private. That's happened before, back when Earth was being explored. A lot of expeditions weren't military or government, but run by private companies that were out for profit." He assumed the sudden expression of someone who realized he had said something that shouldn't have been said.

  "What does your mother's company do?" Mari asked, sounding interested and encouraging.

  "Um…" Jason waited, doubtless thinking before speaking this time. "Universal Life Systems has a lot of different subsidiaries, including spacecraft, communications, and some of the biggest defense manufacturers."

  "Defense?" Alain asked.

  "You know," Jason said. "Weapons. And defenses against weapons. Their primary business is still genetics, though. Mostly these days that means screening and combining the DNA of parents with gene pacs that offer benefits for health and, uh…appearance." He gave Kira a quick, apologetic look. "You know, so parents can make sure their kids fit in to physical fashion norms of the moment."

  "Fashion norms?" Kira asked, trying not to sound revolted.

  "It's not all that different from names being popular," Jason said, sounding defensive. "It's just that instead of one year getting a lot of girls named Emma, we get a lot of girls named Emma who
have the same hair and the same nose and the same chin. We do have rules. Like…people. Maybe you can buy and sell gene packs for them before they're born, but it is absolutely illegal to buy or sell a person. You can mess with the parts, but the person as a whole has a lot of rights and protections. Parents can design their kids, within limits, but they can't sell their kids, and adults can't be sold or traded. Those are the strictest laws we've got."

  "Within limits?" Mari asked. "What sort of limits?"

  "Well," Jason said as he thought, "like when designing became possible, there were some parents who wanted to do things like make their kids mermaids, because they thought that would be really cool. Do you guys know what mermaids are? Okay. But mermaids aren't a viable life-form, at least not the way people wanted them to look. That kind of thing is illegal." He noticed that Kira, Mari, and Alain were staring at him and ducked his head to avoid their gaze. "Yeah, I know. 'O brave new world, that has such people in it.'"

  Kira's gaze on Jason went from horrified to questioning. "You said that last line different. Is that a quote or something?"

  "Yeah, from…" Jason sighed. "Shakespeare. Those Guilds kept that from you too, didn't they? He wrote plays and poems a long time ago. He's still the greatest ever. 'Time's glory is to calm contending kings, to unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.' That's what you did," he said to Mari.

  "Bring truth to light," Kira's mother repeated, gazing at Jason. "Yes. That is important. But it can demand a high price."

  "You mean the war?" Jason asked. "That's something a lot of people on Earth know about. There have been vids and stuff about it. You know, movies. Visual re-creations."

  "Of a war?" Mari said. "I can't imagine wanting to see that. My husband and I have seen too much of war already. You say your mother's company makes weapons, though?"

  "Yeah, but we haven't had any wars for a while," Jason said, sounding oddly apologetic. "We've got great defensive technologies back in Sol Star System. For about the last century no one has been able to figure out how to build weapons that can get through the defenses. So we haven't had any major wars because nobody could successfully attack anyone else."

  "What angers you?" Alain asked.

  Jason gave him a startled look. "Uh, you could tell…? It's people back on Earth. There are a bunch who say we ought to have wars, that because we aren't we're all getting soft."

  "Do you believe that?" Kira asked, appalled.

  "No. It's really dumb. I think, from what history I know, it's because we haven't had a big war for a while. So these people don't really know what it would be like, and think it's all glory and excitement, like a game."

  "It's not," Kira's mother said, her voice gone low but very hard.

  Jason eyed her, curious and wary. "You fought in a war. You were a really big hero."

  "I wasn't a hero," Mari said. "I did what needed to be done, and I fought because I had to. And I would do it again, if I had to in order to protect others. But war is ugly and terrible, and it eats lives. There's no glory in it."

  Jason stared at the ground. "I didn't say that. Other people do."

  "That is so," Kira's father said. "I hope you tell these others they are wrong."

  "Nobody cares what I think," Jason grumbled so low that Kira barely heard it.

  "We care," Mari said. "Please tell Talese of Groveen that we will speak with her again as she requests."

  "It's, uh, Talese Groveen," Jason said hesitantly. "No of."

  "What's it mean?" Kira asked. "Isn't Groveen where she's from?"

  "No, it's her last name. It might have meant something else a long, long time ago, but now it just means she's part of the Groveen family." Jason grew more animated, looking around at them. "I was trying to figure out why you guys don't have last names, family names, and I think it's because when the crew decided to take over and rule everybody they didn't want people working together against them. If you had big families or clans those could have formed natural alliances among their members and challenged the crew, or the Mechanics I guess they became."

  Mari raised her eyebrows at Jason. "That's an interesting theory. The Guild tried to instill in Mechanics the idea that it was our family, and did its best to break up any personal allegiances outside the Guild."

  "And the Mage Guild sought to break all ties between acolytes and their former families. You could well be right," Alain told Jason.

  Perplexed, Jason stared back at him. "Really?"

  "Have you spoken with others on your ship about this idea?"

  "Nobody listens to me." Jason abruptly closed down, scowling. "They think it's stupid."

  "Why? You ask questions that are of value," Alain said. "All questions are of value."

  Jason stared at them. "But…I'm just me. And, you know, that's not saying much."

  "You sound like Kira," Mari said.

  "Mother!"

  Jason looked at Kira and then quickly away. "I'm…I'm nothing like her," he said, sounding depressed.

  Mari nodded to Alain. "We should give you two some time alone to talk," she said.

  Kira watched her parents enter the house, then turned a wary eye on Jason, who was once more focusing on the air in front of him as his fingers moved slightly before him.

  "Okay. We can talk," Jason said. "I figured out that earring had a listening device in it and jammed that, too, already."

  "With everything you must have on that ship," Kira asked, "why did they send as a gift an earring apparently identical to one I already had?"

  "Probably so you wouldn't suspect there was anything different about it," Jason said, "and since they knew you liked one they probably thought you'd be sure to accept another like it." He gave her a rueful look. "This is all a set-up, isn't it?"

  "What do you mean?" Kira asked.

  "Wanting to talk to me again," Jason said. "You don't really like me that much."

  "I…" Kira debated lying, then decided on truth. "No. But I don't not like you."

  "You don't know me very well yet," Jason said, smiling slightly. "I'm sure there are a lot of guys you'd rather be with than me right now."

  Kira shook her head. "Just, um, friends. I don't get to…see people too often. And I have to be careful with guys. Too many of them have tried to get with me so they can boast about making it with the daughter of the daughter."

  "They're stupid if that's the only reason they're doing it."

  "What?" Had Jason complimented her?

  He got that panicked expression again. "Just remember what I told you. They're out to cheat you."

  "Everyone on the ship? Is there anyone else on your ship that we could trust?" Kira asked.

  "I don't know," Jason said. "Doc Sino, I guess."

  "Dock of Sino?"

  "No. Doc is short for doctor."

  "Doctor?"

  He gave her one of those astounded looks. "You don't have doctors? But who handles stuff when you get sick and need surgery and stuff?"

  "Healers," Kira said. "We call those people healers."

  "Huh. That makes sense." Jason got excited again. "You do that a lot, don't you? Instead of using some word based on some ancient concept, you just use a word that actually describes what something does. Far-talker. I thought that sounded silly, and then I thought, but that's what it does."

  "You call far-talkers rah-di-ohs, right?"

  "Radios. Or phones. Though I bet not many people on Earth could explain why they're called that without looking it up." He scowled. "They call you stupid. You're not."

  Kira felt a thrill of anger run up her spine. "Who calls me stupid?"

  "Not you. I mean, that's what most of the people on the ship call everyone on this planet." Jason waved around. "They sit there and use stuff that somebody else invented and somebody else built and somebody else programmed, and they feel all superior. But we're just jerks who happened to get lucky where and when we were born."

  "Do you call us stupid?" Kira asked.

  "No. I've been called stupi
d enough to know I don't want to call anyone else that."

  Her opinion of him rose a bit. "Jason, we need to know more about whatever the other people on your ship want to do with anything they learn about Mages."

  Jason frowned at her. "Why? Just don't tell them anything."

  "Because we've received warnings," Kira explained. "A lot of Mages have had foresight warning that your ship was a danger to this world, but now they're also seeing warnings that it is a danger to Urth as well."

  "Foresight? You believe in that?"

  "It's real," Kira said. "Mechanics didn't used to believe in it either. But it's some way of visualizing or feeling future probabilities, and even though it's often hard to interpret, it does work."

  "Probabilities? So…okay." Jason looked at her, puzzled. "How could anything we learn here be a danger to Earth?"

  "We don't know."

  "You really are worried about that," Jason said, looking at her as trying to see inside her head. "You don't know any of them, but you're worried about people on Earth being hurt. Your mother and father, why'd they talk to me like that?"

  "Like what?" Kira asked.

  "Like I was worth listening to, like they weren't better than me. They're the most important people on your whole planet!"

  "Jason, they treat everybody that way."

  Jason didn't look at her, didn't say anything for a long moment, then began speaking quickly. "There is something going on. I don't know what. I can tell they're excited. The techs and the engineers and the life-systems specialists on the ship. All I've heard is fragments like if this works and if we can do this. And one of the things I heard was we could leave, which would mean whatever this is would be more valuable than the genetic material from you and your mom. Maybe it has something to do with that Mage thing. I've been getting a real unpleasant vibe from hearing it."

  "Vibe?"

  "I guess that's like your foresight." Jason took a deep breath. "I'll find out what it is. And I'll let you know if it's something dangerous."

  "You're scared," Kira said.

  "Yeah, I'm scared. I'll have to run some risks to find out exactly what's going on," Jason said. "If I get caught, I'll really get hammered. But if this thing is really dangerous…"" He finally looked at her again, his expression a mixture of upset and pleading for understanding. "I've never done anything. I've played games and learned things and watched ugly people do ugly things to other people. It's about time I did something, isn't it?"