That had to count for something, right? Scott crouched down beside his litter.
“Thank you, my friend,” Hector said, reaching out to clasp Scott’s hand. “Thanks to you, my daughter is safe again. And you’ve shown she was right. You are indeed a slayer of dragons.”
Scott chuckled. “The first one was something of an accident. It attacked me.”
“But the second?” Hector asked, a small smile on his lips.
“I almost peed my pants,” Scott said.
“You stood your ground like few men would have. Don’t demean your efforts with self-disparagement. It does not become men like us.”
“If you say so,” Scott said. He didn’t feel like he was anything near Hector’s class. He’d had guns. Hector stood the dragon down with a spear and deliberately drew the beast’s attention to buy Scott time.
“Listen,” Scott went on, hoping to change the subject. “Your legs are badly hurt.”
“Are they? I hadn’t noticed,” Hector said. He tried to shift his right leg and winced, drawing a sharp breath.
“I might be able to help you recover more quickly,” Scott said.
“Oh? More of your powers, like the weapons you carry?” Hector asked.
They’d never seen a gun before. No wonder they’d backed down when he showed it off on the ground. They had no idea what it was, what it could do. But they’d seen it kill a dragon, now. They might not understand technology, but Scott had shown them enough to believe in its power.
“Something like that. But you’ll have to come inside my ship. You’ll also sleep, for a few hours at least. Maybe as much as a day.”
“You would invite me inside the cavern of wonders? What are my odds of ever returning, once I enter this strange ship of yours?” Hector asked. Then he waved away his own suggestion. “No, my daughter has already come forth. She told me you used this healing magic on her. I am grateful for you offering it to me. I have seen wounds like mine before. They rarely end well.”
“It’s not magic,” Scott said.
“Can I do those things you do?” Hector asked.
How truthful should he be? If Hector understood that the gun was a simple tool that anyone could carry, would he try to take them away? Once he knew the ship was just a collection of such devices, would he ever let Scott go away in his vessel? He had a feeling he might end up stuck there a long time. Time was the one thing he most definitely did not have on his side.
“No, not easily. Perhaps in time I could teach you some of it, though,” Scott said.
“I would appreciate any teaching you can do,” Hector replied. “For now, I will take what gifts of health you are able to bestow. I will order my men to follow my daughter’s lead while I am gone, and to return to me tomorrow. At high-sun?”
Scott did a little mental math. “That should be enough time, yes.”
“Good. Then if you will show me the way into your ship?” Hector said.
Getting him down wasn’t difficult. Many hands made for light work, and these people understood pulley systems very well. Scott went down ahead to open the hatch and pull the chief inside once he was at the airlock.
Then Tamara and another man descended to help him carry Hector inside and get him up to the medical pod. That was harder than coming down had been. Having the ship sitting on its nose was becoming a pain in the neck. He needed to solve that issue and soon. Hector noticed the strange layout.
“It seems like your ship is not upright as it should be,” he said.
“It’s not. It’s nose down right now,” Scott admitted.
“Perhaps when I wake we can help you with that,” Hector replied.
“That would be terrific. Got any hydraulic lifts? Cranes?” Scott asked. He wasn’t feeling much confidence in their ability to flip the ship using stone-age tech.
“We might surprise you yet,” Hector said.
Then the pod slid shut. There was a hissing sound as it administered a sleeping agent to the chief, who went under almost immediately. The guard jumped at the sight.
“Relax; he’s just sleeping. He’ll be much better when he wakes,” Scott said.
The man looked at Tamara, who nodded. Only then did he begin to calm down again. She hurried him back to the airlock. Scott was glad for her help. No sense leaving him nearby to add to his unease when he saw the pod start working on those injuries.
“Tomorrow then, Scott?” Tamara asked in the airlock doorway.
“Tomorrow. And thank you for your help,” Scott said.
“Thank you. You and my father saved my life,” she replied. “I won’t soon forget that.”
Then she descended the ladder, rejoined her people, and started down the path toward her home. Scott shook his head as he sealed the hatch shut.
“What’s bugging you?” Toby asked.
Scott jumped. “Don’t startle me like that!”
“Woof. It’s what I do, boss,” Toby replied. “But why the long look? You killed the monster and saved the girl. You’re a hero. Congrats.”
“It’s not that simple,” Scott said.
Nothing was simple here. The world he’d grown up in was gone. He’d been looking forward to seeing what the future had in store, but now that he’d seen it, Scott felt like he had the world’s worst case of buyer’s remorse ever.
Twenty-Seven
There was one more thing he needed to do before resting, though. Scott popped the airlock open again.
“Need your help for a minute,” he said.
“With what?” Toby asked.
“Just pull the thing I lower down inside the hatch,” Scott said.
Then he climbed back to the rocket cone and fetched the egg he’d hidden there. It’s mother’s body still sat there, slowly starting to stink in the sunlight. He needed to get rid of the thing. It was going to be truly repugnant in a few days.
Scott carefully tied ropes to the egg and then lowered it down. Once it was level with the airlock, he called down to Toby on his radio.
“Haul it in, please. I’ll be right down.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Toby asked.
“You know perfectly well what it is,” Scott replied.
“Yup. Just making small talk. Maybe not the best idea, bringing a dragon into the ship?”
“It’s not a dragon. It’s a dragon egg,” Scott replied.
“I’m not sure the distinction matters once it hatches, and this egg looks close,” Toby replied.
“How can it be close to hatching? Didn’t she just lay those eggs less than twenty-four hours ago?” Scott asked.
“Do not meddle in the gestational periods of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup,” Toby replied. “I can’t tell you why it happened so fast, but this egg looks almost ready to pop, to me.”
“Well, shit,” Scott said.
He’d hoped to have some time to study the thing before it hatched, but it didn’t seem like they were going to have much leeway. He recalled how the egg Hector split with his spear hadn’t spilled out runny fluid. Instead there’d been a mostly-formed baby dragon inside. Maybe the eggs were mostly ready to hatch before the mom laid them? That would be a strange way for a species to operate, but it wasn’t impossible to imagine.
Scott looked over at the mother dragon’s body. He could learn a lot more from her, but he didn’t have the stomach for dissection. Tablet photos would have to do. He snapped a bunch. Then he recalled one facet of the dragon’s anatomy which was particularly interesting.
Those wings were just way too small to hold up a creature so massive. Plus, he’d seen one flying in space, without air. Clearly they weren’t just using wingbeats to remain aloft.
Every time he’d seen a dragon aloft, the wings glowed. They were dark now, but he’d seen the ribbing of each wing glow before. Especially in space, but Scott had noticed it when this one took off with Tamara, too. Why the glow? Was it related in some way to their flight?
Resolved to check it out, Scott
pulled out a knife from his belt. He went over to the wing and cut into the leathery stuff. It came apart easily enough, but as soon as he hit the rib his knife stopped cold.
Scott sawed at the material for another minute, trying to cut through it. He had a hard time telling what it was made of through the blood and goo dripping from the wings. The slime was making his hands slippery, and he had to be careful not to slice himself with his own knife.
It wasn’t cutting. If anything, the stuff was actually dulling his knife. Scott shook his head. Maybe a bolt cutter could get him a sample, but he was utterly spent. Climbing back down to the ship was going to be difficult enough. Coming back up with cutters, then back down again afterward? It wasn’t happening. Not today, anyway.
He dropped the wing and stood back up. The goop from the wings was all over his hands. That wasn’t going to make climbing down easier. He looked around for something to wipe it off on, didn’t see any obvious answers, and gave up his already messed up ship-suit as a lost cause, wiping the slime off on it.
Then he climbed back down to the airlock. It took all his energy to get inside and close up the ship. He peeked in on Hector. The pod was starting to work on his legs. It was not a process for the squeamish to watch. Scott glanced in, curious, then looked away after less than a minute.
“So that’s what bone looks like,” he said. “Gross.”
He tapped the console and made sure the pod would keep Hector under until just before noon. It trilled an affirmative response and continued working on its patient.
“What are you planning to do with our little guest?” Toby asked.
“He’s secure in the pod,” Scott said, thinking the dog was talking about Hector.
“No, I don’t mean the big guest. I’m talking about the small one,” Toby said. He tapped the egg meaningfully with his nose.
“Oh, right! Um. I’d love to put it in the pod to get a full medical scan, but it’s occupied,” Scott said. “I guess we just do the best we can with what we’ve got.”
He hoisted the egg up onto a table and proceeded to scan the thing with every device he could grab. Oddly, nothing he had seemed able to penetrate the shell. It was almost completely impervious to every wavelength of EM radiation he could throw at it.
“Weird stuff,” Scott said. His eyelids were getting heavy. How long had he been up?
He rapped the egg with his knuckles.
Was that a tapping he felt back against his hand?
Scott kept his palm against the thing for about a minute, but there were no more taps. It must have been his imagination.
“I’ll lay my head down for a few minutes,” Scott said. “Just a short rest, then I can work on it again.”
He cradled his head in his arms and fell fast asleep in minutes.
On the table in front of him, the egg began to rock back and forth.
Toby was washing his face. That didn’t make sense. Toby was a robot. He didn’t have a tongue. But Scott’s face was getting washed, and he could hear Toby talking to him. What the heck was going on?
Scott’s eyes snapped open, taking in the scene in front of him. Eggshell fragments littered the table, and a winged lizard the size of a medium dog sat on his lap, gently washing his face with a raspy tongue.
“Eww!” Scott said.
“Mrrrp?” the dragon replied.
Scott was nervous about making sudden moves. The hatchling had popped out while he was napping. Beautiful. So much for doing any more research on the egg.
He reached down to his belt, where the pistol was still holstered. If this dragon thought he was going to be a quick lunch, it wasn’t going to happen.
The dragon leaned in again, the head moving with snakelike speed directly at his face. Scott didn’t even have time to cry out.
Its tongue slurped up his whole face, from chin to forehead. Then the dragon sat back and chirped at him.
“Made a new friend, oh mother of dragons?” Toby asked.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to see that lizard give you a much-needed bath. I can’t say I disagree with its sense of hygiene.”
“How long since it hatched, you electronic annoyance?” Scott asked.
“Less than ten minutes ago. I came as soon as the monitor told me it was busting out. But it didn’t look like it was hurting anything,” Toby said. “And like I said, you needed that bath.”
Scott gently pushed the hatchling back onto the table and stood up. He took a step away from the table. It stared up at him expectantly. He backed up one more step. It chirped, then hopped off the table and walked up to nestle itself between his legs.
“Looks like you’re the mommy now,” Toby said. “Good luck figuring this one out. I told you it was going to hatch soon. Now what are you going to do with it?”
Scott reached down and scooped the little dragon up. He scratched it under the chin, and it cooed at him. Still holding the dragon cradled in one arm, he made his way to the galley cabinets and fished around, looking for something a dragon might enjoy eating.
“You want to try hot dogs? Do those sound yummy?” Scott asked.
“Mrrp?”
Taking that as an affirmative, Scott opened up the package and fished around inside for one. He slipped it out and held it out to the dragon. It took two quick sniffs of the hot dog and then gulped it down whole.
“Mrrp!” it said, staring at the rest of the package.
“Hungry, are we?” Scott said, laughing. “OK, I’ll get you another.”
“Oh, we’re feeding wayward man-eating monsters now,” Toby said. “I am sure this will end well.”
“Relax, Toby. It’s cute and small.”
“The mom was probably once cute and small, too. Then she got big, grew fangs and claws, and started eating people for dinner,” Toby said drily.
Scott wasn’t really listening anymore, though. He was scratching the dragon’s chin again as it gulped down its third hot dog.
“I think we’ll call you Gorbash,” Scott said, recalling a dragon from an old book he’d read.
“If I could barf, I would,” Toby said.
Twenty-Eight
Convincing a baby dragon to go to sleep turned out to be much more work than getting it to eat. It took Scott a couple of hours to finally get Gorbash settled down.
The effort was complicated by the fact that he didn’t want the dragon sleeping in the same compartment as the medical pod. When Hector woke up, he’d be disoriented for a bit and maybe still hurting. The last thing Scott wanted was for him to see a dragon waddling around first thing.
He had a feeling the chief wouldn’t approve of his choice in pets.
Gorbash was therefore bedded down in the crew compartment just aft of the medical and galley area. The place was a mess. Everything Scott owned had been tossed about by the rough landing. But he pulled a crate down from the storage hold, emptied the food packets out of it, and placed the dragon inside.
It complained for a bit, but Scott stuck several more hot dogs into the crate. The hatchling wolfed them all down and eventually grew tired enough to curl up and fall asleep. Scott sealed the crate up. It had plenty of holes for air, but it would keep the dragon from getting into mischief unsupervised.
The sun was already rising, and Scott hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep. There were still a good many hours before Tamara was due to come back and pick up her father.
“I’m going to catch a quick nap,” Scott said. “Watch the monitors, and keep an eye on Gorbash for me?”
“A good thing one of us is able to stay awake,” Toby replied.
Yeah, he had to agree with that. Having Toby along had made the trip much less lonesome, but the dog was proving to be a lifesaver now that he was back on Earth again.
“I’m glad Mom sent you along with me,” Scott said, rolling over to face the robot.
But Toby was already off to the cockpit, where he’d keep an eye out for trouble. Scott could always feel se
cure with Toby at his back. He smiled, rolled back over, and went to sleep.
Scott’s tablet buzzed him awake an hour before noon. He checked on Gorbash, who was still sleeping. Then he looked in on Hector. The pod continued to work on him, but his legs already looked much better.
A few taps on the diagnostic panel showed him what the pod had managed to do. New bone had been printed and inserted into the shattered areas, then bonded in place with surgical glue. Tears to several major blood vessels were repaired. The incisions had then been sealed back up with more glue. All told, the injury was still bad. The pod had wrapped up each lower leg with a hard plastic cast, printed around each limb to hold the bones in place. Hector would be a long time healing, but he’d recover.
“Any problems while I was asleep?” Scott asked, peeking down into the cockpit.
“All quiet on the western front,” Toby replied.
“Good. Maybe things will stay that way.”
“Fat chance,” Toby said.
“Pessimist.”
“Realist,” Toby replied. Scott chuckled and went back up into the galley.
Breathing easy about some things finally going right, Scott sat down to a quick brunch before Tamara returned. That brought up another potential problem. His food stores weren’t that great. The Stargazer shipped out on a two year mission. He’d brought along extra food, just in case there was some sort of problem on the journey. But food weighed a lot, and there was a limit to how much mass the rocket could accelerate to a high enough velocity.
The short of it was he had less than three months of food left. Maybe a bit more than that if he rationed a bit. Feeding the dragon plus himself, it was probably going to be a lot less than three months.
“Not an insurmountable problem,” he said aloud. The people living here had to be eating something, after all. He just hoped their diet wasn’t mostly mushrooms. They lived in tunnels, so it was possible. Scott hated mushrooms.
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