Every second shop or stall contained corrals, pens, or cages that contained an astounding variety of furred, feathered, or scaled creatures. A cacophony of honks and howls, squeaks and squeals, barks and bellows rent the air. This reinforced my distress from the banquet we had so precipitously exited. These creatures were not pets. Their apprehension level was nowhere near that of the teddy bears featured at the banquet, but the sheer number assailed my equilibrium.
As Levi and I wove our way through the crowded, unpaved streets, small, dull-hued, female dragons peered out from shops. As throngs of male dragons followed us, their polished scales glittered in the sunlight as they moved. Relatively new to interstellar society, visitors from other planets fascinated them.
The youngsters—at least I assumed they were young from their size and curiosity—circled us as we walked. Some seemed to delight in rolling in the dusty street, then scratching vigorously, like some giant bird taking a dust bath. I sensed that some of the adults viewed this activity with envy. One scratched himself when he thought no one watched. I wondered if dust baths were a traditional method for dragons to deal with skin parasites—before they became civilized, of course.
As we walked, young dragons plucked at our unfamiliar clothing. Levi screeched when a talon snagged the cloth of his suit and nicked the underlying skin.
“He stabbed me,” Levi bleated. Blood spread on the torn fabric. “Keep away from me, you...you revolting brute, you disgusting lizard.”
I grabbed his arm as I sensed a surge of anger from the crowd. “Shut up and move before you get us killed.”
“Just an accident,” I called to the crowd. “No problem.” Under my breath, I said, “Ruthie, stop translating.” Seemed I was always a few beats too late in shutting down Levi’s xenophobic tantrums.
“No problem? You call these ungodly creatures, ‘no problem’?” Levi’s voice rose several octaves.
I pulled harder on his arm. The dragons were a threat if only because of their size and natural armament, but they also seemed to have a very low boiling point. Aggression was a natural state of being.
Levi shook off my grasp. “Keep your hands to yourself, Berger.”
“If you insult the dragons any more, you might be dealing with more than my hands.” I strode off, and he scurried in my wake.
As carnivores, I wondered if blood had the same effect on dragons as it did on Terran sharks. I kept my mental screens in place: I did not want the answer to that question.
We made the ship with no further incidents.
***
Fur returned to the GCVS liberally spattered with blood.
Levi gasped.
Fur glared at the rebbe. “I’m fine. The blood doesn’t belong to me.”
“What happened after we left?” I asked.
He grimaced. “About what you would expect. I apologized for Reb Levi, though it took a bit of abasing myself.”
Levi was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“What do you mean?”
“The dragons were pissed. I ended up offering myself as a sacrifice to appease them.”
“You what?”
Even Levi stood with his mouth open.
“It was a calculated move. I figured that our host could not afford to lose one of his exalted offworld visitors. He might get chomped by his superiors. That show of bravado did the trick. The dragons have a society based on personal dominance. The bigger and tougher you are, the higher up you are in the nobility. They settled down and continued with dinner.”
“But the blood...” Levi stared at Fur’s tunic, his face a mask of revulsion.
Fur chuckled. “Someone has to teach them to chew with their mouths closed.”
***
Fur and Levi were off on an excursion to restock the GCVS with water and some foodstuffs. Levi insisted on going despite his fear and hate of the dragons to make sure what Fur bought was kosher, no doubt. Levi did not make any espionage expeditions on this nonhuman world. It seemed that aliens were not worth his effort unless it was to insult them. I relied on Fur to keep our rebbe on a short leash.
As the Captain and the dominant member of our delegation, I had an invitation to a sporting event. My leadership puzzled the dragons because of Fur’s superior size, but they accepted our strange, alien ways. The dragons made it clear they would not tolerate another breach of etiquette. I needed to regain our party’s standing in the dragons’ eyes. God knew what might happen if I didn’t.
Dragons of all sizes and colors packed the bleachers of an open-air arena. Two large and well-matched specimens faced off on the sand arena floor. One was greenish-gold, the other brown with bronze highlights. Oiled scaly skin glinted in the sunlight. They were almost devoid of jewelry as befit a prizefight, although the green combatant wore a large diamond that glittered in the center of his chest.
I seated myself next to my afternoon’s host, Valiant-Killer-of-Trybwyths—whatever trybwyths might be.
“This fight for championship,” Valiant rumbled.
I could hardly hear him through the din of hisses, grunts, and bellows of the dragons surrounding us, but Ruthie’s translation came through on my earbuds. The dragons hopped up and down in excitement, and I cringed for fear of impalement on a wayward talon or of being crushed by creatures that were ten to twenty times my size. My host growled at the surrounding dragons, and they moved to give me a bit of room. One small red dragon hissed at me as he moved. He did not like making space for an insignificant twerp like me, probably because he was already at the bottom of their pecking order.
The match started as the two dragons jockeyed for position. They feigned attack and backed off, then unfurled and flapped their wings. The real action got underway when Green darted in beneath Brown’s guard. A quick swipe with dagger-sized talons opened a gash in Brown’s belly. Blood stained the sand. Green tried to repeat the maneuver, but that was a mistake. Brown was ready and used his wings to leap above Green and slash down with his tail. Arm-long spikes on the tail-tip tore into Green’s back. This caused a roar from the crowd and a scream from Green. A tail as thick around as my torso slammed down within a hand’s-span of me.
“Hey. Watch out,” I cried. I looked to my host for support, but he was oblivious to anything but the fight.
Both dragons inflicted damage on the other with talons, teeth, and tails, but neither seemed to have an advantage. I kept a tight rein on my empathic talent, otherwise, the pain could have incapacitated me as it almost had at the welcome dinner. I hoped I could it maintain control with just the two fighters. I dared not leave a function again.
After what seemed like an hour of bloody sparring, the tone changed. Green stood on his hind legs and roared. At this, the crowd rose to its feet and roared in return. The cumulative bloodlust ripped through me. I retched silently but gritted my teeth and hung on, swallowing back bile.
The adversaries rose above the sand and flew at one another and met with a resounding thwack. They dropped to the sand and stayed in close combat. Talons raked, teeth slashed, and tails whistled as their spikes found flesh with sickening thuds. The damage to both was incredible. Any Terran beast would already have been dead. The vitality of the dragons astounded me.
Green pressed Brown toward the side of the arena. Brown redoubled his efforts, but to no avail. His back to the wall, Green lifted above him and struck down with his tail. Brown hunched over with his wings covering his head. The intensity of the spectators’ cheers swelled as the match drew toward its conclusion. I drew myself inward as much as I could, mentally and physically, terrified of the excited dragons as they pressed in on me. I could hardly see as I narrowed my eyes against the pain in my head.
The match ended with Brown a bloody, immobile heap against the wall. All the dragons in the arena stood, flapped their wings, and roared in unison.
Valiant turned to me with a toothy grin. At least I thought it was a grin. “That was glorious death. Loser makes suitable celebratory dinner for winner.”
I tried not to cringe. “Yes. Assuredly. Very glorious. Very suitable.” I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
***
The dragons needed help with a chronic problem that affected many of them, particularly the nobility. To be sure, some dragons who were not nobles were affected, but not to the same degree or frequency.
As we made the rounds and examined afflicted nobles, we also treated lesser dragons for a variety of injuries, including torn wings, broken limbs, and variety of other fight wounds—they did like their fights—and minor illnesses. Their own healers were capable of such efforts, but the dragons seemed to relish the attention from the strange little aliens.
A large, blue dragon, Raptor-Of-The-Skies, was afflicted with the chronic disorder. As I approached, the dragon produced a low-pitched sound that I could feel in my bones.
“Your Greatness, can you tell me what the problem is?” Dragons were big on honorific titles.
“My toes,” he rumbled. “Hurt.” As if to demonstrate, he flexed his lower digits. A leg spasm almost skewered me like a shish kabob.
I could both sense and see the problem. Both big toes, armed with talons half the length of my forearm, were swollen and red.
“How long have your toes been like this?” I asked.
“Three days,” one of Blue’s retainers, a small brown, whispered in a growl that I could have heard a block away. Only the top dragons had names.
I looked at Raptor-Of-The-Skies. “Have you had this before?”
Raptor nodded, eyes closed.
“How often does this occur?”
“Often,” was the answer from Brownie.
“And what takes place before these occurrences?”
Brownie glanced at Raptor before he answered. “Is usually large feast.”
“How large a feast?”
Brownie said, “Much food. Last for days.”
Thought so. I turned to Fur. “This looks like gout. Or the dragon equivalent.”
Fur frowned. “I thought that was unique to humans.”
“No. Animals, particularly birds and reptiles, can get similar derangements of metabolism, though they don’t have the unique localization to the toes, like humans do and these dragons seem to.”
“Then what do we do?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I turned to back to Raptor and his retainer who stared at me. Those reflective yellow reptilian eyes sent a shiver through me. “The pattern is the same as a disease we see in humans and animals. It may or may not be identical, so we need to do tests to determine the biochemical nature of the problem.”
The dragons said nothing. I wondered if they had a clue as to what I had said.
“Can we collect a sample of your blood to find out what’s wrong?” I asked Raptor.
“You can fix?” Raptor snarled. I attributed the snarl to pain. I hoped that was the case.
“I won’t know until we get the test results.”
“Do it.”
Despite my fears, we found a nice surface vein on the underside of the tail, and Raptor-of-the-Skies never flinched, although a surge of voraciousness made me envision a tooth-studded mouth enveloping my head. I hoped I would make him as nauseous as he made me.
***
I turned to Fur and Levi with a readout in my hand. “Just as I thought. In gout, uric acid builds up in the blood if the kidneys can’t excrete it, and then it crystallizes in the joints. The crystals cause the severe inflammation and pain.”
“But these are not humans. They are savage beasts. So how can it be the same?” Levi’s truculence had not improved.
“There are plenty of diseases that are identical in humans and animals, Reb Levi. We are very similar biochemically to most life in our galaxy. We’ve told you that.”
He shook his head as if rejecting my statement. I gave up and spoke to Fur. “Uric acid is an end product of purine metabolism. If a person has a genetic defect in metabolism, they develop gout when they eat too much purine-containing food.”
“And what is purine-containing food?” Levi’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Anything alive?”
“It’s protein, alive or dead.” I would not rise to Levi’s bait.
Fur broke in. “But these guys are carnivores. How can they avoid—?”
“They can’t. But what they can do is not overload their systems, so the kidneys can keep up with uric acid excretion. Another problem comes if they don’t drink enough water. Then the kidneys don’t produce as much urine and, again, they can’t keep up with excretion. For the dragons, they need to avoid the kind of overeating they described to us. Another thing is to get the dragons to drink lots of water.”
“What about drugs?” Fur asked.
“Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are the best treatment available. We have some powerful ones, but not enough to use on creatures that big. Ibuprofen is an old drug that’s effective, and we can synthesize that in bulk. That will help for a few of the dragons, but they’ll run out quickly. It’s not a cure.”
“I still think we should just leave them to their disgusting habits and be gone,” Levi said.
“And I think we need to talk to their healers,” I replied.
***
“And that’s what the problem is for your people, er, citizens with this condition.” I addressed a half dozen dragons, the senior healers for the city.
“Interesting, Doctor Cyberger.” The largest dragon, a golden-yellow named He-Who-Brings-Succor-To-Champions, made my name sound uncomfortably like a menu item. “Pills...” he held out a huge paw with tablets the size of hens’ eggs in his palm, “will reduce pain. But when gone, what we do?”
“You can do two things. First, I’ve been told that these attacks are associated with severe cases of overeating.” Gluttony fit better, but I decided to be more circumspect. “The huge amounts of food cause the level of the toxic chemical in the blood to go too high. Eating in moderation will prevent many attacks.”
The dragons looked at one another, mouths open and tongues vibrating: perplexity, I sensed.
A purple dragon said, “Eating much food important to nobles. Demonstrates rank.”
“Well, strike that solution,” Fur said. “It does explain why the nobles are more prone to the disorder.”
I turned back to the dragons. “The other thing that can be done is to drink large quantities of water. That will help clear the toxins out of the blood.”
Another round of tongue vibration.
“Drink water?” Brings-Succor asked, his big head cocked to the side.
I asked, “Is this a problem?”
The yellow responded. “We not drink water. Drink only blood.”
Oops. Clearly, dragons were not water-dependent; they got all their moisture needs from the animals they ate. That made sense for beings that evolved on a desert planet.
“Well then,” I continued, “this is an even better drug than the pills and you won’t run out of it. You guys do urinate, don’t you?”
A trill of laughter encompassed the six dragons before Brings-Succor responded. “Yes, we urinate. How better mark our territories?”
Not exactly what I meant, but it would work. “The prescription for treatment of your gout problem is simple. The affected dragon needs to drink at least five times as much water as he usually urinates. The more, the better. That won’t cure the problem, but it will help to alleviate attacks.”
I could feel that Brings-Succor was not convinced. “Water distasteful. We will pass your wisdom, Doctor Cyberger. Pills go to highest nobles.”
As we left, Fur said, “Think they’ll do it? Eat less and drink water?”
I looked at him. “That’s up to them. Maybe they will, if they hurt enough.”
“Well, you’ve done as much as you can.”
***
As we prepared to leave Dragonworld, I checked their one functional hyperwave transmitter on the outside hope that a message might have come through from Roxanne. I was ecstatic
to find her communiqué waiting:
Hello again, Cy,
I just had to respond when I received your last message. Wow. I can hardly believe what you experienced on Pronac: a planet-wide epidemic that threatened their entire society. It sounds like a novel, not reality. Not that I doubt you, you understand. It is just so amazing. You and Fur should be knighted, or whatever the Pronacian equivalent is. You said that it was your technology that enabled you to diagnose and cure the plague. I don’t doubt that it helped, but you downplay your own insight. How many people would have made the connections between a self-replicating enzyme and the biochemical changes that led to the maniacal behavior and death. You and Fur should be recognized for your work, and I am going to start a news site that documents your travels and your accomplishments. I think lots of people, medical and non-medical, will be interested in your unique accomplishments. You are too far away to argue about it. Hah!
On my front, I’ve been busy with herd disease testing and vaccinations. We are trying to be proactive now, the way we have never been before. We can ill afford to lose any more of our cattle. I will do a bit of crowing myself. I designed a program and helped to push it through the bureaucracy. The government will pick up the cost where individual farmers and ranchers can’t. That might be the only good outcome of EPD. More good news is that I am getting a vacation. I get two weeks at the end of the month, and I’m going down to one of our equatorial seaside resorts. I’ll meet my sister there. She has been offworld on Seta III at the university, and this is her first trip home in over a year. I am so excited. She is studying exobiology and should be thrilled to learn of your exploits on Pronac. Surf, sunshine—and probably sunburn if I’m not careful. My indoor work and pale complexion make me a target, but I need that sunshine.
The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service Page 12