“Liona and her friends used you as much as she used me,” Tynan said. “It doesn’t mitigate your using your telepathy the way you did, helping her and the smugglers to ferret out any undercover Knights or Corps monitoring their operations. But your willing participation in this experiment counts very much in your favor. You’ll be free before much longer, with your reduced sentence. You can go back to Visan and recover your full telepathic powers once you’re there. And we’ll have effective measures to protect Lacerta from any other Visanians causing trouble here.”
“I doubt you’ll have many more of my kind visiting your planet once they learn that before they enter the inner Catalan system, they’ll be required to have their telepathy muted. No others of my kind will enjoy feeling what I feel now. I expect you’ll see very few Visanians on your planet from now on.”
Tynan nodded, agreeing. “True. But planetary security demands it. Not only for what you did, but especially for what the other Visanian who’s receiving the telepathic inhibitor did. What he did was much worse and could have been the end of all of us.”
The name Cadoq hung unspoken in the air. While Daxav was a criminal, Cadoq had made himself a menace to the planet itself. He had cloned one of the deadliest monsters the galaxy had ever seen, the High Chimerian who sought to assimilate all living organisms into a collective of mutated life forms. Had this evil creature and the Visanian who cloned and telepathically bonded with him prevailed, the terrible wars against the Chimerians might have resumed, costing millions of lives. Cadoq was stopped and his master destroyed by the Knights and the Corps in an effort spearheaded by an Interstar Fleet Officer, Leanne Shire, and her Knight partner, Sir Coram Dunne. After this crisis was averted, the Ruling Aerie and the Nest Moran had initiated a project to prevent any further dangerous actions by any telepathic life forms in Lacertan space.
“But it was not the end,” said Daxav. “Except for any remaining trust that your people might have had for mine. I expect Visanians will be unwelcome on Lacerta for a very long time. Telepaths in general will be suspect throughout the Commonwealth now.”
“Maybe so,” Tynan agreed again. “But you never know what tomorrow will be. Today, it’s suspicion and distrust for beings who can read minds and send thoughts. Tomorrow…redemption can happen. Tomorrow means possibilities.”
“Tomorrow holds possibilities for you now—you personally, does it not?”
“For me and for Lacerta, yes,” Tynan replied. “Our possibilities should be on board a space liner right now.” He looked up at the perfectly blue sky as if he could see the space beyond. Then, back to Daxav: “Meaning I should be getting back to Nimbus City. I’ll report that you and the project are doing as expected. The next time someone comes to check, it’ll be a proxy again. I had time on my hands, and this was a way to fill a little bit of it. And the next proxy could be the last one to visit you before your release.”
“May it be so,” said Visan.
Tynan stood up from the bench and addressed the little alien one more time. “Be well, Daxav. And be safe. Despite the suspicions you’ll have to overcome in the future, you’ll have your freedom, and Lacerta will be grateful to you—whether we admit it or not.”
“Thank you, Prince Tynan. Travel safely.”
With a little smile, Tynan spun on his heel and gestured to the guard standing watch under a tree to take charge of the prisoner again. The guard went to the bench and commanded Daxav to stand and walk back with him to the dungeon. Tynan walked off across the grass and again turned his eyes to the sky.
She was out there somewhere now, to be sure, on her way to him. Sierra Smith, the human who had fascinated him the most from among all the others that the computers had selected from the thousands of prospects from every corner of the Commonwealth. She was a woman of unique fire and unique spirit, this Sierra Smith. The galaxy was filled with fiery, spirited women, to be sure. He had met his share of them, bedded his share of them, both humans and females of his own kind.
If he could be said to have a “type,” that was the sort of female who intrigued and aroused him the most. As a Prince, he had known genteel females as well, and there was no question that they were sweet in bed. But it was women like Sierra that most brought out the dragon in him. If he were to produce an heir for his nest, it could only be with such a woman. And Sierra Smith, he sensed, was the most fiery one of all.
_______________
Sitting in her private compartment aboard the space liner bound for Lacerta, Sierra looked out at the stars and reflected on how still they were in comparison with the thoughts racing through her mind and the feelings tumbling through her heart. The dragon Prince had seen something in Sierra—no doubt it was more in the holobiography of herself that she had prepared for him according to the Morans’ requirements than in the raw, cold data of her genetic profile—that he liked. Something that he had seen or heard or intuited from her submission had made the critical difference to Tynan and set her apart from the others. She was the choice, and she was on her way to answer his call.
And while she was on her way, Sierra decided, she had best go over the homework she had done one more time.
She turned away from the expanse of stars outside and settled herself comfortably in her seat. Touching her sleeve, Sierra commanded the nanocomputers in her clothing, “Run holofiles on Tynan Moran and his family.” The display faded into view in front of her, and the facts once again presented themselves.
The Moran Nest of were dragons commanded one of the greatest fortunes on the planet Lacerta. Like several other nests of that world, the Morans made their fortune through the mining of the precious mineral Odysseum, which was critical to interstellar travel. With their fortune came connections to the highest channels of colonial and planetary government, reaching all the way from the Ruling Aerie of Lacerta to the most powerful offices on Earth and every Earth-colonized and Earth-allied planet in the Commonwealth of Worlds.
The Morans were advisors to the Ruling Aerie, and some of them had even belonged to the Dragon Conclave, the equivalent of Earth’s Presidential Cabinet. They were synonymous with wealth, power, and position—the very sort of family that would want to have a hand in a scientific and medical breakthrough with the potential to change the future of their world. The Morans and some of the other wealthiest Lacertans made their home in a familial aerie in Nimbus City, which floated along a longitudinal path across the surface of the planet.
Tynan Moran himself was the youngest of three brothers, all sons of the present family matriarchs, Leland and Moira Moran. Tynan and his two older brothers, Evan and Preston, had all served as recruits to the Dragon Corps, the civil defenders of the planet.
The Dragon Corps were public protectors, servants, and peacekeepers, armed and trained for combat, ranking just below the renowned Knights of Lacerta in prestige and authority. They had not joined the Knights because of their status as Princes—sons of one of the most prominent families, who would be called upon for positions in civilian and governing leadership. Evan and Preston both had homes and mates away from Nimbus City and were participants in the Lotteries aimed at mating Lacertan males with human females for procreation
Each of them was committed to his Lottery-selected partner; only Tynan still resided at the family aerie and was unattached—for the moment—and known to be romantically active with different partners.
Sierra turned up the corner of her mouth in a sardonic smile at that last note, translating it as meaning, Like every other Lacertan male without a mate or an official mating partner, Tynan sleeps around. Well, she would just have to see what she could do about that when she reached Nimbus City.
And that brought her to perhaps the most interesting nugget of information about the dragon she was about to meet: at one point, Tynan Moran almost took a mate. It was a relationship that had caused quite a stir on the planet and been news across the Commonwealth. The one serious relationship of Tynan’s life had been with another weredragon, one Liona
Vess. Before this liaison could become a marriage, the shocking facts about Liona’s background emerged. She was a member of a cadre of interplanetary smugglers, secretly trading in illegally obtained and illicit goods on dozens of planets.
The discovery that such a female was sharing the bed of the heir of one of Lacerta’s most prominent families rocked Lacertan society and scandalized the Moran family. With his nest blackened by the exposure of his lover as a criminal, Tynan rejected her, and she was bound over to the Knights of Lacerta for prosecution and dungeoning. Since then, Tynan had returned to serial bedding—one should hope, a little wiser for the experience.
Sierra remembered the story and shook her head. The youngest Prince appeared to have once loved not wisely but too well, taking a female to his bed who was not Princess material. Sierra guessed that as an adventuress—and not being a weredragon—she was no more Princess material than Liona Vess was. But she and the Tynans would soon learn whether she had the stuff of a Princely consort.
The hatch of her compartment chirped at her, and Sierra called, “Enter, please.”
She tapped her sleeve again to shut off the holographic playback. At her bidding, the hatch slid open, and a smiling young woman in a commercial space service uniform stepped inside, carrying a glass tube containing several smaller tubes filled with an appetizing-looking liquid. The space attendant handed the tube to Sierra and said, “Your first doses of inhibitor, Ms. Smith, compliments of Nest Moran. Enjoy the rest of your passage.”
“Thank you,” said Sierra, taking what the young woman handed her and watching her step back out through the hatch, which closed behind her. Sierra opened the lid on the tube and took out one of the smaller, thinner ones that it contained. She popped that one open and swallowed its contents, which tasted like a sweet liqueur.
And so, she took her first dose of the Lacertan mutagenic inhibitor, the formula that would ensure that she would not become a weredragon herself upon reaching the planet and drinking and bathing in its water. The Lacertans were once entirely human when they first crash landed on that planet.
But the DNA of extinct dragons in the planet’s water cycle had combined with a mutagenic compound in the planet’s soil, causing the colonists to become human/dragon shapeshifters. They had overcome the trauma of their mutation and founded a new society, which their ancestors built into the admired and sexy civilization that they now enjoyed. But any pure human venturing onto Lacerta was at risk of going the way of those same original colonists unless he or she regularly took the inhibitor to prevent the mutation taking hold.
Sierra accepted the wisdom of this, even if, like a few other humans, she actually did entertain the idea of becoming a Lacertan. That, however, would have defeated her purpose. The Lacertan mutation had also sharply curtailed their birth rate, making it difficult for them to conceive in large numbers. This had been a social and economic problem for the were dragons for generations.
Their imperfect but socially and politically sanctioned solution to their dilemma was the Lottery system in which dragon citizens were paired with pure humans for mating. The couplings, when successful, always produced a Lacertan infant. The people of Lacerta had grown dependent upon the Lotteries, which were such a deeply entrenched and entangled part of their lives that in some quarters they were looked upon with either an almost religious reverence or a fervor that was otherwise resolved for sporting competitions. If Sierra’s present undertaking proved to be a success, it could sharply diminish or even completely undo that dependency.
She looked at the tubes of inhibitor in her hand, then back out at the stars outside her window. At this moment Sierra had a sense of history blowing at her back like a strong wind in the sails of a boat, carrying her forward.
It thrilled her, she had to admit. And she had to admit as well, that it frightened her somewhat. This admission did not come easily to her, for Sierra Smith was not a woman to frighten easily. But none of the adventures that she had known up to this point had been anything like the one awaiting her on the planet at the end of her journey. A sense of destiny was in that imaginary wind at her back, propelling her into an uncharted future.
Well, Sierra girl, she thought to herself, you’ve always been one for uncharted places and unexplored territories. That’s where you’re headed now for sure.
_______________
The star liner dropped out of superluminal drive just at the edge of the inner Catalan star system. Before it lay the blue-green, white-streaked marble of the planet Lacerta and the gleaming light-points of its three moons. The last leg of the journey passed quickly, and Sierra’s craft was soon docked at the third and uppermost tier one of Lacerta’s luxurious orbital spaceports.
She stepped from the ship to the platform with the other passengers and saw in the dispersing throng of humans and aliens a handsome man a bit shorter than she was, dressed in an ornate uniform embroidered with golden dragons. Holographic lights over his head spelled out the name SIERRA SMITH in glowing letters. He carried her bags from ship’s storage.
“Welcome to Lacerta, Ms. Smith,” he said with a smile, her name winking out from the air once he had her attention. “I’m to take you to your ferry ship. We’ll be leaving directly from here down to Nimbus City.” Sierra thanked this cordial valet and let him lead her off to where she needed to go.
Sierra followed the man with her bags and he loaded them onto a docked ship in a shape that made her think of a python’s head and neck. From the forward part of this vessel another man climbed, dressed similarly to the valet, and smiled at her. “On behalf of Nest Moran, welcome to Lacerta, Ms. Smith,” he said, echoing the earlier greeting.
“I’ll be your pilot to Nimbus city today. Won’t you step aboard?” He gestured at the python’s-head ship and a hatch opened, to which he gallantly ushered her. Taking the pilot’s hand, Sierra stepped through the hatch and into a passenger compartment with regal-looking plush furniture that molded itself warmly and sensuously to her body, securing her for takeoff and descent.
At once the ferry ship detached from the spaceport mooring. It swooped down through the clouds of the perfectly climate-controlled planet and into the airy skies of the dragon world. From the passenger viewports Sierra made out the tall, gleaming towers of one of Lacerta’s larger cities. Lacertan cities were all towers, turrets, and high domes, its buildings having entrances and exits at any point between street and rooftops, conveniently for a planet whose main inhabitants all morphed into flying, winged shapes.
Why put doorways only at ground level when you could enter a building just as well from the air? The ferry ship came out of its dive and climbed again, not for space, but for something huge and shiny in the air before it. The passenger holoscreen showed Sierra the view out of the main viewport of the cockpit.
They were approaching an immense golden structure, studded and spangled with lights and surrounded by smaller floating structures around which little dots swarmed like gnats. The little swarmers, Sierra realized, were either small air vehicles or flying Lacertans; and the smaller structures attending the gigantic one were ships or other floating platforms making rendezvous with the levitating majesty of Nimbus City.
The city had a lower, bowl-shaped segment, with a disk-shaped segment above it and a dome structure at the top: three levels of the finest living and business spaces of one of the most prosperous planets in known space. Somewhere in that shining immensity waited Sierra’s future. Her superbly handsome, impeccably muscled, sensuous and sexy future.
The ferry ship flew directly to the upper dome of Nimbus City, where a mighty, golden hatch slid open to let the craft inside. The ship soared through the hatch and into an inner lighted tunnel large enough for the biggest cruising and war vessels in the known galaxy to pass through. After a short flight through this tunnel, the ferry reached an inner platform with docking for similar ferry ships and an array of other air and space vessels of different designs, all of them gleaming and ornate and suggestive of conspicuous
wealth.
Once the ferry was moored, the pilot climbed out and opened the passenger hatch for Sierra and helped her onto this latest platform. She stepped out and looked at her surroundings. It was a place of golden lights and polished pillars of marble and alabaster, with resplendent flowers planted all about. And directly in front of her was the most beautiful thing that Sierra had seen yet.
He was clothed much as she had seen him in holograms, all in red skins that hugged his generously and tightly muscled frames in exactly the right ways, trimmed with gold. He stepped forward and smiled graciously at her, offering his hand. “Sierra,” he said. “I’m very happy to meet you. Welcome to Nimbus City and my planet. I’m Tynan Moran.”
A smile blossomed on Sierra’s face like the blooms planted on the platform. She took his extended hand, which he clasped warmly. “Tynan,” she said, “thank you for your welcome. I’m Sierra Smith.”
Tynan nodded. “Good, you’re not calling me Prince Tynan. Considering the kind of relationship we’re proposing, we shouldn’t be so formal. And I never liked the title ‘Prince.’ My family isn’t royalty; we’re just rich. You’ll find sometimes our culture on Lacerta gets a little pompous and self-important. It’s our way of compensating for the way the planet mutated our ancestors. We can be a bit too ‘human’ for our own good.”
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