by Tom Holt
Fit herself back into the bottle? No, she couldn’t, the very thought was enough to make her panic. Not going back in there, not . . . But she had to.
Duty calls, she thought. Ah well.
Two wing-beats and she was airborne and climbing. She gained a little height, put her wings back and started to glide, fluttering from time to time just to slow herself down and keep on course for a perfect landing. She noticed the first two or three anti-aircraft shells - so that was how a windscreen felt on a motorway, she thought, when the flies hit it - and then tuned them out as irrelevant. The thought that they could harm her, that anything could harm her, wasn’t worth the neurons it was coded onto. She saw one coming, swallowed it neatly, turned it round with the tip of her tongue and spat it out as far as she could make it go (and that’s the true story behind the so-called Adelaide Sewage Farm Bombing). As the felt roof grew larger beneath her she tasted her airspeed with her third eye, and when the flavour was just right, she spread her wings, catching the air like a fish in a keepnet, and stuck out her legs. Good landing; no shock of impact as her talons touched down, it was as effortless as stepping off the last stair. With a sigh, she walked out of the sky and let her knees take her insubstantial weight.
Well, she told herself, here we are.
The guns had stopped firing. The alarms were still blaring away - why was it, she thought, that humans thought it helped in times of emergency to have a noise so loud you couldn’t hear what your superior officers were trying to tell you to do? - and there were people running about in all directions in the courtyard below. The temptation to play with them was hard to resist (but resisting that temptation was the very essence of duty, and duty was calling). It was time to go back.
Karen didn’t want to go back. Back, she told herself, sucks.
—And really, was there any need? She was a dragon, dammit. All she had to do was stick out a claw, peel the lid off this silly building and keep breaking bits off it till she found what she was looking for; her father, of course, and—
—And . . .
—Whatsisface. Him. Thing. You know, on the tip of my tongue. Begins with P.
—Rhymes with ‘small’.
—And the human. Find them, scoop them up gently in her micrometer-precise claws (weapons so gentle she could use them to peel apart the membranes of a leaf) and fly away into the desert, where the scale was something sensible and a person could be a normal size without attracting unwanted attention. Then they could all go home. Wherever the hell, she reflected bitterly, that was.
Home wasn’t where the heart was. Home was what guilt pinned you to, your dried, brittle wings forever stretched out in a pitiful mockery of flight. Home was where you belonged.
Bugger, Karen thought; and put her wings up with a snap. She made herself small again: she was one of those umbrellas that folded away into a handy size for carrying in a pocket, she was the integral hood that packs away inside the jacket collar. A few seconds later, she was tiny, standing alone on a roof in the middle of a vast desert.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘Excuse me,’ said the woman in the white lab coat, ‘but can you tell me the way to the staff canteen? I’ve only been here two years,’ she explained.
The dragon nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Go down this corridor to the end, up two flights, at the top of the stairs turn left, then right, then right again till you come to a fire door; go past that, turn left, then left again, down one flight, brings you to a long corridor, sixth door on the right, you can’t miss it. If you pass a fire extinguisher on your left, you’ve gone too far.’
The woman blinked. ‘Fine,’ she mumbled, ‘thanks.’
‘No problem,’ the dragon said, and smiled.
When the woman was safely out of earshot, Gordon grabbed the dragon by the sleeve. ‘How the hell did you know all that?’ he asked. ‘Third eye?’
‘No, I was making it up,’ the dragon replied. He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Actually, if she follows those directions she’ll end up in the closed file store, but who gives a damn? Serves her right for not keeping her eyes open.’ He pointed to the door next to him, which was clearly marked STAFF CANTEEN.
‘I see,’ Gordon replied. ‘While we’re on the subject, is your third eye or your X-ray vision or whatever it is showing you the way out of this building? Or are you making that up too?’
‘No need to get all hostile,’ the dragon replied. ‘It’s not far now.’
‘You said that half an hour ago,’ Zelda pointed out.
‘So it wasn’t far then, either. It’s even nearer now. You’ve got to make allowances for the fact that I don’t judge distances the way you do. Dammit,’ he added, ‘most of the time I’d have trouble seeing distances this small without a glass.’
A siren went off, and before they could react they were passed by a platoon of armed men in the usual black boiler-suits running down the corridor at high speed. A moment or so later, another similar unit hurried by, going up the corridor. The canteen door flew open, and a third contingent spilled out into the corridor, half of them running one way, half of them the other. The dragon reached out and stopped one. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.
‘Under attack,’ the man said breathlessly. ‘They’ve captured the perimeter gun emplacements and landed a chopper on the roof. All units to battle stations.’
‘Who?’
The soldier shrugged. ‘The enemy,’ he replied.
‘Ah. Which enemy?’
‘Search me,’ the soldier said, clearly anxious to catch up with his unit. ‘Red Chinese. Right-wing extremists. Murdoch. Does it matter?’
The dragon took pity on him and let him go, whereupon he scampered off up the corridor like a little boy who was late for school. The dragon was frowning.
‘You don’t think it’s any of them, do you?’ Zelda asked.
‘I know exactly who it is,’ the dragon replied. ‘That’s what’s annoying me.’
An explosion somewhere on the same level made the floor shake. Neville slipped and nearly fell over. ‘All right,’ Gordon shouted, ‘who is it? Don’t keep it to yourself, for pity’s sake.’
‘My daughter,’ the dragon said, as another explosion made all the doors slam. ‘Silly girl,’ he added. ‘I’ve told her loads of times not to do this sort of thing.’
A set of reflexes he didn’t know he had allowed Gordon to avoid being flattened by a washing-machine-sized chunk of falling masonry. ‘Blows up a lot of buildings, does she?’ he asked.
‘Oh, it’s not her,’ the dragon replied wearily. ‘They’re doing it to themselves. But it’s her fault.’
Gordon could remember similar examples of parent/child logic from his own early youth, but this wasn’t the time for childhood reminiscences. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but can we please get out of here while there’s still a here to get out of?’
The dragon sighed. ‘Unfortunately, no,’ he said. ‘At least, I can’t go with you, and I wouldn’t recommend you wandering off on your own.’ He batted away a three-foot section of steel girder just before it caved in Gordon’s skull, like a kitten fencing with a ball of wool. ‘You might get lost. No,’ he added, ‘I suppose I’ve got to go and find her before she causes any more upset.’
‘But what’s she doing here anyway?’ Neville interrupted, jumping neatly backwards as a crack appeared in the floor.
‘Rescuing me.’ The dragon scowled, then allowed a faint smile to break through. ‘Actually, it’s rather sweet,’ he said. ‘But a card or a new pair of slippers would’ve done just as well. We have to get to the roof.’
He set off briskly down the corridor before the rest of them could argue. Gordon wasn’t sure he wanted to follow, but didn’t really seem to have much choice in the matter. ‘Wait for me,’ he called out, and hurried after them. But the dragon was moving very fast indeed - Neville and Zelda were having to run to keep up - and they were still a long way in front of Gordon when a set of fire doors did that suddenly-snapping-shu
t trick he’d forgotten to warn anybody about, with them on one side and him on the other. He pressed his nose up against the glass panel just in time to see the clouds of gas billowing out of the air vents, and all three of them flopping down like discarded glove-puppets.
‘You’re sure this is inconspicuous?’ asked the dragon king of the north-west.
‘Sure I’m sure,’ his nephew replied.
People were staring at them, and though most of them were managing not to laugh, it was still highly disconcerting for a proud, dignified creature like a dragon king. ‘Then why are the humans doing that?’ he asked.
The crown prince shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not sure,’ he replied. ‘I checked the database myself before we left. Khaki shorts, string vests, big hats with corks on strings all round the brim; this is definitely appropriate costume for late-twentieth-century Australia, so that can’t be it. Maybe you’ve got a smut on your nose or something.’
The king looked round. Nobody else seemed to be wearing appropriate costume - there were men and women in blue and grey business suits everywhere he looked, but no string vests or big hats. ‘You’re sure this is the right place, then?’
The prince nodded. ‘Canberra,’ he confirmed. ‘Slap bang in the centre of the city. You’d think that the closer in you got, the more typical they’d be. There must be a big fancy-dress party or something. Just our luck,’ he added, though he didn’t seem unduly upset about it.
‘Really?’ The king frowned. ‘So what are they going as?’
The crown prince stopped and had a look. ‘Gangsters,’ he suggested.
‘Well, there’s no point standing about here all day,’ the dragon king said. ‘We’d better find out where the dra—’ He lowered his voice. ‘Where our friends are being held. Somewhere near here, do you think?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ the prince admitted. ‘I’ve never been here before.’
A man and a woman walked past them and burst out laughing. The king winced. ‘This is really starting to annoy me,’ he said. ‘Do you think the database might need updating or something?’
‘I doubt it,’ the prince replied. ‘We did a thorough overhaul only thirty years ago. What could possibly have changed since then? But you’re right, all these humans aren’t helping. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to do something about that.’
He closed his eyes, and immediately the skies started to cloud over. There was a deep roll of thunder, followed by ferocious rain. Five minutes later, the street was much, much emptier, and the humans still on it weren’t stopping to giggle.
‘They do that,’ the prince observed, watching a human scamper past with a newspaper held over his head. ‘I have no idea why. Maybe they evolved from sugar mice, not monkeys. ’
‘I don’t think so,’ the king replied. ‘But to tell you the truth, at the time I wasn’t looking.’ He sidestepped to avoid a running businessman. ‘Never thought they’d get this far, to be honest with you.’
‘Nor me,’ the prince admitted. ‘For some reason, I’d got it into my head that bats were going to be the dominant species. Wasted an awful lot of time going out of my way to butter ’em up, and a fat lot of good that did me in the end. If you’d told me back then that a bunch of tree-hoppers were going to inherit the Earth, I’d have laughed in your face.’
The king wiped rain from his eyes. ‘Personally I always had a lot of time for them,’ he said. ‘In the early days, I mean. They were really rather cute when they were younger.’
‘Shame they have to grow up, really.’
It wasn’t often that a dragon got a chance to show off his professional abilities to one of his peers outside his own immediate circle or, likewise, to observe an entirely different approach to his craft. As a result, the torrential rain that hit the Canberra area that day was, from a technical point of view, a work of art. What impressed the dragon king of the north-west most of all was the sheer speed of delivery, in terms of billions of gallons per second. He’d always believed in the slow build, the tempo gradually working its way up to a downpour and then tapering away back to drizzle, what he liked to call ‘diamond-shaped rain’. Watching the prince go from a blue sky to feline/canine #60 in no time flat was something of a revelation.
‘Nought to sixty in just under four point three seven,’ the prince said with a smile, in reply to the king’s admiring enquiry. ‘Quite good, but my personal best is three-nine, and we’ve got a couple of high flyers on the staff who’ve done timed runs under three seconds.’
‘Remarkable,’ the king said. ‘To be honest with you, it’s not something we pay a lot of attention to down our way.’
The prince shrugged. ‘We’re sprinters,’ he said, ‘you’re marathon-runners. The way you people can keep up a fine, nagging drizzle for weeks, months even . . . Wish I knew how you did it. Wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘Nothing to it.’ The king smiled. ‘It’s all just a matter of balancing your pressures, flow control, cloud height, the basics. What your third eye’s for, really.’
‘You make it sound easy,’ the prince said enviously, ‘but I bet it isn’t.’
‘Oh, it’s a knack really, nothing more.’ A little thorn of vanity snagged the insides of the king’s mind. ‘I’ll show you if you like.’
‘Would you? I’d like that.’
The king closed his eyes and looked. ‘May I?’ he asked.
‘Be my guest.’
With a graceful little shrug, the prince handed over the controls. After a tiny fumble that the prince probably didn’t even notice, the king stabilised and eased back on the throttle, bringing the yield levels down to what he thought of as a nice steady good-for-the-crops rainflow. A quick glance at the fuel gauge told him that he had plenty of reserves to play with, something of a luxury as far as he was concerned. ‘Keeping your ’bars together,’ he said, ‘that’s what it’s all about, really.’
‘This is very good,’ the prince replied. ‘I love the way you’re juggling with the low fronts.’
‘Just practice,’ the king said, with a ghost of a smirk.’ Of course, having those mountains to the south-west helps a lot. Almost like having a fifth hand.’
A passing coach hit a puddle and shot out a cloud of dirty spray, drenching them both. They didn’t notice. They were, of course, both thoroughly soaked, but no more so than any fish.
‘Sorry to keep interrupting,’ the prince said, ‘but I can’t help wondering: how on earth are you managing to keep your static levels so stable? You’ve gone from a full-blown electric storm to set-in-for-the-week without venting anything at all.’
The king smiled. ‘I suppose you’d be hurling great big bolts of forked lightning around, just to be rid of the stuff. We don’t do it that way. All you need, look, is a simple capacitor. Then you can use it when you want - it’ll keep fresh for weeks.’
‘Isn’t that clever?’ the prince said admiringly. ‘That’s an awful lot of lightning you’ve got there, all neatly folded up and ready to use. If the humans got their sticky little paws on that much electricity, they could power the whole planet off it for a week. No doubt about it, you’re good at this.’
They wouldn’t ever have admitted it, but dragons enjoyed flattery when they aren’t expecting it. ‘Yes, well,’ he said. ‘You don’t get to be a dragon king without knowing a thing or two.’
If he’d had his other two eyes open just then, he might have noticed the expression on the prince’s face; as it was, all he was aware of was his nephew’s soft, admiring voice. ‘That’s true enough,’ the prince said. ‘You know,’ he went on, ‘I’m not so sure about this capacitor thing of yours. I mean, I know it looks safe enough, but that’s a hell of a big charge to leave lying about. If it went off accidentally, it could really spoil somebody’s day.’
The king laughed. ‘No chance of that,’ he said. ‘You see, there’s a lockout, just here.’ He marked the place with a deep blue glow. ‘You’d have to close the contact before anything like that could happen.’
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br /> ‘This one here?’
‘That’s it. And even if, by some million-to-one chance, that contact got closed acidentally, the danger’d still be pretty minimal, because it’s set to disperse as widely as possible - just ordinary sheet lightning. To get a single concentrated bolt, you’d have to change these settings here. Look.’
‘Ah,’ the prince said. ‘I get you. Quite fancy, aren’t they?’ The king chuckled. ‘Oh, you can get them as precise as you like. Adjust these perameters here finely enough, and you could vent the whole shooting match onto an area the size of - well, that manhole cover, say.’
‘Really? All that lightning, in one hit?’
‘No problem.’
The prince opened his eyes, muttered a few calculations under his breath, closed them again. The expression on his face . . . He couldn’t have managed that exression with a dragon face, but a human one was perfectly suited to that kind of predatory grin - like a man on a diet unwrapping a surreptitious eclair, or a policeman observing a black man driving a car with a defective brake light. ‘Like this, you mean?’ he said, and quickly jumped backwards.
A moment later, he opened his eyes again and leaned forwards to inspect the smoking hole in the pavement. It went down ever such a long way, and its sides were glazed like porcelain.
‘Uncle?’ he said. No reply.
As the humans surged forward to gawp, the prince withdrew unobtrusively. A good day’s work, he told himself, probably the best he’d ever done, and as his face relaxed into an instinctive grin, the skies cleared and the sun came out. His only regret was that he hadn’t done it twenty million years ago.
Two minutes later, though, he had another one. A big one. He regretted - really, truly, sincerely regretted - not noticing the black van with smoked glass windows before it screeched to a halt beside him and the men in black boiler-suits jumped out of it, hit him from behind with baseball bats, and dragged him inside.