Leopold was the guy who “invented” the Dragons, five years ago. He took a life form native to Lex, the bloats, and tinkered with their DNA. Bloats are balloonlike and nasty. Leopold made them bigger, tougher, and spliced in a lust for thistleberries that makes Dragons hoard them compulsively. It had been a brilliant job of bioengineering. The Dragons gathered thistleberries, and Leopold stole them from the Lairs.
Thistleberries are a luxury good, high in protein, and delicious. The market for them might collapse if Lex’s economy got worse—the copper seams over in Bahinin had run out last month. This was nearly the only good flying job left. More than anything else, I wanted to keep flying. And not as a crop duster. Clod’grubber work is a pain.
Leopold was leaning against his skimmer, a little pale, watching his men husk thistleberries. His thigh muscles were still thick; he was clearly an airman by ancestry, but he looked tired.
“Goddamn,” he said. “I can’t figure it out, kid. The Dragons are hauling in more berries than normal. We can’t get into the Lairs, though. You’d think it was mating season around here, the way they’re attacking my men.”
“Mating season? When’s that?”
“Oh, in about another six months, when the puffbushes bloom in the treetops. The pollen sets off the mating urges in Dragons—steps up their harvest, but it also makes ’em meaner.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m allergic to puffbush pollen. I’ll have to fight off Dragons with running eyes and a stuffy nose.”
Leopold shook his head absently; he hadn’t heard me. “I can’t understand it—there’s nothing wrong with my Dragon designs.”
“Seems to me you could have toned down the behavior plexes,” I said. “Calm them down a bit—I mean, they’ve outgrown their competition to the point that they don’t even need to be mean anymore. They don’t browse much as it is…nobody’s going to bother them.”
“No way—there’s just not the money for it, Drake. Look, I’m operating on the margin here. My five-year rights to the genetic patents just ran out, and now I’m in competition with Kwalan Rhiang, who owns the other half of the forest. Besides, you think gene splicing is easy?”
“Still, if they can bioengineer humans…I mean, we were beefed up for strength and oxy burning nearly a thousand years ago.”
“But we weren’t blown up to five times the size of our progenitors, Drake. I made those Dragons out of mean sons of bitches—blimps with teeth is what they were. It gets tricky when you mess with the life cycles of something that’s already that unstable. You just don’t understand what’s involved here.”
I nodded. “I’m no bioengineer—granted.”
He looked at me and grinned, a spreading warm grin on his deeply lined face. “Yeah, Drake, but you’re good at what you do—really good. What happened today, well, I’m getting too old for that sort of thing, and it’s happening more and more often. If you hadn’t been there I’d probably be stewing in that Dragon’s stomach right now—skimmer and all.”
I shrugged. That gave me a chance to roll the slabs of muscle in my shoulders, neck, and pectorals—a subtle advertisement that I had enough to keep a skimmer aloft for hours.
“So,” he continued, “I’m giving you full pilot rank. The skimmer’s yours. You can fly it home tonight, on the condition that you meet me at the Angis Tavern for a drink later on. And bring your girl Evelaine, too, if you want.”
“It’s a deal, Leopold. See you there.”
I whistled like a dungwarbler all the way home, pedaling my new skimmer over the treetops toward the city. I nearly wrapped myself in a floating thicket of windbrambles, but not even this could destroy my good mood.
I didn’t notice any Dragons roaming around, though I saw that the treetops had been plucked of their berries and then scorched. Leopold had at least had the foresight, when he was gene tinkering, to provide for the thistleberries’ constant replenishment. He gave the Dragons a throat flame to singe the treetops with, which makes the berries regrow quickly. A nice touch.
It would have been simpler, of course, to have men harvest the thistleberries themselves, but that never worked out, economically. Thistleberries grow on top of virtually unclimbable thorntrees, where you can’t even maneuver a skimmer without great difficulty. And if a man fell to the ground…well, if it’s on the ground, it has spines, that’s the rule on Lex. There’s nothing soft to fall on down there. Sky life is more complex than ground life. You can actually do something useful with sky life—namely, bioengineering. Lex may be a low-metal world—which means low-technology—but our bioengineers are the best.
A clapping sound, to the left. I stopped whistling. Down through the greenish haze I could see a dark form coming in over the treetops, its wide rubbery wings slapping together at the top of each stroke. A smackwing. Good meat, spicy and moist. But hard to catch. Evelaine and I had good news to celebrate tonight; I decided to bring her home smackwing for dinner. I took the skimmer down in the path of the smackwing, meanwhile slipping my blaser from its holster.
The trick to hunting in the air is to get beneath your prey so that you can grab it while it falls, but this smackwing was flying too low. I headed in fast, hoping to frighten it into rising above me, but it was no use. The smackwing saw me, red eyes rolling. It missed a beat in its flapping and dived toward the treetops. At that instant a snagger shot into view from the topmost branches, rising with a low farting sound. The smackwing spotted this blimplike thing that had leaped into its path but apparently didn’t think it too threatening. It swerved about a meter under the bobbing creature—
And stopped flat, in midair.
I laughed aloud, sheathing my blaser. The snagger had won his meal like a real hunter.
Beneath the snagger’s wide blimplike body was a dangling sheet of transparent sticky material. The smackwing struggled in the moist folds as the snagger drew the sheet upward. To the unwary smackwing that clear sheet must have been invisible until the instant he flew into it.
Within another minute, as I pedaled past the spot, the snagger had entirely engulfed the smackwing, and was unrolling its sticky sheet as it drifted back into the treetops. Pale yellow eyes considered me and rejected the notion of me as food. A ponderous predator, wise with years.
I flew into the spired city: Kalatin.
I parked on the deck of our apartment building, high above the jumbled wooden buildings of the city. Now that my interview had been successful, we’d be able to stay in Kalatin, though I hoped we could find a better apartment. This one was as old as the city—which in turn had been around for a great deal of the 1,200 years humans had been on Lex. As the wood of the lower stories rotted, and as the building crumbled away, new quarters were just built on top of it and settled into place. Someday this city would be an archaeologist’s dream. In the meantime, it was an inhabitant’s nightmare.
Five minutes later, having negotiated several treacherous ladders and a splintering shinny pole into the depths of the old building, I crept quietly to the wooden door of my apartment and let myself in, clutching the mudskater steaks that I’d picked up on the way home. It was dark and cramped inside, the smell of rubbed wood strong. I could hear Evelaine moving around in the kitchen, so I sneaked to the doorway and looked in. She was turned away, chopping thistleberries with a thorn-knife.
I grabbed her, throwing the steaks into the kitchen, and kissed her.
“Got the job, Evey!” I said. “Leopold took me out himself and I ended up saving his—”
“It is you!” She covered her nose, squirming away from me. “What is that smell, Drake?”
“Smell?”
“Like something died. It’s all over you.”
I remembered the afternoon’s events. It was either the smell of Dragon, which I’d got from scrambling around in a Lair, or that of urine. I played it safe and said, “I think it’s Dragon.”
“Well take it somewhere else. I’m cooking dinner.”
“I’ll hop in the cycler. You can cook up
the steaks I brought, then we’re going out to celebrate.”
The Angis Tavern is no skiff joint, good for a stale senso on the way home from work. It’s the best. The Angis is a vast old place, perched on a pyramid of rock. Orange fog nestles at the base, a misty collar separating it from the jumble of the city below.
Evelaine pedaled the skimmer with me, having trouble in her gown. We made a wobbly landing on the rickety side deck. It would’ve been easier to coast down to the city, where there was more room for a glide approach, but that’s pointless. There are thick cactus and thorn-bushes around the Angis base, hard to negotiate at night. In the old days it kept away predators; now it keeps away the riffraff.
But not completely: two beggars accosted us as we dismounted, offering to shine up the skimmer’s aluminum skin. I growled convincingly at them, and they skittered away. The Angis is so big, so full of crannies to hide out in, they can’t keep it clear of beggars, I guess.
We went in a balcony entrance. Fat balloons nudged against the ceiling, ten meters overhead, dangling their cords. I snagged one and stepped off into space. Evelaine hooked it as I fell. We rode it down, past alcoves set in the rock walls. Well-dressed patrons nodded as we eased down, the balloon following. The Angis is a spire, broadening gradually as we descended. Phosphors cast creamy glows on the tables set into the walls. I spotted Leopold sprawled in a webbing, two empty tankards lying discarded underneath.
“You’re late,” he called. We stepped off onto his ledge. Our balloons, released, shot back to the roof.
“You didn’t set a time. Evelaine, Leopold.” Nods, introductory phrases.
“It seems quite crowded here tonight,” Evelaine murmured. A plausible social remark, except she’d never been to an inn of this class before.
Leopold shrugged. “Hard times mean full taverns. Booze or sensos or tinglers—pick your poison.”
Evelaine has the directness of a country girl and knows her own limitations; she stuck to a mild tingler. Service was running slow, so I went to log our orders. I slid down a shinny pole to the first bar level. Mice zipped by me, eating up tablescraps left by the patrons; it saves on labor. Amid the jam and babble I placed our order with a steward and turned to go back.
“You looking for work?” a thick voice said.
I glanced at its owner. “No.” The man was big, swarthy, and sure of himself.
“Thought you wanted Dragon work.” His eyes had a look of distant amusement.
“How’d you know that?” I wasn’t known in the city.
“Friends told me.”
“Leopold hired me today.”
“So I hear. I’ll top whatever he’s paying.”
“I didn’t think business was that good.”
“It’s going to get better. Much better, once Leopold’s out of the action. A monopoly can always sell goods at a higher price. You can start tomorrow.”
So this was Kwalan Rhiang. “No thanks. I’m signed up.” Actually, I hadn’t signed anything, but there was something about this man I didn’t like. Maybe the way he was so sure I’d work for him.
“Flying for Leopold is dangerous. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“See you around,” I said. A senso was starting in a nearby booth. I took advantage of it to step into the expanding blue cloud, so Rhiang couldn’t follow and see where we were sitting. I got a lifting, bright sensation of pleasure, and then I was out of the misty confusion, moving away among the packed crowd.
I saw them on the stairway. They were picking their way down it delicately. I thought they were deformed, but the funny tight clothes gave them away. Offworlders, here for the flying. That was the only reason anybody came to Lex. We’re still the only place men can seriously fly longer than a few minutes. Even so, our lack of machines keeps most offworlders away; they like it easy, everything done for them. I watched them pick their way down the stairs, thinking that if the depression got worse, offworlders would be able to hire servants here, even though it was illegal. It could come to that.
They were short as children but heavyset, with narrow chests and skinny limbs. Spindly people, unaugmented for Lex oxy levels. But men like that had colonized here long ago, paying for it in reduced lifetimes. I felt as though I was watching my own ancestors.
Lex shouldn’t have any oxy at all, by the usual rules of planetary evolution. It’s a small planet, 0.21 Earth masses, a third gee of gravity. Rules of thumb say we shouldn’t have any atmosphere to speak of. But our sun, Beta, is a K-type star, redder than Sol. Beta doesn’t heat our upper atmosphere very much with ultraviolet, so we retain gases. Even then, Lex would be airless except for accidents of birth. It started out with a dense cloak of gas, just as Earth did. But dim old Beta didn’t blow the atmosphere away, and there wasn’t enough compressional heating by Lex itself to boil away the gases. So they stuck around, shrouding the planet, causing faster erosion than on Earth. The winds moved dust horizontally, exposing crustal rock. That upset the isostatic balance in the surface, and split open faults. Volcanoes poked up. They belched water and gas onto the surface, keeping the atmosphere dense. So Lex ended up with low gravity and a thick atmosphere. Fine, except that Beta’s wan light also never pushed many heavy elements out this far, so Lex is metal-poor. Without iron and the rest you can’t build machines, and without technology you’re a backwater. You sell your tourist attraction—flying—and hope for the best.
One of the offworlders came up to me and said, “You got any sparkers in this place?”
I shook my head. Maybe he didn’t know that getting a sendup by tying your frontal lobes into an animal’s is illegal here. Maybe he didn’t care. Ancestor or not, he just looked like a misshapen dwarf to me, and I walked away.
Evelaine was describing life in the flatlands when I got back. Leopold was rapt, the worry lines in his face nearly gone. Evelaine does that to people. She’s natural and straightforward, so she was telling him right out that she wasn’t much impressed with city life. “Farmlands are quiet and restful. Everybody has a job,” she murmured. “You’re right that getting around is harder—but we can glide in the up-drafts, in summer. It’s heaven.”
“Speaking of the farmlands,” I said, “an old friend of mine came out here five years ago. He wanted in on your operations.”
“I was hiring like crazy five years ago. What was his name?”
“Lorn Kramer. Great pilot.”
Leopold shook his head. “Can’t remember. He’s not with me now, anyway. Maybe Rhiang got him.”
Our drinks arrived. The steward was bribable, though—Rhiang was right behind him.
“You haven’t answered my ’gram,” Rhiang said directly to Leopold, ignoring us. I guess he didn’t figure I was worth any more time.
“Didn’t need to,” Leopold said tersely.
“Sell out. I’ll give you a good price.” Rhiang casually sank his massive flank on our table edge. “You’re getting too old.”
Something flickered in Leopold’s eyes; he said nothing.
“Talk is,” Rhiang went on mildly, “market’s falling.”
“Maybe,” Leopold said. “What you been getting for a kilo?”
“Not saying.”
“Tight lips and narrow minds go together.”
Rhiang stood, his barrel chest bulging. “You could use a little instruction in politeness.”
“From you?” Leopold chuckled. “You paid off that patent clerk to release my gene configs early. Was that polite?”
Rhiang shrugged, “That’s the past. The present reality is that there may be an oversupply of thistleberries. Market isn’t big enough for two big operations like ours. There’s too much—”
“Too much of you, that’s my problem. Lift off, Rhiang.”
To my surprise, he did. He nodded to me, ignored Evelaine, and gave Leopold a look of contempt. Then he was gone.
I heard them first. We were taking one of the outside walks that corkscrew around the Angis spire, gawking at the phosphored streets
below. A stone slide clattered behind us. I saw two men duck behind a jutting ledge. One of them had something in his hand that glittered.
“You’re jumpy, Drake,” Evelaine said.
“Maybe.” It occurred to me that if we went over the edge of this spire, hundreds of meters into the thorn scrabble below, it would be very convenient for Rhiang. “Let’s move on.”
Leopold glanced at me, then back at the inky shadows. We strolled along the trail of volcanic rock, part of the natural formation that made the spire. Rough black pebbles slipped underfoot. In the distant star-flecked night, skylight called and boomed.
We passed under a phosphor. At the next turn Leopold looked back and said, “I saw one of them. Rhiang’s right-hand man.”
We hurried away. I wished for a pair of wings to get us off this place. Evelaine understood instantly that this was serious. “There’s a split in the trail ahead,” Leopold said. “If they follow, we’ll know…” He didn’t finish.
We turned. They followed. “I think I know a way to slow them down,” I said. Leopold looked at me. We were trying to avoid slipping in the darkness and yet make good time. “Collect some of these obsidian frags,” I said.
We got a bundle of them together. “Go on up ahead,” I said. We were on a narrow ledge. I sank back into the shadows and waited. The two men appeared. Before they noticed me I threw the obsidian high into the air. In low gravity it takes a long time for them to come back down. In the darkness the two men couldn’t see them coming.
I stepped out into the wan light. “Hey!” I yelled to them. They stopped, precisely where I thought they would. “What’s going on?” I said, to stall.
The biggest one produced a knife. “This.”
The first rock hit, coming down from over a hundred meters above. It slammed into the boulder next to him. Then three more crashed down, striking the big one in the shoulder, braining the second. They both crumpled.
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