And windows were being torn out of buildings, and the things were reaching in and snatching people. They were snapping trees and pulling them down, and smashing things. People ran
everywhere, and the vines or things that had been broken or pulled down cut off their escape, and the vines would strike like snakes and coil around them and drag them away. My father said we had to get out of there. We left our picnic where it was and started running out of the park, headed for the bridge. We’d left our car at the landing lot not far away; it was a short walk, but now, we knew it was going to be a dangerous one because the plants were everywhere. But Dad said not to think about it; just keep moving, keep moving.”
Coram gulped a bit to hear Leanne describe what he knew was the worst day of her life. From the haunted look in her eyes, he could tell that a part of her was becoming a terrified sixteen-year-old girl again. He felt a little pang of guilt at making her go back there, but all the same, he had to know. It was important.
Leanne continued, too caught up in the memory to stop talking now. “We got as far as the edge of the park, and then right where it let out onto the bridge, we saw them coming up over the rails: huge vines, as big around as my wrist or bigger. They climbed up, and they started spreading everywhere. They looked like cobras, reared up, except they had other snakes branching off them and doing the same. They were sensing. That’s the thing about Coradan predator plants; they can sense body heat, carbon dioxide, perspiration, and they grow in that direction.
We were cut off; my mother clamped her hand over my mouth to muffle my screaming, but she must have wanted to scream too. My father threw himself in front of us and said we had to run for the other side of the park and try to get out that way. I think we all knew how hopeless it was; there’d be no getting away. But Dad hustled us off anyway, and we started running in the other direction.
“By the time we got back to the park where we’d left our picnic, the place was full of them, slithering and crawling all over, and this time, Mom couldn’t stop me from screaming
because she was screaming too. She just held me. Dad kept himself in front of us. Mom and I knew he’d be the first to go. And then, one of them lunged out and got him. It wrapped itself around him, pulled him off the grass, and lifted him up into the air, carrying him off. Mom and I both screamed for him, and I broke away from Mom and reached for him.
I started running after him, and Mom screamed for me to stop—and that’s when one of them got me, right around the legs, and suddenly, I was off the ground too, and Dad and I were both being pulled away. The next thing I saw was the park under me, and Mom being grabbed and carried. Now, the plants had all of us. We were done for.”
Leanne shut her eyes, and Coram could see in her expression that her mind’s ear was hearing the sounds of her sixteen-year-old self, her mother, and likely her father as well, all screaming and shouting out what would be the last breaths of their lives. Reflexively, Coram reached across the table and touched her hand. She opened her eyes again at the sensation and found her voice once more.
“The heart of the plant had rooted itself into the ground near the landing lot. Its fronds had wrapped themselves around our car and the others there, and we could hear some of the cars being crushed. And there it was, this huge, gaping maw growing out of the pavement. The leaves were all green and purple and red, and it looked like a bottomless pit with vines coming out all around it, and it was full of thorns, huge thorns growing inward so nothing that went in could get out without being cut to pieces.
And that was where the vines were taking us, down into that mouth full of thorns. I could hear Mom crying and screaming, telling me not to look. And I shut my eyes hard, and I was crying too. The last thing I saw was Dad being pulled down into the mouth, and Mom and I were next. With my eyes closed, I heard Dad scream. I opened my eyes again and saw Dad just disappear into the leaves and the thorns.
I reached out for him, but he was just gone. And I looked up and reached for Mom, and she was trying to reach out for me, and I felt myself being pulled down. I was next. My mother was about to see me go before her, just like Dad did, and I called out to her…”
Coram gave her hand a little encouraging squeeze, reassuring her that it was all right to go on. After another breath, she did.
“And the next thing I knew,” said Leanne, “there was this sudden heat. I felt this heat, and there was a flash of light from behind me. I looked back over my shoulder in the direction it was coming from, and I saw something bright and hot slicing through the vine that was holding me. And there was this shape, a big shape, with wings flapping. I saw an arm reaching out and felt a hand grab me, and all of a sudden, the vine around me was falling off and coiling and twisting in the air, and I was being pulled away.
I didn’t understand what was happening; there was just this big arm around me and this sound of wings beating. But I looked for Mom, and I saw her being pulled down into the thing’s mouth, and I screamed for her one last time, but she was gone.
And I was going up higher in the air now, and I could see there were all these shapes, dragon shapes, coming down around the heart of the plant, and there were these flashes of light all over, and the vines kept falling wherever there was a flash. And after that, I don’t remember too much, except that I was flying, flying away. I tried looking down again and saw that I was back over the park where we’d been having our picnic, and it was full of vines, and there were all these shapes with wings and tails everywhere, flying all around, and the lights kept slashing in the air and cutting down the vines. And then, everything just got hazy.”
“Anyone would have reacted the way you did,” Coram said softly.
Leanne said, “Anyone not trained how to deal with a crisis.”
“You were young. You were sixteen. And your parents were civilians. There was
nothing they could do.”
“That’s what the counselors said, later. All I knew was that they were gone and I was
almost gone with them. I ended up on this floating platform over the city, too high for the plants to reach. The dragon who rescued me landed with me on one of the outer strips of the platform. I was in shock. I’d screamed and cried so much, I couldn’t make another sound. He touched down with me and put me down on the strip, and I just crumpled there, flat on my bottom.
I looked up at him, and I couldn’t say a word. And he was tall and scaly, and his horns curled up over his head, and he looked down at me with these big gold and brown eyes, and he had these stripes of gold and bronze on his skin. It was the first time I’d seen a dragon Knight close up, and at first, I thought he was the most awesome thing I’d ever seen.
Some of the other Knights came out of the platform and helped get me inside. They took me to this emergency triage place they had in there, and the ones in there were in human form; they gave me something for the shock, and my mind cleared a bit. And the one who’d saved me came in to check on me, and he turned human—and something inside me just seemed to snap.”
“Snap?” Coram asked.
“Yes, snap. Somehow, seeing him human in his armor, I don’t know what happened, but I just…snapped. All that fear and terror and grief came pouring out of me, and it turned into
anger. I went into a rage. I was furious. I jumped down from the table where the dragon medics had me, and I went at him, yelling, screaming at him. Why did he only save me? Why didn’t he get my mother and my father out of there? Why did he come for me and let them die? I blamed him for letting that damn thing get them.
And I screamed at him and cursed him and beat at him with my fists, and I started crying again. And he just stood there, not saying a word, and took it, took it all, until the medics pulled me off him and gave me something else that settled me down—obviously a sedative, because that’s the last thing I can remember for a few hours.”
“And that,” said Coram, “was how you met Sir Hagen Maxon.”
With a sigh, Leanne replied, “That was how I
first met him. The Knights took me and others they’d saved back to one of their ships up in orbit, where I’d be safe. And while I was on board, Sir Hagen came to see me again. And I felt so awful…so awful…for attacking the Knight who’d saved my life. I was so guilty. But I was so full of grief and rage over my parents, I’d made him the target. He said he understood and didn’t blame me. He said the way I’d reacted was natural; it was the shock and the terror and the loss. He didn’t hold it against me.”
“Of course, he didn’t. He wouldn’t. When we go out on rescue missions, we see people terrified and in pain, and we learned how to deal with it—just like you did later, when you joined the Fleet.”
“I wasn’t thinking about any of that then,” said Leanne. “All I was thinking about was that my mother and father were gone, and those damn plants had probably destroyed my home, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to go on from there. And I was guilty about how I’d
attacked Sir Hagen—and I was guilty about still being alive. I didn’t think I should be alive then. And Sir Hagen understood. He sat with me and talked to me for I don’t know how long. I told him all about how Mom and Dad and I had left Earth to join the Dorian III colony, and how I’d thought it was going to be this big, great adventure.
And I didn’t know really what kind of adventure it would turn out to be. And Sir Hagen
listened to me, talked to me, and told me about how he had come up through training to
become a Knight to help people and protect them, and he told me I was the reason he did everything he did. It didn’t really make anything better, and it didn’t really make everything all right. But it was good just to have him there to listen to me. I didn’t see Sir Hagen after that; he had other duties and had to go. But I stayed with the Knights until they could get me into
counseling. And I never forgot him.”
There was a pause of silence after that. Leanne breathed out heavily, as if to breathe out the last of the memories she had called up. And Coram took away his hand, but he stayed leaning over the table, reassuringly, reminding her with his closeness that there was someone here who cared now.
“So,” she continued, “you wanted to know the story of Dorian III. And there it was. That was it; that’s what happened.”
“The story of a brave young girl,” Coram said.
“The story of a terrified, traumatized, hurt girl,” she corrected him.
“A girl who got better and stronger and more capable,” he corrected her back. “Strong enough to be an officer, a leader, and a warrior. That was the woman I saw out there today. She’s a formidable woman—one I’m proud to know. One I’m pleased to be serving with.”
“Thank you,” said Leanne.
“You’re welcome,” said Coram, sitting up straight again, his insouciant smile returning. He reached for the wine bottle. “I’d say another glass is in order, wouldn’t you?”
Leanne held up her mostly empty glass to him. “I’d say so.” And she let him pour her and himself some more wine, and they finished their meal.
At the end of dinner, they sat calmly and drank down some more of the wine. Leanne noticed they had almost emptied the bottle. Time and wine had both flown by.
“So,” said Coram, “perhaps I could ask you one other thing.”
Slightly buzzed from the wine, Leanne asked, “What now? What else could you want to know after that whole story?”
“Just one thing,” replied Coram.
“Okay…what?”
After a measured, thoughtful beat, Coram posed his next question. It was one that made Leanne’s heart jump a bit. She blinked when she heard it, wondering if she had heard him correctly.
Coram said, “I can see how your experience on Dorian III, and the way you met Sir
Hagen Maxon, made you think of joining the Fleet. I understand all that. What I’d really like to know is…when did you decide you wanted to become a weredragon?”
Leanne’s mouth fell open, but no sound came out. She imagined herself turning pale at the question. If she’d still had her fork in her hand, she would have dropped it clattering onto her plate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Finally, Leanne blurted the question, “What makes you say that? What makes you ask a thing like that?”
Coram was careful in answering, knowing he had hit a very tender spot with Leanne, and not at all the tender spot that most interested him. "I'm sorry. I apologize if the question shocks you. I didn't know any other way to ask except to ask it directly."
“It’s direct, but it’s out of line,” Leanne frowned. “I’m a human woman. Human.”
“A human woman…who has an affinity for my people,” he replied.
She balked. "Meaning that I want to be one of you? Coram, the galaxy is full of people who have an 'affinity' for this group or that group of this person or that person. It doesn't mean they want to be them."
“Do you imagine being one of us?” he asked. “Do you have fantasies about it?”
"What if I do? What does that prove? Coram, it's natural for people to fantasize. People have fantasies about being something they're not all the time. We've always looked at other people--and other creatures--and wondered what it would be like to be them. People have been like that since we were living in caves.
The first time a man saw a bird flying, he wondered, what if I could do that? What if I could fly? Flying is one of humans' oldest dreams. Flying like a bird, breathing water like a fish, doing all kinds of things other creatures do. Doing all kinds of things other people can do that we can't. I don't think we'd be human if we didn't have those kinds of thoughts."
“That’s true,” he agreed. “That’s a perfectly human thing.”
“Absolutely it is,” said Leanne. “And we look at you, and we see you can change into this other creature that we've always had myths about, and naturally we wonder, what if we could do that? Coram, you know every human culture that ever existed has had myths and stories about dragons. You're strong, you're powerful, you have wings, you can fly... You know, in some of our old religions, our old tribal customs, they had rituals about becoming other things--animal spirits, totems. It's an old, old thing. I think it's a kind of envy. We envy anyone who can do what we can't. Or any creature."
“So…,” he ventured, “do you envy weredragons?”
“I don’t know if it’s so much envy,” she said. “We admire you. We envy other beings, other creatures—but we admire them too.”
"Yes. You do admire us, I'm sure. You've admired us since Sir Hagen rescued you, saved you from the Chimerians."
“And why wouldn’t I?”
“Of course, you do. There’s every reason for you to feel that way.”
“Then I don’t understand why you’d ask me about becoming one of you.”
Coram replied, "Well, you see, you pointed out what human tribal customs used to do, the rituals where they would act out becoming their totem animals. They could put on masks and costumes. They could paint their bodies and put on skins and feathers and sometimes even wear animal body parts. They could do everything but physically become the totem. I think that's where the fascination with us comes from. We can do the one thing those old tribes couldn't. We can complete the change, go all the way with it. We can be the totem, the other thing.
There's a line that a human can never cross. We cross it. That's a powerful thing. It has a power over humans' imagination. That's why humans are interested in us. On Lacerta, we see this all the time, humans coming to our planet to be with us, live with us--even be intimate with us. They do it to be a little closer to doing something that a human can't do. And sometimes...they want it all. Sometimes, they want the whole thing. You know, Leanne, that some of you come here because you want something more than just to be near us. I didn't tell you about my mother and father, did I?"
Leanne shrugged. “You told me some things.”
“What I didn’t tell you,” he said, “is that my parents worked for the Lacerta
n Morphological Society. They were counselors with the Bureau of Morphology. Their work was about helping humans who had a very strong affinity for Lacertans. They would talk with them, counsel and help them. When a human came to them with very deep, very powerful feelings about weredragons--and there are more people like that than you know--my parents would help them deal with the way they identified with us, help them understand and sort out their feelings.
Mother and father would tell me sometimes about some of the people they helped. They
wouldn't mention them by name, of course, but they'd talk to me about the things their clients said or the things they said they felt. I heard all kinds of stories about their feelings and their dreams surrounding us.
And sometimes, they'd tell me about some of the people who had the strongest feelings, the
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