Day of the Dragonstar

by David Bischoff

  He ceased his talk, then suddenly stepped forward three paces, directly facing Ian and Becky. With a four-fingered hand, he tugged at his little shirt.

  “He’s trying to talk to us,” Becky said. “No. We don’t have any of those shirts. We’re not like you, are we?”

  “Now who’s whistling in the dark?” Ian said.

  With a hiss of what might have been exasperation, the reptile began to tear his shirt open from the bottom. The others screeched with excitement and immediately began to move in on him, brandishing their weapons. The reptile immediately stopped tearing his shirt and held his hands straight up in the air, performing some kind of complicated sign language above his head. The others immediately relaxed, and reformed their circle.

  Becky was puzzled.

  Ian said, “Very strange. But I think he wants us to put our clothes back on.”

  Becky shrugged, and complied with the suggestion. Great hisses and gasps ensued. Evidently quite pleased with his accomplishment, the lead lizard turned back to his companions, pointing at the couple and chattering away.

  “Don’t look now,” said Becky, “but I think that little suggestion just saved our skins.”

  Two of the braver reptiles sidled up to Ian and touched him. A long tongue flickered. With a strained smile, Ian held out his hand. “Hello, there, charmer.”

  The lizard put the hand in its sharp-toothed mouth and seemed about to bite it, when the lizard leader saw what was going on. He raced up to the offender and knocked him to the ground. The fallen lizard picked himself up, but in so doing managed to snag his little shirt on an exposed root. It ripped off completely.

  Weapons were raised. The two reptiles carrying blunt cudgels immediately bludgeoned the offending .lizard, senseless. He lay on the ground, barely breathing, blood leaking from one of his flared nostrils.

  “Those shirts appear to be of great importance,” Ian said, his nervousness still in his voice. “I suggest we keep ours on from now on. No more strip shows unless specifically instructed—okay, Gypsy Rose Lee?”

  “Right.”

  The two lizards with the clubs picked their fallen mate up off the ground. They began to drag him back to the gate. The lead lizard made a quick motion with his four-digit hands. Immediately, two lizards apiece flanked Becky and Ian. The lead lizard executed a neat about-face and began to walk forward.

  “I think we’ve been invited inside,” said Ian.

  “I don’t think it was an invitation,” Becky said.

  * * *

  As soon as they walked through the gate, the door was closed and a set of huge logs fitted over its latches. Ian Coopersmith barely noticed. He was too busy examining the cluster of buildings grouped off to the left.

  “Evidently, we were lucky enough to stumble upon a city or town of some sort.”

  They were hustled forward quickly. All of the scurrying lizards stopped with reptilian suddenness as they caught sight of the new arrivals.

  “They rather look like ostriches with outsized skulls, don’t they?” Ian commented as they strode toward the grouping of buildings.

  “Sauronithoides, Ian,” Becky said excitedly. “I thought they looked familiar. There’s been speculation that this kind of dinosaur might have actually developed intelligence if most classes of dinosaurs had not become extinct.”

  “I thought they’d all become extinct.”

  “No. For example, birds are direct relations to dinosaurs.”

  “Well, I guess we’re going to meet the rest of the family. They’re taking us over to the big stone building yonder.”

  It was the largest structure of the village, a quonset hut type of building composed of stone and brick and wood. The other houses seemed more like shacks that might have been erected with some sense of alien aesthetics or geometry. To Ian, they just looked ramshackle. Strange tinklings filtered through the air. Exotic and varied scents wafted with the breeze. Some kind of bazaar seemed to be holding forth in what appeared to be a marketplace. Lizards sat behind oddly shaped stalls, engaged in sales and barters. The music of clanks and rattles and whistles was in the air, beside the tastes of charred meat.

  “Oh my God, Ian. Look!”

  She managed to point, despite the reptilian hands restraining her ann. Beside one of the stalls was a rack. Upon the rack on wooden hooks were hung dead bodies of saurians.

  “They’re cannibals,” Ian said. “It follows, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. Reptiles have been known to eat their own kind.”

  “You don’t think they’re going to eat us, do you?”

  “Unlikely. They are civilized, and in civilized cultures curiosity tends to outweigh hunger. If they have leaders, I think they’ll want to notify them, if for no other reason than to allow them a look at us before they pop us in the pan.”

  “Ian!” she shivered.

  “If I wasn’t so fascinated, I’d be scared shitless.”

  As they neared the building, a small Iguanodon emerged from its rear, bearing a rider in a saddle that appeared to be part of the beast. The saurian manipulated a series of raised bumps in the back of the Iguanodon’s neck. It stopped in front of the party.

  “Incredible,” Ian said. “It looks as though many of the adaptations that the intelligent lizards have made have been biological. I would bet that since they were not able to advance technologically, they’ve concentrated on the biological aspects of progress.”

  “Like the living arrow that cutie-pie was pointing at us.”

  “Cutie-pie” scrambled forward and began to confer with the creature atop the Iguanodon. After much chatter and arm-waving, the saurian pushed the neck nodes of his beast, and drew the Iguanodon so close to Ian and Becky that they could smell the beast’s bad breath and see the tiny parasitic insects that crawled in the folds of its hide. The saurian leaned over, staring intently at the new arrivals. Nictating eyebrows blinked twice from side to side. Suddenly, it drew back upright in its saddle, and spoke again to the party’s leader, pointing one of its digits at the heavily bolted door of the large building.

  “Cutie-pie” barked orders.

  Three saurians broke ranks with the party and scurried over to the door, which they proceeded to unlatch. The four saurians in charge of Ian and Becky pulled them forward.

  The door swung back. Growls and squawks and hisses issued forth from the dimness within. Becky and Ian were pushed brusquely inside.

  Torches shuddered. It smelled musky and dank, of earth and urine and rotting meat. As Ian’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw that the whole place was one large chamber, filled with covered stable-like arrangements of cement and brick.

  “It’s like a prison,” Becky said, her voice quivering. “Why are they putting us in a prison?”

  “I don’t know,” Ian responded uneasily.

  They were hustled forward. From inside the stalls, Ian could hear the scraping of claws, the gnashings of teeth. Guards patrolled each aisle, holding heavy clubs.

  “Cutie-pie” strode forward and talked to one guard. The guard stared wide-eyed at the alien arrivals, then motioned for “Cutie-pie” to follow with the “prisoners.” The saurian guard unlatched a door. Wielding his club, he stepped into the darkness. A great din of hissing and growling ensued, abruptly ended by the dull thud of heavy wood against soft flesh. The guard emerged, dragging with it the unconscious body of another saurian. The saurians standing abreast Becky dragged her into the cell.

  “Ian!” she cried.

  “Nothing I can do,” Ian said. “You’ll be all right.” He sounded as unconvinced as he felt.

  After some moments of activity in the cell, the saurians who’d taken Becky inside withdrew. The guard slammed shut the door and latched it.

  With no further ado, Ian was shuffled to the adjacent cell. The guard opened the door, and entered. No hisses. No growls.
He withdrew and Ian’s saurians took him inside.

  The smell was terrible. Offal and straw. Vaguely, Ian could make out bowls of some foul stew in the corner beside a trough of water. Roughly, he was seated in a bed. of straw. Stone manacles were placed over his hands and his feet. They seemed connected by some ultra-strong vines to the wall. The arrangement allowed him some movement—perhaps as far as the food—but not much.

  He hunkered down wearily in the dirty straw, as the door was slammed shut on him. At least he’d get some rest here. He could use some. Yes. He certainly wouldn’t mind a few hours of sleep safely tucked away from the constant fear of being eaten by some prowling dinosaur.

  Sighing, he shut his eyes as saurian feet stamped away from the cell.

  In the quiet, he heard soft, harsh breathing that was not his. It seemed to come from the other corner of the cell. A hiss. A strange mumble, like a sleeper might make.

  He was no longer relaxed.

  What the devil was going on here? Had they stuck him in a jail cell with a maniac saurian? But why? It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

  At least, it didn’t make human sense. He supposed that in order to understand it all, he’d have to think like a saurian.

  But how did a saurian think? There could be no comparisons. Or could there?

  Ian remembered the biology courses he’d had to take in the University. Requirements for a “liberal” education,

  He thought about the human brain. The R-complex. That was the key. That most primitive part of the human bio-computer. Man’s inheritance from his reptilian past.

  Something scratched on the other side of the wall Ian leaned against. A human voice called. “Ian? Ian, are you over there?”

  The creature in the corner stirred uneasily in its straw bed in the corner. Jaws snapped together.

  “Becky,” Ian said. “Please be quiet. There’s something inside here with me that I don’t want you to wake up.”

  “What? Ian, speak up! We can talk to each other. Ian, I’m frightened. What are we going to do?”

  “Becky! I asked you to be—”

  The creature in the corner snorted. In the dimness, Ian perceived movement. The saurian stood. Straw rustled.

  “Oh, God,” said Ian, preparing to defend himself.

  The saurian bellowed and clicked his strange language. He seemed to be more nervous about being in the cell with Ian than Ian was.

  “Ian! Ian, what’s going on? Are you all right? lan, answer me. I’m scared.”

  “You’re scared!”

  After a few more moments of the creature’s loud calling, the door swung open again. The saurian guard exchanged a few words with the other prisoner, then slithered in.

  The former prisoner excitedly pointed at Ian and spoke a few grunts that might have been, “Who or what the hell is this thing in my cell?”

  The guard growled, and led the saurian out, then closed the door.

  “Becky,” Ian said in a loud voice.

  “Ian! What happened!”

  “Goodness knows, but I think it’s going to take a lot of thought to try to understand this culture.”

  “If we live long enough to think,” Becky answered. “Ian,” she said after a few moments of silence.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not sure, but all in all I think even living with Phineas Kemp would be better than this.”

  They both Iaughed.

  * * *

  When Rebecca Thalberg was seven years old, she and a male cousin had wandered one sunny afternoon into the wilderness near the boy’s farm. The boy had showed her his private hiding place: a bower, afforded by a gully along which erosion and roots had carved an indentation. There they had settled, she and this nine-year-old, and played “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” Male genitalia had not thrilled her that much upon first exposure, even when he had rubbed it against hers. “To see what it feels like, Becky! This is what grown-ups do!”

  “Yucky!” she pronounced, pulling her jeans back on and lying down on the soft ground. “I’m tired. I want to rest.”

  That seemed okay with Ricky. He was preoccupied with other things off in the bushes. Becky drifted off into a land of pleasant dreams, and when she woke up, Ricky was gone. She hadn’t the faintest idea how to get back.

  Her first reaction was to cry. Indeed, she could feel the fear and emotion push up from the depths of her being leaking from her tear ducts. But she stopped herself, realizing it wouldn’t do any good.

  “Fuck you, Ricky!” she cried loudly, imitating her Daddy’s favorite phrase. Then she set about finding her way back to the farm. Ricky, hiding nearby, disappointed in not scaring her, emerged and grumpily led her back home.

  From that point on, Becky Thalberg made sure that she never played “Show me” with anyone who would play scare games with her emotions. That policy served her well over the years to come.

  For that reason, when she woke up to darkness and straw and bad smell and reached out for lan, her first reaction to his absence was betrayal, and then almost overwhelming fear.

  But her years of professional—and personal—training keyed into her consciousness and she was quickly in control, at least in control of her feelings if not of her situation.

  Claustrophobia and revulsion overwhelmed her for a second as the damp straw crackled beneath her movement. As she held back panic, her first inclination was to call for the reassurance of Ian’s voice. But compassion checked her. He deserved whatever rest he was getting. She should not be selfish, just because she could not sleep now.

  She breathed deeply, calming herself, and tried to meditate.

  Just as she was approaching something resembling tranquility, however, a couple of saurians barged in and dragged her out.

  As she stood, blinking in the light, the process was repeated on her companion. Ian emerged yawning and vacant-eyed.

  He had been sleeping.

  “Good God! Can’t a man get a decent night’s sleep in this world?” Ian griped, his attempted cheeriness strained.

  “Maybe they’ve decided to change the sheets.”

  The saurians babbled away at one another like a bunch of excited kids, then began to hustle their guests out the entrance.

  “They’ve obviously decided that we’re not of the same mindset as they,” Ian said, squinting in the daylight as they walked outside.

  Becky took a grateful, breath of the fresher air. “What do you mean, Ian?”

  “Well, obviously they were observing our behavior by placing us under controlled conditions.”

  Becky looked down at her filthy clothing, felt her matted hair, and sighed. The saurian party surrounded them, but allowed them to walk unhindered by restraining hands. Becky put her head on Ian’s shoulder as they walked. “Oh, Ian.”

  “Awful. I know. I’m glad to see you, too. I don’t think I could have made it without you.” He put an arm around her.

  “God, I’m sorry, I must smell terrible.”

  “You haven’t exactly been bathed in perfume in there. But then neither was I, dear heart. As I was saying, I did some thinking in my cell. We apparently showed them that we didn’t do anything violent when we turned off our neocortex in sleep.”

  “You mean that’s what the Saurians do?”

  “Apparently. And when they do, they revert at least for a while, to their purely reptilian nature. An interesting balance, eh? One that must make for a fascinating sort of society. If you can figure its more Byzantine aspects.”

  “Maybe something will dawn if we watch the Iocals.”

  They skirted the more populated sections in weary silence, just watching the inhabitants go about their daily tasks. Unfortunately, any part of the city they walked through was soon abuzz with chatter and excitement. Crowds would gather to gawk. Not exactly the proper atmosphere f
or sociological observations, Becky mused, when the watchees were just as fascinated with the watchers.

  However, she was able to begin to appreciate the architecture and the general alien air of the clustered structures. Everything had a certain strange symmetry. Things seemed to be displayed either in twos or threes—two parallel towers, each a different color, or three columns, or two humps to a building’s roof, or three windows in a wall. Tall buildings alternated with squat buildings, jeweled minarets rose beside plain dull huts in a peculiarly homogeneous yet clashing mix of styles and designs.

  “Rather like a nut mix,” Ian commented.

  “Only thirty percent peanuts.”

  “I just think we’re hungry.”

  “Let’s not think about it, okay?”

  Bright colors flowed or fluttered all about in odd patterns, shapes, and sizes like the scales of some gigantic coiled rainbow snake. Acrid and sweet odors surrounded them. From time to time, strange creatures that were not saurians scampered through the alley. Here and there saurians who were not interested in the new arrivals were involved in antic dances or frantic claw-waving or were playing whistlings and faint flutings through wind instruments stuck in their nostrils.

  The saurian party—ten members, Becky counted—Ied them from the city and up a hill toward a huge, ancient structure that squatted like some old mouldering wart. A tracery of vines covered it like veins, Multicolored banners danced when the faintest of breezes blew. Candles fluttered in windows. Smoke issued from pipes. It was a very large building.

  “The Capitol!” Becky said.

  “Or Parliament.”

  “Or the Palace.”

  “Or the Kitchen.”

  “Complete with the recipe book, To Serve Man?”

  “Let’s sincerely hope they don’t use garlic. I hate garlic.”

  “I like garlic. I didn’t see any growing in the jungle, though.”

  “What a relief.”