assistirfilmes Book 5: Chapter 29: Ready to Go
Book 5: Chapter 29: Ready to Go
Book 5: Chapter 29: Ready to Go
Howard
October 2342
Trantor
The dragon rotated in the video window. Well, the CAD image anyway. The real thing lay in a manny pod in orbit around Jabberwocky, courtesy of Mario and the autofactory he’d set up for us.
Bridget was out on some errand that demanded her physical presence, so when the job-completion auto-alert had come in, I’d jumped in to take a peek.
The dragon really defied easy categorization. It didn’t have feathers, it didn’t have fur, and whatever those were, they weren’t quite scales. I suppose a pangolin might come close, but the dragon’s scales weren’t nearly as tough as the Terran animal’s.
The scales also grew thinner and longer on the wings, acting very much like feathers, which gave the dragons flight capabilities more like those of birds than bats, including the ability to soar and glide.
I knew all this, of course, because Bridget couldn’t resist lecture mode if anyone around her held still long enough to listen. And I was always willing to listen to her.
It did kind of look like a squirrel, though. Other than the large, clawed hind feet, it didn’t have the innate menace of a dragon. Eyes too big, fangs too small, mostly. Maybe a little like Toothless—the dragon in that animated movie. Also, no fire breath. It stood perhaps a little taller than a human on average, maybe six and half feet, but rangier, as befitted an animal that had to get airborne. The abnormally large chest housed both oversize lungs and huge pectoral muscles. There was also some weirdness about the metabolism, but I hadn’t paid close enough attention. A long tail completed the ensemble, finned or feathered at the end to help control flight attitude.
At that moment, Bridget walked into the apartment. She was angry and did her best to slam the door both open and then closed, but the modern mechanism was deliberately resistant to that kind of abuse. The door braked and slowly hissed shut the last few inches.
“Didn’t go well?” I asked, keeping my tone neutral.
“Luddies,” she replied. “They’re trying to flood the Trantor city council with specious complaints and accusations about mostly ludicrous and irrelevant things. It’s an obvious desensitization tactic, but according to the rules, we have to evaluate each submission.”
“You couldn’t have done this virtually?”
“Again, rules. The complainant has the option to demand an in-person evaluation. It’s harassment, pure and simple.”
“Hmm.” I frowned. There had to be a way to handle this. I backed out of my manny for a few mils and wrote a quick note to our lawyers. They were the best—and most expensive—legal firm in the UFS and, in my opinion, worth every penny. Or millipam, these days.
But for now, best to distract her. “So our dragon mannies are done.” I gestured to the rotating image. “Dranny? Mangon?”
“Oh, do not start. Let me see.” She nudged me out of the way as she sat. “Could you do martinis? I really need one right now. Make mine a double. No, a triple. No, just pour until the glass is full.”Nôv(el)B\\jnn
I smiled at her as I got up to play bartender. “What do you think of the finished model?”
She halted the rotation, zoomed in and out a few times, and played with layer transparencies—showing first the skeletal structure, then circulatory system, then nervous system. Finally, she sat back and looked at me. “I approve. Let’s load them in a drone and do a test run.”
I did a fist pump. Showtime!
*****
As with Eden, the home world of the Deltans, the dragon world had a lighter gravity—just under point-nine G—and a thicker atmosphere. Otherwise, something the size of a dragon could never have gotten off the ground.
The dragons had some other advantages as well, such as hollow bones, a respiratory system very similar to Terran birds’, and an insanely high metabolism. We had engineered our drannies to adhere as closely as possible to the average dragon size and weight, but of course, we included plenty of reserve power and speed. Fair fights were for suckers.
It took about a half hour to get the drannies down to Jabberwocky from the orbital autofactory. On receiving the alert from the drone, Bridget and I put our home mannies in their pods and transferred to the new drannies.
I must have said something out loud, or perhaps Bridget had simply become that good at reading my mind, because I received a text from her just as I was initiating the transfer: You are NOT going to call them drannies!
Yeah, we’ll see ...
I sat up in the cargo hold of the drone. Beside me, Bridget’s dranny was just sitting up as well. She made a grinding, coughing sound, and I looked at her in confusion, wondering if she was having a breakdown.
“That never gets old either,” I muttered, and took off after her.
There was a certain amount of sexual dimorphism in the dragon physiology, with the males being bigger and more powerful but the females being more maneuverable. I knew that this figured into their mating rituals, but I hadn’t read far enough ahead to know exactly how. In any case, I was catching up, but slowly.
“We should limit ourselves to dragon normal,” she called back to me.
“Yeah, sure, I’m not falling for that one. Again.” With a few powerful wingbeats, I found myself above and slightly behind her. As I gazed down on her form, I suddenly had an idea of how those mating flights worked. “Bridge, do we have the dragon behavioral routines installed yet?”
“Some of them. No cultural stuff yet, though. Why?”
“I’m, uh, well, my dranny is, uh ... ”
“You like me?”
“Yeah, like that. How accurate is the physiology?”
“We could find out.”
I eased down to glide just above her, and we found another updraft.
Aerial sex. Highly recommended.
*****
We were doing a long loop, gradually working our way back to the location of the drone. One of the newly installed modules was an inertial guidance system that ensured we always knew where we were, which made dead-reckoning navigation a snap. I was admiring the view and wishing for a cigarette, or dragon equivalent, when Bridget said, “I think we’re being followed. No, make that chased.”
I swiveled my head and looked back. The dragon neck wasn’t as long as that of its mythical namesake, but it was definitely better than a human’s for checking in all directions. In this case, it allowed me to get a good look at four dragons bearing down on us. They had a very definite aura of focus and determination. This wasn’t just a strangers passing in the night kind of thing.
“They have sticks,” I said. “Spears, you think?”
“Technology level is right. We should probably get away.”
“There’s a plan.” I applied dranny-level power to my wingbeats, not enough to appear superhuman—er, dragon—but enough to ensure that our pursuers would tire before they could catch us. Bridget increased her cadence to match.
It took a couple of minutes, but they finally veered off and headed for an updraft to rest. I glanced back with one eye to confirm, then said, “I thought this area was far from any floaters?”
“It is,” Bridget replied. “We did a thorough survey. I’ve just requested a recheck, which should only take a few—and done. No floaters anywhere within twenty miles.” She paused for a moment. “Floaters? Howard, please don’t make that stick.”
“Aw, c’mon, Bridge. Fair’s fair. You do the Latin names and I do the fun ones.”
She sighed. “I suppose I should be thankful it’s not a pun. Or a potty reference.”
I grinned in response but didn’t point out the actual double entendre. Beating a victory to death was never a good idea.
We soon spotted the drone, which had dropped its camouflage when we got close. The cargo door opened, and I did an upward swoop that placed me at a dead stop right at the entrance. As I moved into the cargo bay, I heard Bridget land behind me.
“So what have we learned today?” I said.
“You are very bad at creating names for things. Dragon sex is fun. And they have patrols or something similar. That last one may be a worry. I’ll talk to Gandalf.”
“I’ll come with,” I replied. “Maybe we can get in a round of D&D.”