“What’re we going to tell them?” Dave asked, jerking a thumb in a northerly direction.
“Emily’s gone to join the admiral. Pol and Bay were supposed to get the first sled back.” Sean paused, looking around again, and then gave Sorka a long look. She nodded slowly in approval. “I think we will keep this to ourselves for the time being. We’ll spring the finished product on them, fighting-ready dragons! It’s one thing to send a fire-lizard north on the strength of fax, but I sure wouldn’t want to risk Carenath going someplace I’ve never been.” Sean took another deep breath, having gauged the favorable reaction. “Desi said we’re to make our way along the coast to Seminole. That’ll give us time to practice teleporting between where we are and where we’ve been. That way we’ll know exactly how to get back to any of the major stakes when we need to fight Thread over them.”
“Yeah, but the dragons don’t flame yet,” Peter Semling pointed out.
“There’s phosphine-bearing rock all along the coast. We’ve all watched the fire-lizards chew rock. That’s the easiest part of this whole thing,” Sean replied dismissively.
“It’s one thing to go from one place to another,” Jerry began slowly. “We’ve done it now. We go from here – ” He stabbed his left index finger. “ – to there.” He held up his right finger. “And the dragons do the work. But dodging Thread, or a sled – ” He broke off.
“Duluth caught Marco off-balance. He panicked.” Sean spoke quickly and confidently. “Frankly, Jerry, that place between scared me, and I’ll lay book the rest of us were scared. But now we know, we adapt. We’ll plan emergency evasive tactics.” Sean pulled the knife out of his boot cuff and hunkered down. “Most of us have flown sleds or skimmers in Threadfall, so we’ve seen how the junk drops . . . most of the time.” He drew a series of long diagonal stripes in the ash. “A rider sees he’s on a collision course with Thread . . . here – ” He dug his point in. “ – and thinks a beat forward.” He jumped the point ahead. “We’ll have to practice skipping like that. It’s going to take quick reflexes. We see fire-lizards using such tactics all the time – wink in, wink out – when they’re fighting Thread with the ground crews. If they can, dragons can!”
The dragons bugled in answer to the challenge, and Sean grinned broadly.
“Right?” Sean’s question dared the riders
“Right!” They all replied enthusiastically, and fists were brandished to show staunch determination.
“Well, then.” Sean stood up, bringing his hands together with an audible smack. Ash sifted off his shoulders. “Let’s load up and teleport ourselves back to Kahrain.”
“What if someone sees us, Sean?” Tarrie asked anxiously.
“What? The flying donks doing what they were designed to do?” he asked sarcastically.
“Obviously, Paul told the worried pilots, “we’re not going to be able to protect as much land with such a depleted aerial coverage.”
“Damn it, Admiral,” Drake Bonneau said, twisting his face into a frown. “We were supposed to have enough power packs to last fifty years!”
“We did.” Joel Lilienkamp jumped to his feet once again. “Under normal usage. They have not had what anyone could possibly term normal usage, or even normal maintenance. And don’t blame Fulmar Stone and his crew. I don’t think they’ve had a full night’s sleep in months. The best mechanics in the world can’t make sleds operate on half-charged or badly charged packs.” Glaring belligerently around him, he sat down hard, and the chair rocked on the stone floor.
“So it really is a case of taking the greatest care of the sleds and skimmers we have left, or have no aerial vehicles at all in a year?” Drake asked plaintively.
No one answered him immediately.
“That’s it, Drake,” Paul finally replied. “Burn a swath around your homes and what vegetable crops you’ve managed to save, keep the home stake clear . . . and thank whatever agency you will that hydroponics are available.”
“Where’re those dragons? There were eighteen of them,” Chaila said.
Seventeen,” Ongola corrected her. “Marco Galliani died at Kahrain, with the brown, Duluth.”
“Sorry, forgot that,” Chaila murmured. “But where are the others? I thought they were to take up when vehicles failed.”
“They’re en route from Kahrain,” Paul replied.
“Well?” Chaila prompted pointedly.
“The dragons are not yet a year old,” Paul said. “According to Wind Blossom” – he noted the subtly disapproving reaction to her name – “Pol, and Bay, the dragons will not be mature enough to be fully . . . operational . . . for another two or three months.”
“In two or three months,” someone called out bitterly, “there’ll have been between eighteen and twenty more uncontained Falls!”
Fulmar rose, turning to the back of the chamber. “We will have three completely reconditioned sleds back on line in three weeks.”
“I heard there were more creatures hatched,” Drake said. “Is that true, Admiral?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Are they any good?”
“Six more dragons,” Paul said, more heartily than he felt.
“Removing six more young people from our defensive strength!”
“Giving us six more potential self-maintaining, self-propagating fighters!” Paul rose to his feet. “Consider the project in the right perspective. We have got to have an aerial defense against Thread. We have bioengineered an indigenous life-form to supply that critical need. They will!” He laced his voice with conviction. “In a few generations – ”
“Generations?” The cry elicited angry murmurs from an audience already unnerved by an unpalatable briefing.
“Dragon generations,” Paul said, raising his voice over the reactions. “The fertile females are mature enough to reproduce when they’re two and a half or three years. A dragon generation is three years. The queens will lay between ten to twenty eggs. We’ve ten golds from the first Hatching, three from this second one. In five, ten years, we’ll have an invincible aerial defense system to combat the intruder.”
“Yeah, Admiral, and in a hundred years there won’t be any space for humans left on the planet!” The suggestion was met with a ripple of nervous laughter, and Paul smiled, grateful to the anonymous wit.
“It won’t come to that,” he said, “but we will have a unique defense system, bioengineered to our needs. And useful in other ways. Desi tells me the dragonriders have been delivering supplies to the stakes as they make their way here to Fort. Meanwhile, you have your orders.”
Paul Benden rose and left quickly, Ongola right behind him.
“Damn it, Ongola, where the hell are they?” Paul exclaimed when they were alone.
“They check in every morning. Their progress is good. We can’t ask more of an immature species. I heard Bay tell you that she and Pol both worried that the dragons had been dangerously extended during the evacuation.”
Paul sighed. “Not that there is any other way for them to get here, with the transport situation.” He started down the winding iron stairs that went from the executive level to the underground laboratory complex. “Wind Blossom’s staff has to be reassigned. We don’t have time, personnel, or resources for further experimentation no matter what she says.”
“She’s going to want to appeal to Emily!” Ongola replied.
“Let’s devoutly hope that she can! Any news from Jim this morning?” Paul had reached the state of mind at which he was so saturated with bad news that he did not feel additional blows so keenly. The previous day’s news, that Jim Keroon’s convoy, sailing past Boca, had been caught in a sudden tropical storm that capsized nine craft, had seemed almost inconsequential.