They waited and waited, until both admiral and governor were giving the meteorology tower anxious scrutiny. Just when both had decided that Nabhi was going to renege, as they had half suspected he would, they heard the roar of ignition and saw the yellow-white flame pouring out of the tubes.
“Firing well,” Paul bellowed over the noise. Emily contented herself with a nod as she plugged her ears with her fingers.
She did not know much about the mechanics of shuttles, but the young men were grinning and waving their arms triumphantly. The look of relief on Fulmar’s face was almost comical. Majestically the shuttle began its run up the grid, its speed increasing at a sensational rate. It became airborne, the engines thrusting it in an abrupt but graceful swoop up. The flame became lost in the blue of the sky as the observers shaded their eyes against the rising sun. Then the puffy contrail blossomed, billowing out as a tracer for the shuttle’s path. The technicians who had made it possible cheered, and clapped one another on the back.
“Gawssakes, but it’s good to get a bird up again,” one of the men shouted. “Hey, what’s wrong with them?” he added, pointing to several fairs of dragonets zipping at low level across the grid out of nowhere, crooning oddly.
“Who’s having a baby?” Fulmar demanded.
Emily and Paul exchanged glances. “We are,” she said, sliding quickly into the skimmer. “See? They’re going straight to the Hatching Ground.”
Looking up toward Landing, there was no doubt that fairs of dragonets were streaming in that direction. No one lingered on the grid. The roof of the Hatching Ground was covered with the crooning and chittering creatures. The cacophony was exciting rather than irritating. When the admiral and governor arrived, they had to make their way through the crowd to the open double doors.
“Welcome in nine-hundred-part harmony,” Emily muttered to Paul as they made it to the edge of the warm sands. There they halted, awed by the sense of occasion within.
Kitti Ping had left explicit instructions on who was to attend the birth day. Sixty young people between the ages of eighteen and thirty, who had already shown a sympathy for the dragonets, had the privilege of standing around the circle of eggs. Wind Blossom, Pol, Bay, and Kwan stood to one side on a wooden platform, their faces flushed and expectant.
The dragonets’ song outside remaining softly jubilant while the crooning of those who had found roosting space inside sounded like subdued encouragement, almost reverent.
“They can’t know what we expect for today, can they, Paul?”
“Young Sean Connell”—Paul pointed to where the young man stood beside his wife around the eggs— “Would have you believe that they do. But then, they’ve always been attracted by birthing! After all, they protect their own young, against attack.”
A hush swept around the arena as a distinct crack was heard. One of the eggs rocked slightly, the motion drawing excited whispers.
Emily crossed her fingers, hiding them in the folds of her trousers. She noticed, with a slight grin, that others were doing the same. So much hung on the events of that day, on the first hatching and on what Nabhi Nabol was irrevocably committed to doing.
Another egg cracked and a third wobbled. The chorus became beguilingly insistent, striking an excited chord in every one watching.
Then all of a sudden, one of the eggs cracked open and a creature emerged, damp from birth; it shook stubby wings and stumbled over its shell, squawking in alarm. The dragonets answered soothingly. The young people in the circle stood their ground, and Emily marveled at their courage, for that awkward creature was not the graceful being she had been expecting, a beast remembered from old legends and illustrations held in library treasuries. She caught herself holding her breath, and exhaled quickly.
The creature extended its wings; they were wider and thinner than she had expected. It was so spindly, so ungainly, and its very oddly constructed eyes were flashing with red and yellow. Emily felt a flush of alarms The creature gave a desperate cry, and was answered reassuringly by the multivoiced choir above. It lurched forward, its voice pleading, and then the cry altered to one of joy, held on a high sweet note. It staggered another step and fell at the feet of David Catarel, who bent to help it.
He looked up with eyes wide with wonder. “He wants me!”
“Then accept him!” Pol bellowed, gesturing for one of the stewards to come forward with a bowl of food. “Feed him! No, don’t anyone else help you. The bond should be made now!”
Kneeling by his new charge, David offered the little dragon a hunk of meat. It bolted that and urgently cried for more, pushing at David’s leg with an imperious head.
“He says he’s very hungry,” David cried. “He’s talking to me. In my head! It’s incredible. How did she do it?”
“The mentasynth works, then!” Emily murmured to Paul, who nodded with the air of someone not at all surprised.
“Ye gods, but it’s ugly,” Paul said in a very low voice.
“You probably weren’t much to look at at birth either,” Emily surprised herself by saying. She grinned at his quick glance of astonishment.
David coaxed his new friend out of the circle of people and toward the edge of the Hatching Ground, calling for more food. “Polenth says he’s starving.”
Bay had ordered plenty of red meat to be available, butchered from animals that had adapted well to the improved Pernese grasses. The young dragonets would require plenty of boron for growth in their first months, and would best absorb it from the flesh of cattle,
Another egg cracked, and a second bronze male made a straight-line dash to Peter Semling. A shrill voluntary came from Peter’s fair of dragonets. There was a long wait before any more activity. A worried hum developed among the watchers. Then four more eggs abruptly shattered, two with unexpectedly dainty creatures, one golden and. one bronze, who partnered themselves with Tarrie Chernoff and Shih Lao; the other two were stolid-looking browns who took to Otto Hegelman and Paul Logorides.
“Do they expect them all to hatch today?” Emily asked Paul.
“Let’s go around to Pol and Bay,” Paul said. They inched their way to the right, pausing to admire David Catarel’s bronze, who was bolting down hunks of meat so fast that he seemed to be inhaling them. David looked ecstatic.
“Well, they could,” Pol replied when they reached him. He was masking anxiety well. Wind Blossom was not, and barely acknowledged the quiet greetings of admiral and governor.
“They were engineered within a thirty-six-hour period. The six that have hatched were from the first and second groups. We might have to wait. In our observations of wild dragonets, we know that laying the eggs can take several hours. I suspect the greens and golds may be like one of the Earth vipers, which can keep eggs within her body until she finds an appropriate place, or time, to lay them. We know that naturally clutched eggs do hatch more or less simultaneously. This,” he said, pointing to the Hatching Ground, “is a concession to Kitti Ping’s reverence for the ancestral species’ habitat. Ah, another one’s cracking.” He consulted the flimsy in his hand. “One of the third group!”
“Six males, but only one female,” Bay said quietly. “To be frank, I’d rather have more females. What do you think, Blossom?”
“One perfect male and one perfect female are all we need,” Wind Blossom said in a tight, controlled voice. She had her hands hidden in her loose sleeves, but there were deep tension lines in her face and her eyes were clouded.