The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (27 page)

"It is not my decision.  I need nine dragons for quota, and minimum of three for my own enterprise.  Four, if you wish for me to continue the portions you are enjoying now."

"Enjoying?  Fly House is the most prosperous and we are still scrambling every season's end to survive!"

"But you do survive."

"My House would need to work day and night to deliver you thirteen dragons a season!"

"If that's what it takes.  What else do you have to do, besides eat and sleep and mate?  I can propose one solution, to prove my generosity to you.  I may be able to take Karma as my Link to keep her out of the harvest," Phuck twiddled his fingers in front of him.  "If you were short, one of these coming months.  Otherwise, you will have to choose one of them or both, if the quota is not met."

"Then we better uncover those eggs you have buried and sledge them open, so we are ready next month too," Diem growled.  "Maybe we can work with Hold House, to keep any surplus, so we can use them to cover..."

Phuck adjusted his pants, tucking down his deflating urine straw.  "My buried eggs are not intended for covering shortages.  They are mine, and I intend to sell those dragons on the Hope Market."

"Not if I don't train the dragons for you," Diem said.  Phuck let out a soft hiss, a warning of coming venom, and watched the human startle backward with wide eyes.  It was a relief to Phuck to know that Diem still feared him.

"You will train them for me, or even as it pains me, I will sell Karma and the old woman in place of the dragons I lose," Phuck said.  He knew it was a bluff.  He'd keep Karma for himself and use the proceeds of whatever the old woman would bring to lavish forgetting gifts on his new Link. 

Phuck turned from Diem, keeping his senses primed for an attack as he walked away.  Over his shoulder he said, "Think on it, Rha Diem.  Think on all of it."   

***

The Plutian bastards!  The curse cut through Diem's mind as he watched Phuck pick his way through the spindlings.  Diem wanted to kick something, beat something, kill something.  Diem let out a roar, but the misery was still there, an immense rock taking up all the room in his gut.

He turned and headed back to the shack, to Forge, to the seven hens that were not enough to save his family from being traded into the alien's slave market.  Throwing open the door to the shack, he was startled by the figure of the woman, trying to work the pump on the wall.  Pants-less.  It took Diem's mind a moment to flip back through the events, landing on the lovely memory of Maeve's open legs and the succulent flower that had been exposed to him therein.

  She turned to the side to hide herself.  When it was not successful, she turned her back to him, which was as sensuous and revealing as the front of her.  He watched her blush and turn and pull at the tail of her shirt to hide from him as he admired every angle of her body that she exposed.

"Blessings," he murmured.

"Don't be grateful for what you're never getting," she snapped.  He was sure she was nervous, maybe frightened, but at least she wasn't coming after him with the bucket again.  This Maeve, in the light of day, was much more subdued and shy without pants.

"It is a greeting," he told her.  "When you encounter a friend, we say Blessings.  When we leave them, we say Good Life."

"Oh," she said.  He didn't want her to stop talking.  He kept his voice soft and low, a tone neither aggressive nor startling, nothing that would reveal how predatory his flex suddenly felt, as it straightened as if in search of her.  He folded his hands casually over himself to hide it
—not that she was looking.  She was too busy trying to hide herself.  As maybe she should, the way his flex poked at the palm of his hand.

"What greetings did you use in the archaic?" he asked.  His smooth tone seemed to work, she stood still, her white knuckles holding down the front of her shirt and far as she could stretch it.

"Archaic, that's funny," she said without laughter.  "We would just say hi, or good morning or good afternoon or good night, depending on what time it is."

"Then, good morning, Maeve."

Her single laugh was nervous, dry.   He crossed the room to help her with the water pump and her shirt-fidgeting started anew.  He ignored it and she skittered backward, out of the way, as he reached for the pump.  The bucket below was dry.  He pressed the pump up and down, up and down, until the water flowed out.  He reached up to the shelf, took down a cup and handed it to her before he stepped away.

"Did you want a drink?" he asked when she didn't move.

"Uh..." She yanked at her shirt.  "Yeah."

He waited, but she remained still.  He realized at once what the problem was.  To bend over for the water or to even squat down to reach it, would expose her.  He turned away to give her the privacy of getting her drink.  The cup splashed into the water twice before he spoke to her again.

"I have to visit Hold House," he said. 

"Can you get me some pants first?" she asked.  He thought on it.  If he gave her pants, chances were, if he were gone long enough, she would find a way around the hens.  But she wasn't going anywhere without pants.  And no one was coming near the shack with the hens loose.  He'd drop food around the outside walls to be sure they guarded the shack well.

"I will bring some back for you," he said.  "And I will look at your wounds before I go, to be sure they're healing properly."

"Yeah right," she snorted.  "You don't need to look at anything.  They're healing just fine."

"You know that for sure?  No blue lines beneath the skin?  No pale sheen across it?"

"I'm fine," she snapped. 

"Alright, then I'm going.  Don't go out of the shack.  The overseer was here this morning, but with the dragons out, he won't come near, so long as he doesn't see you."

"What if he does?"

"He'll kill you, or worse," Diem said.  He was glad to see her shiver.  It was the right reaction.  To sledge the point in, he added the truth, "The Plutians are talking about trading humans, selling them as a commodity among the planets, for service."

"By service you mean..."

"Whatever service they want.  To clean, to mate, to eat...whatever they want," he said.  "So stay inside.  It's not a directive that you have to fight, it's just to keep you safe.  Stay in and I'll be back soon."

***

He went out the door and, after she felt Forge's departure rumble the Earth beneath her feet, Maeve tried to bring the bolt down over the door.  What the hell was she going to do anyway?  Run away through the woods half naked?  When she couldn't lower the bolt, she still knew and hated to admit that even with the open door, Diem had won again.  He'd trapped her so effectively, she didn't want to get away.  She was humiliated to detect the grain of submission in herself.

She picked the scraps off the floor that used to be her pants.  They were ruined.  Damn him.   

With nothing to do, Maeve spent the next few hours trying to inspect the healing cut on her thigh.  It was in the worst place, so that no matter how she twisted and turned, she couldn't quite see it enough to really inspect it.  By the end of an hour, she was concerned that there was some bluishness after all, and by the end of the second hour, she was pacing the floor, certain she was going to die from some bizarre dragon disease.

As the third hour ticked by, Maeve was beside he
rself, imagining slithering, milli-legged bacteria climbing all over her.  She itched with it.  Within minutes she itched so bad she couldn't stand it anymore.  She rifled the curtained shelves beneath the counter for soap.  Not trusting anything she found, she finally settled on dipping a plain cloth she'd found into the half-full overspill bucket.   A water bath would have to be good enough.

Maeve stripped off her shirt. 

***

Forge flew like a well-aimed arrow, cutting through the clear sky, toward the North West.  It was a very short distance to the dividing wall and Diem was not surprised, as he approached it, to see the oyster-colored dragon shoot from a cloud.  The creature dragged the brume along behind it, stretching and swirling the vapors like a shredded pillow.  The underside of its wings glimmered like snowflakes.  All, the Cirrus dragon, was a beauty, just as she had been when Diem had trained her. 

But the way All came screeching toward the edge of her House's air zone, it was like she didn't recognize him at all.  Ears tucked and teeth barred, Diem whistled his command to stop.  The dragon blinked—her only sign of hesitation—before she let out another screech, warning Diem not to cross the invisible line extending up from the wall below. 

Forge reared up for battle, but Diem pushed his thighs flat to her plates.  He released and pressed again.  Forge banked to the right, just within the Fly House air space, flashing her mammoth, plated underbelly to the Hold House dragon.  The iridescent plates clattered and shone with blinding brilliance in the morning light.

The rider hardly had to pull the Cirrus dragon up short.  All's most valuable weapon was her ability to camouflage herself in the clouds, as well as being able to shoot a blast of flame the entire length of a training field, but those weapons wouldn't be near enough to engage in direct combat with a Samoan dragon like Forge.  The Samoan breed were the most lethal of dragons.  And, flashing her belly like she had just done, was the only warning Forge would give an opponent.  The next strike would be the beginning of battle. 

Both dragons parted and remained to their own sides of the wall.  When the Cirrus's rider saw the respect, he called out to Diem.

"What is your business?"

Diem cupped his hands to call back, "To speak to Rha Shown
—a private matter!"

The Cirrus swooped around, as did Forge, aligning to glide past one another as if flying in tandem.   The two riders took a better look at one another, so they could verify identities.  The whole custom had begun as a way to distinguish one another from Plutians, but since few of the Plutian overseers bothered to mount a dragon any more, it had become a ritual of respect.

Diem waved, recognizing the rider immediately. 

"Mark!" he called.  "Blessings!"

"Rha Diem!" the man called back.  "Welcome!  You can make it to the landing ground on your own?"

Diem nodded as he guided Forge over the dividing wall, into the Hold House's portion of the sky.   Mark was there one minute and then, gone the next, disappearing into a string of clouds.  Diem landed Forge on the empty field moments later, but, from the spindlings, a shout rose up.

"What is your business?"

Diem looked for a human, a shape amongst the trees, and could find nothing.  He slid off Forge's neck with a whistle to pacify her, and shouted back, "Rha Diem and I am here to speak on private matters!"

A man stepped from behind a tree, separated from it, as if he were part of the bark.  It always startled him when they did that.  Diem blinked to recognize the face. 

"Break," Diem greeted the camouflaged man.  "Blessings.  I am always amazed with your ability to be lost in the environment."

"Blessings, Rha Diem," the man returned.  "Perimeter work.  Done it all my life.  I've had to find new ways to make it exciting.  You could say I've gotten very good at blending in.  But enough of this.  What brings you?  We have at least another five or so passes of the moon before we can expect a trans, don't we?"

"I have no concern with the shipment.  I've come to speak with your Rha."

"Oh," the man said.  "I would escort you, but I have to remain at my post.  However, if you continue at a slight North West direction, excuse me, I mean, gait, you will reach Hold House and they will be able to tell you where to find the Rha."

"Thank you.  I'll walk on then," Diem said, smiling at Break's archaic words that peppered into his speech.  Posts and directions.  The words sounded odd in Diem's ears and he remembered imitating the words as a Smaller, when Breathe would speak.  But as he grew, he realized the archaic words weren't always as accurate or suitable to his needs.  The gait of a dragon was a measurement he could relate to, whereas direction told him as much as pointing an arm. 

Diem secured Forge with a whistle and walked off into the spindlings, using the sun to keep his bearings.  Only once, the shadow of the Cirrus dragon drifted overhead and cast a shadow, but otherwise, the woods were bright and quiet.

Until he reached a patch of fallen
gorne.  There was a mill standing beside a stump, the type of cranking mechanism that ground gorne to flour so it could be made into bread and cereal.  A bag of the flour sat nearby.  Some of the shaved gorne had spilled out and dusted the soil below it.  Whoever had spilled the food was nowhere in sight.  At least, that was the way it appeared, until Diem heard a woman moan.

He came to full attention at the sound.  Diem spun in a circle to locate her.  A compilation of rocks created a sort of sloping, low bridge to the left.  It was a bridge over nothing but mud, but then angled upward, until it spilled out into an eventual dirt path that led off to Hold House.  The woman could be lying on either side of the retaining walls, but with the next mew from her, Diem followed the sound off to the right, to a thick grouping of
gorne trees.