Chapter 8 - Daughter

  Day 10 Midday

  Dawn Watcher wants to ask about a lot of things. Anything to keep her mind off the hill crest and the awful thing that lies just beyond it.

  They have been staying low. No line of sight to the danger light.

  George's latest answer was perplexing. She always had counted herself among the majority. Thought that if you could just fly high enough then the air, its embrace, its firmness that catches one's wings, would return.

  She had thought that true for a long time. That she might actually fly among the stars in the night. It wasn't until...

  She shakes her head.

  There's more than one thing Dawn Watcher would rather not think about right now.

  But if that is what the human claims, she was already halfway inclined to believe it. And, as always, the information leads to more questions. She tries to ask, but as is becoming common:

  "Hard explain," says the human.

  Yeah, how would George explain breathing at the height where air gets soo thin you can't even think? And the falling lights in the sky were even higher than that! Just where is George from? It seems impossible to her.

  But still, other things once thought impossible have happened...

  Sky Catcher... Her son...

  No.

  The dragon shakes her head once again, like the bad thoughts are something she might rattle loose and out.

  What about that 'tablet' George has? She wants to ask about what it can do, not how it works (hard explain, obviously). It seems quite impressive, making all those colors, and George seems rather possessive of it. It's the only thing her touch has been denied of.

  George points it at her, taps on it, then turns to reveal its "screen". Dawn Watcher is looking back at herself, or at least, she sees an approximate rendition of herself, lacking details one would see with their strange eyes.

  The human seems impressed with itself. It is a neat trick.

  Dawn Watcher has photos of herself inside her home, some of them are even recorded in strange light exclusively. The Micoligo never explained how the device worked when she bought those photos and she suspects George won't either. Maybe in due time. She wonders what the human would think them, if only it were safe to get them.

  And Dawn Watcher has things she would like to say and explain too! George has expressed interest in her family cord. The cord has many stories sewn into it and she would love to share. Story time is always a great way to pass the time.

  But does the human even have a word for lineage, let alone an understanding of the concept? She suspects it might. From its scent she has long begun to suspect that George is a male, and it would follow from that observation that out there somewhere is a human family with its own history to tell, but she will not chance making a mistake from an assumption again. How will she ask the human?

  Dawn Watcher decides she will mull it over during her flight back to the escape pod. The little thing has run out of food and needs to get more. Across the sea Dawn Watcher has made easy pickings of the prey kept on her islands. She had offered some to the human but met the fiercest rejections (can you imagine? its little arms raised!). She had thought a tool-user like George wouldn't mind accepting charity, wouldn't find it beneath them, but she had been wrong. In this aspect the human acts more like the thing she knows felled three acercino on its own.

  She offers her palm for George to climb on again. It is time to leave, as agreed.

  She promises she won't drop the human. In both of their languages this time. She coaxed that word out of George by performing the action with a Kottle in front of the human repeatedly until they finally relented. In fact, it was the same Kottle she placed in the so called 'ultraviolet' area during their little lesson on colors, she must have dropped it some veigh odd times before the message was received. How dull it must look to George, missing out on its pretty Mirluxa patterns. She fights to keep that lesson's other conclusions beyond the periphery of her mind. They hurt immensely.

  With the human's arms wrapped around her finger Dawn Watcher glances skywards. Luxa hangs high. It is the middle of the day and the skies are fair with only scattered clouds. The rays of Luxa light penetrate through down to the ground as if they were giant claws tearing at the world. As she readies her wings once again, a familial roar breaks across the sky... and the memories come back to the forefront anyway.

  "Mother? Mother what is wrong?" Morn Chaser asks even before her wings are stowed along her back.

  She had come to wish Dawn Watcher farewell. Not come flying into whatever storm this was.

  She receives no answer. What could possibly have her fierce and mighty mother down like this?

  When Morn Chaser landed beside Dawn Watcher (not on the family pavilion stones but off to the side, how strange), a curious looking creature fled on two legs. It was unlike anything she had seen before. It was kind of funny, watching it look on from behind the brush, as if the plants were doing anything to hide the heat wafting off of it. Many prey animals make that mistake, just once. Morn Chaser never gives them the chance to learn.

  But this thing must not be prey, right? Otherwise Mother would not be keeping it around, placing her tail between daughter and stranger (or maybe even guest!?)

  "Mother, I’m still learning light speak, so please just tell me what is wrong? Use your words."

  Morn Chaser had picked out bits and pieces from Dawn Watcher's flashing lights, but not enough for coherence.

  "Oh, Morn Chaser..." the words come grief stricken.

  "Yes Mother!?" she replies near aghast.

  "There has been a terrible tragedy... Sky Catcher is dead, my child is dead..."

  Morn Chaser does not flinch at the revelation. If anything, for a moment she was worried something might have happened to her father. Relief then.

  But still, mother is sad and Morn Watcher emphasizes with her mother's grief. She grows suspicious of the creature-that-thinks-it's-hiding over there.

  Did they have something to do with this?

  Ignoring the tail, she stomps over and grabs the thing in her fore-paws. She asks what is going on and Dawn Watcher explains that the thing there the daughter is holding, the so called 'human', is the only reason she is not dead alongside her mate.

  To think this 'thing' saved her mother!? That must be a tale for the ages.

  Well if that is the case then the little thing has Morn Chaser's respect. Takes it so thoroughly off the culinary palette now that Morn Chaser regrets having ever had such thoughts.

  The two begin a long conversation and through it Morn Chaser is enlightened. It has been a very busy fivegen days then. And what of this so called 'Danger light'?

  "George calls our kind 'dragon',” Dawn Watcher says.

  "Oh, and you never told him our proper title! Mother that is very improper of you."

  "Human, meet Vyrme." Morn Chaser says.

  "Hooman, ???∩? ????" hears the human.

  Yeah, alright dragon... thinks the human.

  "???∩?" Morn Chaser says again, looking to mother for reassurance.

  "I get it," the human says, forcing an unimpressive snarl.

  But Morn Chaser was mistaken at the sudden show of aggression. Mother informs that the human's smile, like many human things, is quite strange.

  Day 10 Midday

  My newest acquaintance seems to be quite fond of holding me. Not since centrifuge training have I felt like my fate has been this far out of my hands. I knew it was over when it continued staring at me through the brush. I fear my brain might never truly appreciate what it means to be in the company of dragons that have infrared seeing eyes.

  There is nowhere to hide.

  The dragon holding me in its hands looks much like Keeper. Four eyes, two of them black pits, the same color as the scales except for the cream colored ones running down its neck, chest, and belly. More strange though is what it is wearing. Not anything that could be considered clothing, but pockets and pouches are affixed to its hide. There is what appears to be a black rope running from a pouch on its neck all the way along its length down to its tail.

  I can't match the guttural sounds the two create, among which I pick out my own name several times, but I sure wish I could right now. There are many questions.

  I hear Keeper say her own name and my nick name. I even hear the phrase repeated: "do not drop" in Proto-Draconic-English. After mention of 'danger light' I conclude the newcomer is being given the rundown of the recent happenings at Keeper's little island chain.

  Before I know it we are being given introductions... while flying through the air.

  At least the new dragon promised not to drop me in half broken Not-Really-Proto-Draconic-English before I was forcefully divorced from the ground. It even tried to say "human" and perhaps the dragon chosen equivalent? Hard to say.

  It's no trouble to hear Keeper despite the distance. Her voice really does carry.

  "This dragon from Keeper egg." She makes it work with the limited vocabulary.

  As for daughter or son? I do not know.

  We orbit the island in a lazy glide, floating up on the occasional updraft. A conversation while going for a walk around the block then. Good choice. I know in years past I've tried similar, walking my dog around the neighborhood to clear my head (useful in the PhD days!). Seems that distance across the cosmos has not degraded the efficacy of 'the walk'. You know, Cosmological principle and all. After a while I decide to close my eyes and ride it out. It's not like I'm following the conversational exchange anyway.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  When we land Keeper tells me they will be doing "Dragon Kill Instructions".

  Sounds a bit like a funeral to me.

  "What about Danger light?" I ask.

  "Modified Dragon Kill Instructions," Keeper answers.

  I try and fail to stop the new comer from going up to the cave entrance. It doesn't go in like I feared it would. It is natural to want to look. I don't blame it for that. I blame it for indirectly causing the radiation dosimeter to cry its warning tones once more.

  I see Keeper shudder in the distance.

  But the new dragon seems satisfied that what ever Keeper has been saying is the truth and we all rejoin out of sight of the nuclear fuel rods.

  I am left to watch as the two sit together, so close their sides are touching. I am facing their backs and they look towards the cave of death.

  It is beautiful in its own way, their singing is. They direct the words to the sky as though the winds might carry them all the way to the heavens. It goes on for what seems hours. It rises then falls, then the dragons too take flight and descend, bringing the song all around. Sounds of grief then joy perhaps? and ultimately calm. When it is done, Chara is held lower in the sky and so is Keeper's head. Both dragons heave for breath.

  It seems Keeper sang the grief right out of herself. She must have experienced some kind of closure because I see the draconic upside-down-smile-frown once again while she offers her hand to me to climb atop once more.

  Day 10 Afternoon

  The new dragon has eyes for one thing and one thing only back at the campsite. You could take a guess but I reckon you would guess wrong.

  Every now and again its eyes, not the black ones, but the ones you can see where they are looking, they point towards the wire running from that compartment on its neck and then to the HF radio antenna run from the escape pod up into the trees.

  The dragon looks at me and we both kind of get it.

  My God. The dragon has a radio. An alien radio.

  My mind races with possibilities. Maybe somewhere that is not Keeper's outback ranch, dragons have radar! Maybe they know where the other escape pods are! For a creature like this to possess a radio implies a certain level of technological sophistication and scientific knowledge.

  I point at the HF wire and say the word before it asks, so we may speak somewhat. The dragon begins to tap its tail on the sand, the tell tale sign of excitement.

  "Raid-eh-oh antannae?" the dragon echoes my words back.

  Close enough.

  Keeper seems excited too that we all seem to kind of know what is going on here. She says in her broken Proto-Draconic-English that the dragon's radio "not work". Do I want to inspect an draconic radio device? Does the cat want the mouse?

  I approach the dragon and it remains still. I want a better look at the device strapped to its chest. How does a dragon radio even work? The creature's head coils around, shape resembling one of those slides you see at a water park, it comes to rest at my eye level. Those four eyes watch me intently. Do I glow in infrared?

  Alien wood. Alright. An alien wooden box is secured to its neck. I guess that’s a handle then? Well, it looks more like a grove. Maybe it sticks its claw in there? I try to swing it open but instead the panel just pops out completely, it lands in the sand. Secured by friction only.

  No way...

  Now I can’t say for sure yet, but that looks like a capacitor and that thing there is likely an resister, and that thing there looks like a speaker membrane… made from some living creature’s membrane. OK, I won’t judge, I’m wearing woolen socks after all.

  I see a fuck ton of wire wrapped around a thing that resembles a cylinder. There's your inductor coil. This planet has no novel physics that I am aware of. I need to arrest my expectations. There is no reason to expect novel electrical components in here, just alien versions of what any intelligent species should be able to figure out for themselves. I mean if we figured out electronics on our own, why shouldn't they?

  But here’s a mystery. Where is the battery?

  The dragon sits very still while I rummage around. I feel each breath it takes as a displacement of its scales moving up and down. I think I find it in the back, behind a separating piece of alien wood leading to a second compartment. It is fine craftsmanship all in all. I think it is the battery because those look like terminals to me. Man I wish I had a multi-meter right now. Keeper said this radio doesn't work? A flat battery seems prime suspect to me.

  I smile and point out all the parts of the radio to the four sets of eyes watching me, but I swear that is a look of confusion on both dragons' faces.

  What, you don't know how a radio works?

  Well actually, most people today (sorry, people in 'my day', who knows when this log will be discovered) don't know how most things work. Hell, I don't know how my UEPLB device works. Just push the magic button and if there is a compatible satellite in orbit, you'll get your connection. No, people just buy stuff and if it works well more people buy said stuff. Do dragons have money? Did this dragon buy a radio and it stopped working? Do dragons have planned obsolesce to force other dragons to buy more radios for profit? Well fuck that, this one is for the right to repair galaxy wide.

  There's a lot of assumptions going on here but all I know is I have that compass I thought I'd have no use for, that and flowing current through a coil will induce a magnetic field. A magnetic field will deflect the needle, proving that the presumed battery does in fact supply electrical power.

  It doesn't take too long to find some metal wire in the escape pod. I coil the wire and very quickly touch it to the battery. This could cause a short in the battery and the myriad of safety issues that entails, but I can't think of a better way to test the battery quick and dirty. Maybe if I had some resistors...

  There is no deflection of the compass needle. Again I hold the wire to the battery terminals, holding it there this time. Nothing happens.

  A dead battery then. But I have solar panels! And an unknown operating voltage... perhaps the right to repair will have to wait for another time. You know I could probably sacrifice Will Shen's battery bank, but I would need to know the operating voltage of the radio.

  Chara has fully set below the horizon when I finally explain my findings to the two dragons. I had to work at it by analogy. The battery is "starved of food" and it is "hard explain" on what we need to feed it to make it full again.

  Keeper acts as an intermediary translating my words and I manage to ask what the radio is used for.

  First we have to establish a couple "variable words", most importantly: the noun for the other dragon, because it takes two to make an egg.

  The radio is used to keep in touch with its mates. Not mate. Mates.

  How fascinating.

  How many?

  Four.

  Yeah, that conversation carried long into the night.

  Day 11

  "Why George here?" asks the daughter (Yes, confirmed daughter. Like I said, it was a long night).

  I lean back against Keeper's warm scales, resisting the urge to go back to sleep. We forgot to get Will Shen's sleeping bag dammit. I dare say I'm almost getting used to the temporary alternative.

  Finally they ask that question.

  It has a weird answer. Now the mission as a whole was here to perform exploration. But me specifically? Not so much. The Quantum Router Engineer has other goals in mind with this voyage yet I've already found myself exploring four different islands on this strange planet. I could pull the regular cop out answer and tell them it is hard to explain. I try to explain the purpose of the mission instead.

  "Variable? Explore is like take more territory? Is explore word for dragon fly to new grounds?"

  "No, Explore is hunt new variables, make them not variables." It's the best I can come up with to explain the concept of 'knowledge'. Though Keeper's latter suggestion is perfectly valid too.

  "Mmmm Keeper daughter is explorer." says the mother, who has me fully enveloped in her coils. She thought about what I said for a long time.

  Well then. That does give me an idea.

  "George call Keeper daughter 'Dora'".

  The other dragon's face lights up when Keeper translates what I said. In fact Dora's neck lights come alive too.

  "Variable?"

  Of course. What does it mean?

  "Dora is famous human explorer," I say.

  "Dora is happy with name." informs the mother.

  "Variable? Human Will explorer?"

  Hmm, not really. I would call the ground operations crew the real explorers, but I want to keep things simple.

  "All Human here explorers. Explore go bad. Very bad. Don't know why. Wait for more humans come help."

  "George know lights drop in sky?"

  I point at the escape pod, then up to the clouds overhead. "Humans have big big escape pod above. Sky home. Sky home drop from sky and burn. George not know why. Escape pod save George. George wait here for more humans to help."

  "Variable word for sky home?"

  "Tongzhou" I say, "Tongzhou is burning lights in sky."

  Keeper thinks about that for a while. I decide to shift topics.

  "Why Dora here?"

  "Dora come say hello Keeper and now George before long flight ocean for explore."

  Well that is interesting. I look out at the ocean waves, tumbling in as they always do, and Dora points her tail. I presume that is the intended flight path. There is a thought on the edge of my mind. A thought of suspicion.

  "Does Dora know what is out there?" I say while pointing to the ocean.

  "Dora not know, island here end of explore for this direction." Keeper replies, pointing her tail in the same direction.

  Suspicion indeed. Is Dora testing fate with a blind expedition? Not in the 21st century. Not on my watch. I get up and climb over Keeper and return to the escape pod. Memories of training from what seems so long ago resurface. The escape pod's had this weird preference for landing in Australia for whatever reason when they were tested back on Earth. Always time to remember the strangest trivia. Anyways, the escape pods orbit for a while, flying on their backs, imaging the planet during the emergency sequence. It's all completely automated but those images are still there, if one knows how to get at them. Each image is small, but together they paint a broader picture.

  Keeper and Dora watch me intently as I tap and swear away at the tablet touch screen.

  Seriously, God did not intend for computer programs to be written on a touch screen and no, I did not teach the dragons of the curses I cast upon the spell checker.

  The dragons watch, grow bored, take flight to hunt, return with reddened jaws and licked lips and watch some more. It takes a while to get the hang of the binary scan data format, and with a little help from the tablet’s built in LLM my code comprehends and renders.

  I took the images the QNI flagged as 'good' for a landing site, and gather nearby images by time stamp. I look at the escape pod's magnetometer data when those images were taken and compare with the compass here, pointing in the direction Dora indicates she will fly in. It is a rough estimate but now I can locate images down range of her flight path.

  After far too long I have my output. Stitched together data from multiple passes showing the island I call home and what lies ahead of Dora’s intended flight path.

  A whole lot of nothing.

  Unless Dora can fly forever or is fond of fishing and swimming, I can make a good prediction of what will happen. Thoughts of Amelia Earhart come to mind.

  Would Keeper cry louder for a lost new born or vanished daughter?

  Fortunately we're in a position where I don't have to find out. Does violating the Zoo protocol even matter if you're saving a life? I leave that for the UESC to decide.

  I beckon the dragons over and show the final image. Keeper seems to recognize it for what it is. She puts herself between Dora and the skies as thought she would body block Dora if she tried to fly away now.

  But there is something else. In the images off the flight path, there is what looks like a small island chain. Maybe volcanic in origin? (Missin' you Daisy Chu, for you would know). I think Dora would only need to adjust her course by a few degrees, granted that would add up over time, but there really is something out there to discover. Dora seems excited by the new islands. With her paws and tail she slips out and unrolls what seems to be a map. I recognize the coast line contours. But the islands we see in the image are not there, no rather, there are some loosely sketched in possible land masses. The way they are drawn does not inspire confidence.

  The two dragons talk for a while. I think this is the conversation of a mother telling a child to drive safe and take it easy during their road trip.

  "Farewell Dora!" I shout, watching her fly away over the water.

  "?????? ???? ?∥?? ∩§∥" Dawn Watcher roars (much louder than I).

  She is off on her journey.

  But she has one last surprise. She abandons her climb, plummeting downwards like a bomb. During the fall she rolls over, redirecting her velocity in my direction. Levelling out, she overflies at incredible speed, the wake shakes the grasses and sends sand into my face. My shirt flurries in the wind.

  Talk about buzzing the tower.

  Dora arcs wide, letting a wing dip into the water ever so slightly before starting her journey for real this time.

  Her direction of travel is exactly as we have established.

  With that matter attended to I look back at Keeper.

  If I have been keeping track of time correctly, I still have some 20 odd days to pass before I must watch for any new wanderers in the night sky.

  Is the world holding their hearts in their throats with worry over the crew of IIEM 4? Or has the news already moved onto the next new thing? I know the UESC must be working their asses off though. Learning our fates must be of most import to the them, for all they know we may have initiated a war between humanity and aliens, or we got gotten by the plain old dangers of space flight.

  "George wait here for more humans?" she asks.

  "Yes George wait here for more humans."

  "Keeper meet new humans?"

  "Of course you can!"

  "Good, good. Keeper give George territory to wait for more humans."

  How does that work?

  She beckons me along with her tail and I watch the dragon tear cuts and scrapes into the soil and rocks around the beach. I'm asked to several points to make my own scrapes, which I do with the hatchet.

  Apparently this is very important.

  After all the markings are done the two of us sit on the shore, me leaning against her, we're just staring out across the water, not saying much. I wonder, if they are out there, how the others from crew bay one fare. What kind of introduction did they get with the dragons?

  My meeting with Keeper wasn't perfect, not by a mile, yet it could have been so much worse. And look how I've ended up.

  My very own prime beach front property. One might even say I'm waiting for rescue in luxury.