Dragon's Heart (6 page)

"
Runaway!
" he snapped at her in a sending, forgetting their promise. "
Coward!
" The sending was bright yellow, puslike.

She didn't turn around, but her return sending—a long black lance—pierced the yellow pus-bubble, which suddenly looked surprisingly like his head.

Errikkin had been sitting silently for some time with his tongue between his teeth, the sign that he was thinking deeply. Suddenly he burst out with, "Surely you had more to eat than boil." His face reddened as he spoke. "In a year. In an entire fewmetty year." Those were the first words he'd uttered to Jakkin since he'd come home.

Jakkin smiled. "Some eggs. Some cave mushrooms, some berries, some—"

"Have
you
ever eaten boil?" Balakk's helper, the moon-faced boy, asked.

"Aye, Arakk. It's awful," L'Erikk, another of the boys, answered, making a face. "Thin, bland."

"It's not bad. And awful only if you're not hungry," Jakkin pointed out. He was gratified to see some of the new folk nodding at that. Especially Arakk.

"No one goes hungry anymore," Trikko said. "'With work comes food.'" It was an old nursery saying.

Slakk laughed, though there was little mirth in it. "And there's plenty of work." He gestured grandly around them with his hand. "We're expanding."

"Expanding?" Jakkin asked. That certainly explained the new faces.

"They're building up Rokk Major again," L'Erikk told him. "Never mind the embargo. Because there won't always be one. And we have to be ready." He said that as if quoting authority and not speaking on his own.

"Embargo?" Golden hadn't said anything about an embargo. Jakkin turned on the bench and stared at Slakk. "What embargo?" He didn't actually say he hadn't any idea what was meant by the word.

"For up to fifty years," Slakk said flatly. "No Feder ships in ..." His arm made a swooping movement.

"Until we prove ourselves," Errikkin interrupted, his handsome face now darkening with some sort of anger. "Always
proving
ourselves."

"Or
im
proving ourselves," Slakk shot back, and a ripple of laughter ran around the table. It was clearly an old argument between them.

"As bonders we didn't need any improving," Errikkin said.

The table now erupted in laughter.

Arakk said, "
Im
proving,
dis
proving,
un
proving."

"
Re
proving," added Trikko.

"That's not a word," Arakk said.

"Is too."

"Is not."

Arguing like little boys,
Jakkin thought, suddenly feeling old. "I don't understand," he began. "If no Feder ships can fly in, how does rebuilding the Rokk Major pit make any sense? Who will go to the pit to bet on dragon fights? Who will bring in money? How do we fill our bags?" Though he'd already filled his and was a master himself.
Some master, with no money and no great dragon.

Arakk's face registered surprise. "There aren't any."

One of the girls said, "No bond bags."

"Aren't any
bonders
anymore," said Slakk. "While you were off in the mountains playing with dragons, we were all set free." He pulled up his leather shirt to show Jakkin his bare chest. It was pasty white, hairless, and a bit flabby. He slapped himself with the flat of his palm. "No bond bag." He laughed. "No more trying to fill that fewmetty bag and failing. No more feeling guilty when I use a coin for pleasure."

"You never felt guilty," Trikko said.

"And you rarely have any pleasure," added Arakk.

Everyone laughed, Jakkin loudest of all.

And then Jakkin remembered Golden telling them about freeing the bonders, when he'd first picked them up in the copter. But Jakkin had been so exhausted and exhilarated at the same time, he hadn't paid much attention. Getting back to the nursery, settling Auricle, dealing with the questions from the nursery folk, had taken all his concentration. But of course now he recalled what Golden said.
No more bond.

"Slakk, that's great," Jakkin said.

"Not just me, Jakkin.
All of us,
" Slakk said. His hands gestured to the entire room, even as his whiny voice made it sound like a complaint.

"I get it," Jakkin said. "Golden told us."

But they wouldn't let it go. "A charter from the government, filling all our bags," Arakk added.

Both Arakk and Slakk were smiling broadly, and Trikko's face was all grin, but Errikkin was unaccountably grim and his normally blue eyes seemed to have gone the gray of stone.

Slakk put a comforting hand on Jakkin's. "Don't mind Errikkin. Old Mope Face always did prefer being a slave. Remember how proud he was to have you as his master?"

For a moment Jakkin remembered. Errikkin
had
been proud. At first. But all Jakkin had felt was how embarrassing it had turned out, with Errikkin even trying to take a cloth and wash his face for him. And after, they'd had a horrible fight. Funny how he could hardly remember what the fight had been about. Later, believing Jakkin had actually blown up Rokk Major, Errikkin had led the wardens right to him.
But I've forgiven him that.
Jakkin bit his lip.
In a way, Errikkin was right. But how strange, that my best friend—my bonder, Errikkin, who loved me—turned me in to the wardens. And Likkarn, who hated me, lost an eye giving Akki and me a chance to escape.

"Now," Slakk continued, "we work for wages, for our food and our housing. And we share in the nursery profits as well. But no work—no pay. Errikkin hates
that
part!"

"Don't put words into my mouth," Errikkin said loudly.

Equally loudly, Slakk said, "If I had my way, we wouldn't put any
food
there, either. Not when you haven't earned it."

Errikkin swung his legs over the bench and stood in one graceful, sure movement. He didn't say a word more but walked off, holding his shoulders squared and never looking back, his sandals making a
snick
ety sound as he strode away across the dining hall.

Jakkin was reminded of a dragon hackling.

In the sudden silence, Jakkin called Errikkin's name. At the same time he searched his friend's mind. Of course it remained absolutely closed. Errikkin didn't show that he'd heard anything, just flung open the dining hall door and walked through.

Pulling his hand out from under Slakk's, Jakkin slammed it against his own chest, a gesture left over from the time he'd worn a bond bag.
Everyone free!
Maybe true, but hard to believe. He thought,
There's always been bonders and masters, from the very beginning. Austar was settled by jailers and prisoners.
Then he bit his lower lip.
Surely this is a good thing, being free.

But something about the news bothered him. Not Errikkin's anger. Not even Errikkin's hackled response. Errikkin had always ducked out of work when he could, and that was an old argument between them. However, Jakkin wondered if his own unease had more to do with the fact that he'd had to win his own freedom with hard work.

Bonders used to say, "I fill my bag myself.
" Did they anymore? Why would they, if somehow the hard work of filling a bag no longer mattered? He shook his head. He'd never thought about such things before. Of course freedom for everyone was more important than how hard he'd worked in the past. He was suddenly ashamed of having thought otherwise.

"Anything else I should know?" he asked at last.

Trikko said, "The rebels."

"Senator Golden told us something about them."

"Rounded up," Trikko said.

"The rebels," L'Errikk added, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "They were all rounded up. And rounded upon." It was a stupid joke, but that was L'Errikk.
He,
at least, hadn't changed in the year.

"Of course they no longer have anything much to rebel against," Slakk said, smiling. "No bonders, no rebels. What do you think of that?"

Jakkin returned the smile, but then remembered that Golden had added that the
worst
of the rebels—the ones who'd set off bombs and planned other disasters—had been sent offplanet to penal colonies maintained by the Federation.

"I think," he said, "that I have lots to learn about the last year."

Slakk banged his fist on the long table. "Lots to learn!" he said in rhythm to the bangs. "Lots to learn!" And soon everyone at the table except Jakkin was banging away. The takk pot bounced up and down precariously. Kkarina stomped out of the kitchen, charging toward their table and brandishing a large wooden spoon.

"Fair warning," she cried, slapping the spoon down on the table by Slakk's fist. "Next time it's your head, Master Slakk. And that fat bawbie will split open like an old mello." Mellos grew in the back kitchen glasshouse, yellow and round. If not picked in time, they cracked open and spilled out their bright red contents.

Everyone in the room applauded and laughed and the game was over.

"Some of the old rebels are even working in nurseries now." Arakk spoke quietly, looking down at his plate, which had been scraped clean as if he—and not Jakkin—had spent a year eating poorly. "The ones who are left on planet are to be considered
led astray
."

Jakkin remembered the meeting with the rebel cell. None of them seemed to have been led astray. "Except for us, of course," he said under his breath. The real rebels had all appeared horribly committed to what they were doing, especially those angry acts of random—or not so random—violence. "Are there any here?"

Just then, Kkitakk, a large, plain-faced man, sat down at the table, his plate piled with slabs of lizard meat. "Not here, boys. We won't have them rebels here." Jakkin recalled that Kkitakk had been Balakk's helper. Before. And hardly so large then. "Not since those lizard drools killed our Master that was, Sarkkhan."

There was nodding agreement all around.

Jakkin let out a huge sigh. "Then who are all the new faces?" Jakkin gestured with a hand that took in the entire dining room.

Looking at his full plate, Kkitakk said, "Workers from other nurseries, dragon handlers who'd worked Rokk Major. Folk who had nowhere to go after the explosion."

Jakkin nodded and filled his cup with some cooling tea. He said quietly, "So—
our
nursery took them in. That's good. It honors Master Sarkkhan's name. "

"The odd thing is," Kkitakk added, "only a handful of nurseries are still open. Bond kept 'em together. Freedom's torn 'em apart."

"More Errikkins around than we knew!" Slakk said.

"What do you mean by that?" Jakkin asked.

Slakk shrugged, but the girl with hair as red as a fighting dragon answered in his stead. "My nursery mates took a vote and most decided to go work in The Rokk. In groceries, feed stores, restaurants, bars. A couple joined the wardens. One took nurse training. 'No more fewmets' was what they all said. But I think they expected to work less now that they were out of bond. Hah! What slackers. 'Freedom takes
more
work, not less,' I told them. No one listened to me. But when our old master sold up and moved to his other home to live off his winnings, I came here, because it's the best nursery that's still running."

"It's
always
been the best nursery!" Kkarina said curtly.

"That, too," the girl agreed, "but as a
bonder
I couldn't very well choose
where
to work, could I? And now I can. Still, I'm a country girl and dragons is what I know. So, here I am!" She grinned after delivering this speech, and several of the men gave her a flat-hand salute to their chest, which she returned.

"And Austar now embargoed for up to fifty years." Slakk said this with a satisfied look. "We should be well settled before then." He nodded at Jakkin, clearly expecting him to agree that such an exile was good for the planet.

"But we'll all be as old as Likkarn then," Jakkin said, which made everyone laugh. Slakk slapped him on the back, hooting.

Still standing over them, Kkarina nodded. "We
need
the Federation. We need their metals and supplies."

"Nah, nah," Slakk said.

Jakkin had a sudden memory of the trogs and how they worked metal. He could tell the nursery folk where to go to find metal; he could tell Golden. But then the secret about the dragons would be out as well. And the killing of all the dragons would begin. He couldn't hazard that, not till Akki solved the problem with science.

Kkitakk said, "What have the Feders ever done for us but stop in for a quick bet at the pits and off again. We've never been anything to them but the back end of the world. It's the dragons they like, not us. Dumped our great-grands here and forgot about us."

"Time to forget about them," agreed the redheaded girl.

Trikko added, "And if you think being part of the Feders will mean anything good, well, we'd have to use
their
laws, and a Feder governor instead of the senators. We should stay a Protectory."

"Protectorate," Jakkin corrected.

"At least the senators know us," Balakk said.

"And their hands always out for something," put in Kkarina.

"Like that Golden you love so much, old woman?" Balakk said.

"Hmmmph!" Kkarina slammed her spoon down again on the table, as if it were an enormous gavel, reminding them that
she
was for the Federation. "Golden and I go further back than senator.
I'll say no more.
"

"Small chance of that, Kay," Trikko said.

She tapped the spoon on the top of his head, spun around, and stomped back to the kitchen.

The young nursery workers were aroar with laughter, only some of it
with
Kkarina but most of them laughing
at
her. They all knew she'd been a bag girl once, but really, it was hard to see a slim alluring girl in that huge shapeless form.

"That's all very well," Jakkin said, "but what about the Feders bringing in medicines and truck parts and such? What about news of the latest scientific developments? Couldn't we just use what we want and ... and..." Without some of those things, Akki would be seriously handicapped in figuring out how to give the dragon gifts to everyone on Austar.