And Dragons in the Sky

A touch. A voice comes by conduction. "Let's go. Danion's hit inboard of us." In the words I imagine great sadness, but none of the fear I feel. I follow the man, rejoin my team. We return to D.C. Central, through locks, through regions of ship ruined as by weapons of war. Hard to believe it is done by a creature I can't even see.

They've prepared a room for us to relax in, safe enough to shed our suits—nothing there, except people, that sharks can harm. I see Mouse, freshly wounded.

"Should've bent her," he says. "Waited me out. Now she's up to deviltry."

I look at his arm. It's mangled. His face is drawn, but he doesn't complain. She must have really surprised him. "Thing like a hatchet," he says.

Unless that arm is quickly tended, hell lose it. I find an officer, ask for a doctor, get told he's on his way. I think of the Sangaree woman.

I've had a feeling for her, I realize, a strange, miscege-nous desire (I've had feelings for many people, though I've long lied myself into not caring). My emotions kept me from letting Mouse do what should have been done— and now I pay. Before me, blood of a friend; in my mind, a gunmetal smile. "I'll take care of it."

From the tool crib I draw a laser cutting torch, no questions. The attendant assumes I need it. Outside D.C. Central I open an access plate and make the adjustments taught me in Navy schools. I have an unwieldy gun. I borrow an electric scooter.

She will be somewhere where she thinks she can take out the crew without damaging the ship. To her mind, something involving air. Hydroponics? No. Central blowers. From there, by cutting off air or introducing chemicals, she can neutralize most of us.

I arrive, see I've reasoned well. Dead men guard the door. Beyond is a vast place, as it must be to serve a ship so huge. Somewhere in this mechanical jungle she waits... .

Time so swiftly passes. A half hour departs and still I'm creeping among Brobdingnagian machines. Danion still shivers, but the battle is so old it no longer forces itself on the consciousness. I'm tired. I've been up for twenty hours. Finally I spy the mighty consol from which Danion's lungs are controlled.

I crawl, I climb, I find myself a perch on a high catwalk from which most all the board's visible. I see only empty seats where technicians once manipulated our air, a couple of corpses. She's well armed.

From somewhere she appears, as if spontaneously generated. My eyes have wandered. I lift my weapon and aim, but ...

"Maria ... Marya ..." It rips itself from me. She has been closer to me than most women—I never met my mother.

Her head comes up in startled play, searching. Suddenly there is an explosion of that mocking smile. "Why Moyshe, what are you doing here?" She's looking for me, eyes narrow over the smile, hand on her gun a-twitching. "You're trying to destroy us."

She steps over a dead Seiner. "Moyshe!" Accusing. "Not you. You'd be repatriated."

The lie's as tall as a mile. After the Broken Wings and Von Drachau's raid, she'll have my guts on her

morning toast. She crosses my aim repeatedly, but I won't end it. I can't. My aim falls.

In moving I give myself away. The gunmetal smile is replaced by clashing-sabers laughter. Her weapon jumps up.

To this I can react. The blast reddens metal where I crouched. I'm in the open, ru

I'm terrified. I've swum too deep. I've feared this since need drove me to the Bureau. Now I'll die... .

She's too confident of my ineptness. Something within me breaks; I realize there is something in which I can believe, something to grasp, to serve. I grin, laugh at my laughing soul. The Grail. We've found it. We. This ship, this I, we're part of a We... .

In all marvelous stupidity I step into the open. The woman is so startled she hesitates. Against the conditioning of my pyramid of years, I shoot first.

I'm standing over her when Fishers arrive. I have tears. I've always wondered about that—Mouse cries as though the dead one were his brother, or more, for we value brothers little these days. One takes the cutting torch. Another asks, "Moyshe benRabi?" He knows, of course. They've been watching. Ship's security doesn't fold because a battle is on. These, I discover, were coming to do what I've done. They received orders concerning me while on their way.

"Yes."

"Fellow with the headaches?"

I nod.

"Follow me, please."

I do, though looking back at Maria. Now she is dead, she isn't just "the Sangaree woman." She is Maria, Marya, a woman I may have loved some odd, unexplainable way. Perhaps I've had a deathwish.

I follow, and somewhere along the line note we're entering forbidden territory, Operations Sector, where landsmen dare not go. Nervous, I look around. It's quieter, more remote than the rest of the ship. The people we pass seem more aloof than the technicians to whom I'm accustomed. They must be. They are the men and women who will think us beyond defeat—maybe.

We enter a vast room filled with damaged machinery. Here there has been death aplenty; casualties still wait on

a dozen stretchers. My guide leads me to a man. "BenRabi," he says, departs.

This room is much like a ship's bridge, though larger, and the machinery unfamiliar. I see people on reclining couches, heads hidden in great helmets. Technicians grumble over them and damaged gear. A spatial display globe lurks blackly in a corner. Centered in it are seven golden balls, harvestships. Golden needles are service ships, maneuvering against sharks portrayed as scarlet fish. Tiny golden dragons at the periphery mark what must be distant Starfish. No Sangaree are to be seen.

"Mr. benRabi!" I realize the man is after my attention. "Why dragons?"

He stops an angry word. "Image from our minds, archetypal. You'll see." "I don't understand."

He ignores me. "The drives are dead, except minddrive. For that we need power from the Fish. But sharks have burned out most of our mind-techs." He points to the nearest stretcher. The face of a girl, a child just out of creche, smiles in vacant madness. "We haven't standbys to replace them, so we're drawing marginal sensitives from the crew. You're subject to migraines?" I nod. I'm reeling. What strange thing ... "We want you to go into rapport with a Fish." Fear. Memories of terrible, haunting dreams, of the pain resulting. "I can't!"

"Oh?" This man has eyes that reach for my soul— which cowers, though it knows not what to fear. "I don't know how." Somehow, this feels lame. "You don't need to. You just hook up. The Fish will push the power through to the Helmet. You're just a

receiver."

"But I'm tired. I've been awake for ..."

"So is everybody." He gestures impatiently. A couple

comes. "Put him in Number Three." They nod. Departing,

I hear, "That the last one?" wearily.

I want to protest, but get no chance. The techs put

me on the couch. Ah, well. I've undoubtedly faced worse

for the Bureau.

One tech is a woman reminiscent of the professional mother of my childhood. She is gray-haired, cherry-faced, chatters comfortably while strapping my arms to the couch's. She points out grip-switches beneath my fingers,

does my legs.

The other, a quiet man, efficiently prepares my head for

the helmet. He rubs me with an unscented paste, covers my hair with a thing like a hairnet. My scalp protests a thousand little stings that quickly fade. "Lift, please." I do. The helmet devours my head. I'm blind.

A green ogre with dirty claws shoves his hand into my guts, grabs, yanks. My heart plays battledrums. Words from Czyzewski's The Old Gods: "... who sang the darkful deep, and dragons in the sky." My body's sweat-wet. Surely the contacts won't work.