The Bird and The Dragon

They gathered in one of the dormitories as the house was little more than a barracks. Marci sat on the bed with her mother. The girl munched cookies Patrik had taken from his bag. Kvenrei had found out his brother possessed a seemingly unending supply of snacks.

The navigator quickly understood the connections between the forest and space and the dragons and their great matrix. She had an arsenal of questions for Marci and most of them were incomprehensible for Kvenrei, but Ikanji seemed to understand, and Jenet followed the discussion with no expression.

“My family has kept the stories of programming the ships, how the coordinates were sung in the system,” the navigator explained. “I don’t mean actual singing, but it is the closest description. I am genetically compatible, but Marci has been given the physiology to allow straight communication. The contact mechanisms in her nervous system could…”

This time it was Ikanji to interrupt. “Bladewater, spare the technological details, please.”

“…yes. Sorry, the details of the communication protocol elude me. Anyway, I believe I could talk to the ships should I get in contact. We’ll only need a terminal and Marci could be the link.”

“You could talk to the dragon?” Jenet asked with a neutral voice.

“Bladewater…” Ikanji started.

“Yes. Probably no one had the time to change the genetic command keys when the world ended. Using the ship in the orbit I could access the dragon’s systems if they share a connection.”

“A possibility does not mean you really could do it,” Ikanji stated.

“But I have it! The connection, the understanding, and the ability to command. It all is in my heritage.”

“You could program the dragon body if you contacted it?” Jenet asked.

“Well, at least some parts of it, it all comes down to the…”

The knife flew so quickly that Kvenrei hardly saw it. He had been aware of this possibility and his body reacted before his mind. Kvenrei threw himself to Bladewater reaching for the knife, any contact would turn the blade away from its target, prevent it from sinking into the navigator’s eye. Kvenrei was only a fraction too slow, and his fingers missed the knife rotating around its balance point, the faultlessly sharpened blade turning in its perfect flight path to the pupil.

Bladewater’s eyes had time to widen as a beginning of a reaction, when the air in the room heated, pressure hit Kvenrei’s eardrums, and the knife was thrown off its course, colliding with the wall where it vibrated, its guard sank to the wood. The carpet slipped under Kvenrei’s feet, but he took hold of the navigator’s shoulder and side, turning her to the door, to the cover of his body. Jenet was already holding another knife and he was coming to them, his eyes filled with murder, but Ikanji was also there, unarmed but the dragon-built body itself was a weapon.

The strategej hit his palm through the knife taking hold of Jenet’s fist. Khiandri was on the move, dragging Marci to the other door and Patrik, who had been rummaging his back for more snacks, rose holding a thin, almost transparent blade.

“Help Khiandri!” Kvenrei shouted to Patrik when his field of vision blackened as something scraped at his head. Jenet was targeting Bladewater with everything available, evading Ikanji’s attack. The knife was still piercing the strategej’s palm, but he didn’t seem to notice it and the cut hardly bled.

Patrik was covering Khiandri. Bladewater missed a step, but Kvenrei’s grip on her clothes held and he dragged the woman towards the door or the direction where the door had been when he still had his full vision.

A step: something hurt Kvenrei’s lungs without cutting his skin and he tasted blood. Another: a porcelain figurine hit his head with murderous power and only the matrixes in his bones kept the fracturing skull in its shape, preventing shards of bone from invading the brain, the pressure to break the veins inside. Kvenrei saw nothing and Bladewater was falling, he could only direct the movement in the right direction, hoping it would be enough. One more step: there was a crash from behind and the recognizable sound of a head hitting the floor. Bladewater dropped to the corridor and turning to close the door Kvenrei saw Jenet having fallen and Ikanji standing on top of him, blood on his ice-blue jacket, removing the knife from his palm.

The touch of a wet cloth woke Kvenrei to the worst headache he had ever had. He was lying on his back in the corridor and Khiandri was cleaning his face. There was blood on the cloth.

“Bladewater?” Kvenrei asked and his words tasted of blood, and they removed blood from his throat and Kvenrei coughed weakly.

“I am all right,” the navigator said behind him.

“No, you are not. Stay down,” Ikanji said.

“It is but a headache.”

“It could have been much worse,” Ikanji continued. He was kneeling next to the navigator, his hand supporting her head, the fingers looking pale and delicate against the tattooed skin. Kvenrei understood he had not been out for long. The coughing stopped and he looked back at the dormitory, where Jenet was still on the floor. Patrik stood next to him, a blade in his hand.

“Is he dead?” Kvenrei asked.

“Jenet is gone, and that body is dead. He tried to kill Bladewater,” Ikanji said.

“I don’t understand why. I wouldn’t have done anything bad for the dragon,” Bladewater said.

“The fact that you had the potential to do anything was enough. In Jenet’s doctrine, the alien access to the great matrix must be prevented at any cost,” Khiandri explained and Ikanji touched the navigator’s skull as Bladewater closed her eyes.

“She fainted,” Ikanji said.

Kvenrei crawled to Bladewater. “Do something.”

“There is nothing to do. She was hit, she tried to rise too soon and is now unconscious.” Ikanji lifted Bladewater’s long legs and the navigator’s lids fluttered. They carried her to the bed and Ikanji stayed to look after her.

Kvenrei and Patrik carried Jenet’s body to the backdoor, out of Marci’s eyes. The death hadn’t changed the body, Kvenrei had hoped to see something of Aldermei to return, to see any change, but there was none.

“Why didn’t he wait for her to be alone?” Kvenrei thought aloud. The words didn’t fit inside his hurting head.

“He knew it was the only change. You heard Ikanji: he guessed Bladewater’s words crossed some border.”

“True. It is just hard to understand how Father has taken Bladewater under his protection. I guessed because he overcame the murder…”

“You thought the two memories would be on the same side?” Patrik asked dryly and Kvenrei felt stupid. His nose was clogged from dry blood.

“That I did. But this is the better option. I don’t know what I would have done should he have killed Bladewater.”

“After the preliminary reaction of impulsive violence?”

Kvenrei chuckled. “I have known her so long. She is my best friend, but also more, like a…”

“A grandmother?”

“Yes, it suits. She has been an anchor in my life. The voice of reason, someone who has cared so deeply that she has always spoken her mind.”

“There is depth in her. It has been an honor to meet her,” Patrik agreed and the brothers’ eyes locked over Jenet’s body. Kvenrei felt Patrik understood him.

The main door opened and Esrau marched in with four nocturna. His right hand was bandaged, and his right eye was swollen. Esrau proceeded to the backdoor, even if there was no line of sight like he smelled the blood. The nocturna stopped and looked at the brothers and the body.

“Jenet tried to kill Bladewater,” Kvenrei said trusting Esrau’s and Bladewater’s friendship.

“You two can’t be left alone without supervision. We must talk. Did you locate Khiandri?

“If you or any of your people raise your hands against me or my daughter you’ll pay,” Khiandri said from the corridor and Kvenrei spotted the smile on the nocturna’s lips.

“Lady Taan, a pleasure to meet again.”

”The nocturna are willing to protect you for a while. I don’t want to prolong your visit more than is necessary, for many disagree on your stay,” Esrau said when they had gathered in the dormitory. He continued directing his words to Ikanji and Khiandri. “The times have changed, and we must change with them.”

“Nothing or no one is the same when arriving on this planet, “Ikanji agreed. His hand rested on Bladewater’s bedframe. The navigator had regained consciousness, but she was feeling nauseous.

“I believed we fought for freedom and equality, but it was only a cover for Agiisha’s plan. She needed us with her, to carry her great matrix in our veins to this world,” Khiandri said.

“I told you so, but you didn’t listen,” Ikanji said and Khiandri snorted.

“You ainadu have been slaves for so long that you don’t even recognize your shackles,” Esrau said. He was lounging by the door.

“But it was Agiisha’s own choice to come here. And she did nothing, not for us nor the planet. She mostly hibernated until recently,” Kvenrei said. He had loved the dragon at first sight and still any thought about hurting her felt bad.

“It is our time to cut those shackles. I am willing to give the dragon a chance to negotiate, but it must be a balanced discussion. We’ll need to find power to threaten it if needed,” Khiandri said.

“It is treacherous and it’s time we dispose of it,” Patrik said from his place on the windowsill.

Ikanji estimated the dragon still had some control over his body and Khiandri’s mind, but only if they were within its reach. Bladewater and Marci talked about the orbit and its systems like they had a secret language of their own. Everyone was unanimous that they needed a figurative knife to the dragon’s throat. Only Bladewater and Kvenrei believed Agiisha could change her nature.

Marci was certain her mind could travel the remains of the planetary data network to the orbit, where the youngest bioship carried the dragon’s touch like a spiderweb among a meadow of flowers. She believed she could use that connection to get in touch with the dragon body. Marci said the dragon was in a stupor without mind, for Agiisha was on the surface.

“Without mind, it is but an empty room. All the pieces are in place, but the whole is missing. The soul, the spirit, the thing to wake the system,” the girl described. “There is no one to listen to your song, Navigator.”

“What about the new ship?” Bladewater asked.

“Its mind is a simple one and it will not descend into the atmosphere. Never, for it is a creature of the void, a mind living in the light-year-long distances and the void in-between.” Marci said.

“The dragon built my mind and loaded it into this artificial body,” Ikanji said cautiously. “I feel detached from this frame. Is my mind now something that could be loaded as a soul for the dragon?”

Marci stopped scratching her elbow and held her father’s hand. The green in her eyes intensified and light moved slowly in their depth. “It would break the illusion of you. You are a brilliant program, optimized in interaction with that body. In another body, you would be someone else.”

“It would be but my second death,” Ikanji shrugged.

“We could do it, but the model has lots of uncertainty and your body will die when your mind leaves it. You would enter the dragon’s matrix, you would perceive it as the dragon does.”

“I am willing to do it to give Bladewater her ship,” Ikanji said caressing Bladewater’s head.