Day of the Dragonstar (25 page)

He hunkered down wearily in the dirty straw, as the door was slammed shut on him. At least he’d get some rest here. He could use some. Yes. He certainly wouldn’t mind a few hours of sleep safely tucked away from the constant fear of being eaten by some prowling dinosaur.

Sighing, he shut his eyes as saurian feet stamped away from the cell.

In the quiet, he heard soft, harsh breathing that was not his. It seemed to come from the other corner of the cell. A hiss. A strange mumble, like a sleeper might make.

He was no longer relaxed.

What the devil was going on here? Had they stuck him in a jail cell with a maniac saurian? But why? It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

At least, it didn’t make human sense. He supposed that in order to understand it all, he’d have to think like a saurian.

But how did a saurian think? There could be no comparisons. Or could there?

Ian remembered the biology courses he’d had to take in the University. Requirements for a “liberal” education,

He thought about the human brain. The R-complex. That was the key. That most primitive part of the human bio-computer. Man’s inheritance from his reptilian past.

Something scratched on the other side of the wall Ian leaned against. A human voice called. “Ian? Ian, are you over there?”

The creature in the corner stirred uneasily in its straw bed in the corner. Jaws snapped together.

“Becky,” Ian said. “Please be quiet. There’s something inside here with me that I don’t want you to wake up.”

“What? Ian, speak up! We can talk to each other. Ian, I’m frightened. What are we going to do?”

“Becky! I asked you to be
—”

The creature in the corner snorted. In the dimness, Ian perceived movement. The saurian stood. Straw rustled.

“Oh, God,” said Ian, preparing to defend himself.

The saurian bellowed and clicked his strange language. He seemed to be more nervous about being in the cell with Ian than Ian was.

“Ian! Ian, what’s going on? Are you all right? lan, answer me. I’m scared.”

“You’re
scared!”

After a few more moments of the creature’s loud calling, the door swung open again. The saurian guard exchanged a few words with the other prisoner, then slithered in.

The former prisoner excitedly pointed at Ian and spoke a few grunts that might have been, “Who or
what
the hell is this
thing
in my cell?”

The guard growled, and led the saurian out, then closed the door.

“Becky,” Ian said in a loud voice.

“Ian! What happened!”

“Goodness knows, but I think it’s going to take a lot of thought to try to understand this culture.”

“If we live long enough to think,” Becky answered. “Ian,” she said after a few moments of silence.

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure, but all in all I think even living with Phineas Kemp would be better than this.”

They both Iaughed.

* * *

When Rebecca Thalberg was seven years old,
she and a male cousin had wandered one sunny afternoon into the wilderness near the boy’s farm. The boy had showed her his private hiding place: a bower, afforded by a gully along which erosion and roots had carved an indentation. There they had settled, she and this nine-year-old, and played “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” Male genitalia had not thrilled her that much upon first exposure, even when he had rubbed it against hers. “To see what it feels like, Becky! This is what grown-ups do!”

“Yucky!” she pronounced, pulling her jeans back on and lying down on the soft ground. “I’m tired. I want to rest.”

That seemed okay with Ricky. He was preoccupied with other things off in the bushes. Becky drifted off into a land of pleasant dreams, and when she woke up, Ricky was gone. She hadn’t the faintest idea how to get back.

Her first reaction was to cry. Indeed, she could feel the fear and emotion push up from the depths of her being leaking from her tear ducts. But she stopped herself, realizing it wouldn’t do any good.

“Fuck
you,
Ricky!” she cried loudly, imitating her Daddy’s favorite phrase. Then she set about finding her way back to the farm. Ricky, hiding nearby, disappointed in not scaring her, emerged and grumpily led her back home.

From that point on, Becky Thalberg made sure that she never played “Show me” with anyone who would play scare games with her emotions. That policy served her well over the years to come.

For that reason, when she woke up to darkness and straw and bad smell and reached out for lan, her first reaction to his absence was betrayal, and then almost overwhelming fear.

But her years of professional
—
and personal
—
training keyed into her consciousness and she was quickly in control, at least in control of her feelings if not of her situation.

Claustrophobia and revulsion overwhelmed her for a second as the damp straw crackled beneath her movement. As she held back panic, her first inclination was to call for the reassurance of Ian’s voice. But compassion checked her. He deserved whatever rest he was getting. She should not be selfish, just because she could not sleep now.

She breathed deeply, calming herself, and tried to meditate.

Just as she was approaching something resembling tranquility, however, a couple of saurians barged in and dragged her out.

As she stood, blinking in the light, the process was repeated on her companion. Ian emerged yawning and vacant-eyed.

He
had
been sleeping.

“Good God! Can’t a man get a decent night’s sleep in this world?” Ian griped, his attempted cheeriness strained.

“Maybe they’ve decided to change the sheets.”

The saurians babbled away at one another like a bunch of excited kids, then began to hustle their guests out the entrance.

“They’ve obviously decided that we’re not of the same mindset as they,” Ian said, squinting in the daylight as they walked outside.

Becky took a grateful, breath of the fresher air. “What do you mean, Ian?”

“Well, obviously they were observing our behavior by placing us under controlled conditions.”

Becky looked down at her filthy clothing, felt her matted hair, and sighed. The saurian party surrounded them, but allowed them to walk unhindered by restraining hands. Becky put her head on Ian’s shoulder as they walked. “Oh, Ian.”

“Awful. I know. I’m glad to see you, too. I don’t think I could have made it without you.” He put an arm around her.

“God, I’m sorry, I must smell terrible.”

“You haven’t exactly been bathed in perfume in there. But then neither was I, dear heart. As I was saying, I did some thinking in my cell. We apparently showed them that we didn’t do anything violent when we turned off our neocortex in sleep.”

“You mean that’s what the Saurians do?”

“Apparently. And when they do, they revert at least for a while, to their purely reptilian nature. An interesting balance, eh? One that must make for a fascinating sort of society.
If
you can figure its more Byzantine aspects.”

“Maybe something will dawn if we watch the Iocals.”

They skirted the more populated sections in weary silence, just watching the inhabitants go about their daily tasks. Unfortunately, any part of the city they walked through was soon abuzz with chatter and excitement. Crowds would gather to gawk. Not exactly the proper atmosphere for sociological observations, Becky mused, when the watchees were just as fascinated with the watchers.

However, she was able to begin to appreciate the architecture and the general alien air of the clustered structures. Everything had a certain strange symmetry. Things seemed to be displayed either in twos or threes
—
two parallel towers, each a different color, or three columns, or two humps to a building’s roof, or three windows in a wall. Tall buildings alternated with squat buildings, jeweled minarets rose beside plain dull huts in a peculiarly homogeneous yet clashing mix of
styles and designs.

“Rather like a nut mix,” Ian commented.

“Only thirty percent peanuts.”

“I just think we’re hungry.”

“Let’s not think about it, okay?”

Bright colors flowed or fluttered all about in odd patterns, shapes, and sizes like the scales of some gigantic coiled rainbow snake. Acrid and sweet odors surrounded them. From time to time, strange creatures that were not saurians scampered through the alley. Here and there saurians who were not interested in the new arrivals were involved in antic dances or frantic claw-waving or were playing whistlings and faint flutings through wind instruments stuck in their nostrils.

The saurian party
—
ten members, Becky counted
—
Ied them from the city and up a hill toward a huge, ancient structure that squatted like some old mouldering wart. A tracery of vines covered it like veins, Multicolored banners danced when the faintest of breezes blew. Candles fluttered in windows. Smoke issued from pipes. It was a very large building.

“The Capitol!” Becky said.

“Or Parliament.”

“Or the Palace.”

“Or the Kitchen.”

“Complete with the recipe book,
To Serve Man?”

“Let’s sincerely hope they don’t use garlic. I hate garlic.”

“I like garlic. I didn’t see any growing in the jungle, though.”

“What a relief.”

The huge building was surrounded by a wall. Being used as a door to this was a particularly large Triceratops.

The saurian escort party halted before the dozing Triceratops, chittered at one another. One of their number seemed to draw a figurative straw and was pushed out reluctantly toward the slumbering monster.

Carefully, the saurian approached the behemoth and climbed up the rough fold of skin behind its bony headgear.

The beast’s eyes opened.

The saurians screeched warning.

The climbing saurian speeded his ascent, hopping up the back and jamming his hands underneath the crest. Suddenly, the annoyance in
the beast’s eyes faded to dullness. Lethargically it rose and waddled off, allowing Ian, Becky, and company to enter.

“I’ve known a few doormen like that,” Ian said.

“Probably because this culture hasn’t invented tipping.”

They were taken through a more normal door on the building’s side. Trails of incense wound through the hallway. Strange hieroglyphs were scribbled on the walls. They passed through a large chamber where saurians
—
robed
saurians, Becky saw
—
were sitting in crouched positions in various portions of the room, eyes glassy.

“Ommmmmmm,” said Becky.

“I do believe we are seeing signs of some kind of religion here.”

“I don’t think, though, should we get out of here, that we’re going to need deprogramming.”

In the distance, faint echoes of chants sussurated like the sea surging through a cove. Strange clicks and grunts sounded, an alien symphony. It all gave Becky the shivers.

The saurians guided them to a small room, covered with finely woven tapestries and cushions, all woven from an odd fiber that had a faint sheen. Sconces held phosphorescent globes to light the place. The saurians chittered, gesturing that they should enter.

“Looks more comfortable than the cells they chucked us into,” Ian said.

“At least we get to stay together.”

“Hmm. Quite!” A gleam crept into Ian’s eyes. “Lots more comfortable than jungle floor, too.”

“I’m sorry, Ian,” Becky said. “You’re just going to have to start using a new deodorant soon.”

“Hey, you’re not exactly Princess Sweet Scent, old girl. All the same, we could both use a bath. Reptilian pheromones, civilized or not, aren’t exactly my cup of tea.”

“You take that side, I’ll take the other,” Becky suggested, “if
that’s
how you feel about things!”

She settled in a corner. The pillows were stuffed with soft foam-like materials. After weeks of using the ground and tree-limbs for beds and pillows, these felt awfully good.

Ian obviously. agreed. No sooner had the door closed than he was sawing logs in his corner. She drifted into a kind of half-awake reverie, the sounds of Ian’s snoring somehow comforting.

Footsteps. Outside the door. Coming this way. Somehow strange and shuffling. Instinct drove fear into Becky Thalberg.

“Ian!” she whispered.

Ian was already up, crouched by the side of the door. He put a finger to his mouth to silence her.

The door opened. Immediately, the saurians saw Coopersmith. They chittered excitedly, motioning him to stand back. Reluctantly, Ian obeyed, arms raising in the classical stance of surrender.

One of the robed saurians entered. He was taller and heavier than the others, but he was bent. His red-and-blue robes were slightly worn and tattered. The skin of his exposed face and arms was an unhealthy, mottled purple, streaked with veins. But his eyes burned with intelligence, curiosity , and life.

The creature hobbled forward, staring at the humans with unbridled wonder and excitement. Then he lost his footing and tumbled to the ground, making squawking noises,

Becky had to laugh at the comical sight.

Immediately two saurians jumped from the door and helped the robed one up. Something like humor shone in the fellow’s face as he looked to the humans, as if in apology.

He shook off assistance and wobbled the rest of the way to Becky. His hands rose. He stroked her long hair. Something like an “Ah!” of appreciation issued from his mouth.

He stepped over and inspected Ian Coopersmith.

Then, eyes brimming with tears and happiness, the robed saurian stepped back and commenced to caper.

Four of his companions
—
those in robes
—
began to pipe an alien song as the saurian danced and skittered like a man trying to do the hornpipe on the deck of a storm-wracked ship.