Dragon's Heart (23 page)

The garden was bathed with the same yellow light as the hatchling's sending. Akki sat down in one of the chairs and watched while the little dragon leaped in and out of the pool, then did her business in a sandy spot behind the pool, almost hidden from sight. When the dragonling was finished, she walked over to Akki and sat down at her side, her neck scarcely long enough to allow her to lay her head on Akki's knees.

Soon Aurea would be twice that size, and then doubled again in another few months. In two years, she'd be ready to breed.

And dead soon after if the secret got out—as secrets always do. Dead at the hands of Austarians desperate for dragon hearing and dragons' hearts.

Aurea glanced up at Akki, her eyes small sparks of light.

"No danger," Akki said out loud, sending her bouncing yellow bubbles.

Not as long as I find a solution.
But she kept that to herself. She meant to make the most of her time here before returning the dragonling to the nursery.

Time.
It was what she feared the most. There was so little time. She put her head in her hands and was on the point of weeping. Things were hard enough, without Jakkin off playing games somewhere.

"Takk?"

Akki looked up. Senekka was holding out a tray on which sat a double takk pot, a single teapot, two cups, a lizard-egg omelet, and sweet toast.

"Tea, please. Thanks. I don't eat anything made from dragons. And you didn't have to..."

"I wanted to talk to you, anyway," said Senekka, in that low, throbbing voice, "and
they
won't be up for hours." Putting the tray down on the table, then pouring tea in one cup, takk in the other, she gave the tea to Akki, kept the takk for herself.

"Talk to me about what?"

"About the senator."

"Why me?" Akki said carefully, talking into the cup. "Why not ask him." She looked up.

"Ah." Senekka smiled and squatted down on her haunches so that she and Akki were about the same height.

Akki suddenly realized that she was a beautiful girl, her eyes so dark, they were almost black. There was a small black spot by the side of her lower lip, a blood score most likely, from Senekka's time in a nursery. It hadn't ruined her face but somehow enhanced it, making her look both vulnerable and heroic at the same time.

Senekka pursed her lips before speaking. "You know the senator. He's a politician. He'll tell you what he thinks you
want
to hear, not what you
need
to hear."

"Then ask Dr. Henkky."

"I don't dare." The voice throbbed even more.

"Why not?" Akki watched Senekka carefully and saw various answers warring across her face.

"She's afraid that if I make demands and she can't meet them, I'll leave. And then the senator will want her to do all the cooking and cleaning."

Akki laughed. It was such a silly answer, it deserved the laugh.

"She's a doctor." Now Senekka looked down at her cup.

It was a look Akki recognized. She'd seen it on Henkky's face only the day before. So she said plainly, "You
love
him."

Startled, Senekka stared at her, cheeks flushed. Now
she
began to laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"Not him," Senekka whispered. "Oh, God, not
him.
"

For a moment, Akki couldn't think of a response. Then she whispered back, "You love
her
?" Such pairings were not unknown to her. There'd always been at least one bonded pair of women at Sarkkhan's Nursery ever since Akki could remember.

"I won't ever leave unless they send me away. But if the senator loses, he'll have no money in his bag. And they'll make me leave. Will the senator win?
Will
he?"

Akki was silent.

"
Will
he?" Senekka demanded.

"I don't know. But I'm sure he has money from elsewhere. You're worrying about the wrong thing. He's not in the senate for the money."

Senekka looked stunned. "For the power?"

Akki was silent for a moment. Then she said, "I think he enjoys it. Like a game..."

Senekka nodded, then taking her own cup and the takk pot away, she left Akki to finish her breakfast alone.

As Akki sat with the food, her mind was awhirl. She ended up nibbling a bit on the toast, took one bite of the egg, and then abruptly stood.

"
Come,
" she sent to the hatchling. "
Aurea, come
." But the dragonling was too busy eating more wort.

Akki worried that if the little dragon stayed much longer in the garden, there'd be no wort left.
A few days' supplies, no more.
She wondered if there was some kind of park nearby. When Rokk Major had still stood, dried wort was trucked in for the fighting dragons by the hundredweight. Would it have come from farms in the outlying neighborhood, or large areas of parkland within the city itself? She realized she had no idea.

But first she had to check the basement lab. Only after that would she think about getting the hatchling home.
It was stupid to have brought her here,
she scolded herself again. No matter what Henkky and Golden thought, setting up the lab and getting the hatchling home were much more important than any silly debate.

She left Aurea in the garden and went down the hall, opening doors one by one until she found stairs that led down.

The basement was far larger than she'd hoped, running the entire length of the house. There were four parts to it: a waiting room, an examination room, a hospice with four beds, and then the lab itself. In addition, to the right of the entrance was a small closed office the size of a huge closet. All three sections had side doors that opened out on to the street, which—Akki realized—must have meant a huge amount of earthmoving when the house had been built. Or when it had been refitted for Dr. Henkky.

She ignored the waiting room, with its pretty curtained windows and the profusion of books on the side tables. Though when she tried to imagine the Rokk women waiting there, she wondered how many of them could actually read. Most of the nursery bonders were not able to. In fact, the majority of bonders on Austar couldn't, though the masters were all literate.

The examining room had a steel sink and a well-worn steel table with a leather mat and metal stirrups. A small wooden chair sat next to a table on which pamphlets about women's diseases were prominently displayed. These had plenty of pictures. Again she wondered whether reading skills allowed the patients to get the full benefit of the information, or whether Dr. Henkky explained everything to her visitors and then used the drawings to emphasize what she'd just said.

But it was the lab to which Akki gave her full attention. She was pleased to see that it was expertly equipped with workbenches, a fume cupboard, a refrigerator, and four discrete storage units. There were flasks, funnels, pipettes, tubes, tongs, clamps, burners, and other equipment that she had no names for, much of it still in the original boxes. She was pleased as well when she spotted several microscopes, three boxed and one out on the wooden counter and already set up.

She guessed that everything she might need was on display, which was a relief. With the embargo, even if a few hospital ships got through, she might never get to replace anything that broke, so being careful of the equipment would have to be paramount as she did her lab work.

Lab work.
It was a fine concept, but she didn't know where to start. And she couldn't very well ask Henkky. A secret between two of them was dangerous enough without bringing in a third person.

And of course the doctor would speak to the senator.

Then, God only knows how many people the senator would bring in on the secret.
Soon, instead of a secret, it would be a conspiracy of the kind Golden so dearly loved.

Suddenly she realized how out of her depth she was.
I know how to doctor dragons. In a pinch I can nurse an injured man.
She'd had a few years of apprenticing, first to the old vet who worked for the nurseries around her father's place, and then coming to visit doctors in The Rokk, like Henkky. She'd drawn blood, understood a bit about DNA, and could read an X-ray. The vet called her a "bone wizard." If coached, she could interpret the printout of brain waves. But that was not nearly enough.

I'm smart,
she told herself.
I can figure out new ways to heal from old knowledge if given a deadline.
She sighed.
Or enough time.

But now, seeing the steel and glass lab, she finally had to admit to the truth of it:
The dragons of Austar are doomed, and our society with them, if it's only up to me to figure this out.

Still, she couldn't just give up.

Quickly she opened every drawer, every door in the room, finding even more baffling items. Every piece of equipment that was put away was clean, much of it still in the original containers, seemingly unused. Whatever Henkky had outfitted the lab with, she hadn't found time or energy to try much of it yet. Akki spun around, trying to take it all in. On her second time around, she saw Henkky standing in the doorway, smiling.

"Find everything you need?"

Akki shrugged. "Actually, I'm not sure. There's so much here—and most of it untouched."

The doctor nodded. "As soon as Golden heard the rumor that the Federation might place an embargo on us, I decided I had to outfit a state-of-the-art lab."

"You mean stockpile?"

Henkky smiled. "You're looking at the original medical hoarder. I have my girls to worry about. I don't know what kind of accidents, diseases, even plagues, might arise in the future. So I've overbought."

"It looks like a medical store," Akki said.

Agreeing, Henkky added, "One of the pilots flew in this lot for me—well, for Golden, really. Their mothers were offworld friends." She opened several drawers randomly, fingering the contents, then turned to Akki. "I'm sure we'll find what you need."

"That's..." Akki hesitated. She put a hand on the one microscope that was out of its box. "That's the problem. I don't know what I need. Except ... except maybe a tutor."

Folding her arms, Henkky asked, "What field?"

"Chemistry, I think. I need to understand dragon's blood."

"Interesting. And—"

Akki held up her hand. "And that's all I can tell you. Now."

"That's fine." Henkky looked directly into Akki's eyes. "You'll tell me the rest when you're ready. I wouldn't be much help, anyway. My chemistry courses were too long ago and I was never particularly brilliant in them. Besides, I know women, not dragons."

"I wasn't thinking that you'd—"

Henkky held up a finger. "I think I've got just the person for you. And he should be at the debate tonight. He had a stroke some time ago and can't handle things in the lab now. His hands shake too much."

"Can he still speak?"

Henkky laughed, a short snort through her nose, which reminded Akki of a dragon. "Endlessly. I think teaching you might be the saving of him. And now let's get you fitted for the debate." She turned and walked back into the hall.

Closing the lab door, she followed after Henkky.
That went well.
But a little voice in her head said:
Too easy.
It sounded remarkably like the hatchling's cry of "
Danger
." Probably the chemist wouldn't be at the debate, or too addled to teach her anything.
Or I may be like Henkky, not particularly brilliant at chemistry.

However, one thing she did know. Now she had to go to the debate. Not for Golden, but for the dragons.

AKKI CHOSE the blue dress, which fit perfectly, possibly because Henkky had been tall as a child. It had short sleeves, a scoop neck, and a tiny pocket that shut with a bow. It was very pretty—for a rich twelve-year-old.
A good disguise.
No one would expect a seventeen-year-old bond girl to dress that way. The shoes were more sophisticated than she was used to, with a small heel. Having worn nothing but low shoes all her life, she wondered if she would last the evening so shod.

Golden and Henkky were even more dressed up. And Senekka was astonishingly beautiful in a dress the color of the little Beauty dragon: a sunny yellow, with a band of red around the waist.

They were all picked up by a senate car for the short ride to the hall. The driver was a small, dark, bald man with a gap in the middle of his smile. He came to the house and knocked on the door. Golden opened the door, his tie not yet knotted.

"Senator," the driver said, "everyone here?"

"Dikkon, as ever, you're on time."

"Senator, as ever, you're
not
on time." He flashed his gap-toothed smile.

Once they were seated in the car, Golden said, "With the embargo full on, one of the first things I'll do when re-elected—"

"
If
you are reelected," Henkky reminded him.

"You're supposed to be the one with the sunny disposition," he said sourly.

"Who told you that?"

"
I'm
the one with the sunny disposition, Senator," Dikkon called from the front.

Golden laughed. "You're the one who's supposed to be quiet and not listen in on conversations in the car."

"Who told you
that?
"

Sitting next to Akki, Senekka shook with silent laughter at the exchange, which made Akki bounce a bit.

"
Danger?
" The sending was gray, tremulous.

"
Don't be silly
," Akki sent back. "
Nothing dangerous about a laugh.
" She enclosed the gray sending with a yellow border that slowly squeezed the gray into a single line that shot away like an arrow and was gone.

"If and when I'm reelected," Golden went on, oblivious to the laughter, the dragon's reaction, and Akki's response, "the first thing I shall do is to get rid of the senate cars. Goodness knows when we'll have the fuel to drive them again. It was all supplied by the Feders. I don't know why we don't walk. Protection, I suppose."

"Protection from what?" Akki was suddenly on alert.

Golden refused to answer.