For a long moment, Snillek stared up at the huge head still rising above them, her brain no longer on speaking terms with the rest of her. Gruyère's soft noise beside her—fear, wonder, exasperation, it was hard to tell—yanked Snillek back to herself.
"Well… shells," she croaked out. "Elder sister's a little bigger than I anticipated."
"How big did you think she'd be?" Gruyère whispered.
"Maybe, oh, twice the size of the hover platform. Not three times bigger than my ship."
"Is she… does she want us to leave?"
Snillek patted Gruyère's shoulder. "You don't have to whisper, my dear. She knows we're here."
"Okay, but—"
"She is wary." Snillek tilted her head, trying to parse the images and sensations shimmering through her mind. The thoughts that weren't hers had a different color, a different density from her own—an incredibly strange sensation. "But she's curious."
"Could you ask her…?" Gruyère's forehead creased with deep furrows. "Holy crap, so many things, and she might not tolerate us long. I don't know what to ask!"
Snillek tipped her head back to address the dragon—whose head now towered four meters above them—directly. "Are we food to you?"
The unedited revulsion she received was comforting. Snillek had never felt so good about someone telling her that she was disgusting.
"This is your garden, then? Your food?" Snillek opened her arms to indicate the unnaturally spaced trees.
Sunlight glanced off scales as the great dragon turned her head in an arc to mimic the inclusion of the plants. Snillek received a clear image of fruit harvesting and their satisfying consumption, of storing seedpods, and of irrigation. In the middle of the dragon sending a guided tour of her agricultural endeavors, Mortimer zipped out of the tree cover and hurtled toward her.
"No, no! Mortimer, don't!" Gruyère cried out as she made an unsuccessful grab for his tail.
Unfazed, Mortimer zipped out of reach in his erratic, zig-zaggy way and flew right up to the dragon's face. Rather than snap or swat at him, though, the great dragon rubbed her cheek against Mortimer's head, and Snillek received impressions of familiarity… fondness… intimacy.
"Oh. I… how does that even…"
Gruyère tugged at her elbow. "What's she saying? It all goes by so fast. I can't figure any of it out."
"She says this is her garden." Snillek tugged Gruyère close and tucked her under one arm. "The trees, the plantings, the feeder streams and pools, all her work. She also indicates that Mortimer is her… mate? But that makes no sense." She raised her head again to call up, "Elder sister, is there a way for you to slow your thoughts? My companion can't understand you. I think it's a human thing."
"Hey!"
"Not an insult. Just an observation."
The dragon stared down at them, blinking her shining golden eyes. She might have been considering or judging, but she didn't share her thoughts while Mortimer, who looked far too pleased with himself, settled on her back and curled up for a nap. The great dragon gave him a nudge with her snout, then ignored him in favor of staring at her bipedal visitors again.
With the tip of her tail, she beckoned them closer as she lowered her head beside the nearest pool, shimmering with a healthy population of what Snillek assumed was green and blue algae. The dragon dipped two fore claws into the water, stirring in lazy, seemingly random patterns.
The algae rose from the pool.
It streamed upward in two lines—perfect, neat lines—before turning at right angles to form a rectangle. A door? A frame?
"How is it staying up like that?" Gruyère had fallen back on whispering. Any other time, Snillek would've found her astonishment adorable, but she was too shocked herself.
Magic? No, don't be stupid. This was unfamiliar biotech. Alien dragon biotech. The dragon in question stirred the pool, watching the ripples as the internal area of the algae frame began to swirl with indistinct colors and shapes, like viewing through cylinder glass on a foggy morning. Slowly, as the images began to sharpen, Snillek realized she was no longer receiving dragon thoughts, and she quickly began to understand why.
The first clear image, a high aerial view, showed gray, snow-capped mountains with little islands of green nestled among them. The image took a swift dive toward one of these until it resolved into a lush valley hidden within the forbidding slopes of rock and ice, steam jets making it obvious that geothermal vents warmed the valleys. The dragon—since this had to be her memories—landed and began to explore. The images became shorter snips and flashes of the dragon planting seeds, judiciously transplanting existing growth, digging water channels, and carefully transforming the landscape over time. A second aerial view showed changes in nearby valleys—the domains of other dragons, no doubt.
The gardening scenes ended, replaced by one that showed flights of bumblebee dragons arriving. Scores and scores of blue flashes zipping through the trees, their iridescent wings leaving rainbow trails. Snillek had no clue what she was watching—migration? invasion?—but she stared, entranced, as the little dragons wove in and out in breathtaking aerial maneuvers and patterns. After a few passes, some began to peel away, to leave the valley, then more and more until only five remained.
Five. Gruyère said something about five…
More scenes flashed by with the remaining bumbles, activities she couldn't pretend to understand, along with lots of physical contact. Snuggling. Then… eggs. One large with a subtle red tinge, and a blue-speckled clutch that looked like toys beside the big one. Things the dragon had thought at Snillek started to click into place with the images, but Gruyère beat her to the conclusion with a gasp and frantically waving hands.
"They're the same species! Oh… my gods. The bumblebees, the great dragons—two different parts of the same. Crap. I need DNA. And a lab and—"
Gruyère squeaked to a halt when the dragon's head jerked up, thunder rumbling in her chest.
Cracks and casings. Snillek held up both hands, throwing her thoughts at the dragon as hard as she could with her protests. "No, no! She's just curious, not a threat! She's… like Mortimer." Snillek offered the memory of Mortimer sorting supplies. "She finds out things. Looks for information. Wants to know things."
A trail of steam escaped the dragon's nostrils, but apparently the comparison to Mortimer worked. She settled her huge head beside the pool again. Sorrow leaked from her as the scene in the algae viewer changed, the images grainier and the colors muted. Snillek had the feeling that this memory was old. Maybe not even one that belonged to this dragon.
Bipedal figures ran down the ramps of ships. Snillek assumed they were human, but with distorted silhouettes—humped backs and strangely thick arms. She squinted until the shapes were more than familiar. Weapons packs and laser rifles. That's what the humps were, but the dragon who had witnessed this event hadn't been able to parse the shapes into anything recognizable.
The memory rose into the air, or rather the dragon with the memory did, the topography clearer with each beat of massive wings. There were irrigated gardens much like the one she sat in now but no mountains. These dotted a lower-altitude plain along a seaside, and Snillek's heart became a chunk of ice as she made out the coastline—the same bay with the same rivers feeding into it as Tarribotia's capital. No city crowded up to the water. No palace crowned the hill. But it was the same place. How many years ago, Snillek could only guess.
Other dragons had remained on the ground. The memory didn't give any hint whether they were curious about the humans or defending against them. In the end, it didn't matter. The humans formed an arc around their ships and started shooting. The beautiful red dragons fell where they stood, gleaming scales caked with the rust of blood and topsoil.
Some fought back, taking to the air and spitting lines of flame at the humans, who went up as if they'd been doused in propellant and ran screaming. It wasn't enough. There were too many, more and more streaming from the ships. The remaining dragons fled north, wings slamming the air to outrace the gunfire, shepherding, and shielding flights of bumblebee dragons as best they could.
Snillek broke free of the memory to find her face wet and her chest heaving, Gruyère clinging to her and sobbing. And beating a fist against me…
"Hey, now. What did I do?"
Gruyère went from beating on Snillek with her fist to slamming her head against Snillek's chest plate. She hiccupped and wailed, "It was all lies. All of it."
While she had a good idea where this was going, Snillek still asked, "All of what?"
"Everything in the university databases! Everything!" She heaved another sob before whispering, "They classify all the dragons as local wildlife. Wildlife. Not a sentient culture we displaced by force because they were farming the best land. The old databases made it sound like the great dragons migrated north because of changes in habitat. None of it's true. Oh, Snillek."
"The settlers slaughtered them."
Snillek regretted blurting it out as soon as the words formed, since Gruyère collapsed into sobs again. It wasn't her fault. She hadn't been there with the human colonizers. Still, Snillek could see how the revelation would upset someone who studied life, who valued it.
Wasn't as if Gruyère was in charge of the planet, either. Wasn't anything she could do about it. Snillek rocked her gently, making the shushing noises that never really helped anyone but were somehow obligatory anyway. She was really taking this hard.
Hold on a moment. I'm in charge of the planet.
Not that she knew how to fix any of it. Her dad might. She'd have to call him when they got back to the capital. He would've been a far better choice to rule here, but no. They'd wanted a rot-cursed princess.
Still holding Gruyère tight, Snillek tipped her head back to look at the dragon. "These memories… they have to be hundreds of years old. Are they yours?"
Some rare beings in the galaxy had lifetimes that long, but the dragon stirred the pool with her claw and images of dragon faces flashed by, all red dragons, but in expression and features they were different. Ancestors. The meaning seemed clear as the faces repeated. The memories of human colonizers had either been recorded somehow or handed down as racial memory.
"And the others?" Snillek swallowed hard. She didn't want to ask the next question. "You're not alone, are you? And the rest of your mating group? They're not… gone, are they?"
Now the image brought up the face of their host dragon, followed by another aerial view. This memory had to be her own, then. She soared above the mountain range, dozens of little valleys like hers dotting the landscape. The dragon lifted her claw to touch the image, which colored many of the valleys in gold. Dragon valleys, all of them.
Snillek heaved a shuddering breath, relieved to know the dragon wasn't the last of her kind.
The image shifted to what appeared to be a strange blue sculpture in a hollow of rock next, though as Snillek squinted at it, she started to make out feet and backs and folded wings. The remainder of the mating group—she was sure of it—fast asleep somewhere, maybe even hibernating.
Also good to know. The biotech imager grew dark, and the algae frame slid gently back into the pool.
The dragon, Mortimer still dozing on her back, heaved herself up and stomped out of sight into the trees. Snillek still heard the rustle of leaves and the flump as the dragon lay down somewhere with a mighty huff, most likely exhausted from trying to communicate horribly sad things to small, dense bipedal people.
Gruyère sat up, wiping impatiently at her eyes. "I have to leave the university. Go… off-planet somewhere. Maybe, I don't know, apply for a job as an agricultural inspector somewhere."
Lost in her own thoughts, Snillek struggled to catch up. "What in all shells are you talking about?"
"I can't keep providing data to an institution, a government, built on lies. I'll have to go somewhere new."
Snillek pursed her lips and gave a serious nod. "Sure. Running away is a good plan. Absolutely."
Gruyère's eyes narrowed. "It's not running away. It's refusing to feed a colonial society built on destruction."
"Hmm. I guess. Not really like you, though."
"Says the person who went through this whole charade just so she didn't have to tell her court she has a tail!" Gruyère stopped, eyes wide in shock as both hands flew up to cover her mouth. "I… I didn't mean that."
"You did. And it's fine. You said it because it's true." Snillek lay back in the grass beside the algae pool. "Problem is I don't have any bright ideas about what to do."
Gruyère joined her, lacing their fingers together, and they lay side-by-side, staring at the late-afternoon sky tinged with soft pink and gold. The sky had no inkling about the blood-soaked ground beneath it, just as Snillek had no idea. She wondered if even Kipcup knew or if the information had been completely hidden away, revisionist history the only thing available now.
Even worse, if that were the case, how would she convince any Tarribotian otherwise?