“Wow,” I said. Not very erudite, Bob.

  Theresa rolled her eyes. No, actually rolled her eyes, not the Quinlan equivalent. “If you weren’t in a Quinlan avatar right now, I’m not sure you’d even hear the whole composition.”

  “Is this important?”

  “Hmm. Anec has been talking about ways to improve cultural contact between our species. He is of the opinion that the Pav are rather—uh, he disapproves of their isolationist strategy, let’s just say.” She gestured at the screen. “What would you think of a Quinlan media company?”

  “Distributing pieces like this?” I nodded slowly. “I have all the artistic talent of a fencepost, honestly, but I know a lot of people would go crazy over this.” Theresa nodded silently, and I continued. “So what other Quinlan wonders did you have to show me?”

  “On the contrary, Bob.” She waved a hand, and the screen changed to another video. This was a human ballet of … I did a quick search … Swan Lake, apparently.

  I watched people caper and leap for a few moments. I was by no means a fan of ballet, but the skill on display was obvious. Then the scene changed to ballroom dancing. Before I could ask a question, a square dance popped up. Then a Skip routine, that being the current incarnation of hip-hop. I’d hated hip-hop when I was alive, and I saw no reason to change my opinion.

  “Okay. I dance about as well as I sing, Theresa. The punch line?”

  “Have you seen Quinlans dance?”

  I opened my mouth to reply, then stopped before I could say something that I’d have to apologize for. “Yes, I hit the town of Elbow just at festival time.”

  “I have always been quite proud of Quinlan dance.” She paused and stared at the screen for a moment. “I was a good dancer in my youth. Not professional caliber, you understand. But talented, by Quinlan standards.” She gestured at the screen, which froze with one of the ballerinas in the middle of a grand jeté. “This makes me embarrassed to even use the word. Human agility and grace are … ” She stopped and shook her head. Again, the human gesture, not the Quinlan equivalent. “The cultural exchange will be two-way. The Quinlans I’ve shown this to swear that it must be special effects.”

  “Well, we have those, too.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen some of your movies.”

  “Cultural exchange on those as well?”

  “I truly, truly hope not.”

  I chuckled, and she continued, “Do you know what the sensory differences between humans and Pav are?”

  “Not offhand, no. Please enlighten me.”

  “Sorry, I cannot. Interestingly, no one seems to have thought to ask.”

  “But someone like Bridget—”

  Theresa cut me off. “Bio-human contact with the Pav has been rare, and strictly by video communication. After all, they went straight into stasis, then got dumped on a remote planet. Only Bobs have had any degree of contact with them, and I have to say, as a group, you are remarkably obtuse about such questions.”

  “Huh.” I sat in silence for a few moments, thinking about this. “Maybe you’ve found yourself a new career here, Theresa. Ministry of Exobiological Diplomacy or something. It certainly seems to be something that’s slipped through the cracks.”

  Theresa gave me a smile. “I’ve talked to a few people. This just might happen.”

  Chapter Forty:

  Going In

  Howard

  September 2343

  Jabberwocky

  Today was the day. We’d received the cultural and language files from the Gamers, and they’d been uploaded to the drannies. Now Bridget and I were having a strategy session. We sat in our apartment in front of her computer. The Canvas displayed several overlapping windows, including a global map of Jabberwocky and several relief maps and images of dragon villages.

  “This is a good place to start,” she said, pointing to a spot on the virtual globe. “High enough population density that we won’t stand out. Good weather—I have no desire to wait out one of their tropical storms, thank you very much. There are several floaters”—Bridget couldn’t help a slight wince as she said the word—“with more than one village on them. Diversity builds tolerance. I want to find out more about this warlord character—he’s the Alexander the Great wannabe that’s supposedly causing a lot of flux.”

  “But this is a cultural and xenopological expedition, right?” I gave her a side-eye. “We’re not going to get involved, right?”

  Bridget sighed. “I hope not, Howard. The Bobs do have a habit of sticking their noses into things, though.”

  “You’re not a Bob.”

  “I am an honorary Bob.” She smiled at me. “I am as nosy as any of you.”

  “I, uh, I have no idea how to respond to that in a way that won’t get me punched.”

  She punched me anyway.

  “Ow!” I rubbed my shoulder. “No fair.”

  Bridget grew serious again. “Howard, the Bobs decided a long time ago that the Prime Directive is a load of hooey when a species is in existential danger. I’m not sure if the dragons are at that level of risk or if this is just another war that will someday be a historical footnote. But some of the observations from Mario and comments in the Gamer files make me nervous.”

  “Okay, Bridge, got it. Let’s go in, snoop a lot, and figure out if we need to call in the Bobs.” She made a face at me, and I grinned back. Then I stood, held out my arm, and said, “Shall we?”

  I stood in the cargo doorway, Bridget beside me. The landscape of Jabberwocky spread out before us in all its primitive, undeveloped glory. This time, we were fully geared up, each wearing one of the dragon frontpacks—like a backpack, but worn over the stomach. The dragon physiology made backpacks a questionable design decision, but you still had to carry stuff.

  We’d considered but decided against spears, or any kind of overt weapon. We each had a knife on our belt, but that was about as noteworthy on Jabberwocky as car keys were back on 20th-century Earth.

  “Are you ready?” Bridget asked. “Once we start, this is a full-time gig, except when the drannies are supposed to be sleeping.”

  “I’ve taken care of all our business dealings, Bridge. I’m good to go.”

  “We’ll be heading for a relatively large floater, one with several villages on it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get lost in the population size.”

  “We’re staying in the one place?”

  “No, of course not. Just long enough to get our balance. And to find out about that patrol that chased us last time.” Bridget’s expression darkened. “I want to know if that’s still going on.”

  I nodded, then made a you first gesture. Interestingly, the translation software converted it to a motion with my tail. It was probably human chauvinism talking, but it struck me as a little obscene. Bridget didn’t seem bothered, though, and did a graceful dive off the edge. I admired her lines for a moment, then followed. Bridget held the dive for several seconds before opening her wings and arcing upward. I followed, not especially trying to catch up. At the top of her arc, she pulled in her wings, whooped, and did a backflip before settling into a proper glide.

  I pulled up beside her and grinned. “Addicting, isn’t it?”

  She smiled back at me. “Quin was fun. This is incomparable. I wonder if we could put wings on hueys.”

  “No, of course—” I stopped midsentence. Why not, exactly? I looked behind me. Well, if I remembered right, a tail of some kind was required for control and balance. But something could be rigged. Or we could just go with dragon physiology, since we already seemed to have it on lock. Of course, there were the issues of gravity and—

  “Earth to Howard. Come in, Howard.” I started and glanced at Bridget, who was trying and not quite succeeding in not laughing at me. “You went into Bob-fugue. Were you analyzing the engineering or the profitability?”

  “I plead the Fifth. Or whatever it is these days. But the engineering. Profitability is a given, I think.”

  “It’s still the Fifth, Howard. It’s just a saying now. I doubt most people know what it refers to. I had to look it up myself.”

  We flew in silence for a few minutes, unconsciously taking advantage of updrafts whenever possible. The dragon vision seemed to have some kind of sensitivity to polarized light that made updrafts visible. Made sense; it would be a survival characteristic. The dragons could put on good speed when they needed to, but they were large and heavy for a flier, and therefore long-distance gliders by nature when updrafts were available. I wondered if they used to migrate or something similar in their prehistory. I’d have to ask Bridget.

  I spotted a lake below that didn’t seem to be steaming or roiling. “Want to try a little fishing?”

  Bridget looked where I was pointing and wordlessly banked in that direction. “The Gamers will have programmed in fishing reflexes, but remember, they’ve only been tested in VR. Take it easy the first time in.”

  “That’s me, Mister Conservative,” I replied with a laugh, and swooped in low. Dragon eyes were adapted for seeing through the water’s surface as well. I dipped a little lower and spotted something coming up in my flight path. The dragon reflexes took over, putting me into a stall as my feet reached out, claws extended.

  I hit the water face-first with a thunderous splash. Coming up spitting and coughing, I looked up to see Bridget grinning at me.

  “You caught a submerged log, Mister Conservative. Or it caught you. Come on up and try again.”

  Getting out of the water wasn’t easy, even for dranny muscles. It wasn’t a case of getting waterlogged, more an issue of drag preventing me from getting up enough speed to lift off.

  “I’m not hungry anyway,” I said. “Maybe some other time.”

  “We should both do it at least once, Howard, just in case we have to perform in front of real dragons. Practice makes perfect.” And with that, she circled around for another pass. I followed, muttering under my breath.

  We swooped down in parallel and hit targets at almost the same instant. I came up with a lovely trout in one claw. I held it up to Bridget, who had come up empty.

  “Don’t you dare gloat,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’m going to settle on the shore while you give it another shot. Practice makes perfect.”

  I received a black glare, which I studiously ignored, and settled onto a rock outcropping. The fish was still alive and flipping desperately in my grip. I really didn’t need the food, so I tossed it back into the water. Meanwhile, Bridget had been more successful on her second pass and came to a landing beside me. She smiled and flipped her own fish back.

  I settled into the crouch that was the dragon equivalent of an indolent sprawl. “It’s a pretty good life. Makes me wonder why the dragons bothered to become intelligent.”

  “I agree, Howard, and certainly I or someone else will be studying them in the long term to answer that question. But I’m sure the environment of Jabberwocky has something to do with it. This is a harsh place to live.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. Other than some miscellaneous islands, the planet’s land surface was concentrated in two continents, which Mario had named Atlantis—where the dragons were situated—and Lemuria to the west. A huge stretch of ocean reminiscent of the Pacific took up about a third of the globe to the west of Lemuria. I had to agree with Bridget that he wasn’t putting a lot of effort into names. But his interests were pretty focused.

  “Mario told us that Atlantis is far more tectonically active than the other landmass,” I mused. “I suppose that could have played a part in evolutionary pressure.”

  Bridget laughed. “Listen to you, sounding all biologist-ey. But yes, you’re right.” She stood. “Well, lunch hour is over. We should find a place to stay.”

  “Floater ahead. Locals call it the Hunter.” Bridget paused, internally accessing her notes. “The villages are Hunter’s Heaven, Hunter’s Rest, and Hunter’s Glory. Usually just referred to as Heaven, Rest, and Glory.”

  “No theme there, no sirree.”

  “Most floaters only have one village. This particular one is very old. They keep growing, apparently, as long as they live.”

  “What kills a floater? Do they have natural enemies?”

  “They have no predators. There are some species of plants and trees that are parasitic rather than commensal or symbiotic. The most common causes of death actually are volcanism and lightning. Jabberwocky has a pretty mild climate overall, and volcanoes don’t just spring up overnight, but on the other hand, floaters aren’t really powered fliers. They have kind of a sail thing underneath, but only minimal propulsion capability. So they can’t get out of the way of a storm or an eruption.”

  “Hmm. Lightning. Hydrogen. Bad combo. Bet it’s spectacular, though.”

  I stopped talking as I spotted our destination in the distance. Floating serenely through a low point between rolling hills, the floater was literally an island in the sky. I could see the sail that Bridget had mentioned, fully extended at the moment beneath the behemoth like a giant keel. Also dangling down were something like long vines, which seemed to move around in the wind. Occasionally, they dragged along the ground, then would retract into the bulk of the floater. Eating? Drinking? Was it snagging vegetation or little animals? Once again, Bridget would know. I glanced at Bridget and saw her frowning. Was she wondering the same thing?

  The top of the floater was shaped somewhat like the top half of a bagel. Forest ran in a ring around a central depression, which was usually filled with water. The central reservoir was both a source of drinking water for the dragons and a place to keep and raise fish stock, although the dragons weren’t particularly disciplined about it. The lake was also a water source for the floater and a quick way to make more hydrogen on demand.

  I knew from the reading I had done that most of the trees were symbiotic with the floater. They provided nourishment in return for a place literally in the sun. Some trees were in a more parasitic relationship, as Bridget had mentioned, and those could easily be spotted by the reaction of the floater’s surface, forming a sort of angry hummocked blister around the plant. Dragons did their part for their home by preferentially using those trees as building material and fuel.

  So yeah, fuel. On a hydrogen gasbag, they had open flames. I was extremely interested in seeing how this did not result in a Hindenburg-level disaster. I imagined there had to be rules, probably very strictly enforced.

  We came in low and did a hard upward arc at the last moment, dropping onto the edge of the floater with almost zero momentum. It seemed like a better system than what blue-footed boobies used, which often involved face-plants as a braking device. Yes, I watched a lot of YouTube back when I was alive.

  A squad of five dragons immediately marched over to us and pointed spears in our direction. “Home floater?” one said. Then, before I could even respond, “Reason for visit?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Bridget beat me to it. “Who’s asking?”

  The spokesdragon cocked her head, more like an owl than a human, and paused, considering Bridget for a moment. Then, apparently deciding not to be offended, she replied, “Have you been living under a rock? Alexander’s army has been seen within fifty miles of here. We’ve intercepted scouts several times a day. If he’s targeting this area, we need to be ready for him. Thus, my very reasonable questions.”

  “Yeahhhh, okay. We’re”—Bridget inclined her head in my direction, a move that acknowledged my existence while simultaneously dismissing me as insignificant—“from a floater about three hundred miles east. Nirvana. It’s a college town. We decided to head west until we hit the western ocean. This Alexander is news to us. Seems like kind of a local problem.”

  Spokesdragon gave Bridget a look of disbelief but apparently didn’t feel like making the effort to explain. “And reason for visit?”

  “Sleep. Rest. We don’t need anything. We’ve been able to catch trout along the way.”

  Spokesdragon frowned. “Really? Most people report the pickings being extremely slim these days.”

  “Most people are probably impatient,” Bridget replied archly. “You can winkle them up to the surface with some bait, but it takes commitment.” She patted her frontpack meaningfully.

  The other dragon glanced down, following the movement, then shrugged. “Y’know, if you can demo that technique, you can probably get people to pay you for lessons.”

  I queried the translation software and database. Pay was not quite the right word. Dragons didn’t have an official monetary system, at least not anything standardized. Not surprising with no centralized government authority of any kind. So everything was barter. But metal was rare enough to be prized, and various kinds of metal coins formed a sort of de facto standard of exchange. Their weight and size varied all over the place, of course, with no central authority to mint them. Value was based on weight, and coins were as likely as not to be melted down to make something practical. It was noteworthy that adulterating coins was one of the few crimes that would net you the death penalty here—often at the hands of an angry mob.

  Bridget didn’t respond, instead nodding toward the village. At a gesture from Spokesdragon, the squad stepped aside, and we proceeded on our way. “Don’t make trouble,” she said to our backs.

  “Not really much of a third degree,” I commented to Bridget in a low voice. “I’d say security could use an upgrade.”

  “Dragons have very good hearing and smell,” she replied. “Some individuals have a reputation for being able to literally smell a liar and can probably hear a raised heart rate. Like an old-fashioned lie detector. It’s an actual job description, which”—Bridget paused to check the database—“the Gamers have translated as Sooth Hunter. I imagine the group leader was one of those.”

  I mentally rolled my eyes. “Why not just lie detector?”

  “Gamers,” Bridget replied. “Why are you surprised?”

  Fair enough. The Gamers had been going further and further down the rabbit hole since the Heaven’s River episode, only emerging in public for really interesting things, like xenopological analyses. There was a meme going around where Gamers get dropped into a black hole and don’t even notice for months.