"It's telepathy," she said subvocally, concentrating her matching thoughts. "I learned it from a horse. But I'm not very strong with it. I can read my own kind from close by. Others I have to touch. But it bypasses the language barrier; you read me in your thoughts, and I read you in mine. I thought—I thought if we could talk, we might do each other some good."
Follow me. The dragon turned sinuously, breaking the contact, and slid into its cave. It hardly seemed to use its legs. In a moment its tail was disappearing.
Colene glanced back at the others. "It's okay," she said. "I gotta go in." Then she followed the dragon into its lair.
The ceiling was just high enough for her to walk upright. She tread cautiously, as it was dark. But in a moment there was light ahead. Then she entered a chamber whose upper reaches extended to daylight. No sunbeam spilled down, but the refracted illumination was enough.
The dragon was coiled at one side of the cave. In the center was the creature's nest. It was fashioned of humanlike bones, neatly interwoven. Within it was a cache of—scrolls.
"I thought dragons collected gems," Colene said. Then, realizing that her words were gibberish, she approached the dragon. She extended her hand. "May I?"
The dragon did not move. She set her hand on its snout. "Those look like books," she said.
They are. I read to pass the time between hunts.
A literary dragon! So her guess had been correct: this creature had been given human intelligence, and that meant that it had far more of a mind than the life of a simple predator demanded. It craved intellectual diversion.
True.
"I may have a way to provide you that," she said. "But there is a price."
Of course.
"The Felines have minds similar to mine, only not telepathic. Spare them."
They are my prey.
"But if you spared them, you could converse with them. You could play games of mental challenge with them. You could keep up with the news of the planet, without having to go wherever you go to encounter a mind like yours. That would save you trouble."
I must eat.
"Yes. But if you can eat something else, then you won't need to prey on them."
What else?
"Rats."
There was mental silence.
"I know it sounds awful. But there's probably a greater biomass of rats on this planet than of nulls. You would never go hungry."
The taste and nourishment of rats is good. But I am unable to catch them in sufficient quantity to sustain me. They are too small and elusive.
"Yes. But I may have an answer. Music confuses them. So that they can be caught. I brought some for a demonstration. You could probably stun them yourself, just by singing to them. We can try it, if you want."
This interests me. But would the nulls agree?
"What choice do they have? If they don't, you go on eating them. I think they'd rather make music and let you grab the rats. And if you stopped hunting the nulls, they should talk with you. I don't have your language, but they could learn it. You would have time to work something out."
Show me the rats.
They went back outside. Darius brought out the cage of rats. Nona took her place beside it. Colene opened the cage and the rats surged out and scattered, running across the ground. Nona sang.
The rats lost purpose. They scrambled in circles, rolled over, paused, and tried to hide under the cage. The music disoriented them.
Colene returned to the dragon, putting a hand on its rough neck. "Want to see if you can do it?"
Yes.
She signaled Nona. Nona stopped singing. The rats immediately recovered their bearings and fled for the nearest brush.
The dragon sang. The rats tumbled, confused. The dragon advanced so rapidly that Colene was almost knocked over. It snapped up one rat and swallowed it. That action interrupted the song, and the other rats scrambled away. But in a moment the dragon sang again, and they were helpless; one actually ran toward the huge mouth. It was soon gone, and then the third.
The dragon could as readily have snapped up any of the people. This was its lair, and it could move faster than they could. Only the beads protected them.
Colene rejoined the dragon. "If the Felines sing, and you are near, the rats will be easy prey. It is true that they are smaller than the cats, but there are so many more of them. A hundred small bites instead of one big one. You need not go hungry."
Yes.
"And this would open up the entire intellectual realm of the Felines for you. You know they are smart."
They will not trust me.
"But we can make the deal. Then they'll know."
I have preyed on them for decades. Other dragons prey on the other nulls across the planet. They will not believe.
"But you're not attacking us."
You wear the beads.
So they did. "Will you spare us if we remove the beads?"
Yes, for I know their identities. But if the other nulls do not agree. I will have to prey on them again.
Colene put her free hand to her necklace. "No!" Pussy cried, leaping toward her.
"The dragon will not eat me," Colene said, though she was quite nervous. "We have a deal."
"You can't trust the dragon without the beads."
"I think I can."
"You must not! If we lose you, all is lost."
This is interesting, the dragon thought, for Colene's free hand remained against its neck. She has been deceiving you but you have known it.
She does not know I can read her mind without touching her, Colene thought back. Will you keep that secret?
Yes.
"You are speaking in my language," Colene said to Pussy. "You pretended you did not know it."
Pussy looked stricken. Cat stepped in. "We were given a directive to conceal this from you as long as feasible," it said. "We serve Ddwng, and must learn all we can, so as not to be caught as he was."
"So you pretended to be our friends, to spy on us," Colene said coldly.
"Yes. We are not your friends. But we wish you no harm. Otherwise Pussy would not have spoken when you imperiled yourself. She does care for you, and is mortified to have your anger."
"I thought we were being honest with each other," Colene said, putting hurt into her tone, "How can we trust you now?"
You are beautiful, the dragon thought. You are deceiving her while making her sorry for trying to deceive you.
But you know my true mind, Colene thought to it. I can't deceive in telepathy.
Continue with your scheme.
"We apologize for not being candid with you," Cat said. "This was not our choice. We must obey directives."
Colene glanced at Darius. "Does this make sense?"
"Yes," he said. "They never claimed to be our friends. We never claimed to be theirs. Neither side should expect complete candor from the other."
And if Darius didn't question the ethics of it, she didn't have to. "Okay, we forgive you," Colene said. "Now I have to know whether we can trust the dragon." She drew the necklace up over her head. Then she set it on the ground. The dragon did not move.
"So is it something in the beads that repels you, or are they merely an indication of what prey is forbidden?" she inquired.
An indication. Our makers have ways to destroy us, and rogue dragons are abolished.
"So you know I'm protected, even when I'm not wearing the beads."
All of you are protected, the dragon agreed.
"So this proves nothing. We need to get some unprotected Felines to verify your constancy."
Yes.
Colene looked at the others. "The dragon says it will not attack any of us, because we have been marked by the beads. It would be destroyed if it ate a protected person. So we shall have to verify our deal by bringing in some unprotected villagers."
"What deal?" Cat asked.
"The dragon will eat the rats instead of the Felines, if you will associate with it intellectually. You'll have to
help by stunning the rats with singing. You have to be right there with the dragon while it feeds. So there has to be trust."
"This is not credible," Cat said. "No dragon can be trusted to be other than what it is: a predator."
"Felines are predators," Colene said. "Do you eat humans?"
Cat gazed at her. "Point made. But we will be destroyed if we violate our strictures."
"So will the dragon. Since it is the stricture that restrains it, rather than anything in the beads themselves, why can't it also abide by its own stricture? It has much to gain, for it hates the intellectual isolation. Why not give it a chance? What do you have to lose?"
Lovely. You have phrased it so that they are unable to refute it.
Cat nodded. "If what you propose is feasible, this would have planetary significance."
"So let's head down to the village and make it feasible," Colene said, half dizzy with her success. She focused on the dragon. "You're amenable?"
Yes. What you offer is appealing. But the villagers will not agree.
"We'll see."
They set off for the village: the four travelers, the three Felines, and the dragon. The Felines did not try to conceal their extreme doubt. The others, touched by Colene's mind, were able to link to the dragon when Colene walked with her hand on it. They discovered no effort of sincerity on its part, but rather a straight acceptance of a better condition: intellect for a shift of diet. This was a significant net gain, therefore it would be honored. The mind contact made them believers.
Instead it was the dragon who questioned motives. Why are you doing this?
"We're captives from other Modes," Colene explained subvocally, so that the Felines would not overhear. "We want to escape. We'll have a better chance if we can win our guards, the Felines, over to our side. I think this deal with you could do it. I also am repelled by the way you prey on intelligent creatures, while I don't care at all about rats."
It would be good if your deal could work.
"I'll make it work, somehow."
Perhaps you can. You are an unusual creature. How did you come by your ability to communicate?
"My friend Seqiro. He's a telepathic horse. I picked it up from him. But he's a whole dimension better than I am."
Could you teach it to me?
"I don't know. It's something you just have to catch on to by yourself, if you can."
I think I cannot. Your mind is more complicated than mine. If this effort does not work, and I must still prey on Felines, will you still associate with me?
That made her pause. "If you make a sincere effort to establish the deal, and it fails because of the Felines, then I will associate with you. While I am here. You have to do what you have to do. But I want to leave this world and this universe as soon as I can."
I can understand why your horse liked you.
That made Colene choke up. She missed Seqiro terribly.
They came in due course to the village, and halted in sight of it. "Can we have an assembly, or something?" Colene asked. "So we can talk to them, explain about the deal?"
"Yes." Cat went to talk to the villagers.
He soon returned. "They are afraid. They will not approach the dragon."
This is the case I anticipated, the dragon thought. They have reason.
"Let me try," Colene said. "You come with me, Pussy. Translate." She walked to the houses.
"This will not work," Pussy said. "The dragon has never done us any good."
"I saw it take a Tom last night," Colene said. "I decided this had to stop. Now there is a way to stop it. They have to listen."
"If I told you that you could spread your arms and fly, would you believe it?"
Colene thought about that for a moment. Actually, in the realms where magic worked, Nona could do exactly that. She didn't even have to spread her arms; she could simply levitate. When Seqiro had linked her with her home Mode, she had even been able to do it on Earth itself. But Seqiro was no longer with them, and this was not a magic realm. "No."
"I might believe," Pussy said. "I saw you touch the dragon, and befriend it. But even for me, this is very difficult. For the others, who have never been away from Chains, who have never seen the wonders of civilization, it is too much. They are not equipped to accept it. The dragon has always been our worst fear, and will always be."
"Well, somehow I'm going to change that," Colene said stoutly. "I don't care what our own situation is, I can't just stand by and let people I can talk with be brutally eaten by a monster."
Pussy guided her to a particular house. "This is the head Feline of this village," she said. "He is the first who must be persuaded." She knocked on the door.
The Cat appeared, yowling. "You brought the dragon here?" Pussy translated for Colene.
"We can make a deal," Colene said quickly. "The dragon won't hunt you anymore." Pussy translated that to yowls.
"Please don't tease us with the impossible," the Cat said. "The dragon will always hunt us."
Colene tried to argue, but it was no use. The Feline's mind was closed.
"You see, they can't change," Pussy said. "I wish you could be right, and that they would give you a chance, but they won't. You are just a visitor; you don't know how it is."
"But to allow your children to continue to be orphaned, when there's a chance to save your people—" Colene broke off. "Why do they make children, instead of adults?"
"There is too much to learn. They would have to spend much time teaching new adults how to function. But with children, they go to families, and in the course of several years they learn. That's much more efficient."
"So the children's minds are open."
"For learning, yes."
"Then let's fetch the children," Colene said, heading for the orphanage.
"But they won't let—"
Heedless, Colene went to the house and pounded on the door. "We're taking the children out for a walk," she announced to the Cat who opened the door. "Now."
"But the dragon is near."
"The dragon's no problem. Bring out the children."
The Cat looked at Pussy. She nodded. That, coupled with Colene's insistence, sufficed. Soon the seven children joined them in the street.
"Now we're going to do something weird and scary and fun," Colene told them, and Pussy translated. "No one will be hurt. I guarantee it."
Considerably more adventurous and trusting than the adults, the children came along. They walked the length of the village, and out to where the dragon waited with the others. Colene knew that the villagers were watching. They had no direct control over the orphan children, so could not protest.
The others retreated as the party of children approached, giving Colene leeway. None of them looked confident, because the children had no beads. Even if the dragon wasn't trying to hunt them, could it resist snatching such tender morsels?
"Now watch this," Colene said to the children. She marched up to the dragon and put her hand on its snout. "I have brought the orphan children," she said. "They are more open minded. Can you stand it if they climb over you?"
I recognize what you are doing. Perhaps it will succeed. I can tolerate them.
"Okay. I'll demonstrate." Colene put both arms around the dragon's neck, as far as she could reach. The neck was massive and muscular, and the hide was rough, but she was careful. Then she sat on the snout. "See?" she called. "No harm." She saw that Pussy was translating. "Now come up here and meet the dragon."
This time they balked. They were trusting children, but not utter fools.
"We need stronger medicine," Colene muttered. "Dragon, I don't want to insult you, but if you could see your way clear to—"
Do it.
Colene climbed onto the dragon's back. "Dragon ride!" she cried. "See!"
The dragon slithered forward, bracing itself with its stout limbs. The feet planted themselves against the ground, and the main body seemed almost to slide between them, as though they were posts. It was strange, but
effective. When one leg got behind, it would lift and move well forward, and the sliding would continue.
The children stood fascinated as the dragon and dragon rider approached them. They did not flee, either because of reassurance or terror. The dragon halted. "Next ride," Colene said. She applied the technique that had worked with Burgess. "You—come join me for a ride."
And it worked. The child came, and Colene helped her get up on the dragon's back. Colene held her, and projected strong feeling of reassurance. She wasn't sure she could do it, but emotional transfer was one of the things Seqiro did, so she made the effort. Then the dragon slid onward, carrying them. The child, at first nervous, began to enjoy it. It was working!
After that it got rapidly easier. By ones and twos, the children rode the dragon. Then, their fear abated, they joined Colene in other games. They played games of X's and O's by scratching in the sand, with the dragon making the X's with a deadly claw. They sang, with the dragon making the harmony. It became a regular party.
Colene looked out around. Most of the villagers were there, watching. Their amazement was manifest. "You see it's safe!" Colene called, and Pussy hardly needed to translate. "Come match wits with the dragon." No one moved. "You!" she called, pointing out the chief Cat. "Come play a game!"
Thus challenged, and responsive to the voice of command, the Cat came forward. The dragon wiped the dirt clean and sketched a fresh diagram with one claw. The Cat crouched down and drew an X in the center. The game continued to a draw.
Colene knew she had won. "Here is the deal," she said, pausing for the translation. "The dragon will hunt rats. But you have to help it. You have to let it into your houses, and sing the rats crazy. And when it's not feeding, some of you will play games with it, or debate philosophy. Anything, so long as it's intelligent dialogue. Treat it with respect. And the dragon will never hunt Felines again."
Colene know that the battle was not yet finished, but the tide had been turned. She had shown the way. She would continue showing the way until the new order was established. Then it could continue without her.
And when Pussy approached her, Colene read her emotion, and knew that the ultimate loyalty of their three Felines had shifted. Nothing was said, nor should it be said, but now the Felines were truly their friends.