Rumble in the Library!

  ***

  I woke up slow, drugged. I knew I was doped up in medbay, or hooked up to medical machinery, thus the slow thoughts. I worked this out for myself, and was passing proud. Then I became aware that someone was talking, in a language I didn't understand, and looked up into almond-shaped eyes. Then things went away again, but I dreamed of warm green eyes filled with flecks of gold.

  I also dreamed about Goldie. Those were happy dreams, but guarded, like they would soon turn dark and twisted. I dreaded reliving the death of that little red and gold three-ling, a three year old dragon child that had adopted my unit. But Goldie only sent me good dreams this time, not nightmares.

  When I woke again, my mind was clear and somebody had been holding my hand. I still felt it, warm and dry, comforting. Not a dream, my mind was clear and I was completely awake. So I opened my eyes and looked over at a Eurasian woman, Magda Chung, who was with the consulate. "Good morning, I think?"

  "Good afternoon," she responded and wrote on a pad with a stylus. "You've been out for a few days, Mr. Anderson. Do you know that you should be dead?"

  "I get that a lot."

  She cracked a smile, the first I'd ever seen from her. Magda, Ms. Chung, and I, have been at cross-purposes for months. Her predecessor had made it possible for me to be "a bum hanging around on an alien world and sponging off of the Covenant of Stars" for medical treatment and the supplements that keep the local biota from sending me into anaphylactic shock, or starving while trying to get nutrition from it. Admittedly, I do get the stuff at cost, but I pay my way. I really have no clue as to what her problem is, and now I was even more at sea.

  Speaking of which, the breeze blew in from the harbor, a storm coming in from the southeast, probably a pretty big blow. The clouds raced across the local sun and it went from bright to dim, warm to chilly. Magda shivered. She rolled up the pad with the stylus and put it away. Then she went over and closed the window.

  "How's Arnie?"

  "He didn't almost die, not like you."

  "Too bad for him," I muttered. Magda looked at me funny. "He's a thirteen hundred year old soldier. Every war-buddy, every loved one or child he's ever known, has died, or will die, and he knows that. He's not stupid, and he's not made of stone. That has to get to him."

  "You seem to have a special insight into, what do you call him, the determined turtle?"

  "He's the ‘Dark Knight’ and the ‘Terminator’, all rolled up into one shell, if you follow me?"

  She shook her head. "I don't."

  "A gal in my old unit was a film-buff, two-D, especially late 20th Century Action Films. Valerie Astarte, war orphan... now and forever, Naval Infantry, the Seventy-Third." I kissed two finger-tips and touched it to the Eagle tattooed to my upper right arm, the one with the seven arrows in one claw and the three in another... which wasn't there, anymore. "Damn. Did I lose my right arm again?"

  She swallowed. "Do you... tend leave body parts all over the place?"

  "Only when I have to. The Covenant gives me such a good deal on replace-" I shut the hell up and felt along my right arm down to the fingertips. I also noticed the tell-tale skin discoloration of my left ring finger. "This is almost as bad as the Meat-Grinder. What, did Jaw-Some drop a building on us?"

  It got very cold in the infirmary, and Magda just nodded.

  "How many... how many dead?"

  "We're still not completely sure, but less than it could have been. A few dozen."

  I remembered the little old lady turtle and her dead singing frog, and the baby-wagon smashed to splinters by a monster that seemed to really hate turtles, as if there was a personal connection. Like the hate between humans and dragons, going on a century and change now. It was the kind of hate that is more personal than some loves; that can give a life meaning. Once upon a time the two species of the Covenant had been locked in just such a perfect hate, spiraling down into to mutually assured destruction. Thoughtful individuals of both species had found another way, when fate, luck and genius intersected. But fifteen years later their children had been forced to deal with some diehard dragons from the old Lung Reformed State, who had bugged out for the stars. We called one such world Tiamat, and there are probably others out there. The campaign to pacify Tiamat was the Meat-Grinder. It made human and dragon sausage spiced with mutiny, revenge and ultimately, victory. To have paid so much, and not won, that would have been unbearable.

  Yeah, I understand the Terminator Turtle. But thank God it's not a perfect understanding.

  "Any chance I can get out of here? I've got some work to do."