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Chapter One
‘Humans are a necessary annoyance,’ my mother had said to me. A feathered wyrm in her seventies, she’d had three riders in her time and had retired from rig work a decade earlier. ‘They’re like electricity, or medical care. You’ve gone too long without one and you’re going to get hurt.’
I had wanted to tell her that humans provided the electricity and the medical care, and that it wasn’t the same thing at all. I had wanted to tell her that it wasn’t that I couldn’t be complete without a human, it was that I couldn’t be complete with one.
But my tongue hadn’t formed the words, and my chest had been tight, and my fire had licked painfully at my gizzard, so I had only nodded and drummed my claws against the slick synthetic flooring. And somehow, a week later, I was at the Lema-dar Tribute Fair being eyed-up by a crowd of humans who had probably never even seen a void rig, let alone the dragons that pulled them.
Shining winds, but I hated people, and there were just so many of them here. Lema-dar’s vast market-space was clear of the usual stalls of scrappers, crafters, and merchants hawking their wares, and now instead it was all recruitment, which in many ways was less palatable. Children ran down the dusty streets flying flags with the Cosmic Defenders’ insignia on it, as if we needed any more warriors in the void than we already had. The sight of the sword flanked by wings made me shudder and fluff up my feathers.
Then there were the crowds around every stall. People looking to sign up with existing rigs, chatting with the human riders while their dragons curled around the stalls. The dragons inputted only when they felt like it and clearly enjoyed the admiring, awe-stricken gazes of the many country hicks that had made the journey to Lema-dar for the spectacle of it all. I watched one dragon, a scaled drake with bat-like wings, flick her long, spade-like tail to the delight of the crowd of human teenagers that had been creeping ever closer. Even the spade of her tail was almost half as large as a human; most adult humans were barely as tall as our forelegs, and scrawny besides.
There were bots here too, scattered amongst the crowd, but none too bothered with us; bots rarely travelled in our rigs, finding more mechanical work instead. They clustered around their own stalls, offering repair and crafting work too complex for human hands, recruiting other mechanics to their businesses.
The press of so many humans and dragons and bots, the noise and stink of it all, was overwhelming. I was lucky that Lema-dar was small for a spaceport town, that the buildings here were simple huts and hab-domes and not the enormous sprawling hab-manors and towering apartment blocks of somewhere like Var-reel, on the other side of the planet.
But it had been fifteen years since I’d had to be at a Tribute Fair at all, and I found it hard to be grateful.
And then, filing in one at a time, the humans were released into our fenced-in area to offer tribute. Only a dozen of them, and of those only six who looked like they had rider potential. The ones with the easy confidence of humans who’d been off-world, who’d flown the void in a rig pulled by a dragon’s solar wings. All of them bore gifts or dropped them at their feet; more token than anything, an ancient tradition to win our favour, though nowadays they were interviewing us as much as we were interviewing them.
I sort of hated them.
The dragon beside me raised her crested brows. ‘Not many of them,’ she said. She was a young thing, barely twenty, at my guess. Feathery, like me, but built on more serpentine lines than I was. I was fat, but had always had a stockier build. More drake, less wyrm, as they say. ‘Perhaps I should have waited to get Tribute at Var-reel instead.’
There were three of us. The other dragon, a drake with two heads and thick black fur, looked no older than the one beside me. He looked excited, though. Eager. So did the young wyrm, though she tried to hide it with false scepticism. Her ears were perked, her eyes dilated.
I sort of hated them, too.
Each of the humans introduced themselves loudly, the amp-badges pinned to their chests amplifying their voices. Willem, Rin, Boro…the names all blurred together. As did their tributes, varying from precious gems to baskets of homemade food to blankets woven to a dragon’s scale.
I couldn’t click my claws against this dirt so I kneaded it instead, digging deep gouges into the dust and gravel that I hoped nobody noticed.
The humans strode forward one by one and offered their tribute to the dragon of their choice. Four humans went to the furred dragon and five to the feathered wyrm beside me. Only three came to me. A relief, in that I hated meeting people and wanted this over quickly; an insult, in that I was an experienced rig-dragon of fifteen years and those beside me could only have a year or two of experience at most.
Maybe it was shallow of them. Or maybe they were just being practical, and didn’t want to tie themselves to a partner that was already tired of the whole thing. Or maybe it was because I hadn’t made eye contact with a single one of them, hadn’t fanned my feathered tail prettily or narrowed my eyes in a blink of welcome. But I hadn’t done that last time, either, and I had still had the choice of the best rider of the lot.
Who…had turned out to be the worst human.
I didn’t want to think about her.
‘Lux, isn’t it?’ said the first human before me. His voice was rough and pleasant, and he had a scrap of beard and silvered hair that had once been black. His skin was a dark umber and his eyes were the colour of slate. He wore a thick leather coat—real leather, from the smell—and had an easy, adventurous look about him. ‘I bring you tribute of salt crystals from far Lucen, on the Diamond Belt.’
‘I know where Lucen is,’ I said. I had been there many times with my former rider. I didn’t remember this human’s name; Boro or Bara, maybe. I was terrible with names, especially when I wasn’t listening.
I had meant to listen, but it was hard enough to pay attention when I wasn’t already desperately wishing myself home.
‘Of course you know,’ said probably-Boro. ‘You’re a dragon of an illustrious career, not one who’s barely more than a kit. I appreciate experience.’ He gave me a slow smile. ‘And beauty, both of which you have.’
I blew hot air out of my nose. ‘Beauty doesn’t have much to do with being a good rig-dragon,’ I said. ‘And I am not considered much of a beauty of my kind.’
Boro looked…a little taken aback by this, but that wasn’t an uncommon response from anyone I spoke to, ever. He seemed to rally, hoisting his smile like he was dragging a flag up a pole. ‘It matters that we get on,’ he agreed. ‘That we have…chemistry. Your experience is in trade, correct?’
I nodded, as if I needed to confirm it; he’d have read it in my file, just as I should have read his, if I hadn’t been avoiding even thinking about the fair. ‘Well, so is mine,’ he said. ‘I rode as crew with Verhalian and Lis Tarven for ten years. We mostly flew the Epicar,’ he named a mildly uncommon trade route, ‘though we took odd jobs here and there. In my time, I got a feel for good chemistry. And I think,’ he smiled slowly again, and winked. ‘You and I…we have it.’
‘We don’t,’ I said, almost without meaning to. That wink was primally disturbing to me.
‘Opposites attract,’ said Boro, putting his hands on his hips.
‘People aren’t magnets,’ I said, mantling my wings. ‘And neither are dragons and riders.’
Boro flinched a little. From my tone or my wings, I couldn’t tell. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘We’re both experienced. I’ve got a bright, shiny new rig…I think we’d do well together. And…’ he lowered his voice. ‘As beautiful as you are, you’re not exactly a young dragon. Me, I’m looking for a smart dragon. I love the mind. But others aren’t necessarily as cerebral as I am.’
What was with this complete change of tack? One minute, he was praising my beauty and experience, the next he was telling me I was too old for anyone else to appreciate? I resisted the urge to bare my teeth at him, but I stood straighter and forced myself to stop kneading the dirt and properly consider him.
He was…I had seen humans like him courting Sar. He was a flirt, used to getting his way through charm, and when that failed by undermining his targets. Sar had always seen right through humans like that, though she had enjoyed their attentions. I could see right through him, too, and I was a dragon and asexual besides. Maybe you could charm some dragons, but you certainly couldn’t flirt with me and expect to make a good first impression.
‘Consider it,’ said Boro, pouting up at me with his tiny, flat human face. He left his basket of salt crystals even though I hadn’t accepted his tribute; a gesture of wealth that left me unmoved.
I sighed and blew hot air through my nose, and then it was time for the next human. This one was tall and fat and anxious-looking. They were maybe in their late thirties, not so different in age to me. Their blue jacket was much-patched quilt-cloth and their boots were terribly scuffed and so stained that I couldn’t have guessed the original colour. Their hair was a short, curly mess atop their head. Black, and their skin a dark gold. A small mech orbited them; a guide mech, from the hesitance of their step and the telescopic cane they tapped before them. They must be low-vision, possibly blind.
If they had tribute, I couldn’t see it. I resisted the urge to crane my neck around, looking for it. It wouldn’t speak well of me.
They wrung their hands. I tried to remember their name, but it could have been any of the dozens of names they’d all called out at the start. ‘I don’t really know what to say,’ said the human. ‘You’ve read my file. You know what I have to offer.’
I hadn’t and I didn’t, but I could hardly admit that. I should never have come to this fetid fucking Tribute Fair.
‘I, uh…I can’t aff—my tribute is personal.’ They suddenly snapped into a new sentence, as if remembering a rote script.
I nodded, encouraging them on. Personal tributes were more the stuff of myth than practical reality, but I’d always been a little charmed by the idea of them. Stories of the dragons of old accepting family heirlooms of little value from paupers that later became princes. Fairytales.
The scruffy human before me definitely appeared to be more pauper than prince. They reached under their shirt and pulled a necklace over their head, a small talisman on a string of twine. They held it out in front of them and in spite of myself, I leaned forward to study it more closely. It was a steel disc, like an ancient coin. The surface had been smoothed and etched with a crude flower and some detailing I couldn’t quite make out. Writing, maybe. It smelled of them, long-held against their skin.
‘My mother made this,’ said the would-be rider. ‘The Bone Witch has her soul now,’ they added, invoking a human death spirit. I thought there was something sad about their voice, about the way it shook. Their mech scanned me, then continued its orbit. It was likely sending them a description of their surroundings.
I decided to take them in a little more deliberately. No swagger or confidence from this one. Their accent had been strange; not from Lema-dar, though I couldn’t tell whether it was from Ton or another planet entirely.
They were poor, too. From their ragged clothes to their natural, un-augmented body shape. To their tribute, poorer even than in fairytales. Their guide mech was a simple thing and much outdated, though it had been oiled and polished very recently.
I felt sorry for them. I didn’t want to feel sorry for them. I wanted to hate them.
In spite of their age, though, I doubted they had much experience on a rig. They had none of the confidence most would-be riders projected. ‘Remind me who you crewed with?’
‘Telphinus and Aba Mavus for one year,’ they said. Their hands tightened on their cane.
They weren’t experienced enough. Not by a long way. So why were they here?
‘Why me?’ I asked them.
They lifted their chin. Our eyes did not meet. Theirs were the dark brown of soil after rain. Mine, I knew, the amber of tree sap. ‘You have experience,’ they said. ‘And I need someone I can trust.’ Their thumb rubbed across the surface of the ancient coin repeatedly.
Unlike Boro, they didn’t leave their tribute with me. It was a relief. I didn’t want to keep that little piece of their heart, knowing I would have to break it. Unless this human was much more rig-experienced than they claimed (and I could think of no good reason to hide that), they could not be my equal partner.
As they left, I called, ‘What was your name again?’
They stiffened, shoulders rising. Some in the crowd tittered, or spoke behind their hands with knowing looks.
I hadn’t meant to humiliate them. I simply hadn’t read their file.
But then, I was old enough to know that your own pain often leaked out into others in unexpected ways.
‘Rin Loe,’ they said over their shoulder. Then they returned to the line with the other waiting would-be riders, their head lowered.
The last human presented himself. A soft-looking man with a kind smile and well-made, plain clothes. He was perhaps fifty, with ash-blonde hair trending toward grey and dark, friendly eyes. ‘I’m Jara Boon,’ he said quickly, causing everyone to laugh, including a small chuckle from me, in spite of myself. ‘Best to get that out of the way, just in case,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll consider me, Luxorian. I’ve flown with Talhara and Xenorius as rig crew, and in general believe in flying smart rather than fast, and avoiding scrapes where I can. I’m a good listener if you’ve a mind to chat, and I don’t have the time to get angry or sullen when things go wrong.’
He offered me his tribute, a large blanket with a fine, tight-weave that would be very comfortable indeed. A worthy but not ostentatious offering, which I supposed was the sort of tribute I would have hoped for, if I had hoped for anything at all.
I dipped my head to him in formal acknowledgement, and told him I would consider him. As he returned to the line of would-be riders, I thought that if his file checked out, he would probably make a good partner. When Sar and I had chosen each other all those years ago, I would never have considered gentleness to be a necessity in a rider; afterall, what could a human hope to do to a dragon?
I had not yet been wise enough to understand that not all violence comes by way of a claw or fist.
It was a little while before the other dragons finished receiving their tribute. The two-headed dragon asked to deliberate further and contact the successful candidate later. The feathered wyrm who’d been so scathing of the offered humans warmly accepted a young woman who actually squealed in delight and bounced on the spot. A cheer went up, but I found it hard to share in their joy. I wondered if their partnership would work out well.
I wanted it to work out well.
But I also sort of hated their happiness.
I left the Tribute Fair as soon as I could, fleeing the market area with a careful haste. Much though I wanted to spread my wings and take off, I couldn’t do so without sending a dozen humans flying and terrifying the rest. I felt not just the eyes of the humans and bots on me but also my fellow dragons. I shivered, fluffed up my feathers, and trotted faster down the street and out of sight.
I headed for Xax’s, the only dragon-owned public house in Lema-dar, and one of only a handful built to fit a dragon’s size that wasn’t also open-air. I ducked through the wide double-doors and into the large hab-dome complex, laid out with enough room to shake out your wings without disturbing the other customers sitting at their little tables. The whole place had a surprisingly natural vibe; the ceiling had a trellis curving over it with vines twining along it and every table and booth, though made of old, dinged-up wood and metal, was surrounded by a bright array of potted plants. Ton as a planet was pretty green, but the region around Lema-dar was largely brushland. It was always nice to see some bright, leafy fronds instead of the patches of bramble and lone, brittle trees I had become accustomed to.
There were only two dragons in here now; one enjoying a large pot of drink and curled around a small table where two humans talked quietly, and the other behind the bar, directing a small bevy of humans and bots.
I made for the dragon behind the bar. She was a squarely-built drake, heavily scarred, largely scaled but with a long ridge of hair following her spine and topping her tail. Glittering blue scales and wings, but with silver fur.
‘Hi Xax,’ I said. ‘Can I get a pot of lemly juice?’
Xax nodded and gestured to the human beside her wiping down the bar. They immediately left off their cleaning and set to work. ‘Which table?’
‘I’ll take a booth in the back,’ I said. There were a few dragon-sized booths that were good to curl up on and weren’t sized to be human-friendly.
I headed there now, climbing onto the broad, padded seat and wrapping my tail around the base of the large table. It was a good size and a pleasant height; Xax had really done her work well.
I couldn’t help but brood, watching the other dragons and their humans. The other customer looked like a Cosmic Defender, judging from the bright insignia on his padded vest, and the uniforms of the humans sitting with him. For all his job was violent and steeped in propaganda, he looked relaxed. Lazy, even. And at ease with these humans, presumably his rider and crewmate.
Xax was a different story entirely. She’d been a merchant dragon like me a long time ago, but had also done a bit of treasure hunting on the rim. Adventuring didn’t usually pay well, but Xax had hit it big. She and her rider had both retired, and she’d made enough to start this pub and hire humans to handle all those small, fiddly things humans were so necessary for. She had no need of a rider anymore, though whenever her former partner came by, there was a big party at the pub.
I’d been a good enough merchant dragon but didn’t really have a head for trade, or the kind of charm that could helpfully back up my rider. I’d thought Sar had more than enough charm for the both of us, anyway. But now I had no Sar, and the money I’d saved from the work was fast dwindling without picking up more. A few more months, and I’d be out hunting for my meals like a wild animal—and I’d have to leave Lema-dar, too, since the brushlands here couldn’t sustain large game.
Two humans brought me a large pot of juice, which I lapped at sullenly. It was delicious: sweet and just a little bit sharp. Too pleasant for my miserable mood, because I wouldn’t want to give up luxuries like this—but I’d been increasingly thinking that dragons had been wrong to ever leave the wild lifestyles of our ancestors. Yeah, maybe we’d only live to sixty, but at least we’d never have to make small-talk or ask a human to fasten a buckle for us.
A bot came into the pub, head turning in a perfectly level scan of the room. Its gaze fixed on me and it clanked toward me, servos and gears whirring with every movement.
I flicked the tip of my tail a few times to let out the nervous energy. What would a bot want with me?
‘Excuse me,’ said the bot. It had a humanoid but skeletal build, its face a blank mask but for the bulbs of its eyes and the slot for its speaker, where a mouth would be on a human. ‘You are Luxorian?’
I inclined my head. ‘And you?’
‘I am Finder-X239. You may call me Finder.’
My ears perked forward, my interest piqued in spite of everything. Bots had never had much interest in me before. ‘Hello, Finder. Can I help you?’
‘I have looked at your file,’ said Finder. ‘I believe we could be of aid to each other. I am looking to do some materials retrieval for my colleague, Onna. I require a dragon and void rig, and can pay well.’
‘Why a dragon and rig? Can’t you just trade for what you need?’
Finder shook its head. ‘We have very specific material needs which are not commercially or privately available. I must collect the samples myself, from remote planets, many on the rim.’
My ears flattened at that. There was something this bot wasn’t saying. Most bots found lying uncomfortable—something we had in common—but unlike an autistic dragon, a bot could be perfectly comfortable lying by omission, or talking around the truth.
And some bots didn’t have a problem with straight-up lying, either. The galaxy was a big place, after all.
‘Alright,’ I said. I started to drum my claws on the table, a rapid click that drew the bot’s gaze. ‘Why me?’
The bot stared at me. Unlike humans and dragons, most bots did not have mobile faces, and their thoughts could not be judged by facial expression. As I was not great at reading facial expressions anyway, I found this undaunting, though I read something into its momentary silence.
Maybe it was calculating another lie.
Or maybe I just made it uncomfortable. I was a fifteen feet-tall dragon to the shoulder. If you weren’t a fifteen feet-tall dragon, I could see how that might give you pause.
‘I have looked at your file,’ said Finder. It left it at that.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I don’t have a rig. I can’t help you.’
‘A rig can be provided,’ said Finder. ‘My partner and I would have no need of it when our material collection is complete. It would be reasonable to give it to you as an advance on your commission.’
An advance on my commission. An advance. A rig cost more than I had earned in ten years of flying trade routes. It had taken Sar nearly that long to pay hers off, even with a deposit paid for by her wealthy family.
With my own rig, I would have more freedom over my future than I’d ever had before. My fortune wouldn’t be tied to my rider’s.
But I would still need a rider. Or crew, at least. I couldn’t maintain the rig, nor pilot it. I could only pull it. I shuffled my wings while Finder waited with the infinite patience of a bot.
‘How much will you pay?’ I asked.
‘Two thousand credits for an estimated four weeks of work, with an additional ten credits a day per crew member for every day in excess to complete the task,’ said Finder. While I was still reeling from that (and trying to keep my jaw from hitting the floor), it continued, ‘And all board covered.’
There had to be a catch. There had to be. I wasn’t Xax; I wasn’t the one in a thousand dragons to discover an ancient treasure hoard. I was Lux, tired and left behind.
Perhaps Finder and its colleague already had a rig, and that was how they could afford this extravagance. Stolen it, perhaps, or rebuilt it from scrap. The rest of the pay was good, really good, but it wasn’t void rig good.
But the rig…the rig offered me control of my own future.
‘Would you supply the crew?’
Finder shook its head. ‘I am not experienced enough to serve as crew, though I will assist with repairs and material extraction. It is my understanding that dragons and riders choose their crew together. I leave it in your paws.’
I looked down at my paws, still drumming, still restless. Always restless. Always in need of soothing.
Maybe it was time to actually do something.
‘I accept your offer,’ I said. ‘I can have a crew ready in three weeks.’
‘Two would be better,’ said Finder. ‘Do you have a com?’
I worked the small device free of the pack semi-obscured by my feathers. Even built to a more dragon-friendly size, I still found it awkwardly small and difficult to manage. Dragon paws were simply not mobile enough, particularly with our claws in the way.
Finder leaned forward and tapped its com to mine. I saw my screen light up with Finder’s signal. ‘Please remain in touch,’ said Finder. ‘If I may, I would like to be present for your hiring process.’
A catch. Just a small one. But with a sense that I was only seeing the first pebble of the avalanche, I replied steadily, ‘Sure. I’ll let you know.’
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