America 2040 - Golden World Part 22

"If there was something fierce in there, it'd have already come out," Jacob said. "How does it get in and out?"

"Perhaps the opening is at the top," the admiral guessed. He holstered his weapon, put the laser aside, and climbed up the side of the tightly packed brush pile. "You will want to see this," the admiral said.

Jacob climbed up. The top of the pile was open, and it was now quite obvious that it was a nest. The piping squeaks were louder, and they were coming from three of the darnedest little animals Jacob had ever seen. They looked as if they had been designed by a cartoonist and finished by a maker of fine jewelry. The head of a comic dragon sported a beak, which was not quite comic. The neck was long and sinuous, the body arched, and then, supported by legs so long, the little animals seemed to totter around the nest on stilts. The legs ended in three-clawed clubbed feet, and the claws looked sharp and dangerous. But the crowning touch were dime-sized scales, extending from beaked snout to the end of the short, stubby tail, scales that caught the dim light and sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow.

"Cute little devils," Jacob said, grinning.

At the sound of his voice, the three young animals turned toward Jacob and the admiral, looked up, threw their mouths open to show a row of sharp teeth, and began to make that piping, whining sound.

And to add to the decorative effect of the rainbow scales, a peac.o.c.k ruff unfolded from just behind their heads to stand out in vivid blue.

"They think were mama," Jacob said, his dark eyes dancing. "They're hungry."

The remains of various fruits littered the well-packed ground in the s.p.a.cious interior of the nest. Jacob recognized the rind of the large fruit they'd seen. In fact, there was such a tree growing in the edge of the cleared area, but the fruit had been plucked to a height of about twelve feet. He climbed down and used his laser to cut a high branch laden with fruit, carried it back, climbed up again, and broke a fruit into small pieces with his hands at the expense of getting a sticky juice all over them. He tossed a small piece, aiming at a gaping throat, which, like the ruff around the little animals' necks, was a vivid blue. The piece was s.n.a.t.c.hed quite expertly in midair while the other two jostled and piped their disappointment.

The three colorful little beasts piped and begged until Jacob had fed them all the fruit he had.

"Admiral," he said, "we've got to take one of these little dudes back with us. They're the cutest critters I've ever seen."

"I think it would be best to leave capture of native species to the zoologists," the admiral responded.

"But they're just babies. We can take one in a capture bag with no problem."

"Those teeth and claws look quite efficient," the admiral continued.

"And you're the man who wrestled a miner," Jacob said.

"And lost," the admiral reminded him.

"Look, I'll get some more fruit. I'll lure two of them over to the other side, and you can toss bits of fruit out to get one of them to your side of the nest. Then all you have to do is leap down, throw the capture sack over his head, and get back up before the other two start chewing on you."

"Perhaps," the admiral said, "I should lure two of them to my side and letyou leap down and capture the other."

"Come on, Admiral," Jacob said. "Your skin is replaceable. Mine has togrow back." "Well," the admiral relented, "I think Grace would like to see one of them. They are quite unusual, and attractive in an alien sort of way."

"Good boy," Jacob said.

Jacob used his laser to shoot down another branch of fruit, and the deed was accomplished with a minimum of fuss, the admiral using his more-than-human agility and strength. The captive seemed to resign itself to its new surroundings quickly, so that it was immobile as they picked up their lasers and entered the trail they'd cut into the clearing.

"I want to come back and set up a camera here so that we can get a look at their mama," Jacob said.

"We'd just better make sure mama isn't home," the admiral said. "I doubt if she'd take kindly to our kidnapping one of her brood."

Jacob froze. "Do you hear something?" he asked.

"I do," the admiral said, handing Jacob the capture bag and drawing his projectile weapon as the sound of rustling came from the undergrowth on the other side of the clearing.

"Mama," Jacob gasped. "Let's get out of here."

Before he turned, he saw the creature and was very impressed with her size: legs fully eight feet long and the same long, sinewy body, but enormous, with scales seemingly radiating fires of color. He couldn't take his eyes off her. She crossed the clearing in a flash and simply stepped into the nest, from which came the sound of renewed pipings.

"Go!" Jacob urged. He moved rapidly, trying to be quiet. The admiral brought up the rear. "Admiral, don't shoot her. She's a mama, remember."

"I will have to shoot to protect your life," the admiral said. "That's the way I am."

"If she follows us, we can climb the fruit tree," Jacob panted, moving at a trot now, gripping the capture bag in one hand. The little animal in the bag suddenly emitted a very loud, very high-pitched call. There was an answering bellow from behind them.

"Run like h.e.l.l!" Jacob shouted. They were within fifty yards of the cable dangling down from the landing pad.

"Apache Two!" Jacob yelled into his communicator.

"Yo," Renato answered.

"We want to come up fast!" Jacob gasped.

"Standing by." Renato's voice drifted down from over a hundred feet up, m.u.f.fled by the canopy of foliage.

"Admiral, we'll both go up at once." "Agreed," said the admiral, looking over his shoulder as a piercing, bellowing roar of rage came from the direction of the nest and then the thunder of feet and the cracking, cras.h.i.+ng sound of Mama enlarging their pathway at high speed.

They were almost to the cable. "Stand by,Apache Two!" Jacob yelled, leaping for the hook, his foot going in first, the admiral's on top of it. "Oh, d.a.m.n, Admiral," he groaned, "mybones have to mend, too."

The cable jerked and began to move upward slowly. The sound of snapping, cras.h.i.+ng underbrush was much nearer, and the shrieking bellow told them that Mama was very, very angry.

"Faster!" Jacob yelled. The cable jerked and began to move faster, and there was Mama, peac.o.c.k ruff fully extended, now a fiery red of anger, eyes the size of baseb.a.l.l.s gleaming orange, beak open, teeth very impressive, the thick legs eight feet long, the neck six.

Renato, having heard Mama's protests, had cranked the winch motor to full speed.

"We are presently fifteen feet off the ground," the admiral said calmly, "moving upward at the rate of approximately ten feet per second. She will have to be able to jump twenty-five feet to-"

"Yeooooow!" Jacob yelped, as Mama leaped twenty-five feet into the air and missed doing him serious harm by a half inch as her teeth took the seat out of his pants and left b.l.o.o.d.y lines across Jacob's American Apache rump.

And then they were entering the vertical tunnel of the canopy and were being sc.r.a.ped severely by the vegetation. "Slow down!" Jacob yelled. "Slow down," he yelled again just as his head hit the grill with a thump. He saw bright lights and shook his head to realize that the upward motion had stopped.

"Take a look to see if my brains are oozing out," he joked to the admiral, who handed over the capture bag.

"I have made a decision," Jacob said to Renato as he was pulled up through the hole. "From now on any s.p.a.ce that isn't climate conditioned and off limits to all animals and insectsis off limits to all Apaches."

A few hours later he was lying flat on his stomach, embarra.s.sing portions of his anatomy exposed to the ministrations of Dr. Mandy Miller, telling her that in the face of grave danger he, personally, the Apache brave Chief Sky Flyer, had captured what was probably the most beautiful and exotic animal on Omega.

"I'm going to have to put some st.i.tches in this one," Mandy said. "Lie still while I get the local anesthetic.

"Me heap big brave," Jacob said. "Me hate needles. How about you weld-um rump."

"Be still," Mandy said, misting anesthetic and beginning to sew.

"You use-um red thread, of course," Jacob said.

"Of course."

"White-eyes woman heap handy with needle. As reward, you can play with Baby."

"Which baby?" "My dragon. It is named Baby."

"I want to see it, of course," Mandy said. "As for playing with it, I can see what its teeth did to you."

"That was Mama."

Baby, Jacob's dragon with the technicolor scales, rapidly became the most popular resident of the new town of Hamilton. Baby was an omnivore. At first Jacob fed Baby fruit, then tested it on some table sc.r.a.ps, and soon food was no problem. Baby started growing at the rate of a full inch in height a day.

Within one week Jacob had Baby sitting up, rolling over, and begging for tasty tidbits, and nestling down, beaked head across his legs, for a soothing rub of the leathery, rainbow-hued scales. When pleased, Baby's peac.o.c.k neck ruff was a brilliant blue. She came to like Jacob, Clay Girard, Cindy, and Grace Monroe, who took time out from her wedding preparations to give Baby a quick intelligence test.

Mandy's testing revealed that Baby was a female. Baby adored Jumper, the dog, who barked and frisked and finally became trusting enough of the dragon, twice his size at first and growing rapidly, to play tug the stick with her.

When Baby began to drop her scales, Jacob was concerned and called Mandy's Life Sciences group to see what was the matter, but then new scales began to form, which were larger and more brilliantly colored. The flexible, leathery scales that she had shed began to harden almost immediately into crystalline things of such beauty that everyone in the colony wanted one, and an amateur lapidary discovered that, when artificially hardened in a temperature approaching the cold of s.p.a.ce, the scales could be faceted to gleam as impressively as the finest gemstones.

Among those who came to admire the rapidly growing Baby was Sage Bryson, and she was one of the first recipients of a dragon's scale. It came from the man who loved her.

"How very sweet of you," she said, touching his hand. "It's so beautiful."

"I wish I could give you more. I want to give you everything."

"Your company and your kindness are more than enough for me," she said. "I'm not greedy. I just wish there was something I could do for you."

She liked to tease him like that. She liked to strike flirtatious poses, liked to greet him in her quarters dressed in her skimpiest shorts and halter. She liked touching him, running her hand down his arm, or through his hair. And all the time she was laughing inside, laughing at all the men who, throughout her life, would have crawled on their hands and knees to get the same treatment.

"I hesitate to suggest it," he said, "but there is something you can do, Sage."

"All you have to do is ask."

"I'd like a name. I mean, my t.i.tle is good enough for use in my official capacity, but I think it would be nice to have a real name, one that only you and I know."

She smiled. Sometimes the game got rather interesting. "Let me see. The name of some famous admiral?" "No, no, I think something a bit more personal."

"I've always liked the name Rhett. It's an old name. There was a Rhett in a cla.s.sic cinema film from the mid-twentieth century. He was quite handsome, and brave, and devil-may-care."

"Rhett," the admiral said. "If you like it, I like it. Will you call me that when we're alone?"

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Want me to?"

"I'd like that."

"All right, Rhett."

"Yes, I like it," the admiral said. "There is something I feel that I should mention, Sage. I hesitate, because it might bother you, but-"

"You know you can say any old thing to me," she a.s.sured him.

"It has been noticed that we are spending time together," he said. "In fact, there is some talk about it, and some good-natured joking."

"I know," she said, taking his hand between hers. His hand was simply marvelous, she thought, so lifelike, and never damp and sweaty, the waytheir hands always got when they touched her. And she could hold it as long as she liked and be a.s.sured that he would never, never try to put it down inside her skimpy halter, or elsewhere.

"I know," she repeated. "Don't let it bother you. They just don't understand."

There were times whenshe didn't understand. It had started as a game. It was really funny the way he looked at her, adoration in his eyes, just as if they were real eyes. But then it was nice to be adored and have nothing demanded of her. She'd been thinking seriously of being seen more often with him in public.

That would really be rubbingtheir noses in it.

"It doesn't bother you?" the admiral asked.

"Not in the slightest. You re more human than any man I've ever known."

"Sage, there are some things I wonder about."

"What?"

"Youare human, with human biological processes and, presumably, human urges."

"You're not going to talk nasty are you?"

"Oh, no, please," he said quickly. "It's just that I can't-uh, give you anything, uh-"

"Hush," she said. "You can give me a ma.s.sage."

"Yes, I can do that." She'd taught him. She loved the feel of his gentle, dry hands. He was programmed to know the human anatomy perfectly, had tapped into the health and fitness material in the library to learn all there was to know about the art of ma.s.sage. Back on Earth she'd been ma.s.saged, by women, of course, and none of them had even come close to the admiral's skill.

"Now?" he asked.

"Unless you have something else to do," she said, a bit petulantly.

"Oh, no." He lifted her gently from her chair. She liked that. He was so strong and so gentle. He had installed a ma.s.sage table in her bedroom. It made things a bit crowded, but it was wonderful to be lifted, to be placed gently down on the padded top, to have her shorts and halter removed without even a hint of carnality, to have every muscle in her body ma.s.saged so thoroughly.

After a long, delicious time, he rolled her onto her back and began to work on her front thigh muscles.

"Do you know, darling, that no man has ever seen me like this?"

"I'm sure that they would find you as beautiful as I do," he said.

"Sometimes you're stupid," she said harshly.

"I'm sorry. How was I wrong in saying that?"

"Oh, forget it," she said. "Work on my rectus abdominus."

The admiral had never seen a naked woman before he'd started giving Sage ma.s.sages, but he had seen pictures and anatomical models. He knew the biological purpose of the taut, pert b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the hotly moist v.a.g.i.n.al area, which he never touched and had no desire to touch.

He knew, too, that it was not normal, human normal, this relations.h.i.+p with Sage, and he worried about her.