They ducked and ran.
Chrysum roared again. More flames tickled the running men’s feet. Then the fire stopped as the dragon back-winged and dropped to the ground beside the open barrels. He slurped up the liquid as rapidly as a child with a reed straw with a glass of milk. Then he sucked on the second barrel, draining it before Berd could blink twice.
Chrysum paused and sank back on his haunches. He opened his mouth. Only a slender trickle of dying flames dribbled from his mouth, through the froth of beer foam that rimmed his lips.
A look of almost surprise pushed the dragon’s eyes open wide. All the colors of the rainbow, dominated by shining gold and fire green, swirled together. He bent his head to start on the third barrel and paused again. Then a deep rumble grew from the tip of his tail, rolling up and out on a belch. Berd clapped his hands over his ears before the sound deafened him. He couldn’t cover his nose as well. The sulfurous miasma nearly felled him.
Chrysum lifted his head and bellowed in triumphant relief.
(Thank you.)
“Did I just hear that?” Berd asked in wonder.
“Aye, you did. You are honored. The dragons do not often deign to speak to mere humans. They haven’t learned to trust you yet.”
“He spoke to you…”
“I’m not an ordinary human.”
(One more drink. Come share,) Chrysum suggested.
“Um…” Berd eyed the two empty barrels the dragon had tipped over in order to drink the last of the dregs, and the half empty barrel he currently sucked the liquid out of. “We don’t want to deprive you,” he said hesitantly.
“Don’t insult him by declining the invitation. Besides, you deserve the reward of a good long drink. You saved the plains from this dragon’s upset stomach.” Lyman slapped Berd’s back, urging him back to the road.
“Not quite, that fire is still growing!” Berd backed away from the blaze.
Chrysum backwinged. The fire kept coming.
“We need water!” Berd called.
(Then make water,) the dragon called. He sounded almost drunk. Were two barrels enough to make a dragon tipsy?
Then the dragons’ words penetrated Berd’s mind, reminding him that he’d barely taken time to take a leak this morning. After last night’s beer he really needed to take a leak.
He approached the edge of the fire, opened his trews and loosed a stream. A bit of fire retreated. He spread his aim. More fire retreated. Lyman joined him with a really impressive stream. Someone handed Berd a mug of beer and he replenished his load. Within seconds all of his men had a full tankard and a weapon against the fire.
Berd drank deeply, as much as he craved, and then some. “Good thing there aren’t any women with us. They’d line up judging accuracy and duration.”
“And awarding prizes,” Lyman chuckled.
The fire tried valiantly to hold its own.
Chrysum joined the party drowning half an acre.
Berd looked over his shoulder at the milling steeds still attached to their sledges some distance off. They were safe for now.
Just then the dragon belched again. Not a hint of flame left his mouth and his recycled air smelled of hops and yeast and barley. He eyed the fifth barrel longingly.
“Thanks, master dragon, aye, I’ll drink with you. But then I’ve got a cargo to deliver and a farm to buy. You come to me when your dinner doesn’t sit well and I’ll give you new beer to damp your flames.”
Uncommon Valor
Manny Frishberg
Master Sergeant Ernest Kravitz stood at attention on the specially constructed platform, staring off at the cloudless, teal sky, a bead of sweat hanging on his eyebrow. Beside him, his crewmate Technical Sergeant Ranolph Urquell dug a finger under the starched collar of his dress uniform and tugged.
“I’ve never even seen an actual hero before now, and here we both are, heroes ourselves,” Urquell whispered. Ernie just stared at his crewmate, his lip curled in distain before his smile broke through.
“If they ever let us off this waterlogged hell,” Kravitz muttered before he noticed the Nimrazzian First Counselor loping sideways toward them. The FC turned to face them and bowed, bending from his lower knees, back curled and eyestalks stretching to look both of the emissaries in the face at once. His thorax flaps jiggled and emitted a long, modulated shriek that the exos described as a sign of respect and awe.
Personally, Ernie couldn’t see how they distinguished the Nimrazzian’s gender, if Nims even came in different genders. All he could say for sure was that they’d probably taste delicious poached in apricot ale. Or they smelled like they would.
Col. Hazelshen moved in Kravitz’s direction, stepping right through the Nim’s First Counselor in the process. Her holographic image shimmered like a mirage overlaying the FC’s iridescent shell until she realized the faux pas and quickly stepped back. A low, fluttering noise came out of the speaker, a sound of contrition the exos had recorded in their sessions with their Nimrazzian counterparts. All the Nimrazzians on the platform curled themselves in concave gestures of confusion—acknowledging such a social misstep would have obliged them to break off contact for at least a dark-light cycle, which lasted for 87 hours on Nimra.
Twelve Earth-standard days out from Hyperion, just about the whole crew had gone down for the Big Sleep. Thanks to time-contraction, at .89c, the 24-year trip to HD 40307g would take just about thirty-seven days, as they counted them aboard ship. Even so, the sociopsychs had determined that more than 16 days of idleness led to a breakdown of morale and decreased fighting effectiveness.
Urquell’d had first anti-collision watch, two relative weeks on his own except for the ulitibots. Ernie had taught about half of the general utility robots to render a fair approximation of small talk to keep Randy from going insane on his own like that. The ‘bots’ basic SDK included a vocabulary of around 200 words, a dozen grammar elements, and a heuristic rule generator. But they also had a five-branch limiter to their logic tree to keep them from getting too independent or creative in their work, so they didn’t make what you’d call stimulating conversationalists.
Kravitz just wanted to finish giving his final instructions so he could crawl into his Sleep chamber and meditate his way into a few weeks’ oblivion. He had tired of listening to his friend go on about being alone and bored. Randy never seemed to run out of energy to bitch about things he couldn’t change and Ernie had never had the heart to just order him to shut up.
“Why don’t you make some of that rice ale of yours? That ought to keep you occupied between the proximity detector checks.” As a mess sergeant in the Terran Expeditionary Marines he specialized in making the crew delicious meals from whatever came to hand. It was a gift. One Urquell had never shown even a glimmer of talent for. Still, Randy had turned out to be a better sous chef than most technical sergeants he’d had under his command. And the man had a knack for making home brew out of just about anything. “You can set up the fermenter and train the ‘bots to monitor it until they rouse us.”
Famous last words. Utilibots were idiot savants by design. They learned routine tasks by example but they were less than worthless when it came to handling the unexpected. And, truth to tell, Randy wasn’t much better in an emergency.
Kravitz had known he was in trouble as soon as his eyes popped open. For one thing, he hadn’t been due to be roused from the Big Sleep for at least another week. For another, Randy was standing there, frozen at attention, a stricken expression on his face and Field Lt. Bengessert firmly clutching his arm. Ernie could read the animus in the lieutenant’s eyes. Son of a flag admiral, Bengessert was a stickler for regulations: first a courts martial, then throw them out the airlock.