The sound of ruffling paper and tiny scratches woke Fisher. Lying on Lena Fang's bed, he propped his head up with his arm so he could better watch her at work. She bent over the desk in a position that would cause his lower back to throb if he were to assume it regularly. Her face hovered centimeters from the surface of an unrolled paper, and her arms and legs extruded from her red silk robe like the multiply-articulated legs of a graceful arthropod. Waves of concentration emanated from her with a palpable force and he became exhausted watching her. He rolled onto his back. He studied the aquamarine and turquoise sea mosaic on her ceiling -- an octopus's tentacle reminded him of the dragon's twisted body -- while he listened to the scratching of her pencil. His unceasing internal voice that urged him to rise and resume his own work was present, but nearly as quiet as the pencil.



He smiled.



His first weeks aboard the Karamojo had smeared into a pleasant blur. He was working as hard as ever, but for the first time in many years, hints of contentment emerged in quiet moments while not at work. He continued to work every day on developing his hypotheses about the star dragon, on reliable theories of its energy budget and metabolism, locomotion and its limits, reproduction and selection pressures, and other areas. He also worked out every day. He skipped rope to help his footwork and coordination, punched the bagbeasts, and sparred with Fang. He managed to keep up with her, mostly, and the residual muscle aches his system failed to purge pleased him, a memento of his advancement in this strange new phase of his life. And then there were moments of no work, like this one.



He had even permitted his hormonal levels, normally suppressed while on a big project, to creep back up to those of a seventeen-year-old boy.



"Why are you smiling?" Fang suddenly asked.



He remained on his back, turning only his head to regard her. Why was he smiling? Why not? But that was trite, and he applied some of his much promoted brain power to the question, trying to peer past the shimmering veil of contentment she had engendered in him. Why was he content? Because Fang was beautiful and tough and a captain he could count on. Because he had a quest to occupy his mind and love (maybe!) to fill his heart. Because of the way she bent over the table and the way the dragon swirled around a magnetic field line. Because the equation of his life balanced. Because a hundred 'becauses' filtered into his consciousness with her single question of why. Because there were a hundred more 'whys' to be asked, and he was filled with the certainty that the answers would fall to him as easily given an infinite future. Because everything was perfect for once.



"Why not?" he finally answered, resisting the urge to name his happiness, to over explain it, and thus in capturing the elusive thing to kill it.



Fang smiled back at him before resuming her work.



Everything was so perfect that Fisher finally asked himself a question better left unasked: what was going to ruin it?