Glorious, Fisher thought, feeling himself warming with the dragon's display. He snorted through flared nostrils, holding his flushed face still. It would not be politic to show his current feelings here on the bridge.



To confirm this thought, he flicked his gaze toward Fang's ashen features. Caught in a stoop half-standing, half-sitting, her white-knuckled fingers gripped her chairbeast so tightly the creature whimpered. "Damn," she whispered. "What happened, Papa?"



A ghost-image of Papa's visage overlaid the wraparound disk. It gave Fisher the unfortunate impression of a man on fire. "One shuttle lost, one crippled. We're still processing the reports. In the meantime, we'll regroup and get back on the hunt."



"No!" Fang said, too fast. "Bring them back in, all of them. For now. We need to analyze the new data."



"Think we can bag it," Papa persisted. "That was a sucker punch, that's all."



Fang blinked slowly, and when she opened her eyes, she was looking at Fisher. He gave her a nearly imperceptible nod. She stood all the way upright, squared her shoulders, and ordered, "Bring the shuttles back, Papa."



"Aye aye, Captain," he said. Was that a pout in his voice?



Stearn and Devereaux were whispering about something, huddled together over a picture tank. Dark, knowing twins. Light from the tank reflected as a glare on their sweaty features. Fisher took a step closer. What could they find so engaging with all this going on?

"That isn't going to work, love," Stearn said through gritted teeth. He held his eyes wide open and unblinking as if he had transparent eyelids. He probably did. "You're mine!"

Devereaux said nothing, her eyes bulging slightly with the increased magnification she was using, her face a mask of concentration.

Fisher approached and looked into the tank. Like a barbecue pit, the tank cradled a glow, and in that glow moved tiny shapes...squatting down so that his eyes just peeked over the edge, he made out an armada of tiny green bugs swarming around a noodle. Red lines as fine as hairs connected the flitting bugs. The noodle slid between the red hairs.

"What -- ?" Fisher started to say when Stearn cut him off with a bark. Luckily his noise filters cut the decibels down to something tolerable. Some bodmods were essential enough to make the time to obtain. That one had saved him from months of distraction.

Fisher turned to Devereaux for understanding. Although a hummingbird smile hovered on her lips, the images before her completely held her attention.



Stearn and Devereaux both sat hunched over, their shoulders elevated. Then he noticed their hands, which were wrapped in amoebae interfaces and accepting manual input.



Fisher winced -- they were playing a damn game. "I'm not surprised to see Stearn goofing off, but et tu, Dr. Devereaux?"



Stearn's upper lip crawled unevenly up his teeth into a lopsided grin. "We're both working a lot harder than you are, Dr. Fisher." He grunted and jerked his hands. "Mine," he said to Devereaux.



"We're running," Devereaux paused for a long moment while her hands moved in earnest, "interactive models of the dragon hunt."



Green bugs and noodles, of course it was the dragon hunt. He blinked away his misunderstanding and looked at their game again with magnified vision. After a moment, he flashed on the real thing in his mind's eye, which he preferred immensely to the noodle abstraction. "But Papa did that, didn't he? The star dragon just turned out to exceed his expectations." Magnificently, he added to himself.



"Ha," Stearn said. "You ever play a game against Papa? I mean a real game with rules and limitations, but with infinite room for creativity?"



"Of course. I have him run simulations all the -- "



"A game, man!"



"No."



"Well, let me tell you something." Stearn seemed as focused on the tank as ever, his eyes big and unblinking, his hands dancing in the amoebae, but his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. As if that would matter to Papa. "The Old Man talks a bigger game than he plays. He's, I don't know, mechanical. Stomps you the first few hundred times, then you start getting him. A game here, a game there, then more regularly. I mean, he's got a personality and everything, but it's a little more rigid than human. A little too predictable."



"Papa lacks the desperation to survive that evolution drives into every fiber of your being," Devereaux said. "He fakes it well, but you can find it if you look hard enough."



"In games?" Fisher asked.



"Absolutely," Stearn said. "What life's all about. Games are survival practice. We're bred for it. Evolution is just game theory in action. Hey there, Syl, just 'cause I'm talking to the man here doesn't mean you can sneak out so easily. Better try harder."



Sylvia said nothing, but her hands moved quickly indeed.



Fisher peered closer. "We just learned a tremendous amount about the dragons. You need to incorporate that into your simulation."



Stearn stopped biting his extended tongue and said, "We're probably four iterations behind your current model. Why not lend us a hand and analyze the new stuff and give us something realistic?"



He was going to do that anyway, he'd already decided, but he told Stearn that that was a fine idea.



"Samuel?" Fang called across the bridge. "Would you come with me, please?"



"Go on, man," Stearn said. "We'll work up some real strategies for the hunt. You make sure she's ready to make the hard decisions. I think we'll have some. Those dragons got a healthy sense of self-preservation. They are Alive with a capital 'A.'"



Maybe he should reevaluate Stearn...or Devereaux, rather. He was probably just repeating what she'd said. She was the brains of the couple, it was clear. Well, except for maybe when it came to games, he granted. Stearn practiced those often enough.

Fisher stood up, turned, and walked into a wall.

"Excuse me," Henderson said down to him. "I was just watching."



"Um, right." Fisher said, ducking around the giant. The biotechnician was another one to consider after his entrance today. Why the sudden change? What did he know? Was he a wild card to be watched himself?



Lord, he longed to focus on only his beloved dragon once again. The dragons were right out there. With all the technology at their disposal, they should be able to reach out and just pluck one off the proverbial tree of knowledge, and bite deep. But he had already waited so long, the giddy height of this last act could stretch out to infinity, and perhaps like the moment before orgasm this would be better if prolonged. Even so, playing the crew felt confusing and unrewarding today. Still, he had to do it to make sure things got done right. Or at least not too wrong.



Plenty of time to make sure. The disk was as stable as it ever got, and they were learning more every minute about this dragon, which still showed no signs of diving deep. Now, why was that?

"Samuel, are you coming?"

Fang's voice stirred him from his reverie. Blinking away the stare at the display he'd fallen into, he asked, "Where to, Lena? Need to unwind? Need to spar?" He bent his head and put up his "dukes," as she'd called them.

"No," she said, turning to exit the bridge.

Shrugging, Fisher followed. He was in 'good boy' mode -- he could do anything for the dragon, and he was proving it to himself. He should be working on the problem directly, adding the new data to his models, and he would as soon as Fang finished with him. Even Stearn appeared to be working on the problem directly at the moment. But after their failures in these initial dragon encounters, he dared not underestimate the importance of supporting Fang properly.

Fang walked quickly, her boots thudding into the defenseless ruglings with an authority that Fisher found appealing. Fisher once again trailed behind and admired the way her rear bounced to the rhythm of her steps. He had neglected his own needs too much, perhaps, and maybe in supporting Fang he would support himself. Some of his best ideas came at unexpected moments when the conscious mind fell under the influence of primitive drives.

Maybe it wasn't too late to have it all.



But he stopped himself from pursuing that thought. So far they had nothing but a few scraps of data on the star dragons...and probably had already left thousands of corpses. Or rather, she had. Life was too cheap in this century -- that century they had come from, rather -- even the most remarkable life. Life had become technology and evolution swept away the less fit faster than ever, punctuated equilibrium timed to economic cycles. In the century they would return to would things be any different? He feared not.

He feared they would be worse.

He looked at Fang, at her fine body, as she strode along the corridor so self-assuredly in her only slightly wrinkled uniform. He stumbled along, his steps short and fast with the extra weight, feeling awkward and uncertain.

Was their failure so far her fault? Or the fault of the times they came from that guided her choices? Or had the Biolathe brain for its own arcane reasons given her special instructions?

Enough. He didn't have to think conspiracy every second...but what if he missed something he could have discovered with a little more effort? Perhaps right now he should pursue every thought as far as he could, lest he risk missing something. If he missed something, it would be a tragedy. A year and a thousand, wasted.



Playing games, and thinking everyone else was playing games, was difficult. Single-minded obsession so much easier!



Fang vanished inside her cabin, leaving the portal wide open in welcome. When he rounded the corner, she was already prone on the bed, her boots kicked off, her rump inviting him for a good life-affirming rut.

He smiled at that thought and, after closing the portal, padded forward.

Fang didn't stir.

Fisher dug his toes into his heels and pried off his own streakers. He came to the edge of the baffled waterbed and climbed on like a hunting beast. He was still smiling.

Fang lay there motionless, her breathing slow, steady, and deep.

Fisher reached out, intending to snake his hand around to cup her breast, and stopped. This was what he wanted, but all his wants right now had to be subverted to reach his goals. To do that, he intended now to make Fang feel strong. Secure. What would do that?

He moved his hand. He wrapped his fingers around her shoulder, rubbing its ball in the palm of his hand. He slid his body closer so that his arm rested along her side and his chest pressed against her back. He nuzzled her neck, gently. He flared his nostrils and sucked in air, smelled her sweat. It didn't excite him. Rather, in his current mind, he perceived a sourness in the smell that hinted at fatigue poisons and stress.

Fang made a small noise that came from deep in her throat, a noise halfway between grunt and hum. She didn't otherwise stir.

Of course she was bone tired. Hadn't she been watching the disk for hours while sitting perched on the edge of her chair like some hungry raptor desperate for a meal? He hadn't given it much thought at the time, except to be pleased that she was making every effort to make the mission a success. He'd been working, too, after all.

This is hard, paying attention to everyone else, he thought for the thousandth time.

Fisher pressed his fingers into her skin, massaging her shoulder. Fang rolled onto her stomach, and Fisher sat up and began to give her a back rub. Then, inspired, he recalled the hardchip routines that Atsuko had asked him to install fifty years -- three hundred years -- ago. They still sat unused in his motor control biochip. He should have used them before, that night he'd given the extended back rub. Tonight would be easier work, on his hands anyway. He thought the command activating the chip, with his eye scrolled down the options, and activated Shiatsu!

Under their own volition, his hands danced a quickstep across Fang's back.

Fang made a sound of surprise, a happy sound if he intuited right, followed by a low, deep groan. "Yes," she whispered. "Do that."

Somehow she managed to fall asleep in just a few minutes despite the massage.

Fisher let the program run through its full hour duration, damning and praising Atsuko both in random moments. His unsatisfied erection lasted the whole time.