Samuel Fisher smiled at Fang as he sank into his couchbeast. She didn't smile back.



He didn't mind. It was not a slight. Not in the least. She was girding herself for battle and wearing her game face. This was what had attracted him to Lena Fang in the first place: her serious competence. Physically she was as beautiful as ever, with her firm fluted lips and perfect hair, but more attractive was the resoluteness he read in her eyes. This mission was her baby as much as his, and she was set to defend it with all her formidable powers. No way she would fail again.



No way.



And then he knew for certain that his shift was real, that he was on Fang's side rather than the dragon's. He had been watching her in these moments, not his former obsession. He hoped he could convince Fang that his allegiance was genuine. He had to admit to himself that in her position, he would not easily find trust, if at all. Atsuko, perhaps long dead now and lost to him -- one curse of Einstein's legacy -- had warned him of his troubles mixing work and human relationships. He was not good in dealing with the gray areas. Not good at all he had to admit.



He decided that the best way to begin earning Fang's trust was to give her his trust first. There would come an opportunity for her to test him, and he would be ready, but he had to prepare her for that step. This fell under her bailiwick. He would help her best by focusing on his strength: dragon biology. Both that of the adult and the egg.

Securing an egg would be better in many ways than capturing an adult. There existed myriad problems with the jury-rigged cage they had developed. It would remain jury rigged in his mind until it was tested. Better not to have to test it. Then there were the complications of trying to keep such an alien creature alive. Only seventeen percent of first-time alien acquisitions were successful in doing so for more than a year, and those were not nearly so different as these star dragons. There were still some Earth species they could not keep alive in captivity, great white sharks for one.

He asked Papa for a datalink to his couch terminal and accessed the observations of the egg. The shuttles hadn't been equipped with all the remote observing instruments that he would have wished for, but he would make do with what information they sent. If there was anything there to exploit, anything that might make the dragon think her egg already lost, or safe elsewhere, he would find it.

But with a glance at their relative positions and velocities, he realized that he had better work fast.