A Sending of Dragons Read Online Free PDF Page A

sight.
    Jakkin shrugged and went back to the cave, emerging with a handful of wort. He shared it out, saving the largest portion for Sssargon.
    â€œ
Brave Sssargon. Sssargon eats.
” After his announcements the hatchling finished his wort in a single bite, then rose onto his hind legs and gave a hop that sent him some three feet straight up into the air. He pumped his wings at the same time and took off, rocketing up.
    As if on cue, the triplets went after him, throwing themselves over the cliffside to catch different parts of the air current, tumbling and bumping in a kind of midair brawl.
    Finally Sssasha stepped to the cliff edge.
    She moved her long neck up and down, head bobbing, as if she were trying to figure out the winds. Her sendings were rosy bubbles in a slow-moving stream, calm and indecipherable. Then, apparently satisfied, she stepped off the cliff and, after a long, slow fall, unfurled her wings to their fullest with a soft
shushing
and floated to the valley below as if she weighed no more than a feather.
    After a quiet minute, Jakkin said softly, “They’ve landed.”
    â€œYes,” Akki replied. “And they’re grazing. When they eat, their minds go blank and all I get from them is a kind of quiet chuckling.” She laughed. “I wonder if we do that, too?”
    Jakkin walked away from the cliff edge and sat back down on his haunches. “Maybe dragons can afford to be mindless, but
we
have to think, Akki.”
    â€œAbout what?” She flipped her braid to the front.
    â€œAbout the copters and who may be searching for us and—”
    â€œWhat makes you so sure they’re looking for us? They could be looking for anyone.
They might be looking for dragons. Or sightseeing.” She shrugged. “It’s been months since we ‘died.’”
    â€œWho else would they be looking for?”
    â€œRebels.”
    â€œThe rebels are in the cities, blowing things up. Why would they come out here? There’s nothing to destroy.” His tone was bitter. “It has to be us the copter was searching for. The Fedders wouldn’t waste a copter on anyone small. Sightseeing, ha! What can
they
see at night? As for dragons, if they want to see dragons, they go to the pits.”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œI’m sure!” Jakkin’s mind added a solid exclamation point.
    Leaning against the rock face, Akki mused, “If they’re looking for us, it can’t be the Fedders. What Federation rules did we break?”
    â€œThat bomb we were tricked into carrying must have killed a lot of Federation starship crewmen at the pit,” Jakkin said.
    â€œJakkin, I know you dislike politics, but even you know that we are a Protectorate world, not a member of the Fed Congress.
Not yet, anyway. That means the Fedders have no rights here. They’re bound by
our
laws. It’s the wardens who enforce those laws. If the Federation doesn’t like what’s going on here, there’s only one thing it can do.”
    â€œEmbargo!” Jakkin said.
    â€œExactly—embargo. No Fedder ships in and no Austarians out.”
    Jakkin added grimly, “And no outside bettors for the pits. No imported metals. No contact with the Federation worlds for fifty years. If that happens, we won’t be popular.”
    Akki laughed, but there was nothing happy in the sound. It was brief and hawking, more like a cough than a laugh.
    â€œWell, it can’t be the rebels looking for us, can it?” Jakkin said, as much to order his own thoughts as to ask for an answer. “They don’t have copters, unless they’ve stolen one.” “They’d like to do that, I’m sure,” Akki put in.
    â€œBut stolen copter or not,” Jakkin continued, “why would
they
be looking for us?”
    â€œI could still identify them,” Akki said. “At least some of them. At least Number One, the leader of my rebel