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.It had taken four of them to put him to bed.In the morning they all followed his orders sullenly.He was aweeder-but he knew dragons.His fingers pointed to one hatchling after another, sorting, hesitating onlyonce at a well-spotted orange that was assigned, at last, to the beauty group.Jakkin was secretly pleasedthat he had guessed all but that last correctly.His eye was as good as Likkam s.He also knew that all over Austar IV similar Culling Days were held.It was reasonable to select the bestdragons for breeding.Once, so the books told him, the great Austar dragons had been on the edge ofextinction and the first settlers had slowly brought them back.The encyclopedia had a whole article onthe dragons.They used to fight one another to the death, and it had taken men to train them-retrain them,really-to their old instincts of fighting only until dominance was assured.But that didn t make Culling Dayany easier to bear.Jakkin wondered briefly why the culling had to be so violent, why the hens and hatchlings had to besubjected to such a hard separation.But he knew that the only way to choose the hatchlings properlywas to see them all together.And there was no practical way to quiet the culls terror.Stunning thehatchlings would ruin the tender young meat for the stews and could disorder the beauty-dragonscompletely.Besides, as Jakkin knew full well, there were very few power cells for the extinguishers to behad.They were used sparingly, and only in life-and-death situations.That night, out on the oasis, Jakkin sat with his dragon s head in his lap.He sang it all the old songs heknew and tried to think pleasure at it while he scratched behind its ears.But the darker side of CullingDay must have nuzzled through his thoughts, for the dragon pushed his hand aside, stood up, and trottedbeyond the weed patch.He heard it snuffling as it went.Leaving it to its own thoughts, he returned to thenursery early.Two days later, the nursery had settled down again, the hens starting the long process of weaning theirremaining hatchlings.In the oasis, Jakkin had to do the same.He made himself stay away, going backevery third or fourth night with dread, fearing to find that the dragon had died of starvation without him.Each time he returned, the dragon greeted him joyfully, larger by another handbreadth than the last visit,and the weed and wort patch full of signs of its browsing.Jakkin was torn between pleasure at hisdragon s growth-it was now as tall as he was-and a lingering disappointment that the snatchling did notseem to have needed him during his absence.But his pride in the growing strength and ability of hisdragon soon overshadowed everything.It was on the last day of the training season that he taught it a move that was in none of the books.It wasan accident, really.They had been playing, though Jakkin now had to play with the dragon much morecarefully.It was a little higher than his head, and its legs were the width of half-grown spikka trees.Thescales of its back and neck and tail were as hard and shiny as new-minted coins.Only along the belly andwhere its legs met the firm trunk were the scales still butter soft.Jakkin had rolled on the ground, propelled by a light tap from the dragon s tail, and had ended up on itsleft wing.The wing s ribs were encased in the hard grayish skin that contrasted sharply with the dragon sdark red body.Only at the knobby part of the wings, where the rubbery skin stretched taut, was there ahint of red in the gray.Shakily Jakkin stood up on the dragon s wing, careful not to scrape or tear it.The dragon turned its head slowly to look at him, its eyes black shrouds. See, mighty worm, if thou canst free thyself of this encumbrance, said Jakkin, standing very still.The dragon opened its mouth and yawned, then fluttered its free wing slowly.Jakkin began to relax. Nothing? Canst do nothing? he taunted gently.He watched the fluttering freewing.Suddenly the tail came around and swept him off the pinioned wing in a single fluid motion.Caughtunaware, Jakkin tumbled back ward and rolled into the embrace of the dragon s left leg.For a full minuteit would not let him go.He could feel its laughter in his head, great churning waves of blue and green. And that, said Jakkin when the dragon let him up at last,  that we will call the Great Upset. He dustedhis clothes off with his hands. I let you knock me down.A dragon in the pits will not be so easilyfooled. He had started to walk away when the dragon s tail came up behind him and pushed him intothe sand once again.Jakkin laughed and turned over on his back. You win.You win, he said as the tail came down andnudged under his arm, where the dragon knew he was especially ticklish.chapter 32AND THEN IT was the season of stud.The bonders were kept busy day and night, helping the studs to preen, leading them one at a time into thearena-sized courtyards where the chosen hen waited.As the humans watched, the dragon courtshipbegan.The female stood, seemingly uninterested, while the male paced around the yard, measuring it with hiseye.Every once in a while, he stopped and sprayed the floor with the extended scent glands on theunderside of his tail or breathed smoky gusts onto the sand.His hackit s rose.The circling continued untilthe hen either curled into a ball, pretending to sleep-which indicated that she was uninterested in themale-or until she leapt several feet in the air, pumping her great wings and lifting her tail.If she turned down the courting male s offers, the bonders would jump into the ring and take the deflateddragon away.Deflated was the word, Slakk commented once, as he led Bloody Flag out of the ring.Themale dragon s scent gland hung as loose as a coinless bag and his hackles had returned to normal size.But once a hen accepted the male, showing her preference by her leap above the ring, the male wingedinto the air after her.Then they both shot into the sky, above the roofless courtyard, the female screamingher challenge to the male, who followed always slightly behind.They rose screaming and spiraling abovethe nursery, higher and higher, until they were merely black, swirling specks in the sky.An hour later, the frantic courting flight over, the two returned together, wingtip to wingtip, to thecourtyard, where a moss-covered floor pad had been rolled out by the bonders.There, in full view of thewatchers, the cock dragon mounted and mated with the hen.Then they lay side by side for the rest of thenight.The following morning, separated by mutual consent and the prod-sticks of the bonders, the studwent back to his own stall, the female to the incubam.Jakkin only managed to get to the oasis one evening a week during the season of stud, for he wassuddenly promoted to helping with the matings, under Likkam s direct supervision.It was not an easyjob.It also meant that he shared Bond-Off with Likkam.Jakkin s one worry was that the old man wouldtrack him over the sands just for spite, to get even with him for every mistake-real and imaginedthatJakkin made in the mating courtyards.But each Bond-Off Likkam disappeared first.After the thirdBond-Off, Jakkin relaxed his guard.He guessed that Likkam had found someplace away from thenursery to spend the day smoking blisterweed, since each morning after Bondoff Likkam s eyes were afurious red [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]