R.S.V.P.
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Slimeworld & Galaxy Magazine -- All rights reserved -- |
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Chapter XVII
by General (Uncle Claude) Xxaxx
& General (E.J. Gold) Nunan PFC 1st Class Ret.
Leaving the manicured asphalt oasis of the university Woo was in the jungle almost instantly. The jungle took back everything that was not carefully and laboriously denied it. Walking through the mix of jungle vegetation and experimental hybrids left around by students of the bio-engineering department, Woo began humming the Dragon Song.
The dragons are my friends,
As all beginning students, Professor Woo learned this little ditty the first day of Dragon 101. “I don’t know which I found more soothing the gentle singsong rhyme of the verse or the slightly amused expression that would flow over a dragon’s face whenever they heard this piece.”
Dragon Lore [Cypher 7; Code 3] The thing about dragons eating fair maidens was all a mistake in the first place and had nothing to do with devouring them in the second place. In any case, no dragon could recall the last time that a dragon had eaten any meat. What with the horrible diet that humans were eating and the countless poisons with which the grazing lands have been drenched, no dragon has tasted meat for hundreds of years. If not for the amusement that the dragons relished in having a “reputation”, they could have corrected these misconceptions years ago. To a dragon it was so fun watching a new student lamely bolster his or her confidence and timidly approach making promises of ear scratching if only he or she wouldn’t be eaten. The ear scratching was one benefit and doing anything to stem the endless tide of bothersome questions from new students was the second benefit. After third year comprehensives in contemporary dragon history — then, boy o’ boy then the questions became incessant.
“Yo, Drakie baby. What’s happening?” Woo called into the morning mists of the heavy forest undergrowth hoping to flush the dragon from his hiding. She had left Little Roy at the hotel barely an hour ago with the promise to return from yet another shopping trip within five days or less. Waiting for Drak to emerge, Woo engaged in one of her favorite pastimes —talking to herself. “I suppose I could have arranged somehow to leave the goober in Merika if I chose to, but what the hey, the way I figure it a hotel in China is the safest place for the little guy. Bosspersons are getting very a bit too weird at the moment. Ja Mere has had the audacity to accuse me of becoming motherly. I’m sure that swollen ear will caution his mouth next time. Besides the little goober deserves a break or two. Whoa, I forgot the wall of smell that foreshadows an appearance by our illustrious friends the dragons. Of course, if I didn’t have such a keen sense of clairolfascence I wouldn’t have such a foreshadow of their appearance. Now would that be the good news or the bad news?”
If not for a little misunderstanding between the university and the dragon cownsil, Drak would have responded with “Over here, bitch.” the appropriate response to “Yo, Drakie, baby.” But out of respect for Professor Woo’s voguing, he didn’t. Instead he responded with something a bit more in keeping with the delicately tuned relationship, Drak emerged from the undergrowth with great crashing and commotion, “What do you want buzzard breath?”
Dragon Lore [Cyper 7;Code 2] A tribute to the deference that dragons yield to humans is their apparent cooperation with the university’s insistence that only men be allowed to participate in dragon studies. Long ago some dragon or other made an amusing quip (Cross-reference Symbolic Literature: The Maiden & The Dragon) to a member of the curriculum committee about a particular female student and ever since the male dominated colleges have used it as an excuse to exclude women from dragon studies. The dragons didn’t mind letting the men think they cornered the market on dragon lore. In truth fully a third of the students in the Dragon Studies department were women voguing as men and nearly a hundred percent of the initiates into the International Goddess and Dragonette Society (Cross-reference IGADS) were women.
Woo came back with the equally appropriate, “What’d you have in mind, lizard lips?”
Drak smiled a broad toothy and equally lipless grin then called out, “How ‘bout a lunch of gizzard grits?”
This cracked them both up.
“Oh, Drak, you’re such a card.” the dragon retorted in a perfect imitation of Professor Woo. This only served to crack them both up that much more.
Working with a dragon required a high degree of empathy and a sizable portion of flattery and if one was lucky a cold in the astral nose. Like “water on a sponge,” so the expression “flattery off a dragon’s scales.”
“Drak, how have you been? It’s been so many moons.” Professor Woo sang in her very best dragonese — and good her dragonese was — one of the best.
“Prof-ette, it has been much too long. What has been keeping you from my ear?” the dragon returned in perfect English, tilting his head slightly to the side, offering up an ear that was obviously calling out in need of being scratched.
Dragon Lore [Cypher 7;Code 5] A fact little known about dragons is that should the mood strike, they can speak in any of 550 major language groups and 1560 subdialects.
Taking the hint, as broad as the dragon’s ear itself, Professor Woo reached over to scratch Drak’s left ear.
Dragon Physiology [Cypher 6] Scratching the right ear was a bad idea. On the scale of good bad it ranked right up there with pouring gasoline on one’s head and sticking it into an oven. Seems that it stimulated an automatic reflex to breath out hydrogen and oxygen. A mixture known to singe more than a few young students.
Egghead Sociology (Subhead University Hazing Practices) It has become an established practice for senior students in dragon lore to never inform the younger students about the autonomic response of dragons when scratched behind the right ear. As an element of hazing older students make a habit of telling the new students the importance of scratching a dragon behind the left year without making particular mention of the necessity to be especially clear on which is left and right. The older students prefer to leave it as a lesson to be learned in the field — a not so mild form of hazing for the new students.
“As for what has been keeping me from your ear, what is this about a sekrit relationship between us? Did we spend a millennia or two together one weekend? What is this about Old Ones? Since when did I talk to the jungle? And why has all of this been kept from me for so many years? And, what else should I be asking about that I don’t even know of yet?”
If it’s possible for a dragon to look sheepish, Drak didn’t. He had no shame about the part he had to play in this drama. Perhaps, a little annoyance that something may come between him and his favorite pupil but never shame for a role that he was required by destiny to play. In a show of empathy, Drak tilted his head slightly to the left, a small show of vulnerability, and spoke to Woo in a gentle tone, “It has been a big day today hasn’t it?”
“You can say that again. But first, you can say a few other things such as some answers.” Judging by Drak’s indirect admission of the verbal sigil, Woo knew that he was not at liberty to be overly direct about this issue. But she had a few questions that she needed some answers to.
Woo was beginning to tread dangerously close to becoming strident, a clear sign to Drak that this duplicity of memories was taking its toll on her. Dropping the facade of a normal dragon-human relationship Drak turned a different look to Woo. “It’s been so many years and I have missed you. It has been hard for me to be with you remembering the way things were and you not remembering anything of our true relationship.”
“Wait a minute, Drak. Is there another surprise about you and me that I’m not introduced to yet?”
“Yes, but nothing worthy of a news-vid exposé. What do you remember of the time we spent together?”
“It’s a bit hazy. I remember broad sweeping strokes . . . talking, studying dragon magic, traveling . . . but I don’t remember details.”
“Let me scan your surface memory, Woo. There is something that I must know.”
“Fine by me, provided this is a two-way partnership and you at least let me in on what you find.”
“Relax, this will take but a moment.” Drak skated through the surface of Woo’s mind touching on memories lost and found. Nothing of the deep self was revealed or disturbed. It was not safe to disturb the obscured memories of an old one. At least Drak knew better than to disturb someone that did not have the specific training required to suppress the automatic talon response that was the usual payback to anyone who prematurely awoke an old one. Having satisfied himself as to the nature of what Woo recalled and didn’t recall, Drak left the metaspace of mind meld and looked at Woo with a renewed respect.”
“I don’t know how you could continue for so many years with such little awareness of your role in the scheme of things. You were scheduled to trigger the sigil/memory-guard within days or months of leaving for Merika, certainly many years earlier than this. We used a phrase that was certain to be duplicated in the course of casual conversation. It is to your credit that you have faithfully upheld your part of the bargain with such a small conscious understanding of the outcome.”
“Well, I guess you didn’t calculate the fact that I don’t typically engage in casual conversation.” Woo snapped at Drak, more than a little miffed. Then a thought occurred to Woo, “what if she or someone else had overlaid a proximity trigger or someone had put in a simple aversion to using the trigger phrase until returning to China. Some other hand is in the mixing bowl.”
Setting aside issues that she couldn’t do anything about at the moment, Woo marked them for future reference and continued with the more pressing issues of the moment, “Well, what did you find? Give, with some detail.”
“You know what you need to know and much more. The fact that you don’t recall it is a mystery to me and I must respect that. No one other than yourself could have implanted the further memory blocks. Even if it wasn’t you, it certainly wasn’t any of my doing. And, as such it can be none of my undoing. What you planted you must unplant. I just suggest that you continue to have further trust in yourself and hope that you knew what you were doing when you did what you did.”
“What if it wasn’t me?”
“Surely it’s obvious that you were the one to reset the memory blocks and release sigils. As you so briefly mused it is not practical to think that “tomorrow (variable phrase) big day” is that rare of an expression. Someone else could have implanted a block against your saying it, but not everyone within your ear shot. This is no mean task. You must have been involved.”
“Oh great, now I find out that I have a sekrit helper and obstructer — me! This should be fun. How am I supposed to give myself the third degree?”
“As I’ve said, I implore you to trust yourself awhile longer. You are much more capable than you know and well deserving of your trust.”
This did not set all that well with Professor Woo. It’s one thing to feel that a part of you is missing leaving a great emptiness where one’s heart should be. It is quite another to find out that it is quite literally true. What was taken for just the way it is and accepted with resolve has now been proffered as perhaps solvable. It was better to resign myself to the hopelessness. This dangling carrot of a possibility that perhaps the emptiness can be filled is a form of teasing that puts the ancient Chinese water tortures to shame. How does one escape a pain that resides at a level even deeper than the so called inner self? Here is a mystery for the philosophers. At least they know how to obscure and mitigate. Perhaps they could even cover this little dilemma.
“Enough of this,” since Woo had no idea what was going on in the bigger sense, she may as well go into total response mode and just respond to that which presents itself, “I have need to get on with our current business.”
“Obviously life without scales had impaired your social grace, What has been keeping you from my ear?”
Woo reached forward again and scratched nonchalantly just behind Drak’s left ear in a nonchalant random fashion. After several minutes, just long enough to cause Drak concern Woo reached under the ear and massaged Drak’s D spot — as in dhat’s de spot. This served the dual function of totally relaxing a dragon and stimulating them to release a chemical equivalent of a truth serum. Just the thing for enhancing a teaching session with a dragon reluctant to give with information. And, it was helpful in preventing your best outfit from being set ablaze — this is known to have happened during a particularly eloquent discourse.
“I’ve been working with a goober in New Jaij. The earth is slowing.” Professor Woo responded to Drak’s inquiry.
“So, nu.” Was the dragon’s only response.
In the face of such a blasé response to such potentially catastrophic news Woo could only sputter, “What do you mean ‘So, nu’? Don’t you know what that means? The earth is slowing, gravity is increasing, and we’re all going to be crushed.”
“What do you mean ‘we’, human?” the dragon retorted with just a hint of amusement. “This is all a result of hair spray on the rise, rain forests on the decline and the stupid human’s insistence on controlling the weather. This, and more, has all gone into making the fine little mess that humans are just now finding themselves in. This has been a long time in the making. Any sentient being with an ounce of sense could have seen it coming from a mile off. But, there the humans are deficient on two counts — sentient and ounce of sense.”
The fine distinction between humans has escaped Drak and all other dragons despite efforts at clarification; egghead, goobers and Citizins — all are lumped into the same basic category: large upright hairless bipeds. It’s not so much that we all look the same to a dragon, it’s just that we all smell the same. The sense of smell is everything to a dragon.
Reaching around to get a better purchase on Drak’s D-spot Woo injected, “Isn’t it within your power as a dragon and magical being to change all of this?”
Sidestepping Woo’s coy but certainly not subtle ploy, the dragon said simply. “Woo, as you should be figuring out by now, you are just as magical and we may not interfere. And, that does include you white girl.” (Yellow, brown, black, mulatto grey — if you weren’t actually bright purple with green trim to a dragon you were white.)
Forest scene or not, this was getting a bit weird even for Professor Woo. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“That is just the point, Madame, something that you have yet to recall is that us dragons are not from around here — and I don’t mean from out of town.”
When Drak referred to Professor Woo’s true sex, she knew that he was trying to rivet her attention and had something quite important to say. With all of the truth pheromones floating around it didn’t seem necessary to resort to physiological tricks. However Drak was right not from around here did qualify quite nicely in the extremely- important-something-to-say category. “Drak, I thought the dragons had been living in the center of the earth since the beginning of time.”
Drak stretched his hind legs out and let his tail flop to the other side, “Well, yes and no. We have been living in the mantle since the beginning of this planet’s time, and although that may qualify as a very long time, it is far from being from the beginning of time. Before we came to be living on earth, or more correctly ‘living in earth’, we obviously lived else where. Think about it, how could we have evolved on this planet?” Turning to the side, making a point of speaking to a nonexistent audience in a stage whisper elaborate enough for Woo to overhear, “Teach them a little magic and see how quick they forget their biology.”
Turning once again to Woo, Drak continued without loosing a beat, “In each of our previous homes we tried without success to intervene on behalf of the local lifeforms. The more we interfered, the worse it got. For us to adjust the development of the local life forms was like you faking test scores so that a Citizin would be accepted into medical school. Maybe they could wear the funny hat and cloak of a freshman wizard, but they couldn’t get past the simplest course in conjuring. They would be just as likely to exorcise a patient’s liver as demons. Passed test or no passed test, funny hat or no funny hat, the idiocy and blundering ways of the Citizin remain. The only difference is that they can commit blunders on a much grander scale. And so we have learned out lesson. No matter the personal suffering that it would cause we disciplined our collective selves to allow a race to pass its own tests and weather its own storms.
“A noted dragon scholar FramistratiFruph used a newly developed trans-imaginary number base to demonstrate that there is a large but not an overwhelming number of cultural parameters in any socio-economic structure. From his studies he concluded that given enough time it is possible to ascertain the strategies necessary to move a culture through the barriers and ordeals of its planet. In argument against Fram’s proposed reevaluation of the non-interference statute KrakismurkinDram succeeding in proving that even if we managed to move a culture past the glaring failure points, the culture would be ill equipped to handle the next challenges that would inevitably face them. Thus they would be dependent upon our constant intervention from then on, or at least until we managed to train them to look out for themselves. Fram argued that this was a small price to pay for the survival of an intelligent species. We were considering making the sacrifice, when we were struck by a blinding flash of realization, the planet had already done just what we were contemplating and that it was in the process of weaning the race from the aforesaid total dependence.”
Finished with his exposition of dragon roots in non-interference, the dragon looked Professor Woo directly in the eyes and fixed her with a strange glare. “The Mantle is cooling, okay, so fix it.”
Hoping but not very optimistic, Woo tried once again to enjoin the aid of Drak, “But, eventually the gravity will become so strong that even the dragons will have to move.”
“Don’t you think we would like to avoid the interruption of moving? We have work to do — work that has nothing to do with this puny planet — or this galaxy for that matter. We don’t relish moving our whole colony to yet another planet, and then waiting, for a crust to form only to wait further for a scum to form upon its surface and evolve into into yet another suicidal species of bipeds. It must have something to do with walking around on two legs that leads to this overwhelming suicidal tendency.”
Accepting Drak’s lack of willingness to directly participate as his response, Woo tried a final line of questioning. “Have you nothing helpful to suggest?”
“Suggest? Suggest? What do I have to do to get enough of your interest so that I have your attention? Lord knows, you won’t take in any information until I can get your attention and that’s not going to be possible until I have your interest.”
“I should think that the devastation of my entire planet and the extinction of my race would be enough prompting to capture my interest.”
“Yes, one would think so. But I’m not being exactly subtle here and it still seems to be whizzing by over your curly haired headed.”
“Can you say that in a way that even a dummy like me can understand?”
“Are you asking me to predict the future, Woo?”
“No. But if you don’t want it flying over my head, try being a bit plainer of speech.”
The dragon winced at Woo’s pun and proceeded relieved by her her natural resort to levity and that his attempt to ruffle Woo’s feathers hadn’t flustered her beyond humor. “Woo, you are in a unique situation. You have faced the challenge of living within a biological lifeform and have nearly extricated yourself from its grasp. Perhaps you will have the background experience and perspective to intervene in ways we couldn’t. It’s just not possible for us to fix it from the outside. So, don’t ask us to fix it. You fix it. If you can’t, then in no way do you want the challenges that follow next. You simply won’t be prepared. Haven’t you yet figured out that the challenges get more challenging, not less? But if you stay in the game, you evolve as necessary to meet the challenge. That which is hard and barely possible today would have been utterly impossible yesterday and will be unworthy of effort tomorrow. Meanwhile, it supplies sufficient challenge to be interesting. And, with all of eternity to live within, ‘interesting’ should sound pretty inviting.”
The large dragon heaved a sigh, “You want us to fix it for you and make it all better. Would that I could. I don’t believe your race is up to the task before you. It distresses me to see your race in pain and I will not be happy to walk these hills after your death. I have come to enjoy the human race in much the way that one comes to enjoy poetry that is so bad that it borders on the sublime.
Professor Woo looked about the jungle, it seemed so small and she so exposed. It concerned her to hear Drak talking in this way.
Woo walked about to face Drak squarely. Looking deep into his wide set blue green eyes she breathed, “But, in one moment’s cooperative effort the dragons could reverse the cooling effect of the mantle and free the humans from certain extinction.”
“Haven’t you heard a word I said? We can’t. Oh, we could in mere seconds reverse the devastating effects of twelve centuries of human stupidity — but, we can’t allow ourselves. And even if we could, we wouldn’t. We don’t have the heart to begin hoping for the hopeless. Even in a race as disciplined in self-initiated optimism as ours, the stupidity and idiocy of your race lays upon our collective chest weighing down even our spirit of hope.”
The dragon looked at Professor Woo with a dangerous glint of anger in his eye. “Your race could reverse this calamity with one single collective out breath of carbon dioxide. Just one collective sigh and centuries of abuse would be wiped clean. How I hate the way your race makes my heart ache with your stupidity. They have the keys to the palace in their hands and yet choose to pick their teeth with them and stick them in every orifice available.”
At this the dragon began to weep. Soon huge sobs were wracking Drak’s body.
Professor Woo was left speechless — utterly speechless.
Perhaps if Woo could have seen the sly stage wink the Drak threw to a nonexistent audience in nonattendance, she wouldn’t have been so overwhelmed by the dragon’s dramatization of grief.
After a short time, Drak lifted his head from the greenery of the forest floor theatrically sniffling back the remaining tears. “Forgive me, Professor Woo, when I smell your determination it gives me hope and with hope comes despair. You are one of the very few that have penetrated into the forest palace. There is not one evolutionary parameter on this planet that selects for cooperation. Every evolutionary pressure that your race has weathered since crawling out of the muck and slime of the prehistoric seas has selected for either unrestrained breeding or acting for the self interest of the individual — and, perhaps the tribe but only as an isomorphism for the individual.”
Professor Woo couldn’t recall seeing such a look of helpless compassion in another’s eyes as the one that Drak wore at this moment.
Drak continued, “There is nothing in the genetics or social conditioning of the humans of this planet to bring about the cooperation needed for the miracle that is required. So close at hand, and so far from the grasp.”
Professor Woo knew without knowing that her whole journey had been toward this point and that somehow it was possible. Drak was pushing her, pushing her to some kind of realization. And he was right to. Without having actually lived within one of these slimy bipedal lumps, the dragons couldn’t know what it was like. This was part of her mission, ‘to enter into a human biped form and return with a key to this moment.’ The dragons from lack of experience and context have overlooked some element in the human make up that could be used as a lever, a strong lever, a lever strong enough to reverse centuries of idiocy in a few moments. Before Woo dared voice her suspicion she wanted to understand one particular point. “Drak, please tell me, how is it that a single exhalation could reverse the cooling process and bring about the planetary changes that are needed?”
I shall show no fear
And, if you don’t eat me,
I’ll scratch your ear.
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R.S.V.P.
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Slimeworld & Galaxy Magazine -- All rights reserved -- |
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