Petrolea ch6

Feroza and the mother Dragon arrived in the hangar to see Toledo huddled at the end of a gooey, yellowish trail. More food-paste covered his spacesuit, especially the left forearm, where it took on the red-and-black shimmer of frozen blood. He held the father Dragon's head in his free hand, using it to shove at the Dragonlets that were trying to eat his boots.

As soon as their mother's headlights fell on them, the Dragonlets turned away from their prey and raised their snouts, mouthparts gaping.

For a moment, Feroza saw not three hungry Dragonlets, but a trio of ravening monsters. If Victor hadn't been so quick and resourceful, he would have died, and Feroza would have lost her — never mind that. It would be a tragedy for any sentient being to die in this hangar, and to assign Victor special status just because she preferred his company to that of a Dragon, such thoughts were the product of selfishness.

"Oh, thank God you're here," said Toledo. "I was getting so cold."

Feroza slipped off her mount. "That is a bad sign. Your patch must be leaking."

"My patch is porridge and blood," he said. "Of course it's leaking. And my batteries are running low. Low oxygen, too. And no food or water." He coughed. "Thank God for your pet mechanoid."

His fingers wiggled and the mother Dragon stiffened. The Dragonlets squalled and flapped, but their mother ignored them in favor of the still, which Feroza realized had a big funnel on one side.

Yes. She could not forget that even if Victor promised her baubles of companionship and hot baths, he had a moral standing no higher than one of these opportunistic predators nibbling on him, at least where animal rights were concerned.

"We two humans must be the monsters, if anybody is," Feroza said. She and Victor were the out-of-control machines, grinding their way through resources to which they had no right.

But when Victor asked for help, Feroza bent to put her hands on him.

One had to be careful, moving heavy things on Titan. A mistake, and she might fling him into the ceiling.

"Only do not drain the mother Dragon dry," she said. "If you command her to go back to the feast I made for her, she can restock her supplies."

"Enough to feed three Dragonlets? I was thinking we, you and I, could replace them. Free up resources. Also," he held up his damaged glove, "there would be less danger."

"So you would lower yourself to the position of brood parasite?"

"I am very cold," he said. "I don’t want to argue."

Feroza couldn't help but share the sentiment. She peered through the fishbowl helmet at the man inside, and saw Victor's eyes were red-rimmed and wide with fear. His large nose dripped. His skin was gray and slick. "I'm reasonably certain Dragons can't count," she assured him. "The mother will care for us and her real young if we help and guide her behavior."

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. "If you mean hacking, we will need more metal and glass as well as plastic feedstock so I can replenish my colony of slave-factors."

"I was referring to training, for which we do not need any more of your," she couldn't think of an uglier name than 'slave factor,' "…creatures."

"But I need my factors."

Pity flexed in Feroza's breast. If he wasn't in shock, Victor was certainly emotionally exhausted. "I know. But your factors need the other Dragon, and she needs her Dragonlets."

"…symbiosis…" Toledo made a vague wave in the direction of the still, which clunked and dropped a pair of oxygen canisters onto the hangar floor.

The relief when Feroza saw her oxygen meter turn green was so intense it was almost nauseating. Whatever she might think, however she might moralize or rationalize, the meat of Feroza Merchant wanted to live.

"What about electricity?" she asked, fitting the other canister into Victor's damaged suit.

"Cord," Victor waved. "In the still."

Grimacing, Feroza reached into the father Dragon's corpse and unspooled what looked like an artery until her mind refocused and she plugged the electrical cord into Toledo's battery pack.

The still vibrated and roared like a gasoline generator, which, Feroza realized, it was. As wrong as his philosophy was, she couldn't blame the laboratory-bound Victor for thinking that these creatures were only machines. Machines they appeared.

"We have to burn petroleum until I can grow a windmill-tree or patch into the Berg's electrical system," Toledo said, "but I don't plan to stay that long."

"No," said Feroza, "I suppose you don't."

"I still don't believe they'll arrest you. Or that being arrested would be worse than staying out here. But," Victor sighed, or maybe he was just gasping for fresh air. "We will need more feedstock, whatever you want to do."

As if in sympathy, the mother Dragon burped and stopped regurgitating fuel into the still.

"Let her hunt again," said Feroza.

"Will it be able to feed all her Dragonlets and the still as well?"

Feroza turned her palms up. "We left a rather large pile of corpses halfway down the Berg. If she gets back to them before the scavengers have dragged them all off — "

His suit clanked against hers. Victor had grasped her arm. "Don't go with it this time. Stay here."

"With you, you mean?"

Feroza tried hard to analyze her reactions. She disagreed with Victor on the most fundamental levels about the most important things. And yet, she found she liked the man. Wanted to spend more time with him. "I suppose the mother Dragon is well enough to hunt by herself. And you can work faster if you needn't worry about being eaten."

"Work," said Victor, "yes." He lifted himself up by the elbows. "I will fabricate patches for my suit, then walls, then more food, since we can't actually eat if we can't take off our suits."

"So we will need that pleasure dome you planned, after all," said Feroza.

He stared up at her from his prone position. "Pleasure dome?"

What must he think of her? Feroza's cheeks flamed. "A slip of the tongue." And that double-entendre only made her blush more.

"Heh. No problem." Victor pulled himself upright and twiddled his fingers. The mother Dragon stiffened and a column of little black factors pushed their way out of her skin and plopped to the ground.

"Your slave factors," said Feroza. "You're freeing her?"

"I don't have enough to work on me and it at once," said Victor. "And if you are staying here, I won't worry about that thing attacking you."

"You shouldn't worry anyway," Feroza said, "I know how to handle her."

"Oh. Uh." Victor looked up at her again. "I guess you do. Of course. Well, we can trust it to hunt and return by itself, yes? Then I can use the slave-factors to work on my suit until it gets back. Then I can work on figuring out how to make the Dragon fly us back to Xanadu."

Whatever warmth Feroza had just been feeling drained away. "No," she said.

He frowned up at her. "No going home or no comfort?"

"No harming mechanoids," she said, watching the Dragonlets. Fed and satisfied, they had curled up on the other side of the hangar and gone to sleep. "Which you must continue to do until you are off Petrolea."

Victor marched his slave-factors into the still. "Until we exploiters are off Petrolea?" He snorted. "And you will stay here, the Princess of the Robot Jungle? Breathing what, the fumes of good ecological karma?"

"I see you're feeling better." Feroza was rather impressed with how level she kept her voice. "I am beginning to think I should have ridden the Dragon back down the mountain."

"I'm just trying to solve problems," said Victor. "That's all I'm ever doing. Solving problems. And people seem to hate me for it."

The slave-factors emerged from the rattling still. Feroza stepped aside as they scuttled toward Victor, carrying little bits of metal and plastic.

"Sometimes people don't want their problems solved," she said.

"Nonsense. If you don't want to solve a problem, then it isn't a problem. That's what the word 'problem' means."

The factors swarmed over Victor's suit, affixing patches with inhuman speed and precision.

"Sometimes the solution is worse." Feroza gestured at the little slave-creatures. "I know you didn't just invent these uses for Petrolean life at the drop of a hat. Al-Onazy was planning this. Xanadu was planning this. Not content with draining the petroleum blood from this biosphere, he wants to enslave it to his purposes."

"Would you stop saying 'enslave'? You can't enslave a machine to do what it was designed for," said Victor. "Why do you think those ancient aliens put the mechanoids here?"

"Why are any of us here? Not to be destroyed by someone more powerful, certainly."

Victor laughed, which was probably better than the reaction she'd been aiming for.

"So here we are," he said, "in a freezing cave in a mountain, surrounded by monsters that want to eat us."

"Innocent animals engaging in their natural behavior."

The floor vibrated. "Speaking of Rome, the donkey appears," said Victor.

"What are you talking about?" But Feroza could see it well enough. 'Speak of the Devil,' an Englishman might have said. Here was the mother Dragon now, bringing with her more food for her hungry brood.

"Damn," said Toledo, "she's feeding the Dragonlets first."

"Of course she is."

"Can you stop her? All of my slave-factors are occupied repairing my suit." His voice dropped. "I will have to fabricate more."

"Don't." said Feroza. "We have no need of more of those things."

She got down on her knees and shuffled toward the mother Dragon. "I'll calm her while you finish repairing your — "

The baby saved her life.

When the mother Dragon lunged at Feroza, the baby thought it was getting a meal and moved to intercept. The mother Dragon pulled up her head and Feroza was not sliced in half by a pair of mandible-mounted buzz-saws.

"Feroza? What was that noise?"

She didn't have time to respond, diving behind the infant as she was. It turned on her, too. Hooked mandibles scrabbled over her chest. Warnings flashed as welding torches kindled against the fabric of her suit. Feroza kicked out, connected with the baby's caterpillar body, and shoved herself away from it.

The mother came after her, growling static and drooling oxygen.

"Miércoles," said Toledo as Feroza scrambled back. "I'm sending the slave-factors now."

Feroza could not feel disgusted by the prospect, not while she tumbled backward through the air, the mouthparts of the Dragon unfolding before her like a lethal iron lily.

"Stop," shouted Feroza, first in panic, then in determination. "Stop! I am not your enemy. I am your child." As if genuflecting, she sank onto her knees, arms stretched over her head.

The mother Dragon leaned closer, brushing Feroza with her whiskers, raking Feroza with her headlights. Had Feroza assumed the proper position? Did she look and smell enough like a Dragonlet to stimulate her child-rearing instincts?

"I am your child," Feroza said again as the mother Dragon pinned her in her headlights. Stretched her neck, caterpillar tread grinding, buzz-saw mandibles whining —

And struck out sideways at the nearest baby.

"Got you!" shouted Victor as the enslaved adult pulled the smaller mechanoid off the ground and flung it against the wall of the hangar. The head tore free from the neck, the immature wings shattered. The corpse slumped to the floor, bleeding fuel.

Something snapped at Feroza's still upraised hands. The second Dragonlet ground into view, torch-bearing mandibles extended to sever her fingers. The mother's head was above her, though, and Feroza reached for it, rising from the floor to curl her fingers around those wicked mouthparts. She held on.

"Don't," Feroza said. "Don't kill the other one."

On the other side of the Hangar, the third Dragonlet slithered over to the body of its sibling and began to feed.

"Are you all right, Feroza?"

She jerked out of her fugue, alarms still hooting in her helmet. "The mother Dragon," said Feroza. "She…attacked me." Feroza hands shook in the sweaty confines of her gloves. "Why would she do such a thing."

"I can tell you," said Victor. "I was looking at her behavior queue and the Dragon reclassified the Feroza object from Dragonlet class to Food class and called Devour( ) on it."

"Excuse me?"

"There was one command in there, and it was to eat you, not feed you. When I deleted it, it popped back up. The only thing I could do was switch it to the little Dragon."

"Sacrificing it for nothing." Feroza breathed hard, blinking the aggravating tears from her eyes. "I know these animals, Victor. Whatever instinct was telling her to eat me, a more powerful urge compelled her to…" Feroza searched for a non-jargon word, "love me."

"Love?"

"The technical term is 'parental investment,' but I didn't think you knew it."

Victor threw up his arms. "This is ridiculous. I was looking at her active processes. It wasn't an instinct that told her to eat you. Your dependency privileges were overwritten. It's like if I zapped your brain with an electrical impulse, you'd do whatever I wanted, whatever you thought about it."

Or when your body is flooded with adrenal secretions, you want to strike out at the people trying to help you. With an effort, Feroza put aside her anger. The Dragons were predators and she looked like food. Did a lion-tamer feel betrayed when her pet bit her on the hand? Did a marine biologist cry when her favorite jellyfish stung her? Or an electronics engineer when she put her hand in the wrong place and got a shock? Feroza should feel stupid and unprofessional. Not betrayed. Not abandoned.

Victor's hand came down on her shoulder and she twitched. "Dio, Feroza, we need to fix your suit."

Feroza looked up and saw the mother Dragon and the two remaining Dragonlets had slumped to the ground. Victor must have gotten his creatures into them and commanded them to sleep. Still and steaming, the giant beasts might only have been works of oddly intricate art. Except when they were cut, they bled.

"So the question is, who zapped her brain?"

"Besides me?" Victor said. "I don't know. There's some kind of reset-override in their behavioral scripts."

Feroza took a shuddering breath, blinked tears from her eyes. "Can you un-reset them?"

"Yes, but then they will just be…eh, un-un-resetted? Re-reset?" Victor's fingers twiddled. "I think I'd better get to work on building those walls. Get that pleasure dome of yours constructed, hey?"

Feroza turned away from the Dragons, toward Victor. "That sounds lovely," she said. "How can I help?"