This time the entire audience—with the exception of the front row—shouted, "DRAGONS!"
For some reason—Akki was never to understand how or why—this communicated to Aurea, who disentangled her tail from Akki's arm and pumped her little wings, effectively hovering above the front-row seats.
This of course led to a huge roar of laughter and then thunderous applause.
Frightened by the noise, the hatchling burped smoke and dove back into Akki's lap, burying her head there, and singeing the borrowed dress.
Run-on was hooted off the stage and he headed straight out the side door. He didn't return.
"Oh, Dr. Henkky, I am so sorry about the dress..." Akki began.
Henkky grinned at her. "I'm not. At least it shut him up. Maybe for good."
Wild applause broke out around the hall when it became clear that Run-on was not returning. Mac let it go on until it began to die down on its own. Only then did he stand and wave his hand. "Now, folks, let's let Jay Dark speak before Dark-After traps us all here for the night."
"That would be me," shouted Golden, "since I speak after Dark."
The laughter that followed made everyone calm down, and Dark walked over to the podium. Then he came around and stood in front of it.
"This should be interesting," Henkky said.
Akki thought so, too.
Dark waited until the silence stretched like a horizon line. And then, almost casually, he began to speak. His tone was soft, confiding, as if he were sitting knee-to-knee with a good friend, drinking takk and talking, but he could still be heard everywhere in the hall.
"Anders Sigel talks about hard work, and so he should. We have—boys, girls—much hard work ahead of us. And our other speaker, Run-on Macdonald, has drawn our attention to the deserts and rivers, the plants and animals of Austar. But only in passing did he mention the thing that makes our planet so special. The scum of the galaxies were sent here, to a KK planet, a jail cell the size of a world, and here we were left to rot. That's what the Feders did for us."
He stopped for a moment, to gather the listeners even closer to him. Akki felt herself leaning in, riveted. Dark was a storyteller, and something else. Something familiar. She had no idea what it was.
Dark said, "My great-great, seven times, great-grandmother was sent here for stealing food for her younger brothers and sisters. She never saw those little ones again. As an introduction to Austar, she was raped by three wardens one after another for a week, then thrown out of the house into the start of Dark-After."
Hardly anyone moved, though the story was one that almost everyone there could have told.
"A street-cleaner going home for the night found her and brought her to his hovel with him. Though she didn't know it for a month after, she was pregnant with twins. The boy died, never had a chance. But the girl lived and she was my great-great, six times, grandmother." He smiled. "Like the rest of the KKs, she worked hard and pulled herself out of the muck."
"What about the wardens?" shouted someone.
Dark looked at the audience, his hand shading his eyes so he could see better, since the light was on the stage, not on the listeners. Pointing a finger at the speaker, he replied, "Glad you asked, son. The wardens might have had more money and better houses than we KKers did—but they were just as stuck in the muck as we were."
"Enough history," someone called.
Dark laughed. "All history ends in the word story. So here's the end of this particularly hi-story. When we wardens and KKers started to make a noise together, seven generations after we were thrown into Austar, the ones who first flew us into this world cell flung us back again."
He looked around, saw that he had every eye on him, and said, "Embargo! That's what I'm talking about. Embargo is the Feders' way of showing us that they are still in control, still in charge."
"What are you going to do about it?" a man called from the back.
Akki turned to look. He was the same man who'd shouted out before. She wondered if he was a friend of Dark's, or just an interested voter.
Dark smiled. He reached behind his back and pulled a gun from under his shirt, where it had been stuck in his belt. He held it up. "Mac has his souvenir of Old Earth and I have mine."
There was a gasp from the front row.
"Don't worry, ladies," Dark said, smiling down at them, "there are no bullets in it. Yet."
A ripple of laughter ran along the row. Even Akki laughed.
Then Dark pulled on a chain around his neck, and out came a bond bag. "I am a man," Dark said. "No one chains me." His voice rose. "I am a man. No one brands me." His voice became almost apocalyptic. "I am a man. I fill my bag myself." He took a deep breath. "That's what we said before. And I say it now. Never fear—if they embargo us, we will embargo them."
And that's when Akki realized why Dark had seemed so familiar. Yes, the hair was now light, not black. Yes, his face was tanned, not pale. Yes, the mustache was gone; he was cleaned up, turned out, and charming. She began to tremble.
"Danger?" the hatchling sent. A gray rain of arrows fell into Akki's brain.
"Oh, yes," she whispered to the dragonling. "Danger indeed."
She didn't know what to do, except to act as if she had no idea who he was. So she stared up at Dark, pretending to be a young girl in the front row, Golden's goddaughter and niece, totally captivated by what he had to say. But really, with sweat running down her back, she was trying to recognize in his bland, tanned face the harsher, angry, taut face of Number One, the rebel leader Swarts, who'd given Jakkin and her the bag of explosives that had brought down Rokk Major Pit.
She shook her head. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was just someone who'd known the rebel creed, the words they were all made to recite at the beginning of each cell meeting. The words she'd learned when posing as a rebel. Maybe...
"Time!" Mac called, and Dark smiled at him, before walking slowly back to the table.
The crowd burst into thunderous applause. Several men whistled approvingly. Not to draw attention to herself, Akki applauded, too. But her mind was still racing. Is he ... isn't he?
"Well, now we know which one is going to be our problem," Henkky said.
"Yes," Akki said. More than you know.
Should she tell Henkky? Maybe. Tell Golden? Surely.
But Golden was already standing, then striding to the podium, coming around as Dark had done. He held a sheaf of papers in his hand, which he slowly, methodically tore into pieces, before slamming the pieces down on the table's edge. "After Dark's passionate speech, no written statement will suffice," he said.
Henkky whispered to Akki, "I don't know what he just tore up. He never writes down his speeches."
Golden looked slowly around the room. "But a response is in order. And it is this: What happened to our many times great-grandparents is, indeed, history. But the story we must write now is our own, not theirs. If they were alive today, that's what they would tell us because they lived and died trying to leave us a better world than they had come from, trying to leave us a better world than they had come to know."
There was a smattering of applause and a man cried out, "What about the embargo?"
"Shut up!" someone else said.
Golden held up his hand. "No, no, we must never shut one another up. Asking questions is the only way to get to the answers. And the embargo is the most important question of our lives right now."
He looked down at Henkky and smiled. "I told my pair-mate as we came here that if I'm elected, one of the first things I'd do is get rid of the senate cars. They are too expensive, and we need whatever fuel we still have for essential vehicles. It was the right answer, but the wrong question."
"What's the right question, then?" two men roared out together.
"The right question is what do we have to do to make fuel available to all of Austar," Golden said. "The right question is how do we make sure we are no longer beholden to the Federation—for fuel, for medicines, for scientific discoveries.
"
He stopped, drew a deep breath, and began again. "For, make no mistake, friends, we are still in bond as long as we think we have to work hard to please the Feders. We are still in bond as long as we think we are only a gathering of facts and figures about a planet. We are still in bond as long as we are fighting the old wars, righting the old wrongs between us with pistols or stingers, with machetes or knives. We must stand on our own. We must make a new history, not be bound by the old stories. Warden-kin and bonder-kin together. Men and women together. And, I suspect, dragons, as well."
How can he know that? Or is it just a wild guess? Akki began to shiver. Was the secret out already? Did Henkky tell?
Golden jabbed a finger at the audience. "That is what I will fight for, whether as your senator or just one of the voters of this great planet. We owe it to our past, we owe it to our present, and we sure as hell owe it to our future."
Henkky sprang to her feet clapping, as did the entire front row after her. And slowly but surely so did the entire hall. The cheering went on and on, but all Akki could think of was how soon she might get to Golden and warn him. He has won the battle but he may have lost the war.
27
THERE WAS such noise in the room that Mac declared the debate over and announced that they should go right to the party, where if they wanted to indulge in a free-for-all over glasses of chikkar, they could. And if they wanted to ask their questions there, they could. He screamed out the information.
The rush to the door was so frantic, Henkky signaled for Akki and Senekka to wait.
"You two can go home now if you'd like. It'll just be a crush and a drunken brawl. I have to stay and be the elegant pair-mate. Shake hands. Kiss cheeks. Sigh at the right places," she told them. "All this to make sure we can keep our hospices afloat."
"I need to talk to Golden," Akki said. "It's important."
"It can wait till we are all home. Or tomorrow."
"No!" she told her. "I have to speak to him now!"
Henkky looked at her with irritation. "I know you've come out of the mountains with a list of grievances, Akki. But tonight is not about you. It's Golden's night. There is a time and place—"
"If I don't get to him now, there will be no more time. And maybe no place left, either." Akki turned away from Henkky, who shrugged dramatically at Senekka.
"I'll go with her," Senekka said quickly.
Shoulder to shoulder, the two girls made a dash for the door, catching the tail end of the crowd of men eager to get to the free drinks.
They found Golden surrounded by a double circle of men, and by ducking under a wall of arms, they made their way to him. He was expounding on the subject of the embargo to two walleyed men, clearly brothers, while the others in the circle listened closely. Akki touched his shoulder.
Looking around, Golden gave her a huge grin. "Gentlemen," he said expansively, "my niece, Aurea."
"Argent," she told him.
He shrugged. "Girls. Always changing their names. That's the third she's had this month! You men would do well to change your shirts as often."
A huge laugh ran round the circle.
One man, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, asked, "Why haven't we heard of this pretty little girl before?"
Golden put his arm around her protectively. "Because an old baggerie flame of my dead brother just decided to let me know. But I never quibble about these things. It would be useless, after all. See how much she looks like me."
Akki looked at him, unbelieving, and said, "I don't look anything like you, Uncle Golden."
He laughed. "Neither did my brother!"
The crowd loved it, roaring their approval, and she realized that whatever they thought she was to him didn't matter. He was telling them simply that she was under his protection.
I could be just as protected back in the lab, anonymous. But she reminded herself that in such a small society, that might not be entirely true. What Golden had done was to draw a line in the sand, but he'd done it in his typical way—with humor. Still, she was finding it hard to forgive him.
I should just leave him to stew.
The little dragon shook its wings out, then climbed onto her shoulder, leaving pinpoint holes in the bodice and sleeves of her dress. Akki was about to pull away from Golden's arm when another man stepped into the circle of men.
Dark.
For a moment his eyes caught hers, and she quickly looked down. You're just an innocent little girl, Golden's niece, she reminded herself. So she pitched her voice higher than usual. Throwing her arms around Golden, she said excitedly, "Oh, Uncle, you were so wonderful tonight." She worked hard at ignoring Dark so close by.
Golden noticed Dark at the same time and grinned broadly. "I don't see you with a glass of chikkar, friend," he said, "to toast to the first of our three debates." He turned a bit, Akki's arms still around him. "Someone bring Dark here a glass." He whispered into Akki's hair. "What's wrong?" He'd guessed.
The minute Dark turned to take the glass, Akki said urgently to Golden, "I have to talk to you. Now. There's danger."
The dragon sent shivers through her head, no longer gray but red-hot.
Golden laughed, then said in an expansive voice that broadcast around the circle, "Here? Surrounded by friends?" He was careful not to repeat the word danger. "How can you be shy here?"
She replied in the same high-pitched voice, "I just am."
Dark insinuated himself into their intimate circle. "You won this day, Golden, and deserve to celebrate with your friends. And your pretty niece. No doubt I still have a chance to win the next debate now that I know where you stand. The next one, or possibly two. Who knows? You may even decide to step down once you hear from me again."
Laughing, Golden held up his glass toward Dark. "You have the true Austarian spirit."
"Why shouldn't I," Dark said. "I, at least, was born here."
Still smiling, Golden said, "You think because I was born offworld, I have less of a claim to Austar?" His tone was light but Akki could hear the iron underneath. "But for an early delivery, I would have been a native. I was brought here by my mother and father as an infant. I have lived here all my life."
"I do not protest your birth, Master Golden," said Dark, "though mine was an accident, too."
The crowd loved this thrust, applauding wildly—which spilled many a glass of chikkar.
"But I was born by accident into a bonder's family. Look at you—how long have you held on to your status?"
Golden's smile never wavered. He used it to draw them all in, even Dark. "Do not mistake my lifestyle for my policies. I was born neither bonder nor master but a new sort of Austarian. I made my money the old-fashioned way, by working for it. One dragon at a time. And as much as I liked making it, I have enjoyed spending it, too."
"Hear! Hear!" the men around him called out.
"He's funding the restoration of The Rokk out of his own pocket," said one man.
"Well," Golden said, a hand up in a kind of protest, "not all of it. I have some friends I've tapped."
"And tapped out!" Mac said, his bulk moving several men over as he entered the circle.
Laughing, Dark raised his hands. "I give up for now. I don't wish to argue here but will wait till the next debate."
"You did well for a first debate in a first run," Mac told him sincerely. "Standing in front of the podium—brilliant."
"Do not mistake my style for my substance," Dark said in the exact tone that Golden had used. This brought another smattering of applause. "And now I am leaving. It's getting late. I am extremely sensitive to Dark-After. And staying on the far side of the city. Oh, by the way, I can escort your niece home. Argent is it—this month?"
Akki's reaction was so immediate, so visceral, so violent, the hatchling lifted from her shoulder and fluttered for a moment before landing again.
Dark looked over and his mouth curved. On anyone else it would have been a smile.
Golden bowed slightly to him. "Silver to my gold
, she tells me, though even last week she was Aurea. Young girls are so changeable. I think I will never understand them."
"Ah, Aurea, which means gold, named after you, I see."
Smiling, Golden said, "You're a very well educated man for—"
"For an ex-bonder."
"There's a car," Golden said, then laughed. "But of course, I am no longer using a senate car."
The men cheered.
"No, I want to stay with you, here," Akki said. The dragon hissed from her shoulder.
"It's not a long walk," Golden told her. "And Senekka will be with you."
Senekka, who had been quiet the whole time, nodded. "I will."
"And Henkky?" he asked, looking around.
"She's shaking hands and being charming," Akki whispered. Briefly she considered telling him then and there, exposing to all of them who Dark was. But that would mean revealing who she was as well: Sarkkhan's daughter, the one who—all inadvertently—blew up Rokk Major. And if Golden wanted to ease into it, prepare the way, she would ruin things. Blow them up again. And ruin Golden's senate bid. Hand it over to men like Dark. And then where would the dragons be?
And what if I'm wrong about Dark? she asked herself. I could expose us all—and for nothing. But she knew now that she wasn't wrong.
Just then, as if conjured up by her name, Dr. Henkky joined the circle, and Golden took his arm from around Akki and put it around Henkky's waist. "Done with the handshakes and charm, darling?" he asked.
She looked around the circle. "Only getting started. More chikkar, boys?"
They raised their glasses.
"See you in the morning, girls," Henkky said, and turning her back on them, she raised her glass to the men. "To that dragon of debaters. To Golden!"
"Golden! Golden! Golden!" they cheered.
The cheer muffled their movements as Dark, smiling broadly, led them out a side door into an alleyway. Though Akki tried to hold back, Senekka led her on.
"Come on," Senekka said, "they wanted us gone. She wanted us gone."
"We should have stayed," Akki whispered. "Dark is—"