Maria and the Space-Dragons #1 – March 2024 instalment

Lah-Shar felt Ria moving around in the saddle, trying to keep warm. They were almost at the base. He could see the outline of the buildings and the warm spots of lifeforms moving around in the underground structures. He saw the landing pad getting closer, hidden among the undergrowth. The tundra plant life here was scrubby, low, dense shrubs. They would be leafless for a few weeks still, as winter started to give way. The cold air made his bones ache and the internal fires were burning low as fuel ran out. They’d flown for almost 16 hours from the equatorial Avalon; he was at his limits.

A mind voice came through as he reach the edges of the bases compound.

‘Chief Assessor Lah-Shar, kind of you to join us at last. Brought your pet human with you?’ The voice was that of an elder, slightly cracked, and heavily sardonic. He recognised it as a former teacher at the Academy and current Head of the Assessment Office.

‘Junior Assessor Welden is with me Senior Academician Pjang-Nich. I didn’t realise dran were planning to be here.’ The inflection of his mind speech was reddish-orange-blue – suggesting confusion, consternation and incredulity, and referenced the climate conditions and working environment.

‘I need to give you this briefing in person; believe me, I’d much rather be at home in my office at Ran-Ning First Academy.’

This was serious then, Pjang-Nich didn’t leave dran office at the Academy except for Council meetings.

‘Care to give me a clue, esteemed elder?’

‘Not yet, and stop trying to butter me up, or I’ll tell your uncle to recall you to his squadron. You’ve spent too long with humans and their are other species you could be Assessing for contact.’

‘That’s the same threat you used when I told you I was sponsoring Maria’s grandfather for the Ascend Colony a century ago.’ Lah-Shar snort-laughed.

‘Hmm, I might actually do it this time.’ There was a smile in the mind voice now. The pair had worked together for a very long time and understood each other far too well.

‘No.’ Lah-Shar reinforced the word with a shock of blue-green-silver, ‘Maria would struggle with another Senior. They’re used to me.’

‘An most Assessors don’t want to work with uncivilised species. I’ve had a few complaints from the locals since I arrived. The *Bhiurt-Skit* are unhappy with the humans encroaching into their territories.’

*Bhiurt-Skit* was a sound, a scraping yet gutteral noise, used by the indigenous Sentients of Ascnd for themselves. His own people struggled to make the sound since it required a different respiratory and vocal system and humans definitely couldn’t manage it. The planet’s name came from the sounds *Ashren-Tuslal-Suhhank* which turned into vocalisations, words, the humans could produce with their limited abilities. They didn’t hear some of it, and a lot of the nuances were missing because of their narrow aural range. Strangely, Maria and her parents could hear a little more than was common among humans, although that might be because the elder Welden’s lived almost full time among the local Sentients.

There was a hypothesis among those who studied humans that something about the population living on the Moon base when they’d made first contact was different but there was limited knowledge. Some historical records found at the now abandoned Moon base recently suggested it had started as a prison and work camp for those deemed ‘ND’, but no one could quite parse out what ND meant, although he personally thought it referred to neurological differences. He’d looked into some of the human archives, searching for information to help him work with Maria’s great grand parents, almost a hundred and fifty years ago now, and there seemed to be something there.

The ‘NDs’ had built the moon base, watching the Earth slowly die from their vantage point. New people would occasionally be sent up as they were recognised and winnowed out of the population, but the first groups had been almost entire extended families. Many had been highly educated or skilled, some were average people with some difficulties and a small number had many medical conditions requiring a lot of support. all types could occur within the same families. It seemed humans had decided to remove everyone who might be a ‘drain’ but had sent away those who could have helped save them in the process. The population was eventually quite large, stable and prosperous. They’d built and maintained the moon base and then started exporting minerals to Earth. The earth humans had tried to take control but, at the time of first contact, the moon base was still holding out.

He’d noticed early on in his studies of humans that the majority on the moon were quite different in temperament to the majority on the planet, more egalitarian, curious and inclined to focus on a single interest for extended periods, which was why he’d suggested to his uncle, the Council representative for Ran-Ning, all those centuries ago, that they should make first contact there.

It was so long ago now…

“Lah-Shar!” Maria screamed, pulling him out of his musings.

‘What? And don’t shout. It hurts.’

‘You were not-there. We almost hit a comms mast.’ Her mind-speech was shaky, stuttering, and he had a visual of a waving hand. He’d been too focused on his flight down memory lane and hadn’t been focusing on his present flying, a dangerous move this close to structures. He banked and flew a circle around the base, waiting for permission to land.

‘Tundra Base, this is Chief Assessor Lah-Shar requesting permission to land.’

‘Chief Assessor, this is Tundra Base Navigation. Nice catch, thought you were going to take out our main comms array. For now, follow the 6000hz line in.’

‘Will do, Chief Assessor Lah-Shar out.’

Lah-Shar search for the strong 6000 hertz wave, a long wavelength in the radio region. He felt it as a droning, low buzz in his thoracic cavity and a tingling on his head spikes. It danced from one to the next as he flew along the signal.

“I have a headache.” Maria groaned aloud.

‘It’s the landing beacon. Don’t worry, we’re nearly there.’

He dropped their connection and spoke to Navigation instead.

‘I have my line, and I can see the Senior Academician. Drop the beacon.’

‘No can do, Assessor.’ Tundra Base responded.

‘My Junior is about to vomit; if I come in at this angle, it’ll go all over the boss.’

There was silence for a few moments then, ‘Dropping beacon now, Chief.’

Lah-Shar laughed and backed his wings, extinguishing his rear flame. Maria groaned, but sounded less nauseous than before. Lah-Shar jetted slightly from his snout and settled onto the rough runway.

‘Jump down, I need to change.’

“I’m frozen, can’t move.”

Grousing at the inconvenience, Lah-Shar curled his left wing up, tilting Maria over the saddle, and then lowered his right wing on to the ground.

Maria rolled off, landing in a graceless heap on the shrubbery.

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For all of the chapter see this page.