and babies are here, the husbands and about twenty cavemen from the army. There are a few others inside the ship, at a lower level where Ashlynn and Mia are busy trying to make more sense of the escape ship. It could be an idyllic scene if the atmosphere wasn’t so gloomy.
I was received with relief and a tired joy by the other girls, but there’s no doubt the mood is not exactly happy. I told them most of my story, skipping some details.
Mia and Eleanor showed me particular sympathy, hugging and squeezing me and saying optimistic things. They know what it’s like to love a dragon. It’s the strongest emotion anyone can have. Except for the grief when the dragon is gone.
“A lot of the cavemen in the army lost their nerve,” Delyah continues. “Some of them said their ancestors had cursed the whole army, while some of the others had obviously been looking for a reason to leave without losing too much honor. Looks like some of them joined up because they thought we were only the first of a whole lot of women to come here. They’re still mired deep in the old legends, especially the one about the Woman, the Mother of Xren, and so on. Many of them still believe the myth is basically true, and that we simply needed to see they were worthy before we would go away and bring back thousands of women. Their own women, as the myth states. But time has gone by, and no women arrived. They got impatient.”
“Yeah,” I agree, sipping primitive booze from a clay cup. I’ve never needed a drink more, and Beatrice sensed that and pushed the cup into my hand. “I think I met some of those that left. We barely escaped them. Do we now consider the tribes our enemies?”
“We don’t know,” Heidi says, looking fine except for a scar on her forehead, rocking the toddler in her arms. “Some of them would probably attack us if they thought it gave them a chance of scoring a woman for the tribe to breed. Actually, probably most of the tribes would. We suspect they only need a strong leader to unite against us. Their whole society has been turned upside down.”
“By us,” I complete her thought. “What did you guys do after the quake?”
Delyah leans back on straight arms. “The dragons attacked and killed a good few of the men in the army. A number of dragons died, too. Then they started to fight each other and withdrew.”
“They can’t concentrate for long at a time, and certainly not together,” Beatrice says. “We don’t think they knew why they were attacking. They seemed frustrated and impatient, like they had an urge to do something, anything.”
I remember what Caronerax said. “They could feel the earthquake coming. Something big. That’s why they chose that time, independently of each other. You all left the village?”
“We left that night,” Delyah says. “Walking all the way here with as much stuff as we could carry. We knew you had been taken, and we wondered how we could make sure we didn’t leave you behind. Then… well, you know how Alice tends to turn up at the strangest times? She was waiting at Bune when we got here. Emilia explained the situation to her, don’t ask me how, and the next morning Alice was back with fourteen young spidermonkeys. We decided we would send them out in every direction with a message. We all wrote a letter, one for each messenger.”
“I got Ashlynn’s,” I tell them. “And I replied. But the messenger was killed on the way back here.”
“Shit,” Heidi exclaims. “I’m so sorry to hear that. They were really eager, bouncing away into the jungle.”
“I will ask Ashlynn later what his name was,” I decide. “I want to know. I want to remember him. You all decided to go back to Earth? Trust the escape ship and the government back home?”
Delyah pulls a strand of grass out of the ground and absentmindedly fidgets with it. “Well, yes and no. That day was incredibly tough and stressful. And none of us wanted anything more to do with this crazy planet. But right now, I’m not sure if we all want to go, after all. I’m not ever sure if I want to leave. I go back and forth on it.”
“Most of us do,” Heidi confirms. “The problems about going home are the same as ever. But this planet has turned against