Dragon's Heart Read Online Free Page B

any
real
questions. Like why I shuddered at the mention of takk. And how did we last through the cold.
    Turning on the hot water, Akki stepped into the stall. As the water pounded down from the metal showerhead—one of her father's early offworld barters—she instantly felt the entire horrible year disappear, like dirt down the water hole.
Oh, there'd been some good points,
she thought as she soaped up her hair, her poor hair that used to be so lovely.
Being alone with Jakkin was the best.
She'd gotten to know him in a way she'd never have been able to living at the nursery. Time to talk away from any teasing. Time to learn one another's rhythms, hungers, fears. And she'd also learned to speak mind-to-mind with the brood. Taught herself to cook and to make pots and...
    But hot water ... There's nothing like hot water.
For several minutes she simply gave herself up to it, without thought, without worry. However, once the water ran clear, the soap all washed off, she began to think about what had to be done next.
    She had to figure how to get to The Rokk, the larger of the two cities on Austar, and look up her old teacher Dr. Henkky. Only there, at a real lab, could she finish her training as a doctor and figure out how to make or synthesize or re-create whatever had happened to them when they sheltered in Heart's Blood's egg chamber. How they'd emerged being able to hear what was in a dragon's mind, could mind send to one another, and could stay outside even during the ice-cold bone-killing four hours of Dark-After. And she had to figure this out without telling anyone—especially Henkky—what she was doing.
    Thinking about Henkky and the city, she began to wonder if it was safe to go there, if anyone would recognize her—besides Golden and Henkky. Anyone who might question why she was alive, who might wonder if she'd had a hand in the Rokk Major disaster. After all, though The Rokk was the larger of the two cities on Austar, there were only about a half million people spread between it and Krakkow, and slightly less on the farms, the nurseries, in the countryside. She could hide out here at her father's nursery forever and be protected by the folks who'd known her since she was a child. But could she do the same in The Rokk?
    Maybe I
should
just stay here, make a lab, and try to figure out about the egg chamber and...
But that was no good. Though there was a small hospice here in the nursery, stocked with bandages and salves and medicines bought from offworlders, there were no microscopes, no slides and pipettes and other stuff. She didn't even know the actual names of all the equipment she needed or how to get it. She hadn't learned enough yet to use all of them. But in The Rokk, Henkky would have everything she needed, of that she was sure.
    But what
do
I need?
She didn't even know what she was looking for. Had the blood of the dying dragon's egg chamber somehow gone through them into their own bloodstreams? Had their DNA been changed? Their brain chemistry? Was the thing that gave them their new gifts a virus, a bacterium, a disease? Or just a miracle?
    Finally, she put her head in her hands and had to admit to herself that she'd done only a little bit of hands-on medicine with Henkky and some vet work, here at the nursery, on dragons. She was no researcher, even if Jakkin thought she was.
    It's impossible. How can I figure out what I need to know when I know so little to begin with?
She felt herself starting to cry, the tears mixing with the hot water. Jakkin believed in her, was counting on her. The dragons needed her. Everything was on her shoulders.
    And I know nothing.
    She had never felt so useless in her life.
    "Chikkar?" A hand with a glass half full of the golden liquid seemed to float into the shower, interrupting her misery.
    Taking the glass, she let some of the shower drizzle into it, watering it down, before taking a sip. She hadn't eaten anything that day, and the chikkar did what it