Alabaster Employee Records

Name: Worker Telis

Gender: Female, Infertile

Age: 40

Homeland: Zerin/Stetil/Jeteb

Employment: Working at Fi'ir facility. Weaponsmith, designer and testing of projectile and flame based weaponry

Psionics: savant in weaponry information and electronics, major Metal control, Mutation - eyes 3x sensitive to light and motion

Breeding: 3rd Degree breeding by Woodry

History: Born to Bayaran Telrar and Slave Seilan. (Both prior Alabaster Bonds, Seilan permanently Bonded due to injury, and unable to pay off debt.) Slave status lasted until age 12, Bayaran from 12 to age 26, and raised to Free Worker, passing status exams. Employment began at age 30 probationary, weapon training well recieved, and expertise in controlling her psionic ability (latent until testing revealed it) assists greatly. Promotion is imminent based upon performance with local or foreign dragons.

Rated as following:

Based upon BreedMaster Sengihr's recommendation, even though Telis is infertile, she will be useful in future genetic splices for Alabaster projects.

"There is the file," HighMaster Engel grunted, tossing it to his spliced son Ten, "but I can't see why you want it. She's a bit... high strung."

Ten nodded, and glanced over the paperwork. The image showed a strong, fairly angry woman. Some other pictures indicated that her expertise in weaponry did not stop at its creation - she was apt to shoot first and usually hit her target dead on.

"Well, I do believe that she might benefit Alabaster by becoming a Dragon Master." Ten finally responded.

"She's not Tuned," Engel said, watching his pale blue-violet skinned 'son' as he examined the records. "In fact I don't even think she likes animals."

"These are dragons we're talking about," Ten said, raising his face in a little echo of Engel's secret smile. "Not mere animals. Not like the dragons here, either." He nodded outside at the pair of Sky dragons who circled the Fi'ir tower in patrol formation. "These are amazing beasts, but you know they are just animals. Few of them are as intelligent as those found on other worlds."

"Like yours?" Engel plastered that same small grin that Ten had onto his own pale lips. "I must admit, Ten, that your bonding Arumdaoth has only bolstered your image in my mind, but... you know that our dragons must eventually gain the upper hand. Any help they have would be more than welcome."

"So you would let her come with me?" Ten asked, "I would make sure to compensate your factory with Bayaran of equitable value in the meantime."

Slightly taken aback, the High Holder nudged his eyeglasses back up the bridge of his nose, and leaned back into his cushioned seat. "You never cease to amaze me, Ten," Engel admitted. "I ... keep thinking of you the first time I saw you, and that ..." He sighed, smiling, "needs to change. You're a High Holder and a Dragon Master, and I need to remember that."

Ten nodded, put the file back on the desk, and turned to leave. But before he did, he looked over his shoulder at one of his fathers. "You know, you have several other incarnations out there."

"Do I?" Engel tilted his head forward, "where? How?"

"The same way that my Breeder is out there. I've been told that I am not unique. I wonder how many universes you could rule if you didn't have one another killed off first?" Ten said, mysteriously, and finally exited.

High Holder Engel leaned back and drew in a breath. Even Ten couldn't penetrate his deepest psionic shields - or else he'd already know how many universes they controlled already...

***

Telis slapped another clip into her newest gun, and flipped the safety release. The weight of the gun made her feel secure, like nothing else could. The orange-yellow skinned woman raised her arms and began squeezing the trigger - bullet after bullet rocketed out of the barrel of the gun, and each hit within hairsbreaths of one another, right near the 'heart' area of the paper target more than 100 spans away.

Satisfied with the results, Telis wrote down a series of tick marks on a clipped paper, showing her gun's design would be ideal for a manufacture to begin soon. So long as they had the metal, which they didn't. She wanted to help get more of it, but that might mean slipping off to Eftel and 'convincing' the miners there that Alabaster meant business the last time they asked - this time they wouldn't be taking no for an answer when it came to removing certain ores from the storage facility.

With the shots still slightly ringing in Telis' ears, she couldn't hear when the soft footfalls of the periwinkle-shaded Ten slipped into the target range. He stood quietly and watched her work. She was very professional, yet she seemed to relish every aspect of what she did. From touching the metals (which he guessed she liked doing because of her psionic contact and ability to shape it) to watching the bullets fly into their targets, Telis seemed to admire the deadly potential of these weapons.

Ten much preferred the touch of his dragon - a living thing that had a soul and a mind of its own. A gun could never compare. Could it?

Telis seemed to think so, though. She put the latest creation back into its production box, after having cleaned it off. When she ruffled her fingers through her hair and halfway removed her reflective glasses, Ten saw her squinting hard against what little light was in the hallway of the target range. Her pale yellow eyes didn't see him, mostly because she was turning away from the light as she cleaned her glasses.

"There are lenses which would remain clean longer," Ten commented and watched Telis spin. She had a second weapon, one at her hip, which he hadn't counted on. It was leveled at him without wavering.

"Who are you!? How did you get in here?" She said, sharply. Her voice was as gravely as one might expect from a weaponsmith who spent most of their time in a forge or firing things off, she obviously didn't speak much.

"My name is DragonMaster Ten," he introduced himself, holding his hand carefully out in a typical Zekrian greeting. "And I have been given leave to ask you to come with me, if you would, to find if you're appropriate for a dragon, yourself."

"I'm not Tuned," Telis said, sneering. Her left hand finally replaced her glasses and she saw that the young looking man seemed awfully familiar - then she recalled that when she was younger (about the same age as he was, fancy that) he'd managed to tackle the huge task of figuring out what made the Aliens tick. Telis also seemed to recall that he was amazing also in that he started as she had - a Slave. She lowered the gun slowly, thinking on this. "Why are you asking me?"

"Because you do not need Tunings to bond to certain dragons. Not Zekiran dragons. And besides," Ten said, sliding a practiced smile across his small lips, "all that tuning business is really a sham to keep the breeders and animal masters in business. If everyone knew how to bond, they'd have to give up their special status."

"You're not serious," Telis said, but then... Something oddly swam around in her mind and she forgot what he'd just said. A portion of his powers, inherited from Engel. "Anyway why would I want to get out of this? I like working for Alabaster!"

"You still would be," Ten said, "but you'd be making a lot more than you are now, and you'd have all the Land you could want."

"I don't want land," Telis lied, "I just want to keep out of Bayaran and not be bored."

Ten could tell she'd need a bit more convincing. He briefly thought about nudging her mind with his until she agreed, but... Her dragon might find out - like Arumdaoth knew everything that Ten thought, her bond might subsequently be told about this. Dragons were insufferable gossips.

But you still love us, Arumdaoth announced from outside. Bring her. I want to see this weaponsmithy whirlwind of yours.

Ten didn't get that silly look on his face like other dragon riders did, when they were speaking telepathically with their bonds, so Telis didn't realize that anything had been said that she couldn't hear. The dragon rider turned, swinging his tail around near her feet to get her going. "Come outside. There is someone I want you to meet."

Telis packed up the gun and her notes into a briefcase, and walked out with him. Since the sun was now setting, her instinct to shade her face from the light didn't kick in. Her sensitive eyes picked out a form resting in the shade between two low buildings. A long, narrow form, but large. Arumdaoth stood, flexed his long wings up, and Telis froze.

"That's not a - that's a dragon!" She said.

"Of course it's a dragon. He's my dragon, Arumdaoth. He won't bite, he only does that to the enemy." Ten urged her forward, and Telis summoned her bravery and took several steps ahead. The big golden dragon tilted his head and sniffed at her.

"He's just trying to smell if you've got what it takes to bond on another world. The requirements are very different there. And we've got the need for more good dragons here."

"He ... isn't like the Sky dragons at all, only a little." Telis examined the dragon and noted differences even though she'd only been interested in dragons because they could be outfitted with remote control missile racks.

"He's got hide, some have scales, and a couple I've seen have feathers like the Forest dragons, and others have fur. Horns, spines, all kinds of things come on dragons elsewhere." Ten explained. "And, he's got offspring on this other world I'd like to show you."

"He's bred? Wonderful!" Telis said, mostly mockingly, "I'd love to take care of a little mewling newborn..."

"It's not like that," Ten said, as he made an attempt to psionically soften Telis' deep resentment of all things fertile from her mind. To an extent it worked, enough to make her take a second look at the big golden dragon.

"He really is beautiful. I've never seen a color like that on a Sky. Will ... do you think I could really ride? Become a Dragon Master?"

"If you come back on a dragon's back, Telis, you'll be awarded the Status, and HighMaster Engel has already agreed to house as many of his employees who do, in their own Lands. I know you said you don't want land, either, but there are certainly perks."

Telis took a long walk around Arumdaoth, looking at how his wings flexed, watching his claws, and seeing how his neck arched to follow her motion. "And you fight on him? With him I mean?"

"Yes," Ten smiled with a deep sense of accomplishment. "In fact you'd be trained to do so. Even the Sky dragon masters don't like going up on their dragon's back. It's a shame. It really is a rush."

After a few more minutes of pondering, the woman brashly turned and put her hands on her tiny hips. "So, do you think I'd be allowed to put gunports on top of armor, or would the armor weigh them down too much?"

Laughing, Ten said, "well, let's get you to the sands first, and you'll have to start dreaming up your armor and guns when you're done bonding."

"Where are we going, anyway? And, I thought that the Aliens were the only ones with interstellar capabilities?"

"Oh no," Ten said, shaking his head and offering to hold the briefcase (which she declined to hand to him), "the dragons you'll be seeing can teleport. It's a long way, but it's worth the ride. I'd be willing to show you, there are others already who have bonded from a couple other worlds. Arumdaoth is from Vella Crean, another couple Dragon Masters have bonded there. There's Ryslen, and where I'd be taking you is Cathair Fionabhainn, on Danach. You'll be given full navigation charts. Don't worry. The trip there will be easy, it's getting home that's kind of tough."

He explained a little more on their way back to the Alabaster compound, and later on, Telis had packed up for the trip.

Ten arranged for four decently able Bayaran to replace her in the refinery area, folks who had a ways to go on their Bond so they wouldn't be slacking off. It wouldn't do to have his own Bond agency look bad to an Alabaster accounting team.

Telis would come back worth her weight in plat creds, Ten thought. And add in any dragon she'd bond, that would make her almost worth hiring for his own purposes...

NEXT