{"id":5,"date":"2007-04-29T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2007-04-29T04:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/?p=5"},"modified":"2022-11-29T10:59:24","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T15:59:24","slug":"ice-dwarves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/articles\/ice-dwarves\/","title":{"rendered":"Ice Dwarves"},"content":{"rendered":"

R<\/strong><\/span>un.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes when I\u2019m alone at night, I hear voices, but I never tell anyone. Sometimes they are things I\u2019ve heard people say or words I heard in a movie. And sometimes, it\u2019s like there is this other me talking. Me times 100. I should not have ignored the voices that day.<\/p>\n

Run.<\/em><\/p>\n

There it came again like some undead monster clawing its way out of a steep grave. I ignored it, though, just as I ignored everything else that happened around me. I had other things on my mind, like\u2014<\/p>\n

Twist. Turn. Bend. Wrap around. Twist. Turn. Bend. Wrap around. I remember braiding wires in the middle of that miserable, cold Plutonian Summer, a 100-year epoch with seasonal temperatures that never reached above freezing. Pluto is cold as a witch\u2019s tit<\/em>, the students back on Earth teased me before my family moved. Shrink what balls you got to peas<\/em>, Dad loved to say. That was just like Dad, though, to say something so crass. But the truth was that Pluto would freeze a person to death inside half an hour if they weren\u2019t wearing their thinsuits.<\/p>\n

The herd of mammoths milled behind me, rumbling to each other in their resurrected language. Around me circled one of my cyberdogs, Cerberus. I huddled over my other dog, Bigfoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cCut it out, Cerberus. Sit.\u201d The two-headed dog sat and watched the planetarily-transplanted diaspora with a Smaug-like gaze. Stupid dog. Stupid life.<\/p>\n

Twist. Turn. Bend. Wrap around. Bigfoot stood frozen in stride, a tumor-like ball of wires dangling from his reinforced carbon-carbon belly. I had almost finished my braid. Could sew up the belly and finish the work tomorrow. Tomorrow is a strange concept on a planet where a day lasts a week. That\u2019s Pluto for you: everything takes forever, including moving on with your life.<\/p>\n

I did not notice that the mammoths were milling around the ice plains with unusual fervor. Something spooked them, probably a Polar Bear, but why should I care? I had my head in hell while I tried to fix my dog.<\/p>\n

I pressed the comlink on the side of my helmet and waited.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter, boy?\u201d Dad said over the com.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanta leave Bigfoot here. I promise I\u2019ll come back for him later.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if I haul him home and finish him in the garage?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t enough room on your bike for both dogs, and I paid too damn much for them to freeze out there. What if one of the \u2018moths decides to gore it? What if a bear decides your toy looks like dinner? You have to consider the consequences, boy. If you cain\u2019t braid wires…\u201d<\/p>\n

Not two weeks before, I remember my old man ditching his herd to bet on robot cockfights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dad was an expert at making people feel inferior.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can braid wires.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWatch your tone, boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSorrysir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHome in one hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYessir.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad loved to censor my every move, then pull the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do card. Not two weeks before, I remember my old man ditching his herd to bet on robot cockfights.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Bigfoot and Cerberus were all I had since we arrived at Pluto five years ago with little more than a few head of \u2018moths and the chance for a wealthier life. Notice I did not say \u201ca better life.\u201d A better life implies spiritual revelations, emotional breakthroughs, and other types of lifestyle improvements. But the only improvement Dad focused on was economics. Without the stringent government breeding and processing regulations of other planets, Pluto was a haven for shady ranchers and men of fortune, perfect for raising a family.<\/p>\n

Twist. Turn. Bend. Wrap around. Twist. Tu-what was that? I finally looked up. With both heads Cerberus barked for my attention. The herd was moving. I scanned the horizon for any sign of a polar bear, but I only saw a colony of emperor penguins and, of course, more \u2018moths. Pluto claims a population of 60,000 people and 60 million \u2018moths.<\/p>\n

Run.<\/em><\/p>\n

Get that thought outta my head. Why was the herd moving? Dad believed that migration in \u2018moth herds was an evolutionary trait developed during the last Ice Age, when mammoths still migrated across Earth\u2019s frozen tundras. Mammoths behaved like sea snails or mollusks living in an aquarium; they still became active at high tide. Now, however, mammoths were the spawn of genetic cloning served up to most household tables; there was no finer steak than \u2018moth meats.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad, herd\u2019s moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe herd shouldn\u2019t be moving. They barely got to the fields.\u201d Cerberus paced, each head darting from \u2018moth to \u2018moth.<\/p>\n

\u201cCheck your tracker if you don\u2019t believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCourse I believe you. Wait there until I arrive, and don\u2019t move.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they\u2019re moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you\u2019re staying put, Will.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turned off the com. Complained to Bigfoot, \u201cI never get to do anything.\u201d I wished I could sound more like an adult. \u201cThat sounds so stupid. I have to be the stupidest sounding kid this side of Neptune…and the most self-critical.\u201d Bigfoot looked at me with all four of his vapid lamp-like eyes and said nothing.<\/p>\n

A loud bellow emanated from the other side of the hills. I jumped up. Only one thing this side of the Kuiper Belt could make that sound. The ninth stone from the sun was a commercial breeding ground for two animal species: cloned mammoths, and the genetically engineered dragons.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad, did you…\u201d<\/p>\n

So another one of those damn Burton dragons has gotten onto our property.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cYeah, I heard it. Damn exotic species breeders. Poachers is what they really is, raising biological weapons as pets for the wealthy, pets that usually end up dead. So another one of those damn Burton dragons has gotten onto our property. How the hell are they getting past the fences? I\u2019ll call Boz Burton and have his robots take care of the rogue dragon, but you stay put, and I mean it. You remember what happened to Charlie? Fool thought just \u2018cause he wrangled \u2018moths that he could wrangle a dragon, and he burned to death in a methane fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYessir.\u201d I looked down at the ice and wondered how dragons could eat that disgusting crystallized mixture of water and methane. I supposed it had something to do with the engineering. To create the genetic mish-mash, breeders tossed into the pot the broken ladder from a dinosaur with bird and lizard DNA.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all we eat. Snips and snails and puppy dog tails…<\/em><\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where the voice was coming from. The dragon was speaking to my mind. More specifically, it was parroting to me. Dragons did not understand language; however, they did pick up thoughts like a net tower and broadcasted them back at you. In that way, dragons were like giant fire-breathing African Gray parrots.<\/p>\n

I suddenly became very aware of how alone and unprotected I was on the ice field. Dad was miles away, and he was probably the closest human to me. Even the herd had moved behind a crater. The dragon bellowed again, but this time the sound seemed much louder and closer. Baser. I could feel it in my bones. I grabbed my binoculars and scanned the region in thermal view, but I picked up only the retreating herd.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t have admitted it, but I was pretty nervous. I rushed to load Bigfoot. Roped him to the back and hoped the bike could handle the extra load. If not, I didn\u2019t give a damn for a dollar, as Dad liked to say. Dad could lash me when I got home. I could hear him already: You are being a coward, Will. A yellow-spined coward who is gonna piss his thin suit.<\/em> Wouldn\u2019t that be a picture for Mama to clean up? Yeah, Mom, I wet my pants \u2018cause I\u2019m hearing voices and I think there might be a giant bird\/lizard somewhere. Pass the potatoes.<\/p>\n

Unaware of the giant shadow surrounding me, I looked up to the stars and wished I was attending college on one of the storm cities of Neptune rather than scraping for a living in some snow-covered dugout. Maybe Charon could ferry me away, but he never appeared in the sky. As one of the great stupid characteristics of Pluto, its only cool moon remained in complete rotational balance with the planet, so it was always in the same place. And of course, my dad refused to pay extra for land with a moon-view. All I could see was a lot of over-sized pebbles and stars. Gobs of stars. They were a long ways away from me. Then I looked at my feet planted firmly on the ground.<\/p>\n

Where are you, delicious? Come to me…<\/em><\/p>\n

Two slitted eyes blinked up at me from below the ice, and I froze. The nacreous white lizard moved, crawling through the crevices below the surface of the ice. Each of Cerberus\u2019 heads blared an electronic warning.<\/p>\n

YOU BETTER RUN!<\/em><\/p>\n

The dragon roared like a Jovian storm. I jumped on my bike and slammed it into gear as the dragon hammered its horned skull against the roof of ice. On the third hit, the ice exploded and the dragon shot its heavy neck out into the air.<\/p>\n

I checked my side-view; Cerberus ran alongside the bike\u2019s blue-flickering flames. I looked behind to see if the dragon had by some miracle turned its attention elsewhere, but as soon as the dragon had pulled itself out of the hole like a massive biological crane, it charged.<\/p>\n

I am going to split your bones, boy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Suddenly, my greatest fear came to life. The dragon spewed methane flames around the bike. One of the birds used in this biological Molotov cocktail was an African bird that would spit up its stomach oils. This was bred into the dragons, who used a chemical equation with methane that it stored in a \u201csecond gut\u201d to spit flames. Science sucks.<\/p>\n

This was bred into the dragons, who used a chemical equation with methane that it stored in a \u201csecond gut\u201d to spit flames. Science sucks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this moment of crisis, though, all I could think about was the time I asked Dad about dragons breathing methane. It\u2019s funny how the smallest things enter your mind at the worst times.<\/p>\n

I was a little kid, standing in our garage while Dad tinkered with the oil pan for one of his rigs.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad, if on Pluto the ice has methane, and the air has methane, then when a dragon breathes fire, shouldn\u2019t the whole planet blow up?\u201d<\/p>\n

My dad knew he\u2019d just been thrown one of those curveball questions parents have no clue how to answer. So my old man pushed on his ratchet until the screw popped loose, then he carefully chose his words:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that easy. There is also a lot of oxygen here, too. So if I filled a tank up with pure oxygen, and then I set that tank on fire, it should blow us all to kingdom come, but it won\u2019t destroy all of Pluto\u2019s atmosphere. It\u2019s the same kind of thing with methane.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I still don\u2019t…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides, there\u2019s not enough methane in the air. The atmosphere generators removed most of it. Look.\u201d He took a big whiff of air and exhaled. \u201cIf there was methane, I wouldn\u2019t be able to do that, our herd would be dead, and we would still be stranded on Mars, or worse, one of those damned space stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m busy. Go bug your sisters if you ain\u2019t going to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks, Dad.<\/p>\n

More flames splashed around the bike, and some singed Cerberus\u2019s side. The dragon was gaining on me with its surprisingly swift thecodont shuffle. I knew if I didn\u2019t do something fast, it would catch me in its talons or douse me in fire.<\/p>\n

I was almost to the crater. If I could make it to the other side, maybe the dragon would stop chasing me and start hunting some mothburgers. A \u2018moth might die, but I figured I was still worth more than a \u2018moth, at least to Mom.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Dad\u2019s truck surged into the plain. He wedged the ten-wheeler between my bike and the dragon. Dad\u2019s old rig was used for transporting sick and injured mammoths, but now it was a giant battering ram.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay behind me, boy!\u201d Dad yelled.<\/p>\n

The giant pearl-colored dragon leaped onto the rig and popped the cab open as easy as a polar bear disemboweling a caribou. Dad aimed his sidearm at the dragon and fired three times, but only the second tranq pierced the thick dragonhide. The dragon swiped at Dad, ripping him across the chest. Dad fired a fourth tranq, and the dragon reeled, then slumped down on the ice and snow. After a heavy sigh, it succumbed to the drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad, you alright?\u201d I skidded to a stop next to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were trying to bring the dragon to the herd?\u201d<\/p>\n

Love you, too, Dad. \u201cDid the tranqs work?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope so. They\u2019re for mammals, not bird\/lizards, so I don\u2019t know if it\u2019ll barely stop him or kill him. Just my luck it\u2019d kill one of Boz Burton\u2019s dragons and he\u2019d be all over me. Maybe we can bury it or something before…\u201d Dad looked at me weakly and slumped to the side. \u201cI don\u2019t feel so good.\u201d<\/p>\n

His thinsuit was shredded where the dragon had cut him. He was bleeding. The wound was poisoned. I grabbed him.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad! Dad!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWatch over the herd.\u201d Dad\u2019s eyelids began to droop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWake up, Dad. Cerberus, get over here!\u201d The robotic dog jumped to my command. \u201cGive me your re-breather, Cerberus.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hutch in the dog\u2019s back opened, and a small gray canister popped out. I tore off Dad\u2019s headgear and strapped the canister to his face. The rebreather had medicines to keep him conscious and an airhole for him to breathe into.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some caves up there,\u201d I told Dad, who nodded weakly.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes later, I leaned Dad up against an icy wall. I double-checked on the dragon. Its chest pushed in and out, in and out. I hoped the beast would stay that way. Our tracks and our scents led straight up to the cave. If the dragon woke, we\u2019d be dead center in its crosshairs.<\/p>\n

Dad looked a little stronger, or maybe he was just more comfortable out of the wind. \u201cYou\u2019re really earning your keep today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know how the dragons are getting past the fences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re crawling in tunnels underneath the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad chuckled. He choked on the pain. \u201cThe moon is not made of Swiss Cheese, and neither is Pluto. There are no tunnels beneath the ice.\u201d He breathed deeply and said, \u201cThat\u2019s just a myth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I saw\u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cHush, boy. There\u2019s more important things. Where is the antivenom?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAntivenom?\u201d<\/p>\n

For looking up at me, Dad did a great job looking down at me. \u201cWhat good is it that I\u2019m up here if I\u2019m poisoned to death?\u201d He tried to stand, but his legs buckled. Helplessly, he said, \u201cYou gotta go back. You have to squeeze the venom from the dragon and bring it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad coughed. He saw the fear in my eyes and said, \u201cI wished there was another way, boy, but there ain\u2019t. I\u2019m dead on the ice without the antivenom. I\u2019ll be okay up here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we could call for help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRig\u2019s busted. There\u2019s no way my communicator survived the attack, and your bike\u2019s com doesn\u2019t have the range. Will, you have to get me the antivenom from the dragon\u2019s poison glands. It\u2019s the only way I\u2019ll survive. This is life and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

I left him in the cave, but as I stepped out into the cold ice field, my father\u2019s words sent me back to the town of San Malinche, where my father taught me my first lesson in life and death.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/span>f there was a capital to Pluto, San Malinche would be it. That\u2019s not saying much. San Malinche is also the Sin City of this hellhole and the nadir of the solar system. Even the marshals avoided it.<\/p>\n

As much as San Malinche is a town of corruption, betrayal, and decadence, it is also a city of the dead. The stamp of death adorns the building doors in the forms of mammoth hides, skulls, and blood. Mostly Mammoth, but human, too. My father brought me with his herd to witness the horror of the slaughterhouse because I had no respect for life. I was seven, and so accountable for such sins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to get it through your thick skull that taking responsibility for your actions is important,\u201d he lectured me as we entered the town. I sighed at the town. The best architectures of San Malinche were crude sand castles compared to the alphatropolises of Mars. Still, months had passed since I had seen anything more urban than a trade store, so the view lured my focus more than my dad\u2019s animal husbandry lecture. Suddenly, snapping fingers woke me from my thoughts.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Neverland! You listening to me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSorrysir. It\u2019s just that\u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cShut it, kid. You are frustratin the hell outta me. One day you love your gerbil, the next day it\u2019s dead. Do you know how expensive that animal was? It\u2019s not like you can just go out and buy an animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

He rambled on about the horrible betrayal I had committed by carelessly killing the gerbil. Of course I knew that for a child, any child, to own a real live pet was extremely rare. And I cried when I found him dead in his cage. But that didn\u2019t matter to my father.<\/p>\n

Dad pulled his rig to the side of the road, his lecture out of gas. He handed me a credit card and pointed to a decrepit bar called the Broken Bear. \u201cI want you to stay put until I come back. I have some business to take care of, and then we will see the real value of life and death.<\/p>\n

I knew Dad\u2019s business had little to do with anything legal, but I shrugged, took the card, and hopped out of his rig. Behind the rig, I saw the rest of Dad\u2019s large herd waiting with the wranglers. If only they knew their fate\u2014maybe the slaughter didn\u2019t have to happen. Maybe…maybe, I decided, I should go to the bar before somebody decides to cut me open like a \u2018moth.<\/p>\n

Inside the Broken Bear, I tried to order a beer, but the bartender wouldn\u2019t let me. Not that there was an enforced drinking age this far out in the middle of nowhere; he was just being a jerk \u2018cause he knew Dad. I had to settle for soda and crackers.<\/p>\n

First, I listened to two whores banter about their problems until I could tolerate it no more. I turned my attention to other conversations. Some people owed money, and that was a bad thing. There was talk of more marshals being reassigned to Pluto, and that was another bad thing. The atmosphere generators\u2014placed on Pluto hundreds of years ago to cultivate a planetary wildlife sanctuary\u2014they were not operating well, and that was a very bad thing. On the other hand, nobody worried about the price of mammoth meat, and that was good. The price had increased as people elsewhere in the solar system craved meat. Cows and buffaloes did not survive Earth\u2019s apocalypse, but neither did the idea of eating emus or ostriches.<\/p>\n

Drunken persiflage can entertain a child for only so long, so I left the Broken Bear and wandered around town. I felt certain Dad would be gone for hours while he committed his sin.<\/p>\n

Pluto\u2019s state offices were nested between San Malinche\u2019s malls and racetracks as if man\u2019s lust for money and passion for greed would nurture authority (and in many ways I guess they did). Here I discovered Pluto\u2019s Department of Science. The department was short and thin, with no effort put to display it. I might have expected to find bureaucrats and scientists discussing important issues, or at least talking about hereditary defects in \u2018moths and transgens (what some people called the genetic hodge-podge that was a dragon). Instead, there was a small ticket booth window and a door to the side.<\/p>\n

I handed Dad\u2019s card to the woman in the ticket booth. She handed me a ticket and the card back. I inserted the ticket into the computer next to the side door, and I entered the Department of Science.<\/p>\n

Pluto, apparently, is dull, and there is not much to say about it. I got bored after the first exhibit\u2014Origins of Pluto. A faded three-dimensional image showed the birth of the solar system as a voice monotoned, \u201cMost of the planets came from dust circling the sun.\u201d As the planets hung like hunks of meat around the sun, the view moved to the outer solar system and the Kuiper Belt. \u201cHere,\u201d the voice sighed, \u201ca dwarf planet formed out of the billions of collisions of asteroids. People once thought that Pluto was a comet, or that it came from another solar system, but they were wrong. It\u2019s the best-known dwarf planet, and binary system, in the solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n

I watched my new home shivering in the dark and felt embarrassed. How could anyone admit to coming from such an insignificant, lawless planet?<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we sure that there is no chance that Pluto had a cooler beginning?\u201d I asked the exhibit. Since there was no body to direct my question to, I asked Pluto\u2019s image.<\/p>\n

The computer responded: \u201cWe have core samples, geological data, etc. There is nothing new to learn about Pluto\u2019s origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The computer then tried to direct me to several other \u201cexciting\u201d exhibits, like \u201cResurrecting Mammoths: The First Nucleus,\u201d \u201cNoah\u2019s Ark: From the Earth to Pluto\u201d (about Pluto\u2019s first use\u2014as a wildlife sanctuary for endangered arctic species), and one of the most popular exhibits: \u201cGenome Shriving in Transgens.\u201d B-o-r-i-n-g. Everybody on Pluto already knew this junk. I left the Department of Science unsatisfied.<\/p>\n

Near the malls I first heard cooing like from a metallic bird, and, recognizing it immediately, I followed it to a dragon vendor\u2019s store. The sign outside his shop read, \u201cDragon\u2019s Tail\u201d in cursive lights. It was the kind of strip mall store that everybody sees but nobody knows if it is open. Inside, I found Dragon\u2019s Tail was foremost a cheap tourist trap. Faux dragon teeth and polyethylene dragon talons. Pewter dragons. Gaudy keychains. \u201cYour Name Here\u201d mugs. Past all this, though, was the exhibit\u2014the real reason anybody, myself included, visited Dragon\u2019s Tail.<\/p>\n

At the far end, inside a large metal cage the size of a refrigerator crate sat a baby dragon. Its eyes bulbous, the scales thin, the undeveloped wings held tight to its body. At that age, I had never seen a real dragon before. Heard them, yes, but never seen one.<\/p>\n

From behind the counter limped a large fat man who breathed like he had an iron lung attached to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis here\u2019s Scooter. He\u2019s only 6 weeks old.\u201d The man took a deep breath, then said, \u201cSee how blue he is? His scales\u2019ll turn white as they harden. Go on closer if you like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t dragons breathe fire?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHa! If they eat methane. I don\u2019t feed them that crap. Makes them more approachable.\u201d<\/p>\n

I walked up to the cage. The baby dragon looked defenseless. It huddled to the far edge, as far away from me as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks so helpless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey cain\u2019t survive out here until their scales harden.\u201d He stopped, took a breath, then said, \u201cThe cold is too much for them. That\u2019s why the mama keeps them close to her. They nurse on her warmth as much as her food.\u201d<\/p>\n

I reached out to the dragon.<\/p>\n

\u201cHold on there, kiddo. Just because they can\u2019t breath fire doesn\u2019t make them harmless. They have other methods of protecting themselves. More defensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

He tapped a sign on the cage, \u201cDO NOT TOUCH THE DRAGON.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing my disappointment, he asked me, \u201cWant to see something cool?\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded. I might as well enjoy as much of my day as I could. Dad\u2019s agenda would ensure that I hated the rest of it.<\/p>\n

The salesman stared into the dragon\u2019s large, swollen eyes and said, \u201cCome on, you piece of wyrm meat. Let\u2019s hear you talk.\u201d The salesman and the dragon stared at each other for a moment. Then the salesman\u2019s upper lip twitched into an almost-smile. It was just the corner of the mouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you hear him?\u201d the salesman whispered. I shook my head. I had not. \u201cShhh,\u201d the salesman instructed. \u201cYou have to be quiet, and you have to open your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

He turned off the spinning earring carousel and stared at Scooter again. I concentrated on opening my mind, and I thought I did hear something, but what I heard was neither fashionable nor cute. It was gruesome and mean-spirited. The salesman shook his head, then wagged his finger at the baby dragon. \u201cNaughty dragon. That\u2019s not nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The salesman turned the carousel back on and retreated to his employee\u2019s lobby. Didn\u2019t bother to ask if I wanted to see anything. Knew I was there for Scooter only. I remained at the cage, waiting for the dragon to say something else. It cocked its head at me as if seeing me for the first time. In one step it crossed the cage and wrapped a long-taloned hand around the cage bars. I stepped back.<\/p>\n

The dragon looked at me with clarity and understanding in its eyes, then it began to feed me the thoughts it had collected. You are a complete and total failure<\/em>, the dragon sent to me. You have let down everybody you know.<\/em><\/p>\n

I high-tailed it to the streets.<\/p>\n

The juvenile dragon\u2019s words shocked me like a carnival freak show, but I left satisfied in the belief that the dragon\u2019s words, like the mermaid\u2019s tale or the wolfman\u2019s howl, were harmless. It was getting late, though, and I knew I had better return to the Broken Bear.<\/p>\n

He told me that aliens would \u201cclaim their just inheritance\u201d and destroy the planet, that they would make a heaven of hell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Outside the Broken Bear, I listened to a man with a scorched face preach about the end of the world. He told me that aliens would \u201cclaim their just inheritance\u201d and destroy the planet, that they would make a heaven of hell. He told me it was true. He had seen them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do they look like?\u201d I asked. He pointed at a smiling man strutting towards us. My Dad\u2019s smile belied his sexual gratification.<\/p>\n

Dad asked me, \u201cDid you learn much from the professor?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a good boy,\u201d the crazy man said, \u201cWhen the aliens take over, he will make a good slave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho? This idiot? You haven\u2019t seen him work,\u201d my dad responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad, are there really aliens?\u201d I asked as we walked back to the truck.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t believe a rambling lunatic, son.\u201d<\/p>\n

I climbed back into Dad\u2019s rig. \u201cHe said aliens were going to reclaim Pluto and wipe us all out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad chuckled. He circled the rig and pulled himself into the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they had told your great-grandfather that one day there would be mammoths and dragons roaming Pluto in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, he\u2019d a told you to go jump in a lake. He\u2019d a said that dragons were a figment of your imagination, mammoths were extinct, and the atmosphere generators on Pluto would fail. So I\u2019d never say there is no chance of there being aliens. But I\u2019ve never seen anything to prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If only my father\u2019s mood had stayed so merry, but his joy was stamped out as we drove towards the slaughterhouse. His voice started to echo that dark lecturing tone of his, and his whole body curled into a frown.<\/p>\n

At the mammoth pens, the ice changed color. In the city the streets were mostly white and blue with some pink, but at the slaughterhouses the ice turned dark crimson. The alarmed trumpeting of mammoths carried through the air.<\/p>\n

Once there, we climbed to the top of a tower where we could watch everything in the abbatoir. \u201cNow watch and listen, son. This is how Dad makes his money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad\u2019s wranglers had already started to maneuver his herd into the slaughterhouse. This was the trickiest part of being a wrangler, and the most dangerous. The inattentive wrangler could get the bad side of a \u2018moth\u2019s tusks or be trampled. Because of the high risk, robots helped the wranglers guide the \u2018moths single file into a chute. At the end of the chute was a door. When the door opened, the front-most \u2018moth, a giant bull, moved forward. Then the door slammed behind it. A giant robot standing at the far end of the pen with a large glowing staff then thumped the \u2018moth on the head. I can still remember the scream of the mammoth. It was electric and shrill, like a rabbit; the kind of scream that a Giant Woolly Mammoth should not make. The sound quivered in my bones. Within seconds the \u2018moth was dead, but the bull\u2019s carcass was gored by giant hooks as it continued to seizure. The hooks hoisted the \u2018moth to the next station, where blood-stained robots brandishing serrated knives keenly removed the bull\u2019s hide. Further down, the tusks were viscerally chopped from the mammoth\u2019s face. My gut gurgled as the tusks popped from their socket. The mammoth was reduced and minimized at each station, transforming from a hulking beast to a hunk of meat. Trunk, tail, feet, and finally head were all removed. The head slid down a shaft to a different area, where its brains, tongue, and eyes would be prepared as delicacies. At the last station, the actual meat, the part of the mammoth that would be used for steaks, was stripped from the carcass. At the end station, the bones were discarded into a grinder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where the bones are turned into dragon chow,\u201d Dad said. My sickness amused him. I could tell. As I stood hunched over, my stomach doing flips, he smiled triumphantly and said, \u201cBet you\u2019ll never look at a steak the same way, will ya, kid?\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the final hair on the mammoth\u2019s back. Soda and crackers erupted over the side of the tower.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrap! What\u2019s the matter with you?\u201d My father really had a way for looking after children.<\/p>\n

I hunched over and emptied out the rest of my stomach, then Dad took me back to the rig.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, Princess, you wait here while the \u2018moths finish processing,\u201d Dad said.<\/p>\n

I grabbed his arm as he was leaving. \u201cLet go,\u201d he ordered me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is she?\u201d I demanded.<\/p>\n

He looked at me queerly, as if I was asking him if Charon was a second planet. Realization and anger crept over his face. He growled, \u201cHow dare you? Your mother is the only woman in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you left me to…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMother Ma-friggin-Cree. Is that what this is about? Me leaving you?\u201d<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t answer. I hoped my eyes would say everything.<\/p>\n

He climbed into the cab and reached behind the seat. Pulled out a mechanical dog\u2019s head with yellow eyes and put it on my lap like Herod delivering the head of John the Baptist to Salome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t lie to you,\u201d he said, and walked off, leaving a seven-year old boy to cry alone.<\/p>\n

C<\/strong><\/span>erberus\u2019 yellow eyes watched me as we hiked back through the freezing hell of Pluto\u2019s ice plains. Funny, I thought, that most people think of Hades as a fiery scorched land. To the Greeks, Hades was cold and foreboding; hence, Pluto. My Hades.<\/p>\n

The dragon lay on the ice like a silent bomb, but just because it wasn\u2019t ticking didn\u2019t mean it wasn\u2019t dangerous. I took a bag from Cerberus and climbed up to the dragon\u2019s open mouth. A strange energy fueled me. Never before had I been so afraid and determined to finish my task than when I reached into the dragon\u2019s mouth. I had to be careful. The dragon was covered in poison\u2014one slip, and I could kill myself.<\/p>\n

The poison oozed from the sides of the mouth and drenched my thinsuit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was still alive. Its hot breath permeated my hands. Smelled like gasoline and putrescence. I reached deep into the dragon\u2019s mouth and felt around for the poison sacks. The two organs lay in the back of the dragon\u2019s mouth. Couldn\u2019t reach the sacks. Had to lean against its vorpal teeth and stretch half my body into the dragon\u2019s maw. God, the methane stench. I coughed.<\/p>\n

My hands fell on the plump round sacks at the back of the dragon\u2019s maw. This was the source of the homobatrachotoxin that flowed over the dragon\u2019s teeth, scales, and talons. I slowly milked the sacks, careful not to cut myself on the dragon\u2019s teeth. The poison oozed from the sides of the mouth and drenched my thinsuit.<\/p>\n

With enough toxin collected, I handed the container into Cerberus\u2019 side. Cerberus began converting the venom while I climbed off the dragon. Cerberus and I returned to the cave unaware that, behind us, the dragon\u2019s tail twitched in the endless night.<\/p>\n

Once Cerberus finished converting the dragon\u2019s toxins to antivemon, I fed my father the potent antidote.<\/p>\n

He spit some of it out. \u201cGod, that\u2019s awful…\u201d His voice slurred. Dad nodded off to sleep. I looked back at the sleeping dragon and could not believe that man could create such a monster. Everything about the transgens was made for destruction. But even more astounding was the idea that people wanted them for pets when the government originally developed them for war. Where ignorance and arrogance meet, there\u2019s money to be made<\/em>, my dad used to say.<\/p>\n

I saw an opening in the back of the cave. Decided to explore it. Flipped on my grip boots.<\/p>\n

I felt rotten. I knew that when Dad woke up, we would ride home and tell the family about another great Will screw-up. Once again, I proved that animal husbandry was wasted on me. I had been selfish earlier out on the ice plains. I should not have led the dragon back to the herd. Then I saw something that made me forget all my problems.<\/p>\n

I stood at the edge of a deep pit. I could not see the bottom. Dropped an LED into the abyss and watched it recede into nothingness.<\/p>\n

Farther into the caves, the tunnels twisted and turned. Gaps flowed like rivers under the solid ice. There was no disputing how the dragons got around our fences: they crawled through the underground caves. More importantly, I felt certain that the enormous gaps proved that Pluto was porous like a comet, not a planet. Pluto was not from this solar system no matter what the Department of Science or my father said. He wasn\u2019t the scientist I was, and he would never be the astronomer I would be, if I ever got off this rock.<\/p>\n

The unmistakable sound of a dragon stomping on ice shook the cave. Thinking of my father, I ran back towards the entrance, but Dad was nowhere in sight. Only an irate dragon remained in the cave.<\/p>\n

Run.<\/em><\/p>\n

Methane fire sprayed at my feet. With Cerberus at my side, I turned and ran back as the dragon chased me into the caves.<\/p>\n

YOU BETTER RUN!<\/em><\/p>\n

As we rounded a section of caves, Cerberus pivoted.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, boy. Come on!\u201d I shouted at Cerberus, but that mechanical mutt stood its ground. Rock and ice crashed around me as the dragon forced its way into the thin tunnel.<\/p>\n

The dog opened its mouth and flashed an intense, bright light at the dragon. Blinded, the dragon tried to refocus its eyes, but the flashing would not stop. The dragon grabbed Cerberus in its jaws and shook it like a limp penguin. Then the dragon tossed him against the wall, and Cerberus exploded into a hundred pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u201d I cried out. I slipped on the ice. The dragon pounced, barely missing me. I flipped on my grip gloves and ran like hell at the pit.<\/p>\n

At the last second, I jumped to the side and grabbed onto anything, hoping that the gloves and boots would stick me to the wall. But as I jumped, my legs flew up from under me, and we both slid into the pit. As we went over the ledge, my gloves clung to the ice, slowing my descent. One and a half tons of meat and fang shot past me. The dragon dropped into the abyss, a fiery methane fire illuminating the ossified walls.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/span> pulled myself up on the ledge and dusted off. I fell a lot further than I thought.<\/p>\n

I kneeled down and peered into the deep. The pit wall hung away from me like a 100-year old icicle. Some people fell forever, I thought. Never put a hand out to stop the fall, but kept plummeting like Alice in Winterland.<\/p>\n

I had been many things that day: rancher, protector, and even a dragon slayer. It was time to call it a day, but there was only one way to get out, and that was by climbing up the pit walls.<\/p>\n

I tapped my boots to release the snow and ice. Checked the batteries in my grip gloves. One last time I looked into the dark Plutonian abyss, then planted a grip boot firmly in the wall.<\/p>\n

As I climbed up the pit, I wondered what to tell Dad. My father, who believed in the religion of \u201cPay up or shut up\u201d and the almighty \u201cWhat\u2019s in it for me?\u201d My father, who said that dragons would never tunnel under ground.<\/p>\n

Left, dig. Right, dig. Push away. I hadn\u2019t scaled ice walls since I was a kid and my parents were a vibrant young couple happy to have a child.<\/p>\n

When I had ascended a few hundred feet, I looked down (against my own instincts). The vertigo overwhelmed me. The walls blurred and curved. I looked away, concentrated on the wall, breathed deeply.<\/p>\n

The brim of the pit looked down at me like the promised land, when suddenly the dragon roared.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I said, \u201cDad would never in a million years believe Pluto\u2019s a comet.\u201d Anything to keep the mind off of my ascent. I found it ironic that in a world of dragons and mammoths, Dad could not believe in something so natural. Still, no matter how advanced civilization grows, there will always be the Luddites and the people who resisted advancements and change. These were the people of the Department of Science who believed that there was nothing left to learn about Pluto. Could they have been more wrong?<\/p>\n

The brim of the pit looked down at me like the promised land, when suddenly the dragon roared. It came surging from a crevice in the walls below me. Stampeded the vertical, ripped at its sides, and climbed upward, heaving its bloody, steaming carcass upward. I saw death in its glabrous white eyes.<\/p>\n

You are being a coward, Will.<\/em><\/p>\n

I looked back to the ledge. I couldn\u2019t out-climb the dragon. Forget digging and pushing away. I scaled the wall like a spider scampering across its web with no control of its limbs.<\/p>\n

A yellow-spined coward who is gonna piss his thin suit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Parroting Boz Burton was one thing. Parroting Dad was another.<\/p>\n

Here, princess.<\/em><\/p>\n

Somehow, I reached the ledge and jumped over. I fell, panting furiously. My lungs were on fire, and my body felt like a blown tire. This had been a day of swimming through avalanches; I was always trapped in the snow. It was one of those horrible barbed nightmares where scarecrows or demons are chasing you, and no matter how fast you run, the monsters just creep closer and closer.<\/p>\n

You are a complete and total failure<\/em>, the dragon sent to me. You have let down everybody you know.<\/em><\/p>\n

The dragon\u2019s tail flipped up and caught my leg. The ice around me nearly broke off, almost shattered into a thousand pieces. Giant fissures cracked around me and I knew this was death. Then a giant axe swung down, delivering a thunderous cut and completely severing the end of the dragon\u2019s tail. The dragon fell back once more into the abyss, never to return.<\/p>\n

My Dad helped me up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was taking the long way round to the rig \u2018cause the slopes are gentler. I saw the dragon coming up the side of the mountain. I had to hide, but I grabbed my axe from the truck. Guess I wasn\u2019t too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, we walked out of the cave, each holding one of Cerberus\u2019s heads. I didn\u2019t know what to say. I certainly was not going to blabber anything about comets.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry about your dog, boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can rebuild him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

I pulled Bigfoot off my bike. \u201cI know you don\u2019t want the parts to freeze, but it\u2019s the only way home, and there\u2019s not enough room for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHold up, boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

I put the dog down. \u201cYessir.\u201d<\/p>\n

His mouth moved a couple of times before he finally said, \u201cThanks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, sir.\u201d I waited for Dad to say something more, but he just stared at his hands. I hopped on the bike. Dad looked at Cerberus\u2019s head in his hands. I turned on the engine.<\/p>\n

\u201cHang on. You gotta understand. I know I\u2019m hard on you. Fathers are like that. We want our sons to have a better life, but we want them to work as hard as we did growing up. We want them to earn it like we did. Now I have led my life one way, and there\u2019s a lot of people out there who\u2019d disagree with the way I done it. I don\u2019t want you to be like me. Hell, you\u2019re not, and I\u2019m too old to be trying. It\u2019s like you\u2019re an ice dwarf\u2014you\u2019re in this family, but you\u2019re not of this family. You\u2019re better than me. Look, we\u2019re in Neptune\u2019s orbit. I want you to apply to an academy at one of the cloud cities. A transfer won\u2019t be so expensive. Go there, and try not to be too much like your old man.\u201d<\/p>\n

My face became like an ice mask and my mouth immobile. Despite my Dad\u2019s rambling way, he touched me and I felt closer to him than ever before. I tried to break through the ice and say something, when he said, \u201cNow get off the bike, boy. Stay with the dogs, and I\u2019ll come back with the other rig. We can still load them up and be home before supper. Save us from having the dogs freeze.\u201d<\/p>\n

I climbed off the bike, and Dad saddled it and drove off. Dad would always be Dad, even on a good day.<\/p>\n

I thought of the academies at Neptune. They would be dull compared to my existence in hell. No dragons or mammoths. No more adventures on the ice. I picked up Cerberus\u2019s head and began to braid the wires back to the neck. Twist. Turn. Bend. Wrap around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is Mr. Goodman’s first sale to SpaceWesterns.com<\/a>, and we’re sure that there will be more in the future. The Ice Dwarves<\/em> is about a boy, and his life caring for genetically resurrected mammoths and dodging dragons… but everything isn’t always as simple as it seems, on Pluto. — ed. N.E. Lilly<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5],"tags":[187],"media":[299],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1224,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/1224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"media","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}