Free Fire Star by Chris D'Lacey Page A

house, this idiot squirrel,” she kicked the basket, making Snigger squeak, “were created from stardust.”
    “How?” asked Lucy.
    “Never mind, girl. Be quiet and pay attention. There is a significant alignment forming in the heavens, the same pattern that was present when dragons were first introduced to this Earth. As above, so below. Do you understand?”
    Lucy was still a sentence back.
“Dragons?”
she queried, beginning to sound interested.
    Gwilanna’s gaze shifted back to the window. “There is a fire star coming, signaling a time of new beginnings. A time for dragons to rise again.”
    Lucy leaned forward, her mouth popping like a pea-pod trying to shed its seed. “You mean, proper
big
dragons?”
    “Yes,” said the sibyl. “And one in particular.”
    Lucy’s skin turned cold. For she knew, without knowing, that her aunt was referring to the last true dragon the world had ever known.
    Gawain.

16 D RESSING D OWN
     
    D o you know how powerful a polar bear is?”
    Anders Bergstrom folded his arms and sat back in his office chair surveying the two students standing in front of him. Neither ventured to answer his question.
    “From the report I’ve been given by the Chamberlain Bear Patrol, the male you encountered is as big as anything I have ever seen. That means he weighs close to six hundred kilos, over half a ton. On its hind legs, such an animal would stand almost sixteen feet high and have an attack speed of approximately twenty-five miles per hour. It has the strength to lift an adult seal out of water, throw it onto level ice, and rip a hole in its belly as easily as you or I would tear open an envelope. It could take a man’s head off with one swift blow, usingroughly the same amount of energy that the man would exert to nip a flower off its stem. It is universally acknowledged as the most formidable predator on this planet. Am I beginning to frighten you yet?”
    David looked down at his shuffling feet. “I didn’t want to see it killed, that’s all.”
    “Jeez,” said a voice from across the room. Russ thumped his fist against the filing cabinet and pushed his hat way back off his forehead. “One person mauled in Chamberlain in the past thirty years. You two are here for less than a month and you almost triple the stats. Why didn’t you just stay in the trading post? You didn’t even get the supplies!”
    “Ask him about his story,” muttered Zanna.
    “Story?” said Russ, his freckled brow concentrating into lines.
    From a chair in the corner, Tootega glared at the girl and muttered something darkly under his breath.
    “Don’t worry, you’re probably in it, too,” she said.
    David clenched his teeth. “Zanna, shut up.”
    “Don’t you tell me to zip it!” she growled, whackinga hand across his chest. She stared doggedly at Bergstrom. “Ask him about Gwilanna and the tooth.”
    Russ pointed a finger at his temple. “This a private conversation or can anyone join in?”
    “It’s on the laptop,” she said, holding Dr. Bergstrom’s gaze.
    The scientist ran his knuckles down the blond hairs of his beard and swung his chair toward the pilot and the guide. He tilted his head in the direction of the door.
    “You’re the boss.” Russ sighed, and both men started to leave.
    Tootega paused briefly at David’s back. “That bear. He remember you — her as well. Next time, you won’t have chance to play dead.”
    The door closed. “What did he mean, ‘next time’?” Zanna snapped.
    Bergstrom’s deep blue eyes pooled into her. “The bear was shot with a fast-acting tranquilizer. A new development we’ve made in the past year or two. It was taken immediately to a steel holding pen, commonlyreferred to as the polar bear jail. It will be operated on for a bullet wound to the shoulder.”
    Zanna winced and looked away.
    “So he’ll survive,” said David, staring into the misted windows and whatever, in his mind’s eye, lay beyond.
    “He was lucky,” Bergstrom said,