Free Rainbird by Rabia Gale Page A

shook his head, his face pale and intent in the soft glow of the light they’d hooked up to cables twisted around the spinal cord.
    “It’s good. Fresh. You should eat. Keep up your strength.” Rainbird popped a handful into her mouth. Full-bred eiree subsisted on moss and Glew-light, it seemed like, but her body burned a lot of fuel. Human metabolism trying to power eiree systems.
    She was also talking too much. Sanders seemed quite at home in this bizarre closed place, this macabre amalgamation of tissue and bone and current and cable, but she didn’t like seeing that parts of the dragon were still alive. Bone was good and dead, but it made her skin crawl, keeping nerves and tissues going this long.
    Rainbird leaned her head back, tiredness settling over her like a soft down comforter. The clicking of Sanders’ device as he tinkered with it, the hum of electric current, the dim light and the warmth all combined to make her aware that she hadn’t slept in a long time.
    Speeding through vast spaces…light pinpricking darkness…music growing louder as gaseous spheres turned…hurtling straight towards a star that turned, thin-slitted, to LOOK at her. I am coming for you.
    An alarm beeped, loud and insistent. Rainbird jerked awake, heart beating, ear-tips tingling. A fine film of sweat covered her skin.
    “It’s time.” Sanders handed her the ear and mouth pieces.
    Did he notice her hands trembling as she took the set? Don’t be silly. It’s only a dream and the dragon is dead. Still, she couldn’t help but cast a baleful eye at the thick twisted cord that ran down the middle of the bony tube. She flexed the fingers of her right hand to shake some feeling back into them. Just do it.
    She punched the numbers and listened to the background buzzing, the sounds of millions of excited electrified cells as the current passed through…
    A click and Turnworth’s voice, cold and crisp, came through, as though he were standing right next to her. “Turnworth.” Rainbird’s stomach fluttered with nerves.
    “Is he there?” Her voice came out a rasp. She hoped it didn’t betray her anxiety.
    “Here.” Crackling sounds as Turnworth juggled the set. Then Petrus’ voice, ragged and worn, filled her world.
    “Rainbird?”
    “Papa! Are you all right? Have they hurt you?” The words tumbled out of Rainbird, rushing like a river in a rainstorm. “Do they—?”
    “Listen to me, Rainbird. I forbid you to come. Don’t listen to—” Petrus’ words ended in a grunt, a forced expulsion of air, as if he’d been socked in the gut.
    “Papa!” shouted Rainbird, then winced at the clunk! as if the mouthpiece on the other end had dropped. Shuffling noises and muffled cries came to her ears. Turnworth again. “You’ve heard him. Now bring us the wiz.”
    Petrus, in the distance, “No, Rainbird! They have a—” His words dissolved into a coughing fit that made Rainbird’s chest constrict with fear.
    “He needs medicine,” she told Turnworth, fighting back the tears. “You have to get him some or you’ll be left with a corpse.” Was he listening to her? She forced herself to be calm. “There won’t be an exchange if he isn’t alive, do you hear?”
    “Bring the medicine yourself, along with Sanders. Marker 55 in an hour.”
    “It’s almost morning,” Rainbird argued. “Thanks to you, everyone’s looking for us. I need until nightfall.”
    “Very well. You’ll meet us an hour after Deep Night then.”
    “Wait!” Rainbird glanced at Sanders, who was frantically shaking his head, fingers flying over his controls.
    “There is nothing else to say, Miss Gallavant.” A final click.
    Rainbird dropped the headset. “Did you locate him?”
    Sanders groaned. “Headside somewhere, beyond Marker 10. More specific than that…” He spread his hands out.
    “I’ll call back.”
    “I’d have to trace the call all over again. It doesn’t work that—”
    “Do it!” she snarled. “Or I’ll spike you to the