In the Labyrinth of Drakes by Marie Brennan Read Free Book Online Page B

injuring themselves, each other, or their handlers. A great many restraints had been involved, and at one point he had even resorted to a process I will call “mediated by human assistance,” and leave it at that.
    When Tom was done, I asked, “The sheikh is gone now, yes?” He nodded, and I stood up so rapidly that my chair caught on a broken edge of tiling and nearly fell over. “Then there is no reason for me not to go see the dragons with my own eyes.”
    Tom stood as well, but with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “Isabella—I did not say.” He hesitated, one hand tapping nervously on the surface of the desk. “You saw the dragons in the king’s menagerie, all those years ago. They were runts, and easy to control. Some of the hatchlings here are defective, but not all of them, and not the adults that were captured for breeding. Lord Tavenor had to find a way to keep them. It … will distress you.”
    I stilled, laying my fingers flat against my skirts. “What do you mean?”
    â€œHe tried chains and muzzles,” Tom said, clearly reluctant. “But the drakes developed sores on their hides, which became infected; he lost three that way. And two men died unmuzzling one of them for a meal—they got burned. He had to resort to other methods.”
    â€œTom.” I swallowed, and realized my throat had become very dry. “Delaying will not make it any more palatable.”
    â€œThe supracoracoideal tendons,” Tom said. “He cut them, so the dragons cannot fly. And he tested a method on one of the carcasses—a heated knife, to cauterize the organ that produces their extraordinary breath.”
    With one hand I felt behind me until my fingers met the arm of my chair. Then I sat down again, very carefully.
    â€œIf you do not wish to see them in person,” Tom said, “then I will take those duties.”
    â€œNo.” The word came out of me of its own accord, a reflex as natural and unstoppable as breath. “No—I will see them.”
    It was not professional ambition that drove me to say so. True, that was a consideration: to abdicate any portion of our scientific work to Tom alone would reinforce the very assumptions we both fought against. But that was not why I insisted on going.
    I refused because I cared about the dragons too much to hide from their suffering.
    Men commonly criticize women, and women scientists especially, for an over-abundance of sentiment. The reasoning goes that we feel too deeply; and our feelings, being unscientific, damage our scholarly detachment. Thus, by the logic of this syllogism, women are unsuited to scientific work. I have given this a variety of responses over the years, some longer and more elaborately constructed than others, but this being a memoir (and therefore by definition personal in tone), I will simply say that this is utter tosh.
    Yes, I felt physically ill at the thought of what had been done to the dragons. I am indeed partial to their kind; I have not hidden that fact in these volumes, though for many years in my early career I strove to do exactly that, so as to establish some kind of credibility among my peers. I also recognized the pragmatic necessity that underlay Lord Tavenor’s actions: it is simply not practical to keep healthy adult dragons captive, without taking some kind of measures to restrain their capabilities. But I do not believe that recognition of that necessity should mean abandoning all human feeling about our methods and their consequences. Indeed, a science which has no concern for such matters is a science with which I do not care to associate.
    When I went to see our captive dragons, therefore, it was with a heavy heart; and I no longer shrink from saying so. What I saw did not make me feel better in the slightest.
    The dragons were kept in large open pits within a perimeter wall that had been added onto the original compound. The edges were