Yet it was otherwise painfully thin to look upon, the bones of the shoulders and hip standing in sharp relief: long and narrow, and had been folded upon itself several times in the tight bounds of the shell. The dragonet had evidently suffered from the confinement, and moving palsied-slow unwound itself only a little at a time, and pausing every short while to gasp a few labored breaths. Laurence could only wince for its sake. It was scarcely the size of an underfed hound.

“Oh, I am hungry,” the dragonet said, in a small piping voice which sounded very much as though it were being whistled through a reed; but none of the aviators moved. Drewmore and Blincoln shifted uneasily, and looked at Forthing, who already had edged back away. They, too, stepped back, from the hatchling, and a general uneasy silence began.

“Well,” Rankin said after a pause, “it is a pity. Gentlemen, I assume you are one and all in agreement? There is no officer who would care to try the harnessing? Mr. Dorset?”

Dorset was already pacing around the hatchling, inspecting it; he shook his head absently. “I cannot speak either to the source or the effects of the deformity until I have opened it, of course; from the labored breathing I should imagine the lungs are constrained. Quite an interesting case.”

No-one else spoke; Laurence did not immediately follow, until Rankin turned and said, “Mr. Fellowes, I believe you are our only ground-crew master; I must ask you to undertake the duty—I am afraid we do not have rifles. Would you prefer a sledge, or a pistol?”

Temeraire, Laurence thought, had also not yet understood; before he should realize, Laurence said sharply, “That is quite enough, sir; I wonder if you could have the temerity to call yourself a Christian. Mr. Fellowes, we will have none of that.”

Rankin wheeled on him and snapped, “That you are ignorant of all principles of the Corps, and disdain those few you know, is no surprise; that you have the audacity to set yourself up as authority likewise—What can you, who received the privilege unlooked-for and unearned, understand of the feelings of any aviator on such an occasion, who has lived all his life in waiting for it? It is our duty—as much our duty as harnessing the beast would be, if it were fit for service; it is not. It is not, and there is nothing to be done for it.”

“It is nonetheless one of God’s creatures for its lack of usefulness,” Laurence said, “and I will not see it murdered.”

“Would you prefer to see it abandoned and exposed, to suffer slowly?” Rankin said. “A dragon comes out of the shell ready to fend for itself: do you imagine this hatchling could do so, if we should leave it here, unharnessed and alone?”

The dragonet, as yet mostly preoccupied with untangling itself, looked back at them wary and uncertain. Fumbling its long-clawed feet over one another and its tail, it tried to spread out its wings, and managed to flap and raise a little dust; but then it ceased the effort, and fell to gasping instead.

“Oh,” Temeraire said sadly, to the hatchling, “you cannot fly?”

“I am sure I will manage it shortly,” the hatchling said, in its small pale voice, “only I am so stiff; and hungry.”

Rankin jerked his hand cuttingly. “It cannot live long in any case,” he said.

“Then,” Laurence said, “we will give the poor beast some food, and what comfort it can take, until the natural end should come; if that be quick or late, that does not relieve us of the obligations of humanity.”

“And who do you propose should feed it?” Rankin said. “No aviator will do it and so bind himself, sacrificing his one chance; and I will be damned if I will allow you to impose a low convict upon us with a claim to call himself Captain—”

“I will feed it myself,” Laurence said.

“What?” Temeraire said, his head swinging around sharply. Laurence paused, astonished, and Temeraire said, “You would—?” and his voice was trembling, thrumming with distress and wrath, an edge of the resonance of the divine wind to it.

“Have done,” Rankin said, impatiently. “You cannot feed it; unless it has no sense at all, it will not take food from your hands: it can see you are Temeraire’s, and it knows he would kill it at once. Which,” he added, “would save us the difficulty, I suppose.”

Laurence threw him a disgusted look; Temeraire might perhaps dislike the gesture, but as for murdering a small and helpless hatchling, he did not in the least believe it. He said, “Temeraire—my dear, what is this absurdity; you cannot imagine I would propose any substitution, ever.” That Temeraire was distressed, however, was certain; Laurence added, “My intentions are only the most practical: and I beg you to feed the hatchling yourself, if you should have any objection to my performing the office.”

“Oh,” Temeraire said, his ruff smoothing a little. “Oh, well; I do not mind that, but, Laurence—” He leaned his head over and in a low and confiding tone said, rather hesitantly, “Laurence, maybe you have not quite understood—it cannot fly.”

Laurence was very much shocked—shocked, appalled; he scarcely knew what to say. Rankin said, “There; will this convince you to have done enacting us this thorough Cheltenham tragedy?”

Temeraire snorted at Rankin. “I am sure I do not see why you must speak if all you wish is to be unpleasant,” he said, “and Laurence, if you should feel very strongly, of course I will give the hatchling some food. Only, it does seem a little strange.”

“More than a little strange,” Caesar said. “Why, what’s it to do when you aren’t about, and it is hungry? Anyway, we are still in this desert, and it has been scraps and string all week; there may be a bit of extra food about now, but it’s a long way back to the cows. You might have a little sense, instead of wasting it.”

“Perhaps it might come to be able to fly, after all,” Temeraire said, “if it is only tired, from being shaken a great deal—although—then it might have stayed in the shell to rest—”

He trailed off, not very convincingly; and Laurence found himself abruptly unsure—adrift; what he had supposed a certain mooring had shifted, and was floating with him in an unknown current. If the hatchling should linger—deformed, helpless, without any means of sufficiency—rejected by the Corps, and its fellows also—

“Temeraire, you will oblige me greatly if you would give it something,” Laurence said, nevertheless; there was no alternative which did not appall the worse: which was not full of barbarism and cruelty, and must be rejected out of hand.

He turned, and stopped: the hatchling was feasting slowly but with great determination in the gutted innards of the kangaroo, with a loop of belt around its neck for token harness, and Demane looked up and said, “I am naming him Kulingile.”

“It means, ‘all is well,’” Temeraire said to Caesar, “and I do not see what business you have complaining, when Demane was of my crew. I do not see why I must always be losing some one of my officers or my ground crew whenever an egg should happen to hatch; it is become quite unreasonable.”

And almost enough to make one not wish to go and find the other egg: a certain anticipation of injury which made Temeraire feel not so delighted as he ordinarily would have been, with the intelligence which Laurence and Tharkay had brought back from the natives.

Not really, of course; it was not the fault of the egg, and in truth Temeraire was deeply, profoundly relieved, even to have the little scraps of direction; but—he might admit he was not quite feeling himself. He would not have minded a few days more of quiet rest, and stewed meat. Temeraire did not mean to complain aloud, but his throat was so very uncomfortable, and it seemed very hard he should have to go to all this trouble, and suffer indignities, only to be robbed of yet another crewman. He sighed.