Kulingile devoured what was offered him almost at once, and sighed for more, although they had only been in the air half-an-hour: they were obliged to feed him twice again mid-air, before a water-hole offered itself below and Temeraire descended for a rest—without requiring much persuasion, Laurence was concerned to note.
The landscape was yet blasted in all directions, save where the thick green bushes had acted in some manner as a fire-break, or a barren patch of earth had offered nothing to the hunger of the flames. Fringed with both of these protections, the water-hole had only a thin coverlet of ash resting upon the surface, which they were able to skim off with their cups and buckets; it was however not very deep, for the most part, and they were obliged to keep most of the water they had obtained at the creek in their jugs and cans, and use the better and fresher supply only to satisfy their immediate thirst.
Temeraire drank and drank, when they had done, until the hole was nearly down to a damp recession in the earth; fortunately the water began to seep out again when he withdrew, so they might have a prospect of more when they had rested through the heat of the day. “Can we spare so long?” Temeraire said, wistfully.
“We will do better to conserve your strength,” Laurence said. “My dear, you are not yourself yet; I beg you do not try and push on through this heat. At least here we have a little shade, and I do not think Kulingile ought to be exposed to the sun’s worst violence.”
However, Kulingile did not at present seem to care anything for the sun, or for anything but food: he stood waiting out in the open at the edge of their makeshift camp nearly quivering, until Demane came trudging back with a fresh load of game for him to eat, and fell upon the provender without a pause.
He was done very quickly, and looked for more with a hopeful air; Demane stared at the wreckage—there was very little left but scraps of hide of the four small animals he had brought—and then pulled himself up to his feet again, despite the heat. “You may have another hour,” Laurence said, glancing upwards: the sun had made noon and was beginning its descent; soon, he hoped, they might leave again.
Another pair of lizards and a smallish kangaroo were found amid the burnt wreckage, only a little torn by birds, and they vanished into Kulingile’s gut with the same ravening speed while Demane knelt at the water-hole and cupped water into his mouth with his bare hand, panting, his arms shaking with fatigue; then he crumpled beneath one of the bushes and slept. Having devoured all there was, Kulingile licked his jaws and muzzle and every bloodstained talon clean, very carefully, and then looked around again: he crept to Demane and curled against him in the shade, and fell into a fitful, wheezing slumber beside him.
Sipho watched all this resentfully. Being both younger and easier in temper, he had acclimated with far less hesitation to the upheaval of their life, and the new society in which he found himself had become his home, where Demane, warier by nature and experience, yet held aloof. Sipho had begun, Laurence thought, to dislike a little his brother’s overzealous and smothering attention, the last year; but he was far from approving its transfer to the new recipient, and too proud to compete with open demands instead put himself in the deep shade of Temeraire’s body, and opened again his book, a Chinese text, to demonstrate his perfect unconcern.
“Well?” Laurence asked of Dorset, quietly, when the surgeon had risen from his inspection: he had gone to look over the sleeping hatchling yet again.
“It is certainly a pity, from the scientific standpoint,” Dorset said.
“You have no hope of his surviving, then,” Laurence said.
“On the contrary, I must now expect him to last some time, as he has lived this long,” Dorset said—several of the aviators, lying hangdog in the shade nearby, looked up abruptly—“and at his present rate of increase, there will shortly be no chance at all of an effective dissection. I would learn a great deal in his current state, but if he should live another month, there will be no working out the original deformity.”
Laurence paused and compressed his mouth; then he said, “Perhaps, Mr. Dorset, you might consider the patient’s feelings in the matter, before making your laments. Can you determine what is inhibiting his flight?”
“The air-sacs are malformed in some fashion, certainly,” Dorset said. “I imagine they have collapsed, and are pressing upon the lungs. The constraint of the shell very likely also injured the development. I hope I am not heartless,” he added, albeit without sounding very much concerned by the accusation, “but without the supportive action of the air-sacs and the vessels between them, his weight will crush the remaining organs as he grows; unless he should remain stunted. That I am afraid is unlikely. I can only guess at weight, but he has already put on ten feet in length.”
“Mr. Dorset, I assume there is no chance the dragonet should last much longer than that; nor ever fly?” Rankin interjected abruptly, having roused himself at the intelligence that Kulingile evidently did not mean to die at once and conveniently remove himself—and Demane—from consideration.
Dorset shrugged. “The vessels are functioning to some small extent, or else the weight of the skeletal system should already have crushed his remaining organs beyond use. It is not wholly impossible.”
This opinion produced a good deal of stirring amongst the aviators, and low conversations. “Not impossible,” Temeraire repeated to Laurence, with equal parts optimism and satisfaction, “I am very pleased Dorset should say so: that would be much better. There is no reason why he should not live, although he does eat a great deal; if only he can work out how to fly.”
“I hope you will not set your heart on his survival,” Laurence said, low, and looked with some concern at Demane, who yet slept, with an arm now curled over the dragonet’s shoulders: determination as much as affection would drive him hard. “We cannot rely upon it; certainly it forms no great part of Dorset’s expectations. Will you not eat a little more, before we go?”
“Oh,” Temeraire said, “no, perhaps not; but I will drink a little more.”
He drank, and they began the laborious process of loading him again, dragged out with reluctance: the convicts had all eaten heartily of the preserved meat themselves, and weighted down by food and the sun were in no great mood to continue the journey still further into the barrens, now without any guidance or promise of success but the ill-understood recommendation of the aborigines. “Three dragons ought to be enough for one town,” one man muttered, “without looking to get more.”
Laurence could muster no great enthusiasm himself, and particularly when Temeraire was so visibly unwell: his voice croaked raggedly, and even the smallish portions of meat, cooked a little while in water, were beyond his endurance to swallow. But with the hatching of Kulingile, there was no egg remaining to be a lever which could turn Temeraire aside; there was nothing now but to continue onward, until time should make it certain the lost egg was hatched.
“I must hope the egg is waiting,” Temeraire said, “and trusts that we will rescue it; I am sure it must be very anxious. I could not blame it, of course,” he added sadly, “if it did not like to wait, with as long as I have taken to find it. Pray, Laurence, can you repeat over anything of what the hunters said? Perhaps I might understand a little more.”
“I cannot,” Laurence said, “and I doubt O’Dea or Shipley could do so, either; and while I admire your gifts in this area greatly, my dear, I cannot allow you to suggest that you might form an understanding of a language of which you have never heard a syllable.”
“Well, I did hear the singing,” Temeraire said, but sighed, and did not press further.