Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

Pryce sat on the deck of the ship, working on his lesson plan under the light of the lantern. He’d already collected the materials that he had planned to use and placed them in the cargo hold for easy access.

He worked until he realized he was writing more with the aid of sunlight than that of the lantern, so deep in thought was he that he did not realize this fact until the sun had fully risen over the horizon.

Pryce looked up at the rising sun, blinking the moisture from his eyes. When was the last time he had ever seen a sunrise? The one before him felt more beautiful than it should have been, causing him to wonder if the sunrise here was somehow different.

Perhaps the rotation of the Earth acted like a centrifuge, making the atmosphere at the equator denser? No, the barometer read a slightly lower than average pressure so that couldn’t be the case, but perhaps there was a greater temperature gradient that could scatter light more effectively? Trying to compare this sunrise with those in his memory, he began to realize with growing discomfort that he could not recall a single distinct memory of him witnessing such an event in the past decade; the feeling that this sunrise might be different was an oddly distressing one.

Then he drew himself back to reality and stamped down his remorse. He should not feel regret, not for this.

He extinguished the lantern and continued planning under the light of the sun.

Pryce waited for the gusts of sand to abate before sliding down the rope.

“Hello, Fathom,” Pryce said with a wave, though Fathom only blinked in confusion.

…Something to work on later, then.

“How is Fathom wing?” Pryce asked, pointing at the injured wing. Fathom looked at the wing but only looked more confused.

“How is wing?” He asked.

Pryce blinked a few times before realizing that he had taught ‘how’ as a question asking for a cause, if he thought about it then ‘How is your wing?’ didn’t make much sense.

“Question: Wing pain, less? More?” Pryce tried instead.

“Wing pain more than…one day ago…sunset, less than two day ago.” Fathom said.

Despite his amazing memory, the dragon didn’t use plurals this time. Maybe they didn’t exist in his language? Pryce knew some human languages were like that, though in modern times everyone spoke English, though a few groups here and there still spoke their native tongues.

“Good,” Pryce said. “Pryce see wing?”

This time Fathom extended his wing for inspection more readily, though he still seemed a bit hesitant. Pryce looked at the wound, it seemed better even at a cursory glance. Measuring the wound showed that it was still 10 centimeters, but Pryce thought the gash had closed some, and the color looked better. It was difficult to determine anything else without agitating the injury, so he took a few pictures in hopes that he would be able to compare later.

Then he stepped in front of Fathom’s head to hold up some pebbles in his palm, “How many stones?”

“Five,” Fathom said. Good, now that he knew what ‘how many’ meant…

“How many days until wound is good?” Pryce asked, hoping the dragon would get his meaning.

Fathom cocked his head. “Wound is good,” he said.

“Uh…how many days until wound is like this wing?” He tried, pointing at the uninjured wing.

Fathom seemed to understand his meaning, and flicked his spines in thought. “Fifteen days?” He said uncertainly.

“Good,” Pryce said. That was very fast, but it wasn’t surprising that wings could heal quickly given how important they were. Now that pleasantries were out of the way, it was time for lessons to begin.

“I am Pryce,” Pryce said.

Fathom nodded.

“You are Fathom,” Pryce said.

Fathom slowly and reluctantly nodded, evidently still mulish over the name.

“You say, ‘I am Fathom,’” Pryce said, gesturing.

“I am Fathom…you are Pryce…?” He said with some reservation.

“Yes, good!” Pryce said. Fathom was definitely just copying the sentence structure here, but Pryce couldn’t really think of a way to teach grammar conjugation in a sensible way with the limited vocabulary they had.

But he’d need to teach the meaning of ‘past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’ for that. Good thing he taught the words he needed yesterday.

“Yes and no is opposites,” Pryce said. “Opposites are like black and white, sunrise and sunset, you understand?”

“Yes…I…understand,” Fathom said. He had only heard it once from Pryce when the human had told him he understood the dangers of the forest, so Pryce was impressed to see him grasp the concept and apply it so quickly.

“Opposite of ‘days ago’ is ‘days from now. One or more days ago is past, zero days ago is present, one or more days ahead is future.” Pryce was a little frustrated that there was no exact antonym of ‘ago’, so he’d try to teach the past/present/future tenses now to clear things up.

Fathom blinked at this information, then asked, “…Is zero days from now present?”

“Yes!” Pryce said, even as he winced at the way he described the future as ‘no ago’.

“Days from now,” Fathom echoed, “Days is sunrise, sunrise, now is now,” the dragon said, pointing a talon straight down. “What is…from?”

“From is…” Pryce faltered, not having prepared to teach this concept. He pointed at the ship a few seconds later. “I from ship, you from sky,” Pryce said.

Fathom mulled this over for a few moments before answering, “From…from now…understand.”

“Good,” Pryce said. “You wing is good fifteen days from now, yes?” Pryce asked, just to be clear.

“Yes,” Fathom confirmed with a bob of his head.

Pryce rubbed his eyes, communicating was a lot of work.

Pryce already taught Fathom about nouns and the concept of time, which covered most of the five W’s, the only two left were ‘Where’ and ‘Why’. The latter was a more difficult concept to convey, so he decided to work on ‘Where’ first.

“This is seashell,” he stated while pointing down at a seashell. Then he tossed said shell a few meters away. “Question: Where is seashell? Answer: Seashell is there,” he said, pointing at the shell’s new location.

“Where am I?” He quizzed, leaving the question open ended to see how the dragon would answer.

“There?” Fathom asked, pointing at him.

“…Yes,” Pryce said. That was the obvious answer and the only sensible one given the words they shared, but he had hoped for a little more explanation, maybe something about the island, or it’s name.

Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure how much dragons knew of the world. If they were all as smart as Fathom, then they should definitely know Earth was round. Ancient humans had calculated the circumference of the Earth over two thousand years ago to an error of less than two percent.

“I am here,” Pryce said, pointing to the ground beneath himself, “I go there,” he said, pointing at a rock on the beach and then moving to stand on top of it. “I am here,” he said, finishing.

“I…am here, you are there?” Fathom said, pointing at the ground and then at Pryce.

“Yes!” Pryce exclaimed, then paused. Their exchange had just given him an idea.

Pryce spent a few more hours teaching Fathom common verbs and nouns – They would need more sophisticated language to talk about anything important but fortunately the dragon was still improving at an astounding rate.

Fathom would also need to know directions for what Pryce had planned, but teaching those was easy. Fathom quickly learned North, East, South, West, forward, backward, left, right, up, and down, so Pryce taught him more descriptive nouns like big, small, long, tall, short, inside, out, on, off, open, close, top, bottom, side, fast, slow, and various others. The hardest thing to teach was the word ‘word’, but Fathom grasped the concept after Pryce gave a few examples of random singular words.

Then Pryce excused himself to go and quickly nab one of the largest portable maps he had of this island, then laid out the one-meter square map onto the beach. “Map,” he said, stepping back to let Fathom peruse the image.

Fathom squinted at what was for him a small map. “No…understand?” he said after a minute.

Pryce hummed in thought. He wasn’t really expecting him to grasp what it was without elaboration; the concept of a map is strange for one who has never heard of it.

“‘I’ and ‘you’ is ‘we’, and we…are here,” Pryce said, pointing at the mark he had drawn on the map.

Fathom blinked uncomprehendingly.

Pryce hummed in thought for a moment, it was a pity the imagery wasn’t in color, that only made things more confusing. “North, east, south, west,” he said, pointing at the cardinal directions with his hand on the map. “This is ocean; salt water,” he said while pointing at the light grey area around the island and then at the ocean right next to him.

Fathom looked back and forth from map to ocean, evidently thinking. Pryce pointed at the long dark mass and said, “land,” while pointing at the forest behind him.

Fathom inhaled; a shuddering noise that briefly alarmed Pryce before the dragon asked, “Camera make this? This is photo?”

“Yes!” Pryce grinned widely, both at the dragon’s realization and the fact that he was starting to make his own sentences. He obviously understood him, but he was also often copying Pryce’s sentence structure. Learning to formulate his own sentences was great to hear.

Fathom drew his head back and looked up at the sky, then back down at Pryce’s short stature. “How you make photo? I no fly up like this,” Fathom said, a strange note in his voice that Pryce couldn’t discern.

“…humans make camera fly up?” Pryce said, aware that this would be quite confusing from the dragon’s perspective.

“Camera…fly?” Fathom asked, looking at said device doubtfully.

“This camera no fly, different thing fly,” Pryce tried.

Pryce sighed, not having to look at Fathom’s face to know that didn’t make sense. Not having the words to explain how satellites worked. He had an idea, but that required the globe in the wheelhouse. He was getting really tired of fetching things from inside the ship.

“Globe,” he told Fathom. He spun the globe on the axis to show him how it worked, the dragon was watching with wide shining eyes. Then he reached out to the globe, talons gleaming –

“No!” Pryce hurriedly interposed himself between talon and globe, trying to think of how to communicate that something was fragile. “Like glass!” He exclaimed, which wasn’t exactly true, but he knew when to compromise between truth and utility.

Fathom slowly pulled his arm back, his head drooping.

Pryce rubbed his neck awkwardly. Why did he feel like he just took a toy from a kid? “Here,” he said in a gentler tone as he brought the globe closer. Fathom reached out slowly, and Pryce grabbed the base of a talon – not without apprehension, it was over 20 centimeters long and serrated – and guided it so Fathom brushed the globe with his knuckle, lightly spinning it.

He let the dragon play with the globe for a few moments, then realized he should take a photo. Fathom was too preoccupied with spinning his new toy to pay attention to the whirring and clicking of the cameras, or perhaps he simply didn’t care.

“Hey, Fathom…Fathom!” Pryce called, the dragon looking up at the second repetition. “Give globe to me,” he said. Fathom reluctantly pushed the globe over to Pryce, who spun it until he arrived at the island they were on. Humanity didn’t know what the island looked like, so the island drawn on the globe was a blurry shape much like the one in the satellite imagery.

“We are here,” Pryce said, showing Fathom the globe, then let him spin it around as he inspected the other parts of the globe.

“…Land is small, small,” Fathom said after a few moments, which made Pryce chuckle. He remembered seeing ancient maps of the world that depicted the mainland as several times larger than it was in reality. Evidently, it is only natural for sapient people to believe themselves to be a big part of the world.

“Correction: Small small is ‘very’ small,” Pryce explained, might as well get that one out of the way so they wouldn’t have to keep repeating words to emphasize…emphasis.

“Land is very small,” Fathom said. “Question: This map is good?”

“Map is good. Correction: Map is correct.”

Fathom tilted his head slowly, Pryce assumed it was something like discomfort, which was understandable given how he had just learnt his whole world was actually just a sliver of an island, estimated to be no more than 1.4 million square kilometers of the world’s total 510 million square kilometers.

“…what is this land?” Fathom asked, pointing at the island south of Alternis.

“I do not know. Humans from Mainland,” he said, pointing at the island in question. “30 days ago, humans here on mainland, 20 days ago, I here,” he said, tracing their route from the Mainland to Alternis. “What is name of this land?” Pryce asked, realizing he hadn’t asked that yet.

“Land is land, land no have name.” Fathom said, looking at Pryce oddly.

…Alright, fair enough. Pryce would’ve liked to ask about the reasoning behind that, but it sounded like the dragons simply didn’t see a need to name something they thought was completely unique.

“Question: Human…this land?” Fathom asked, pointing at the westmost island again.

“No humans on this land,” Pryce answered.

“How humans go from mainland to here?” Fathom asked, squinting down at Pryce in disbelief.

A little offended, Pryce focused on explaining how the ship worked, “Ship…fly-”

“Ship fly?!” Fathom hissed, looking up alarmingly at the massive 50-meter-long steel vessel.

“No, no, uh…” Pryce stammered, picked up a stick and tossed it onto the waves, “Stick. Stick float,” he said. “Ship here thirty days ago,” he pointed at the mainland. “Ship float on water, come here, I here in present,” he explained, tracing a line with his finger.

Fathom paused to process this, his gaze fixed on the largest landmass on the map before suddenly blurting out, “You-go-here-in-future?” He asked in a rush, jabbing a talon perilously close to the massive unnamed island to the west of Alternis, estimated to have a surface area of seven million square kilometers.

Pryce stared, bemused. That island was about 3,000 kilometers away from Alternis; how could he possibly know of it? “No go in future,” Pryce said. At least he had no plans to, he probably could go to the island with how much fuel he had left, but why would he?

“I fly there,” Fathom said, standing up as his wings trembled with palpable excitement.

“No! Island very…” Pryce sighed, he was really tired of running out of words. “This is one meter,” he said, laying a tape measurer on the beach and pointing at the end and the one meter mark. “Ten tens is one hundred, you understand?” When Fathom reluctantly settled down to nod, he went on to explain, “Ten hundreds is one thousand, one thousand meters is a kilometer.” Pryce said slowly, looking at Fathom to see if he understood.

Fathom slowly tilted his head, thinking.

Pryce drew what he believed would be one thousand on the beach just in case:

“One thousand,” Pryce said, and Fathom made a strange rumble. A sound of understanding? “Understand?” Pryce asked to be certain.

“Understand,” Fathom said.

“One thousand meters,” Pryce said, pointing at the one-meter marking on the tape measurer again, “is one kilometer. This,” he said, pointing at the westmost island – he should probably name it something, to hell with the ‘person who discovers it gets to name’ it crap – “is three thousand kilometers from here.”

Fathom grumbled, shifting his wings and glancing to the south – evidently undeterred.

Pryce sighed, then returned to the map of Alternis. “Where you fly in one day from here?” Pryce asked, trying a different tactic.

Fathom leaned forward, looking at the map with an air of uncertainty. “…here?” He said, pointing at the map.

Pryce marked the further location the dragon had pointed out, and measured the distance and compared it to the scale bar. Fathom could fly around a thousand kilometers in a day? That averaged to a little under 42 kilometers per hour for 24 hours – quite the feat if the dragon wasn’t boasting. Pryce knew some birds had been recorded to fly a few thousand kilometers in a day, so it wasn’t impossible.

Pryce suspected that thermals and winds were even more important factors for a dragon, who likely relied on air currents to fly efficiently and conserve energy.

“How long can you fly? How many days no land?” Pryce asked, wishing he had the word for stop.

“No land?” The dragon blinked, not comprehending.

“How many days you fly, no stop fly?” Pryce tried.

“One day and some?” Fathom said.

Pryce rubbed his eyes, realizing he had forgotten fractions.

He taught Fathom fractions by using a piece of paper and cutting it into fractions, and as expected the dragon understood the concept with ease.

“One and a half day.” Fathom replied confidently when Pryce questioned him again. One day and a half meant that dragons could fly around one thousand five hundred kilometers without stopping.

“The distance from here,” Pryce said, pointing at Alternis, “to here,” pointing at the western island, “is three thousand kilometers. You only fly one thousand five hundred kilometers.”

“…Distance on map is very small. No like 3,000 kilometers,” Fathom said obstinately.

Pryce smiled despite himself – the exchange reminded him of a certain child learning about maps for the first time. He pulled out the first photo of the dragon and pointed at it. “You are very small in photo,” Pryce said pointedly.

Fathom looked away and grumbled something that Pryce suspected would be unintelligible even if he could hear and understand Draconic. A second or two later he looked back at the map, seeming to stare at the Mainland.

“You go here?” Fathom asked, pointing at the mainland.

Pryce took a few moments to try and understand what he meant. “In past, humans want ship start here, go here, then here, then go back home,” Pryce explained. He knew he was using a few new words, but none of them were key words and his pointing should be easy to understand.

“Home?” Fathom asked inquisitively.

“Home is…where you…” Pryce trailed off lamely while Fathom stared expectantly at him. “Sleep! Home is where you sleep,” Pryce said, relieved he had found a sensible answer.

“When no sun, do sleep. Sleep is this,” He laid down a tarp and curled into a ball, then closed his eyes and made light snoring noises. “Home is where you sleep,” he finished, looking up to see if Fathom understood.

“…understand?” Fathom said, then pointed at the ship, “You home?”

“Yes, correct.”

Fathom was silent for a few more moments as he examined the map. “This is…you…past home?”

“…Yes.” Pryce said, “…old home.”

“You…go home?”

“I…” Pryce faltered, now knowing how to explain. He wasn’t even sure what his odds of going back home were, he’d tried to avoid contemplating the possibility that he would never see another person again. Did dragons count as people? Most dictionaries specified a person as a human being, but considering recent developments, Pryce felt that definition was a tad outdated.

“Ship no can go back,” He said, looking up at the dragon’s curious gaze. He supposed it wouldn’t be such a terrible fate to spend the rest of his life here; he would certainly never run out of things to study and learn. “Some yes and some no is ‘maybe’…maybe I go home many, many days in future.” Pryce said, face set in contemplation. “Where is you home?” He asked curiously.

Fathom gestured west, towards the forest and mountains. “Maybe five kilometers,” he said uncertainly.

Perhaps it was time to teach him about hours and minutes.

Pulling out a whiteboard, Pryce drew three large circles and split them into 24 segments. Introducing AM and PM was just asking for confusion, so he’d go with 24-hour clocks, and the chronometer used the same format anyway.

Shading in half the first circle, a quarter of the second, and a 24th of the third, Pryce said, “half day, quarter day, twenty-fourth day,” he said as he pointed at each one. “One twenty-fourth day is ‘one hour’, understand?”

“Yes.”

Pryce brought out the chronometer and opened the face so its ticking was more audible. “You hear tick-tick-tick?” He asked, timing each ‘tick’ with the clock’s ticks.

“What is this?” Fathom asked, eyes glued onto the shiny metal thing and ignoring the question.

“This is chronometer, complicated,” Pryce said, but held out the chronometer and turned it around for his inspection.

“…Five-hundred thousand…forty-two thousand, six hundred thirty nine?” Fathom read, startling Pryce. He hadn’t realized that the dragon might read the engraving on the metal shell, and was taken aback for a moment. “Yes, is five-hundred forty-two thousand, six-hundred thirty-nine.”

“What is this number?” Fathom asked. “Is very big.”

“…complicated,” Pryce said, grimacing.

“What is this?” Fathom asked, pointing at the text this time.

“Those are written words. Example: Spoken word is one, written word is this,” Pryce said, drawing a ‘1’ on the ground. Technically it was a numeral, but that was an unnecessary complication.

“What is this written words?” Fathom asked again.

“Words is ‘Mk. 10 Wright Marine Chronometer’, this is complicated.” Pryce said evasively. “You hear tick-tick-tick?” He queried before Fathom could ask another question, hoping to change the subject.

“I hear tick-tick-tick,” Fathom said, nodding reluctantly but tapping one talon with the other in time with the chronometer.

“One tick is one ‘second’,” he explained. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five ,” he counted along the ticks. “Sixty seconds is one minute, sixty minutes is one hour.”

Fathom nodded, “Is like dragon…bum-bump.”

“…bum-bump?” Pryce asked, confused. The sound he made was different from what Fathom made, which was a deep throaty noise that sounded like a…

“Thing in here,” Fathom said, gesturing at his chest. “Make bum-bump…bum-bump...”

“Heartbeat,” Pryce said in realization as he tapped his chest where his own heart was. “Thing in me is heart, bum-bump is heartbeat.”

“No, you bum-bump…no like I bum-bump,” Fathom said cryptically.

“…Question?” Pryce said, confused. How could a heartbeat be not like a heartbeat?

“Question: Heart?” Fathom asked.

“Heart is organ that make blood go. Organ is…” Pryce said, trailing off as he realized he had preserved raptor organs the day before. “Wait,” he said, dashing off into the ship.

A minute later he re-emerged, proudly holding a jar with a preserved raptor heart in it. “Organ.”

Fathom looked at the shiny jar curiously. “Food?”

“No food,” Pryce said, failing to come up with a way to explain the concept of preserving organs for scientific study. “See organ,”

Fathom nodded understandingly, and Pryce suspected that the dragon mistook the jar as a trophy. “Blood is red water in raptor, is in you, is in me,” he said.

“Understand blood.”

“Heart go bum-bump, make blood go fast,” Pryce reiterated.

“Some yes, not same,” Fathom insisted.

Tilting his head in confusion, Pryce stared at the dragon as he tried to wonder what he meant. Eventually he gave up and retrieved the stethoscope from the med bay.

“I use this on you chest, I hear bum-bump,” Pryce said, holding up the medical device and placing the bell against his own chest.

Fathom shuffled away nervously, eyes locked on the instrument. “Pain?”

“No, no pain,” Pryce chuckled. “You sit, I hear.”

Fathom settled down on all four legs a little warily, and Pryce closed his eyes as he pressed it up against his chest to focus on the heartbeat. The dragon visibly relaxed once he realized there was indeed no pain, making Pryce smile as he listened for a heartbeat.

Lu-lub-du-dub…Lu-lub-du-dub…Lu-lub-du-dub…Lu-lub-du-dub…

“Y-You have two hearts?” Pryce stammered.

“No.”

Oh, right, there was probably a more mundane explanation-

“I have three hearts.”

Pryce sat down heavily on a crate.

“Where?!” He asked a little faintly.

“Small heart, big heart, small heart,” Fathom said, tapping his upper chest, lower chest, and then pointed at his torso with a wingtip. “You small, have one small heart,” he added.

Okay, now that he calmed down a little, it wasn’t that weird for a creature to have three hearts, especially if two were smaller, secondary hearts and –

“Wait, how you know I have one heart?”

“Wait?” Fathom asked, confused.

“Er…Question: how you know I have one heart?” Pryce corrected, reminding himself not to use informal phrasing.

“I hear you heart beat,” Fathom said, unfurling his great wings in a strange, conical way.

“Oh,” Pryce breathed in realization, it was like an ear trumpet! The wings must funnel sound waves straight to his head, which had to have organs responsible for hearing somewhere – maybe they were internal?

“How you hear? Human hear with ear,” Pryce said, turning his head and pointing at an ear.

Fathom flared out the spines along his jaw and pointed his head down, allowing Pryce to see the spines that extended from his jaw, with webbing that stretched from spine to spine much like a small frill.

Pryce wondered how much the dragon’s hearing capabilities were diminished when the spines were flattened against his neck. Eardrums had to remain taut to sense vibrations, so he doubted Fathom could hear very well at all if the spines were lying flat…but maybe that was an advantage, being able to protect their own hearing? A dragon’s roar was quite deafening, after all.

“There is four bum-bump,” Fathom said unexpectedly.

“A fourth heart?” Pryce asked incredulously.

“No heart, is…no heart,” Fathom said with a shrug of his wings.

Something that beats like a heart but isn’t a heart…there wasn’t anything like that in the human body. Lungs didn’t beat, and sure some other organs contracted, but not regularly. He was completely stumped.

“What fourth bum-bump organ make?” Pryce asked.

“Make…small sun,” Fathom said.

What?

“What?” Pryce asked.

“Dragon no make small sun, four bum-bump go slow. Dragon make small sun, four bum-bump go fast,” he explained, which didn’t help Pryce understand in the slightest.

“…what is small sun?” Pryce asked, even more confused now.

Fathom craned his head around and picked up a stick on the beach to flick his tongue at, then tossed it away to pick up another. He did this several more times before he was evidently satisfied.

The dragon held the stick up to his muzzle, exhaled, then shut his mouth with a snap and pop –

“Holy shit,” Pryce gasped as the air distorted as the branch caught fire. Fathom stuck one end of the stick into the beach, the small flame flickering weakly as it fed on the branch.

Pryce stared at the flame with wide eyes, baffled by what he had just seen – or rather, what he hadn’t. There was no color to the flame that Fathom spat out, only a jet of rippling gas like air over asphalt on a hot summer day. Whatever fueled the dragon’s fire burned in wavelengths of light invisible to the human eye.

And he only knew one gas that burned like that.

Hydrogen.

Hydrogen was notoriously dangerous for two reasons; because it was so flammable, and because it was practically invisible in daylight. Even in complete darkness hydrogen flames would only burn a dim blue because most of the emitted light was in the UV and IR wavelengths of light, beyond what humans could perceive. Pryce didn’t know what exact ranges the wavelengths were – he didn’t have that much obscure knowledge – but he’d bet that the ranges of light that dragons could see would cover the emission spectra of hydrogen flame quite well.

Meanwhile Fathom stared bemused as Pryce paced back and forth on the beach, muttering to himself.

“Gharum,” the dragon called out, breaking Pryce out of his thoughts. “You no have small sun?”

“…no…?” Pryce said, still not sure what he meant.

“Sun,” Fathom said, pointing at the sun. “Small sun,” he said, pointing at the burning torch.

“Fire?” Pryce said reflexively, then smacked his head in realization. It wasn’t uncommon for even a modern human to believe the sun was a massive ball of fire, so it wasn’t a stretch for a language to name the sun something along the lines of ‘great fire’. He doubted fire was called ‘lesser sun’, Fathom probably just called it that because Pryce hadn’t taught him the word for fire yet.

“Fire,” Pryce said as he pointed at the torch, then pointed at the sun –

“Sun is ‘Big Fire’,” Fathom said before Pryce could ask.

“Understand,” Pryce replied, satisfied that he had guessed correctly, “Sun is ‘Big Fire’ in dragon words...dragon words name is draconic.”

Fathom cocked his head. “Is…humanic human words?”

“Er…No, human words is English.”

“What is…English?” Fathom asked, flicking his spines.

“Complicated,” Pryce shrugged.

“English no good,” Fathom huffed.

“Yes,” Pryce chuckled, unable and unwilling to argue.

Fathom gave him another strange look at that which Pryce couldn’t interpret, so instead he thought about what Fathom had said earlier…

‘Dragon no make small sun, four bum-bump go slow. Dragon make small sun, four bum-bump go fast.’

So, dragons not making small sun (fire) means the fourth beating organ would pulse slowly, if dragons made fire, then the fourth beating organ would pulse quickly. So, the organ had something to do with how they make fire, which meant that it had to do with hydrogen production!

Pryce had no idea why the organ had to pulse to produce hydrogen, but it seemed that if a dragon didn’t use fire, then the rate of beating was relatively consistent since the body wouldn’t need to replenish its stores of hydrogen.

Why did dragons produce hydrogen? Pryce doubted the flame was more dangerous than their talons or teeth, it had to have a utility. Hydrogen was much lighter than air, so maybe dragons used sacs of hydrogen to aid in lift like a living zeppelin?

What he wanted to know most was how the dragon’s body made hydrogen, but even if he knew the words to ask Fathom for details, he didn’t think dragons would know their own biology well enough to accurately explain what that organ did. Even human medicine had accepted germ theory about a century ago.

“Word for fourth bum-bump organ is ‘hydrogen heart, one hydrogen heartbeat is a ‘beat’,” Pryce said.

“Understand,” Fathom nodded.

“And no, humans no have fire,” Pryce said.

“No fire,” Fathom said, tilting his head forward a little in a gesture Pryce wasn’t sure how to decipher, but he was leaning towards sympathy…? It wouldn’t be surprising if fire held a significant meaning in their culture. Pryce could only imagine what it would be like if humans could spit fire. Deciding not to waste his thoughts on an uncertainty, Pryce moved returned to the previous subject.

“This is second,” Pryce said, repeating himself to let Fathom know they were back on the subject of time. “Each day has 24 hours, each hour is 60 minutes, each minute is 60 seconds, there is 86,400 seconds in one day…Question: seconds you fly home is what number?”

Fathom made a deep and resonant humming sound as he pondered the question, then cupped his wings around his head like he did before. “312 seconds,” Fathom said after less than half a minute. Pryce stared at the oddly specific number, and Fathom elaborated at his apparent confusion. “One hydrogen heartbeat is 12 seconds.”

It seemed that the hydrogen heart did beat very regularly if Fathom had remembered how many beats it took to fly from one place to another. Pryce thought it must be convenient, having a built-in chronometer.

He wondered how much time Fathom spent calculating seconds. First, he had to listen for the number of ticks from the start of one beat to the end of one beat (12 seconds per beat), then multiply the number of bum-bumps – beats, Pryce mentally amended – then multiply number of beats by 12, which Pryce calculated to be 26 after a few seconds. Fathom’s mental math was quite impressive, especially given the lack of technology and science dragons had…Pryce wanted badly to ask why dragons had math, but they didn’t have the words to discuss that yet.

“You fly home, 26 beats?” Pryce asked.

“I go home, fly 26 beats,” Fathom confirmed.

“Where other dragons?” Pryce asked, gesturing to his quick sketch of several dragons in the sand. He hoped to get some insight on their culture.

“…I have land,” Fathom said after thinking for a moment. “Other dragons no have land here,”

“Territory,” Pryce said. “Land you have is your territory.”

“I territory,” Fathom said with his head held high, the dramatic effect ruined a little by the infantile grammar.

That answered one question, but that only furthered Pryce’s confusion. If dragons were territorial, why would they have language? Why invent math? Everything he learnt about dragons just led to more confusing questions; it would be frustrating if Pryce wasn’t already fascinated.

“I…in your territory?” Pryce asked hesitantly. Fathom hadn’t shown any real hostility or territorial aggression to him yet. He assumed it was because he wasn’t a dragon, and thus wasn’t a real threat to him and his territory.

“Yes,” Fathom said, flicking his nictitating membranes at Pryce as he did so. Pryce suspected that particular ‘gesture’ denoted dismissiveness. It was probably an obvious question.

“My territory?” Pryce asked, pointing at the ship.

“…” Fathom gave The Horizon an intense look; the same look he had when he saw the machete and mirror…the look he had when he saw something he liked and wanted. Pryce nervously began to wonder if he had said something he should not have as the silence continued to grow.

“My territory, you territory,” Fathom finally said begrudgingly as he waved a wing at the land behind him and pointed a talon at The Horizon.

Pryce exhaled, relieved and a little amused. It was comforting to see that even if dragons liked shiny things very much, they still had a moral compass…or at least some reason why they wouldn’t just take anything they wanted.

Fathom glanced away while Pryce mused over his thoughts, looking at the lowering sun in the sky. The sun was behind the mountains by now, but Pryce followed his gaze to see the brilliant crimson light scattering through the sky[1], outlining the mountains in molten red.

“Sunset is beautiful,” Pryce said.

“Sunset is red?” Fathom said, confused.

Pryce chuckled. “Yes, is red. Beautiful is…thing you like see,” Pryce said, belatedly realizing how confusing it would be to hear that ‘like’ the comparison and ‘like’ the preference were pronounced the same way. “Shiny things are beautiful, like sky, like sunset, like mirror, and like machete,” Pryce tried instead.

“…Sunset is beautiful,” Fathom agreed. “Question: You use make wound-pain less?”

“Oh, yes,” Pryce said, having forgotten about the injury. “Wait, one minute,” he said as he retrieved the tube of ointment. “Medicine,” Pryce said as he waved the tube around, then examined the wound. It was the same size as it was this morning, but he took a picture anyway before beginning his treatment.

Fathom bore it much better this time, perhaps because he knew what to expect. He made no noise other than what Pryce thought sounded like rumblings of discomfort.

“Done,” Pryce said, taking a step back and looking at Fathom as he glanced at the wound and nodded. “You say, ‘Thank you’,” Pryce said.

“…Say thank you?”

“…Nevermind, take this,” Pryce said, and retrieved glass marble from his pockets before dropping it into Fathom’s outstretched foreclaw.

“Marble,” Pryce said as Fathom brought the bauble up close to his face, his glossy black pupils so dilated that they looked much like giant marbles themselves. It was just a pretty thing made of glass that looked like a miniature version of the night sky, almost worthless, but quite beautiful. Pryce had bought it quite a few years ago to give as a gift, though he had never gotten the chance to do so.

He could see the reflected glint of the sunset reflected in the dragon’s large eyes. Fathom tried to hold it between two talons to hold it up, but the smooth glass surface slipped out of his talons and landed on the sand with a thud.

“Wait,” Pryce said as he left to get a common cloth bag from the ship.

“Marble,” he said as he held out a hand. Fathom had picked up the marble in his absence and was in the process of admiring it. “Marble,” he said more firmly, but Fathom only glanced at him with an obstinate noise.

Pryce sighed and opened the bag. “Marble go in bag, you take bag,” he said, opening the bag for Fathom to drop the marble into.

But the dragon still refused to cooperate, so Pryce left the bag on the sand and took a few steps back. Only then did Fathom pinch the bag’s handles then fumbled around with it for a few moments as he tried to get the marble in. Eventually he speared the two handles on two different talons to hold it open while he dropped the marble into the bag.

Stifling a chuckle, Pryce stepped back to a safe distance towards the ship and waved. “See you, sunrise.”

The dragon returned the farewell and flew off, bag dangling from his right foreclaw…reminding Pryce of a shopping bag. The thought of a dragon going shopping made him burst out laughing as he closed the ship’s door.

He should definitely teach Fathom the word for ‘tomorrow’ tomorrow, it would make greetings and farewells much less awkward.

[JOURNAL ENTRY]

In my career it is expected that answers yield more questions, though that doesn’t make me any more patient – I have more questions than ever in spite of how much I’ve learned, chief among them being: how do dragons make hydrogen?

It might be a similar adaptation as the one seen in spore pods, which produce hydrogen through unknown means and use it to float along wind currents. Attempts at growing these fungi in greenhouses were successful, but none ever produced hydrogen. A commonly held theory was that bacteria was responsible for making the hydrogen gas, and the hydrogen-producing bacteria that had hitched a ride in the spore pod had all died before it arrived at the Mainland.

I’m quite certain I heard a spark when Fathom ignited his flame, and he even seemed to use it to punctuate some words. If this noise is indeed a spark, dragons must have some bioelectric ability.

If they do have the ability to generate electricity, could they use it to split water apart to make hydrogen? No, I don’t even need to do the napkin math to show that the energy requirements would be insane…but I’m going to anyway.

Checking reference material, water requires 286 kJ/mol to dissociate without external heating, which I believe is a safe assumption to make.

I recall an electric eel has an output voltage and current of 600 volts and 1 amp, which gives 600 watts. The duration of the shock is only 2 milliseconds, which means each shock has only 1.2 joules of energy. Even if dragons had a million times more electrokinetic muscle than an electric eel, it would only produce 1.2 million joules of electricity, which works out to electrolyzing about 4.2 moles of water.

Electrolysis of water reaction: 2H2O => 2H2 + O2

So that means if 4.2 moles are electrolyzed, it becomes 4.2 moles of H2 and 2.1 moles of O2.

1 mole is 11.2[2] liters of an ideal gas, so 4.2 moles of H2 is 47.02 liters, or 0.047 m3.

Thanks to the textbooks I have, I know the equation for lift and the density of hydrogen at standard pressure:

volume = mass / (air density – lifting gas density)

Rearrange to get:

mass = volume * (air density – lifting gas density)

Plug in values:

mass = 0.047 m3 * (2.4 kg/m3 – 0.17 kg/m3)

mass = 0.105 kg

47 liters would only be able to lift 10.5 grams.

Electrolysis is definitely impossible. Even if dragons have a far more effective way of producing bioelectricity that wouldn’t close the gap in any significant way…would it?

What if dragons used bacteria to make hydrogen the same way spore pods (are theorized to) do?

If the spore pods took advantage of hydrogen-producing bacteria to make hydrogen, then it wouldn’t be unexpected for another organism in the same environment to do the same thing.

So, the question is: Can dragons store enough hydrogen to aid in flight?

For the sake of simplicity, I’ll optimistically estimate that there’s enough hydrogen gas in Fathom’s body to fill a cube 3 meters long – which means 27 cubic meters of volume.

Same equation:

mass = 27 m3 * (2.45 kg/m3 – 0.17 kg/m3)

mass = 61.56 kg

An optimistic estimate results in hydrogen only able to lift 61.56 kilograms of mass.

Well, there goes that theory. 61.56 kg seems rather negligible compared to what I assume must be at least several thousand kilograms of mass, so we I can conclude that hydrogen is only really used for producing fire.

Either way this is an amazing case of mutualism. The bacteria get a nice safe place to live inside a dragon’s body – probably the hydrogen heart, and the dragon gets a slight weight reduction along with the ability to breathe fire.

Tomorrow, I continue to teach Fathom; we still have many more words to learn.