Sean sighed and put aside the newspaper-feed; nothing about dragons or their movement, again.  It had been months now, and while initial interest in the Free Dragons Movement had been strong, support was now moving past its peak.  The news programs weren't interested any more, and though there were a lot of supporters and members of the protest, some of them were starting to lose interest; he was sure there were less and less people out on the streets every day.  The UN had yet to acknowledge them, which made it even worse.

Then, of course, there was the new anti-dragon movement.

It had started somewhere in the province of Italy, and gained supporters just as quickly as his own movement had.  But this other movement didn't just want dragons to stay caged up: they wanted to see dragons rounded up and slaughtered.  They were spawn of the devil, the anti-dragon people said.  Their leader, Nicholas Gallo, called dragons dangerous, evil, violent monsters whose goal on earth was to bring about the apocalypse and therefore had to be destroyed.  There were even rumors that some of his followers had attempted to kidnap and kill a few of the younger and smaller dragons, but those rumors were unconfirmed and so far all of the dragons remained safe at their zoos.

Sean and Elaine had quickly agreed to never acknowledge the anti-dragon movement's existence in public.  There was no need for a confrontation between the two groups, and if it got heated or violent it would ruin the "peaceful protest" image Sean had been striving for.

He considered waking up Elaine--it was still early, but the morning rush hour was one of the best times to be out picketing--when a point of green light winked at him from across the room: his phone.  He had a new message.

He walked across the room, picked up his phone, dialed the message number and listened.  "Hello, Mr. Nelson, this is UN Senator Robert Stone.  The Senate voted yesterday to form a committee to draft a bill to have the dragons freed, and I have been placed at the head of the aforementioned committee.  However, as you are much closer to these dragons than I am, I'm sure you have a much better idea than I do of what the dragons want--and need--and I'd like to talk to you about it before the committee's first meeting Thursday morning.  If it's okay, I was wondering if you'd like to meet me for lunch down on the waterfront so we can talk about it.  Give me a call at the number I've called you from so we can pick a restaurant, and I'll see you then.  Bye."

Sean grinned and closed the phone.  "Yes!"  He opened the bedroom door and switched on the light.  "Elaine, I got the call!"

She sat up in bed, yawning.  "Finally...  I was beginning to think they were all going to ignore us.  So what'd they say?"

"One of the Senators on a committee they're forming to draft the bill wants to meet with me so he can know what the dragons want from all of this.  He wants to meet me for lunch today."

"Well, what are you waiting for, then?  Call him back and arrange the meeting!"

"Not yet..." Sean checked his watch.  "It's not even 7:30 yet; I should give him time to wake up before I call him back."

"Well, when did he leave the message?"

Sean glanced through his missed calls list.  "...half an hour ago, so I guess he is up already.  I'll call him back in a minute; do you want me to turn off the lights, or are you getting up?"

"I'll be up in a few minutes, so leave them on.  I'll be out as soon as I'm done showering."

"Okay."  Sean turned and walked back into the other room, then dialed the Senator.

"Hello, Senator Stone speaking."

"Yes, this is Sean Nelson; you left me a message earlier this morning."

"Oh, good.  You want to meet me for lunch, then?"

"Yes, Senator.  Where were you thinking of eating?"

"Just call me Robert, please.  Anyway, there's a nice little caf? I like to go to down on the south waterfront..." the Senator gave him the address.  "See you there at 11:40?"

"Sounds good to me.  I guess I'll see you there, then."

"All right, I'll reserve a table.  Goodbye."

"Bye," Sean said, and ended the call.  He listened for a moment; Elaine was already in the shower, so he'd tell her his plans once she got out.  In the meantime...

He switched on Elaine's laptop and opened a web browser, to see how far it was from the apartment they were staying in to the address Robert had given him: it wasn't too far, only about a twenty-minute walk.  Then, he went to an image database and searched the Senator's name, looking at a few recent pictures until he was confident he could recognize the Senator in a crowd.

"Did you call him?" Elaine said, walking into the kitchen.  She had dressed, but she still had a towel wrapped up to dry her hair.

"Yes, I'm going to leave for lunch around 11:20.  Leave from here, anyway...  I'll have to leave the picketing outside a good deal sooner.  You'll be fine without me for a few hours?"

She nodded.  "And I'll spread the word about the Senate's latest actions.  Should make everyone feel good about what we've done, and maybe draw us a little more support."

Sean shrugged.  "We'll see."

The two of them spent the morning out on the picket lines outside UN headquarters, then at around 10:30 Sean shifted back into his human form and caught a cab back to the apartment.  He changed into nicer clothes and waited until it was time to go, checking his email and his work messages to pass the time.  Then it was 11:20, so he grabbed his coat and set out for the waterfront.

The caf? was easy enough to find, across the street from some private docks on the southern shore of the lake.  Robert was already there, waiting for him at a small table by the window.  Sean smiled, took off his coat and sat down across from him.

"Morning, Mr. Nelson," Robert said.

"Just Sean, and good morning.  Do you want to order first, or just get down to business?"

Robert looked up and grinned.  "The waitress is deciding that one for us.  Sorry you haven't had time to look at the menu."

"It's fine, I'll find something while you order."

The waitress stopped at their table.  "I see your friend made it, Senator.  What'll it be for you this morning?"

Robert ordered while Sean looked the menu over.  "And you, sir?" the waitress said, looking over at him.

"To drink, I'll just have some water.  To eat...  Roast turkey sandwich, no onions, please."

"All right.  I'll be back with your lunch soon," she said, and walked away.

Robert sighed and watched her go.  "As good as their sandwiches are, the service is incredibly slow.  So, we may as well get down to business."

Sean sat forward.  "What do you want to start with, then?"

"Location is as good a place as any, I suppose.  They have to go somewhere after they're freed..."

"I doubt they'd like living among us anyway.  They would probably just want to live where they've always lived: they guys in Montana, the girls in Nepal.  Shouldn't be much trouble, especially now that we've moved in to create peace in Nepal and help what remains of the government there to start rebuilding."

Robert shook his head.  "I don't know...  The two groups may have to live together.  I'm sure you know about the movement opposing yours, that wants dragons killed and all that; when they find out we're going to be siding with you, they won't be happy, and they may decide to take matters into their own hands.  We would have to put security in place around wherever the dragons ended up living, and good round-the-clock security costs a lot of money.  To guard two large areas at once...  The bill would be hard to pass in its original form if it were that much of a drain on our resources, unless the dragons had some way of helping us make the money back."

"How would they?  They're dragons; they don't want, need or use money."

"Well, could jobs be found for them to do?  Their wages, whatever they were, would then go towards the security budget."

"I really can't imagine them working nine to five on anything.  They're not as social as we humans are, Robert, and their priorities are different.  They would have to know what's in it for them before agreeing to anything like that."

"Tourism, maybe?  People could pay money to visit whatever region they ended up in."

"No, that's just as bad as the zoos they're in now.  Increasing the size of their cages and putting them all in one place doesn't change their situation."

"That's true; I guess they won't be able to add much to the economy, then, but that means that the dragons must all live together.  Otherwise it's just going to cost too much."

"All right.  I'm not sure how they'll like that, but it'll be better than how they're living now, I'm sure.  As for where they should all go, Nepal would be better; from what I've seen, the caves are larger there, and they have more privacy."

"And they would want all humans to be kept away from them?"

"Depends on which dragon you ask; some of them don't mind human company, like Vallen, but others, the females especially, would rather skulk in a cave all day than spend time with us.  But if they have no contact with us at all, they're not a part of society, they don't contribute at all...  Yes, most of the time they would be by themselves, but they have to have some human contact or they won't really be a part of society.  How that would be decided, though, I have no idea."

"I'll have the committee think about it.  What about laws?  It would be best for dragons to live by the same laws we do, or it wouldn't be fair to us humans."

"Well, of course they would; laws don't mean anything if they're selective."

"Yes.  That includes, of course, all of the dragons learning English, those who don't know it already.  As little as they may need it among themselves, we've already seen the problems of trying to communicate with a dragon who doesn't understand a single syllable of ISL.  Think they could handle that?"

"All the males can, but Vallen's told me that if they don't start speaking English very early then they won't ever be able to learn to speak all the syllables.  This next generation of females will be able to learn like the guys do, but the rest of them will need translators.  Maybe they'd be able to learn to listen to it, but they won't be able to speak it."

"All right, I'll make note of that, and we'll call it a physical necessity for exception."  Robert took a piece of paper from his pocket and looked it over.  "Now, here's the hard one: how exactly would a dragon move about in public?  If, for example, a dragon decided to travel to a human city for some reason, how could that dragon move around safely, and how would we also ensure the safety of the people there?"

"That would depend on the situation, the city, the dragon...  I don't know, that one's going to have to go situation by situation."

"We have to make some sort of provision now or the people won't feel safe.  Regardless of how people feel about dragons being free, there are going to be a lot of us who won't feel comfortable with a dragon actually nearby.  What can we do to comfort them?"

"Aside from having a dragon explain very simply that if they leave the dragon alone, the dragon will leave them alone?  Not much that I can think of.  Dragons won't trouble them as long as they stay out of the way."

"What if a human does get in the way, though?"

Sean grinned.  "Honestly, any human stupid enough to annoy a dragon deserves what happens next.  But in all seriousness, you could just have a few policemen follow the dragon around or precede it, to get the more troublesome people out of the way.  Would help keep the dragons themselves safe, too."

"All right," Robert made a few notes on his paper.  "Most of the other major operations I already have down, but...  What are we going to do about Carnoc?"

"Good question.  There's David Fuller, who wants him convicted of murder and executed, there are some who want to see him spend time in jail, Carnoc probably thinks he was justified in his actions, and there are a few people I've talked to who think that he can't be convicted because of how the laws were at that time..."

"He obviously can't just get away with murder, because that's what he's done no matter what species he is.  I think it's pretty much guaranteed he can't be executed because of his species, but as for jail time...  How do you even put a dragon in jail?  I really don't know, honestly.  You've spent time with the dragon; what do you think would be the best way to deal with him?"

"As I've told others, Carnoc has a very quick and nasty temper.  That's not just his personality; according to his father, it's how he's supposed to be...  He's just supposed to have more control over it.  Nesleh's been working with him to control his temper, they just aren't at a point where he can reliably control himself yet.  We can't blame Carnoc for his nature."

"But people aren't going to be happy if he goes unpunished, either.  We'll have to find a suitable way to deal with him."

"Well, that doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the bill."  Sean sighed and glanced out over the lake.  "I guess we can just let him get arrested when the time comes for the dragons to be freed, and let things go from there.  A trial would sort all of it out better than we can."

"That's true.  And look, here comes lunch!  Just in time; I was starting to get hungry."

The two of them ate in relative silence; the Senator was clearly enjoying his sandwich, and Sean was busy thinking through his list of wants and needs for dragons in UN and worldwide society.  Most of the necessary items had been discussed, but there were a few things he needed to make sure would definitely be included.

He waited until both were nearly done eating to bring up his last few points.  "Just a few more things, to make sure everything's covered...  Dragons would need representation in the UN Senate, if we want them to be fairly included."

"Yeah, I already have that down.  There will be some security concerns with that, too, but we'll find a way to address those."

"Good.  Someone will have to talk to them about a province name and flag, if the place they're located is declared separate from the surrounding provinces, but we can get to that later.  What if the zoos we free them from demand compensation for losing a dragon they paid money for?  If you just want the UN to pay it all, that's going to be a lot of money."

"It would be nothing next to the trillion-some UNits that get wasted on pork projects each year.  Or we could just say it's their own fault for purchasing risky property, and not pay them at all; I doubt slave-owners got much compensation for having their slaves freed back in the times of emancipation.  Of course," he paused for a moment, thinking, "if we did compensate the zoos, it could be said that we're just buying all the dragons ourselves and giving them better accommodations, which wouldn't make them very happy, either.  It may be best to just tell the zoos' owners it's their own fault and that they're lucky the dragons don't plan to press charges for infringing on their freedom."

"That could work.  The last thing I have for now is to make sure escorts can be coordinated to guide the dragons back to Nepal and protect them on their journeys.  And they would have to be timed properly so a male could be present to help all the females living alone get back to Nepal without running into problems and not being able to tell anyone about whatever those problems might be."

"We'll worry about that when the time comes, but it won't be too much trouble, I think.  Is that all?"

Sean nodded.

"Good.  Well, I'll bring all these concerns to the committee in charge of drawing up the bill, and let you know how things progress.  It'll be a few more months before it passes, obviously, but we'll get these dragons freed."

"Of course."

"And I'm sure the traffic around UN headquarters would appreciate it if you stopped picketing now."

"Right," Sean laughed and stood up, reaching for his coat.  "Well, thanks for the lunch, and I'll be waiting to hear how everything goes."

Robert stood also and shook his hand.  "You were a lot of help with figuring out what the dragons need, so the process should move faster, thanks to you.  I'll be in touch."

"All right.  See you later," Sean said, and left the restaurant.