\n Dave took the slip from the valet, then watched for a moment as Sean's car was driven away before turning to walk up into the house.  Sean himself had gotten out of the car, with Chris, back in the nearest town; since they weren't invited to the auction, they had stopped for dinner while Dave continued on up the house.  Dave would analyze the situation as best he could, then return to town to help them come up with some sort of rescue plan.

\n He followed the other nearby guests through the house and out onto the back patio, overlooking an expansive back lawn.  Some of the guests were under a white canopy, getting refreshments, and a few had already taken seats in front of a small stage, but most of them were clustered around a medium-sized laser cage, maybe six meters long on each side, that was set up near the corner of the house.  He walked over, curious, but could already guess what was inside.

\n Sure enough, he made his way through the crowd to discover a small dragon there, separated from the crowd of people by a cube of laser barriers.  It was barely a quarter of the size of the dragon Dave had captured before, only five meters long at most, and the horns on its head were just buds.  It was asleep, at least for the moment, but he was surprised to see that it wasn't restrained.  He pulled out his cell phone and took a picture of it, then sent the picture to Chris to give him an update.

\n "Ah, there you are!" Dave heard, and he turned to see Jim standing there.  "Everyone, this is my brother Dave, who helped me first discover these magnificent creatures!"  There was a little applause, which quickly died down; most of the guests were content just to watch the dragon sleep.  "You made the drive out here all right?"

\n He nodded.  "Yeah, it was easy enough to find the place.  Look, I need to--"

\n "I have something to ask you, actually...  How long should it take a creature this size to wake up after being taken off of sedatives?  It's been left alone for nearly three hours now, and I'm surprised it's not awake yet.  I was hoping to have it up and moving about when they all got here, but...  Well, as you can see, it's still out cold."

\n Dave shrugged.  "Different species have different reactions to the chemicals we give to them.  It could wake up any second, or it could be in a coma for all we know.  I would have liked to do a little more research before you took a step like this, but you decided to move forward so quickly..."

\n "I doubt it's in any dangerous sort of situation," Jim said, walking away the dragon's cage, where there were less people.  "After all, a couple of them were still stirring while they were on the tranquilizers, and we had to increase their dosages.  It's been a tense few days, hoping that none of them would wake up in transit.  But we made it to Chicago and here without too much trouble, and now I have Alex's security keeping watch over them all."

\n Dave looked around; there was a man in a suit standing at each corner of the cage, earpieces and the bulge of concealed weapons barely visible.  "Where are the rest of them?"

\n Jim poked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the side of the house.  "Over there, out of the way where the guests won't disturb them.  This one here is the smallest, and probably the least dangerous, so I decided to have it brought out for show."

\n "Can I see the others?"

\n "Sure, let's go.  But the auction's due to start soon, so we can't be long."  The two of them walked around the side of the house, leaving the sleeping dragon behind.

\n They rounded the corner of the house and a row of trailers came into view, a security guard stationed in front of each one.  "Here we are," Jim said, then guided him to the nearest trailer; the man there stepped aside, and Jim opened the door.

\n He had to wait while his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside the trailer, but after a moment Dave saw another sleeping dragon.  Like the dragon he had caught before, its ankles were secured with restraints, its mouth and wings with rope.  An IV poked into the crook of its foreleg, administering calculated doses of tranquilizer at regular intervals.

\n "Well, are they held properly?" Jim asked.  "It seemed to me that this is the best way, but a couple of the hunters I employed looked a little doubtful at the setup."

\n "It's good enough," Dave said.  He had observed what he had come to the auction to see, the security around the bulk of the dragons, and now he could excuse himself and return to town to plan with Sean and Chris.

\n Dave was about to get out of the trailer when the guard stepped forward.  "Mr. Fuller, sir, the dragon in the cage just woke up."

\n Jim nodded.  "You can close this up, and tell the guards there that we'll be right over."

\n Aithsa woke up slowly, almost reluctantly.  Last he knew, he had been in the clan caves, in the alcove next to his father's, sleeping on a full stomach and preparing for the long flight north.  Now the ground he was on felt a lot softer, and it made him a lot more unwilling to get up.  He sighed happily and tucked his head against his leg more securely, but then a new smell drifted through his nostrils.  It was familiar...  Humans.

\n He opened his eyes and pulled his head up, scanning the area around him for the potential danger.  There was a crowd of humans all standing in front of him, on the other side of a translucent, faintly reddish barrier.  Aithsa jumped to his feet with a snarl and backed up, mantling his wings and baring his teeth in an effort to scare the humans away, but they just shouted and pointed at him, talking excitedly to each other.  He tried to keep backing away, but he ran into some sort of resistance almost immediately, a resistance that sent an electric shock through him.  He spun around, roaring, and saw only more humans beyond another barrier.  He looked around; the strange see-through walls and the humans on the other side were all around him, and there was even a barrier above him.  He was trapped!

\n Even more humans gathered as he started to pace, crowding together just a paw's width from the barriers and occasionally nudging each other out of the way to get a better view of him.  Aithsa turned in slow circle and snarled at them all, doing his best to keep up the dangerous, threatening look, but inside there were so many questions gnawing at him.  Where was he?  Who were all these humans, and why had they imprisoned him?  And what had happened to the rest of the clan?

\n Then one of the humans looked him in the eye and said, "hey.  Dragon."

\n Aithsa roared at him, but to his surprise, the human didn't back away or even flinch.

\n "Yeah, you're so scary," Dave said, raising his hands.  "Now just calm down, dragon.  Nobody here means you any harm."

\n Aithsa stopped his pacing and walked right up to the barrier.  "Then why did you pen me up like this?" he demanded.

\n Complete, shocked silence fell; even Jim's mouth hung open for a few seconds before he came back to his senses.  "It talks?" he said after a moment.

\n "Of course I talk!" Aithsa roared.  "Don't tell me you thought that I was dumber than any of you humans!"

\n "I didn't know," Jim said, almost apologetically.  "Anyway, you're in there for your own protection.  Do you have any idea what might happen to you if you roamed free over any populated area?  People could be afraid enough to try to kill you if they saw you flying overhead.  But if you're in there, then you're safe."

\n "I was safe enough at home with the rest of the clan!  What have you done to them?"

\n "They're nearby, held for safekeeping.  You're all safe."

\n "You could have just left us alone," Aithsa growled.

\n "But you couldn't have gone undiscovered forever.  There were humans living just a few kilometers from that cave of yours, and they were sure to find you eventually.  Did you really expect to live there without them ever finding you?"

\n "The Drake family was sheltering us from the rest of you, idiot human!"

\n "Which is what I would have told you if you hadn't hung up on me," Dave cut in.  "Am I allowed to say now that--"

\n "Enough," Jim cut him off, raising his voice.  "Yes, the dragon's awake, and it can speak.  That's been established, so we can move on.  Now I think it's about time for the auction to start," he turned away and started walking over towards the stage, "so if you'll all go sit down..."

\n "Let me go!" Aithsa roared, but crowd of humans was already thinning, all of them eager to take their seats and begin the auction.  "Hey!  Human, get back here!  Let me out!" he roared again, slashing at the barrier in front of him with his claws when Jim ignored him, but he cried out and jumped back when the laser field shocked him and all he could do was glare at the man's back while he walked away.

\n Dave stayed by the side of the cage, and Aithsa watched him for a moment.  That human said he knew that Chris and his family were sheltering us, he thought, so can he help me?  Would he help me?  No, he growled under his breath, he's not a Drake.  Only a Drake would be nice enough to help me.  Aithsa snarled at him, then turned away, walked to the other side of his cage and curled up facing the barrier.  He unfolded a wing and pulled it over his head, hiding it from view.

\n But soon he heard footsteps on the ground near his head and lifted his wing to see Dave crouched there, watching him.  "What do you want now?" he grumbled.

\n Dave opened his mouth, then closed it again, glancing at one of the guards at the corners of the cage, then shook his head and said, "nothing."

\n "Then go away," he said, and lowered his wing again.

\n There was silence for a moment, then Aithsa could hear the man's footsteps moving away--but not in the direction all the other humans had gone.  He growled a curse.  How could the humans have dared to sneak up into their cave and capture them all?  They hadn't done anything to deserve the ambush, as far as he knew, so why had the humans come?  And Chris should have been there to stop them; had they done something to Chris, too?

\n And now he was trapped inside some sort of electric box while humans stood to watch, pointing and talking about him while he was confined in a cage barely large enough for him to turn around in, practically mocking him by standing just beyond his reach.  He growled; if only he were old enough to breathe fire.  That would have showed them.  But no, he was too young, and the humans had locked in this horrible cage; now all he could do was wait and wonder what they would do to him.

\n He blinked a couple of times and sniffled.  Why couldn't they have at least put him with the rest of the clan, or maybe just a couple of them?  He raised his head and looked around, wishing that his father was there, to free him, or even only to drape a wing over him and keep him company... just for him to be nearby, visible, would have been enough.  "Father?  ...Vallen?" Aithsa called in dragontongue, looking around and raising his snout to sniff at the air.  Maybe he was nearby, right around that corner of the house, or behind that awning...  But there was no response.  Aithsa cried out again, but there was no answer, just the conversations of the humans.  He was alone.

\n He couldn't bear it any more.  Captured by humans, penned up alone and put on display, he started to cry, body shuddering with each breath he took.  Why couldn't someone come to him, comfort him, anything?  Why did he have to be alone?

\n A bell rang nearby, calling the last stragglers to their seats for the auction.  Jim rang the bell again, then waited one minute more before walking up onto the stage.  "Before I turn things over to the auctioneer," he said, "I'd like to thank you all for coming here this evening.  I hope you've all enjoyed yourselves thus far, and I hope you all had a good look at the specimen over there by the back of the house.  Before the bidding begins, I would like to say briefly that there are twenty-four dragons to be auctioned here tonight, ranging from four to twenty meters in length.  All are male, and are varying shades of red.  So, without further ado, I will turn the proceedings over to the auctioneer, and we will begin the auction."

\n Jim turned and left the stage, leaving the podium clear for the auctioneer, who walked up as Jim stepped down.  The man picked up a gavel from its place at the top of the podium and pounded it twice.  "All right, then.  Our first item tonight will be that dragon back there that you've all had a good look at.  Length four and a half meters, wingspan five meters, weight one thousand and twenty-five kilograms.  The bidding will start at, say, one hundred thousand UNits, since he's a small one.  Do I hear five hundred?"

\n Aithsa folded his wing and looked up, not bothering to wipe the tears from his eyes.  Was that man... selling him?  Could they really be so barbaric?  He growled, tail lashing; how could they possibly compete to own him, like bartering for some sort of slave?  Did they really think of him that way, as nothing more than a beast to be put out on display?  The shock turned his sadness to outrage for a moment.  How could they?  But then he thought of being sold to one human, while the rest of the clan was sold to other humans...  He could go the rest of his life without seeing his best friend Orasin, his older brother Molthan, or even his father, Vallen, ever again.  The thought alone made fresh tears well up behind his eyes, and he tucked his head away again, drawing both of his wings up around his head to hide himself away.

\n The auction dragged on with agonizing slowness as the humans continued to offer ever-escalating prices for dragon after dragon from the clan.  Some Aithsa could guess from differentials in weight, like Lemnir's nine thousand kilograms, or length, like Carnoc's twenty meters or young Orasin's eight and a half meters.  They continued even after the sun set, using artificial light like the bulbs Chris had around his patio to light the stage and the bidders.  Aithsa could only watch now with a kind of horrid fascination, both hating the selling but at the same time curious to hear as he was sold for over ten million UNits, the price rising from dragon to dragon until Carnoc was sold for a staggering four and a half billion UNits.

\n The bidders were calming down before starting the next-to-last item when a roar sounded.  Aithsa scrambled to his feet and looked in the direction the roar had come from, roaring back as loudly as he could.  He heard his roar echo back, then five more seconds passed, and the other dragon roared again.  He tried to identify the voice, but it didn't sound like anyone he knew, and the wind was in the wrong direction for him to catch the other dragon's scent.  But that was impossible!  They were the only male clan there was, and there was no way the dragonesses had left their caves in Nepal.  ...was there?  "Who's out there?" Aithsa called in dragontongue.

\n There was no response.  The four guards outside his cage drew large pistols from their jackets and stepped to the corners of the cage, guns raised and eyes on the sky.  Aithsa walked in the direction the roaring had come from as far as the barriers would allow and looked around, too, but the bright lights from the auction kept most of the sky too dark for him to see into.

\n He looked at one of the guards.  Would it be worth it to talk to the human?  It wouldn't hurt, he decided, and he cocked his head up at the guard on his left.  "What's going on?" he asked.

\n The guard jumped, then settled down and returned his eyes to the sky.  "There's something roaring out there," he said.  "Sounds like a dragon, but it's not one that Mr. Fuller caught.  All the other dragons are still secured and sedated.  Now step away from the barrier and stay quiet; some of the other guards are looking into the disturbance."

\n On the stage, Jim had to reassure his bidders about the same thing.  "Please, don't worry," he said.  "All of my guards are reporting that their areas are clear and that all the dragons are still secured and sound asleep.  I've sent some of them to go search for the cause of this disturbance, but we can continue with the auction.  Again, I can assure you that none of the dragons have escaped."
\n  

\n "Sean, more than half the guards just went into the forest to look for you, so I hope you have a way out of there."  Chris squinted into the forest and saw the silhouette of a dragon rise above the trees.  "Be careful in the sky, too; I'm not going to be the only one who saw you go airborne."

\n "It's the safest place for me," Sean answered through the communicator.  His voice sounded shaky, though it could have just been because of the communicator or the effort he had to put into taking off.  "I can be surrounded and surprised on the ground; nothing will sneak up on me in the sky, and I'll be a faster-moving target."

\n "How many guards can you still see?"  Chris said, turning back to Dave.

\n "Twenty.  Ten at the back, ten at the front, so that's ten shots each."  Dave passed Chris a rifle.

\n Chris shook his head, pushing the weapon away.  "I've never held a gun in my life.  There's no way I can do it."

\n "Come on, Chris.  We need to take them all out at the same time, so we both have to do this.  Here, I'll give you the rifle that aims for you.  You just have to take ten shots.  It's easy, Chris.  Nothing to it.  Remember, you aren't killing the guards, just knocking them out; they'll be fine once they wake up again.  Now, I'm going to get into position at the back; you move so you can get a clean shot on all ten of the front guards.  Tell me when you're in position, and when we're both ready, we'll take them down.  Got that?"  Chris nodded.  "Then move.  Stay low, and stay quiet."

\n The two of them moved away from each other through the forest at the edge of Alex's property, moving slowly and carefully to make as little noise as possible.  After a couple of tense minutes, Chris finally eased himself to the top of a small rise overlooking the lot where twenty-four trailers were parked.  He raised the rifle, and it quickly identified its ten targets.  "Dave, I'm ready," he whispered.

\n "Well, give me a minute," Dave said.  He waited, body so tense that he shivered occasionally, until, what seemed like an hour later, Dave said, "all right, I'm all set.  Fire on my signal.  Ready, and... now!"

\n He checked the display once, then fired off ten shots.  One by one, he watched as the ten guards he had aimed for crumpled almost silently to the ground, not even looking towards where he had shot them from.  He lowered his rifle.  "Got them!"

\n "Damn it!" Dave said, then, "all right, I got them all, but it was a close one.  I only grazed the last guy, and had to shoot him twice.  Hope he didn't get a chance to call for help...  Either way, come on!  We have to be quick or we won't get all the dragons out."

\n They ran down the rise to the lot, and Dave opened the back of the first truck and jumped inside.  He pulled the IV out of the leg of the dragon held inside, then took a syringe of re-stimulator from his backpack and injected it into the dragon's neck.  Once that was done, he and Chris worked to remove the restraints, then Chris waited for the re-stimulator to do its job while Dave moved on to the next trailer.

\n The dragon stirred, moaning softly, and Chris smacked it hard on the nose.  "Orasin, wake up!  It's Chris."  The dragon snarled and jerked its head back, then opened its eyes and glared down at him.

\n He growled something in dragontongue, then said, "oh, Chris, it's you.  What's going...  Where are we?"

\n "There's no time," Chris said.  "You have to get out of here.  Once you're in the open air, fly northwest, follow the mountains.  Stay as low as you can, fly as fast as you can and avoid all human contact.  When you get back to your territory, go into the clan cave and stay there.  The rest of the clan will be close behind you."

\n Orasin growled again and started to stand.  "Chris, what--"

\n "I'll explain once you're all back home."  Chris climbed out of the trailer, getting out of the dragon's way.  "Go!"  As soon as his path outside was clear, Orasin bounded out of the trailer, then opened his wings and leapt up to the sky, disappearing into the darkness.

\n They repeated the procedure, moving from trailer to trailer, freeing dragon after dragon and telling each one where to fly.  The process went smoothly, if it was a little rushed, but then they ran out of time.  Dave had just shot re-stimulator into the dragon in the second-to-last trailer and Chris had just sent Nesleh away when they heard the pounding of fast-moving approaching feet.

\n Dave didn't pause to undo the bonds on the dragon he had just injected; not going to prison, he thought, was more important than freeing this dragon.  He leapt from the trailer, gestured to Chris, and the two of them ran back where they had come from, towards where they had left Dave's rifles, where Sean's car was and, hopefully, where Sean would meet them.  As they started up the rise, they heard shouting behind them, and a stun pulse passed so close to Chris it almost made him dizzy enough to fall over.  They managed to grab the rifles in stride, then ran down the other side of the hill as quickly as they could and disappeared into the forest.

\n Sean was waiting for them back on the road, his car already in its jet form.  "How'd it go?" he asked as they climbed into their seats and strapped themselves in.  Chris was too out of breath to answer, and Dave took a few moments to recover before speaking.

\n "We got all but two dragons out of the trailers, though I got all but one of them woken up.  Maybe that one will be able to break out on its own?" he said, looking towards Chris.

\n "If Carnoc couldn't break out of those restraints when you caught him, then no dragon can," Chris said, shaking his head.  "So we managed to free all but two--  No, all but three, because Aithsa wasn't being kept in a trailer.  Not bad, but I would have preferred to get them all out.  I assume you got away cleanly?"

\n Sean nodded, adjusting his controls as the jet rose into the air.

\n "Well, you should have held the guards out there longer," Dave said.  "They were close to catching us, and that really would have been bad.  Don't you have those laser-deflecting wings?  You could have held them out there another couple of minutes, easily."

\n "I didn't want to get caught either!"

\n "It doesn't matter," Chris cut in.  "We've done what we can do here.  We can be sure that from now on the last three dragons will be much better protected, so we probably won't be able to even get close enough to see them until they get to wherever they were sold.  We'll probably end up having to free them from those locations, somehow...  Oh, this is going to be a nightmare.  It'll be hard enough just keeping people off my property, because you know someone's going to come back to check the cave.  Where else could the dragons go?"

\n Dave shrugged.  "Not anywhere that's good, I'm sure.  Now, you mentioned being able to tell all these dragons apart, somehow; do you think those dragons who are still captive will be harder or easier than the others to rescue?"

\n "I have no idea.  Aithsa, because he's so small, may actually be easier to rescue than some of the others would.  You are right about that.  But the other two..."  Chris went through the names in his memory, trying to figure out who he had freed and who he hadn't.  He ran through the list until he came up with the other two names, and he figured it couldn't be two worse dragons to actually make it to zoos.  "Just great, we've left the clan's elder and its warrior in captivity.  Nesleh could probably keep the clan together without Vallen, though, so that I'm not too worried about.  Carnoc, on the other hand...  Well, I've explained how violent he is.  If he loses his temper and does something bad, he could end up being impossible to set free."

\n Chris felt a moment of pressure on his chest as the jet accelerated forward.  "We'll figure that out when we have time to," Sean said.  "Until then, we have to find a way to protect them all while they fly back home."

\n
\n Carnoc growled and tugged against the restraints with all the strength he could muster, but they were locked securely into the floor of whatever he was inside and didn't budge despite his efforts.  He looked up and could see freedom there, the night sky, right in front of him.  Right there!  He let out a strangled howl, muffled by the rope holding his mouth shut, and bucked hard against his restraints, but they wouldn't give.  He was so close, but again he was being denied his freedom.  Once again, humans had caught him off guard and locked him up so he couldn't fight back, couldn't free himself, and with all of his restraints secured to the metal beneath him, this time he could barely even move.

\n Several humans ran past the open trailer doors and Carnoc jerked his head forward out of reflex, but the humans were beyond his restricted reach.  Another instinct took over, and he opened the two sacs in the roof of his mouth, releasing two tiny drops of fluid.  He waited just a moment for them to mix, then lit them with a twitch of his tongue.

\n The ropes holding his mouth shut snapped from the force of the explosion, and the full brilliance of Vidac's bolt shot from his mouth, nearly taking the head off a human who happened to be running by.  He shouted for help and aimed his gun at Carnoc's chest, firing before Carnoc could prepare himself for another bolt.  He tried to prepare for another bolt, he even managed to get out a roar, but then the human was joined by others and a moment later he was unconscious again.

\n "Those that remain are secure," Jim finally heard over the communicator.  "In all, twenty-one dragons managed to escape.  We don't know exactly how it all happened, but they definitely had human help."

\n "All right."  He swallowed and walked back up onto the podium.  There was still one dragon left to sell, but that dragon had likely escaped.  What was he supposed to say?  He took a deep breath, paused, then took another.  "Someone broke onto the property and managed to free some of the dragons," he finally announced to the bidders.  There were a few angry cries, but Jim took up the auctioneer's gavel and banged it for silence.  "We will proceed with the auction, and those whose dragons are still secured will be able to take their dragons with them.  As for those whose dragons are no longer here, I can assure you that I will do everything in my power to find them, capture them and bring them back for you.  Now, let's proceed with the bidding on the final item," he said, and left the stage.  A few of the bidders stood up and left, one shouting threats to sue, but the majority stayed.

\n As good a reception for the news as he could have hoped for, but now he had more work to do.  He shrugged, unable to contain a grin; at least he would have a lot of money to devote to the effort.