Thrax

“Mentor,” Thrax pressed, “I’d like to invoke my Deferment privileges.”

“Your Deferment privileges have already been extended as many times as permitted, Sir Thrax,” said the Mentor.  “The only reason we haven’t summoned you to the Lottery before now, as you well know, is that your duty supersedes the Lottery until you return home for your rejuvenation.  Now that you’re coming home for that, you’re expected to report and be matched.”

At last, an edge of protest did come into Thrax’s voice.  “Mentor, please.  There is no lack of able-bodied dragons on Lacerta.  The gene pool is always well stocked.  And as a Knight, my first and best service is out there, doing as I was trained to do.  I love serving, Mentor.  Please don’t ask me…”

And the Mentor cut him off again.  “I know very well how you love to serve.  You are the pride of the Knighthood, Thrax, exemplary in every way.  But we cannot exempt any heterosexual citizen from participating in the Lottery and what that participation entails.  Our own planet and our own people need you as much as the other planets you serve.  We cannot spare our best and brightest.  You must join the Lottery.  Those are your orders, and you will be expected.  Is that understood?”

Thrax slumped his shoulders in a most un-Knightly manner and said in a weary and resigned voice, “Yes, Mentor.”  And he could not keep the heaviness of his heart out of his tone when he said, “I’ll be there at the appointed time, as required.”

“Very good, Sir Thrax,” said the Mentor.  “We have every belief you will acquit yourself well in the days to come.  Lacerta looks forward to welcoming the issue of your service.  Spires out.”  And with that, the hologram of the Mentor shimmered away, leaving Thrax in silence once more.

Thrax’s groan broke the silence as he leaned back his head mournfully.  “Bane and damn,” he cursed.  “Why me?”

The question was futile.  It was always going to be Thrax, sooner or later.  It was only that he had done everything to make it later, and now his supply of “later” was exhausted.  There would be no more “later.”  There would be only now.

“Now” meant submitting himself to the duty from which no dragon man or woman on Lacerta, whether Knight, Corps, or civilian, was exempt as long as he or she was capable of mating with the opposite sex.  Allowances were made for same-sex-attracted citizens only.  There was one other critical effect of their Draconite mutation, one that meant the difference between the stagnation and eventual failure or continued robustness of the colony.  Lacertans were able to breed with each other, but their population growth and rate of viable pregnancies was slow and sporadic.

 It threatened to make their economy, their very world, unsustainable.  They bred much more reliably and consistently with “pure” humans who lacked the dragon-shifting mutation.  And so, on a regular basis, humans from Earth and its other colonies were invited to Lacerta to be paired in Lotteries with dragon males and females.  Once the selections of couples were made, the courtship followed.

 Marriage and procreation were not mandatory; it was not a state of reproductive slavery.  But Lacerta did everything to encourage the production of offspring in the Lotteries for the survival of the civilization that they had hewn out of the planet.

Thrax had never cared for the idea of the Lotteries.  He understood what they meant to his world, but to him, they stood for certain principles that he deplored.  In his heart, he knew that he was not meant for the kind of life that would follow a “successful” courtship.  It meant giving up a life that he loved for something he did not want.  Thrax’s true calling was to be out there in space, traveling to distant worlds, protecting and serving, bringing wrongdoers to heel, administering justice for those victimized and wronged, and helping those in need.  That, he had believed for all his life, was what he was meant to do.  A Knight was what he was meant to be.

He had done everything to postpone his entrance into the Lottery.  Let someone else be responsible for maintaining the population.  Thrax’s place was to maintain the peace.

But there was no escaping it anymore.  The Lottery was upon him, and with it, the possibility of the end of his life as he knew it.

“Bane and damn,” he repeated bitterly.

*****

Of course, there were reasons why the Lacertan Courting Lottery was done in the way that it was.  And of course, they were considered entirely valid and legitimate reasons.  But that did not make the whole business any more palatable to Thrax.

The Silverwing Stadium was one of the largest sporting places on Lacerta.  It was built in the shape of an immense geode, whose bowl held seating for thousands of people, or beings as the case may be.  When it was not used for games and tournaments, however, it was one of the venues across the planet where the Courting Lotteries were held.

 The Lotteries were almost as well attended as the sporting events.  For the Lottery, two structures were erected in the center of the playing field: a stage and a platform, with a bridge constructed between them.  On the stage stood the prospective suitors and suitresses, waiting to be paired by computer selection with aspirants from Lacerta and other planets across human space.

 There was a separate, preliminary Lottery in which men and women interested in courting a Lacertan entered their names and genetic backgrounds.  Once they were approved for selection, their data was entered into the Lottery computer system along with the stored genetic data of Lacertans selected to participate.  Then, aspirants, suitors, and suitresses assembled at the final Lottery to be matched by computer and presented to each other—and to the entire planet and the galaxy beyond—for courtship.

The dozen Lacertans gathered on the stage were all Knights and members of the Corps, Thrax among them.  They all stood in uniform, looking strong and proud and handsome and beautiful, under the anxious gaze of thousands of attendees and the clamor and hubbub they made from the seats.