Thrax

 The Lotteries for courtship with the Knights and Corps members always attracted the largest number of spectators, for the Lacertans who patrolled the planet and the galaxy beyond were held to be the most desirable dragon men and women of all — the finest, most spectacular specimens of dragon-morphing masculinity and femininity.  They were the best of the best, the most sought-after of their world.

 Thrax turned and looked over the heads and shoulders of the comrades standing with them.  What a throng they were, occupying the tiers of seats surrounding the playing field.  They were mostly human and Lacertan, but there were also curiosity seekers of other species.  Hovering and swooping overhead, across the playing field and the stadium seats, were the gleaming recorder drones that captured and transmitted the event across the planet and into space beyond.  The glow and flashing of their lights made them seem like a vast miniature star system made of hundreds of satellites.  With them processing and disseminating the Lottery, no one would miss a moment of what was about to unfold.

Such was the constant hubbub of the crowd that Thrax could not have heard his own voice if he had chosen to speak up, nor the voices of any of the ones with him on the stage.  If he could talk to them, he would ask them whether they felt as he did.  Do you feel like a prize being auctioned off?  Do you feel as if you were livestock being presented for sale to the highest bidder?  Do you feel as if you were a side of meat hung on a hook, being held up for consumption by some hungry patron?

 That is the way this thing makes me feel.  For so many years, I’ve dreaded this day.  I’ve done everything to postpone it, to hold it at bay.  I’ve been a stranger to my planet, to my home.  And I’ve done it in the name of service and duty, which I love.  It isn’t selfishness; my heart is in being a Knight and the feeling of pride in helping and protecting others.  I’d lay down my life for my world or for any defenseless being.  It’s what I’ve wanted to do ever since I first saw a Knight, strong and proud and brave, wielding his blade for justice.  Even as a boy, I looked forward to the day when I would join these ranks.

 But this thing…this has always left a cold place in my heart.  Why do we do this?  Why does our world sanction this, and why do we submit to it, and even celebrate it?  We are men and women and dragons, not beasts for auction.  Why do we do it? 

The reasons for it were well known.  Everyone knew in what small numbers the Lacertans bred without benefit of the Lotteries.  And the civilized galaxy also knew what else this planet had to offer besides the most fabulous of all potential mates.  The mutagenic mineral Draconite was not the planet’s only extraordinary property. 

Lacerta was also rich with one of the rarest elements in space.  Odysseum in its natural state was mildly radioactive.  But under particle bombardment, it underwent a miraculous change, becoming unstable not only in mass but in space and time.

 Odysseum was a uniquely powerful energy source for interstellar travel, and any planet possessing it in abundance was of strategic importance to Earth and all of its territories and allies.  The Lacertan Courting Lotteries were not only a lavish mating display.  They were a statement to all the known galaxy that this planet, while its population growth was the smallest and slowest among civilized worlds, was still strong and robust and not an easy target.

 And the Lotteries of the Knights and Corps in particular were a signal to the outside galaxy that Lacerta was prepared to build and maintain its strength against all comers.  Provoke a dragon and prepare to be shredded.

Thrax turned his attention across the bridge to the platform, beyond which lay a section of boxed seating where the prospective partners waited.  He looked at the people in those seats.  This spectacle would go on all day until those seats were emptied and all those people were paired off with Lacertan males and females.  And the Lacertans would be brought up twelve or thirteen at a time to be presented for pairing.

 Some of his fellow Lacertans actually welcomed this process.  Some of them did not see it at all in the way Thrax did.  For them, it represented easily obtained and abundant s*x without any of the rituals and protocols otherwise necessary to get it.  They would immediately go off with their selected partners and fall directly into bed.

 If their exuberant copulating produced a child, they would marry or not, and if the dragon child was raised with a single parent, at least it would be another member of the population of Lacerta.  That was an ironclad part of the agreement — any child produced by a Lottery couple would be raised on Lacerta and add to its commonwealth, and the colonial economy was such that no one wanted for anything.  It was seen as a beneficial arrangement for everyone concerned.

Some people saw the whole thing as a soulless affair, and some spoke out against it –for naught.  The needs of the colony superseded all objections.  Thrax himself had spoken up against it, but never publicly.  A Knight voicing dissent against the policy would be seen as disloyal, dishonorable, and potentially derelict in his duties.

 It would be a black mark against him, a sign of disgrace.  Knights such as Thrax were not silenced or censured, and they held their place of honor in society—as long as they kept their dissent within the Knighthood and it went no further.

And so Sir Thrax Helmer, Knight of honor and distinction, held his silence and looked out into that mass of humans, some residents of Lacerta and others from outside planets, including Earth itself, wondering with which one of them his duty would demand that he change his whole life in service to his people.