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Mrs. Hostler, I’ve sent you this disk to explain why I’m paying for Thomas Hostler’s leukemia treatment. Though he does not remember me specifically, I am possibly responsible for his condition.
I was young, seven months past first criticality. I had no children and was under pressure to sire. I intended to serve my clan, but first I wanted to see the world. I left the reservation and headed toward the Sierra Nevada. I expected to be stopped. I knew the thermal imaging capabilities of the United States military and we remnant emit heat as well as nuclear radiation.
Surprisingly, after hiking hundreds of miles across fault-carved desert, I made it to the great wall of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Later, I found out the government had tracked me with drone aircraft, but had not intervened since I was avoiding population centers.
I began to climb. It grew cooler and the sky became overcast. Snow came down upon my back As I climbed upward the wind began to gust under my wings . I furled them tightly. Even though I cannot fly, my wings could catch the wind and waft me down the mountainside. The blowing snow removed heat from my body efficiently enough that I was comfortable with closed wings.
I climbed until the blizzard found me. With all the blowing snow I could not see my feet. I lay down to wait for the wind to lessen. Night turned the world black. Snow did not stick to my back. Even without active fission, decay of the isotopes inside me generates heat.
The wind stopped during the night. When dawn came I saw my refuge was a narrow ridge of rock. Ice from the snow that had melted off my back surrounded me. I had to get rid of it so that I wouldn’t slip. I stretched my wings over the ice and allowed fission to occur inside me. Heat from the fuel elements inside my belly was radiated onto the icy rock around me. My vision was again obscured by white and heard something fall away from my left side.
When the steam drifted away, I looked out at the mountains. The snow and ice reminded me of stories of our home world. Of course, there the sky was black and no atmosphere blurred the shadows cast by our usurper sun.
Sol showed from behind the clouds. Even above the timberline, a world lit by a true star is a far different place than one that orbits a white dwarf. I would never truly know the world of my great great grandmothers and did not care. The brief brilliance of the sun-lit snow was wonderful. I wanted never to forget the sight. Even after clouds again covered the sun, I stood looking out at the mountains.
Below me, to the left, was something dark. Slowly, I scrambled down. As I came near, I saw it was a mound of fabric half covered by snow. The snow must have fallen from the ridge when I melted the ice away from my limbs. I prodded it and when I accidentally shifted my weight I felt a soft bang under my hand.
Inside the fabric lay a human body. Snow had buried the head and torso, but the legs stuck out. I dug away the snow and ripped the fabric. Inside lay a dark haired man. He breathed slowly. Radiation sickness? Doubtful. While he’d been too close when I melted the ice, distance should have protected him from immediate harm. His lips opened.
"Momma, the snow made my tent fall down." The words were almost inaudible. My stupidity was obvious. Cold and lack of oxygen, neither of which would be of consequence to me, affected his thinking.
"I am not your mother," I told him. I feared he might offend his mother’s spirit.
His eyes widened.
"Dragon, warm me," he said.
"If I raised my k factor above unity I could warm you, but you would die. Also, don't call me dragon, the word is remnant," I told him. He said nothing.
"Do you really want to be warm more than you want to live?"
"Make me warm," he repeated. Picking through the fabric, I found a container for chemical fuel. My hand had crushed it flat. I could easily carry the man in my mouth, but he would sicken. Allowing internal fission and irradiating him until I destroyed his nervous system would end his life quickly. Was a few minutes of intense suffering better than freezing to death?
Before then adults had made decisions for me, but no one else was around. I feared to confront the man’s ghost if I killed him when he could have lived. I had to find other humans to care for him. That way, even if he died, my debt to his family and his ghost would be less.
"I'm sorry," I said and left him.
I had walked less then a quarter mile when a small airplane buzzed overhead.. I fluttered my wings. Three quick flutters and three slow ones. I repeated this until the plane waggled its wings. I perched on the ridge until searchers arrived. I led them to the man and warned them about activation products in rock on the ridge.
My adventure done, I walked back to the reservation. The chief and the matriarchs disciplined me. They reminded me of the suffering the isotopes I contain could cause. To show my desire to serve my clan rather than my own whims, I performed many tedious tasks. Two years later, when Tom Hostler sent a package to my clan chief containing a photograph of himself together with you and your son I thanked my ancestors.
Now, finding out that my irresponsibility may have had terrible consequences for Tom Hostler saddens me. While my help gave him five extra years, I fear my first thoughtless action may kill him in the end.
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