Under the Eye of God by David Gerrold Page A

eyes glanced quickly around the room. “It looks good,” Ota acknowledged. “Please finish quickly. The Moktar will take their stations soon.” Ota stepped out through the aft door and exited.
    â€œMoktar!” Gito shuddered in distaste.
    Robin shook her head. “That resolution didn’t last long.”
    Gito grunted, the closest he ever came to apologizing. And then he added, “Someday the Angel of Death will arrive, and Ota will ask him if he wants some tea.”
    â€œAnd why not?” Robin wiped vigorously at a brinewood panel. The soft pink wood shone with pearlescent beauty. “Remember, Gito, what you once said? Most LIX class bioforms don’t care about much except their next meal.”
    â€œHmp. You could say the same thing about Dragons and Vampires.”

Manners
    Ota came back, glanced around, sniffed the air, frowned and allowed itself to feel annoyed and uneasy. No further effort could make a difference here. Lacking any suitable alternative, it resigned itself to the situation and pronounced the salon appropriately disinfected for a Vampire’s delicate sensibilities. Gito grunted and excused himself to the engine room. Robin smoothed her white tunic and began putting away the last of the cleaning items. She looked to Ota, “I assume the Dragons will inspect it now?”
    â€œDon’t they always?”
    Abruptly, the forward door of the salon slid open and the room darkened like a shadow. The Moktar Dragons entered, six of them, gleaming like the cold night. Ota and Robin stepped quickly out of their way. The Dragons didn’t simply enter—they invaded the room, a brutal squad of hardened flesh. The Dragons moved in glistening synchrony; they flowed like liquid terror.
    Huge and menacing and much too large for a vessel of this size, the Dragons overpowered the space; each one three meters tall and massing 300 kilos of self-contained brooding savagery. They reeked of power and smoldering madness.
    Deliberately constructed on the model of the ancient velociraptor, they had the sleek forms of armored nightmares, with bulging musculature cut so deep and hard they looked like polished stone. They carried their tails high for balance. Their rank hot breaths turned the air around them brackish; but even in their cruel demeanor, each one also had a sinewy beauty. All black and silver, all ablaze with coiled power, they loomed magnificently —like burnished demons. Ebony skins shone like silken liquid; corded arms and brutal thighs reflected metal highlights. They all glittered.
    Like well-oiled machinery, the Dragons took up their positions. They glanced around the suddenly too-small room with undisguised contempt. 13
    Normally they would have stayed in their makeshift quarters in the forward cargo bay—much roomier than the salon, but still too cramped for them—but whenever the Lady Zillabar went anywhere, even from one room to another, her Guards first checked it for security. The Lady hadn’t lived this long by tolerating carelessness. She’d seen too many Vampires die at the hands of fanatics and assassins.
    Two of the Dragons took up positions by the forward door, two waited at the aft entrance to the salon. The remaining two stood stolidly in the center of the lounge, the bony crests of their skulls almost touching the bright ceiling panels. One of them turned slowly, his nostrils flaring, his tongue flicking the air, tasting the faint perfumed essence of the lounge. His expression remained unchanged, but he spoke softly into a wrist communicator. “We have smelled the air in the salon. It will not offend.”
    Watching from the corner of the room, Robin could barely hide her discomfort. She glanced sideways to Ota, but the bioform’s expression remained carefully blank. If Ota felt uneasy, it didn’t show. The two waited in quiet, respectful postures.
    One of the Dragons glanced speculatively at Ota and grinned,