Translation: Do not land.
Call recorded at 9 p.m., rebel dragon over glasshouse,
thought to be accompanied by two others.
It’s like reading the dragons’ thoughts. I look over at the loquisonus machines, glinting like gold in the morning sunlight. We’re not just translating a language, I realise. We’re recording it for the very first time.
I look through the remaining index cards to cross-check the translation. I want to know which of these trills meansland. I pick up a pencil to make notes, but it’s blunt. I go to the cupboard and rummage among the boxes for a sharpener. I can’t find one, but there’s a tin of fresh pencils. I pick it up and notice an envelope beneath. There’s no name or address, but there are two three-pronged claw marks on the front, on the left and the right. I know what that is.
It’s dracovol mail.
I glance at Dr Seymour, but she’s busy explaining one of the cards to Katherine. My parents used to send our dracovol to pick up schoolbooks for me, as dracovol mail is quicker than the Royal Mail. It’s a private, uncontrolled form of sending and receiving, where letters and parcels are transported by a tiny, long-tailed dragon that’s as fast as a falcon and trained to deliver to a few specific locations. Most Second Class families I know have a dracovol. But there’s no dracovol cage inside the glasshouse, and I haven’t seen any miniature dragons flying around. Besides, Ravensloe said that sending letters isn’t allowed at Bletchley. So what’s Dr Seymour up to? I tug half the letter out of the envelope and read the sentence written in neat handwriting at the top.
Canna, Rùm and Eigg are all
I can’t see the rest without unfolding the letter. I glance over my shoulder. Gideon is watching me so I stuff the letter back in the envelope and close the cupboard door. I know that Rùm is an island off the coast of Scotland, officially madedragon territory at the signing of the Peace Agreement. They use it as their hatching grounds. But I’ve never heard of the others. I sit back down at my desk with my fresh pencil. Why is Dr Seymour receiving dracovol mail? She must have special permission from Ravensloe, maybe for secret echolocation research.
I glance at the box of index cards. There are hundreds of them, and yet Dr Seymour seems to think we haven’t even scratched the surface of this echolocation language. Despite her enthusiasm, I’m starting to feel like cracking this dragon code in three months will be impossible. No one can learn an entire language that fast.
With my previous translations, I’d spend hours poring over books to research context, reading round the subject until suddenly a new way of using a word jumped out at me, a translation I hadn’t considered that gave the text a whole new meaning. That’s how I’ll have to start this time, too. And for that I’ll need a library. Surely Bletchley has one of those?
I begin taking notes, keeping my eyes on the page even when I feel Dr Seymour watching me. The first thing I’ll research are the Scottish Isles. If Dr Seymour is receiving letters about them, then they must be important to learning echolocation. Perhaps I’ll discover something that will give me a head start. I glance at the others and feel a spark of competitiveness. I know it’s stupid because we’re all in this together. But if anyone is going to crack a code that will win the war and erase my mistakes, I want it to be me.
‘YOU MEAN YOU’RE SECRETLY LISTENING in on what the rebel dragons are saying to each other so you can translate and pass it on to Wyvernmire?’
I sit with Marquis at the dining table, speaking quietly as the other recruits take their places for lunch. The air hums with discussions about work and the war, and I see Katherine and Gideon talking animatedly over their food.
‘Yes,’ I reply, sipping my soup. ‘And the Dragon Queen doesn’t want Wyvernmire to know about echolocation, even though it could help thembothdefeat the rebels.’
‘One of my professors mentioned dragon echolocation once,’ Marquis says, ‘but he said it was just a theory. The idea that an entire species came up with a secret code inside their heads for the purpose of fighting humans—’
‘Dr Seymour doesn’t seem to think it’s a weapon. And it’s not a code, not really. It’s a language.’
‘Whatever it is, it’s basically mind-reading,’ says Marquis excitedly. ‘Like some crazy primal advantage dragons have.’
‘No more of an advantage than our ability to talk via wireless.’ Atlas pulls up a chair next to us and I frown. How long has he been listening?
‘Of course it’s an advantage,’ I argue. ‘Wedon’t have a wireless inside our heads.’
Serena and Karim join us at the table. Karim gives me a shy smile – I haven’t heard him speak yet and he blushes every time someone looks in his direction. Serena is not so discreet.
‘I’ve learned toflyplanes, of course, but I never thought I’d find myselfdesigningthem,’ she says, her elbow grazing Atlas’s arm as she reaches for the bread. ‘And fighter planes at that. Aviation sounds like the most useful of the three categories.’ She looks pointedly at me.
‘Fighter planes?’ I say to Marquis, ignoring Serena’s stare.
‘Hmmm,’ Marquis replies through a mouthful of potatoes. ‘Knott has designed wings modelled on dragon flight. I suggested we incorporate a mechanical gizzard into the plane, to make it breathe fire.’
‘A mechanical what?’ says Sophie, sitting down beside me.
I sneak a surprised glance at her – does this mean she agrees to us working together?
‘It’s how dragons make flames,’ Marquis says. ‘They have several stomachs, like cows, and a gizzard, like chickens. When the food they eat ferments, it produces methane.’
Atlas raises an eyebrow.
‘Dragon gizzards are covered in flint-like scales,’ Marquis explains. ‘And dragons eat small rocks for digestion. So, when the rocks strike against the scales in the presence of methane,flames spark. It’s all ridiculously clever.’
‘And you think they’ll work?’ Atlas says. ‘These fire-breathing planes?’
