Pictured is a Gob from Petrolea. Fingernail-sized factors construct a simple rocket nozzle and petroleum fuel tank, then join together to form a winged fuselage around this armature. The resulting Gob-swarm can fly quickly to the next source of raw materials or fuel. [https://64.media.tumblr.com/26a64729449542e5263fa77e21faf53a/26ea3a3f5ac57d71-0b/s640x960/c487b19b2154a3a28811b4400afb6239622e5203.jpg]

"Almost done." Victor hunched over his work, hands furiously air-typing as his slave-factors danced over the corpse of the Dragon.

"What did you say?" There was another "oof" of exertion from Dr. Merchant's microphone and the distant sound of something shattering.

"I'll have fresh air for you when you come back," said Victor. "I decided it was easier to fabricate new oxygen canisters than design something that can mate with," he was blushing again. "I mean 'connect to,' the ones we already have. Metal is not in short supply. And as for food..."

What had been the male Dragon's abdominal cavity was now a still. The rib-like struts of the central torso cupped a hissing, burbling life-support system of rough steel cylinders, clusters of golden spheres, and black glass tubes, all of it held together with plastic cobwebs and copper wire. It no longer even remotely resembled the Dragonlets, currently sleeping on the other side of the hangar.

"I'll bring more food for your beast," Dr. Merchant grunted. "Have no fear."

"More food for us," Victor corrected her. "My next product is water and protein paste, but that will use up the hydrocarbon reserves of the, uh, father Dragon."

"Reducing a creature to its component parts at our convenience," she grumbled.

Victor didn't want to start that argument again. "Well," He cleared his throat. "Anyway. We've been working on these wilderness survival programs for some time. This was the first field test, but I'm optimistic."

He watched plastic bladders fill with something heavy and paste-like and thought about Dr. Merchant eating his food. Drinking his water. Bathing in it. Victor tried to remember what she looked like out of her environment suit.

Small, he remembered vaguely, and usually angry about something. There had been jokes back in Xanadu about her mustache and unibrow, but at the moment, Victor couldn't visualize either feature. He queried his memory for more details, but couldn't be sure whether what he got back was real recollection or hopeful fantasy.

He'd been quiet too long. "Uh. Everything okay down there?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes, no problems at all." A grunt and a crash, then more silence.

Victor chewed his lower lip. "Don't worry, we will not have to live on paste for long. Once both of us are fed, we can go back to Xanadu, right?"

"You can go back to Xanadu."

Victor snorted. "And you will go where? To the jungle castle of the Princess of Petrolea? You will die out here."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"I will be arrested if I go back there," she said.

Victor frowned. "No," he said, "they wouldn't do that. Well. They might. But if they blame you, they blame me too. Then we're both in jail together," he looked around at the rusty hangar, "and not much has changed, hey?"

She grunted and killed something down on the slopes of the mountain.

One of the Dragonlets twitched and broadcast a radio signal Victor had come to recognize meant "feed me." He tossed one of its father's vertebrae at it, and it quieted down.

He wanted to hear Dr. Merchant speak more. She had attractive voice. "All right," he said. "What would you do if you were in charge? What do you actually want from people?"

"Aside from that there be fewer of them?"

"When people say we should reduce the human population, they never volunteer to be the part of the population that gets reduced." Too late, Victor remembered he wanted her to like him. "Um, I mean we're in space now. We have the resources to support a growing population."

"Unfortunately. We'll just be going faster when we hit the Malthusian wall." And before he could ask her what the hell that meant. "And now we have a whole new biome to bring down with us."

"You act like we're all doomed." Victor grinned as he worked. "If Mumbai is really so bad, you come live in Lima with me, he? Thanks to space industry, it's a cleaner and more beautiful place than before."

"Only at the expense of a dirty and ugly Petrolea," said Dr. Merchant. "You drove through the clear-cut area around Xanadu Base. Didn't it sicken you?"

"No? What do I care about the Petrolean jungle? I don't have to live there."

Dr. Merchant paused for a moment, panting. "Clearly, you do."

That made Victor laugh out loud. "You're right," he said while he worked in the Dragons' lair. "It's too bad we didn't pave over this part of the solar system. Wouldn't it be great if we already had electricity and air? I could take you out to eat at the Burger King down the Berg. Ooh, or maybe Bembos could open a branch on Titan. You've ever heard of Bembos?"

She sighed. "My point is that if we did live here, if we moved out of the artificial and unsustainable technological shells we've built around ourselves, we'd have more respect for the natural environment."

He scrolled through options in his eye-tracking menu. "You think it would be better if we all lived in villages in the jungle?"

Doctor, I know people who used to live in the jungle, and they thought the slums around Lima were a big improvement."

"So the slums keep growing. More and more people piled on top of each other until the whole global environment collapses underneath us."

Victor snorted. "Nothing collapsed under me. I learned how to code and moved my family out." He hoped the automatic bank transfers he'd set up were still beaming money back to his friends and family. He hoped the investment funded by space industry kept flowing, and Lima kept blooming. That way even if he died here in this den of monsters, his nephews and nieces might grow up in a better, more prosperous world.

"And once this job is over, you plan to move up again, do you?" She asked. "Dubai, maybe, or London? Along with every other upwardly-mobile young professional on Earth."

"No, I'm going to stay in Lima, because it is a lovely city," said Victor. "But if everyone else wanted to move in with me...why not? If the whole human race lived in my city, the rest of the planet would be free, hey?"

"A city of eight billion people? Are you joking? How could we possibly feed that many people? Can you imagine the amount of garbage they would produce?"

"We're feeding and dealing with the garbage of the human race right now," said Victor. "Packing those people together would make everything more efficient."

She laughed for some reason. "Save us from social engineering by real engineers."

That stung. But it was good to hear her laugh.