THE PASSING OF THE DRAGONS

By Keith Roberts

Here is a new and delightful Keith Roberts’ story, about aliens on an alien planet and human observers trying to rationalise behaviour patterns. Just how formidable a task it turns out to be is the crux of the story.

* * * *

There’s no real reason for an Epsilon Dragon to die. Nonetheless, they do.

By ‘real reasons’ I don’t of course include atmosphere, soil and plant pollution, direct and indirect blast effects and ultrasonic fracture of the inner ear. Most of the things that will do for a human being will do for a Dragon. They are, or were, more than humanly affected by high frequencies; the tympani were numerous and large, situated in a row down each side of the body an inch or so above the lateral line. Which you can see for yourself if you can get off your butt long enough to get down to the museum of the Institute of Alien Biology.

The other things that can kill a Dragon are more interesting, as I explained to Pilot (First Class) Scott-Braithwaite a few weeks after our arrival on (or coincidence with) Epsilon Cygnus VI. The specimen under consideration flowed and clattered into the clearing by the lab about thirteen hundred hours, Planetary Time. I was checking the daily meter readings, I didn’t pay too much attention till I saw the three sets of whips a Dragon carries on its back flatten out and immobilise. It made the thing look like a little green and gold helicopter squatting there on the grass.

I picked up the stethoscope and the Rontgen viewer and walked outside. A Dragon has eight hearts, situated in two rows of four between the eighth and twelfth body segments. I attached the stethoscope sensors, studied the display. As I’d expected, the first cardiac pair had become inoperative. Pairs two and four seemed to be showing reduced activity; pair three, presumably, were sustaining residual body functions. Since breathing is by spiracles and tracheae, body function isn’t all that easy to confirm. I used the viewer and stood up, leaned my hands on the knobbly back-armour. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘our friend here is headed for the Happy Chewing Grounds. Or wherever they go.’

The Pilot (First Class) frowned. He said, ‘How can you tell?’

I shrugged and walked round the Dragon. There was a slight injury, in the soft membrane between two body segments; a little fluid had wept across the armour, but it didn’t seem critical. If Dragons were arthropods, as their appearance suggests, collapse from a minor abrasion would be understandable; but the body is no fluid-sac, they have a blood-vascular system as well defined as that of a mammal. On the other hand the possibility of infection couldn’t be ruled out. I fetched a hypodermic from the lab, drew off a fluid sample. Later I’d take tissue cuttings. They’d be clean, of course. They always are.

I’d brought the surgical kit out with me. I rigged a pair of pacemakers, set the collars on the probes to the standard twenty five centimetre penetration. I measured a handspan from the median lines, pushed the needles down through the joint membrane, used the stethoscope again. The trace bounced around a bit, and steadied.

He leaned over me. I suppose one might say ‘keen face intent’. He said, ‘Working?’

I shrugged. I said, ‘Any fool can make a heart pump. It isn’t much of a trick.’

He said, ‘Then it’ll be OK.’

I shook my head. I said, ‘It’ll die.’

He said, ‘When?’

I lifted one of the whips, let it droop back. I said, ‘In thirty hours, twenty-eight minutes Terrestrial.’

He raised his eyebrows.

I said kindly, ‘Planetary revolution.’

I walked back to the lab. I’d decided to run a cardiograph. Not that it would tell us any more than the thousand or two already in file at IAB. But it’s one of the things one does. It’s called Making an Effort. Or Showing the Flag.

He was still standing where I’d left him. He said, ‘I can’t understand these damn things.’

Most of his conversation was like that. Incisive. Really kept you on your toes.

I started attaching the sensors of the cardiogram. You should listen to a Dragon’s hearts sometime. It’s like the pulse of a star. Or maybe you’re a fan of the Hottentots. They based their style on IAB recordings, so I’m told; so the Dragons, you see, have been of service to mankind.

He said, ‘Why planetary revolution?’

I smiled at him. ‘Do you know, Pilot, First Class,’ I said, ‘I have no idea.’

He frowned. He said, ‘I thought you scientists had all the answers.’

His repartee certainly was a joy to the ear.

I said, ‘I’m not a scientist. Just a Behaviourist.’ I smiled again. ‘Technician,’ I said. ‘Second Class.’

He didn’t answer that one. They don’t encourage morbid self-analysis at Space School.

I walked back through the specimen lock. I’d had it rigged some time now. I’d been asked to take a living Dragon back to Earth. Not that it would survive phaseout. They never do. But that’s what science is all about for most of us; a lot of little people doing what’s been done before, and not succeeding either.

He followed me. He had that trick. He said, ‘Can I help?’

I said, ‘No, thanks.’ I was thinking how difficult it must be for him, lumbered with a type like me. My teeth are less than pearly, my body is less than sylphlike; I don’t play pelota, I drink my ale by the pint, and what I say sometimes has some relation to what I think. It must have been hell.

He lit a cigarette. At least he had one insanitary habit. Maybe there were more. You can never tell, by appearances.

I switched the recorder on. The traces started zipping along the display. I turned the replay volume up. The sound thudded at us. He winced. He said, ‘Do we have to have that?’

I said, ‘It soothes me.’ I gave the volume another notch. I said, ‘You must have heard the Hottentots.’

He said, ‘That’s different.’

Man, was his conversation up tight. This was being a great tour.

I listened to the heartbeats. The rhythms phased in and out of each other like drums; or bells underground, ringing a Change that was endless.

He said, ‘And that thing’s going to die?’

I didn’t answer. I was thinking about the Dragon. Difficult to dissociate the notion of purpose from things that take exactly a day to die. Neither a second more nor less. But it’s difficult to dissociate the notion of purpose from anything a Dragon does. Or did. For instance, they built cities. Or we thought they were cities. We were never too sure, one way or the other.

I ejected the sample into a centrifuge, locked the case and switched on. He watched me for a bit. Then he yawned. He said, ‘I’m going to have a kip till contact time. Call me if you need me.’

I kept my back turned till the door had shut. With the din I’d set up he was going to be lucky. But some people can sleep through anything. Probably to do with leading a healthy life.

* * * *

He started on the subject again at supper time. He’d got a radio running; music was playing, from the room next door. The room we call Earth. My Dragon’s jazz was still thumping in the lab. I changed channels, got the Hottentots. It made an interesting counterpoint. He changed back. He said, ‘How many of those things do you reckon there are out there?’

‘What things? Pop groups?’

He said, ‘Dragons.’

I let a can of soup preheat, picked it up, burned my fingers and opened it. I said, ‘A hundred, hundred and fifty. That was at the last count. Probably halved by now.’

He frowned. He said, ‘What’s killing them?’

I did rather take that as a silly question. Epsilon Cygnus VI just happens to have a mineral-rich crust containing about everything Homo Sapiens has ever found a use for, from gold to lithium. My species had blown in ten years back; now the rest of the planet was an automated slagtip.

I started ticking points on my fingers. I said, ‘Ecological imbalance triggered by water-borne effluent. Toxic concentration of broad-spectrum herbicides------’

He waved a hand, irritably. He said, ‘They’ve got a whole damn subcontinent to live in. There’s no mining here.’

I said, ‘So they die from minor abrasions. Maybe they’re making a gesture.’

He looked at me narrowly. He said, ‘You’ve got some damn queer ideas.’

I said, ‘I’m an observer. I’m not paid to have ideas.’

‘But you said------’

‘I pointed out psychological factors may exist. Or there again, they may not. Either way, we shall never know. Hence my engrossment.’

He frowned again. He said, ‘I don’t follow you.’

‘There’s not much to follow. I’m fascinated by failure. It runs in the family.’

He shook his head. I think he was grappling with a concept. He said, ‘You mean------’

‘I didn’t mean anything. I was just making light conversation. As per handbook.’

He flushed. He said, ‘You don’t have to be so bloody rude about it.’

I slung the can at the disposal unit. For once, I hit it. I said, ‘I’m sorry, Space Pilot.’ I smiled. I said, ‘Us civvies, you know. Nerves wear a bit thin. Don’t have your cast-iron constitutions.’                                                               

I don’t have the stoicism of the upper bourgeoisie either. If I cut my finger, I usually whimper.

He flashed me a white grin. That’s the most offensive sentence I can think of, so I’ll leave it in. It describes what he did so well. He said, ‘Forget it, Researcher. I’m a bit on edge myself.’

Oh, those lines! I was starting to wonder whether he had an inexhaustible stockpile of them. There must be an end somewhere, even to aphorisms.

I walked to the blinds, lifted the slats. Night on Epsilon VI is greenish, like the days. Like a thick pea soup, with turquoise overtones. The heartbeat thudded, in the next room.

I picked up a handlamp. I said, ‘I’m going out to check the patient.’ The comic opera habit was evidently catching.

He said, ‘I’ll come with you.’

I think his nerves were getting bad. He had an automatic strapped to his hip; on the way through the lab he collected a rocket pistol as well. There are no dangerous fauna on Epsilon VI; in fact at the time of writing I’m predisposed to believe there are no fauna at all. There used to be some pretty big lepidoptera though. I said, ‘You should have brought a scattergun. They’re difficult to hit with ball.’

He said, ‘What?’

I said, ‘The moths.’

He didn’t deign to answer.

The Dragon squatted where we had left it. I turned the lamp on. The halogen-quartz cut a white cone through the murk. Furry flying things blundered across the light. I swung the beam round. The jungle was empty.

He was standing with his hands on his hips, the holster flap tucked back. He said, ‘What are you looking for?’

I said, ‘The mourners should be arriving pretty soon.’

‘The what?’

I said, ‘Mourners. But again, I’m theorising without data.’

‘What do they do?’

I said, ‘Nothing. Stand around. Generally they eat the corpse.’

He made a disgusted noise.

I said, ‘Autre temps, autre mondes...’ I switched the light off. I said, ‘I like these field jobs you know. They broaden one.’

He walked back ahead of me to the lab. I closed the door and bolted it, for his peace of mind.

I don’t sleep too well these days. Like the poet says, old bones are hard to please. I lay and read awhile. Afterwards I drank whisky. The site storeroom had a cellar like nobody’s business. It should have had; IAB observer teams had been stocking it surreptitiously for a decade. I poured myself another good slug. No point leaving the stuff to rot; there wouldn’t be any more folk coming this way. They’d cleaned up all the easy deposits on Epsilon VI; the archipelago on which we’d landed, a big curve of islands stretching into the southern ocean, was about the only land surface left unraped. It was also the last stronghold of the Dragons.

I put the glass down, sat staring at the dural wall. IAB had had assurances of course, from Trade Control; but once assurances start arriving three times a year you know the end isn’t far off. The principle of the thing’s simple, as simple as all truly great ideas; while a single rumpled little Earthman with spiky yellow shoes can make a single rumpled little spiky yellow dollar, the killing goes on. Any killing. Next season they’d open-caste the islands; the Dragons had had their chance.

The Pilot (First Class) kept his light on well into the night. Maybe he was reading. I wondered vaguely whether he masturbated. I wasn’t too concerned, one way or the other; but a Behaviourist gets into the way of collecting odd facts.

I’d turned the playback volume down but left it running. The Dragon’s hearts thumped steadily through the thin metal wall. Towards the middle of the night the rhythm altered. I got up, pulled a jacket on and went outside.

There’s no moon on Epsilon; but there is a massive aurora belt. The green sky flashed and flickered; it was like the brewing of a perpetual storm. The Dragon’s whips vibrated faintly; the golden eye-clusters watched without interest. I used the stethoscope. The second and fourth heart pairs were dead. I applied a second and third set of pacemakers. Pair two picked up; pair four wouldn’t kick over. I decided a stimulant couldn’t do any harm. I went back to the lab, checked the chart, filled a syringe. I shot enough strychnine into the heart walls to kill a terrestrial horse. I saw the trace pick up and steady. Interesting. I thought vaguely I should have taken encephalographs as well.

The idea of stimulants was a good one. I went back, drank some more whisky. Then I dozed.

The mourners began to arrive at first light.

I heard the rustling and clattering and got up. I pulled on slacks and a shirt, stared through the lab port. The dawn was as green as the rest of the day; smoky emerald, fading to clear high lemon where Epsilon Cygnus struggled with the mist. A Dragon passed a yard or so away, jerking and lumbering like a thing at the bottom of an ocean. It was a big one, I judged a potential male. Dragons are parthenogenetic most of the time; over the years they sometimes develop sexual characteristics and mate conventionally. The analysis people had an idea it was to do with sunspot activity; but if there’s a correlation we didn’t give the computers enough hard facts to pinpoint it. The whole thing just made phylum classification a bit more entertaining.

The newcomer stopped a yard or more from the immobilised Dragon, and waved its whips. They were ten or twelve feet long, banded in green, orange and black. Ball and socket joints several inches across joined them to the body armour; round the base of each were tufts or stiff, iridescent hair.

The yellow eyes watched; the whips moved and stroked, touching the body of the dying creature from end to end. The head of the Dragon rotated, the jawparts clicked; then the thing reared its forepart into the air, lapsed into immobility. I’d seen the stance before. So had a lot of folk.

I opened the lab door, stepped outside. The morning air was cool and sweet. I walked up to the new arrival. The eye-clusters stared, like blank jewels. I wondered if it was seeing me.

I heard footsteps behind me. The Pilot (First Class) looked concerned. He said, ‘Jupiter, is this the first?’

I nodded. I said, ‘Good one, isn’t he?’

He rubbed his face. He was wearing a white shirt, open to the waist. On his chest hung a heavy silver cross. Very fashionable.

There was a crackling, in the jungle. Number two advanced slowly, through the moving coils of mist. It looked like a brilliant little armoured vehicle. The flowing of the clasper legs was invisible; you could have imagined readily enough that it was running on tracks.

It moved to the bunch of cables I’d stretched from the patient, and checked. The whips shook, stooped; rose again vertically above its back. It didn’t seem to object to the cables overmuch; neither did it cross them. It turned, followed their line to the dying Dragon. The same ritual was observed. The whips rustled; then the creature arched itself, lapsed like its fellow into stillness.

The Pilot (First Class) had his hand on the butt of the automatic. I shook my head. Dragons are harmless. Their mouthparts could take your arm off; but if you put your fingers between the mandibles they just stop working. I’d told him often enough but it seemed he wasn’t convinced.

He trailed after me back to the lab. He said, ‘How many of these things do you expect to arrive?’

I said, ‘Ten. Or a dozen.’

‘What’ll they do?’

I said, ‘Like I told you. Stand around.’

He said. They’re waiting for it to die.’

I set water on to boil. I said, ‘Could be.’

He frowned. He said, ‘They’re obviously waiting.’

I laid out plates and cups. I said, ‘It’s by no means obvious. “Wait” as a concept depends on human-based time awareness. They may lack that awareness. In which case, they are not waiting.’

He said, ‘It’s a bit of a quibble though.’

I shook my head. ‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘Consider a proposition. ‘The rocks of the valley waited.” That’s more than a quibble. It’s a howling pathetic fallacy.’

He glared at me. He said, ‘If they’re living, they have time awareness.’

I shrugged. I said, ‘Try telling a tree.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘Then trees aren’t living. Interesting.’

He said, ‘You are the most argumentative bastard I ever met.’

I said, ‘Hard words, Captain. In any case it’s not true. For argumentative read definitive.’

He swallowed his temper, like a good skipper. My word, these boys have self-control. They’re pretty fine male specimens of course, all the way round.

By midmorning nine of the creatures had arrived. I set up the encephalogram, fixed the probes. A Dragon has a massive brain, situated behind and below the eyes. Capacity betters the human cranium by an average of twenty-five per cent. Nearly the same was once true of terrestrial dolphins. But they never learned to talk.

I watched the pens record. Something like an alpha rhythm was emerging. By thirteen hundred Planetary Time the wave forms were altering, developing greater valleys and peaks. The crisis was approaching; but it was nothing new. I lit a pipe, walked outside. The heartbeats thundered, from the open lab door. At thirteen-forty the first pair shut down. The pairs two and three. I counted the beats on pair four. Then the glade was silent. I said, ‘That’s it then.’ I logged the time; Earth Standard and Planetary, hours and minutes from sunup. I pulled the probes out, disconnected them, started coiling the cables.

He stood staring. He said, ‘Aren’t you going to do anything?’

I said, ‘Like what?’

He said, ‘Try it with a shot. Something like that.’

I said, ‘You can if you like. Speaking from my human-based awareness, I’d say it was a waste of time.’

Dead, the thing looked just as it had when living; but the gold was fading slowly from the eyes.

He sat on the metal step of the lab and lit a cigarette. He looked shaken up.

The jade-green ring of Dragons made no move. They stood poised through the afternoon, like so many cumbersome statues. Occasionally one or other of the pairs of whips would rise, tremble, sink again; but that was all. I cut tissue specimens for autopsy, stripped the pacemakers, autoclaved the probes. Then I scrubbed up and went through to the living quarters. He was sitting reading a glossy somebody had left about. It had a full frontal stereograph on the cover. She looked pretty good. I walked back to the lab, ran the tapes and started up. The heartbeat of the dead Dragon filled the air.

I heard him fling the book down. He stood in the doorway, staring. He said, ‘Do we have to have that again?’

I said, ‘We do. There might be a clue.’

‘A what?’

I said, ‘Think of it as a sort of Cosmic Code. It may help.’

We ate. The Dragons stayed in their circle. Afterwards he walked out. He didn’t say where he was going, which is against the rules if you’re going strictly by the book. There was a little vertol flier in one of the hangar sheds. I heard it start up, drone away towards the west.

I turned the replay volume up. The heartbeats thudded in the clearing. I got a heavy speaker housing from the lab, set it out on the grass, blasted the noise at the Dragons. It had been tried before of course. They hadn’t reacted then. They didn’t react now. I dismantled the rig, put the gear away and shut down. The glade was very still, the veiled sun dropping towards the west.

I got my jacket, and a pair of prismatics. I walked due south, away from the lab. About a mile off, a rocky bluff thrust up through a mustard-green tide of trees. The front of the cliff, golden now in the slanting light, was riddled with holes. I used the glasses. A dozen were occupied; I could see the yellow masks staring down. The rest were empty and blank.

At the foot of the cliff was a roughly circular clearing. In it stood a dozen or more massive structures. The quartz chunks of which they were mainly composed flashed and glittered, throwing back the brilliant light. They formed columns, arcades, porticoes. At intervals openwork platforms pierced the towers; it made them look a little like gigantic rose trellises. Sprays of viridian creeper twined from level to level, enhancing the illusion. It was presumed the Dragons built them; though the proposition had never been proved. IAB had been interested in them for years, off and on. A docket went round whenever somebody had a bright idea. I’d seen nests, temples and freeform sculpture all put up as propositions. You paid your money and you took your choice.

The city was the main reason for the siting of the lab. We’d put it a mile away initially in case the Dragons reacted to our presence. The hope had been wild and wilful; nobody had yet seen them react to anything.

I walked back to the lab. There was no sign of the Pilot (First Class). I set the coffee on again, picked up the girlie book, skimmed the pages. I was pleased to see they were letting a few white strippers back in on the act. Emancipation, like everything else, can go too far.

Towards nightfall I checked the port. The ring of Dragons had closed in; one of them was stretching its neck segments, nuzzling forward and back along the corpse like a cat skimming cream from a saucer. After a time the mouthparts settled to a steady motion. I logged the event.

The flier landed. A wait; and I heard the Pilot’s footsteps in the clearing. He barged in through the lab door. He said, ‘They’re eating it. It’s bloody horrible.’

I put the mag down. I said, ‘The fact has been noted.’

He said, ‘It’s bloody horrible. And you reckoned those things were intelligent.’

‘I can’t remember reckoning anything. In any case it doesn’t preclude the possibility.’

‘You must be joking!’

I said, ‘Perhaps it’s a religious observance. Which would make it highly sophisticated.’

‘A what?’

I remembered the cross round his neck. He was a neo-Catholic of course. He had to be. I said, ‘It has all the distinguishing characteristics.’

He sat down heavily and lit a cigarette. He said, ‘You’re mad.’

‘I wish I was. I’d get more fun out of life. Remember the Dream of the Rood?’

‘No.’

I clucked at him. ‘Dear me. And part of your course was the Humanities.’

He glowered. I smiled at him. I said. ‘Teatime, skipper. Your turn to undo the cans.’

He said, ‘As a matter of fact, I’m not hungry.’

I said, ‘Pity. I am. Force of habit of course. But powerful. Rule One of the Behaviourist.’ I got up, started banging pots and pans round in the galley. I said, ‘Blood sacrifice. Eat, for this is my flesh. Also see Tennessee Williams. Mid twentieth century. American.’

He stood. He said, ‘I’m going to get cleaned up.’

I said, ‘They probably have. It’s a very old sofa.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Daddy has some timeslip trouble. Bear with an old man.’

He walked out. He’d started slamming doors.

I kicked the girlie stereo under the side table. Not so much from frustration as pique. One dislikes being constantly offered what isn’t for sale.

He started singing in the shower. He always sang in the shower. His voice was very good. Light tenor. I expected he used a good aftershave too. I wondered just what the hell a Dragon would make of him anyway, Pink for skin, brown for hair, white for teeth. You could analyse the picture till it fragmented. Then you had a monster of your own.

The bath put him into a better humour. He emerged from his labours at seventeen hundred, Planetary. He was wearing a white uniform jacket, with the braids and brassard of his Order. He capered up to me, spun me round, slapped me on the back. Then he sat in a chair, legs asprawl, grinned and lit a cigarette. He said, ‘Judy’s coming through. On the Link.’

I said, ‘I bet she’s your fiancée.’

He looked hurt. He said, ‘You know she is. You met her before lift off. She’s a model.’

I said, ‘Ah, yes.’ It was the Little Girl Look this year, Earthside. Which meant candid blue eyes, golden curls, tits like stoplights. I said, ‘Thoughtless of me. I remember her well. A charming person, I thought.’

He looked at the chronometer on the lab bulkhead. He said, ‘We’re getting married. Straight after this tour.’

I said, ‘I expect you are.’

He gave me a dirty look. He said, ‘I suppose that fits a behaviour pattern too.’

I said, ‘It very well might.’

He said viciously, ‘Why don’t you run a programme on it? You might come up with some new facts.’

I yawned. I said, ‘Fortunately, I don’t have to. I read tealeaves. Saves a lot of computer time.’

The buzzer sounded. He started the Richardsons. Earth Control exchanged the time of day; then Judy came on. She was as I remembered her. Love through the Loop; she had the sort of voice that can squeeze sex out of duralumin. He said, ‘Hello, darling,’ and she said, ‘Hello, Drew.’ Drew, yet ... I tried the full effect. Drew Scott-Middleton. I got up, went looking for the whisky. I needed something to take the taste away.

She said, ‘How are you?’ He said, ‘Fine, love, just fine.’ I poured three fingers.

She said, ‘How’s the project?’

He said, ‘Fine.’

I walked out to the lab, started labelling and packing the heart tapes. She said, ‘Who’s that with you? I can’t see, he’s not in camera.’

He said, ‘Researcher Fredericks. You met him at lift off.’

She said, ‘Are you looking after him ?’

He said, ‘He’s fine.’

The speaker said, ‘Give him my love.’

Drew said, ‘She sends you her love.’

I said, ‘That’s fine.’

The Richardson operator said, ‘Epsilon, you are in overtime.’

Judy said, ‘Gosh, your poor bank balance. Darling, I must go. See you soon.’

He said,’ ‘Bye, bunny. Take care now’. I heard the crackle as the link broke. The generators cut, whined down to silence.

He walked to the lab door. He said, ‘That was bloody uncivil.’

‘What was uncivil?’

He said, ‘Walking out like that.’

I said, ‘It was your call, not mine.’

‘As if that mattered!’

‘It mattered to me. Anyway I had some work to do.’

His face darkened. He said, ‘You might as well know, I don’t like your attitude.’

I said, ‘The fact is noted.’

He took a step into the lab. He said, ‘I’m also very well aware you don’t like me.’

I said, ‘On the contrary. I don’t give a damn. Now, if you please. You do your thing. I’ll do mine. OK?’ I pushed past him, got myself another drink.

He stood and stared for a bit, breathing down his nose. He said, ‘What would you do if I belted you between the eyes?’

I said, ‘Lose consciousness. Later in all probability, sue you.’ I turned with a whisky in my hand. I said, ‘For Christ’s sake have a drink, man. And let it go.’

He took the glass, shakily. His moods were starting to switch about a bit. Too much for my taste. Anyway he cooled down in time. Sat and told me about the place they were buying in the Rockies, his old man having weighed in with a few thousand dollars to help the mortgage; and the Chrysler automat he’d picked up on his last Earth furlough and all the rest. He didn’t quite get round to how many kids they were planning for but he sailed pretty close. He even gave me a standing invite to view the establishment after they got settled in; which would have been great if I could have afforded the fare. It was all great, life was great. I rejoiced for him. I couldn’t help though having a momentary picture of the wedding night. You lie this way and I lie that, on sterilised polar sheets; while we devour, ritually, each other’s bodies.

I walked out to the Dragons. Chitinous plates lay about; but the corpse had gone. The air was full of a sweet, heavy musk. One of the monsters was still in sight, moving away purposefully to the south.

Purposefully? I was getting as bad as Pilot (First Class) Scott-Braithwaite.

I walked the few yards to the landing vehicle. It stood canted on its fragile-looking legs, heat shields scorched by atmospheric entry. We still use conventional feeders of course, even with the Richardson Loop; the Loop vehicle was parked somewhere out in orbit. We could probably slice it fine enough these days to make direct planetary landings; fact is, nobody’s all that keen to be the guinea pig. Get the Richardson axes a milli-degree or so out of true and your atoms could just get rammed cheek by jowl, so to speak, with the atoms of a mountain top. Nobody’s quite too sure whether that would represent a paradox or not. The consensus of opinion is that it would and there’d be a bloody great bang.

Travelling by Loop isn’t too bad; no worse, I suppose, than allowing yourself to be wheeled in for a major operation. But somebody still has to make planetfall the other end, which is a process as primitive as firing a thirty-eight. That’s why even middle-aged IAB researchers need Pilots; though it’s true to say we need them more than they need us. Still it’s nice to have some Clean-Limbed Young Men about the place. Restores your faith in the world.

* * * *

I woke with a thick head in the morning. I lay in the bunk for a while wondering whether a touch of whisky would scorch the taste out of my throat. I heard the Pilot moving around outside. He called me a couple of times. I swore eventually and answered. I dressed, walked blearily to the lab door. He said, ‘We’ve got a visitor.’

He was squatting on his haunches a yard or two away in the clearing. Beside him was a Dragon. It was one of the smallest I’d seen. The whips, longer in proportion than the whips of an adult, were folded across its back. He was feeding it leaves off one of the palms; it was twisting its golden-eyed head and munching steadily. He looked up, grinning. He said, ‘It’s friendly.’

I said, ‘It’s eating.’

He frowned. He said, ‘It’s the same thing.’

I said, ‘One statement is an observation. The other is a surmise.’

He said, ‘Maybe it’s thirsty. Does it want a drink?’

I said, ‘They get all they need from vegetable fibres. You’re wasting your time.’

He got a dish from the lab anyway, filled it with water and set it down under the thing’s forelegs. He really thought he’d got some sort of green and gold, kingsize puppy dog there. The Dragon, of course, ignored it. He said, ‘I’ve christened him. His name’s Oscar. Do you know, I think he answers to it?’ He crooned the name in a variety of voices, snapping his fingers and waving his arms. The Dragon twisted its head, keeping his hands in sight. He said, ‘There, what about that?’

I said, ‘Try throwing it a stick. Also, its ears aren’t in its head. You’d be better off shouting at its arse.’

I put the coffee on to boil, and shaved. He played around with the thing half an hour or more longer. Finally he came inside. The Dragon stood where he had left it, motionless in the clearing. He watched it anxiously through the port while he was eating. He said, ‘How old is he? I hope he stays around.’

I really think he was starting to get lonely.

We had a trip planned for the day. I strapped myself into the flier; he climbed in beside me, jetted up a couple of thousand feet and flew south. I sat with the instrument box on my knees and watched the treetops sidle underneath. The sea became visible after a few minutes; a greenish shawl, fringed with an edging of paler lace. Farther out, a maroon stain spread across the horizon. A few biggish fish were floating belly-up. There were no other signs of life.

He turned west, following the coastline of the island. I waved to him to take the machine lower. Half a dozen clearings passed beneath, each with the curious towers of wood and stone. From above they looked vaguely oriental, like outlandish pagodas. Nowhere was there movement; the sites lay open and deserted.

We crossed the sea again, flew over the northerly islands. Half an hour later I touched his arm. I’d seen a clearing bigger than the rest, glimpsed something bronze-green moving in the jungle. I said, ‘Set down.’

He said, ‘Here? You must be joking.’ He took the machine in all the same, skimmed to a perfect landing between two of the glittering towers. He killed the motors. I sat while the miniature dust storm we had created subsided, then opened the cab door.

The air struck warm. A Dragon surveyed me indifferently from the edge of the jungle. Another, the one I had seen, was lumbering a hundred yards or so away. I walked towards it. It turned, whips waving, headed back into the trees. I let it go.

Clustering on the edge of the clearing were a series of curious six-sided structures, like pale green organ pipes a few sizes too large. The Pilot stood beside them, dusting his immaculate slacks. He said, ‘What are these?’

I said, ‘Were.’

‘Well. What were they?’

I said, ‘Nests. Moonstone termites. They were rather a pretty species. But they produced a formic acid variant that upset the chronometers at Transhipment Base. Earth lost a couple of freighters; they’re still out somewhere in the Loop. So we cooked up a little systemic. It was pretty good; did the job in a couple of years.’

He fingered one of the mortared columms, and frowned.

I said, ‘Never mind, old son. Can’t stand in the way of Progress.’

Beyond the clearing a low earth bank was covered by sprays of dense viridian creeper. Regularly-spaced holes showed blackly. All but one were deserted; in the nearest showed a familiar green and gold mask.

He said, ‘Are these places where they live?’

‘What?’

‘The Dragons.’

I said carefully, ‘These are where they are usually to be found.’

He nodded up at one of the quartz structures. ‘They build those?’

I said, ‘It seems probable. Nobody’s seen them at it yet.’

He said, ‘What the hell are they? What are they for?’

I said, ‘We have no idea.’

He said, ‘There’s got to be a reason.’

‘That’s a comforting philosophy.’

He glared at me. I was starting to get under his skin again. For a Pilot (First Class) he was pretty touchy. He said, ‘Everything has a reason.’

I said mildly, ‘Most things have explanations. But if we could explain why these things were built, it might not strike us as a reason. Since we’re hardly likely to explain them anyway, speculation is pointless.’

I walked forward. All the caves were tenanted; and all but a handful of the Dragons were dead. The bodies were flabby with decay, giving off the same sweet odour I’d smelled in the clearing. I counted forty seven corpses. None of them showed any signs of damage. He frowned finally, pushed his cap back on his head. He said, ‘Anyway, these weren’t eaten.’

I said, ‘Maybe there wasn’t time. They all went together.’

‘Do you think so?’

I said, ‘It’s possible.’

I sat on a rock and filled my pipe. He wandered off. A few minutes later I heard him call. I got up and walked in his direction.

There was a tower lower than the rest. On the timber staging were piled a dozen or more Dragons. I didn’t care to approach too closely. The bodies were pretty far gone.

He said, ‘That settles one thing anyway.’

’What?’

He gestured irritably. He said, ‘They’re burial platforms. It’s obvious.’

I said, ‘Or they climbed up there of their own accord. They were shuffling solemnly around, worshipping the sun, when they were struck with the same idea at precisely the same time.’

‘What idea?’

I said, ‘The idea our friend had in the clearing.’

‘Which was?’

I said, ‘You work it out.’

He said slowly, ‘You think they’re suiciding.’

I said, ‘One possibility among many.’

He said angrily, ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

I said. ‘Try not looking for the answers. You’ll sleep easier.’

It was as if I’d challenged his Faith. He said, ‘Everything makes sense.’

‘Haciendas in the Rockies make sense. Laying women makes sense. Of a sort. Dragons don’t.’

He shook his head. He said, ‘I just don’t understand you.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘And we’re the same species. Awe-inspiring, isn’t it?’

He walked back to the flier. I followed him. We searched the rest of the islands, landed a couple of times. We found nothing living. It seemed our local group of Dragons now represented the universal population.

We were back at the laboratory by nightfall. The little Dragon still squatted where we had left it. He seemed overjoyed to see it; started scurrying about pulling down armfuls of leaves. He sat while I brewed coffee, prodding them patiently at its jaws. I thought he might sling a blanket roll beside it to make sure it didn’t stray.

There wasn’t much to do round camp. He fed Oscar and tried to teach him to sit up and beg; I logged the meter readings, processed fluid and tissue samples, collected droppings for analysis. The Dragons sat in their caves and watched us; we watched the Dragons. Each day at seventeen hundred hours Planetary we reported to Earth Control, and they reported to us. We listened to Earth news via the Loop; and twice more the Pilot’s fiancée spoke to him. The second time they had a considerable heart-to-heart. I left them to it, risking his wrath; there were a lot of tears flying about Earthside, the thing seemed pretty private. I repeated the experiment with the heartbeat recordings, beaming a ring of loudspeakers on to Oscar. He didn’t respond, which was hardly surprising; though the Pilot pronounced himself delighted with his progress. If you tickled his foreleg joints with a stick for long enough he’d sometimes rear. It didn’t strike me as exactly a critical development.

We took the flier across to Continent Three. It wasn’t much of a trip. I remembered the place as vivid green, furred with trees. Now drifts of puce and ochre dust stretched to the horizon. Heavy automats were working. They looked like magnified versions of the Dragons. The wind was blowing strongly, racing across the ruined land; you could see the trails of dust smoking along the ground, dragging their long shadows over the dunes.

We didn’t land.

He was moody at supper. It transpired he wanted to get back to Earth. Something had gone a bit wrong with his scene, he wasn’t too specific about it. ‘It’s all right for you,’ he said bitterly. ‘Nobody gives a damn how long you sit staring at bloody great insects, you’ve got nothing to get back to. If it lay with me, I’d just report the damn things extinct and clear out. Nobody’s going to know the difference anyway.’

I sucked at my pipe. It was pulling sour again. ‘Can’t be done, my son,’ I said. ‘Impatience of the young, and all that. Can’t brush science aside, y’know.’

‘Science,’ he said. ‘Two men stuck here on a bloody dustball, watching a handful of incomprehensible objects die off for no good reason. You might be devoted to research...’

I chucked the pipe down, reached for the whisky. ‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t care less.’

He stared at me. ‘Then why’re you here ?’

‘Because,’ I said, ‘I’m paid to be. Also, here’s as good a place as the next.’

He shrugged. ‘I’d say that was pretty dismal outlook,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t seem to me you’ve made much of your life. Anyway, that’s your concern. I’m not going the same way, I can tell you.’

I said, ‘Then you’re a lucky man.’ I filled a glass, shoved it across. He stared at me; then to my surprise picked it up and drained it at a gulp.

* * * *

He called me next morning, early. I walked from the lab and stared. Oscar had immobilised; the whips thrust out at right angles from the body, producing that curious helicopter effect, and the eyes were lustreless. He was waggling greenstuff beneath the mandibles, but there was no response.

I set the meters up. It looked as if this might be one of the last chances we should get to gather data. The hearts failed, in their set pattern; I drove the probes, started the pacemakers, laid the syringes ready with the stimulants. The Pilot (First Class) took it hard. His pet was dying, certainly; there was no doubt of that. But the noise he made, you’d have thought he was losing a woman at the very least. He fumed and fretted, made trips out into the jungle to bring back this or that goody; he tried Oscar with tree leaves, bush branches, the pale green tubers that grew round the hangar sheds and landing pad. None of it, of course, made the slightest difference. The heart-pairs of the little Dragon faltered on through the night; the Planetary chronometers ran up their thirty hours; on cue, Oscar died.

The Pilot seemed broken up by the whole business. He vanished for a couple of hours or more; when I saw him again, he was waving a whisky bottle. He took to his room, finally, in the afternoon. I presumed he was sleeping it off.

It was just as well. The funeral party arrived about fourteen hundred Planetary. They were commendably prompt. The ceremony didn’t take long, the volume of the deceased being fairly small. They left the shards of armour stacked neatly in the shadow of the lab; I heard the whips trail and rustle as they headed back south, towards the rock city and the quartzite towers. I labelled the new recordings, logged the time, took the routine call from Earth Control. I’d closed down the generators when I heard the lab door open and shut. I looked round, frowning. I’d no idea he’d managed to leave his room.

He didn’t look too good. He had a bottle of rye in one hand and the rocket pistol in the other, which struck me as a bit unnecessary. Still, it was dramatic.

He flung the bottle down. It broke. He said, ‘I was going to bury him. Those bloody murderers. With their bloody whips. Shaking their bloody whips...’ He advanced, unsteadily. I suppose I should have told him to put that thing down before somebody got hurt. I didn’t. It was the sort of line that would have come better from him.

He was fairly through his skull. I thought perhaps he didn’t have too high a capacity; a lot of these clean-cut young men haven’t. Also when they blow, they really blow. He waved the pistol around a bit more and told me what was going to happen if I interfered within the next hour or so. I gathered a man had to do what a man had to do. Anyway when he finally staggered out I took him at his word. The girlie mag lay on the table; I got a bottle of whisky, poured myself a stiff one and started leafing through it. After all, there’s nothing like curling up with a good book.

In time there was a hefty, rolling bang from the south, and another. Then some higher cracks that I took it were the automatic. I hoped he’d remembered to pack a few spare clips. After a bit the noise started up again, so it seemed he had.

I chucked the book down, lay back. I finished the bottle, sat watching the dawn brighten the green sky. It had been quiet a long time now; I wondered if he’d slipped on the bluff and broken his fool neck.

The lab door opened. He stood framed in the doorway, the gun still in his hand. His uniform was torn, his face haggard and dirty white. He said, ‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened.’

I said, ‘All?’

He said, ‘It was their eyes. Staring. Their bloody eyes. They let me do it, they didn’t move...’ He rubbed a hand across his face. He said, ‘If you waved at them, they didn’t blink...’

I put the glass down, carefully. I said, ‘One point, Space Pilot. Did you notice any signs of ritual behaviour among the survivors during the ... er ... event ? If so, it should go on the report. You might have added to our Store of Knowledge.’

He brought the gun round slowly. He said, ‘You bastard. You bloody bastard...’

I stayed where I was. I don’t find life universally sweet; but that particular mode of exit has never appealed. I said as pleasantly as I could, ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea. I’m not worth it; you’ve still got Judy to think about.’ The gun barrel wavered; and I smiled. ‘If you’ve put all those rounds through that thing,’ I said, ‘it needs a clean. There’s some water on next door; nip and sluice it through. I’ll get some coffee going; you look as if you could use it.’

He stood a while longer, staring like a ghost; then it seemed it sank in. He turned silently, closed the door behind him.

‘Next door’ was my specimen lock. Amazing what autosuggestion can do. I clamped my foot on the floorswitch, heard the bolts shoot home. He yelled something, started banging the wall; and I valved gas, A steady hissing; then a thump.

And blessed peace.

I bespoke Earth Control on the emergency frequency, explained the salient facts and got a clearance.

Lugging him to the shuttle wasn’t the easiest part. I made it finally, strapped him in the couch, closed the hatches, ran through what countdown checks I could remember and gave myself back to Earth. Wire-flying through the Loop isn’t a thing to be thought on too closely; but they made it. I transferred to the Richardson vehicle, tied myself down once more; and Earth pulled the tit, plastering our substance and the substance of the freighter thinly round the parameters of paradox.

When I regained coherence we were in stable Earth orbit, and the relief vessels were coming up to us. The Pilot (First Class) was awake, and saying quite a lot. He would probably have backed up speech with action in some unpleasant form or another, only I’d taken the precaution of tieing him down again. I listened for a while; eventually I got tired. I switched his voice circuit direct to Earth Control, and he had enough sense left to button his lip. I spent the time till docking thinking how interesting we are as a species. One and all, we build round ourselves little protective shells; but inside, when we’re bottomed, we’re really quite inhuman.

So IAB never got their Dragon. I was out of circulation for a time; when I got back I was told Trade Control had already issued authority for the automats to be programmed into the islands. Epilson Development were losing money each day they didn’t mine; they underwrote the cost of the station without too much complaint and endowed a research grant that will keep me in crusts for the next five years at least. I settled down to catalogue what had been learned of the humanoids on Proxima IX before Epsilon’s power station ran supercritical; and the Dragons were forgotten.

Except that a few days later I had a visitor. I used the door sensors because only the week before there’d been a mugging a dozen floors below. But I hadn’t got that sort of trouble this time. I opened the door and poured myself a whisky.

She was as pretty as her stereo. She’d been crying; and she was wearing the season’s newest. I gave her a chair, but she wouldn’t have a drink. She crossed her legs, tried them the other way. Didn’t like that either. Finally she said, ‘Remember me?’

I said, ‘It’s coming. Don’t help me.’

She smiled. She said, ‘I always expect Researchers to be much older men.’

I put the glass down gently and sat at the desk.

She said, ‘I’ve come from ... from Drew. I wondered if you could ... tell me a little more. He’s so ... reticent. You know.’

I said, ‘There’s a report going in tomorrow. It’s irregular; but I can arrange for you to see a copy. If you so desire.’

She swallowed. She said, ‘I... will have that drink, if you don’t mind.’

I got it for her, sat down again.

She drank it, put the glass aside. She said, ‘Researcher, the report... You know why I’m here. Don’t you ?’

I said, ‘I’m always willing to be surprised.’

She stood up, without fuss. She laid her gloves down, unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it open. Then she just stood there, looking at me.

I shook my head and opened the desk drawer. I thumbed through the report and started to read.

‘Until day fifty seven, the life forms designated Epsilon VI brackets three stroke two showed no awareness of the presence of the observing party and no animosity. Their attack was both sudden and unexpected. My companion, Space Pilot First Class Andrew Scott-Braithwaite, behaved with conspicuous gallantry. To him, certainly, I owe my life; and my final employment of GS 93 was at his instigation, though he himself was imperilled by the release of the gas. Our subsequent return was logged by Earth Control ... etcetera.’

I tossed the papers over to her. I said, ‘You read the rest. The style may be wanting here and there; but at least it’s concise.’

She stared at the thing a moment, and burst into tears.

After she had gone Miss Braithwaite glided from the inner room. Miss Braithwaite is my secretary at IAB. She is also fat, fortyish and an optimist; but she cooks good suppers. Right now her eyes were misty with emotion; and she laid a hand shakily on my arm. ‘Researcher,’ she said, ‘that’s about the biggest thing I ever saw a person do.’

I patted her. ‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m like that.’

That’s the sort of thing one has to live with.

They still have Pilot (First Class) Scott-Braithwaite down at the State Home for Bewildered Astronauts. But I did hear he’s being seconded for another tour of duty. Apparently that boy was one of the worst cases of Loop nerves they’d ever seen. Had I not plastered the cracks, he would certainly have been an ex-spacer by now; and Judy would have had to cast those honest, wide blue eyes around fairly rapidly. Because Drew’s disability pension would hardly have maintained her in the Manner to Which. As things stand, I wonder which would have been the better turn to do him.

I wouldn’t have thought he’d have blown like that; but you can never tell. After all, I once spent three years with a woman who closely approximated a Greek goddess. Appearances are deceptive; as a Behaviourist, it’s the first thing you learn.