Dragons are going under because they don't understand how to fight back. Maybe they could have evolved to be able to fight back, a long time ago, if they or some of their genes realized it was going to be necessary some day. But it's too late now. Sure, they'll fry the occasional human who tries to murder them, but they don't get it about extermination or war. As soon as the Aussies really organized to get rid of them, they didn't have a chance.

Okay, okay, enough with the cheezy philosophy, you want me to get to the famous story about Bud and the helicopters, right? My great moment? My great moment, crap, I was just totally, totally lucky that the major in charge was brighter than some career military types and didn't automatically believe that you shoot first and ask questions later. Maybe the kind of gunnery you can carry on a helicopter is limited, and they didn't want to blow me up — but even that's lucky, that they didn't decide the possible death of one civilian would be just an unfortunate friendly fire incident — an acceptable loss in a battlefield situation.

Because outside Smokehill, by the time I disappeared, the anti-dragon lobby was lashing the populace into a frenzy, and the Searles had just about won. Congress was about to pass legislation to kill all of Smokehill's dragons because they were a danger to humanity — and Smokehill had THOUSANDS of them! And each and every one of them was TEN MILES LONG! — which is what had been going on back at the Institute while Gulp and Lois and I were getting acquainted, and why Dad had lately found himself under something a lot like house arrest. All because of one crummy stinking little poacher who thought he was going to look like a big guy by, what, bringing home a dragon's eye? Selling slices of her adrenals for enough money to buy Hawaii (as long as he did it fast enough)? And who happened to have parents who were millionaires (so what did he need more money for?) and would much rather blame the dragon than the fact that their son was an evil creep.

The irony is that it was my disappearance that almost gave the final victory to the Searles. It's so almost an almost that of all the almost moments I've told you about, that's probably the almostest of all.

But the amazing thing was Bud. He'd got enough of my story to know that something had to be done. I think he'd been worrying about what was happening ever since Lois' mother died — what it meant besides the loss of six dragons. I understand worry. His worry engine cranked up a gear.

I'm not sure about this, but dragons just obviously don't breed very often, or there'd be more of them. I don't myself get it why you want a situation where there's only one mom who has a litter of babies instead of several moms with one or even two each, but hey, there's so much I don't get that sometimes I almost want to be put down someone else's shirt and let them take care of everything for a while. Like I wonder if Bud is in communication somehow with the dragons in Kenya and Australia — that they all know they're dying— dying out. And the humans are so clueless they just killed a mom?

Presumably everyone (everyone in Smokehill or even everyone everywhere) knew that Lois' mother was about to have her babies. This was an important event. Killing any dragon is going to upset the rest of them just like murdering humans upsets us. But a mom and her dragonlets must be a community tragedy — and a major tragedy for a declining community. Which is probably why Gulp lost it when she saw Lois and me in the meadow. And maybe why Gulp's first appearance underground with me on board as well as Lois was not greeted with hallelujahs. Even dragons, under extreme stress and grief, can be a little crabby. And their sense of time is probably why it took them so long to react at all — by human time measurement.

Anyway. So the afternoon we heard the helicopters coming there were five of us outside — Bud, Gulp, Lois, me, and another l;rowv dragon, because I seemed to be beginning to pick her up too, in my head I mean, I don't know how she got chosen or if she chose herself, but she seemed to be another one who remembered Old Pete.

(By then I was beginning to learn that dragon language has stuff in it that translates into sounds — like human language — more than into pictures, and that includes that they have names, and that their names are mostly soundy rather than picturey. Most of it's still pictures — at least most of what I can pick up is pictures — what dragon words I can "hear" are full of brrrrrry non-noises that make your skull buzz, if you're human, which makes me wonder if maybe there's a lot of talking going on after all, just below a pitch I can hear. I named her Zenobia because that's a little like what her name really is. Zzzzzzzzznnnnnnmmmm is closer, but harder to say with a human mouth and throat. Once I'd started again I couldn't stop trying to talk. And, after all, if they were going to try to "talk" to more humans than me, they'd better get used to it.)

This was at least another week after the first time they'd brought me outdoors; I know, I'd make a rotten Robinson Crusoe or one of those people, I just didn't keep track. I meant to. But I didn't. And time felt so funny in the dragon caverns anyway that I was never sure it was the next day when they brought me up again, or how long we'd been below. Talking to Bud also seemed to make my own time sense go funny — more so as I got better at it, if you want to call it better, but let's say more so when I didn't keep falling asleep/passing out so often. Like when we made the connection — because it was a bit like that; it wasn't like you say a sentence and then shut up, it was more like going into the room with the person you're talking to so you can hear each other when I went into the same "room" with Bud I moved into dream time or something.

What I was definitely aware of was that I really had to get back to the Institute soon, that I should have gone back a long time ago already — if the dragons felt like letting me, which wasn't a question I'd asked yet. Or figured out how to ask. But I also knew that the more, um, dragon communication I'd learned by the time I went back, the more persuasive I'd be able to be (I hoped) about what I had learned and how important it was. One more reason I didn't know how much time passed is because the process of trying to stuff myself with Practical Demonstratable Dragonese was different above- and belowground. Belowground it was easier to pick up the pictures and the brrrrrs. Aboveground it was easier to make sense of the pictures I'd picked up. Easier is a relative concept though, because none of it was easy, and I was dizzy and headachy all the time. I wondered if Bud ever got a headache talking to me. But if he did, did he notice? Like that there's this eensy weensy alien pebble rolling around in the bottom of his tourist-bus-sized skull?

And have I mentioned recently that languages are not one of my talents?

But I think Bud was a lot clearer about one thing than I was. He'd got it that dragons were in danger, even if he hadn't got it about Congress. (About dragon government: I don't know, but I think maybe Bud is Congress.) Maybe the dragons have a long history of dragons failing to communicate with humans — surely they'd've tried when the Aussies first started wiping them out, for example? They wouldn't be so bewildered they wouldn't try to say "please stop, can we negotiate"? Or wouldn't they recognize humans as intelligent any more than we recognized them as intelligent? Maybe they only saw us as a plague they couldn't defeat — like a book or a movie about the planet being taken over by aliens or apes. Or germs. Or Yorkshire terriers. Maybe I was a big surprise to them too.

But — particularly if they'd thought about all this before — Bud would know that I wasn't going to be able to go back to the institute and say, "Hey! Dragons can talk in their heads and in mine too (sort of)!" Because I was going to prove this — how? Everything I could have — and, of course, eventually did — tell anyone could be seen as raving. Which a lot of people do see it as. Still. But some of the important people believe me. And part of the reason why is because of Bud the day the helicopters came.