His company was at this time spread out through four islands south-southwest of New London; they had been camped there for three days, about the longest they ever stayed in one place. Don, being attached to headquarters, was on the same island as Captain Marsten and was, at the moment, stretched out in his hammock, which he had slung between two trees in the midst of a clump of broom.

The company headquarters runner sought him out and awakened him-by standing well clear and giving the hammock rope a sharp tap. Don came instantly awake, a knife in his hand. "Easy!" cautioned the runner. "The Old Man wants to see you."

Don made a rhetorical and most ungracious suggestion as to what the Captain could do about it and slid silently to his feet. He stopped to roll up the hammock and stuff it into his pocket-it weighed only four ounces and had cost the Federation a nice piece of change on cost-plus contract. Don was very careful of it; its former owner had not been careful and now had no further need for it. He gathered up his weapons as well.

The company commander was sitting at a field desk under a screen of boughs. Don slid into his presence and waited. Marsten looked up and said, "Got a special job for you, Harvey. You move out at once."

"Change in the plan?"

"No, you won't be on tonight's raid. A high mugamug among the dragons wants palaver. You're to go to see him. At once."

Don thought it over. "Cripes, Skipper, I was looking forward to tonight's scramble. I'll go tomorrow-those people don't care about time; they're patient."

"That'll do, soldier. I'm putting you on leave status; according to the despatch from HQ, you may be gone quite a while."

Don looked up sharply. "If I'm ordered to go, it's not leave; it's detached duty."

"You're a mess hall lawyer at heart, Harvey."

"Yes, sir."

"Turn in your weapons and take off your insignia; you'll make the first leg of the trip as a jolly farmer boy. Pick up some props from stores. Larsen will boat you. That's all."

"Yes sir." Don tamed to go, adding, "Good hunting tonight, Skipper."

Marsten smiled for the first time. "Thanks, Don."

The first part of the trip was made through channels so narrow and devious that electronic seeing devices could reach no further than could the bare eye. Don slept through most of it, his head pillowed on a sack of sour-corn seed.

He did not worry about the job ahead-no doubt the officer he was to interpret for, whoever he was, would rendezvous and let him know what he was to do.

Early in the next afternoon they reached the brink of the Great South Sea and Don was transferred to a crazy wagon, a designation which applied to both boat and crew-a flat, jet-propelled saucer fifteen feet across manned by two young extroverts who feared neither man nor mud. The upper works of the boat were covered by a low, polished cone of sheet metal intended to reflect horizontal radar wavesupward, or vice versa. It could not protect against that locus in the sky, cone-shaped like the reflector itself, where reflections would bounce straight back to originating stations-but the main dependence was on speed in any case.

Don lay flat on the bottom of the boat, clinging to hand holds and reflecting on the superior advantages of rocket flight, while the crazy wagon skipped and slid over the surface of the sea. He tried not to think about what would happen if the speeding boat struck a floating log or one of the larger denizens of the water. They covered nearly three hundred kilometers in somewhat less than two hours, then the boat skidded and slewed to a stop. "End of the line", called out the downy-cheeked skipper. "Have your baggage checks ready. Women and children use the center escalator." The anti-radar lid lifted.

Don stood up on wobbly legs. "Where are we?"

"Dragonville-by-the-Mud. There's your welcoming committee. Mind your step."

Don peered through the mist. There seemed to be several dragons on the shore. He stepped over the side, went into mud to his boot tops, scrambled up to firmer soil. Behind him, the crazy wagon lowered its cover and gunned away at once, going out of sight while still gathering speed. "They might at least have waved," Don muttered and turned back to the dragons. He was feeling considerably perplexed; there seemed to be no men around and he had been given no instructions. He wondered if the officer he had expected to find-surely by this time! - had failed to run the gauntlet safely.

There were seven of the dragons, now moving toward him. He looked them over and whistled a polite greeting, while thinking how much one dragon looks like another. Then the center one of the seven spoke to him in an accent richly reminiscent of fish-and-chips. "Donald, my dear boy! How very happy I am to see you! Shucks!"

XIV "Let's Have It, Then."

DON gulped and stared and almost lost track of his manners. "Sir Isaac! Sir Isaac!" He stumbled toward him.

It is not practical to shake hands with a dragon, kiss it, nor hug it. Don contented himself with beating Sir Isaac's armored sides with his fists while trying to regain control of himself. Long-suppressed emotions shook him, spoiling voice and vision. Sir Isaac waited patiently, then said, "Now, Donald, if I may present my family.

Don pulled himself together, cleared his throat, and wet his whistle. None of the others had a voder; it was possible that they did not even understand Basic.

"May they all die beautifully!"

"We thank you."

A daughter, a son, a granddaughter, a grandson, a great granddaughter, a great grandson-counting Sir Isaac himself, a four generation welcome, only one short of maximum dragon protocol; Don was overwhelmed. He knew that Sir Isaac was friendly to him, but he decided that this degree of ceremony must be a compliment to his parents.

"My Father and my Mother thank you all for the kindness you do to their egg."

"As the first egg, so the last. We are very happy to have you here, Donald."

A dragon visitor, honored by an escort, would have made a leisurely progress to the family seat flanked by the family members. But a dragon's leisurely progress is about twice as fast as a brisk walk for a man. Sir Isaac settled himself down and said, "Suppose you borrow my legs, dear boy; we have considerable distance to go."

"Oh, I can walk"

"Please - I insist."

"Well..."

" 'Upsy-daisy'! then - if I recall the idiom correctly."

Don climbed aboard and settled himself just abaft the last pair of eyestalks; they turned around and surveyed him. He found that Sir Isaac had thoughtfully had two rings riveted to his neck plates to let him hold on. "All set?"

"Yes, indeed."

The dragon reared himself up again and they set out, with Don feeling like Toomai-of-the-Elephants.

They went up a crowded dragon path so old that it was impossible to tell whether it was an engineering feat or a natural conformation. The path paralleled the shore for a mile or so; they passed dragons at work in their watery fields, then the path swung inland. Shortly, in the dry uplands, his party turned out of the traffic into a tunnel. This was definitely art not nature; it was one of the sort the floor of which slides quietly and rapidly away in the direction one walks (provided the walker is a dragon or weighs as much as a dragon); their ambling gait was multiplied by a considerable factor. Don could not judge the true speed nor the distance covered.

They came at last out into a great hall, large even for dragons; the flowing floor merged into the floor of the hall imperceptibly and stopped. Here were gathered the rest of the tribe symbolized by the seven who had met him. But Don was not required then to rack his brain for compliments, but was taken, still in accordance with etiquette, at once to his own chambers to rest and refresh himself.