Two serious incidents had set the pattern on the very day of the original attack; in New London a dragon—the same one Don had seen reading the Times’ bulletins—had been, not killed, but seriously damaged by a flamethrower; he had been silent partner in the local bank and lessor of many ichthorium pits. Still worse, in CuiCui a dragon had been killed—by a rocket; through mischance he had had his mouth open. And this dragon had been related collaterally to the descendants of the Great Egg.
It does not do to antagonize highly intelligent creatures each of whom is physically equivalent to, say three rhinoceri or a medium tank. Nevertheless they were not themselves belligerents, as our convention of warfare is not part of their culture. They work in different ways to their ends.
When in the course of his duties Don had to speak to dragons he sometimes inquired whether or not this particular citizen or the dragon nation knew his friend “Sir Isaac” using, of course, “Sir Isaac’s true name. He found that those who could not claim personal acquaintance at least knew of him; he found, too, that it raised his own prestige to claim acquaintanceship. But he did not attempt to send a message to “Sir Isaac”; there was no longer any occasion for it—no need to try to wangle a transfer to a High Guard that no longer existed.
He did try and try repeatedly to learn what had happened to Isobel Costello—through refugees, through dragons, and through the increasingly numerous clandestine resistance fighters who could move fairly freely from one side to the other. He never found her. He heard once that she was confined in the prison camp on East Spit; he heard again that she and her father had been deported to Earth—neither rumor could be confirmed. He suspected, with a dull, sick feeling inside, that she had been killed in the original attack.
He was grieved about Isobel herself—not about the ring that he had left with her. He had tried to guess what it could possibly be about the ring, which would cause him to be chased from planet to planet. He could not think of an answer and concluded that Bankfield, for all his superior airs, had been mistaken; the important thing must have been the wrapping paper but the I.B.I. bad been too stupid to figure it out. Then he quit thinking about it at all; the ring was gone and that was that.
As for his parents and Mars—sure, sure, someday! Someday when the war was over and ships were running again—in the meantime why let the worry mice gnaw at one’s mind?
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.”