Hogg obviously thought the lady was flirting—which she hadn’t done while the Princess Cecile was under weigh, thanks be to a benevolent God. That might well be correct, but he and Hogg were each forty pounds heavier than the Klimovs. Daniel wasn’t comfortable in aircars to begin with, and he was perfectly willing to believe that a vehicle built on Novy Sverdlovsk might not adjust automatically for an unbalanced load the way it ought to.
At any rate, the Count didn’t object. Klimovna glanced behind to make sure her passengers were settled, then ran up the fans and hopped the vehicle forward twice before getting enough velocity to stay airborne.
They passed low over the stream, spraying the peat-black water into tiny droplets that glittered like flung diamonds. The surface plopped as scores of animals, many more than Daniel had observed, hurled themselves into it.
In contrast, a dozen hog-sized beasts lurched out of a marsh. They moved in disjointed hops which nonetheless covered a good deal of ground in a short time. The Count saw them and pointed.
“Later, perhaps!” his wife said, shouting over the intake rush and the thrum of the fans. “We want a dragon.”
The Klimovna drove well, but the aircar seemed underpowered even though none of the four passengers was unusually heavy. Daniel frowned, wondering if he should’ve shipped an RCN utility vehicle. He could’ve wangled one, he was sure—and for that matter, the Klimovs hadn’t shown themselves tight-fisted—but that wouldn’t have solved the problem of stowage. Finding room for this light runabout had been difficult enough.
The air a hundred feet up was noticeably clearer than at ground level. The pyramid’s glittering outlines sharpened; its hilltop base floated on a cushion of mist that concealed enough of the muck below to make the landscape more attractive.
“Look, there’s many more of them!” the Count said, leaning forward between his wife and Daniel. He waved his left arm. “They’re all around us!”
The hills, though unimpressive in themselves, were high enough to bring many of the pyramids into the sunlight. They sparkled from horizon to horizon like sun-struck icicles on a winter morning.
That was precisely what Adele had predicted and the orbital imagery confirmed, but especially to a layman the real thing had an impact that intellectual knowledge lacked. Aloud Daniel said, “Yes sir. And I hope the dragons will be easy to find as well.”
“I seen two of ’em so far already,” Hogg said. “I guess when you’re ready, that won’t be a problem neither.”
“What?” said the Count. “Where?” He and Hogg fell into a private conversation, the servant pointing across the seat with his left index and middle finger while Klimov leaned dangerously—and pointlessly—over the side.
Klimovna slowed the aircar in a broad S-curve as they approached the pyramid, giving herself time to pick a landing place. She didn’t hover; perhaps the vehicle couldn’t hover with its present load.
The best choice, virtually the only choice unless they wanted to land at the bottom of the hill and hike up the slope, was directly in front of the structure. Which wasn’t a good choice if the dragon who lived there happened to be home.
“Hogg, watch the outside,” Daniel ordered as the aircar slanted in. That was the other risk, something thirty feet long with talons and a dismembering beak diving out of the sun onto nest-robbers. But he didn’t want to slither a hundred feet up slick mud either. . . .
Klimovna landed neatly, fishtailing but not hopping. Daniel’d been sitting on the edge of the cab with his left leg out. Even before the vehicle’d halted, he jumped clear with his impeller mounted on his shoulder, aiming toward the triangular opening six feet above the ground.
“How do we get inside?” the Count said, holding his weapon at the balance as he walked past Daniel. “Little heart, can you fly us—”
“Stop!” Daniel shouted. The stench should’ve warned Klimov even if he didn’t bother looking at his feet! “Sir, please—there may be a dragon inside. The remains of its meals are all around us.”
One of the stripped carcasses had been of what looked like the larger species they’d seen. A calf—a shoat?—no doubt, but it still had weighed as much in life as the Count himself did.