“Yes, all right,” said Valentina. She sat on the edge of the opening with her legs dangling, then half-jumped, half slid to the ground. “Hogg, you will direct me,” she added.
“There’s one over that way about half a mile,” Hogg said, pointing with his extended left arm. “He’s eating something, it looks. See him?”
Daniel dialed his goggles’ magnification up to x32, bringing the dragon into sharp focus against the reed-choked water beyond. It was eating beyond question—its beak dipped and rose repeatedly, each time ripping up a rag of flesh which it tossed its head to swallow. The beast’s victim was hidden in the vegetation, however.
“Very good!” Daniel said with honest enthusiasm. “It has a bright red crest. Perhaps it’s a male in breeding plumage?”
“A trophy,” the Count said. “That is enough.”
Before Daniel could offer to take his impeller, Klimov slid down the face of the pyramid. Daniel grabbed him so that he didn’t pitch over on his face when his feet skidded on the mud. The weapon slanting out in front of him didn’t go off—again.
They piled hastily into the aircar. Daniel and Hogg continued to scan the skies; the dragon they’d spotted might not be the one which laired in this pyramid.
Valentina spun the fans up. “Don’t fly us too close, please!” Daniel said, regretting that the Klimovna wasn’t wearing a commo helmet. He had to shout to be heard over the intake roar, but instinct read loud voices as anger or threat. “Three hundred yards is as close as I think—”
Valentina slid the aircar over the lip of the apron, using the drop-off to bring them up to flying speed smoothly. She drew back on the control yoke, lifting the car to its original altitude and scrubbing off velocity at the same time. Daniel doubted the little vehicle would be controllable at much over seventy or eighty mph. By God, they should’ve walked despite the mud!
The dragon undulated forward. For an instant Daniel thought the movement was an optical illusion. Then the creature’s powerful hind legs thrust back with spray of mud, and the sinuous body lifted like a flatworm planing.
The dragon curved toward them, climbing swiftly. Daniel got a good look at the membranes extended on both sides of its body. Adele’s book said they were individual “feathers” and so they might be, but from this distance they looked like seamless membranes so thin they were almost transparent.
The wings rippled in strokes driven by the muscles of the dragon’s whole powerful body. Their total area was considerable, though they stretched lengthwise instead of sticking out from the torso like other wings Daniel had seen.
“Set us down!” Hogg was screaming. “Set us down!”
The Count aimed over the side. When Valentina banked starboard, heading for the ground fast, her husband tried to follow the dragon; the impeller’s barrel whacked Daniel’s helmet.
“Not in the air, by God!” Daniel shouted, reaching back blindly and managing to grab the weapon ahead of the fore-end. If Klimov fired, the hot barrel would raise blisters across Daniel’s palm and the inside of his fingers. That was still better than getting a slug through him, the driver, or the forward fan. . . .
The dragon curled away, gaining altitude rather than attacking. Its wings formed paired shimmering helixes as they rose above the mist.
Valentina pancaked in, jerking the throttle open at the last instant when she realized how hard they were going to hit. The back of the car came down in a tangle of the tube plants which hid something solid—a rock or the stump of a large tree. The rear fan disintegrated; the front, on overload power, flipped the car upside down.
Daniel bounced out over the bow, skidding through a clump of fern-like tendrils. The liquescent soil kept him from breaking ribs, but he’d had all the breath knocked out of him. He probably would’ve drowned except for the protection of his helmet visor.
Rolling onto his back, all he could manage for the moment, Daniel ripped his helmet off. The faceshield’s static charge was supposed to keep it free from dust, but there were limits.