wrecked campsite.
Heedless of the possibility of fallout or Stigi’s steamwhistle snort, he
raced across the clearing to meet them. “Karin, I was worried about you,”
Gilligan said as he took her in his arms. They kissed deeply and then
Karin broke away.
“Stigi was restless so I took him to the stream for a bath,” she
explained. “It always calms him.”
“That wasn’t safe. We don’t know we’re out of the fallout plume.”
“Oh, but that thing did not leave poison here,” Karin said almost gaily.
“What makes you so sure?”
“This,” she said, digging into her pouch and producing a small object
apparently carved out of jet. “Scouts carry these because sometimes we
must forage abroad. It tells us if something is safe to eat or drink. I
checked everything I could find and there was no sign of harm.”
“I don’t know how good it is at detecting fallout,” Gilligan said
dubiously.
Karin returned the amulet to her pouch. “It has never failed us.”
Mick nodded. It was possible serious fallout hadn’t reached this far and
they had nothing to worry about. If the fallout had reached them they were
already facing a bout of radiation sickness. Logically there was no reason
to believe Karin’s magic rock was telling the truth, but it felt better
that way.
He hugged her again “I was worried about you,” he said with his nose and
lips buried in the hair on her neck.
“I am sorry, love.”
“That’s the first time you called me that.”
Karin pulled her head away and laid her fingertips on his cheek.
“Well?”
“Well, I like it.” He kissed her again.
After a long moment Karin pulled away. “Mick, we have to talk.”
“Okay, about what?”
“What happened yesterday. We cannot stay here now.”
“You got that right. The best thing would be to move to the opposite end
of the island, as far away from that castle . . .”
“No,” Karin cut him off. “I need to go the other way. I need to get as
close to that castle as I can to spy out its defenses.”
Mick dropped his arms to his sides.
“One of those ‘defenses’ you’re talking about is nuclear weapons. That’s
crazy!”
“Nevertheless,” Karin said quietly, “I must.”
“Look, at least wait until Stigi’s wing is healed. That’s, what, another
week?”
“Longer than that, I fear. He apparently tried to fly yesterday in his
panic and re-injured it.”
“So you’re going to walk?”
“I have no other choice.”
“The hell you don’t! You can stay here like a sensible person. Until help
arrives or until that dragon can fly.”
“And meanwhile the ones in that castle will be brewing up who knows what
kind of horrors,” Karin blazed back. “No. I have my duty as a scout and
flier and I will not shirk it to lie around here while my very world is
threatened.”
“I don’t know how it is in the dragon cavalry, but in the Air Force a
recon pilot’s first job is to get the information back to his base.”
“A scout’s first job is to gather information. Having no way of getting
anything back, I can only gather more.”
“I’ll bet you’ve got some kind of regulation against this kind of
behavior,” Gilligan said with a shrewdness born of desperation.
“There is also a regulation saying regulations are guides and must be
applied with wisdom. This is an unusual situation and I must take unusual
action.”
Like me sending Smitty back and pressing on alone, Gilligan thought.
Somehow he felt that the universe was getting even with him for that.
“What about Stigi?”
Karin frowned. “That is the thing which made it so hard. I will take Stigi
with me. He can walk and dragons can keep a fairly good pace.”
“Okay, you feel you’ve got to scout ahead. You could do it faster once
Stigi’s wing heals.”
“It will heal just as well on the march as here.”
“And if you’re caught in the open?”
“That is a chance I must take.”
Gilligan opened his mouth and found he didn’t have any more arguments.
Karin obviously wasn’t thinking straight, but that didn’t matter. She was