[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

to fend off Chaffinch or kill him, we ll return you to the selfsame point in
space and time from which we summoned you.
Gil slouched back, stiff from sitting hunched over on the low bench. Even
with the cargo hatch open, the APC was uncomfortably warm.
 We ve got no reason to get our tails mangled for you, he said,  and none of
this has anything to do with us.
 Nonetheless, you re here.
The sergeant bridled but checked his anger, and took a ballot by eye; Olivier
and Handelman nodded, Pomorski and Woods shrugged.
A tie.
 All right, Gil told Van Duyn, casting the deciding vote himself.  If
thereis a dragon, we ll grease it for you; but I m goddamned if I know how I m
going to explain this later.
Van Duyn pretended to think for a moment, though he already knew what he
would say to them.
 Since you will be returned to the point from which you were taken, may I
suggest that you simply say nothing? You won t be believed anyway.
Pomorski nodded.  Good thinking there. The best we d get if we opened our
mouths is a two-oh-eight discharge for the Jungle Jitters and maybe a stay in
the upholstered ward.
Gil, who d shifted from decision-making to practical details of the problem
at hand, said,  Look, exactly what is this dragon Chaffinch, you called it?
What s it like, anyway?
It was only afterward that the Nine-Mob realized how easily they d gone from
incredulity and suspicion to the problem-solving attitude. Pomorski and Gil,
speculating later, thought that the nature of the spell that had drawn them
there for that one purpose had perhaps predisposed them to accept their
mission with minimal objections.
But they were never quite sure. Hadn t their actions been logical, rational
under the circumstances? What, if anything else, could they have done at the
time?
Van Duyn peered through thick glasses, down his long nose, in a manner that
had intimidated even seasoned graduate students.
 Chaffinch he is indeed called, after the little red-breasted songbird. But
it s a grim sort of joke, because his breast is the red of scaly, almost
metallic armor, and his song s a song of flame. Andre s given me a, ah,
 ball-park guess I think you would call it, that Chaffinch is on the order of
fifty feet long, nose to tail.
 And he s winged, flies quite well I understand, against all aerodynamic
laws. But the most dangerous thing about him is that he s a fire breather. In
Page 49
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
fact, I had something a little more formidable than this armored personnel
carrier in mind when we began our invocation. I was, perhaps, a bit hazy in my
phraseology when I described my desire to Andre, or again it may be that the
entity we summoned was unable to make distinctions. I d wanted a tank or large
piece of self-propelled artillery.
Lobo s crew went hostile, and Van Duyn perceived that he d made some sort of
subtle gaffe.
 So we re not a goddamned tank, Handelman allowed,  but we go like a japed
ape, and three machine guns and the grenade launcher are pretty heavy clout.
 Of course, Mr. Handelman Van Duyn soothed quickly. Were these kids that
sensitive about this rattletrap?  It s probably just that I don t know enough
about, er,Lobo to appreciate her.
They invited him to poke his head through the big cargo hatch and take a
look. Gil had Woods traverse the cupola and pass the end of the .50 ammunition
belt to Van Duyn. The older man had seen .50-caliber ball ammo in World War
II, but forgotten its size and weight.
 Couple hundred rounds per minute, said Gil MacDonald,  at three thousand
feet per second. We re more than enough to bump noses with anything alive, be
it a dragon, reluctant or otherwise.
He passed the end of the belt back.  But this is screwy. I mean, what else do
you know about this lizard?
Van Duyn thought for a moment.
 To begin with, he seems to store a reservoir of whatever heat source he
uses, because it occurs to me that Andre said he s been known to exhaust it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]