Soft come the dragons

laughing, seeing and hearing the gossamer butterfly-formed dragons, he reached the complex, went inside, and started for the shelter door.
     
    They were all standing there looking when he came down the stairs. He threw the glasses at their feet and laughed loudly.
    "He's insane," someone said.
    "No!" Mare Dante shouted. "You're insane. All of you. Crackier than a box of saltines. You hide while all of life waits for you out there with the Gods."
    "The dragons?"
    "The dragons, the Gods. I'm not sure yet."
    "Someone grab him," Marshall shouted, working his way up front.
    "And you," Mare said. "You are phony to the bottom of your being. You don't even want to be captain. You're afraid of the position. But you have to prove yourself; you're impotent—"
    "Shut up!" Marshall screamed, his face white.
    "Impotent because once when you were eight, your aunt—"
    "Shut up!"
    "I can't. It's in your eyes. God, can't the rest of you see it in his eyes?"
    "How did you look at the dragons?" someone asked.
    "Through a mirror."
    "But other men had their eyes burned out."
    "Because they could not face what they saw in the liquid eyes of the dragons. They were not killed by strange, burning rays. They simply folded and lost their souls. But it's beautiful. If you have always searched for it, you will find it in their eyes."
    "What the hell are you talking about?" Abe asked.
    "The dragons are not constituted of matter."
    Abe stepped closer. "Talk sense, Mare. For God's sake, you'll be committed."
    "When Menchen died, Abe, you told me you couldn't understand. You can understand if you will only let yourself. Your weight estimates on the dragons are incorrect. The dragons are weightless, for they are not formed of matter. The life forms on this planet are composed of what we call abstract ideas. The dragons are truth— Truth. Truth personified. Through them, you can understand why."
    "He's insane."
    "And there are other life forms here we haven't seen. The dragons were the only ones trying to contact us, to break down our shelter. There is an opposite life form living in the ground. We thought those desert holes were caves, but they are not. There are worms that burrow miles beneath us and fester. The worms are Hate. Hate personified."
    Someone reached forward to grab him. He struggled and fell.
    Miles below the sands, a long, caterpillar thing glowed momentarily and turned over.
    The floor shook. Almost gleefully, the mob descended and covered Mario Dante until black swallowed and consumed him as he muttered lastly—"Ellen."
    Upstairs, the pair of discarded spectacles clamped to his head, Holden Twain stepped forward into the outside world, a blaster on his hip, determined to seek out every cave, every wormhole. . . .

A THIRD HAND
     
    There seem to be two factions within the science fiction firmament these days, one which argues that the "traditional" sf story is the best that a writer can produce, the other saying the "traditional" form is a waste and that we must all advance into the avante-garde areas which "mainstream" fiction adopted years ago. It is an interesting battle to watch among science fiction fans, but for someone who sits on the fence post (like me) it is exasperating. Those who would condemn all advancement of style in the field are unrealistic—as are those who refuse to acknowledge the very fine storytelling qualities of "traditional" sf. Most often, I attempt to mix the two, and I think "A Third Hand" is a prime example of this. The hero, Ti, is a "new wave" hero as far as we can type a "new wave" hero. He is not a strong, brave, galaxy-cruising, square-jawed WASP, but a crippled, hung-up little guy with problems outside of his plot. But the story follows traditional patterns, a linear form. Except, perhaps, for the very end. Read the last sentence twice. Think about Timothy, and see what the story becomes for you. . . .
    timothy was not human. Not wholly. If one included arms and legs in a definition of the human body, then Timothy did not pass the criteria necessary for admission to the club. If one counted two eyes in that definition, Timothy was also ruled out, for he had but one eye, after all, and even that was placed in an unusual position: somewhat closer to his left ear than a human eye should be and definitely an inch lower in his overlarge skull than was the norm. Then there was his nose. It totally lacked cartilage. The only evidence of its presence was two holes, the ragged nostrils, punctuating