Strata

spiralling slowly with Marco climbing to its back and still hacking with the knife. When he hit the water a cheer went up.
    It turned to anger when they saw that Silver was dragging her dragon aboard, still alive. When the men moved hurriedly aside they gave Kin a good view.
    The beast flopped mournfully on the deck, water streaming from its wings. It raised its dripping head towards her and sneezed, violently.
    Two jets of warm water hit Kin on the legs.
    Marco was helped aboard by all four arms. His comb blazed blood red and, as he stood up amid the admiring crowd, he raised his black-stained knife over his head and yodelled:
    ‘
Refteg! Ymal refteg PELC!
’
    Kin looked across at Silver, who was unscrewing her fangs. The shand grimaced.
    ‘Tell me again about his being officially human,’ she said. ‘I keep forgetting.’
    ‘What’, asked Kin, ‘do you intend to do with
that
?’ One of the men beside her had drawn his sword and was offering it proudly to the shand, hilt first. Silver ignored him.
    ‘It’s dead,’ she said, ‘but we have the body. Iwould very much like to know how an organic creature can breathe fire.’ She grabbed the corpse by neck and tail and dragged it aft.
    Marco swaggered over to Kin.
    ‘I triumph!’ he shouted.
    ‘Yes, Marco.’
    ‘They declare war on us! They sent dragons! But They reckoned without me!’
    ‘Yes, Marco.’
    ‘Together They conspire against me yet I overcome!’ he screamed, eyes glazed. Then his expression faded.
    ‘You just think I’m a paranoid kung, don’t you,’ he said sulkily.
    ‘Since you mention it …’
    ‘I’m proud to be human. Make no mistake! As for the other,’ he said, turning, ‘just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean They aren’t out to get you.’
    She watched him stride back to the men, who clustered around him. Frightened of everything except immediate physical danger. And as human as a tiger.
    Silver was gazing ruefully at the dumbwaiter. It was not damaged, but the plastic panelling would never be the same again.
    When the men were at the oars again Kin took out her suit toolkit and arranged the dragon corpse as best she could on the tiny foredeck. The kit was small but comprehensive. A marooned spaceman could use it to survive onan alien world for years. Some had. Kin selected a medical scalpel.
    Later she opened the kit fully and found a multi-chisel.
    A minute later she reached in and assembled the vibro-saw. The screeee as it skidded and juddered over scales set her teeth on edge, but she didn’t switch off until the blade broke.
    She went to find Marco and Silver, who were taking a turn at the oars, and hunkered down between them.
    ‘Those dragons are jet powered,’ she said. ‘I could open the neck – it’s lined with some sort of light spongy substance. It cut like jelly. When I tried the welding laser on it it didn’t even warm up.’
    ‘How about the body?’ said Marco.
    ‘Those scales are tough . You will note I am holding the remains of a vibro-saw. They say a saw like this will cut hull metal.’
    Silver grinned. ‘One finds oneself thinking in terms of creatures that drink kerosene.’
    The kung snorted. ‘No doubt you neglected to run a geiger over it?’ he said.
    ‘No. I tested it all right. Nothing.’
    ‘I am surprised.’
    ‘Want to hear what happened when I cut the neck off and dropped the geiger head into the body cavity?’
    ‘I am agog.’
    ‘It’s as hot as hell in there. That creature is aliving atomic furnace. And you can’t tell me it evolved, not on an Earth-type world. It’s a construct! That’s where you’ll find the disc builders – wherever that thing came from.’
    ‘The centre of the disc,’ said Silver thoughtfully. Kin gawped, and the shand nodded casually as she leaned on the oar.
    ‘I have some facility with languages, as you know,’ she said. ‘I have been talking to some of these men. We’ve got to the say-and-point stage. They see these things sometimes. In these parts they come from the east, but when the boats sail down south the dragons pass over from the north-east. Therefore I deduce they come from the central regions. Why are you staring?’
    ‘Marco already wants to go to the centre,’ said Kin. ‘He wants to offer them a barometer – I think.’
    The next dawn saw them sailing through an increasingly choppy sea into a fjord between white mountains. There was a colony of turf-roofed stone huts, and some sparse meadows. People hurried