And on the cart sat a dragon like the one on his helmet. It was about five feet long. It had wings. It had a neck. And it had a very ferocious head, a gaping fanged mouth, glaring red eyes, and horns. And from head to tail it had spines jutting out all the way along. A gold-scaled, scarlet-mouthed dragon.
The mechanics made as if to lift the dragon down off the cart but Jonnie warned them back as though the dragon might bite.
Schleim guffawed. Engrossed as he was in listening and knowing well it didn't matter what the devil did, he still could not restrain himself. “That's not a live beast!” he hectored. “That's just a painted figure made of clay! There are more like it right over there!” And he pointed toward the unfinished works where they lay unmounted. “It’s just a hollow image!” Theatrics, good lord; the poor fool thought he could take these lords in like they were children!
But the lords looked at him a bit reprovingly for interrupting, particularly the one behind him who leaned over and said, “Hush.” Schleim looked at him. He was a huge creature who must have had a genetic line back to trees. His skin was bark-like and he had masses of leafy-looking “hair.” His arms were about a foot in diameter. Schleim decided he'd have to watch this one when he made his move. Not long now.
“Forgive Lord Schleim," said Jonnie. “He has been under a strain and doesn't see well.”
The lords guffawed now. “This beast on the cart,” continued Jonnie, “is called a 'dragon.' If you look, you will see his mother at the console over there.”
The lords looked at the bigger dragon that wrapped around the console. They laughed. His mother!
Sir Robert was standing in the door of the ops room. Behind him Stormalong, with reports in his hand, was arguing with him in a low voice. But Sir Robert was shaking his head. Finally Sir Robert said audibly, “Let the lad alone!” And Stormalong went back inside.
Lord Schleim had noticed it.
Somebody had reported the flotilla somewhere? Maybe he'd have to act faster than he had planned. He cocked an ear at the sky. They would arrive and launch something into the atmosphere he could hear. That was his instruction.
“Now if you will notice,” said Jonnie, “the dragon on the cart is different from the dragon on my helmet.” He pointed to his forehead. “The tiny one has been fed.”
Yes, that one on his helmet did have a small round ball in its mouth. A small, round, white ball.
“And the one on the cart is hungry!” said Jonnie. “For your collection of data on the flora and fauna of various worlds, you should have these facts. This is an imperial Dragon! It eats moons and planets!”
They thought it was a pretty good joke. Rulers were always eating up planets. Imperial diet! Get it? Good joke. The emissaries laughed. They understood it was an allegory they were watching. Clever.
Jonnie cautioned back the mechanics again, petted the clay dragon on the head soothingly. Then he suddenly put his arms under the neck and belly, the way you might catch a wild beast by surprise, and staggered back. That dragon was heavy!
The mechanics whisked away the decorated mine cart and vanished. Schleim carefully watched them as well as he could see into the shadows. Oh, they just went back and stood there watching. All right, no problem when the paralysis beam was turned on.
Jonnie had set the dragon down on the center of the platform. And now he did a most interesting thing. He leaned over the dragon's head and he was talking into its ear.
“Very good,” said Jonnie. “I know you are hungry. SO GO EAT UP ASART!"
Out of their sight on the other side of the dragon, he reached in, heard a soft “now” from Angus at the console, and ratcheted down the time fuse lever of the ultimate bomb, lying in the dragon's hollow belly, to five minutes. With the thumbnail of his other hand he pierced the cap of a smoke bomb used in mines to trace currents of air in shafts.
White smoke began to pour from the dragon's mouth in jets. Ferocious!
Jonnie skipped back off the platform. Angus hit the firing button.
Jonnie's wand pointed at the dragon. “Go! And don't come back until you have devoured Asart! Go!”
Wires hummed.
The dragon, smoke and all, shimmered and was gone.
There was a very small recoil.
Jonnie looked at his watch. Three and a half minutes to go.
He walked back across the platform. There was a cold, cold hangover on it where it had doubled with the icy space of Asart.
“Now do any of you lords have a picto-recorder you can trust?” said Jonnie. “I do not want to use our own since you might not trust it. I want to borrow a picto-recorder, one that you can seal, that can't be tampered with.”
The lord from Fowljopan, an empire of seven hundred worlds, said he'd oblige. He went to his apartment and got it out of his hamper. He came back and checked the loading. Jonnie made him wrap a metal seal around it and clench it and make sure it couldn't be tampered with.
The two mechanics now rushed to the platform and laid down a gyro cage from a drone. Jonnie asked the lord from Fowljopan to lay the recorder in the gyro slots. The lord glanced at the console to make sure it wasn't being operated, glanced up at the poles to be sure they weren't humming, and walked to the center of the platform and put his picto-recorder inside the cage, and, as Jonnie requested, locked it down. He left the platform.
Jonnie glanced at his watch. Seven minutes had gone by. That dragon had been laid exactly on the surface of Asart. The bomb should have gone off two minutes ago. This next shot would put the picto-recorder well up from that moon and to the side.
Now! said Angus. The wires hummed.
The picto-recorder and cage shimmered and vanished.
There was no recoil.
Numbers on Jonnie's watch whirred. Thirty-nine seconds.
There was a change in the humming.
There was a shimmer on the platform.
The picto-recorder and cage reappeared.
The humming went off. There was a slight recoil.
Two mechanics rolled up the dolly the projector sat on so that it was among the emissaries.
“Now if you please, my lord,” said Jonnie to the Fowljopan, “would you please retrieve your recorder and take it to the projector and unseal it. And please be certain that it is your disc by putting a few words on the end of it. Then make sure there is no other disc or trace in the machine and put your disc in. If you please.”
Lord of Fowljopan did exactly as requested. “The recorder is ice cold!” was all he said.
Jonnie held his breath. He had a pretty good idea of what the bomb did. But he was not sure. This was the touch-and-go moment!
He hit the remote. Off went the spotlights. On went the recorder picture.
There in the dark before them was Asart, three-dimensional. There were the five ellipses which identified it.
Used to bombs and explosions, they had indifferently expected to see some high tower of dust or smoke. Actually, they had not thought, most of them, that much would happen. Jonnie had been so calm, so polite, certainly not a mood in which one engaged in war.
They didn't see anything strange for a moment. And then as the picture rolled off the disc, they saw a hole. A hole occurring in the upper right surface of Asart. Just a hole. No, there was a bit of black around the edge of it.
Schleim, ear cocked at the sky, felt a jar of alarm. What in the name of fifty devils was going on here? But he relaxed. Bombs went boom. There were no bombs that made just a hole. The picture went off and Fowljopan's “My voice here,” came on.
“Theatrics!” laughed Schleim. “You're engaging in nonsense!”
“My lords,” said Jonnie. “Does another one of you have a picto-recorder I can borrow?”