What I was definitely aware of was that I really had to get back to the Institute soon, that I should have gone back a long time ago already — if the dragons felt like letting me, which wasn't a question I'd asked yet. Or figured out how to ask. But I also knew that the more, um, dragon communication I'd learned by the time I went back, the more persuasive I'd be able to be (I hoped) about what I had learned and how important it was. One more reason I didn't know how much time passed is because the process of trying to stuff myself with Practical Demonstratable Dragonese was different above- and belowground. Belowground it was easier to pick up the pictures and the brrrrrs. Aboveground it was easier to make sense of the pictures I'd picked up. Easier is a relative concept though, because none of it was easy, and I was dizzy and headachy all the time. I wondered if Bud ever got a headache talking to me. But if he did, did he notice? Like that there's this eensy weensy alien pebble rolling around in the bottom of his tourist-bus-sized skull?
And have I mentioned recently that languages are not one of my talents?
But I think Bud was a lot clearer about one thing than I was. He'd got it that dragons were in danger, even if he hadn't got it about Congress. (About dragon government: I don't know, but I think maybe Bud is Congress.) Maybe the dragons have a long history of dragons failing to communicate with humans — surely they'd've tried when the Aussies first started wiping them out, for example? They wouldn't be so bewildered they wouldn't try to say "please stop, can we negotiate"? Or wouldn't they recognize humans as intelligent any more than we recognized them as intelligent? Maybe they only saw us as a plague they couldn't defeat — like a book or a movie about the planet being taken over by aliens or apes. Or germs. Or Yorkshire terriers. Maybe I was a big surprise to them too.
But — particularly if they'd thought about all this before — Bud would know that I wasn't going to be able to go back to the institute and say, "Hey! Dragons can talk in their heads and in mine too (sort of)!" Because I was going to prove this — how? Everything I could have — and, of course, eventually did — tell anyone could be seen as raving. Which a lot of people do see it as. Still. But some of the important people believe me. And part of the reason why is because of Bud the day the helicopters came.
The dragons all heard them long before I did. Lois heard them too and when I was puzzled she sent me a picture of a wider-than-tall blob with something funny going on at the top and going gup gup gup which I didn't understand at all — although it was also yellow, and I've never seen a yellow helicopter — which may give you another tiny glimpse of how hard the learning process is, because a helicopter is something I know. (The dragon pictograph-with-non-sound for dragon doesn't look or sound anything like the human idea of a dragon either, even after you've plugged in, and it varies from dragon to dragon, like some of it's style, like some of them present Essential Dragon as wearing All Star high-tops and jeans, and some of them rhinestones and black velvet. Maybe Essential Helicopter is yellow?)
While I was still trying to figure it out, Zenobia and Gulp headed for the tunnel to the cavern. Gulp tried to take Lois, but she wouldn't go; she came and hid behind me. Hiding behind something the size of me away from something the size of Gulp is pretty funny, but Gulp would have realized that the only way she'd nab Lois was by force and I also think I picked up something between Bud and Gulp which I think was Bud saying, Let her stay. So Gulp and Zenobia left. And Lois and I . . . and Bud . . . stayed where we were.
I was already worried, before I heard the choppers too. Even when I can't pick up specifics I can sometimes pick up atmosphere — well, everybody (every human body) knows about that, it doesn't have to be something esoteric about dragons. You walk into a room where there's a perfectly ordinary conversation going on and your ears are telling you it's a perfectly ordinary conversation and the hairs on the back of your neck are telling you it isn't. There was some hairy atmosphere going on and not knowing was bad enough.
And then I heard it — whompwhompwhomp — and then I really panicked. I started shouting and waving my hands at Bud again — I got so crazy I actually grabbed one of the . . . the spiny wart-things on one of his front feet, like I could pull him toward the cavern door, like a dog on a lead. (I was pulling on a toe, you know, because that's what I could reach.) And for the second time since I'd met my first dragon I burst into tears, for reasons not too dissimilar from that first time, and if you want to despise me, feel free, I don't care. I didn't want to see another dead dragon. Another dragon stupidly killed by humans. And by then Bud was also my friend.
The choppers found us all right. Bud would be pretty hard to miss if you were even half looking. Most chopper flights don't see dragons only because dragons get out of the way as soon as they hear the chopper. I can imagine the guns trained on him and all that. But they saw me too, and they tried to get me out of the way first since I was (no doubt mysteriously) still alive. It was like something on a bad TV movie, the blast of the broadcast voice telling me to move slowly away from the dragon. It was almost funny. Like moving slowly away from something the size (and firepower) of a dragon meant anything.
I suppose really they were not being that stupid — they could always try to kill the other end of him, which was a long way away, but I was stubbornly sticking by the fire-breathing end, and remember that dragons can breathe a lot of fire after they're dead. I should say that Bud was now lying flat on the ground — he'd put his head down as soon as the choppers came into sight — the way Gulp had the day she met us, or when she was inviting us for transport — and all curled in on himself too, so maybe you couldn't see quite how many miles of him there were. Well, it makes perfectly good any-old-species sense, doesn't it? If you're trying to look non-threatening you try to look small and weak. It's just very hard to do effectively if you're a dragon (but proves they have, you know, imagination).
And I think they didn't realize just how big Bud is. Or maybe Major Handley involuntarily found himself wondering what the hell he was seeing — because I was jumping up and down beside Bud's nose screaming idiotic things like Don't shoot, Don't shoot! He's okay! We're all okay! Please don't shoot! Although how, exactly, even a bright human at the head of a deliberate show of military force (to impress the dragons?) figured out that I wasn't begging to be rescued I'm not sure. Maybe he didn't know either and — since I'd survived this long — was waiting for clarification. The "extermination" order for our dragons hadn't come yet — there was still room for doubt. Or negotiation.
I tried to talk to him about this, later. He just looked at me and shook his head. He's still a career military guy and I'm still a bleeding heart dipstick. I'll be sending him birthday cards for the rest of his life to thank him though.
Anyway. Lois was jumping up and down with me and shrieking — I think I've mentioned she had a very piercing shriek — and the poor major wouldn't have known about her. Even if he thought Bud was not making any moves because he was dead, Lois was obviously alive, and big enough to do damage if she had the inclination. She even looked enough like a dragon by then that you might even guess she was one.