"No, it’s manmade. Or something made anyway."
Karin eyed him sideways. "And you have seen them before?"
"Never. I always hoped I never would." He slid the pistol back into its holster. "You remember I told you that we would fight an all-out war with weapons that could destroy a city in the blink of an eye? That was one of those weapons."
"Then your people… ?"
"No!" Karin jerked back as if she had been slapped at the violence of his reply. "I told you we’d never use them unless we were attacked. Nobody would. We’re all too afraid of them."
"I can see why."
"Besides, if we did use them we wouldn’t set one off over a deserted plain like that and we wouldn’t use just one of them."
"But you are expecting more of them. You make us stay under the rocks."
"If there were going to be more we never would have gotten off the plain. We’re here because of fallout."
"What is that?"
He turned to her. "Nuclear weapons don’t just make a big explosion. They produce all kinds of poisonous byproducts. Even if the blast doesn’t get you you can still sicken or die. That stuff will be coming out of the sky for the next few hours and it will be dangerous for the next few days. That blast was a pure air burst so there won’t be as much fallout as there could have been. The wind is generally away from us so the plume may not reach us. We may be safe, but I don’t want to take chances."
"What about Stigi?"
"You see any place around here that could shelter him?"
Karin shook her head reluctantly.
"Besides, he may not be as affected by this stuff as we are." For all I know he’s got a nuclear reactor in his gut, Gilligan thought. He wondered if anyone had ever worked out the dose response tables for a firebreathing dragon.
There was no rain that night, and no more explosions. Sometime on toward dawn Gilligan finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep. He dreamed of ruined deserted cities and Karin with her hair falling out.
He awoke numb and muzzy headed. The sun was above the horizon, Karin was gone and so was Stigi.
He cast about frantically for a moment, but Karin’s pack and Stigi’s saddle were still where he had piled them. Obviously Karin expected to be back soon. Gilligan forced himself to sit down under the overhang and wait.
Perhaps an hour later Karin led Stigi back up the path and into the wrecked campsite.
Heedless of the possibility of fallout or Stigi’s steamwhistle snort, he raced across the clearing to meet them. "Karin, I was worried about you," Gilligan said as he took her in his arms. They kissed deeply and then Karin broke away.
"Stigi was restless so I took him to the stream for a bath," she explained. "It always calms him."
"That wasn’t safe. We don’t know we’re out of the fallout plume."
"Oh, but that thing did not leave poison here," Karin said almost gaily.
"What makes you so sure?"
"This," she said, digging into her pouch and producing a small object apparently carved out of jet. "Scouts carry these because sometimes we must forage abroad. It tells us if something is safe to eat or drink. I checked everything I could find and there was no sign of harm."
"I don’t know how good it is at detecting fallout," Gilligan said dubiously.
Karin returned the amulet to her pouch. "It has never failed us."
Mick nodded. It was possible serious fallout hadn’t reached this far and they had nothing to worry about. If the fallout had reached them they were already facing a bout of radiation sickness. Logically there was no reason to believe Karin’s magic rock was telling the truth, but it felt better that way.
He hugged her again "I was worried about you," he said with his nose and lips buried in the hair on her neck.
"I am sorry, love."
"That’s the first time you called me that."
Karin pulled her head away and laid her fingertips on his cheek.
"Well?"
"Well, I like it." He kissed her again.
After a long moment Karin pulled away. "Mick, we have to talk."
"Okay, about what?"
"What happened yesterday. We cannot stay here now."
"You got that right. The best thing would be to move to the opposite end of the island, as far away from that castle…"
"No," Karin cut him off. "I need to go the other way. I need to get as close to that castle as I can to spy out its defenses."
Mick dropped his arms to his sides.
"One of those ’defenses’ you’re talking about is nuclear weapons. That’s crazy!"
"Nevertheless," Karin said quietly, "I must."
"Look, at least wait until Stigi’s wing is healed. That’s, what, another week?"
"Longer than that, I fear. He apparently tried to fly yesterday in his panic and re-injured it."
"So you’re going to walk?"
"I have no other choice."
"The hell you don’t! You can stay here like a sensible person. Until help arrives or until that dragon can fly."
"And meanwhile the ones in that castle will be brewing up who knows what kind of horrors," Karin blazed back. "No. I have my duty as a scout and flier and I will not shirk it to lie around here while my very world is threatened."
"I don’t know how it is in the dragon cavalry, but in the Air Force a recon pilot’s first job is to get the information back to his base."
"A scout’s first job is to gather information. Having no way of getting anything back, I can only gather more."
"I’ll bet you’ve got some kind of regulation against this kind of behavior," Gilligan said with a shrewdness born of desperation.
"There is also a regulation saying regulations are guides and must be applied with wisdom. This is an unusual situation and I must take unusual action."
Like me sending Smitty back and pressing on alone, Gilligan thought. Somehow he felt that the universe was getting even with him for that.
"What about Stigi?"
Karin frowned. "That is the thing which made it so hard. I will take Stigi with me. He can walk and dragons can keep a fairly good pace."
"Okay, you feel you’ve got to scout ahead. You could do it faster once Stigi’s wing heals."
"It will heal just as well on the march as here."
"And if you’re caught in the open?"