be.”
A black cloud came to rest inside the cedar tree.
Carol gasped and shrank against Maxwell. He put out an arm and held her close against him.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It is just a banshee.”
“But he hasn’t any body. He hasn’t any face. He is just a cloud.”
“That is not remarkable,” the Banshee told her. “That is what we are, the two of us that are left. Great dirty dish-cloths flapping in the sky. And you need not be frightened, for this other human is a friend of ours.”
“I wasn’t a friend of the third one,” said Maxwell. “Nor was the human race. He sold out to the Wheelers.”
“And yet, you sat with him, when no one else would do it.”
“Yes, I did that. Even your worst enemy could demand that you do that.”
“Then, I think,” the Banshee said, “that you can understand a little. The Wheelers, after all, were us, still are us, perhaps. And ancient ties die hard.”
“I think I do understand,” said Maxwell. “What can I do for you?”
“I only came,” the Banshee told him, “to tell you that the place you call the crystal planet has been notified.”
“And they want the dragon?” Maxwell asked. “You’ll have to give us the coordinates.”
“The coordinates,” said the Banshee, “will be given to Transportation Central. You will want to go there, you and many others, to transfer the data.
But the dragon stays on Earth, here on Goblin Reservation.”
“I don’t understand,” said Maxwell. “They wanted…”
“The Artifact,” the Banshee said, “to set the dragon free. He had been caged too long.”
“Since the Jurassic,” said Maxwell. “I agree. That is far too long.”
“But we did not plan so long,” the Banshee said. “You moved him before we could set him free and we thought that we had lost him. The Artifact was only to preserve and hide him until the colony on Earth could become established, until it could protect him.”
“But protect him? Why did he need protection?”
“Because,” the Banshee said, “he is the last of his race and therefore very precious. He is the last of the-I find it hard to say-you have creatures you call dogs and cats?”
“Yes,” said Carol. “We have one of them right here.”
“Pets,” the Banshee said. “And yet much more than pets. Creatures that have walked the Earth with you from the very early days. The dragon is the pet, the last pet, of the people of the crystal planet. They grow old, they will soon be gone. They cannot leave their pet behind uncared for; he must be delivered into loving hands.”
“The goblins will take care of him,” said Carol. “And the trolls and fairies and all the rest of them. They will be proud of him. They will spoil him rotten.”
“And the humans, too?”
“And the humans, too,” she said.
They did not see him go. But he was no longer there. There was not even a dirty dishcloth flapping in the sky. The tree stood empty.
A pet, thought Maxwell. Not a god, but a simple pet. And yet, perhaps, not so simple as it sounded. When men had first made the bio-mechs, what had they created? Not other men, at least at first, not livestock, not freaks engineered to specific purposes. They had created pets.
Carol stirred against his arm. “What are you thinking, Pete?”
“About a date,” he said. “Yes, I guess I was thinking of a dinner date with you. We had one once, but it never quite came off. Would you like to try again?”
“At the Pig and Whistle?”
“If that is what you want.”
“Without Oop and Ghost. Without any troublemakers.”
“But with Sylvester, of course.”
“No,” she said. “Just the two of us. Sylvester stays at home. It is time he learned.” They got up from the boulder and started back toward the castle. Sylvester looked up at the dragon perching on the castle wall and snarled. The dragon lowered its head on its sinuous neck and looked him in the eye. It stuck out at him a long and forked tongue.
