A half mile from the village there was a hill where I could get a clear view of the volcano, and the cloud that hung poised above it night and day, its peculiar configuration giving it the aspect of a gigantic black moth flailing the air with soot-encrusted wings. For centuries that cloud had hung there, and would probably remain until the volcano burnt itself out.
I skirted the shadows until I was clear of the village and then I walked with my shoulders squared until I reached the hill. On Dracona a man must walk boldly if he is to walk at all.
It was cold on the hill—chillingly bleak and depressing. But I knew that my spaceleather would keep me warm enough. Thinking of Kallatah's violet eyes and the incredible glints of gold in her hair I threw myself down and lay stretched out at full length in the velvety darkness.
My eyes were on the cloud when the strange, startling play of colors began. First a flash of red on the underside of the cloud, and then a flash of dazzling violet piercing the cloud. Red, violet, and then red again—each color lingering for perhaps ten seconds.
I took out my instruments then, and made a careful check. My equipment consisted of a tiny electro-magnetic linear strain seismograph which was sensitive to a tremor as faint as one ten-billionth of an inch, and a vertical recorder which gave me a picture in two dimensions of the surface tension at the edge of the crater ten thousand times enlarged.
I watched the cloud and studied the instruments, waiting until I was completely sure. Then I arose, brushed the dirt from my knees, returned the instruments to their cases, and started back down the hill.
When I reached the village there was no stir of movement anywhere. I did not trade on my luck by pausing to explore the shadows. I went straight to Geipgos' hut, pushed the boughs aside, and crept inside on my hands and knees.
Geipgos was sleeping on a couch of matted vines with his arms interlocked on his chest, the green sheen of his skin, and the prominence of his cheekbones giving him an eerily mummified aspect.
I knelt at his side, got out the little reflector and strapped it to my forehead. I had to pause an instant to control the trembling of my hands.
The light came on in a sudden, blinding glare. I was hardly aware that I had switched it on until I found myself staring directly into Geipgos' startled eyes.