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burial place, he found a large black and purple form bending over a burned-out pile of vegetation. Falameezar had squatted down on his haunches and was picking with one massive claw at the heap of ash and woody material.
    â€œWe’re all grateful as hell, Falameezar. No one more so than myself.”
    The dragon glanced numbly back at him, barely taking notice of his presence. His tone was ponderously, unexpectedly, somber.
    â€œI have made a grave mistake, Comrade. A grave mistake.” The dragon sighed. His attention was concentrated on the crisped, smoking remains of the Porprut as he picked and prodded at the blackened tendrils with his claws.
    â€œWhat’s troubling you?” asked Jon-Tom. He walked close and affectionately patted the dragon’s flank.
    The head swung around to gaze at him mournfully. “I have destroyed,” he moaned, “an ideal communal society. A perfect communistic organism.”
    â€œYou don’t know that’s what it was, Falameezar,” Jon-Tom argued. “It might have been a normal creature with a single brain.”
    â€œI do not think so.” Falameezar slowly shook his head, looking and sounding as depressed as it was possible for a dragon to be. Little puffs of smoke occasionally floated up from his nostrils.
    â€œI have looked inside the corpse. There are many individual sections of creature inside, all twisted and intertwined together, intergrown and interdependent. All functioning in perfect, bossless harmony.”
    Jon-Tom stepped away from the scaly side. “I’m sorry.” He thought carefully, not daring to offend the dragon but worried about its state of mind. “Would you have rather you’d left it alone to nibble us to death?”
    â€œNo, Comrade, of course not. But I did not realize fully what it consisted of. If I had, I might have succeeded in making it shift its path around you. So I have been forced to murder a perfect natural example of what civilized society should aspire to.” He sighed. “I fear now I must do penance, my comrade friend.”
    A little nervous, Jon-Tom gestured at the broad, endless field of the Swordsward. “There are many dangers out there, Comrade. Including the still monstrous danger we have talked so much about.”
    It was turning to evening. Solemn clouds promised another night of rain, and there was a chill in the air that even hinted at some snow. It was beginning to feel like real winter out on the grass-clad plain.
    A cold wind sprang from the direction of the dying sun, went through Jon-Tom’s filthy leathers. “We need your help, Falameezar.”
    â€œI am sorry, Comrade. I have my own troubles now. You will have to face future dangers without me. For I am truly sorrowful over what I have done here, the more so because with a little thought it might have been avoided.” He turned and lumbered off into the rising night, his feet crushing down the Sward, which sprang up resiliently behind him.
    â€œAre you sure?” Jon-Tom followed to the edge of the cleared circle, put out imploring hands. “We really need you, Comrade. We have to help each other or the great danger will overwhelm all of us. Remember the coming of the bosses of bosses!”
    â€œYou have your other friends, your other comrades to assist you, Jon-Tom,” the dragon called back to him across the waves of the green sea. “I have no one but myself.”
    â€œBut you’re one of us!”
    The dragon shook his head. “No, not yet. For a time I had willed to myself that it was so. But I have failed, or I would have seen a solution to your rescue that did not involve this murder.”
    â€œHow could you? There wasn’t time!” He could barely see the dark outline now.
    â€œI’m sorry, Comrade Jon-Tom.” Falameezar’s voice was faint with distance and guilt. “Good-bye.”
    â€œGood-bye, Falameezar.” Jon-Tom watched until the