We didn't have long to wait. With a shrill scream one of the lizards leapt high into the air and was slammed back against a tree, so violently that it sagged to the ground without a single convulsive quiver of expiring life. A fire broke out where it lay, danced and flickered about it. Another lizard was lifted high into the air, and sent spinning with a terrible spasmodic contraction of its entire bulk. The scramblings of the other lizards became more frantic, turned into a hideous twisting and squirming that sent chills coursing the length of my spine. Horribly one of the beasts exploded. Its chest was blown away as it reared on its hindlimbs, and was carried backwards by a whirling spiral of flame. Others were ripped apart as if by invisible talons, flattened out, crushed and shredded into fragments. We saw the warriors then. Straight into the village clearing they strode, Geipgos at their head and his son Slagoon walking proudly at his side. They were flourishing their spears and shouting, and the sky glow was bright on their green-bronze shoulders, and was mirrored in their eyes. I had been right in my prediction. In less than an hour the rumblings ceased and the ground stopped trembling. The fieriness vanished from the sky. But for three days the warriors pursued the lizards across the crater's rim, descending into the smoke-filled clefts where for centuries they had nested and multiplied, routing and shattering them until Dracona was cleansed and a brave new dawn broke over Geipgos' unbowed head. I stood with Kallatah on a cloud-wreathed peak staring down. "When man is free to shape his own destiny," I said, "civilization does not beat its shining wings in vain. They will go forward boldly now, with the yoke of superstition forever removed from their necks." "Thanks to you," Kallatah said. "It was not too difficult to predict the exact moment of the volcano's eruption," I said. "As for the post-hypnotic command--you could have done that too." Kallatah turned and looked at me, her eyes strangely luminous. "Taro Hargon," she said. "I am going to tell you something. From the first moment I saw you I knew that you were a _man_." I stared at her, wondering. "It takes the courage and daring and resourcefulness of the Earthborn to do what you did. The Guiding Council realized that we on Tragor had need of the Earthborn too. Our heritage had worn too thin. So they selected a man of Terra with truly great gifts of body and mind to guide us all--" I grew alarmed, still wondering how insecure my secret had become. "Oh, you returned for a lark. Took to wandering again, as an Earthborn trader. For an hour and a day." She laughed and her hands were suddenly busy at the flaps of my weather jacket, peeling them back to bring the shining insignia into view. "Supreme Councillor and Guide," she whispered. "I knew it from the first." "You knew--"