The lantern I carried didn't cast a lot of light.  A bright light in the darkness could upset the stock, so Callie provided her hands with these antique devices which burned a smoky oil refined from reptilian fat.  It was enough to keep me from stumbling over tree roots, but not to see very far ahead.  And of course if you looked at the light, your night vision was destroyed.  I told myself not to look, then the cantankerous thing would sputter and I'd glance at it, and stop in my tracks, blinded.  So when I encountered the first unusual tree trunk I didn't realize what it was, at first.  I touched it and felt the warmth, and knew I'd bumped into a brontosaur's hind leg.  I backed hastily away.  The beasts are clumsy and inclined to stampede if startled.  And if you've ever been unpleasantly surprised by a package from a passing pigeon in the city park, you don't want to find out what can happen to you in the area of a brontosaur's hind leg, believe me.  I speak from bitter experience.

I picked my way through a forest of similar trunks until I spotted a small campfire in a hollow.  Three figures were seated around the fire, two side by side, and another-Callie-across from them.  I could dimly see the hulking shadows of a dozen brontosaurs, darker shapes against the night, placidly chewing their cuds and farting like foghorns.  I approached the fire slowly, not wanting to startle anybody, and still managed to surprise Callie, who looked up in alarm, then patted the ground beside her.  She held her finger to her lips, then resumed her study of her adversaries, painted orange by the dancing flames between us.

I've never decided if David Earth looked spookier in a setting like this, or in the full light of day-for it was him, the Spokesmammal himself, sitting in lotus position, a walking, talking inducement for the purchase of hay fever remedies.  Callie was actually allergic to the man, or to his biosphere, and though a cure would have been simple and cheap she cherished her malady, she treasured it, she happily endured every sneeze and sniffle as one more reason to detest him.  She'd hated him since before I was born, and viewed his five-yearly appearances the same way people must have felt about dental extractions before anesthetics.

He nodded to me, and I nodded back.  That seemed conversation enough for both of us.  Callie and I didn't agree on a lot of things, but we shared the same opinion of David Earth and all the Earthists.