title: Dragons: The Modern Infestation
author:  Pamela Wharton Blanpied 
description: `Aircraft flying over the poles are occasionally accompanied by dragons, much as ships are followed by dolphins in the open sea'.Odd details gleam up from the text A wonderful description of a group of dragons crooning their heads off then gloating over their skill: ``They were enormously pleased with themselves afterwards, brushing by one another, snorting and steaming, and beating the ground with their rear feet '' ' VILLAGE VOICE
zlib_text: The White Dragon
  serve these unusual animals. These dragons-named for the mythical 
  Terran beast they resembled-had two valuable characteristics: they 
  could get from one place to another instantaneously and, after chewing 
  a phosphine-bearing rock, they would emit a flaming gas. Because the 
  dragons could fly, they were able to char Thread in midair, and then 
  escape from its ravages.
  It took generations to develop to the fullest the potential of these 
  dragons. The second phase of the proposed defense against the deadly 
  incursions would take even longer. For Thread, a space-traveling 
  mycorrhizoid spore, with mindless voracity devoured aU organic matter 
  and, once grounded, burrowed and proliferated with terrifying speed. So 
  a symbiote of the same strain was developed to counter this parasite, 
  and the resulting grub was introduced into the soil of the southern 
  continent. The original plan was that the dragons would be a visible 
  protection, charring Thread while it was still skyb