A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales

Gnoth, the Yerethian consul, looked at his watch and said: "Damn it, if she does not get here soon, we shall miss the start of the feature."

Triw kept on painting her horns. "What difference does it make? We can always stay around to where we came in."

"You know I hate seeing a movie cut up that way," snorted Gnoth, scratching his scales. "It is like a statue with the head broken off and put under the feet. It is still all there, but the effect is not the same." The Yerethian glanced at the incubator. "You do not suppose we could — ah — go out and leave the door unlocked?"

"Before Pat gets here?" cried Triw. "Gnoth, are you out of your mind? You know what Terran thieves are like, and to leave our egg untended so close to hatching-time ..."

"Speaking of which, are you sure of the date?"

"Of course."

"It would not do to have it hatch when the Earthgirl was alone with it."

"No, I figured it all out," said Triw, buffing the diamond set in her left lower tusk. "Allowing for this silly decimal system and everything. Today is September twelfth, and it will hatch on the sixteenth. There is Pat now!"

Gnoth threw open the big front door of the modified barn that served as his consular residence. Patrice Ober stood on the threshold with a book in her hand.

"Come in!" said Gnoth, switching to English and holding down his bellow so as not to frighten the girl. Patrice stepped on to the polished floor.

If you had asked Gnoth to describe Patrice, he would have said she looked like other Terrans, a little skinny waist-high thing with a pale soft skin, rudimentary jaws, no tail, and no scales, plates, knobs, spikes, horns, tusks, or other splendid ornaments. Moreover, Terrans had five digits per limb, so they based their number-system on ten instead of the more logical eight. If you had pressed him further, he would have said that, while to him all Terrans looked much alike, Patrice was deemed attractive by her fellow-beings and that her eyes were green and the filaments on top of her head were dark.

"So nice to see you, my dear!" said Triw in a good imitation of a Terran hostess. "Let me show you around."

She put out a four-clawed hand. Patrice, after a slight pause, took it.

"First, here is our pride and joy," said Triw, raising the lid of the incubator. Patrice looked at the egg.

"It will hatch in four days," said Triw.

"A baby Yerethian must be pretty big," said Patrice.

"Bigger than you, my dear."

"Would it be dangerous?"

"What, my baby dangerous?"

"I mean, to one of us." Gnoth broke in: "It could be."

"What's it like?"

"It's a carnivore with complete instincts but no intelligence. That is why we keep them in cages. After three years they begin to lose their instincts and become teachable. But do not worry. It will not hatch."

"What if he — it — was premature?" asked Patrice.

"There is no chance. But if it should happen, you must call the theater to have us sent home."

"What theater are you going to?"

"The Forest Drive-in. We always go to drive-ins because they are the only ones that have space for us."

"What are you seeing?"

Gnoth said: "Sands of Yereth. This is business as well as pleasure."

"How do you mean?"

"Our government likes us to see all movies having to do with Yerethians, to make sure your movie makers are not making hostile propaganda against us."

"Why would they do that?"

"Oh, they must have villains, and, unless we watch out, Hollywood will show all people from other planets to be scoundrels."

"A villain has to belong to some race."

"We do not mind an occasional Yerethian villain if they show some good Yerethians too."

"Oh," said Patrice.

"This is the powder room," said Triw. "It is for our Terran guests, so everything is the right size for you. Do stop fidgeting, Gnoth! There is plenty of time."

Looking around, Patrice said: "I'd think it would be a bother, having everything in two sizes." There was a Yerethian-sized sofa in front of the entertainer and, a few yards away, a sofa of half that size for human beings.