A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales

The baby Yerethian was wheezing for breath a minute later when the door opened, and in came Gnoth and Triw.

"My child!" bellowed Triw, lumbering forward. She gave Andy a push that spun him away like an autumn leaf. His unsupported pants fell down and tripped him so he skidded sprawling.

Triw broke the sofa apart to extricate her young and gathered the creature to her bosom. It bit her arm, at which she dealt it a slap that would have crushed a man to jelly.

"Keep calm! Keep calm!" roared Gnoth. "What is the matter? Quick, is anybody hurt? Do not all talk at once. Great Knash, that this should happen to us! Keep calm, everyone!"

"Calm down yourself," said Triw. "My dear little baby is safe and sound."

"How about you two?" said Gnoth.

Patrice said: "I turned my ankle, but it's better now."

"Nothing but a few bruises," said Andy, his glasses dangling from one ear. He replaced them. "May I have my belt back, please?"

Gnoth handed the belt to Andy, who secured his falling trews. At that instant, Terry's record of Heaving and Panting ended.

As this was the last record in the stack, the entertainer gave a click and fell silent. Gnoth turned it off. He looked at the machine, the floor, and the incubator.

"Have you two been dancing?" he said in an ominous tone.

Patrice said: "I was but Andy wasn't."

"You mean you were doing a — what do you say — a solo?"

"N-no, I mean I was dancing with Terry. Andy only got here just now."

"Who is Terry?"

Patrice nodded towards the powder room, whose door Terry had opened. Patrice, trying to put her looks in order, presented both boys to the Yerethians. Her voice quavered with nervousness. You can't help feeling a little scared when a being that could make two bites of you is mad at you, no matter how civilized it seems.

"And you lurched against the incubator and moved it, is that not true?" rumbled Gnoth. "I see scratch-marks on the floor."

"Well — uh —"said Terry.

"So if our child suffers from premature hatching, it will have been your doing!" thundered Gnoth.

"Wait a minute!" said Andy. "When was this egg supposed to hatch?"

"In four days," said Gnoth. He looked at his wife. "Is that not what you said, Triw?"

"It is. I asked Niag at the Embassy to make sure. He said it would be the fourteenth day, our system, of your month of September. So I added two days to change from our number system to yours, which gives the sixteenth —"

"You added?" said Andy.

"Of course. Our fourteen is your sixteen, or — dear me — is it that your fourteen is our sixteen?"