A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales

"Hey! Who you are?" said Tsitsav to the gang as they converged from different directions on the track of the fleeing Gordonian.

The gang slowed uncertainly. Tsitsav danced around to place himself between them and Kranakiloa, who had vanished into the bushes.

"You go away!" said Tsitsav. "I am responsible for him."

Meehan and Fisher stepped forward, swinging their clubs. Tsitsav advanced too, baring his teeth, though he weighed only half what they did.

There was an instant of furious whirling action, a thudding of bats in the hands of five brawny adolescents. Then they stepped back. Meehan wrung blood from his right arm, which had been gashed by Tsitsav's teeth. Tsitsav lay on the sward, his limbs thrashing and tail flopping.

The sound of footsteps brought the boys around. Riegel and Lofting were bearing down on them, the latter armed with a rolling pin. The Meehan gang, despite their advantage in weight and armament, raced off into the darkness, scattering. The older men ran after them until they were winded i and the youths had outrun them and vanished.

"C'mon back — see if he's alive —"gasped Lofting.

He and Riegel returned, breathing heavily. The rain started to come down hard. Riegel said:

"Did you see — any of their faces?"

"No — they had some kind of mask — or hood."

Riegel raised his voice over the storm. "I can guess who they were."

"So — can I but — you'd have a hell of a time proving it."

They got to where Tsitsav lay. Lofting bent over and said: "Get my bag. You'll find it inside the front door. And tell Alice to keep the others in."

When Riegel got back, Lofting looked up at him, water dripping from his goatee. "I'll check, but it'll just be a formality."

"Dead?"

"Good and dead. Skull smashed."

"Isn't there — I mean, he's more like a reptile, and they're pretty tenacious ..."

"No. His brains are squashed and his heart's stopped." Lofting got instruments out of the bag.

"Shall I call police?"

"Just a minute. Let me think," said Lofting. He continued his examination. The downpour slackened. At last Lofting spoke:

"If we call the cops, they'll arrest our young friends and there'll be a big stink, but nobody'll be convicted. We can't swear we recognized anybody because of those bags over their heads. Even if we could, you know what juries are. Electrocute one of our poor dear boys for socking some slimy reptile from outer space?"

"We have to start somewhere with equal enforcement of law."

"What law? The state legislature debated a bill to count off-earthers as people at the last session, but did nothing. Some politicians used just that argument about our poor dear boys. No doubt such a law will be passed, but not in time to help Tsitsav."

"Well, do we just let those little obscenities get away with it?"

"I'm thinking."

"What in hell shall I tell Uzhegh?"

Lofting continued: "If this comes out, it'll break up the Conference. The Ahlians won't sign the Constitution, not that I'd blame them. A lot of the others will pull out too. Away goes Interplanetary union! That's too important. I don't think it's worth revenge for Tsitsav's murder, even if we could get revenge."

"Well then, what? Shall we pretend it was an accident?"

"You're catching on, Norm. First I'll heave Tsitsav into the pool." The body flopped on to the concrete below. "Now let's catch that fool Gordonian. Maybe he doesn't know enough to spoil our scheme."

They dragged a whimpering Kranakiloa out of the bushes. The Gordonian could hardly talk intelligently — not that its talk was ever very intelligent. All they got from it was that it had seen Tsitsav running after it, had started for the shrubs, and then had been frightened out of its few wits by the thunder and hidden itself.

"Go on in the house, Krana," said Riegel, "and get your ice cream and cake." When the Gordonian had left, he said to the doctor: "It apparently never even saw the five masked figures. Now what?"

"We'll say Tsitsav climbed the tower looking for Kranakiloa and fell into the empty pool."