A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales

All right, honey, so I'm a beast and a bounder. But I'm not going back to Jack's party and I won't apologize. I'm going to take you home and go home too.

Sure, I know it was only a joke. But, darling, if we're going to get married, you've got to learn that I won't take practical jokes. Big ones or little ones; now or any time in the future.

Call me a stuffed shirt or say I have no sense of humor; it won't change me. And if you've got any ideas of reforming me after we're married, you'd better drop them.

Why? Oh, I never did like them much, and after what happened on Suomi ...

Haven't I told you, ever?

... Well, this was my first expedition. I'd just graduated with a major in journalism. This was just after the Raskolnikov drive made it possible for private persons to send out interstellar expeditions and also get them back in the same generation. I'd studied biology under Otis May and got a letter from him asking me to drop in.

You don't know him, do you? He's short and bald, and fifteen years ago he was very strong and muscular. He's full of energy and bustle; pleasant enough, but strait-laced. His idea of an evening's fun is to go to the Y.M.C.A. for a workout on the parallel bars.

With him were two others. One was a tall, pale, round-shouldered fellow with a profile like that of a polar-bear: a big pointed nose sticking out forward and no chin or forehead to speak of; sandy hair and bulging blue eyes. I got the impression of a frail man. May said:

"Mr. Fish, this is Roy Laskaris. Used to be a student of mine. Roy, Mr. Win thro p Fish."

The nose stuck out a big-knobby hand and grabbed mine in a grip that practically disjointed it. He leaned forward and shouted, spraying me with saliva: "Glad to know you, Roy! You just come along with us, we'll show the gaw damn world how to explore! Laskaris is Greek, ain't it?"

"Uh — yes," I said.

"Swell! Great minds, great heroes, great businessmen, all Greeks! A Greek can lick three Armenians and five Jews on a trade! Heh-heh-heh! We'll show 'em, Roy old boy old boy!"

Fish gave a loud braying laugh and broke the remaining bones in my hand with a final squeeze. May had spoken as if I ought to have known who he was. Evidently, he was not so frail as he looked; quite the contrary. His speech was upper-class New York City with a pseudo-British pronunciation grafted on it, but he didn't care anything about grammar. It gave a queer effect. I didn't much like his starting right off with a crack about the sharpness of my ancestors. After all they'd been in this country four generations, so I was no more "Greek" than Theodore Roosevelt was Dutch.

"And this is Dr. Edward Sander," May went on. He referred to the third man: a short middle-aged fellow with a square face, a gray mustache, and longish gray hair. Dr. Sander shook hands in a quiet mousy way and murmured something conventional.

We sat down with the others looking at me. May said: "Roy, I asked you here to offer a job on an interstellar expedition that Mr. Fish is financing."

So that explained that. I was awfully surprised. Here was I, a kid just out of college without even a job, though I was dickering with the Record for one. I said:

"That's wonderful, Professor May, but what sort of job? I don't know what I could do on such an expedition. I'm no scientist."

"Secretary," said May. "Keep records, journals, and so on. Write the official newspaper stories for release on return. Anything else that comes up. Expedition like this, everybody has to double in brass with a dozen jobs. Ship's too small to hold all the specialists we could use."

"How did you happen to pick me?" I asked.

I didn't want to protest my unworthiness too hard, but I didn't want to get in on false pretences and disappoint them. I was also curious, being kind of puny, not much of a mixer, and no outdoorsman at that time.

"Had my eye on you," said May. "Need people with no close relatives, for one thing. Time-lag, you know. Mustn't mind going away for years. Also we need them young, so they're adaptable and their broken bones heal fast."

"Where's it to?" I asked.

"Keid A Two, or Omicron Two Eridani A Two," he said. "Sixteen light-years. With the Raskolnikov drive, takes a year and a half, objective time, to get there, though it'll seem like nothing at all to you. One previous expedition there, Jap. Only preliminary recon; superficial. We hope to make a thorough ecological study."

"What are the — ah — terms?" I said.

I knew leaders of expeditions are always trying to save money by getting people to work for them free. I didn't know if I wanted to pop off for years for nothing but board and maintenance.

May looked at Fish, who seemed to have gone into a trance. Fish woke up and said: "Huh? Whazzat?"

"He wants to know about salary," said May.

"Oh. Don't worry, old boy old boy," shouted Fish. "I'll pay you. Same as an instructor gets here at the University. I don't believe in hiring people for nothing on these parties. If you don't pay 'em, you haven't got any hold on 'em. They're liable to walk out over some gaw damn silly little argument. Well, whaddaya say, old fruit? Are you with us?"

"Well — may I have time to think it over?" I said.

May began: "Don't see why not —"but Fish interrupted.

"Naw, you can't," he said, pronouncing "can't" with an "ah."

"Make up your mind now, old crumb. An explorer's gotta be a man of decision, what? So that's one way of screening out the right kind of people, huh? What'll it be, Roy old boy?" And then came that asinine laugh.

"Okay," I said. "I'll come."

Fish jumped up and came around. I thought he meant to attack me, but all he did was wring my poor limp hand again and pound my back.

"That's the kind of guy I like," he said. "Makes up his mind. Like that other Greek hero, Ulysses? Yah, I think I'll call you Ulysses, huh? Heh-heh-heh."