Its eyes gleamed with red hate as they gathered in a circle around it, avoiding the snapping jaws and the flipping of the barbed tail which now dripped oily yellow drops.
“Bet that’s poison,” suggested Rogan. “Nice critter- hope they don’t grow any bigger.”
“What’s the matter?” Cully came tearing down the slope, one of the green ray guns in his band. “What’s making all that racket?”
Rogan moved aside to display the injured dragon. “Native telling us off.”
“Usually,” Kimber broke in, “I don’t believe in shooting first and investigating afterward. But this thing certainly hasn’t any better nature to appeal to-nearly stripped the ear off my head before I knew he was around. Can you shoot it, Jorge, without messing it up too much? Tas, here, probably will want to take it apart later to see what makes it tick.”
The biologist was squatting at a safe distance watching the convulsive struggles of the dragon with fascinated eyes.
“Yes, please do not destroy it utterly. A snake-a flying snake! But that is not
possible!”
“Maybe not on Terra,” Kimber reminded him. “What can we say is possible or impossible here? Jorge, put it out of its misery!”
The green ray clipped the top of the creature’s head and it went limp on the sand. Tas approached it gingerly, keeping as far as he could from the tail barb still exuding the yellow venom. Rogan went back down the beach to retrieve his spider collection, and Dard picked up and wiped his knife clean.