"By Heaven, you snake-legged bagpipe, I'm the captain here and you'll do as I say."
"Up your rectifier." Urushkidan was emptying his ash tray in search of tobacco shreds.
The airlock clanged behind Dyann. "I'll be damned," murmured Ray. "She really is going out after them."
"It is a good idea," said Urushkidan, a trifle more amiably. "Tey habe sensed te radiations of our ship and are probably coming to crack it open."
"Oh, well, if that's all—Huh?" Ray sprang to the nearest port and looked out.
"Gannydragons," he groaned. "I thought they'd been exterminated."
"Tose two don't seem to know it," said Urushkidan uneasily. "All right, I'll calculate your function for you."
There were two of the monsters moving toward the boat. They looked like thirty feet of long-legged alligator, but the claws and beaks had ripped metal in earlier days of colonization. Dyann lifted her rifle and fired.
A dragon screamed, thin and faint in the wispy atmosphere, and turned his head and snapped. Dyann laughed and bounded closer. Another shot and another....