“Guns ain’t no use without shells, and shells don’t last forever.”
Neither do buried shells. They found not one.
Of his own wisdom Graypate stubbornly withheld but a single item until the day when Speedy and Redhead and Blacky chivvied it out of him. Then, like a father facing the hangman, he gave them the truth about babies. He made no comparative mention of bees because there were no bees, nor of flowers because there were no flowers. One cannot analogize the nonexistent. Nevertheless he managed to explain the matter more or less to their satisfaction, after which he mopped his forehead and went to Pander.
’These youngsters are getting too nosy for my comfort. They’ve been asking me how kids come along.”
“Did you tell them?”
“I sure did.” He sat down, staring at the Martian, his pale gray eyes bothered. “I don’t mind giving in to the boys when I can’t beat ’em off any longer, but I’m durned if I’m going to tell the girls.”
Pander said, “I have been asked about this many a time before. I could not tell much because I was by no means certain whether you breed precisely as we breed. But I told them how we breed.”
“The girls too?”
“Of course.”
“Jeepers!” Graypate mopped his forehead again. “How did they take it?”