Cretaceous Sea

'Some kind of Saurornithoidid,' said Rick, 'a small carnivore. ' Saurornithoides' means 'birdlike reptile,' so Joe wasn't that far off.' Rick lifted the animal and slung it over his shoulder. It was about five feet long, but most of that was a long neck and an even longer tail.

'Is the cook really going to serve that?' asked Con, taken aback.

'I thought you'd eat anything,' said Joe.

Con flashed him a dirty look.

'Pandit won't get it until after I dissect it,' said Rick.

'Oh gross!' said Con. 'I'll eat lots of rolls instead.'

'I AM MOST gratified by your addition to our menu,' said Pandit, eyeing Rick's catch with appreciation. 'Two trips, and each time you return in triumph.'

'Just doin' my job,' replied Rick, grinning broadly.

'And now I must do mine,' said Pandit as he surveyed the dinosaur. He took up his carving knife. 'This will be most challenging.'

'Hold it,' said Rick. 'I want to study this before you start slicing and dicing.'

'I hope you are a quick study, dinner is in two hours.'

Rick looked at his specimen, feeling chagrined by its ignoble fate. Oh well, it wouldn't keep for two weeks without refrigeration. He made mental notes as he did a quick field examination. The oily feathers were either light or medium brown, giving the animal a mottled ap-pearance. They were like the short breast feathers of a duck, designed for warmth, not flight. Rick estimated the dinosaur's weight to be around forty pounds. The animal looked built for speed, slim with long legs. The feet had three forward-facing toes and a fourth vestigial one in the rear. All the toes were clawed, but the inner claw was enlarged and curved. It was a slashing claw, which was held above the ground when the animal walked or ran. The forearms looked designed for catching prey. They were long and ended in hands with three long fingers tipped with long sharp claws.

Rick turned his attention to the head. Mounted on a long, supple neck, it, too, seemed designed for catching prey. The skull was slender, with a long snout. The brain-case was large for a dinosaur; Saurornithoidids were the intellectuals of the Cretaceous. Rick counted thirty-eight pointed teeth in the upper jaw, forty in the lower. These were sharp and curved, with serrations on the back. The most prominent features of the head were the very large yellow-brown eyes, the eyes of a creature of the night. Their position allowed binocular vision.

Rick saw a predator adapted to hunt active small prey, probably the nocturnal mammals of the period. It looked quick and agile. The feathers indicated that it was warm-blooded.

Conscious that Pandit was impatiently watching, he opened the chest cavity. The two items that interested him most were the heart and the stomach contents. The heart, as he suspected, had four chambers. It was another indication the animal was warm-blooded. Rick slit open the stomach next. It contained several partly digested hairy bodies.

'Must you do this in my kitchen?' protested Pandit. 'Those little vermin are most unsanitary.'

'Have some respect for your ancestors.'

'Those cannot be my ancestors,' said Pandit. 'My an-cestors got away.' Rick placed the remaining viscera in a bucket for later study. 'You sure know how to spoil a guy's fun, Pandit. I trust you don't want the head, hands, and feet.'

'Please take them and let me cook.'

Rick cut off his specimens, then turned the severed head in his hand. 'I think I'll name this Noctecorreptus greightonae.'

'How modest,' said Pandit, 'You should name it after yourself.'

'That's not allowed.'

'Why not?'

'It's against the rules of taxonomy.'

'So you honor Mr. Greighton instead.'