them, virtue consisted in being birdlike, and fairness didn't enter into it.
Well, I stood on the edge of that lava flow until my skin smoked, but I couldn't see how to reach that feather. Finally I decided to give up. I was walking away, cutting my feet on the sharp rock, when suddenly it hit me: The rock I'd been standing on, this whole time, was nothing other than lava that had gotten cold and solidified.
This was high in the mountains, where glaciers and snowfields soared above me like palace walls. I climbed up onto a particularly steep slope and began pounding the snow with my tail until I started an avalanche. Millions of tons of ice and snow thundered down onto the lava flow, throwing up a tremendous blast of steam. For three days and nights I could not see the claws in front of my face for all of the steam, but on the third day it finally cleared away, and I saw a bridge of hardened lava running straight to that black rock. I scampered across (to the extent that a dinosaur can scamper), snatched that golden feather, ran back, and stood in the snow for a while cooling my feet off. Then I marched back to the King of the Birds, who was, of course, astonished.
Next I found myself in the care of the mammals, who were almost all shrews. They led me up into the foothills, to the mouth of a great cave. 'Your job,' said the King of the Shrews, 'is to wait here for Dojo and then defeat him in single combat.' Then all the shrews went away and left me there alone.
I waited in front of that cave for three days and three nights, which gave me plenty of time to scope the place out. At first I was rather cocky about this challenge, for it seemed the easiest of the three; while I had no idea who or what Dojo was, I knew that in all the world I had never met my equal when it came to single combat. But on the first day, sitting there on my tail waiting for Dojo, I noticed a sprinkling of small glittering objects on the ground, and examining them carefully I realized that they were, in fact, scales. To be precise, they were dinosaur scales, which I recognized as belonging to Pteranodon, Ankylosaurus, and Utahraptor, and they appeared to have been jarred loose from their bodies by powerful impacts.
On the second day I prowled around the vicinity and found tremendous gashes in tree trunks, which had undoubtedly been made by Utahraptor as he slashed wildly at Dojo; other trees that had been snapped off entirely by the club at the end of the tail of Ankylosaurus; and long scratches in the earth made by the talons of Pteranodon as she dove again and again at some elusive opponent. At this point, I became concerned. It was clear that all three of my opponents had fought Dojo and lost, so if I lost also (which was inconceivable), I would be even with the others; but the rules of the contest stated that in the event of a tie, all four dinosaurs would be eaten, and the Kingdom of Reptiles would be no more. I spent the night fretting about who or what the terrible Dojo was.
On the third day nothing happened, and I began wondering whether I should go into the cave and look for Dojo. So far the only living thing I had seen around here was a black mouse that occasionally darted out from the rocks at the cave's entrance, foraging for a bit of food. The next time I saw that mouse, I said (speaking softly so as not to scare it),
'Say, mouse! Is there anything back inside that cave?'
The black mouse sat up on its haunches, holding a huckleberry between its little hands and nibbling on it.
'Nothing special,' he said, 'just my little dwelling. A fireplace, some tiny pots and pans, a few dried berries, and the rest is full of skeletons.'
'Skeletons?' I said. 'Of other mice?'
'There are a few mouse skeletons, but mostly they are dinosaurs of one kind or another, primarily meat- eaters.'
'Who have become extinct because of the comet,' I suggested.
'Oh, pardon me, sir, but I must respectfully inform you that the deaths of these dinosaurs are unrelated to the comet.'
'How did they die, then?' I asked.
'I regret to say that I killed them all in self-defense.'
'Ah,' I said, not quite believing it, 'then you must be . .
'Dojo the Mouse,' he said, 'at your service.'
'I am terribly sorry to have bothered you, sir,' I said, using my best manners, for I could see that this Dojo was an unusually polite sort, 'but your fame as a warrior has spread far and wide, and I have come here humbly to seek your advice on how I may become a better warrior myself; for it has not escaped my notice that in the postcomet environment, teeth like carving knives and six tons of muscle may be in some sense outmoded.'
What follows is a rather long story, for Dojo had much to teach me and he taught it slowly. Sometime, Nell, I will teach you everything I learned from Dojo; all you need do is ask.
But on the third day of my apprenticeship, when I still had not learned anythingexcept humility, good manners, and how to sweep out the cave, I asked Dojo if he would be interested in playing a game of tic-tac-toe. This was a common sport among dinosaurs. We would scratch it out in the mud. (Many paleontologists have been baffled to find tic-tac-toe games littering prehistoric excavations and have chalked it up to the local workers they hire to do their digging and hauling.)
In any case, I explained the rules of the game to Dojo, and he agreed to give it a try. We went down to the nearest mud flat, and there, in plain view of many shrews, I played a game of tic-tac-toe with Dojo and vanquished him, although I will confess it was touch-and-go for a while. It was done; I had defeated Dojo in single combat.
The next morning I excused myself from Dojo's cave and went back down to the beach, where the other three dinosaurs had already gathered, looking much the worse for wear as you can imagine. The King of the Shrews, the King of the Birds, and the Queen of the Ants converged on us with all their armies and crowned me King of the Reptiles, or Tyrannosaurus Rex as we used to say. Then they ate the other three dinosaurs as agreed. Besides me, the only reptiles left were a few snakes, lizards, and turtles, who continue to be my obedient subjects.
I could have lived a luxurious life as King, but by now, Dojo had taught me humility, and so I went back to his cave immediately and spent the next few million years studying his ways. All you need do is ask, Nell, and I will pass his knowledge on to you.
Judge Fang goes for a dinner cruise with a Mandarin;
they visit a mysterious ship;
a startling discovery;
a trap is sprung.
Dr. X's boat was not the traditional sort of wallowing pleasure barge that was fit only for the canals and shallow lakes of the Yangtze's sodden delta; it was a real ocean-going yacht built on Western lines. Judging from the delicacies that began to make their way up to the foredeck shortly after Judge Fang came aboard, the vessel's galley had been retrofitted with all the accoutrements of a professional Chinese kitchen: umbrella-size woks, gas burners like howling turbojets, and extensive storage lockers for innumerable species of fungi as well as bird nests, shark fins, chicken feet, fcetal rats, and odds and ends of many other species both rare and ubiquitous. The courses of the meal were small, numerous, and carefully timed, served up in an array of fine porcelain that could have filled several rooms of the Victoria and Albert Museum, delivered with the precision of surgical air strikes by a team of waiters.
Judge Fang got to eat this way only when someone really important was trying to taint him, and though he had never knowingly allowed his judicial judgment to be swayed, he did enjoy the chow.
They began with tea and some preliminary courses on the foredeck of the yacht, as it made its way down the Huang Pu, with the old European buildings of the Bund on the left, lit up eerily by the wash of colored light radiating from the developments of Pudong, which rose precipitously from the bank on the right. At one point, Dr. X had to excuse himself belowdecks for a few moments.
Judge Fang strolled to the very bow of the yacht, nestled himself into the acute angle formed by the converging rails, let the wind tug at his beard, and enjoyed the view. The tallest buildings in Pudong were held up by huge aerostats-vacuumfilled ellipsoids hundreds of stories above street level, much wider than the buildings they
