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. I took another sip
and returned my attention to the progress of whatever it was that had moved
from flat reality to 3-D. A gunmetal snout protruded from between a rock and
a shrub; the pale eyes blazed above it; blue saliva dripped from the dark
muzzle and steamed upon the ground. It was either quite short or very
crouched, and I couldn't make up my mind whether it was the entire crowd of
us that it was studying or me in particular. I leaned to one side and caught
Humpty by the belt or the necktie, whichever it was, just as he was about to
slump to the side..
"Excuse me," I said. "Could you tell me what sort of creature that is?"
I pointed just as it emerged-many-legged, long-tailed, dark-scaled,
undulating, and fast. Its claws were red, and it raised its tail as it raced
toward us.
Humpty's bleary eyes moved toward my own, drifted past.
"I am not here, sir," he began, "to remedy your zoological ignor- My
God! It's-"
It flashed across the distance, approaching rapidly. Would it reach a
spot shortly where its cunning would become a treadmill operation-or had
that effect only applieD to me on trying to get away from this place?
The segments of its body slid from side to side, it hissed like a leaky
pressure cooker, and steaming slaver marked its trail from the fiction of
paint. Rather than slowing, its speed seemed to increase
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