“Don’t make so much noise, Papa.” Alice waved her finger at me. She had seen me frozen, half way across the barrier. “Bronty’s afraid of you.”

“He won’t do anything to her.” Professor Yakata said.

I could see for myself that the dinosaur wasn’t doing anything. But what would happen if her grandmother came on this scene?

Afterwards the scientists argued the point endlessly. Some said Bronty just needed a change of diet, while others that he just trusted Alice more than he trusted us. Whatever the reason, the crisis ended.

Now Bronty has become entirely domesticated. Although he is now more than thirty meters long he likes nothing better than to take Alice for a ride. One of my assistants has constructed a special saddle and when Alice comes to the pavilion Bronty inserts his enormous neck into the corner and takes in his triangular teeth the saddle standing there and carefully lifts it to his shiny black back. Then he and Alice go for a ride around the pavilion or go swimming in the pool.

The Tewteqs

As I had promised Alice I took her along when I went to Mars for a conference.

The flight was uneventful. True, I do not take weightlessness well and therefore preferred to keep to the acceleration couch, but my daughter spent all her time flitting around the ship and once I was called to remove her from ceiling of the control room because she had wanted to press the red button the one for emergency deceleration. But the pilots were not really very angry with her.

On Mars we looked around the city, went with a tour group into the desert and even visited the Grand Cavern. But after this I had no more time to be with my daughter and I took her to the local boarding school for the week. A great many specialists from Earth work on Mars, and the Martians have helped us construct an enormous dome for a children’s camp. The camp is a fine place there are real Earth trees growing there. Sometimes the kids go on excursions.