A collection of short stories from X Minus One

Chapter one. A gun for a Dinosaur.

                                      A short collection of X Minus One stories

                                                     Abridged by James Ness

                                       Originally written by X Minus One writers

                 X Minus One™ is available online and on the Apple Podcast app.

                                                             Chapter 1

                                               Gun for a Dinosaur

                                In a big house near a river, two men are talking...

"Just a whiskey please,no soda."

"Ice, Mr. Rivers?"

"Oh Good Heavens no, I've been in America for some time now, but not for that long."

"Well, to a fine dinosaur he-"

"Well, just a moment, Mr. Seligman. I... Won't take you hunting in the late Mesozoic era."

"Why not?"

"... How much do you weigh, Mr Seligman? About 9 stone?"

"One hundred and thirty pounds."

"I thought so, that's not heavy enough."

"But your advertisement... You said "Safari's arranged to any time period!""

"Well I'll take you to any time period in the Semazoic. I'll get you a shot at any Intelledont or even a Mammoth or a Mastodon. And they have fine heads. But I'll jolly well not take you to the Jurassic or the Cretaceous. You're just too small."

"Well... What's my weight got to do with it?"

"Oh, now look here, old boy, what did you think you were going to shoot those dinosaurs with? Come and take a look at this case. See that in there? That's my own gun. A continental 600. That shoots a pair of nitro expressed cartridge's the size of banana's. It's designed for knocking down elephants, not just wounding them, but to knock them over."

"Well, I've handled guns before..."

"Ohhh? Well now, I've been guiding hunting parties for over 20 years. But I've never known a man your size who could handle a 600. You wouldnt be able to handle it. This is the only gun that could take down a reptile. No Mr. Seligman, I won't take anyone hunting dinosaurs who can't handle a 600. Now... Lets have another round of drinks and i'll tell you why..."

                                                                          ****

You see, I went into the partnership with the Raja about five years ago. I call him that because he's the hereditary monarch of Janpur; it means nothing, of course. We both wanted to do a bit of hunting again. And Africa's all played out; it's too civilized now. So when we heard of Professor Prochaska's time machine at Washington University, we caught the next plane to St. Louis. The foundation administering the machine had worked out an arrangement splitting the time between scientific parties and hunters who wanted to try their luck at prehistoric game. Hunters paid through the nose, of course, to support the project.

Well, it was about our fifth safari that Courtney James showed up. He's what you chaps call a playboy -- a big bloke, handsome in a way, florid, beginning to turn to fat. He was on his fourth wife -- and, when he showed up at the office with a blonde, I assumed that this was the fourth Mrs. James. He left her in the outer office and corrected my assumption.