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“Open your eyes, my jewel See your mother and your world!”

Mother!

He opened his eyes, and it took a moreen scale, curled-down head with its sniffing nostrils and shining, wide-open eyes, darkness filled with strange coluathered on the floor, even a gentle, probing tail-tip as thick as hisbits of…of…shell, his brain supplied…flicking bits of shell off his haunches

Wave after wave of love, delight, contentment rolled out of her and over him This was better than any of the drea deep in his throat answering her powerful one They prruround al

Two other eggs stirred One rolled into the other with a soft tap

The shifted egg opened like a jagged-toothed s outdrove its front, and it collapsed forward for a round

It squawked He listened to the echoes and detere one, and that a vast distance—to his few er than it was high

The hatchling hardly noticed its s fro tail He had eyes only for its crest, a short rise of flattened horn sweeping back from its eyes

Every instinct screeched: Threat, threat, threat!

The Red snorted liquid out of his nose He opened his eyes and blinked The tiny sharp spur crowning his nose turned toward the hatchling The Red gathered hi angrily against the base of his crest

The hatchling found his own flaps answering the sound

Tchkka-tchak tchkka-tchak tchkka-tchak!

The Red lowered his head and exploded toward hiape, fans wide and

He shifted to dodge him, but the clumsy new body didn’t react the way it did in drea and —

—suddenly they were suspended in space