JUNIOR
By ROBERT ABERNATHY
Illustrated by WEISS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy January 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.]
All younger generations have been going to the dogs ... but this onewas genuinely sunk!
"Junior!" bellowed Pater.
"Junior!" squeaked Mater, a quavering echo.
"Strayed off again—the young idiot! If he's playing in the shallows,with this tide going out...." Pater let the sentence hang blackly.He leaned upslope as far as he could stretch, angrily scanning theshoreward reaches where light filtered more brightly down through themurky water, where the sea-surface glinted like bits of broken mirror.
No sign of Junior.
Mater was peering fearfully in the other direction, toward where, asdaylight faded, the slope of the coastal shelf was fast losing itselfin green profundity. Out there, out of sight at this hour, the reefthat loomed sheltering above them fell away in an abrupt cliffhead, andthe abyss began.
"Oh, oh," sobbed Mater. "He's lost. He's swum into the abyss and beeneaten by a sea monster." Her slender stem rippled and swayed on itsbase and her delicate crown of pinkish tentacles trailed disheveled inthe pull of the ebbtide.
"Pish, my dear!" said Pater. "There are no sea monsters. At worst," heconsoled her stoutly, "Junior may have been trapped in a tidepool."
"Oh, oh," gulped Mater. "He'll be eaten by a land monster."
"There ARE no land monsters!" snorted Pater. He straightened his stalkso abruptly that the stone to which he and Mater were conjugallyattached creaked under them. "How often must I assure you, my dear,that WE are the highest form of life?" (And, as for his world andgeologic epoch, he was quite right.)
"Oh, oh," gasped Mater.
Her spouse gave her up. "JUNIOR!" he roared in a voice that loosenedthe coral along the reef.
Round about, the couple's bereavement had begun attracting attention.In the thickening dusk, tentacles paused from winnowing the sea fortheir owners' suppers, stalked heads turned curiously here and there inthe colony. Not far away, a threesome of maiden aunts, rooted en brosseto a single substantial boulder, twittered condolences and watchedMater avidly.
"Discipline!" growled Pater. "That's what he needs! Just wait till I—"
"Now, dear—" began Mater shakily.
"Hi, folks!" piped Junior from overhead.
His parents swiveled as if on a single stalk. Their offspring wasfloating a few fathoms above them, paddling lazily against the ebb;plainly he had just swum from some crevice in the reef nearby. In onepair of dangling tentacles he absently hugged a roundish stone, wornsensuously smooth by pounding surf.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"
"Nowhere," said Junior innocently. "Just playing hide-and-go-sink withthe squids."
"With the other polyps," Mater corrected him primly. She detested slang.
Pater was eyeing Junior with ominous calm. "And where," he asked, "didyou get that stone?"
Junior contracted guiltily. The surfstone slipped from his tentaclesand plumped to the sea-floor in a flurry of sand. He edged away,stammering, "Well, I guess maybe ... I might have gone a little waystoward the beach...."
"You