N. Pavlov - "Chicks" (1928)

INTRODUCTION 

I can't find any information on N. Pavlov, even a first name. "Chicks" was initially published in "Knowledge is Power" (Знание - сила), 1928, No 6. and illustrated by P. Staronosova. It has been republished in Russian in the anthology "Monster Cave: Forgotten Paleontological Fiction, Book II". published by Salamandra P.V.V., and we have used one of their footnotes. The text with illustrations can be found here:

https://flibusta.club/b/334054/read

Throughout the text, numerals have been spelled out, for example, "three" for the "3" which appears in the original text.

CHICKS

An Amateur Poultry Farmer

-- "Ivan Semyonovich, happy housewarming!"

-- "Please, please, Pyotr Andreyevich," -- an elderly man jumped out to meet his guest. -- "I'm in the middle of taking care of some things around the house. You can go to your room for now: I'll be done in five minutes -- and ready for you."

-- "What a ceremony! I just wanted to see how you were settling in and chat. What are you doing? It's not a secret?"

-- "I've put my eggs in the incubator. But I've already finished."

-- "What, you have an incubator? Show me. I've never seen it."

The host took his guest to a rough-looking log cabin at the back of the yard. In the middle of a large room there were three closed boxes, next to which a whole system of thermometers, regulators, and rheostats was affixed.

-- "My goodness, what a massive setup you've got here! An entire power plant. I imagined it being more simple."

-- "It's my invention. But it's not all that complicated. Here, look."

Ivan Semyonovich began to show him.

-- "And what, you breed a lot of chickens then?"

-- "Well, I'm not pursuing quantity. Industrial breeding of chickens doesn't interest me. I do experiments. For example, I'm currently studying the effect of electric light on the embryos inside the eggs. I've drawn an analogy with plants. It's known that electric lighting has a very favorable effect on the germination and development of plants. Why not try the same effect of electricity on the embryos of eggs?"

-- "Yes, you have become a real scientist!"

-- "Well, I'm far from a scientist. But, I am working, and I have achieved something. I was able to halve the incubation period of chicken eggs by exposure to electric light. In its presence, the chickens bred in this fashion grow unusually quickly. Let's go, I'll show you my first accelerated brood."

And he dragged his guest into a barn attached to the house.

-- "Here are the chicks that hatched in twelve days. They hatched from their eggs three days ago and -- look -- they're already fledging."

Pyotr Andreyevich looked with surprise at the tall, seemingly month-old chickens.

-- "It's amazing. And it's because of the electricity?"

-- "You find another explanation."

-- "Well, you know, I have some interesting material for your experiments. I recently dug up six of some kind of large eggs in the ground while hunting. Do you want me to bring them? Maybe you can get something out of them. They're well preserved. I'll tell you how I found them. We were walking through the forest, along the edge of a small, deep ravine. The ground collapsed under us, and together with the dogs, we fell three sazhens down onto the snow lying at the bottom of the ravine.[Translator's note: Sazhen: An antiquated unit of measurement equal to seven feet. The USSR adopted the metric system in 1925.] When we got up, I saw that the dogs were licking the remains of some eggs that were crushed by our fall. Right there in the sandy layer exposed from the fall, I found the eggs."

-- "How do you explain that they are so well preserved?"

-- "I've thought about it and I think I found an explanation. The eggs were lying in a dry sand bed. They were protected from the winter frosts by the sand bed's position, which was lying at such a depth where the earth does not freeze. They were protected from the summer's heat by the snow that lies in the forest ravines all year round. Thus, a constant, and rather low temperature was maintained in the sand bed where the eggs were stored. When I dug them up, despite the fact that it was hot that day, my hands were cold. Their temperature was somewhere around zero."

-- "Hm... A low and, most importantly, constant temperature... The conditions are good. Well, let's do an experiment. Maybe something will hatch. Bring them. In any case, these eggs are interesting to look at, anyways."

  

Fossilized Eggs

Exactly a week later, Pyotr Andreyevich appeared with a large basket containing six large eggs with rough shells, unusually thick and layered.

-- "Well, what do you think - do you think it will work?"

-- "Why not? Plant seeds retain the ability to germinate for an incredibly long time. It's possible to assume the same survival rate in animal embryos. Preserved eggs are good. And I'm assuming it will be a complete success."

-- "And what will come out?"

-- "I can't say. There's no doubt that the eggs are of prehistoric origin and belong to lizards. This means that we'll hatch one of the many species of dinosaurs -- giant lizards, teleosaurs -- the ancestors of our crocodiles, and pterosaurs -- flying lizards... But," Ivan Semyonovich interrupted himself, "instead of guessing, let's incubate the eggs. When the time comes, we'll know everything."

He inspected the incubator, checked all the bulbs, thermometers, regulators, rheostats. Then, filling the box with dry sand, the two friends placed the eggs in it. Ivan Semyonovich turned on the current and set the reflectors.

-- "Well, it's all done. We'll wait."

  

An Extraordinary Brood

After twenty days, while tending to the eggs in the morning, Ivan Semyonovich noticed a rustle in one of them. It was as if someone was drilling the shell from the inside.

Not believing himself, he put the egg back and listened again after about two minutes. The scratching was distinct.

Ivan Semyonovich pierced the thick shell from the outside.

The shell cracked, and the tip of a thick triangular beak appeared from the hole. Ivan Semyonovich's heart swooned...

The beak moved, breaking the shell in different directions. Ivan Semyonovich wanted to help the "chick", but he was afraid of hurting him instead of helping, and remained an observer.

About five minutes of vigorous effort and the top of the shell was broken. The newborn came into the world.

Ivan Semyonovich saw a long, gray head that filled the entire egg with a narrow, elongated muzzle like that of a lizard, ending in a horned, beak-shaped outgrowth. A huge mouth extended out to its neck, complete with several large, sharp teeth growing in the back of it. Large bulging eyes, covered with some kind of thick film, were surrounded by yellow ring-like circles. From under the head that covered the entire chick, bony legs with long, tenacious digits could be seen from below. And at the top, peeking out from on both sides, three hooked, bony claws were already present.

The chick was so disgusting, and its huge unblinking eyes breathed such malice that Ivan Semyonovich almost threw the egg on the floor.

-- "This is some real -- 'reptile'" -- he grumbled.

The newborn soon completely freed itself from the shell, and began to straighten itself out. Suddenly, the chick revealed itself to be very large, as if it grew in the five to eight minutes since it was born. Dark membranous wings, stretched behind it. Between its legs, a long bare tail stretched out with some kind of enlargement on its end.

It felt cramped in its box, which could hold about forty chickens, and it was strange to recall that it just came out of an egg that was now several times smaller than it. The chick, helping itself with its wings, tried to rise on its weak legs, but immediately fell again.

Ivan Semyonovich transplanted him into a larger box and ran to the telephone to delight Pyotr Andreyevich.

He dropped everything and an hour later was at the incubator. He caught Ivan Semyonovich fussing with the fourth chick, whom he freed from captivity.

-- "Show me, show me what you have. What kind of birds are they?"

But, in seeing the monstrously ugly "birds", he recoiled.

-- "These are some kind of monsters... But what are they? What are they called?"

Ivan Semyonovich assumed a solemn air.[Salamandra note: A typo of "Semyon Ivanovich" in the original printing.]

-- "Allow me to introduce -- the only living representatives of the flying lizards that died out in prehistoric times -- the pterosaurs of the Mesozoic Era."

-- "Well, but, can such ancient animals live in our environment?"

-- "Who knows! After all, we managed to bring them to life by means of electricity. Of course, one cannot rely on reproduction for their prolonged existence. But that doesn't really grieve me. I'm already happy that we've managed to see with our own eyes what no one else has seen. We'll only let them live until tomorrow... It will be a great triumph for science to have the opportunity to examine their corpses."

-- "But the question is: what to feed them, where to find suitable food for them?"

-- "I'm not worried about that. Do you see their beaks? They are superbly adapted to find food in the ground. And our earthworm? It traces its ancestry further back than the Jurassic era and was undoubtedly a familiar food for the ancestors of our chicks. Let's dig up some worms for them now. Take a shovel."

Gathering a large can of worms, the friends initiated the feeding.

As Ivan Semyonovich expected, things went well. At first, the lizards resisted, but after two or three portions, they began to open their mouths themselves.

  

A New Breed

Having finished the feeding, the two friends remembered that there were two unhatched eggs still in the incubator. Pyotr Andreyevich was worried.

-- "Why did that happen? Are these two eggs dead?"

-- "Don't despair," -- Ivan Semyonovich reassured him. -- "A little delayed, that's all. The remaining eggs are probably some other young, or belong to another species. But I’ll encourage them now, and by the evening, we'll have more pupils.

Ivan Semyonovich dug the eggs out of the sand that filled the incubator and placed them on top, directing the electric lamp reflectors at them.

All day, the "lizard breeders" were occupied with the pterosaurs. Clumsy, inactive at first, the lizards grew stronger and stronger every hour.

Now they were cramped inside a big box. In addition, they were completely unsuited for sitting on a smooth floor. The claws on their forelimbs indicated that their ancestors were accustomed to resting, hanging from the branches of trees, in the absence of which they had to fasten suspended beams under the ceiling.

This work and the incessant feeding of insatiable lizards took up all the time until evening.

How many times during this period they watched the incubating eggs - it's hard to count.

But in the evening, only when they started to lose hope, Ivan Semyonovich noticed a crack on one of the eggs and heard scratching from inside the egg.

He lightly cracked open the egg, from which the head of the same monster crawled out, snapping his huge wide jaws, filled to the brim with sharp triangular teeth.

-- "The same thing..." -- Pyotr Andreyevich drawled somewhat disappointedly.

-- "No, not at all 'the same thing,'" Ivan Semyonovich objected. -- "See -- there's no beak, the jaws are flatter, the teeth fill the entire mouth, there's no tail. Furthermore -- look at the skin: it's not smooth, like its elders, but scaly. All this suggests that we have before us another type of flying lizard -- a pterodactyl."

Before they had time to arrange the pterodactyl properly, the last egg began to peck, from which the second of these chicks hatched.

Having transplanted the pterodactyls, which turned out to be both larger and stronger than pterosaurs, into a box, they kept them there for two hours, and then let them hang on a beam, next to the first brood.

It was past midnight when Ivan Semyonovich and his guest could go to bed.

  

A Prehistoric Picture

After the turmoil of the day, the two friends woke up unexpectedly late in the morning - about eight o'clock.

At that minute, without washing up, they ran to the incubator.

Even before they entered, they saw an extraordinary turmoil through the windows. Dark webs of wings fluttered across the room in all directions.

-- "What's going on in there? What's all that commotion?" said Pyotr Andreyevich.

-- "They're probably hungry. Let's go and see how they look and then feed them."

There was indeed commotion in the cabin. Flapping their wings, with a hoarse hiss, the lizards were rushing around the room, now and then grazing something. They, as if looking for something, darted back and forth around the room, stretching their huge heads forward, spreading their immense wings and maneuvering their tense tail like a rudder. But every time they came back to the same corner. After looking closely, the new arrivals understood the situation a little bit. There was a fight.

The two pterodactyls, pressed against the corner, hung on the beams, and were being attacked by the pterosaurs. With open mouths and burning eyes, stretching their tails out, with an extended membrane on their ends, hissing hoarsely like snakes, they swooped down on the pterodactyls. They did not retreat, freeing one of their claws and with a responding hiss, met their attackers with two rows of bared teeth and blows from a powerful wing, which often knocked their enemy onto the floor. The tight corner made it impossible for the pterosaurs to exploit their superior numbers. They would attack and in turn, the pterodactyls invariably fought off their attack.

Despite the fact that the combatants made no sounds other than hissing, there was a "stir" in the room from the whistling and flapping of wings, the falling of grazed objects, the clicking of teeth and the noise of grasping and falling lizards.

The lizards were not the same today as they were yesterday.

From weak chicks, they had turned into great, horrifying dragons overnight.

Dark leathery wings, eyes burning with terrible malice like they were on fire, skeletal legs and arms, bare rat tails, the grin of countless teeth... All this, with the enormous size of the lizards, made a strong impression, causing no longer disgust, but fear.

A fantastic sound blew from pterosaurs enraged in the excitement of battle. As if the ghosts of long-dead prehistoric eras stood up in this room, as if a mighty iguanodon or brontosaurus was about to burst in, knocking the walls down...

Overwhelmed by this feeling, Ivan Semyonovich and Pyotr Andreyevich stopped, and looked at their pets with apprehension..

-- "How they've grown overnight!" -- whispered Pyotr Andreyevich. -- "Eventually, these pterodactyls will have a wingspan of more than a sazhen. What can we do with them if they continue to grow like this?"

-- "But look, what a fight!" -- said Ivan Semyonovich. -- "We inadvertently caused it by placing two different species side by side..."

-- "Who could have thought? They aren't even days old."

-- "I had to take into account the action of lights."

-- "We need to separate them at once," said Pyotr Andreyevich.

-- "Under no circumstance," -- Ivan Semyonovich stopped him. -- "Don't touch them. Be careful. It's dangerous to agitate them."

-- "But the older ones will kill the younger ones -- there are two of them against four".

-- "Well, it's hard to tell who's who. Pterosaurs are both smaller and weaker. Pterodactyls hold up much better. But the fight must be stopped somehow. Let's try to bring them food, they're probably hungry."

  

Dangerous Pets

They already approached the door, when the noise of the lizards suddenly intensified and some kind of wheezing was heard.

Ivan Semyonovich turned back and couldn't bear it. One of the pterodactyls snatched the beak of a pterosaur with its sharp-toothed mouth, and was trying to gnaw through. It wheezed, fighting with its wings and legs, blood dripping from its beak..

-- "Yes, they're really going to kill each other!" -- he shouted, and with a shovel, rushed up to the fighting lizards.

With blows from the shovel, he forced the pterodactyl to release its enemy. Having released its enemy, the lizard opened its bloodied mouth, for two seconds looked around with its burning eyes, and suddenly, breaking off the beam, rushed at Ivan Semyonovich like a thrown stone. Another pterodactyl jumped behind him.

Before Ivan Semyonovich had time to figure out what was happening, blows of hard wings were raining down on him, and sharp teeth tore his jacket to shreds.

-- "Pyotr Andreyevich, the door, the door!" he shouted, fighting back with a shovel.

But Pyotr Andreyevich had no time to listen: the pterosaurs were attacking him.

Looking for something to protect himself from the lizards that had drawn his blood, Ivan Semyonovich tore off the lid of the incubator that was standing next to him and tried to make his way to the door. But the lizards, as if understanding his intentions, moved the front to the other side and forced him to retreat.

-- "Under the table, Ivan Semyonovich. Under the table!"

He looked: Pyotr Andreyevich, was hiding under the table, defending himself with a shovel and advised him to do the same. But there was no other table nearby. 

"They’ll kill you," flashed through his head. "You’ll be drained and gnawed upon, like from a vampire. What to do? Scream, they won't hear."

And just then it came to mind:

-- "Fire -- fire is the only salvation."

Stopping his defenses for a second, he pulled some matches from his pocket.

Scraps of newspapers were scattered on the floor. Withdrawing his shield to cover his back, Ivan Semyonovich threw himself on the floor and, picking up several pieces of paper, lit them.

The flaming paper forced the lizards to retreat. Increasing the size of his torch, Ivan Semyonovich rushed to the aid of Pyotr Andreyevich.

Waving the makeshift torch, the two friends reached the door and rushed out.

  

The Death of the Chicks

-- "To tell you the truth, I was frightened, Pyotr Andreyevich. Those devils looking like that, I thought they wouldn't let us out. If you hadn't figured out to light the paper, it could have ended very badly."

-- "Well, it didn't exactly have a good end now."

-- "But what are we going to do with them next? How can we feed them and where can we keep them? They need to be separated."

-- "We'll have to get rid of them. No matter how interesting it is to have antediluvian animals, but to make a menagerie out of my house and to constantly risk being maimed... I won't agree to this."

-- "But what can we do? We can't kill them?"

-- "Who said anything about that! They must be taken to the zoo."

-- "Well, if you'll pass it on - let's hurry, otherwise they will either gnaw on each other or die of hunger."

The two friends no sooner reached the grate, when a frantic cry came from the yard.

-- "Fire... Burning..."

Ivan Semyonovich clutched his head.

-- "Did I set it on fire?... What about the pterosaurs?..." He rushed into the yard.

The hatchery was full of smoke. Thinking only about the lizards, Ivan Semyonovich jumped to the door, but such a sheaf of flame was thrown towards him that he had to retreat.

The dry building blazed from all sides at once. Nothing could be done.

The firefighters who showed up found only burning firebrands.

Everything was over.