[Dark Saint Alaick]

When he reached his house and unlocked the door of the laboratory, he found that four tadpoles, in all, had hatched. Before they expired in the unfamiliar element of air, they had demolished a quantity of apparatus.
Mrs. Danner knocked on the door. "What's been going on in there?"
"Nothing," her husband answered.
"Nothing! It sounded like nothing! What have you got there? A cat?'
"No--yes."
"Well--I won't have such goings on, and that's all there is to it."
Danner collected the debris. He buried the tadpoles. One was dissected first. Then he wrote for a long time in his notebook. After that he went out and, with some difficulty, secured a pregnant cat. A week later he chloroformed the tabby and inoculated her. Then he waited. He had been patient for a long time. It was difficult to be patient now.
When the kittens were born into this dark and dreary world, Mr. Danner assisted as sole obstetrician. In their first hours nothing marked them as unique. The professor selected one and drowned the remainder. He remembered the tadpoles and made a simple calculation.