Delayed Hard Photons from Gamma-Ray Bursts

The delayed hard (up to 25 GeV) photons observed more than an hour following a gamma-ray burst on February 17, 1994 may result from the collisions of relativistic nucleons with a dense cloud, producing $\pi^0$. The required cloud density is $\sim 2 \times 10^{11}$ cm$^{-3}$. This cloud may be the remains of the disrupted envelope of a neutron star, and may survive as an excretion disc of $\sim 10^{14}$--$10^{15}$ cm radius around the coalescing binary.