Then Yanderman spoke softly beside him. “Aim carefully, boy. Aim at the underside. At this range your slug will strike high rather than low.”

Aim? Slug? With a start Conrad remembered. He had been given a gun salvaged from Duke Paul’s camp, an eternity and an infinity ago. Gasping, thinking the monster was almost on him, he flung down his other equipment and jammed the gun’s stock to his shoulder as Yanderman had told him.

“Work the bolt and cock the gun,” Yanderman whispered. With a handful of thumbs Conrad managed it, a full second after Yanderman. He closed one eye and squinted along the barrel. Underside? What underside did a beast like that have? It was nothing but a seething mass of-

“Now!” Yanderman barked, and more by reflex than anything else Conrad fired. The two shots sounded very slightly apart, but it wasn’t the combined noise that startled Conrad; it was the way the gun had hit back at him, bruising his shoulder.

“Hold it tighter this time,” Yanderman instructed, as coolly as if the oncoming thing had been a harmless bit of game. “Work the bolt now. Aim again.”

The second time was much better. The two shots were simultaneous. The thing uttered a pain-crazed scream and seemed to lose control of its numerous legs. It swayed and lowered some of its tentacles, revealing huge smears of bluish-grey ichor on the front of its body.

“We’re getting it!” Conrad yelled, and without waiting for Yanderman’s order fired again. A moment later, having taken more care with his aiming, Yanderman let go his own third shot.

And the thing gave a bubbling moan and fell sidelong to the ground.

Conrad jumped up, clutching his gun in both hands, to stare at the dying monster, and would have gone rashly forward had not Yanderman caught his arm.

“It may take a long time to die!” he warned. “Keep well clear of those tentacles. See what I mean?”

As though to illustrate the lesson, a lashing limb had whipped through the air and cracked whipwise to the ground at least thirty feet from the prostrate body. Conrad shivered and took a reflex step back.

“I doubt if it’s in a fit state to come after us,” Yanderman murmured. “All we have to worry about now is the reception committee. I just hope they weren’t saving this beast for some special purpose!”

Conrad blanched. Yanderman sounded appallingly serious, though it was hard to imagine what purpose a thing like this could possibly be wanted for. Nonetheless, it was true that the people who had come in pursuit from the dome at the foot of the slope and who now had seen the two newcomers were approaching with some wariness, pausing to retrieve javelins and arrows expended on the fleeing monster.

“Wait for them to react first,” Yanderman recommended. It was a strain on Conrad, but he complied.

The reaction was a peculiar one. Instead of coming close at once, or even calling out a greeting, the dome people halted the other side of the dying thing, out of reach of its tentacles, and stared up the slope. There was some discussion among themselves in tones too low for Conrad to catch, while still more people moved from the direction of the dome to join them.

“Ah, I see,” Yanderman said with a nod. “Waiting for a leader of some kind, I imagine. See the old man, the one with grey hair, being helped along by another man and a girl?” He pointed. Conrad did see the trio he was referring to.

The guess was correct. It was the old man himself who broke the spell after a moment’s quick consultation with two or three other mature men of the group. He put his hands to his mouth and called out.

“We are the descendants of Station Repair and Maintenance Crews A through G!” he shouted, his voice cracking a little. “Who are you?”

Silently uttering a prayer in memory of the Duke, who had accurately predicted this encounter, Yanderman called back. “Jervis Yanderman of Esberg and-uh-Conrad Lagwich! I hope we did right to kill this thing you drove towards us!”

Conrad gave him a respectful glance. He had barely managed to follow the old man’s pronunciation, let alone make sense of the words he used. He whispered, “What did he say they were?”

Surprised, Yanderman glanced at him. “Don’t you-? Oh, of course not. That was something I dug out of you in trance, which you don’t remember consciously. I’ll explain later.”

“Come forward and be welcome!” the old man shouted. “It’s a long time since we saw anyone from the outside world!”

“How long?” Yanderman asked. There was a pause for consultation. When the answer came, Conrad could hardly believe it.

“About four hundred and sixty years, we think!”

Now some of the old man’s more venturesome companions were cautiously closing on the collapsed monster. A last tentacle twitched, and a young man with an axe dived to the ground to avoid it, while one of his companions, wielding a single-edged sword, slashed it in two. The severed part seemed to have a life of its own, and writhed for minutes, making Conrad’s scalp crawl.

He tried to concentrate on the people instead. They were all, without exception, short and wiry and most of them were heavily tanned. Their clothing was various; some of them wore jerseys and pants of dark but clean-looking material, while others wore only a kind of kilt supplemented with belts and other body-harness. They were staring at him with just as much curiosity as he was exhibiting, but not at all uncivilly. It was as though they had been waiting personally for this moment … waiting four hundred and sixty years.

With gravity, the old man bowed to Yanderman and then put out his hand. “Do you-do you have any news of my son?” he said after a pause.

“Your son?” Yanderman said slowly. He looked around the silent group of isolates. “Was it your son who set out to cross the barrenland and reach the outside world? About twelve years ago?”

“Yes.”

“Then I am afraid he is dead. The journey was too much for him. But it was because we found his remains that we set out in search of you.” Yanderman phrased the half-truth instantly.

The old man winced and put his hand on the arm of the girl beside him for support. He said, “So! Still, if his death served to bring you here, that’s a reward.” He coughed, a dust-dry noise. “Well, no matter now. I myself am Maxall-Chief Engineer, I suppose one would say if one kept up the ancient forms. Ah … Keefe, crew boss Maintenance,” he went on, indicating the one-eyed man who had helped him out from the vicinity of the dome. “Egrin, crew boss Hydroponics-oh, and my granddaughter Nestamay here.”

The girl at his side shook back her long hair and smiled, and Conrad felt suddenly faint.

He had seen that face before. He had copied that face, struggling to make it more like Idris’s, as he carved his fine white block of soap the day of Yanderman’s arrival in Lagwich, the day his life was turned topsy-turvy for good and all.

But he had no chance to utter the words that boiled up in his mind. Nestamay was looking at him with frank physical interest, and he realised abruptly that among these lean, almost starved-looking people he was as much taller than the average as Duke Paul’s troops had been in Lagwich. Moreover, the days when he had been Idle Conrad, the dirty soap-maker, were past. Now he was Conrad the explorer of the barrenland, Conrad the gifted visionary who could remember the secrets of the past, Conrad the killer of monsters!

Well … a monster, anyway. Nobody could question this second one.

The girl was smiling broadly now, and there was no doubt what was pleasing to her. Conrad smiled back, hoping the expression wouldn’t spread into an idiot grin. He cut it short and tried to look purposeful instead, as Yanderman did.

“Maxall,” Keefe was saying, “we can’t stand out here till sunset, you know. There’s business to attend to-a little matter of an alarm which should have gone off and didn’t.”