"As near as I can," said the Monitor. "I shan't rest easy while he lives."

"But he must be harmless now or they'd not have left him."

"Is that a risk that you're prepared to take? Could you live in the same world as Dalroi now?"

"I take your point," said Korch. "There's a blaster out in the truck. Wouldn't a pistol be quicker?"

"I said a heavy blaster, d.a.m.n you! Nothing less than ashes will convince me that this limb of Satan won't reach down at me out of the darkness. Nothing less than ... " He looked round, but Korch had already gone about his errand, suddenly infected with the Monitor's more than mortal fear.

Something coming back to life ...

The Monitor did not know, could not have known that Dalroi was already conscious and listening - listening to the first pulses of a throbbing rhythm deep in his brain. Yet with some unknown, unknowable perception he felt the growing eddy and flow of menace, cold and chill upon his brow.

"Korch, where the h.e.l.l's that blaster?"

A growing pulse of something coming back to life ... something incredible ... something terrible ...

something ... G.o.d! How they underestimated the old cunning!

"Korch, for Christ's sake! He's coming round!"

Something coming back to life ... the re-lit flame in the primeval furnace ... the fantastic chain reaction of bitterest pa.s.sions in the multiple galaxies ... growing ...

"Korch! My G.o.d, Korch! If we don't kill him now we're lost for sure."

"Here's a mark seven," said Korch, returning, "and G.o.d preserve our eyeb.a.l.l.s if you fire it here at this range."

... growing ... tinged with all the old corroding bitterness and stealth, all the hatreds and the l.u.s.ts, all the bright, untarnished fury, all the unrestrained barbarity ... all the mammoth resolution to survive ...

Dalroi stirred in the bonds that held him to the trolley, and attempted to sit up. In that same instant the Monitor fired the blaster at point-blank range. The back-flash deprived him of his senses and it was a fullminute before he and Korch were able to crawl and grope, with damaged eyes, through the wreckage of the room. The further wall had mainly collapsed and the roof was torn asunder. In the room beyond were the remnants of the trolley, burnt and shattered. Of Dalroi there were no remains at all.

Korch began praying to a deity the name of which he had not used with reverence since a child. The Monitor sat staring through the grey mists in his eyes to a small part of the damaged roof through which broke a shaft of sunlight as if through a winter's sky.

"He's gone," said Korch finally. "Do you think he's going to come back?"

"Who can tell?" asked the Monitor slowly. His face was stiff with the mask of some unknown pa.s.sion.

"With that sort of h.e.l.l in him I shouldn't think there's much mischief here which could gratify his appet.i.te.

But I wonder if the people out there believe in a G.o.d, consoling and benevolent. I have a feeling they're going to need a little solace ... "