The finbacks stood, staring out into the snow, until the acting sergeant spoke from right behind them. "Well?" said Zed. "Go after it. Destroy it!"

Zotgjakt was out what remained of the door in an instant. The squires hustled after him. The Tick looked back and shouted, "Take care of yourself!"

Zed inclined his helmet for a moment before turning around. He shouldered his rifle, and turned on the NBR scope. His brisk strides became a jog when the screams from the Indian became a strangled gargle, followed immediately by shouts and more screams from the others. He burst into the chamber where the corridor met the main base. That was when a bloodied ax smashed the NBR scope.

The wind was rising, and with it came a haze of snow that did not so much fall as fly horizontally, like a filmmaker's impression of stars seen from hyperspace. "I don't get this," the Tick said. "The lady said, this chimera whasit goes dormant in the cold. So why chase it? It's not going far, and it's not like it's going to find anything else to eat, or be, or whatever. We could at least wait until we have things sorted out in the base!"

"A sudden storm like this could bury the creature in a matter of minutes," Zotgjakt said. "We can't assume we will be able to find it later. And, we can't think only of the present. What's a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand, to a Thing that woke from a sleep of a million years? That's why Zed sent us after it. If we don't destroy the Chimera this night, every generation of men to come will be in danger. There! A spoor!" A line of three or four tracks had not quite been covered or obliterated, and appeared to turn left.

"Hey," said the Flea, "which way goes back to the base?"

Even Zotgjakt paused. "No problem," he said, "just check on board GPS. That way!" He pointed confidently, but on a moment's consideration the gesture became a more tentative wave. "Well, that general direction."

They proceeded, not quite as quickly. The Tick muttered to himself: "General direction? We're practically at the south pole; how many general directions are there?"

Zotjakt paused at something dark half-buried in a rut in the snow. "The head and partial torso of a sloth," he said. "The Thing fell, and this broke off when it got back up Probably dead tissue that was never assimilated, but there's no taking chances." He gave it a short blast, then, unsatisfied at the relatively perfunctory blaze, worked the pump and gave it a full tank.

"Want another tank?" the Flea asked.

"No, but we're about due for more gas," Zotgjakt answered. The Flea went to the Tick for a replacement propellant cartridge, but by the time he got it the Albaniak was jogging after a wispy trace of a trail. The Flea broke into a full run to catch up with Zotgjakt, not slowing when he stopped. Then Zotgjakt gave an urgent signal to halt, and the Flea, trying to halt, instead slipped, fell on his rump and went sliding straight for the edge of an ice cliff. The Flea dug into the ice with both hands, and managed to stop himself just when his feet went over the edge, but in his desperate maneuvers the cartridge he had risked his life to deliver was flung away to land somewhere in the snow.

"All right," the Flea said as he scrambled to his feet, "looks like this solved itself..."

"Maybe," Zotgjakt said. Turning, he surveyed what could be seen of the Antarctic landscape. Over the crest of a ridge, windmills were spinning; it did not help his mood to realize that they put the base in nearly the opposite direction from what he had thought. Nearer at hand were slumps and bumps in ice and snow, with occasional protrusions of rock. His visor locked on the one spot where the surface was almost completely flat. That was enough for him to pump the flamethrower, while the Flea dived to dig for the propellant cartridge. Just as Zotgjakt took aim, the Tick caught up, stopping right on the level patch of ground.

"Hey guys," he said, "what's u-?"

The Tick was flung aside by the Thing that erupted from the snow. Its form could scarcely be called a shape, for its wild assemblage of jumbled and distorted parts defied any description, unless it was simply that it had the rough semblance of a snake. It reared straight up, meters high, then lunged forward like an inchworm doing somersaults. Zotgjakt fired in quarter-second blasts, like a gunslinger emptying a six shooter. His first and strongest shot only threw up a cloud of steam from the hiding place the Thing had vacated, and each one thereafter was shorter and more diffused. Even so, he set the chimera alight several times over, yet it only came faster. His last shot did little more than spray a puddle of fire at his feet, as the Thing reared up in a column of fire.

Zotgjakt would surely have been overwhelmed, either crushed or simply knocked from the cliff, if the Thing had not shied away from the steam of his otherwise ineffectual shot. It was scarcely a second of respite, but time enough for the Flea to thrust the gas cartridge into Zotgjakt's hand. The Thing resumed its onslaught, stretching higher and higher still. Then the cartridge went into place with a "whuff", and Zotgakt fired a continuous stream of flame strong enough to send the Thing reeling with its force alone. Before the flamethrower sputtered dry, the Thing staggered its final, fateful step, and toppled into the unguessable abyss. The Flea, looking over the edge from where he crouched, glimpsed the Thing as it fell, twisting, not merely in painful writhing, but with every appearance of purposeful undulation, as if trying to swim like a porpoise through the air. Then the flaming shape faded into a spark, and he was already retreating at the warning creak of the warming ice.

No one looked back until all three stood on the ridge overlooking the windmills. The cliff had shed at least five meters, and large chunks were still falling at irregular intervals. "Did we kill it?" the Tick panted.

"What do you mean `we'?" the Flea objected.

"Dead or alive, it's buried where nobody can get to it," Zotgjakt said. "That was a berg worth of ice, and God only knows how deep..." He crossed himself, then belatedly returned his companions' stares with a glare. "What? I'm Catholic. There's lots of Catholic Albanians. Ever heard of Mother Theresa?"

They trudged to the base of the windmills. "You know," Zotgjakt said, "that was an ambush? And there's something else: That Thing meant to go over. But its survival instincts were too strong to carry off a suicide mission, not without a moment of hesitation. So why would a Thing like that- well, do a thing like that?" Visors traveled, and lit on a dented hatch.

Zotgjakt reloaded, while the Tick edged toward the hatch. The squire only got within a meter of the hatch before it flew open, at the passage of a small Thing that leaped straight up. It was barely a meter tall, with a terror bird head and a stumpy bird's foot that pointed backwards. It flipped and came hurtling down straight at the Flea, who matter-of-factly spiked it like a volley ball, on a trajectory straight into the blades of the windmill that was spinning too quickly.