‘Appears to be some kind of electric shear,’ said Thorn, then he pointed to the row of black cubes to which the shear was wired. ‘Homemade cells. God knows what they’re made of.’

‘And that is a microwave oven, if I’m not mistaken,’ said Cormac, indicating a cylindrical canister on the floor.

The creature opened the canister and dropped the sections of human arm inside.

‘They’re . . . they’re cooking . . .’ Chaline could not go on.

‘More like softening, at these temperatures,’ said Thorn. He did not seem the slightest bit bothered by what he was seeing. ‘Human flesh is about the only form of protein and fat around, here on the perimeter. Most supplies were probably destroyed and whatever was left they probably used up long ago.’

Cormac surveyed the plants all around them. Thorn looked as well.

‘Not worth them thawing vegetable matter either. That would be a waste of energy. Just not worth the effort with all this flesh about,’ the agent said.

‘Yeah,’ said Gant, ‘but what kind of creature can survive on radioactive human flesh?’

Cormac had a horrible suspicion he might know.

‘Oh God.’

Cormac glanced at Chaline with irritation. But she was not viewing the scene before them, but was looking behind her. Cormac turned fractionally before Gant did. Behind them stood a second creature, as if it had been there for some time, watching them. Gant raised his gun, but Cormac had his shuriken to hand before him. It flashed through the air with its chainglass blades retracted. There was a crack. Gant swore as his gun clattered on the floor. Cormac laid a restraining hand on Thorn as the shuriken hovered in the air above him. Thorn lowered his gun. Cormac hit the recall on its holster and it shot home, glad to be out of the cold.

‘No violence,’ he said, then put some lightness in his voice. ‘They’re only eating dead people, not killing live ones.’

They all slowly stood up. Cormac glanced behind and saw that the other creature had seen them too, and was also standing. ‘Right, we’ll head back for the shuttle. They’ll either follow us or they won’t; we cannot compel them. But if they do come, we’ll allow them aboard.’

‘What are they, Cormac?’ asked Chaline.

Now she had asked, Cormac wanted to answer her—but he had to be sure. If they were what he thought they were, then that meant there would be an awful lot more questions—like, where now was a certain extragalactic creature? A creature with a body consisting of four kilometre-wide spheres of flesh joined in a row, and how had it survived an antimatter explosion? But that was another story, one he suspected he would have to be telling soon enough.

‘I cannot be sure of what they are. We’ll see back at the shuttle, if they come along.’