Millon took pictures, his flashgun illuminating the dim intenor of the scriptorium. I shivered and decided I needed to get away from the oppressiveness of the interior. Bowden and I walked to the front of the building and sat among the rubble on the front steps, just next to a fallen statue of Socrates that held a banner proclaiming the value of the pursuit of knowledge.

'Do you think we'll have trouble persuading Shgakespeafe to come with us?' he asked.

As if in answer, Shgakespeafe walked cautiously from the building. He earned a battered suitcase and blinked in the harsh sunlight. Without waiting to be asked he got in the back of the car and started to scribble in a notebook with a pencil stub.

'Does that answer your question?'

The sun dropped below the hill in front of us and the air suddenly felt colder. Every time there was a strange noise from the hills Shgakespeafe jumped and looked around nervously, then continued to scribble. I was just about to fetch Stig when he appeared from the building carrying three enormous leather-bound volumes.

'Did you find what you needed?'

He passed me the first book, which I opened at random. It was, I discovered, a Goliath biotech manual for building a Neanderthal. The page I had selected gave a detailed description of the Neanderthal hand.

'A complete manual,' he said slowly. 'With it we can make children.'

I handed back the volume and he placed it with the others in the boot of the car. There was another unearthly wail in the distance.

'A deadly groan,' muttered Shgakespeafe, sitting lower in his seat, 'like life and death's departing!'

'We had better get going,' I said. 'There is something out there and I've a feeling we should leave before it gets too inquisitive.'

'Chimera?' asked Bowden. 'To be honest we've seen the grand total of none from the moment we came in here.'

'We do not see them because they do not wish to be seen,' observed Stig. 'There are chimera here. Dangerous chimera.'

'Thanks, Stig,' said Millon, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief, 'that's a real help.'

'It is the truth, Mr de Floss.'

'Well, keep the truth to yourself in future.'

I shut the rear door as soon as Stig had wedged himself in next to Shgakespeafe and climbed in the front passenger seat. Bowden drove off as rapidly as the car would allow.

'Millon, is there any other route out that doesn't take us through that heavily wooded area where we found the other cars?'

He consulted the map for a moment.

'No. Why?'

'Because it looked like a good place for an ambush.'

'This really gets better and better, doesn't it?'

'On the contrary,' replied Stig, who took all speech at face value, 'this is not good at all. We find the prospect of being eaten by chimeras extremely awkward.'

'Awkward?' echoed Millon. 'Being eaten is awkward?'

'Indeed,' said Stig, 'the Neanderthal instruction manuals are far more important than we.'