The clocks filled every available surface. It was not a factory at all, the Stranger saw, but a warehouse: the clocks were piled up from floor to ceiling, while only in the middle was there a long workbench on which individual pieces resided, where other residents of Lugar de Espera worked with gloved hands, cleaning them. There was no sound in that room but for the distant, trapped ticks of the big clock. But there was a sort of expectant hush, as of too much time all kept in one too-small place, the sound of a coiled spring needing desperately to be sprung. There were hundreds, thousands of the things. They made the Stranger think of termite eggs.

The Hierophant rubbed his hands together. “So you see,” he said. “There really is no way out, stranger.”

The mechanic, Lucas, and the kiosk woman joined him then. They had a vague blank look in their eyes. Lucas held a wrench and the woman a large metal ladle. They hovered on either side of the Hierophant. The Stranger took a step back, and Zebulon and his minions took one step forward.

“What’s your rush?” Zebulon said, and he smiled, a little sadly. “We have time, stranger. All the time in the world.”

The Stranger backed away from them and they followed. He pushed against the doors and they opened. He noticed the quality of the light outside never changed. It was never night or high noon in that town, but an endless suffusion of grey.

“Ah, I see they’re coming,” the Hierophant said.

The Stranger turned. And he saw that Zebulon was right. From out beyond the town there came a group of passengers, trudging towards them, and he thought he recognised amidst their number one of the cooks from the train.

And also, quite recognisable among them, was the Kid.

They came slowly and unhurried across the plain and they brought their cargo with them.

“Please,” Zebulon said. “Wait.”

“Wait,” the other two said, in unison. “Wait. Wait. Wait.”

The Stranger withdrew his guns. The Hierophant opened and closed his graceful gunman’s fingers.

“What are you going to do,” he said. It was not exactly a question.

The Stranger turned again as the group of workers came nearer. He tried to cover both sides with his guns, arms spread, but he knew it was futile. The Kid was in amongst the workers. The Kid had the same dull look in his eyes as the others. The look of a person trapped forever in a passenger lounge, waiting for a train that would never come.

The Stranger shouted, “Kid!”

The Kid turned his head and looked at him. He carried a big grey cloth sack like the others. More of the eggs must have been inside.