Memory was a strange thing to it. Pictures and concepts occasionally connected in its hard fibrous brain, but it did not understand those connections. Its imperative was simply to eat and to grow, yet it had recognized some of those creatures out there.

‘Jay, darling.’

Those two words were somewhere deep inside it, and caused in it something that was like - yet unlike - hunger. The creature that had attacked it at the last, had aroused a deep fear and loathing somehow connected to another darkness and a time of long hunger. That creature had fed it, yet it had also hurt it, long before. It now wanted that creature, as it wanted all creatures. It wanted to feed on that creature, but it wanted it to be a long feeding: a long dismantling and a slow feast. But it was not strong enough just now. Its other part was dead, killed by that same creature. It must get away, go deep and feed on the things there, then return strong and ready for . . . more feeding.

In the darkness the Skinner shifted on its spatulate legs, and licked its black tongue over its teeth. Can’t get me here, it thought in its disconnected way, but I’ll get you. I’ll pull off your skin and chew on your bones. I’ll have you wriggling in my mouth, and I’ll have you scream like a unit for coring . . . Unit for coring? The Skinner was puzzled for a moment. It didn’t quite understand those . . . words. Where had they come from?

‘Hey, Spatterjay Hoop! We’ve got a present for you!’

It was the creature accompanying the pain giver: the one that had burnt the Skinner with red sunlight. The Skinner concentrated its black glare on the circle of light far above it. The circle was blotted out for a moment, and then there came a sound. It was a buzzing humming vibration. Again the Skinner was puzzled, until it found a connection, deep, so deep. From that connection rose an atavistic fear, and it backed deeper into the crevice in which it had wedged itself, again licking its tongue over its teeth. Something hard landed on its tongue, and it lifted that something up before its eyes and tried to focus on it with what little light was available. It could just make out something many-legged, a thorax, and a body like a severed thumb, painted with lines in luminous paint.

Then came the pain.