At that moment there came a grinding noise from the vessel. Both looked back.

A circular section in the hull was turning.

"The airlock," she gasped. "It's opening."

The door of the airlock swung back, apparently on old-fashioned hinges, to reveal a dark hole from which, for a few seconds, flames poured.

"They can't be human," she said. "Not if they live in fire."

No further flames issued from within the ship but from the darkness of the interior there came tiny flashes of light from time to time.

"Like fireflies," whispered Mavis Ming.

"Or eyes," said Argonheart, his attention held for the moment.

"The feral eyes of wild invaders." Miss Ming seemed to be quoting from one of her girlhood texts.

An engine murmured and the ship shivered. Then, from somewhere inside the airlock, a wide band of metal began to emerge.

"A ramp," said Mavis Ming. "They're letting down a ramp."

The ramp slid slowly to the ground, making a bridge between airlock and Earth, but still no occupant emerged.

Mavis cupped her hands around her mouth. "Greetings!" she cried. "The peaceful people of Earth welcome you!"

There was still no acknowledgement from the ship. Grainy dust drifted past. There was silence.

"They might be afraid of us," suggested Mavis.

"Most probably they are ashamed," said Argonheart Po. "Too abashed to display themselves."

"Oh, Argonheart! They probably didn't even see your dinosaurs!"

"Is that an excuse?"

"Well…"

Now a muffled, querulous voice sounded from within the airlock, but the language it used was unintelligible.

"We have no translators." Argonheart Po consulted his power rings. "I have no means of making him speak any sort of tongue I'll understand. Neither have I the means to understand him. We must go. Lord Jagged of Canaria usually has a translation ring. Or the Duke of Queens. Or Doctor Volospion. Anyone who keeps a menagerie will…"

"Sssh," she said. "The odd thing is, Argonheart, that while I can't actually understand the words, the language does seem familiar. It's like — well it's like English — the language I used to speak before I came here."

"You cannot speak it now?"

"Obviously not. I'm speaking this one, whatever it is, aren't I?"

The voice came again. It was high-pitched. It tended to trill, like birdsong, and yet it was distinctly human.

"It's not unpleasant," she said, "but it's not what I would have called manly." She was kind: "Still, the pitch might be affected by a change in the atmosphere, mightn't it?"

"Possibly." Argonheart peered. "Hm. One of them seems to be coming out."

At last a space traveller emerged at the top of the ramp.

"Oh, dear," murmured Miss Ming, "what a disappointment! I hope they're not all like him."

Although undoubtedly humanoid, the stranger had a distinctly birdlike air to him. There was a wild crest of bright auburn hair, which rose all around his head and created a kind of ruff about his neck; there was a sharp pointed nose; there were vivid blue eyes which bulged and blinked in the light; there was a head which craned forward on an elongated neck and which would sometimes jerk back a little, like a chicken's as it searched for grain amid the farmyard's dust; there was a tiny body which also moved in rapid, poorly coordinated jerks and twitches; there were two arms, held stiffly at the sides of the body like clipped wings. And then there was the plaintive, questioning cry, like a puzzled gull's:

"Eh? Eh? Eh?"

The eyes darted this way and that and then fixed suddenly upon Mavis Ming and Argonheart Po. They received the creature's whole attention.

"Eh?"

He blinked imperiously at them. He trilled a few words.

Argonheart Po waited until the newcomer had finished before announcing gravely:

"You have ruined the Commissar of Bengal's dinner, sir."

"Eh?"

"You have reduced a carefully planned feast to a rabble of side-dishes!"

"Fallerunnerstanja," said the visitor from space. He reached back into the airlock and produced a black frock coat dating from a period at least 150 years before Mavis Ming's own. He drew the coat over his shirt and buttoned it all the way down. "Eh?"

"It's not very clean," said Mavis, "that coat. Is it?"

Argonheart had not noticed the stranger's clothes. He was regretting his outburst and trying to recover his composure, his normal amiability.

"Welcome," he said, "to the End of Time."

"Eh?"

The space traveller frowned and consulted a bulky instrument in his right hand. He tapped it, shook it and held it up to his ear.

"Well," said Mavis with a sniff, "he isn't much, is he? I wonder if they're all like him."

"He could be the only one," suggested Argonheart Po.

"Like that?"

"The only one at all."

"I hope not!"

As if in response to her criticism, the creature waved both his arms in a sort of windmilling motion. It seemed for a moment as if he were trying to fly. Then, with stiff movements, reminiscent of a poorly controlled marionette, it retreated back into its ship.

"Did we frighten him, do you think?" asked Argonheart Po in some concern.

"Quite likely. What a weedy little creep!"

"Mm?"

"What a rotten specimen! He doesn't go with the ship at all. I was expecting someone tanned, brawny, handsome…"

"Why so? You know these ships? You have met those who normally use them?"

"Only in my dreams," she said.

Argonheart made no further effort to follow her. "He is humanoid, at least. It makes a change, don't you think, Miss Ming, from all those others?"

"Not much of one though." She shifted a gluey foot. "Ah, well! Shall we return, as you suggested?"

"You don't think we should remain?"

"There's no point, is there? Let someone else deal with him. Someone who wants a curiosity for their menagerie."

Argonheart Po offered his arm again. They began to wade towards the dusty shore.

As they reached the higher ground they heard a familiar voice from overhead. They looked up.

Abu Thaleb's howdah hovered there.

"Aha!" said the Commissar of Bengal. His face, with its beard carefully curled and divided into two parts, set with pearls and rubies, after the original, peered over the edge of the air car. "I thought so." He addressed another occupant, invisible to their eyes. "You see, Volospion, I was right."

"Oh, dear." Mavis tried to rearrange her disordered dress. "Doctor Volospion, too…"

Volospion's tired tones issued from the howdah. "Yes, indeed. You were quite right, Abu Thaleb. I apologize. It is a spaceship. Well, if you feel you would like to descend, I shall not object."

The howdah came down to earth beside Argonheart Po and Miss Ming. Within, it was lined with dark green and blue plush.

Doctor Volospion lay among cushions, still in black and gold, his tight hood covering his skull and framing his pale face. He made no attempt to move. He scarcely acknowledged Miss Ming's presence as he addressed Argonheart Po:

"Forgive this intrusion, great Prince of Pies. The Commissar of Bengal is bent on satisfying his curiosity."

Argonheart Po made to speak but Abu Thaleb had already begun again:

"What a peculiar odour it has — sweet, yet bitter…"

"My creations…" said Argonheart.

"Like death," pronounced Doctor Volospion.

"The smell is all that is left," insisted Argonheart now, "of the dinner I was preparing for your party, Abu Thaleb. The ship's landing destroyed almost all of it."

Climbing from his howdah the slender commissar clapped the chef upon his broad back. "Dear Argonheart, how sad! But another time, I hope, you will be able to re-create all that you have lost today."

"It is true that there were imperfections," Argonheart told him, "and I would relish the opportunity to begin afresh."