Warmth flowed into me. The blackness receded....
Against the farther wall something lay, a thing bafflingly human.... a great-headed thing with a tiny pallid body coiled beneath it. It was squirming toward me....
"Destroy it!" Lhar communicated.
The pistol in my hand thundered, bucking against my palm. Echoes roared against the walls. I fired and fired again until the gun was empty....
"It is dead," Lhar's thought entered my mind.
I stumbled, dropped the pistol.
"It was the child of an old super-race—a child not yet born."
Can you conceive of such a race? Where even the unborn had power beyond human understanding? My mind wondered what the adult Alien must be.
I shivered, suddenly cold. An icy wind gusted through the temple. Lhar's thought was clear in my mind.
"Now the valley is no longer a barrier to the elements. The Other created fog and warmth to protect itself. Now it is dead and your world reclaims its own."