The ground shook. High foliage burst open and large trees swayed aside, their branches crashing to the ground. A shape vast beyond imagination thundered into the clearing. For a moment it paused, a four legged monster a hundred feet high. Its low head was twelve feet thick, with a flat shiny snout. A broad eye opened, several feet across, casting about myopically. A ring of fibers sprouted, each pencil-thick, flexing slightly as the head moved. Slaker fired. The head shot forward, thudding into the ground thirty feet in front of him. The body moved, rotating grandly, as another member lifted and swung forward. They were not heads, but feet! Five feet with eyes. The monster was a hugely sophisticated adult of the quinquepedalian species Slaker had killed. * * * * * The man finally saw the futility of his stand, and ran. The towering giant followed, feet jarring the ground with rhythmic impacts, hoofs leaving nine-foot indents. It spun majestically, a dance of terrible gravity, pounding the brush and trees and dirt beneath it into nothingness. As each foot lifted, the heavy skin rolled back, uncovering the eye, and the sensory fibrils shot out. As each foot fell, the hide wrinkled closed, protecting the organs from the shock of impact. The creature was slow, but its feet were fast. The fifth fall came down on the running figure, and Slaker was gone. The quinquepedalian hesitated, one foot raised, searching. It was aware of them; it would not allow the killers of its child to escape. The eye roved, socketless, its glassy stare directed by a slow twisting of the foot. The circle of filaments combed the air, feeling for a sound or smell, or whatever trace of the fugitives they were adapted to detect. After a few minutes the eye closed and the fibrils withdrew. The foot went high; plummeted. The earth rocked with the force of the blow. It lifted again, to smash down a few feet over, leaving a tangent print. After a dozen such stomps the creature reversed course and came back, making a second row ahead of the first. This, Tinnerman realized, was carpet-bombing; and the two men were directly in the swath. If they ran, the five-footed nemesis would cut them down easily. If they stayed, it would get them anyway, unless one or both of them happened to be fortunate enough to fit into the diamond between four prints. The odds were negative. And quite possibly it would sense a near miss, and rectify the error with a small extra tap. They waited, motionless, while it laid down another barrage, and another. Now it was within fifty feet, mechanically covering the area. Behind it a flat highway was developing. Saturation stomping, Tinnerman thought, and found the concept insanely funny. Man discovers a unique five-footed monster--the Quink--and it steps on him. Would the history books record the irony?