"Huh?" Martin said. "We were all still around the last time thatI looked—a couple of days ago."

"No matter. I can take care of that later," Tlingel replied. "Iwas misled by the appearance of this place."

"Oh. It's a ghost town. I backpack a lot."

"Not important. I am near the proper point in your career as aspecies. I can feel that much."

"I am afraid that I do not follow you."

"I am not at all certain that you would wish to. I assume thatyou intend to capture that Pawn?"

"Perhaps. Yes, I do wish to. What are you talking about?"

The beer can rose. The invisible entity took another drink.

"Well," said Tlingel, "to put it simply, your—successors—growanxious. Your place in the scheme of things being such an importantone, I had sufficient power to come and check things out."

"'Successors'? I do not understand."

"Have you seen and griffins recently?"

Martin chuckled.

"I've heard the stories," he said, "Seen the photos of the onesupposedly shot in the Rockies. A hoax, of course."

"Of course it must seem so. That is the way with mythicalbeasts."

"You're trying to say that it was real?"

"Certainly. Your world is in bad shape. When the last grizzlybear died recently, the way was opened for the griffins—just as thedeath of the last aepyornis brought in the yeti, the dodo the LochNess creature, the passenger pigeon the sasquatch, the blue whale thekraken, the American eagle the cockatrice—"

"You can't prove it by me."

"Have another drink."

Martin began to reach for the can, halted his hand and stared.

A creature approximately two inches in length, with a human face,a lionlike body and feathered wings was crouched next to the beer can.

"A minisphinx," the voice continued. "They came when you killedoff the last smallpox virus."

"Are you trying to say that whenever a natural species dies out a