Morale has never been so high. Our past sufferings, the comrades we left on the roadside, the tornadoes, the diseases, the lawyers, are nothing but a thinning fog, a floating film of dust. It is there ! Thirty feet above our heads, hidden in a recess of the wall. Only its scaly tail is showing. It wiggles it, to provoke us. It knows we are here. After what we've been through, it should be a piece of cake. A small animal to seize and stuff into a bag. The texts tell otherwise, obviously ; but they're only texts, written by authors aware of the power of words, and who knew that a climax is required for a story to be popular. A great catastrophic finale, where disrespectful heretics get their comeuppance. We are modern. We know better. The telescopic grip that we've been lugging across a whole continent unfurls slowly, its base riveted into the bedrock. We stop it at fifteen feet, for last-minute tests. Front, back, half-turn, open, close, it's working. We also unfold the net that will cover the hole in due time. Before, you had to build a scaffolding, climb on top of it and put your hand in the hole. Many heroes have died here, mostly from infected bites and broken heads. Today, our only real fear is to hurt it, in spite of its rumoured invulnerability. We spread a thick mat on the ground, just in case. We perform an ultimate successful test, with the grip and the net together, and the telescopic arm rises again. Up there, the tail stops moving and disappears in the hole. The tradition never mentions an exit door, so we are confident. And at least we see it. It's watching us ! Its green eyes are dazzling, but the grip will be insensitive to them. Another