“Dan der Grimnebulin?” said the man. “Who you share your workspace with? The renegade theorist. The guerrilla scientist with a talent for self-importance. What’s he been up to?” The man smiled coldly.

“Right, listen. He got commissioned by…well, he got commissioned to look into flight, and he got hold of shitloads of flying things to do research on. Birds, insects, aspises, fucking everything. And one of the things he gets is this big caterpillar. Damn thing looks like it’s going to die for the longest time, then ‘Zaac must’ve worked out how to keep the thing alive, because suddenly it starts growing. Huge. Fucking…this big.” He held out his hands in a reasonable estimate of the grub’s size. The man opposite him was looking intently at him, face set, hands clenched.

“Then it pupates, right, and we were all sort of curious about what’d come out. So we get home one day and Lublamai-the other guy in the building, you know-Lublamai’s lying there, drooling. Whatever the fucking thing was that hatched out, it fucking ate his mind…and…and it got away and the damn thing’s loose.

The man jerked his head in a decisive nod, quite different from his earlier casual invitations to information. “So you thought you’d better keep us informed.”

“Shit, no! I didn’t think…even then I thought we could deal with it. I mean Jabber, I was pissed off with Isaac, I was completely at a loss, but I thought maybe we could find some way of tracking the damn thing down, fixing Lub…Well, first off there starts being more and more of these things, these stories about people’s…minds going…But the main thing was that we tracked down who got these things to ‘Zaac. It’s some fucking clerk nicking them from R amp;D in the sodding Parliament. And I’m thinking ‘Fuck, I don’t want to muck about with the government.’ ” The man on the bed nodded at David’s judgement. “So then I’m thinking we’re way, way out of our depth…”

David paused. The man on the bed opened his mouth and David cut him off.

“No, listen! It doesn’t stop there! ‘Cause I heard about the riot down in Kelltree, and I know you’ve banged up the editor of Runagate Rampant, right?” The man waited, flicked imaginary lint from his jacket in an automatic motion. The fact had not been advertised, but the ruined abattoir left no doubt that some pit of sedition had been raided in Dog Fenn, and rumours abounded. “So one of Isaac’s friends is a writer on the damn thing, and she’s contacted the editor-I don’t know how, some fucking thaumaturgy-and he’s told her two things. One is that the inquisitors…your lot…think he knows something he doesn’t, and the other is that they’re asking him about some story in Double-R and the contact for the story, who presumably does know whatever they think he does, is called Barbile. So get this! That’s who our clerk nicked the monster caterpillar from!”

David paused at this, waited for it to impact on the man, then continued.

“So it’s all connecting and I do not know what’s going on. And I don’t want to. I can just see that we’re…treading on your toes. Maybe it’s a coincidence but I can’t see it myself…I don’t mind chasing monsters but I am not getting on the wrong side of the fucking militia, and the secret police, and the government and everything. You have to clear this shit up.”

The man on the bed clasped his hands. David remembered something else.

“Damn, yeah, listen! I’ve been racking my brains, trying to work out what’s going on, and…well, I don’t know if this is right, but is it something to do with crisis energy?”

The man shook his head very slowly, his face guarded, not comprehending. “Go on,” he said.

“Well, at one point during the run-up to all this, Isaac lets slip…sort of hints…that he’s built a…a working crisis engine…d’you know what that means?”

The man’s face was set hard and his eyes were very wide.

“I am a liaison for those who report from Brock Marsh,” he hissed. “I know what it would mean…it cannot…is it…Wait a minute, that would make no sense…is it…is it true?” For the first time, the man seemed truly rattled.

“I don’t know,” said David hopelessly. “But he wasn’t boasting…he sort of mentioned it in passing…I just…have no idea. But I know that’s what he’s been working on, on and off, for years and fucking years…”

There was a long time of silence, when the man on the bed looked thoughtfully into the far corner of the room. His face ran a quick gamut of emotions. He looked thoughtfully at David. “How do you know all this?” he said.

“ ‘Zaac trusts me,” said David (and that place inside him winced again, and he ignored it again). “At first this woman…”

“Name?” interrupted the man.

David hesitated.

“Derkhan Blueday,” he muttered eventually. “So Blueday, at first she’s really chary of talking in front of me, but Isaac…he vouches for me. He knows my politics, we’ve done demos together…” (again that wince: you have no politics, you fucking traitor) “It’s just that at a time like this…” he hesitated, unhappy. The man waved peremptorily. He had no interest in David’s guilt, or his rationalizations. “So Isaac tells her she can trust me and she tells us everything.”

There was a long time of silence. The man on the bed waited. David shrugged.

“That’s all I know,” he whispered.

The man nodded and stood.

“Right,” he said. “That’s all…extremely useful. We’ll probably have to bring your friend Isaac in. Don’t worry,” he added with a reassuring smile. “We’ve no interest in disposing of him, I promise. We may just need his help. You’re right, obviously. There is a…circle to be squared, connections to be made, and you’re not in a position to do it, and we might be. With Isaac’s help.

“You’re going to have to stay in touch,” said the man. “You’ll receive written instructions. Be sure to obey them. Obviously I don’t have to stress that, do I? We’ll make sure der Grimnebulin doesn’t know where our information comes from. We may not move for a few days…don’t panic. That’s our affair. Just you stay quiet, and try to keep der Grimnebulin doing what he’s doing. All right?”

David nodded miserably. He waited. The man looked at him sharply.

“That’s all,” he said. “You can go.”

With a guilty, grateful haste, David stood and hurried to the door. He felt as if he was swimming in mire, his own shame engulfing him like a mucal sea. He was longing to walk away from this room, and forget what he had said and done, and not think of the coins and notes that would be sent to him, and think only of how loyal he felt to Isaac, and tell himself it was all for the best.

The other man opened the door for him, released him, and David rushed gratefully away, almost ran down along the passageway, eager to escape.

But hurry as he would through the streets of Spit Hearth, guilt clung to him, tenacious as quicksand.