Herb looked at Johnston suspiciously. The whisky was calming the dull edge of his fear, helping him to think clearly.

“Are you sure?” he said carefully, expecting Johnston to flare up in anger. To his surprise, Johnston remained calm.

“Trust me, Herb. If we get to the end of this you will see that I am right.”

“If?”

“Yes, if. Were you not listening? This goes deeper than first impressions would suggest. This planet we see before us is just the first pebble skittering over the scree at the foot of the cliff. Bouncing down behind, you may hear the clattering of other pebbles and rocks, and you may be fooled into thinking that this is just a minor slippage, and that soon everything will come to a halt and the balance will be restored. Don’t think that. That silence you can hear will just make the ensuing avalanche sound that much louder.”

Herb licked his lips, trying to understand what Johnston was saying.

“You mean there are other planets like that one?”

“Oh, yes. Something in that region of space has begun reproducing. We don’t know what it is, but it has taken root and is growing fast; faster than anything we have so far encountered, faster even than us. Just as your VNM destroyed this planet, whatever is at work in there is viciously converting whole systems. If we live in the Earth Domain, then that region of space is the Enemy Domain. In a very short time it has grown from nothing to something that threatens to totally engulf us and everything we know.”

Johnston leaned closer. “I’m putting together a team to do something about it and I want you to be part of that team. Do you think you will be useful? Could you help us fight it?”

“I can fight it,” said Herb. “Yes. No problem.” He paused, gazing contemplatively at the glass in his hand.

“Are you sure? Because I want you to understand, I cannot guarantee that you will return to Earth at the end of this.”

Herb sighed. Pushing through the smothering wall of the whisky that he had drunk, Johnston’s words had a sobering effect. Following them came the thought of the Oort cloud: years spent living as multiple copies of himself at the edge of nothingness, cold and forgotten. Better that he should take his chances out here.

“I understand,” he said.

“Again, I ask, are you sure? The EA picked you for this team because of certain qualities that you possess. Those qualities may enable you to complete your role as a team member, but nothing more. Are you willing to take that risk?”

“I am,” said Herb.

“Excellent.” Johnston proffered his hand. “We are about to shake on a contract. There will be no going back.”

“No going back,” echoed Herb. He placed his whisky glass on the floor and shook Johnston’s hand firmly.

Robert Johnston beamed widely. “We’ve got a deal.”

Herb felt himself relax a little. It was going to be all right, he thought. Anything was better than the Oort cloud. Anything.

The feeling of relief that welled up inside him was so intense that he went quite limp. Johnston switched off the viewing field and set some gentle music playing. Herb listened and drank more whisky. It helped to kill the growing feeling of unease.

For Herb was dimly aware of how expertly he had been distracted by Robert’s entrance; he had a vague appreciation of how he had been kept off balance by the rapid pace of events and the constant changes of direction in Robert’s approach.

He refilled his glass and gulped down some more of the sweet alcohol, wondering at how carefully Robert had worded the terms of his agreement.

Herb was beginning to suspect that he had been suckered.

Eva had a headache. This was the day she had been working toward for the last three months and she had awoken with a headache.

Sitting at the tiny kitchen table, she forced herself to drink a glass and a half of water, then rested her head in her hands, elbows propped on the daisy-patterned surface of the tabletop, and tried to think. Her stomach was bloated with stale water, she felt sick and hung over, this despite the fact that she hadn’t had a drink in months. Maybe if she ate something, filled her stomach with something solid, she would feel better? There were plenty of things to eat in the flat: the fridge even held a convector burger she had brought home from work last night. She had had to buy food to maintain the pretense. Any deviation from her routine and they would come around, tapping politely at the door. All those professionally friendly people with their sincere smiles and concerned frowns and their “Could we come in for coffee? Just passing, you understand. Saw your light was on and thought we’d pop in for a chat.”

Still, if things went according to plan, by this evening she would be free of them. They would be left tapping at the door, stretching up on tiptoes to peep through the windows, stooping to peer through her old letterbox, and Eva would be hundreds of miles away…

But first she needed to get rid of this headache. The next few hours were the most crucial, and it was vitally important that she be able to think clearly. So, first something to eat, then get dressed, then down to the garage shop to buy some Somaspirin or Panacetamol.

She took the burger out of the fridge and set it spinning in the convector, the smell of strawberry-flavored meat quickly filling the room. After watching it turn a few times, she decided to get dressed while her breakfast cooked.

The sun was shining through the faded yellow curtains of her bedroom. Eva sometimes wondered who had hung them there originally, all those years ago. When the next tenant came to the flat, would there be anything left behind to remember Eva by? She doubted it. The white paper ball of the light shade caught her eye and cheered her up slightly. She had bought it seven years ago, just after she had moved in, to replace a glass shade that had filled the room with red light. Maybe one day someone would lie on the bed and gaze up at her paper lantern and wonder about the person who had hung it there. Brewster, her threadbare teddy bear, sat on the bed, gazing at her with a glassy-eyed stare that reminded her she still had things to do.

She opened the wardrobe door. Three outfits in burger bar colors. It was tempting to put one on: she got extra credit in her pay for every hour she was seen wearing the uniform outside the firm’s time. She flipped past her good dress and some not-so-good skirts and trousers, all hung neatly on their hangers. She paused as she reached DeForest’s forgotten suit, still hanging in its expensive blue storage bag, left behind when he had been recalled from her life and relocated to who knows where. She gazed at it for a moment, lost in thought.

The convector chimed and her head throbbed in time to the notes. She pulled out one of the burger bar suits and quickly got dressed. She found a purple-and-red uniform baseball cap rolled up in the trouser pocket. Eva threaded her prematurely grey-white hair through the hole in the back to make a little ponytail as she walked back into the kitchen/lounge.

Her burger sat steaming in front of the convector.

Two bites and a swallow and her headache was getting worse. She forced herself to eat the whole of the burger slowly and finished the remaining half glass of water. Then Eva picked up her purse and keys and walked out of the flat, down to the garage.

Reasons for escaping:

I couldn’t even get myself promoted at the burger bar.

The greyness of South Street is seeping into my soul.

I have no friends to speak of.

They killed my brother.

Eva ran through the list in her mind as she stepped out into the unpleasant morning air. She didn’t dare write down her reasons. They would see, as they saw everything. Then they would be around to visit her with their professional concern, something they learned in the second year of the Social Care course.