‘Where are we going?’ he asked, hoping this would not be a punishable question.

Traveller glanced at him. ‘Out to the sea wall along from where you came in. We got you located as soon as the torbearer broke away from you, but we didn’t act on that for many years. We had the tor located in your original time, but the beast was there guarding it, as it always does, until it was taken up.’

Beast?

Tack did not ask that question. He pursued his original query. ‘Why are we going there?’

‘There we use the mantisal that brought me here. It is presently sitting out of phase underneath the slope,’ replied Traveller, impatience in his voice.

‘Mantisal?’

‘Enough. I haven’t the inclination now and you haven’t the intelligence.’

Tack realized the limit on how far he could push, so clamped his mouth shut as he tramped along beside Traveller. Evidently he was being dragged into a situation it would take him some effort to understand, but that there was a chance for him to understand it fully was an indulgence U-gov had never allowed him.

They followed the track out between the fields and round to the left, where it finished against a gate and a thick blackthorn hedge. Beyond the gate was a field that had been left fallow long enough for brambles to take hold. After climbing over the gate they worked their way around the edge of the field to where a path had been beaten by frequent use through the vegetation. The far side of this field was bordered by a barbed-wire fence with a stile at one end. Climbing this, they then crossed a grass area as wide as a motorway, and finally mounted the sea wall.

The sea did not come right up to the wall itself here, as between there lay an area of mudflats overgrown with sea sage and whitish grass, cut through with channels clogged with glossy mud and encroached by the marching growth of samphire. Traveller pointed out a wreck half sunk in the flats, its portals like blind eyes, and the mud all around stained with rust. Negotiating a course out to this, across tough grass on which crab carapaces seemed to be impaled, and avoiding the channels that might easily suck them down, they came at last to the edge of a muddy hollow containing the mass of black wood and corroding metal. Traveller stood there for a while with his eyes closed and his head tilted back, a salt breeze whipping loose strands of hair around his face.

Observing the man, Tack was struck by just how different he appeared. It was not so much the albinism, but the bone structure underneath. Traveller was elfin… or demonic.

‘When it comes, you climb inside and make yourself as comfortable as you can. While we shift, you must not extend any part of yourself outside its structure or that part will ablate in interspace.’ Traveller opened his eyes and gazed at Tack, and his eyes were now brighter, more intense. Tack saw that they were almost orange in colour, and could not understand why he had not noticed this before. He nodded dumbly, not really understanding.

Traveller gestured in the direction of the wreck and, in the empty air between them and it something began to phase into existence. It was spherical, at least five metres across, a vaguely geodesic structure formed of glassy struts ranging in thickness from that of a human finger to a man’s leg. As it slid closer to them, Tack saw that within its substance veins and capillaries pulsed, and that the thicker areas were occupied by half-seen complex structures that sometimes looked like living organs and sometimes tangled masses of circuitry. From the outer structure, curving members grew inwards to intersect below two smaller spheres, which were only a little larger than human heads. The curve of these members left enough space for Tack and Traveller to occupy, overlooked by the two spheres. Only when he gripped what felt like warm glass and hauled himself up behind Traveller into the cavity, did Tack realize just what the twin spheres actually were. They were huge multi-faceted eyes positioned above fused-together glassy feeding mandibles, a spread-thin thorax and the beginnings of legs that blended into the curving outer members, and thence into the surrounding sphere. He had just climbed inside some insane glassmaker’s representation of a giant praying mantis turned inside out.

‘It’s alive,’ Tack observed.

‘Where I come from,’ Traveller replied, ‘defining what life is has become a little problematic. Now be silent until I tell you that you may speak again.’

Tack felt the power of this order operating through his new programming, and knew that were Traveller to abandon him right then he would never be able to speak again unless reprogrammed. Inside the strange creation he found a place to jam the backpack, a ridge on which he could seat himself and one of the internal struts to hang on to.

Traveller stood before the mantis head and reached out towards the eyes. His hands sank into them as if into syrup, and the surrounding structure took on the tint of molten glass. Then the world departed and Tack found himself weightless in a glass cage flying through a grey abyss over a sea of rolling darkness. In this he saw a vastness beyond comprehension, combined with an impossible lack of perspective, and in trying to comprehend both of these felt something straining to break away in his mind. After a moment he closed his eyes and wished it would all go away.

Astolere:

Upon seeing the creature in its growth tank I had to ask why it is now so large. Cowl informs me that the greater the mass of organic complexity, the greater the vorpal energy generated (that word again). This is self-evident, but it seems to me that our research requirements of this energy are small, while what the creature might generate is potentially vast. Even so, I have been informed that Engineer Goron, the de facto governor of Callisto, damn him, is to cancel further research until such a time as the full consequences of time travel can be ascertained. Palleque tells me that the real reason for this research halt is that the Engineer trusts the preterhuman not at all. When I asked Palleque why this was the case, he replied, ‘Sister, after their attack on the energy dam the Umbrathane escaped by displacing their ships. Work it out.’

Not much to work out really. I know because I built the first displacement generator, using an offshoot of Cowl’s research. The Engineer must think Cowl has passed on schematics to the Umbrathane and is therefore a traitor. Moreover, how did they know enough about the dangers represented by his research to risk such a suicidal attack? Of course doubt remains because, had their attack succeeded, Cowl himself might have been killed. Unless the attack was actually a rescue attempt…

The gunfire had ceased by the time Polly returned to the deck and the moon was up with its horns sinister. She made out structures like a squad of Martian war machines frozen mid-stride in the sea, and from one of these a searchlight speared down, as the boat decelerated and turned.

‘Red Sands army fort,’ said Dave. ‘Did a run out there a couple of weeks back, so it’s not the usual supplies we’ll be taking in. They’re stocked up until the next changeover.’

They moved back along the deck to the wheelhouse, where Frank stood by the helm, gently guiding it with one hand while puffing on a pipe. Polly stared at the thing in his mouth and remembered that the last time she had seen someone smoking a pipe, it had contained a cocktail of crack and an LSD derivative. She suspected, from the strata of strong tobacco smoke in the boat’s interior, that these drugs were not Frank’s particular penchant.

‘So, who are you then?’ he asked.

‘Seems she went to take a swim without any intention of coming back,’ said Dave, leaning back against the wall of the cabin. Outside, a metal chimney was belching steam as Toby put out the fire in the stove, as per Frank’s recent instructions.