"You've got to let us in!" said Kirsty. "He's ill!"

"Can't do that," said the voice. "Not allowed, see?"

"Do we look like spies?" shouted Yoless.

"Please!" said Kirsty.

The door started to close, and then stopped.

"Well ... all right," said the voice, as unseen hands pulled the door open. "But Mr Hodder says to stand where we can see you, okay? Come on in."

"It's happening," said Johnny, who still had his eyes closed. "The telephone won't work."

"What's he going on about?"

"Can you try the telephone?" said Kirsty.

"Why? What's wrong with it?" said the boy. "We tested it out at the beginning of the shift just now. Has anyone been mucking about with it?"

There was an older man sitting at a table. He gave them a suspicious look, which lingered for a while on Yoless.

"I reckon you'd better try the station," he said. "I don't like the sound of all this. Seems altogether a bit suspicious to me."

The first man reached out towards the phone.

There was a sound outside as lightning struck somewhere close. It wasn't a zzzippp-it was almost a gentle silken hiss, as the sky was cut in half.

Then the phone exploded. Bits of bakelite and copper clattered off the walls.

Kristy's hand flew to her head.

"My hair stood on end!"

"So did mine," said Yoless. "And that doesn't often happen, believe me," he added.

"Lightning hit the wire," said Johnny. "I knew that.

Not just here. Other stations on the hills, too. And now he'll have trouble with the motorbike."

"What's he going on about?"

"You've got a motorbike, haven't you?" said Kirsty.

"So what?"

"Good grief, man, you've lost your telephone! Aren't you supposed to do something about that?"

The men looked at one another. Girls weren't supposed to shout like Kirsty.

"Tom, nip down to Doctor Atkinson's and use his phone and tell the station ours has gone for a burton," said Mr Hodder, not taking his eyes off the three. "Tell them about these kids, too."

"It won't start," said Johnny. "It's the carburettor, I think. That ... always gives trouble."

The one called Tom looked at him sideways. There was a change in the air. Up until now the men had just been suspicious. Now they were uneasy, too.

"How did you know that?" he said.

Johnny opened his mouth. And shut it again.

He couldn't tell them about the feel of the time around him. He felt that if he could only focus his eyes properly, he could even see it. The past and future were there, just around some kind of corner, bound up to the ever-travelling now by a billion connections. He felt that he could almost reach out and point, not there or over there or up there but there, at right angles to everywhere else.

"They're on their way," he said. "They'll be here in half an hour."

"What will? What's he going on about?"

"Blackbury's going to be bombed tonight," said Kirsty. Thunder rolled again.

"We think," said Yoless.

"Five planes," said Johnny.

He opened his eyes. Everything overlapped like a scene in a kaleidoscope. Everyone was staring at him, but they were surrounded by something like fog. When they moved, images followed them like some kind of special effect.

"It's the storm and the clouds," he managed to say. "They think they're going to Slate but they'll drop their bombs over Blackbury."

"Oh, yes? And how d'you know this, then? They told you, did they?"

"Listen, you stupid man," said Kirsty. "We're not spies! Why would we tell you if we were?"

Mr Hodder pulled open the door.

"I'm going down to use the doctor's phone," he said. "Then maybe we can sort out what's going on."

"What about the bombers?" said Kirsty.

The older man opened the door. The thunder had rolled away to the north-east, and there was no sound but the hiss of the rain.

"What bombers?" he said, and shut it behind him.

Johnny sat down with his head in his hands, blinking his eyes again to shut out the flickering images.

"You lot'd better get out," said Tom. "It's against the rules, having people in here ... "

Johnny blinked. There were more bombers in front on his eyes. and they didn't go away.

He scrabbled at the playing cards on the table.

"What're these for?" he said urgently. "Playing cards with bombers on them?"

"Eh? What? Oh ... that's for learning aircraft recognition," said Tom, who'd been careful to keep the table between him and Johnny. "You plays cards with "em and you sort of picks up the shapes, like."

"You learn subliminally?" said Kirsty.

"Oh, no, you learn from playing with these here cards," said Tom desperately. Outside, there was the sound of someone trying to start a motorbike.

Johnny stood up.

"All right," he said. "I can prove it. The next card ... the next card you show me ... the next card ... "

Images filled his eyes. If this is how Mrs Tachyon sees the world, he thought, no wonder she never seems all there because she's everywhere.

Outside, there was the sound of someone trying to start a motorbike even harder.

" ... the next card ... will be the five of diamonds."

"I don't see why I should have to play games-" The man glanced nervously at Kirsty, who had that effect on people.

"Scared?" she said.

He grabbed a card at random and held it up.

"It's the five of diamonds all right," said Yoless.

Johnny nodded. "The next one.. . the next one ... the next one will be the knave of hearts."

It was.

Outside, there was the sound of someone trying to start a motorbike very hard and swearing.

"It's a trick," said the man. "One of you messed around with the pack."

"Shuffle them all you like," said Johnny. "And the next one you show me will be ... the ten of clubs."

"How did you do that?" said Yoless, as the boy turned the card over and stared at it.

"Er ... " It had felt like memory, he told himself. "I remembered seeing it," said Johnny.

"You remembered seeing it before you actually saw it?" said Kirsty. Outside, there was the sound of someone trying to start a motorbike very hard and swearing even harder.

"Er ... yes."

"Oh, wow," she said. "Precognition. You're probably a natural medium."

"Er, I'm a size eleven," said Johnny, but they weren't listening.

Kirsty had turned to Tom.

"You see?" she said. "Now do you believe us?"

"I don't like this. This isn't right," he said. "Anyway ... anyway, There's no phone-"

The door burst open.

"All right!" roared Mr Hodder. "What did you kids do to my bike?"

"It's the carburettor," said Johnny. "I told you."

"Here, Arthur, you ought to listen to this, this boy knows things-"

Kirsty glanced at her watch.

"Twenty minutes," she said. "It's more than two miles down to the town. Even if we ran I'm not sure we could do it."

"What're you talking about now?" said Mr Hodder.

"There must be some kind of code," said Kirsty. "If you have to ring up and tell them to sound the siren, what do you say?"

"Don't tell them!" snapped Mr Hodder.

" "This is station BD3"," said Johnny, his eyes looking unfocussed.

"How did you know that? Did he tell you? Did you tell them?"

"No, Arthur!"

"Come on," said Kirsty, hurrying towards the door. "I got a county medal in athletics!"

She elbowed the older man aside.

The thunder was growling away in the east. The storm had settled down to a steady, grey rain.

"We'll never make it," said Yoless.

"I thought you people were good at running," said Kirsty, stepping out.

"People of my height, you mean?"

"You were right," said the young man, as Johnny was dragged out into the night, "This is station BD3!"

"I know," said Johnny. "I remembered you just telling me."

He staggered and grabbed at Yoless to stay upright. The world was spinning around him. He hadn't felt like this since that business with the cider at Christmas. The voices around him seemed to be muffled, and he couldn't be sure whether they were really there, or voices he was remembering, or words that hadn't even been spoken yet.

He felt that his mind was being shaken loose in time, and it was only still here because his body was a huge great anchor.

"It's downhill all the way," said Kirsty, and sped off Yoless followed her.

Far away, down in the town, a church clock began to strike eleven.

Johnny tried to lumber into a run, but the ground kept shifting under his feet.

Why are we doing this? He thought. We know it happened, I've got a copy of the paper in my pocket, the bombs will land and the siren won't go off

You can't steer a train!

That's what you think, said a voice in his head ...

He wished he'd been better at this. He wished he'd been a hero.

From up ahead, he heard Yoless's desperate cry.

"I've tripped over a sheep! I've tripped over a sheep!"

The lights of Blackbury spread out below them. There weren't many of them - the occasional smudge from a car, the tiny gleam from a window where the moths had got at the blackout curtain.

A wind had followed the storm. Streamers of cloud blew across the sky. Here and there a star shone through.

They ran on. Yoless ran into another sheep in the blackness.

There was the crunch of heavy boots on the road behind them and Tom caught them up.

"If you're wrong there's going to be big trouble!" he panted.

"What if we're right?" said Kirsty.

"I hope You're wrong!"

Thunder rumbled again, but the four runners plunged on in a bubble of desperate silence.

They were leaving the moor behind. There were hedges on either side of the road now.

Tom's boots skidded to a halt.