They were, Rubra swore, perfect buoyancy aids.

Dariat tried on his harness one last time. The cords which he’d torn from the gaudy cushion fabric held a pillow to his chest and another against his back. Seldom had he felt so ridiculous.

His doubt must have leaked onto his face.

If it works, don’t try to fix it,rubra said.

Ripe, from someone who’s devoted his existence to meddling.

Game set and match, I won’t even appeal. Would you like to get ready?

Dariat used the starscraper’s observation routines to check on the possessed. There were twelve of them on the floor above. A rock-skinned troll was leading the pack; followed by a pair of cyber-ninjas in black flak jackets; a xenoc humanoid that was all shiny amber exoskeleton and looked like it could rip metal apart with its talons; a faerie prince wearing his forest hunting tunic and carrying a longbow in one hand, a walkie-talkie in the other; three or four excessively hairy Neanderthals; and regular soldiers in the uniforms of assorted eras.

“The loonies are on the warpath tonight,” Dariat muttered under his breath. “Finished?” he asked Tatiana.

She shifted her front pillow around and tightened the last strap to hold it in place. “I’m ready.”

The bathroom’s muscle-membrane door parted silently. Inside was an emerald-green suite: a circular bath, vaguely Egyptian in design, matched by the basin, bidet, and toilet. They were still all in perfect condition. It was the plumbing which had degraded. Water was dripping from the brass shower head above the bath; over the years it had produced a big orange stain on the bottom. Slimy blue-green algae was growing out of the plug. The sink was piled high with bars of soap; so old and dry now that they’d started to crumble, snowing flecks over the rim.

Dariat stood in the doorway, with Tatiana pressed against him, looking eagerly over his shoulder. “What’s supposed to be happening?” she asked.

“Watch.”

A bass crunching sound was coming from the toilet. Cracks appeared around its base, expanding rapidly outwards. Then the whole bowl lurched upwards, spinning around precariously before toppling over. A two-metre circle of floor around it was rising up like a miniature volcanic eruption. Polyp splintered with a continual brassy crackling. A fine jet of water sprayed out of the fractured flush pipe.

“Lord Tarrug, what are you doing?” Tatiana asked.

“That’s not Tarrug, that’s Rubra,” Dariat told her. “No dark arts involved.”

Affinity with the local sub-routines allowed him to feel the toilet’s sphincter muscle straining as it contorted in directions it was never intended, rupturing the thin shell of polyp floor. It halted, fully expended. The cone which it had produced quivered slightly, then stilled. Dariat hurried over. There was a crater at the centre, leading down to an impenetrable darkness. The muscle tissue which made up the sides was a tough dark red flesh, now badly lacerated. Pale yellow fluid was oozing out of the splits, running down to disappear in the unseen space below.

“Our escape route,” Dariat said, echoing Rubra’s pride.

“A toilet?” she asked incredulously.

“Sure. Don’t go squeamish on me now, please.” He sat on the edge of the sphincter and swung his legs over the crater. It was a three-metre slither down into the sewer tubule below. When his feet touched the bottom he knelt down and held a hand out. His skin began to glow with a strong pink light. It revealed the tubule stretching on ahead of him, a circular shaft just over a metre in diameter, and angled slightly downwards.

“Throw the pillows down,” he said.

Tatiana dropped them, peering over the edge of the crater with a highly dubious expression. Dariat shoved the two harnesses into the tubule, and started to worm his way in after them. “When I’m in, you follow me, okay?” He didn’t give her the chance to answer. It was awkward going, pushing the pillows ahead of him as he crawled along. The grey polyp was slippery with water and fecal sludge. Dariat could hear Tatiana grunting and muttering behind him as she discovered the residue smearing the sides.

There were ridges encircling the tubule every four metres, peristaltic muscle bands that assisted the usual water flow. Despite Rubra expanding them wide, they formed awkward constrictions which Dariat had to pull himself through. He had just squeezed past the third when Rubra said: They’ve reached the fiftieth floor. Can you sense them?

Not a chance. So in theory they won’t be able to find me.

They know the general direction, and they’re heading towards the apartment.

Dariat was too intent on inching himself along to review the images. What about the rest?

On their way down. The stairwells are absolutely packed. It’s like a freak-show stampede out there.

He elbowed his way through another muscle band. The light from his hand showed the tubule walls ending two metres ahead. A thick ring of muscle membrane surrounded the rim. Beyond that was a clear empty space. He could hear a steady patter of rain in the darkness.

“We made it,” he shouted.

His only answer was another outbreak of grunted curses.

Dariat pushed the filthy pillows and their tangled cords over the edge, hearing them splash into the water. Then he was sliding himself over.

The main ingestion tract into which the sewer tubule emptied ran vertically up the entire height of the starscraper. It collected the human waste, discarded organic matter, and dirty water from every floor and carried it down to the large purification organs at the base of the starscraper. They filtered out organic compounds which were pumped back to the principal nutrient organs inside the southern endcap via their own web of specialist tubules. Poisons and toxins were disposed of directly into space. Fresh water was recirculated up to the habitat’s storage reservoirs and parkland rivers.

Normally the main ingestion tract was a continual waterfall. Now, though, Rubra had closed the inlet channels and reversed the flow from the purification organs, allowing the water level to rise up the tract until it was level with the fiftieth floor.

The cold surface closed over Dariat’s head, and he felt his feet clear the tubule. A couple of swift kicks and he surfaced, puffing a spray of droplets from his mouth. Thankfully this water was clean—relatively.

He held an arm up in the air, a sharp blue flame flickering up from his fingertips. Its light showed the true extent of the tract: twenty metres in diameter, with walls of neutral grey polyp that had the same crinkly surface texture as granite. Sewer tubule outlets formed black portals all around, their muscle-membrane rims flexing like fish mouths. The pillows were bobbing about a few metres away.

Tatiana had pushed her shoulders past the tubule’s muscle membrane, and was craning her head back to look around. The tract’s height defeated the illumination thrown out by Dariat’s small flame, revealing barely fifteen metres of the walls above the water level. A heavy shower was falling out of the darkness which roofed them, chopping up the water’s surface with small ripples.

“Come on, out you come,” Dariat said. He swam back to her and helped ease her through the opening. She gasped at the water’s chilly grip, arms thrashing about for a moment.

Dariat retrieved the two sets of pillows and strapped himself into the harness. He had to tie Tatiana’s cords for her, the cold had numbed her fingers. When he was finished, the sewer tubules all started to close silently.

“Where are we going now?” Tatiana asked nervously.

“Straight up.” He grinned. “Rubra will pump fresh water back into the base of the tract. It should take about twenty minutes to reach the top. But expect an interruption.”

“Yeah?”