Bulky, quite primitive-looking, machinery filled most of the space; big metal spheres with lots of piping snaking about between them. Araminta wiggled between a couple of water sanitizer cisterns. Behind them, the side wall was a sheer surface of reinforced enzyme-bonded concrete. Just above her head was a rectangular hole where six feed pipes went outside to connect with the main civic water supply. The gap between the top of the pipes and the edge of the concrete was about half a metre. She clambered up one of the sanitizer cisterns, wincing every time she gripped a hot pipe by mistake. That put her level with the hole. A metal grid covered the far end. Grass and soil was pressed up against it.

Gritting her teeth in determination, she dropped her thick fleece and wormed her head and shoulders into the hole. She still had to stretch to apply the power socket against the grille's locking bolts. They were stiff from disuse, and she was scared of making too much noise with the power socket; but after several minutes cursing and blinking sweat from her eyes, the grille came loose. Then it took another five minutes pushing and shoving before the grass and soil gave way. The tool belt had to be discarded before she could claw her way through the uncomfortably claustrophobic gap.

Araminta crawled out onto the narrow strip of grass between the apartment wall and the wooden fence. Blouse torn on snags, skin scratched and bleeding, trouser knees muddy, hair a tangled mess, hot, flushed, and sweaty. She glared back at the little hole. I can't have put on that much weight!

The noise of the crowd was a lot louder. Amplified voices were constantly warning them to back off. A capsule slid over the band of sky above her. She quickly pulled her tool belt out of the hole, and started using the screwdriver on the fence boards. With three of them unfastened she could slip through the triangular opening and into an almost identical strip of ground on the other side. The neighbouring building was a combination of retail and office units; half of which were unoccupied and available for a low rent. She crept along the side of the building to the waste casket bay at the back. The gates beyond opened on to a thin alley of badly cracked concrete. Someone had left an old jacket on the ledge running along the bay. She pulled it on over her torn blouse, and slung the tool belt over her shoulder. Then taking a breath she sauntered out into the alley.

Two of Ellezelin's armour-suited paramilitaries were standing on cordon duty outside the back gate to the apartment block. Araminta ignored them, and walked off down the alley. Every second she expected a challenge, but it never came. After twenty metres she made a sharp left turn down another alley, taking her out of their view. Then she just kept walking.

After for ever he strode through a white jungle. Trees of translucent crystal towered above him, refracting a soft shimmer of pure sunlight, sprouting long white leaves. The undergrowth was thick, creepers and bushes mangled into dense tangles of silver hues that were impossible to push through. White clouds scudded overhead. A cloying mist wove long swirling streamers round the shiny tree trunks, reducing visibility. White birds darted about, triangles of feathers fluttering fast. White rodents scampered round his booted feet. His boots were clotted with white mud from the steaming loam.

'I know it's difficult, said the voice behind the trees. 'But you have to choose.

He longed for colour. Darkness, even. But all the jungle offered was faint shadows. Shapes were starting to blur together. Losing cohesion. The blazing universe was absorbing him. When he lifted up his hands they were hard to see. White on white. Just looking at them was dizzying.

'You can lose yourself. Lose what is. Lose what you have done. Your life will never have existed. Sometimes I wish I could offer that to myself.

Then the enemy started to close in. He saw them all around, little flickers of motion darting through the undergrowth. They were waiting for him. He knew it. It was an ambush.

He yelled defiance at them. His biononics unleashed a terrible burst of energy. Clumps of undergrowth disintegrated into kinetic maelstroms. He was thrown from side to side by the sharp leaf and stone fragments swatting against him. Vision reduced, but still it was all white: in front, on both sides, above, below. White. White. White.

Through it all crept the enemy — malicious, determined, lethal. He blasted away at them. Seeing them burn. Powerful white flame consumed them, sending torrents of white smoke into the sky.

Shot after shot was fired into the suffocating uniform whiteness. It began to constrict about him. No matter how violent his energy discharges they couldn't penetrate it.

'Help me, he cried out to the voice. 'Take me out of this. I choose. I choose! I remember I chose. I wanted not to happen.

He could no longer tell which way was up, and tumbled through the whiteness. His own screams were loud in his ears as the whiteness slipped and banged against his suit visor. Then he hit something which stopped his headlong rush with a suddenness that knocked the wind from him. There at last was another colour, red sparkles of pain danced across his vision as he drew a desperate breath. He closed his eyes, squeezing the lids shut then blinking them open.

Shards of grey-black rock lay sizzling against the ice, slowly sinking in through the puddles they were creating.

'Shit, Aaron groaned gloomily. He forced himself on to all fours, then slowly staggered upright.

The whiteout had got to him, providing an insidious outlet for the demons churning around his subconscious.

What the hell is inside me? What did I try and cast away?

He shook his head, running a full status check through his biononic systems, and reviewed the routines in his macrocellular clusters as well. Cooler air blew into his helmet, allowing him to take some sobering breaths. Looking around he saw he'd left the field of ice boulders behind. The wind had dropped, leaving just a few flurries of snow skipping through the air. Steam was pushing up out of a dozen craters where his energy shots had vaporized the ice. He could see the serrated crystalline boulders lining the horizon behind him. Exovision superimposed his route, sketching it with simple lines of glowing orange. The ground crawler had been easy to follow through the field, scraping past boulders to leave crumbled shards on the ground, or where Inigo had simply carved his way through the smaller gaps. Now they were out on the open top of the glacier it was hard to tell.

Aaron trotted away from the area he'd devastated, circling round. There was no indication of the ground crawler at all. The thin dusting of ice shifted continually, completely eradicating any sign of the tracks. As he stood and watched, his own footprints were smeared away behind him almost as soon as he made them. There was no residual heat signature. It had been at least six hours since Inigo and Corrie-Lyn had driven out of the boulder field. On this frozen world, their infrared traces would have vanished within twenty minutes.

He had absolutely no way of telling which way they'd gone.

'Fuck it. There were no options left. His inertial guidance mapped a route back to Jajaani, via the Olhava camp, the only route he was sure didn't have glacier cliffs or other obstacles. Not that he'd ever get there before the planet imploded, he reflected; but if any rescue attempt was going to happen, that would be where the starship landed. It was all he had left. Simply lying down and waiting for the end wasn't him. Whoever me is.

He started to run again. His biononic energy currents reconfigured to scream a distress signal into the eternal storm.