Beth stroked her head. ‘Frankly, love, you and I always meant less to Ari than his ambition.’

‘I’ll give them a warning shot,’ Titus yelled. With gladio in his good hand, he approached the pit. Chu, too, followed the legionary, a dagger in his hand, looking coldly furious. It was after all his lover and the mother of his baby who had been shot at. That quiet intensity seemed to have burned away the last of his slavish deference, Stef thought.

Titus called, ‘You, Inguill, quipucamayoc! Ari the druidh!’

‘Come no closer, legionary!’ It was undoubtedly Ari’s voice, Stef could hear, though it sounded strained, weak. ‘We are protecting our property … We have rights of priority which …’ He broke up in coughing.

‘Wait, legionary,’ Stef called. ‘Let’s see if we can talk our way out of this.’

‘Talk? Ha! And who in Hades gave them a ballista?’

‘It was manufactured here,’ Earthshine said. ‘Using a fabricator. I was naive – I showed them how to operate the fabricator with voice commands. It uses an electrical charge to drive a projectile of—’

‘And who fires a ballista in a dome like this?’

‘The dome material is self-sealing,’ Earthshine said, still more softly. ‘In that regard at least we are secure. Besides, the outside air is breathable, if cold. We are in no danger.’

Stef got stiffly to her feet. ‘I don’t understand any of this. What property do they think they own? What do they mean by priority?’ She draped a blanket over her shoulders and began to shuffle towards the pit.

‘Stef Kalinski,’ Titus said, ‘stay back!’

‘Oh, nonsense, legionary. Somebody’s got to deal with this. At least I won’t be missed if I get shot. And when it comes to Hatches I’m the expert, remember.’

‘Take me,’ the ColU said urgently. ‘The slate, an earphone …’

Beth ran up to hand her the slate, which Stef hung around her neck. It felt inordinately heavy. ‘Now, then …’

Feeling neither brave nor scared, maybe she was just too old to be bothered any more, Stef neared the pit. The material of the emplacement panel felt very eerie under her feet, smooth, alien, neither hot nor cold.

‘Ari Guthfrithson! Inguill! It’s me – Stef Kalinski. I’m coming to talk to you. Shoot me if you must, but try not to hit your pregnant daughter at least, Ari …’

She came to the lip of the open pit. Ari and Inguill were sitting together at the base, huddled against a wall – near a rounded doorway, she noticed. If this was a typical Hatch, that door would lead to a transitional chamber, with another door beyond leading to – somewhere else. But for now the door was sealed shut, featureless save for a seam in the wall.

Ari and Inguill, their knees up against their chests, wore filthy remnants of the clothes of their cultures, Ari his druidh’s gown, Inguill in her formal attire as a quipucamayoc. Stef was particularly shocked by the state of Ari, who like most Briganti had always been finely groomed. They were surrounded by the basics of living, a heap of grimy blankets, piles of food – tired-looking vegetables, what might be dried meat – and simple buckets in which slopped piss and watery shit. The source of Mardina’s sewage smell, then. They looked impossibly skinny, even skeletal, in their loose clothing. Stef saw glossy, dead-looking patches of skin on Ari’s cheeks, his forehead. Frostbitten?

But in two bony hands Ari held a convincing-looking gun, pointing it out of the pit at her. ‘No closer, Stef Kalinski.’

Stef held her empty hands in the air. ‘I’m no threat to you, Ari. I never was … Can I lower my hands? I’m kind of tired, and only just got over a dizzy spell.’

He nodded curtly.

‘Thank you. Mind you, I’m a picture of health compared to you. You should have waited for us, you two. Travelled with us.’

‘You are all fools,’ Inguill snapped. ‘And we got here first. Which was the whole point.’

Stef leaned down, cautiously. ‘So why in heaven’s name are you sitting in that hole?’

‘We’re waiting for Earthshine to let us in,’ Inguill said. ‘Through that door. We know he can open it; we’ve seen it … We want to go through the Hatch. We want to be first.’

‘And now you’re mounting a sit-down strike? But why? After plodding all that way across the ice muttering to each other, do you even remember any more?’

Ari raised his gun; it wavered uncertainly. ‘You won’t trick us out of here.’

‘I’ve no intention to. Believe me, I’ve been through enough Hatches, you’re welcome to this one. But, look – will you let me bring you some fresh food, at least? Or one of the others. And how about I get the legionary to take out those slop buckets for you?’

‘Not Titus,’ Inguill snapped.

‘Chu, then.’ Stef looked directly at Ari. ‘Who is the father of your grandchild.’

The gun lowered at last. ‘I heard you speak of this … It’s true, then?’

‘I’m afraid so. Look, I’ll go and get help. Don’t go away, now.’

As she walked away she heard Inguill’s ranting voice. ‘We won’t be tricked, Stef Kalinski! We won’t be tricked!’

With Ari and Inguill fed, and their slop buckets emptied out of the airlock, Titus’s group gathered, sitting on heaped blankets and bits of Earthshine’s equipment, before Earthshine in his spidery cage. They had hot drinks and portions of food manufactured by Earthshine’s fabricators, bland but nutritious.

Beth had spoken to Ari. But Mardina had refused even to look at her father, who had taken a shot at her.

‘I fear they are no longer sane,’ Earthshine whispered.

‘Oh, you don’t say,’ Stef said drily.

‘They have developed an obsession with the power they perceive to lie beyond the Hatch. That was why they abandoned the rest of you, stole your equipment … Why they abandoned the history they had been born into. Even abandoned you, Mardina, Beth. Why, the trek here itself nearly killed them, but they would not be stopped.’

Beth grunted. ‘I’m not surprised at that. Whatever other qualities he’s got, Mardina, your father is not a practical man.’

‘And Inguill was a bureaucrat,’ Stef said. ‘In her culture. A wily one, a very clever individual, but not prepared for such a journey. Whereas we had a Roman legionary to lead us. Perhaps neither of them truly imagined what it would be like. But once they had set off—’

Earthshine said, ‘They were driven on by pride and greed. Their obsession with the antistellar, with the Hatch they expected to find here. They clung to that dream, even though they left behind their health, even their sanity.’

Titus snapped, ‘What is this dream?’

‘I think they believe,’ the ColU said, ‘that the Hatch will give them the power of gods. The power to remake worlds. After all, they’ve seen it happen – we all have, more than once.’

Stef nodded. ‘And maybe the deep shock of those experiences has taken a toll on them, more than we realised.’ She closed her eyes, looking inward. ‘A toll on the rest of us too.’

‘In a way, I admit,’ said Earthshine now, ‘we aren’t so dissimilar. I was outraged by what I saw as the meddling of the Dreamers in our histories, as it gradually unfolded. I struck at Mars, a Mars, to attract their attention. Well, it worked. I was brought here. I intended to challenge them again. And above all to try to understand …’

Stef prompted, ‘Earthshine, Ari said you had control of the Hatch in some way.’

‘In a sense, I do. The Hatches have always chosen who they will respond to.’

‘That’s true,’ Beth said. ‘I remember the first Hatch I ever saw, at the substellar. It – developed – grooves in its upper surfaces, for builders to lie in, like keys in locks.’

Earthshine said, ‘With humans, handprints are commonly used. Here, the builders evidently sensed something of my presence. In my case the interface is electromagnetic, not physical contact. Not visible. But when I sent it a certain message – echoing a signal I received – the Hatch opened, the great lid.’