Ari struggled, but couldn’t free himself. ‘Why is this animal holding me?’

Penny said, ‘Whatever all this mystery is about, I want you to go no further with it, Ari. You are a manipulative, scheming chancer. And the ambition you have expressed scares me, frankly. Well, this is one thing I can fix. This is the end of the story for you, as it is for me. You’re coming back with us to the surface.’

‘I will not. Beth – Mardina, my daughter—’

‘Chu, shut him up.’

The slave pushed Ari against one wall, pinning him with his left arm, while he clamped his right hand across Ari’s mouth.

Earthshine turned away, indifferent, and spoke to Beth and Mardina. ‘What these others choose is irrelevant. We are the core; we are family. If only Yuri Eden had survived … I never met him, you know, after his emergence from cryo. Never saw him again after I closed that heavy lid over his sleeping face. But he lives on in you. Come with me now.’

Mardina recoiled, her head swimming. ‘I don’t understand any of this. I don’t want any of it. What can there be for me on the other side of this – door in the ground? Up there, Terra – that’s my world, that’s my home, my career, my life. As far as I can see, all these Hatches have brought any of you is destruction and disruption and distress.’ She looked at Beth. ‘Mother? You’ll stay with me, won’t you?’

But Beth was hesitating.

Earthshine said, ‘Maybe we can find a way home for you, granddaughter.’

‘Home? Back to Per Ardua?’

‘Yes. Back to Per Ardua.’

Beth looked at Mardina, her face anguished. ‘Mardina, you must come with me—’

‘No! I don’t care about Per Ardua, about Before. You’re doing to me now what you always complained about your own mother doing to you. Ripping you out of your old world and stranding you on another.’

‘I know. You’re right. But even so …’ She looked again at the Hatch. ‘I can’t miss this chance, my only chance to go home.’

Penny said gently to Mardina, ‘It’s all right, my dear. Come with us. We’ll return to the surface, and get out of here before the hammer falls. And your fool of a father, at least you’ll still have him!’

The ColU said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Beth Eden Jones. If I must stay here I will care for Mardina, as once I cared for you.’

Mardina protested, ‘I don’t need anybody—’

But Penny touched her hand to hush her.

‘I’ll come back for you some day,’ Beth said gently.

‘Or I’ll come for you,’ Mardina said on impulse. ‘Though I’ve no idea how.’

‘Yes.’ Beth forced a smile. ‘Let’s make that pledge. When we have both found whatever it is we’re looking for …’

Mardina shook her head. ‘So what happens now? How will you get this Hatch of yours open anyhow?’

Beth smiled now, stepped forward, and pointed at the emplacement. ‘The Hatch knows when we’re ready. They always do.’

Mardina looked down. That central expanse of floor, surrounded by the circular seam, was no longer pristine. It had changed. Now it contained two complex indentations, like small craters with five rays – two pits shaped to accept the pressing of a pair of human hands.

CHAPTER 34

For the final pickup, Centurion Quintus Fabius brought the Malleus Jesu down to the surface of Mars itself.

Titus Valerius called from the testudo, ‘About time you joined the party, sir.’

‘Shut up, legionary. You still alive, Gnaeus Junius?’

‘Here, Centurion.’

‘All right. Make sure the meatheads in that glorified chariot do as they’re ordered. We’re nearly out of time – we almost waited too long. In particular, we haven’t the time to wait for the yacht, with the Academician and her party at the bunker. So I want you two to go and pick them up in the testudo.’

Titus glanced over his shoulder, at a vehicle already crowded with legionaries, and those few Brikanti from the installation who had been intelligent enough to surrender in time. ‘It’s kind of sweaty in here, Centurion. No place for an elderly lady. And I do know the layout of that bunker. There’s only one docking port, which is where the yacht will be—’

‘Use your initiative, legionary. Get the thing out of the way.’

‘Whichever way I see fit, sir?’

‘Whichever way, Titus Valerius.’

As far as Titus was concerned there were no finer words in the vocabulary of a commanding officer. With a whoop he gunned the testudo at top speed for the bunker. Behind him he heard groans, and the odd thump as some clown who hadn’t secured himself properly fell off his bench.

And, with Höd looming in the sky larger than the sun, larger than Luna, an overwhelming reminder of the urgency of the situation, they came to the bunker. The yacht was indeed still docked to the only port.

The testudo didn’t even slow down. Titus Valerius drove straight into the flaring single wing of the yacht.

The testudo slammed to a halt, throwing them all forward once more. Then Titus put the testudo in its lowest gear, and just started pushing. The wing crumpled, the hull buckled, but the yacht came away from its lock with the bunker with a screech of torn metal, and was then shoved away over the Martian ground.

The passengers of the testudo actually gave him a round of applause. ‘You’re a hero, Titus Valerius!’

‘You’re also an idiot,’ Gnaeus said, peering out of the port at the bunker. ‘But a lucky idiot. I think that port is still serviceable.’

‘I never doubted it. Anyway those ports are designed to yield under torsion; I was cheating. Now go and get our passengers, optio.’ With a crunch of gears Titus reversed the testudo and roughly positioned its flank against the bunker’s port.

As the optio had predicted, the port was still working, just, and Gnaeus with the help of a couple of crew soon managed to achieve an airtight bridge to the bunker. Titus, impatiently nurturing the running engine, was surprised to see that not all the landed party came back – just Penny Kalinski, Cadet Mardina Eden Jones Guthfrithson, the rodent-like druidh Ari Guthfrithson, and the slave boy with the talking rucksack.

And at the last minute Penny Kalinski herself refused to follow.

Mardina wouldn’t leave her behind. She grasped the old lady’s hands, trying gently to pull her forward to the port. ‘You must come. There’s no need to die here.’

‘But I would die soon anyhow, my dear. And you need a witness – you, all of your people – a witness to what is being done, today, in your system, to your worlds. For, after all, it is Earthshine, with whom I travelled through the jonbar hinge, who is responsible for all this. The least I can do is file a report. And I am a scientist, you know – a druidh in my culture. A trained observer. Go, child, go – my mind is made up. But leave me that farspeaker of yours.’

‘Academician—’

‘It will soon be over, child. What, an hour? No more.’

Titus Valerius was running out of time. ‘Scorpus, Orgilius, get that damn door closed. Right now.’

‘Right, Titus.’ The two burly legionaries made for the hatch.

Penny called, ‘Oh, and Mardina – tell that centurion of yours, make him instruct his trierarchus – tell him not to hang around. Don’t hover near Mars, waiting to see what happens. And don’t head back to Earth either. Tell him to flee – out of the system, with the greatest acceleration he can muster – tell him to flee as Lex McGregor once fled, with the kernel drive burning. He will understand—’

Scorpus pulled the girl back from the door, and Orgilius slammed the hatch closed.

‘At last!’ Titus Valerius rammed forward his control lever and the testudo surged away from the lock. There were more complaints and curses as people fell over each other in the sudden acceleration. Titus just laughed, swung around the nose of the testudo, and headed straight for the welcoming belly of the Malleus Jesu.