She did what she’d always promised herself she wouldn’t do, and snuggled up close, rejoicing in the sensation of his arms around her, hearing his heart beating beneath his shirt, smelling his scent. His hand rubbed her spine absently.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

‘What for? I just said it like it is. You knew it already.’

‘For just that, being honest.’

‘It’s strange. So many people are desperate to get to the top, to be in charge. But, crud, the decisions you have to make when you’re there. That’s the part nobody ever warns you about.’

‘It’ll be different, won’t it, Nigel? Out in the Commonwealth?’

‘Yes. But please don’t think that a post-scarcity society is devoid of politics. There’ll still be backstabbing and manoeuvring and betrayal and ideological obsession – everything we excel in.’

Kysandra grinned, still not moving from his embrace. ‘You’re such a cynic.’

‘It’s our natural state. Just look at what’s happening with Slvasta.’

‘Huh! The idiot.’

‘The agreement was that in return for weapons he called a people’s congress to determine a democratic constitution.’

‘But that’s what he’s done.’ She frowned at him. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yeah. But a people’s congress doesn’t mean just his people.’

Kysandra stiffened in surprise. ‘He hasn’t!’

‘Oh, yes, he has. Every delegate is either a comrade or a Democratic Unity member. No dissenters allowed in his brave new world.’

‘But that’s . . .’

‘Typical. Partly my fault. I wanted a revolution in the city guaranteed to empty the Captain’s Palace. I maybe should have avoided the classic Leninist–Trotskyite model.’ He pulled a face. ‘Of course, it is a proven method, and we needed a result. But I did enjoy the irony.’

‘I can’t believe Slvasta did that. He was supposed to be a man of the people – the man of the people, actually. The one everybody could trust. That’s why we chose him.’

‘It doesn’t matter. He’s an irrelevance now that he’s fulfilled his role. One more week, and this will all be over.’

Kysandra regarded the city with renewed interest. The barge was a couple of hundred metres out from the quayside now. The broad road which ran behind the wharfs was crammed with people. There were a lot of families packed together there; men with anxious haunted faces, women trying to keep calm for the sake of exhausted frightened children. Every adult was either carrying a suitcase or wearing a backpack, in most cases both. Everywhere a boat was tied up had generated a dense knot of angry desperate people, emitting strong incoherent ’paths like flashes of lightning. No matter what the ship was, from a small rowing boat to the big ocean-going schooners, their armed crews stood stoically on the gangplanks, not letting anyone on board.

‘What are they doing?’ Kysandra wondered.

‘Holding an auction,’ Nigel said. ‘Passage goes to the highest bidder.’

‘That’s awful. The killing has stopped. Coulan got the mobs to break up and go home yesterday.’

‘Our mobs,’ Nigel said sardonically. ‘Right now there are a lot of old scores being settled. Boss fired you from work a couple of years back? It was really unfair. Well, now’s your chance for payback. No sheriffs keeping order right now. No officials you can turn to for help. Good time to go looting, too. And you need to loot, if you want your family to eat, because food’s running short. No trains bringing more, remember?’

‘Uracus!’

They saw Coulan and a large squad of heavily armed militia waiting at an empty wharf. The barge steered over to it and tied up. There was a surge of hopeful people along the quayside. The silent, stone-faced militiamen on guard at the end of the wharf stopped them getting anywhere near the gangplank.

Kysandra stood on tiptoes to give the ANAdroid a quick kiss. ‘You made it okay?’

‘I’m intact, yes.’

‘Everything ready?’ Nigel asked brusquely.

‘I’ve had my militia guard them since we stormed the palace. Slvasta and Javier are butting heads in the Interim Congress, and Bethaneve is trying to manage the blockades around the posh boroughs that simply won’t do as they’re told. We just need to go and collect them.’

‘Good.’

Kysandra gave the desperate refugees on the quayside a concerned look. ‘What about the residents?’

‘The guns are off the street,’ Coulan said. ‘Most of them, anyway. Not that it matters. They don’t have much ammunition left. We calculated that about right.’

‘I didn’t mean that. What about food? Hospitals? There were hundreds injured, I know. What are the victorious comrades doing about getting everything working again?’

‘They just have to hang on for a week,’ Nigel said.

‘And if it doesn’t work?’

‘It will.’

‘Really? We have James Hilton, in case you’re wrong. Nigel, you can’t abandon these people, not now. They’re desperate for some kind of order; Uracus, half of them are desperate just for a meal, and Slvasta’s Congress of Morons is busy debating ideological purity and awarding themselves important titles. The city needs practical help.’ She waved an arm at the crowds. ‘You created this. You’re the one with all the experience of managing billions of people – apparently. Do something!’

Nigel and Coulan exchanged a glance. Air hissed out of Nigel’s mouth in a reluctant sigh.

‘I can talk to some of the Congress delegates,’ Coulan said. ‘Organize the smarter ones to get basic services up and running again. Food will have to be brought in on roads.’

‘Thank you!’

Nigel held up a warning finger. ‘Just as soon as we’ve got what we came for.’

‘Fine.’ She gave them both a sprightly smile. ‘Let’s go, then.’

It took a quarter of an hour to unload the carts. Then they were riding quickly into town, where the crowds that thronged the harbour melted away, leaving the streets beyond the quayside practically deserted. Coulan’s militia men hung on to the sides of a couple of cabs which led the way, keeping their carbines very visible. A third cab followed the carts, carrying more militia.

‘Not even cabs,’ Nigel observed as they made their way towards the centre of the city.

‘Anything with wheels got hired to take people out of town,’ Coulan said. ‘Going to have some very rich cabbies back here in a week or so.’

‘You didn’t try to stop them?’ Kysandra said.

‘Certainly not. The people who’re leaving are the ones who fear and oppose the revolution. They’re the ones who’ll ultimately organize the counter-strike, if and when it comes. Better to have them away for the moment.’

Kysandra remembered the first time she’d visited Varlan: how wonderful the big buildings had seemed, how elegant and sophisticated. How she’d envied those who made their home in the capital, the bright exciting lives they must all live.

Now she could hardly bear to look around. Twice she’d seen bodies hanging; two from a tree, another from a lamp post. Shuddered and turned away. Everywhere there were signs of violence – congealed blood on the pavement, façades with long soot-slicks emerging from empty windows, looted shops, debris strewn around, the reeking silt left behind by the flooding, wrecked cabs and carts with dead horses still attached. She gritted her teeth as their little convoy moved purposefully through it all, seeking that emotionless state she’d achieved south of the river.

They skirted the edge of Bromwell Park and turned into Walton Boulevard. Kysandra could have cried at the state of the lovely old Rasheeda Hotel. All the ground-floor windows had been smashed, along with many on the first, and even some on the second floor. Tattered white curtains fluttered out through the gaps, pitiful flags of submission. The troughs of flowers beside the entrance had been broken up, the plants mashed. Her ex-sight perceived the interior had been stripped clean, leaving the grand rooms empty. Even the furniture was gone. ‘Bussalores,’ she muttered sourly. ‘They’re like human bussalores.’