'I don't think that bothers the Watch too much,' Gelvert said. 'Just a few less NC2s to take care of.'

'Did anybody else get away?' Tressel asked.

'Not that I noticed. Just hope that the Watch think we split earlier and don't find out how many were in the warehouse.

Then maybe they won't bother searching further.'

'Don't you care about the others?' Semanov asked.

'No,' said Gelvert simply. 'And if you want to get on the Ship, you won't either.' He was looking up at the night sky.

'Still got your thermal blankets with you?'

They nodded. 'Why?' Semanov asked.

'In case they bring in a skycar for a search. We can hide from nightscopes easily enough, but we need the blankets to avoid thermal imagers. If you've lost yours keep away from me.'

'Maybe we should take the tube out of here while we can,'

Tressel said. 'We've got the money cards we bought from Lesitor.'

'Yeah, and just a hundred credits on each,' Gelvert reminded him. 'We'll need them for later. Anyway, the Watch might check the tube records. You go if you want. For now I'm staying put.

He was simply being pragmatic. Moving now might only get him spotted. If the men in the car he'd confronted had seen him running up here and had then told the Watch, the watchmen would probably a.s.sume he'd already taken the tube out. But he guessed, from what Tressel had just told him, that the kind of young men who'd chased him would not care to admit losing out to somebody on foot, whose only weapon had been a handful of earth and pebbles.

Tressel and Semanov stayed with him. After a few minutes the occupants of the gyrocars climbed back into their vehicles and drove off in a straggling column that vanished into the night. The Watch van carrying the recaptured NC2s followed.

The patrol car remained for a quarter of an hour, presumably to check the warehouse was secure, then it also left. No search of the area had been made and there was no sight or sound of any aerial activity. With a whisper of displaced air, a capsule pa.s.sed along the tube into the station. They saw a handful of people inside it but apparently none were getting off so it continued on through the stop. Apart from the occasional car pa.s.sing along the avenue all was quiet.

'Where to now?' Tressel asked.

'Nowhere far,' Gelvert said. 'Let the excitement cool down. We'll move off in the morning when there are more people around.'

Cautiously they made their way around the back of the small arcade of shops to a long wall housing a row of utility doors. Gelvert examined the lock of the nearest one, took a sliver of plastic from his pocket and worked it back and forth until there was a slight click. The door swung open.

'You're very good at that,' Tressel said, his tone reproachful yet with a hint of grudging admiration.

For a moment Gelvert hesitated, recalling a time when he would never have dreamed of forcing a lock, far less known how to do so. But he had learnt a lot of survival skills during his long journey to Arkhaven as civilisation had fallen apart about him.

'Nothing to it,' he bl.u.s.tered. 'You people make dumb locks.'

They stepped into a small backroom, piled with boxes and cartons of unidentifiable merchandise. It was lit only indirectly through a fanlight over the door.

'This looks good,' said Gelvert, running his finger across the dust on the top of the boxes. 'I don't think anybody comes in here very often.' He closed the door and settled down in a corner, pulling his thermal blanket out and spreading it over himself Semanov shrugged and followed his example. Tressel remained standing, looking uncomfortable, as though afraid to touch anything.

'There's never been much crime in Arkhaven,' he said.

'Even less after the war. Not common breaking and entering or theft, anyway...'

'Shut up and get some rest!' Gelvert told him firmly. 'And don't start developing a guilty conscience now. The people of your fair city were planning to leave you behind to get smashed along with the rest of the world, remember?'

'He's right,' said Semanov. 'We don't owe anybody anything. Getting on the Ship is all that matters. Nothing's going to stop me, I can tell you that. Nothing!'

'Would you kill to get on board?' Tressel asked simply.

Semanov didn't answer.

Tressel crouched down in the opposite corner and covered himself with his blanket.

Gelvert felt desperately tired and sleep overcame him in minutes. But as he slipped away a small detail surfaced in the back of his mind.

Despite all the confusion in the yard, the gyrocar chase and then the arrival of the Watch, n.o.body had come out of any of the surrounding buildings to see what was going on.

Chapter Nine.

Visitors?

'Excuse me,' said the watchman, 'but which way is intensive care? I can't get any sense out of the receptionist and the signs aren't that clear.'

Nyra Shardri paused on her way through the otherwise empty main lobby of the hospital and smiled at the smart young man. A captain, she noticed.

'Sorry, the receptionist keeps breaking down... it's only a simple model,' she explained. 'Priority maintenance goes to the medical units, and we're short-staffed. We can't get people to do the ordinary work any more. You know how it is.'

'I know,' he said. 'They've decided it's not worth the trouble because they don't believe the Ship will be ready in time...'

'Don't!' Nyra said quickly. 'Please. It's something I have nightmares about.'

He looked genuinely contrite. 'Sorry.'

Nyra renewed her smile. 'Anyway, I'm going to intensive care as it happens... it's this way.'

They rode up the powered ramp side by side.

'Are you visiting a relative?' Nyra asked.

The captain smiled. 'No. I'm doing a favour for an... uh, acquaintance. He wants to know how his granddaughter is doing. A Susan Foreman.'

Nyra started. 'Oh. I didn't realise. The council hasn't sent you, have they?'

'No, just her grandfather. Why should the council have sent me?'

They reached the top of the ramp and started down a long corridor.

'I'm sorry,' Nyra said. 'I thought you must know about her case.'

'What about it?' He looked concerned. 'She's all right, isn't she?'

'Well... she's a very unusual patient.'

'How do you mean?'

Nyra considered for a few seconds. 'I suppose I can tell you. Is her grandfather an NC2 as well?'

'Yes.'

'I see. I was wondering why she'd had no visitors.'

They reached the doors of intensive care.

'Look,' Nyra said. 'It's the start of my shift and I've got to take the report. When I've done that I'll explain. By the way, I'm Nyra Shardri.'

He gave a smile a little warmer than basic politeness demanded, which she found pleased her. 'Benadik Lant... Ben, to my friends.'

Lant waited patiently as Nyra checked in with her fellow clinician who was going off duty, and reviewed the night records and case notes. When they were alone again except for the silent occupants of the support tanks, she led him over to unit five. Together they peered down at the pale-faced dark-haired girl within.

'She's fine now but she had a bit of a crisis yesterday.'

Nyra admitted. 'We don't know what went wrong but I had to put her in TES suspension for a few hours.'

He gave a mock shiver. 'I went though that myself a couple of years ago. A sizeable part of a building fell on me during a particularly bad storm. Still, you people fixed me up.

But I felt cold inside for days afterwards.'

'Purely psychosomatic, I a.s.sure you,' Nyra said with a smile. 'Anyway, she's come through it well. We'll let her wake up naturally and move her to a recovery ward later.'

'She looks perfectly ordinary. What's so unusual about her?'

Nyra frowned. 'Let's say she's different from the norm.

Very different in some respects.' She realised Lant was looking at her oddly. 'I've notified central administration and the senior physician, but n.o.body's replied yet. That's why I thought you might have been sent here to check on her. Maybe they all think it's a joke... or else I'm letting everything get to me. But I a.s.sure you it's absolutely true.'

She led him over to the central console. 'I've got her tests here. How much anatomy do you know?'

'Only enough to give first aid.'

'Well, her skeleton is quite ordinary. But her core body temperature and pulse rate have stabilised at ridiculous levels... which is maybe not surprising considering her peculiar blood chemistry and cell structure.' She displayed a whole-body scan on the screen. 'Most of her major organs are correctly placed... but look at this.'

Nyra saw the captain's eyes widen in amazement. For some reason it felt comforting to share the mystery with him.

Twenty minutes later Ben Lant left the hospital and climbed into his car, still deep in thought.

He understood the realities of the larger situation better than Nyra Shardri and wasn't surprised that central administration hadn't acted on her medical report yet. They were overstretched, simply with planning the exodus while keeping Arkhaven running. The physiological peculiarities of a young NC2 woman would hardly receive top priority, even if they were taken seriously. But Ben found himself wanting to know the truth, one way or another.

Susan Foreman was either a radical mutation or else she was not native to Sarath.

It didn't seem possible that she was a mutation. She was otherwise too perfect. Even the Taklarians' selective breeding programme had not changed their internal bodily make-up. So could she really be from somewhere else?

There were disparities in Sarath's fossil record, and genetic differences between a few of the less successful minor plants and animals and the others. Some scientists suggested that millennia ago the founding fathers had journeyed through s.p.a.ce to colonise Sarath, while the Church said Sarath was settled directly from the Maker's holy garden of Matherath.

The debate over the so-called 'Origin Question' had raged for years. Now Susan Foreman had appeared. What if she and her grandfather and her friends weren't just a few more refugees from beyond Arkhaven's walls? What if the colonisers' distant cousins had come to visit them at last?

'Where to now, sir?' his driver asked, and Lant realised with a start that this was the second time the man had asked.

'Carlson Tower, intersection of Fifteenth Avenue and orbital twenty-nine. You may not be able to get too close it took some storm damage yesterday.'

Carlson Tower was a rapidly disintegrating stub less than half its former height. A squad of robotic cutters, grabs and excavators were dismantling the building's sh.e.l.l, while skycranes lowered rubble to a fleet of dumper trucks waiting at ground level.

The site command unit had been set up on an elevated road overlooking the remains. Ben introduced himself to Supervisor Curton and explained what he was looking for.

'A blue box?' said Curton. 'That old NC2 man was on about a blue box yesterday.'

'You heard him?'

'Him and his friend. So did the mayor.'

'But what did they say, exactly?'

Curton chuckled. 'Only that they came from outer s.p.a.ce, and had landed their s.p.a.cecraft on top of the tower, then lost it when the building collapsed. You have to feel sorry for them, I suppose.'

'I see,' Ben said carefully, feeling a thrill of excitement.

'We're still scanning for the NC2 woman they said was missing as well, but there's nothing so far. Still, we haven't found the service-lift cage yet so there's some hope. They're built pretty tough.'

Ben nodded, sobered by the reminder that another life might yet hang in the balance. 'Anyway, you'll keep an eye out for this box... just in case.'

'Look, any box of the size you say, s.p.a.ceship or not, won't be much of a box by the time we dig it out... a.s.suming it's there at all.'

Ben gazed about him at the demolition site. The moment of brief elation had pa.s.sed and he was suddenly a.s.sailed by doubt. What was he doing here? Following up an old man's cryptic suggestions and mad stories. Just wanting to believe that something wonderful had happened, wouldn't make it so.

Perhaps the girl's physical peculiarities had some other explanation.