'Thomas...'

With unsuppressed fury Torrence barked at his men. 'Drive those people out of here with your fists if you have to... if they don't move, put a bullet in them. Shoot them down like dogs!'

I glanced round at the Guardsmen. They couldn't have looked more stunned if a whole squadron of tanks had thundered through the doors. Everywhere, faces of the armed men flushed red; they began to look to one another to see what their comrades would do.

They did nothing.

The Blind continued to call out to them.

'Joe, listen to me. Throw your gun down, my boy.'

'Colleen, put away your gun.'

'Benjamin...'

I looked from Guardsman to Guardsman. Their grim expressions had begun to change as powerful emotions started to build inside them.

Suddenly an officer threw his gun to the floor, where it clattered loudly.

And all the time the clear voices of the Blind continued calling to their sons and daughters.

'Pick that gun up,' Torrence raged at the Guardsman. 'Pick it up or I'll have you court-martialled!'

Shaking his head, the man lowered his gaze to the floor. After that, a rifle was thrown down, followed by a sub-machine gun.

'I order you to pick up those guns.'

Another gun fell to the floor, then another and another. Soon the sound of metal striking marble filled the lobby. I looked at the civil guard in the doorway. They followed suit, laying down their rifles and pistols. As quickly as the sounds had filled the lobby it became silent.

Then the elderly woman spoke. 'It's over, Torrence. Your co-rulers have been arrested. They will be tried in a court of law in due course. As you will be.'

'What? You... you creatures stand in judgement of me? Never... never.' He raised the pistol, pointing it at the woman's face.

It is sometimes said that there is no such thing as a true accident. That our unconscious desires guide our actions.

Only one of my arms had been manacled, the shackling process having been interrupted by the arrival of the Blind. Now a yard of chain hung from my right wrist. At the end of that formidable chain was a heavy steel cuff.

Before Torrence could fire I swung the chain with all my strength. I had intended to strike the arm that held the pistol. But I whipped the chain too high. At that moment, Torrence heard the sound of the approaching chain and half turned.

The manacle cracked into the side of his face. I saw only too clearly the damage caused by the open steel cuff as it embedded itself in his single good eye.

The screams, the curses, the sheer despair and fury of Torrence's inarticulate but highly vocal rage still rang around the building as the medics took the man away.

I turned to see Kerris kneeling beside Marni, holding a bloodstained hand. Tears glistened on her face. I went to her. I think I was the only one to move at that moment. Even though the lobby held perhaps five hundred people, everyone was still. As if even now, though the man himself had been disgraced and deposed, the ghost of Torrence's presence somehow still held sway there.

But formidable though the tyrant had been, the malign presence did, at length, pass and was no more. Guardsmen joined their blind mothers and fathers. From the emotions they displayed I sensed that the soldiers hadn't seen their parents for a long, long time.

That was, perhaps, the instant that Torrence's spell was well and truly broken. Families, now reunited, began to leave in small groups.

In a little while we'd leave, too. But not just yet. Arrangements had to be made for Marni. We would make sure we did right by her.

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE.

THE WORLD BEYOND.

ON a bright October morning the flying boat's hull kissed the surface of a perfect sea. I throttled back and the engines that had powered our fifteen-hour flight eastwards across the Atlantic fell silent. The green hills of the Isle of Wight were as I'd remembered them. A mist clung to the shoreline, softening the outlines of the houses of Shanklin. Presently a motor launch fastened a line to the aircraft's nose, then towed it to the jetty where quite a crowd had turned out to see us.

It had been a long journey and there was still a lot of work to do back in Manhattan. But I thought it only right that my parents should meet the woman who was carrying their first grandchild.

We disembarked to cheers and wild applause. I'd seen nothing like it before. What had happened to that customary English reserve? I smiled as Gabriel Deeds found himself surrounded by dozens of islanders eager to shake him by the hand. The American Indian, Ryder Chee, made an impressive if incongruous figure among the crowd. But even his customary solemn expression broke into a crinkling smile as islanders surged forward to welcome him.

Christina laughed with delight, waving and clapping her hands back at the crowd, her eyes flashing with excitement.

It all became confusing, not to say a little riotous for a time. But suddenly I was face to face with my father. His strong face broke into a smile. 'Enjoy this moment, son,' he told me, putting his hands on my shoulders. 'You're getting a welcome fit for a hero... and you deserve every bit of it.'

Coherent speech became impossible. There were too many hugs, handshakes and kisses, too much backslapping for that. My old pilot buddy Mitch Mitchell managed to reach over the thronging people, displaying an impressive length of arm that justified his nickname of 'Monkey'. He rubbed my hair vigorously while calling out, 'White Swan, tomorrow night at eight. The beers are on me!'

By degrees we made it into the town where cars waited for us.

My father, Bill Masen, that hero of an earlier era, had learned from radio messages about what had happened to me over the last few weeks, but he was eager to learn more. 'And you say that the girl you found, Christina Schofield, is actually immune to triffid poison?'

'As are Ryder Chee and his tribe. They can walk among triffids like we'd take a stroll through an orchard.'

'You told me over the radio that you had another surprise for me.'

I smiled. 'Yes, I have.'

He grinned. 'Come on, David, what is it? You're not going to keep your old father in suspense, are you?'

'I'm afraid I will for a little while. This is something that I really need to show you.'

'In that case, I'm most definitely intrigued. Now, you take the car in front.' My father turned to Kerris who was walking arm in arm with my mother. 'Kerris, dear, you ride with David. We'll follow on.'

And so a convoy of cars headed out of Shanklin, bound for a country hotel that would accommodate our party. As we drove I thought about the revelation I had in store for my father, and I wondered how he would react.

I watched the familiar countryside pass by. It did feel good to be home. However, I couldn't help but reflect on the last few months, beginning with what at first seemed an ill-fated mission to free Christina. It was only after the blinded Torrence had been carried away that I realized what had happened. I remembered when the triffids had lurched through the streets and I'd heard the radio broadcast instructing New Yorkers to head north to safety. Now it made perfect sense why radio and television engineers had joined the Foresters' mission. On the day of the attack radio and TV stations had been seized and warning broadcasts issued, urging the population to flee north of the 102nd Street Parallel. It had been a significant element of the overall Dymes plan to expose free New Yorkers to the horrendous reality of the slave-labour camp. The plan had worked beautifully. Such was the flow of panicking humanity northwards that Torrence's prison guards had been forced to open the gates. (No doubt they had also been persuaded to do so by the march of those monstrous triffid plants through the Manhattan streets.) Consequently tens of thousands of refugees from the south of Manhattan suddenly found themselves in the ghettos of the north. There they had looked around in both horror and astonishment. As simply as that, Torrence's gaff was blown. What followed then had been the spontaneous march on the Empire State Building by the Blind, whether they were slave or free.

That was when Torrence's evil regime had died. Slave camps were liberated. Families had been reunited. Of course, the transition wasn't without its difficulties and setbacks, but progress was still being made.

At the hotel we ate dinner. Family histories were exchanged. My father talked to Ryder Chee as if they'd known each other for decades.

Then I said to my father, 'Ryder Chee would like to conduct a little test on yourself, along with the other people in the room. If everyone is willing?'

Everyone was immediately curious.

'Would you all roll up your sleeves?' I asked. All complied.

My father raised an eyebrow. 'Is this the final surprise you were going to spring on me?'

I nodded, smiling. 'It is.' I rolled up my sleeve too. 'Ryder Chee only finalized the test last week. We still need to refine it so that everyone on the island can be tested quickly and accurately. But Chee has the bones of the thing sorted out.'

'Now you really have aroused my curiosity,' said my father. 'What are we being tested for, exactly?'

I couldn't resist a touch of the theatrical. 'Wait and see.'

Ryder Chee moved from person to person while Christina carried a tray for him on which a dozen or so needles rested on sterilized paper. Taking a needle, he dipped the point in a pinkish solution in a glass phial. Then, working very methodically, he moved from one person to the next, pricking each of them on the forearm with a needle before discarding it, selecting a fresh one and repeating the process with the next candidate.

I gazed at the tiny pinprick on my skin. Chee told me I wouldn't have long to wait. I didn't. The pinprick began to itch, then burn as a single bright red spot appeared on my arm.

My father looked at his own arm expectantly. Then he shook his head, almost as if he was disappointed when the red spot didn't appear on his skin. Ryder Chee looked carefully at his arm. 'There is no sensation, Bill Masen?'

'None at all.' My father looked mystified.

Ryder Chee nodded with satisfaction. Then: 'Bill Masen, there are still many triffid plants in England?'

'Yes, I should say so. The whole place is infested with them. Why?'

'Because, if you should wish to do so,' Chee told my father, 'you might like to take a trip to the mainland. And walk among the triffids.'

My father looked astounded. 'You mean to say that this test shows that I'm immune?'

'I pricked your skin with a needle dipped in a weak solution of the plant's poison. There was no reaction. Therefore the triffids cannot hurt you. But I can't say the same for your son. He can be harmed by the plant.'

'But how?' my father asked in astonishment. 'Thirty years ago I was very nearly blinded by a triffid. My face felt as if it was on fire.'

'And since that day you have eaten triffid, worked with them. You have been exposed to their poison in quantities so small that they have been harmless to you. Over the years this has stimulated your body into providing a natural immunity, in much the same way that snake-charmers become immune to the venom of the snake.' He checked the arms of the others in the room. 'A quarter of the people here have not responded adversely to the test. I imagine this sample will be representative of the local population as a whole. Many thousands of your people will be immune. They are now free to begin reclaiming their old homelands.'

My father sat there at the table, shaking his head. The truth would take some time to sink in. He'd worked so hard to find a scientific way to neutralize the power of the triffids. While he'd toiled away in the laboratory, however, his own body had done just that - without him even knowing.

That is the lasting impression that stays with me. My father is sitting next to Christina. And there is such a look of awe on his face at he gazes down at his unblemished forearm. In it he sees the key to a new world.

That was more than six months ago. Now, even though it's the last day of March today, here in Manhattan we are still in the grip of the fiercest winter I have ever known. Blizzards sweep across the city, turning the world beyond my hundredth-storey window into a maelstrom of white. Normally I would have had perfect views of the Statue of Liberty, the mouth of the Hudson where it pours out into the Atlantic, and the tiny island where the blinded Torrence still roars out his fury in his one-man prison.

While the scattered remnants of humankind followed their ancient instincts and made war on each other, the wider universe ran according to the eternal laws that govern its own celestial mechanism. As we battled for control of Manhattan, so the cloud of interstellar dust, which we now know was responsible for the great darkness that fell on the Earth, continued to drift through the solar system. At times it formed a dense veil between our planet and the sun, reducing day to the blackest of nights. During the summer months it thickened again. Frosts in August ruined our crops. By September there were five inches of snow on the ground in the Isle of Wight and America's southern states alike.

By October the dust cloud had gone, no doubt continuing its silent journey through the cosmos. For us, though, the damage it had wrought lingered on. While there were the joys - including the birth of our son, William, and seeing Rowena recover her health - there were, and still are, bitter realities to confront, too. The battle to find enough food for our people is never-ending. New Yorkers had to accept slashing cuts in their standard of living with the liberation of the slave-labour camps. Those days of gluttonous consumerism are over for the foreseeable future, - with luck, for ever. Triffids are more aggressive now than they have ever been before. They mutate faster, spawning newer, more lethal models of themselves. At least now, however, the people of the Isle of Wight, Manhattan and the communities I'd come to know as the Foresters have joined together, allies against both hunger and the triffid menace.

As I sat here earlier today at my desk, with the shrieking wind blowing snow against the glass and William asleep in the next room, I had reached the stage in this account of my experiences where it's customary to write those two simple words: The End. Then I planned to find Kerris and share a coffee with her before returning to our apartment. But as in so many areas of life, whether we are speaking of civilizations or individuals, it is simply not possible to say 'We have reached the end' as though everything will cease to exist beyond that point.

This was brought home to me not half an hour ago when Sam Dymes bounded into my office with the words, 'Say, sorry to bust in on you like this, David, but just take a look this...' He showed me a report from the people in Wireless Research announcing that they had picked up some inexplicable - and indecipherable - radio signals of staggering power. As I write this I can still see Sam pacing excitedly up and down, repeating the details to Kerris: that the transmissions are belting out from a far corner of the world; that they make the best of our own transmitters look as powerful as a tin megaphone; that already he's planning to launch an expedition to find the source of this mysterious broadcast...

See? There are no endings. Until a moment ago I'd been looking ahead to months spent here in this office, working on flight schedules for our airlines, calculating budgets for the airmail service and a host of other vital but mundane chores.

But now I'm seeing myself behind the controls of an aircraft once more, golden sunlight shining on its wings, engines humming sweeter than honey. And there on the horizon lie new territories just crying out to be explored.

So at the very final page, here, I know to the depths of my bones that I will have to defy convention. For I can't with any certainty write 'The End'.

Instead, on the threshold of a new world and new adventures, I can - and I will - write with total confidence: This is the beginning...

end.