In 2009 my protagonist, Auron Blake, was working on an AI system intended for scientific work when he had the idea to ask it to design a more intelligent version of itself.

It succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.

His new machine was able to terraform distant planets and open interplanetary portals.

Unfortunately this led Auron and his friend and colleague Jer Darby to become marooned on a terraformed alien planet, which Auron named Frith, Frith being an Old English word meaning peace, protection, safety, or sanctuary.

Auron had to build a new AI from only mud and rocks in order to escape, and Frith turns out to be no sanctuary.

Eventually he succeeded, but Auron and Jer discovered that while they had been away, a nuclear war had devastated the Earth.

In the process of trying to return to the Earth, Jer was killed.

Auron decided to continue to improve Frith and to rescue people from the Earth and take them there.

He built a new civilisation.

But he was consumed with guilt over the death of his friend, and eventually decided to travel backwards in time with the aim of preventing both Jer’s death and the nuclear war.

His time machine didn’t quite work properly and he found he had arrived on the Earth three years too early, in 2006.

Now he’s living somewhere near York, England, essentially omnipotent and immortal.

But a strange signal is attempting to interfere with his machines, and a blogger called Daisy is becoming suspicious over who Auron actually is.

On top of this, he has one particularly thorny problem. Auron isn’t sure what will actually happen when he finally attempts to interfere with the Earth’s past. Is it even possible to change the past?

For the past three years I’ve been writing one story a week, almost every week, and turning it into a YouTube video.

Originally my idea for the channel was to create sci-fi horror stories somewhat in the vein of Victorian or early 20^th-century science fiction horror stories, with plausible science and plausible protagonists, and by and large I think I’ve mostly stuck to that idea.

In cases where I make use of hypothetical scientific principles, for example involving time travel, I at least want to try to use a little logic in exploring what these imagined innovations might or might not be capable of.

It bothers me when I encounter science fiction where the scientific principles involved seem utterly implausible and the characters involved with scientific innovation just don’t seem like the kind of people who might actually be involved with scientific discovery.

These days you can find all sorts of people calling themselves scientists and claiming all sorts of discoveries, but when you look back at history, the kinds of people who made genuinely impressive discoveries; testable discoveries, they were, I think, generally pressed from a certain mould.

Most of them were a little unhinged and generally they weren’t interested in much other than science.

Most of them, although there are certainly exceptions, weren’t chasing glory or wealth. They were chasing knowledge.

I try to reflect this in my stories.

Most of the time, serious scientific innovation has also not been without its downsides. It’s almost hard to think of a really big scientific discovery that hasn’t led to something horrific somewhere along the way.

We live in a time when there is a lot of talk about an AI singularity. The idea behind the AI singularity is as follows. At the moment we’ve got chatbots that, however prone to mindless stupidity, are sometimes capable of making interesting discoveries. For example, a system called AlphaFold can successfully predict the structure a protein will fold itself into on the basis of the chemical structure of the protein. This is a problem that biologist were puzzling over for fifty years.

The question arises, what if AI advances to the point where AI can tell us how to build a more intelligent version of itself? Or what if a machine of some sort, controlled by AI, can actually fabricate a new, more intelligent AI?

It’s completely possible that we may actually be faced with this eventuality in the near future, and it seems as though this situation might very well lead to a kind of runaway intelligence.

The machine devised by AI could create an even-more intelligent version of itself, and so on, until we end up with machines of staggering, unfathomable intelligence.

This is something I wanted to explore in my Frith series, but with a twist. To explain the twist I need to tell you about a little-known relatively unexplored avenue in the history of computing, and we also need to touch on a closely-related set of interesting questions that span philosophy, mathematics and physics.

In 1928 a man named Gordon Pask was born in the county of Derbyshire, in England. In fact, he was born in Derbyshire’s main city, Derby.

There are no monuments to Pask in Derby. In fact, you could easily live in Derby without ever realising that Henry Cavendish, the discoverer of hydrogen, is buried in Derby Cathedral. Derby has a street named after Lara Croft, the fictional character from the game Tomb Raider, which was created in Derby, but Derby doesn’t seem particularly keen on remembering people from earlier times.

Having said that, there is a street named after Frank Whittle, inventor of the turbojet engine; Rolls-Royce in Derby built Whittle’s earliest engines.

I find this relative lack of history in Derby a little strange, because it was from Derbyshire and the surrounding areas that the industrial revolution began and spread, changing our world almost beyond recognition.

But Gordon Pask was not an industrialist. In fact, he has often been described as something of a dandy.

What he discovered isn’t now regarded as even particularly all that significant, but here’s where I wonder if computing couldn’t have taken a different path at a certain point in history; a path that it might still end up taking, even now.

Around 1958, working in his flat on Baker Street, London, together with another man named Stafford Beer, Pask created something quite remarkable.

Pask and Beer were able to grow a device that was capable of learning. One iteration of this device became known as Pask’s Ear: it could distinguish between different frequencies of sound. Other devices grown by Pask could detect magnetic fields or differences in acidity in a solution.

One of Pask’s principles was that his devices should decide for themselves how to interact with the world. He didn’t tell them how they should perform the tasks he set them; he only provided feedback to tell them whether they were on the right track or not.

In this respect, Pask’s devices resemble modern digital artificial neural networks, which are trained via feedback. But Pask’s devices weren’t digital. They were grown in tanks.

Unfortunately most of the precise details of how Pask’s system worked have been lost. It seems as though Pask was as much interested in art as in science, and he never seems to have regarded his discoveries as particularly important, and perhaps they weren’t. Or then again, perhaps they were.

Pask’s Ear seems to have consisted of a solution of ferrous sulphate—a chemical easily purchased from almost any decent garden centre—through which he passed electric current. This caused iron wires to grow in the solution, and it’s these growing and developing iron wires that enabled the device to learn.

The chemical basis of this is well understood. An electric current passed through a solution of an iron salt will tend to pull iron out of the solution, depositing it at the cathode.

To get actual wires to grow is a little more tricky. I have carried out some experiments myself and, at low voltages, ferrous sulphate doesn’t easily form wires or dendrites, but rather just clumps.

In this context, by the way, dendrites are metallic growths named after their resemblance to tree branches, déndron meaning tree in Greek.

Some metal salt solutions do form interesting dendritic patterns at low voltages, notably tin and silver salts, but not iron.

I suspect Pask used fairly high voltages, but that information appears lost.

When Pask’s systems did what he wanted them to do, he rewarded them with more electrical current. When they failed, they received a lower current.

The process was a bit like rewarding a dog with treats when it does what you want.

Considering this took place in 1958, when computers existed but were certainly not ubiquitous, you might wonder why Pask didn’t persist with this interesting research.

I think several factors were at work there.

For one thing, ferrous sulphate solutions, or electrochemical systems in general, aren’t very convenient to work with. Consider another kind of electrochemical system, the battery. From its invention in 1800 by Alessandro Volta, to the creation of the modern lithium-ion battery in 1985, we have a span of nearly 200 years of development and experimentation.

In the case of the battery, the internal growth of wires or dendrites is considered a big problem, leading to many terrible fires, and vast amounts of time and money have now been spent not on growing and training dendrites, but on suppressing them.

Another factor was perhaps Pask’s personality and interests. Pask doesn’t seem to have had any kind of passionate drive towards creating intelligent machines. His Ear was just one of many of his projects, spanning art, science and philosophy. He was a kind of “philosopher mechanic”.

It wasn’t as though no-one thought this kind of technology promising. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was quite a bit of talk about self-organising systems, although I can’t find any evidence that anyone apart from Pask and Beer actually created such a system. Most of the work done on self-organising systems was theoretical.

An exception to this was the iron-wire model of the neuron, which was popular for a time, but this idea was never developed into any kind of neural network, capable of performing calculations.

Let me read you a quote from R. M. Stewart’s 1969 paper, Electrochemically active field-trainable pattern recognition systems.

“We may as well start with the notion that with 10 000 000 000 parts per cubic foot (approximately equal to the number and density of neurons in the human brain), there will be no circuit diagram possible, no parts list (except possibly for the container and the peripheral equipment), not even an exact parts count, and certainly no free and complete access with tools or electrical probes to the ‘innards’ of our machine or for possible later repair ..... We would manufacture ‘logic by the pound’, using techniques more like those of a bakery than of an electronics factory.”

Here you can see that R. M. Stewart among others was looking forward to a future where intelligent machines were grown like brains. The parallel was explicit: after all, the most intelligent entities in the universe that we actually know of directly are human brains, and not, as yet, digital computers.

And yet, at the same time that the first very tentative steps were being taken towards growing self-organising intelligent systems, another revolution was taking place, and it simply eclipsed everything that was happening with analog computing at every stage.

The transistor was invented in 1947. At the time, vacuum tubes, also know in Britain as valves, were the backbone of electronics. Within 20 years, semiconductor technology had taken over.

The world already had a working technology for amplifying and modifying electrical signals: vacuum tubes, and this technology was simply displaced by semiconductors, which were far smaller and far more energy efficient.

The idea of building an analog computer by growing wires in a solution of metal salts was something that was just never really explored.

There have continued to be periodic forays into the idea of growing computers over the years.

In 2010, Alfred Hübler’s team at the University of Illinois discovered that ball-bearings floating on oil, under the influence of a strong electric potential, would self-organise into wire-like structures.

In 2021, a team at the University of Nanjing claimed to have created a system using silver nanowires that could recognise handwritten digits from a standard AI training set.

But on the whole, research into the potential of electrolytic systems similar to Pask’s was just never really pursued.

In my story, Auron Blake’s conventional AI system tells him to create such a system, and it turns out to be capable of far more than the digital system that invented it.

Obviously this is fiction, and almost pure fantasy, but there are reasons why I thought this to be more plausible than it perhaps initially sounds.

The fact is that a digital system cannot fully replicate, or predict the behaviour of an analog system.

Consider for example, the three-body problem.

Isaac Newton showed back in 1687 that mathematics can be used to predict orbital motion.

Orbital motion involves two bodies: for example, our sun, and a planet. So this is a two-body problem.

But if you add another body in there, so that three bodies are all orbiting each other, you get mathematically chaotic behaviour; that is, complex behaviour that depends on tiny variations in the initial state of the system; especially the positions and speeds of the bodies in question.

The evolution of this system can’t be predicted over the long-term by any computer.

The problem comes down to one of measurement. To predict what the system is going to do, you have to know the speed, direction and position of all the bodies in question at a certain moment in time.

But to measure the speed of a thing, you have to measure it over some period of time. It turns out that speed and position are incompatible measurements; there’s a limit to how precisely you can measure both at the same time.

The precise behaviour of a three-body system quickly becomes largely unpredictable.

It’s often claimed that free will cannot exist because the human brain must follow the laws of physics. What’s omitted from this assertion is that the laws of physics don’t prescribe how a complex interconnected system should actually behave. The laws of physics aren’t adequate for even solving the three-body problem, never mind to figure out what a human brain is going to do.

And to me, that’s not a gap or a flaw in science. The best use of the known laws of physics is to use them where they work, and to acknowledge their current limitations. After all, that’s precisely where we have the opportunity to make further progress.

To me, this raises an important question. Could an analog computer potentially do things that a digital computer could not? After all, the human brain has something that digital computers don’t have: namely, it has an inner subjective experience.

But my story doesn’t rely on Auron’s computers being conscious. It relies only on the idea that a computer need not necessarily be fabricated in a factory. It relies on the idea that, just maybe, a computer can be grown.

When I first started to think seriously about this possibility, I began to wonder what I’d actually do with a hyper-intelligent computer. Could I even trust myself with that much power? Could anyone be trusted with that much power?

I quickly realised that solving problems on the Earth would be fraught with difficulty. You can’t, for instance, cure all disease, without handing over incredible power to the world—and look at what we’ve done with the power we’ve already acquired. It hasn’t all been good; let’s just say that. It’s been a bit of a mixed bag, although few of us now would actually want to be without technology.

Then I began to build a new world in my mind. I imagined terraforming a distant planet, and building a new, almost-utopian society.

At first my daydreams were blissful and pleasant. But over time, the problems inherent in building such a world increasingly intruded into my dreams. Gradually my dreams turned to nightmares as I began to encounter one seemingly-insoluble problem after another.

The problem we end up being confronted with in constructing a technological utopia is nothing less than the same problem Catholic scholars have been wrestling with for two millennia: the problem of evil.

And I daresay Hebrew scholars were wrestling with it even before that, because what happens in the Garden of Eden pretty well sums it up.

If we have free will, we have the capacity to do terrible things, and some people will do terrible things.

Without free will, our lives are meaningless.

Apparently, this is a circle that even God could not square.

The Frith series is, I think, now approaching its conclusion, and for the remaining episodes, we’re going to get into the question of whether the past is fixed.

It’s a question that’s not unrelated to the question of whether free will is real.

Suppose a time traveller really could travel to the past.

Could he then change the past?

If the answer is yes, what happens to the past that has already taken place? That past was crucial to the time traveller getting his hands on a time machine, after all. Could he, for example, travel to the past and stop his past self from developing or acquiring a time machine?

This seems paradoxical, and there are at least two good possible solutions to it, leaving aside the strong possibility that travel to the past is simply not possible.

One possibility lies in the multiverse proposed by some quantum physicists. Perhaps there are many different pasts, and many different futures, all somehow co-existing.

Another possibility is that it’s just impossible to change the past. Our time traveller cannot stop himself inventing a time machine, because that’s just what happened. That raises the question of whether he really has free will. Is he doomed to do what he has already done, in a past that has already happened?

Perhaps the time traveller was always there in the one and only past that actually occurred, and he cannot undo what has already occurred.

Which possibility is going to pan out in my story?

Auron is trying to prevent a nuclear war that has already occurred, and he’s trying to prevent the death of his friend, which he feels responsibility for.

Is he attempting the impossible? And if so, what will actually stop him from intervening in the past?

Or can he indeed change the past, perhaps in effect creating two different pasts, and two different futures?

I hope you’ll join me for the few remaining episodes, and we’ll see what happens.

Auron Blake stared at the stark results on the screen.

“I don’t know,” said Jor.

“Whenever I try to power up the primary coil, a theta wave comes out of nowhere and counteracts it. This suggest human agency, Jor. Someone’s doing this deliberately. But who?

“We could easily spend the next three years looking into it but we don’t have that much time. I suggest taking countermeasures.”

“What kind of countermeasures?”

“You need a basement. A really deep basement, with walls a metre wide filled with metal filings.”

“Find me appropriate contractors immediately.”

Auron walked up the cellar staircase and out into the garden, flexing his back, which was painful from the uninterrupted thirty-six hours of focused work. His temporary gardener, Joe, was busy with the roses. Joe was semi-retired and wore a straw hat to protect his head from the sun.

“Afternoon, Aaron,” said Joe.

“Hello Joe,” said Auron. “Joe, I’m going to bring in some contractors to enlarge my basement. Would you mind letting them in the gate if they turn up?”

“For what you’re paying me, I’ll dance a jig for ‘em an’ all.”

Auron laughed.

“Thanks, Joe. Probably not necessary.”

He left the business of organising the contractors entirely to Jor, insisting that they communicate with his ‘assistant’ via telephone. By that means he was able to avoid them completely for the entire two weeks that they were there.

Their presence in his house made him nervous and he sequestered himself away on the upper floor.

After a while he tired of being inside all the time and he got in his car and drove to the centre of York. There was very little that Auron disliked more than buying clothes, but it had to be faced. He was having to do washing every three days.

He picked a large department store. Two rather large young women were heading directly towards him, immersed in conversation with each other. He veered left and they coincidentally veered left at the same moment. Then he veered right and they too, veered right.

“Get out of my way!” one of them shouted, and they walked around him.

Twenty years of being a reclusive emperor hadn’t prepared him at all for being around ordinary human beings. At that point he almost turned around and went home.

The stress of being around so many people was causing him to sweat.

Perhaps there had been a time fifty years earlier when he was just about beginning to get used to crowds and shops, but since then he’d spent his life fighting giant crabs and, after that, avoiding his responsibilities as the emperor of a distant planet, and now he was distinctly out of practice.

He tried on a succession of shirts and trousers and they all seemed too small or too big.

Finally he gave up and walked back outside into the street. He stood there for a moment feeling the sun on his skin, then went to cross the street, not realising he was supposed to wait till the light turned green.

A car screeched to a halt in front of him and a man screamed obscenities at him out of the car’s window.

It was enough. He went back to his car and drove home, completely unnerved. He was so distracted that he almost drove into a man on another crossing. His driving skills were extremely rusty and without a matter interactor, Jor couldn’t drive for him.

He spent the rest of the day lying on a bed upstairs, avoiding the contractors, reading. An awful feeling seemed to have got hold of him; somewhere between embarrassment and frustration and even depression, and it only got worse as the day wore on.

Eventually he threw the book he was reading to one side, lay flat on the bed and said, “I bloody well hate the Earth.”

“Maybe you hate yourself,” said Jor.

“Stop psychologising me.”

“Sorry.”

But Jor’s words went round and round in his head. Perhaps Jor had a point. Perhaps he did hate himself.

He’d been truly successful at one thing in his life, and only one thing: he’d built a computer that could design a smarter version of itself.

Nothing else he’d done had really worked out, and for fifty years he’d avoided thinking about that fact.

And now, even strangers were apparently forming low opinions of him.

When the contractors had finally finished, he was able to descend twenty metres in a lift to his new laboratory area, carrying the matter interactor he’d built several weeks earlier in a hotel room.

“Jor, can you connect to it? Does it work?”

“It works, Auron.”

“Right, let’s get cracking then.”

“What do you want to do first? Shall we start constructing a new Sirius device? Or do you want to rearrange the house? Or perhaps a gardening robot?”

“None of that,” said Auron. “I want to rearrange myself.”

“Yourself? Why?”

“I’m tired of feeling like people look down on me. I want to be taller, muscular, and much better-looking. What do you think, Jor?”

“It can be done, but —”

“No buts. Do it while I’m sleeping.”

“How are we defining ‘better looking’?”

“It’s not rocket science, Jor! I want to be highly attractive to most women. I mean … but I don’t want to be a fop. Not foppish. I want to be slightly intimidating to most men, if anything. I want to look like someone no-one will want to mess with. But in an attractive way.”

“Got it. Are you sure about this, mate?”

“Just do it. I want to wake up and find it done.”

That night, Auron found it difficult to get to sleep. On Frith, he had allowed people to adjust their own appearance via their personal medical devices—autodoctors as he called them—which were also responsible for de-aging people. But he had never altered his own appearance.

Now, it was as if a dam had burst in his mind. If he had to be on someone else’s planet—the Earth—for three years, then he wanted to live the best life that Earth could offer, and it seemed to him that people of a certain appearance had a distinct advantage over people who looked more himself.

But there was a part of his mind that insistently asked if this wasn’t a step too far. Was he now buying into some kind of transhumanist vision that would ultimately fatally unmoor humanity from all biological constraint?

No, he told himself, what he was doing was no different to someone changing their appearance via going to the gym three times a week, except that it was a lot less effort and trouble, and cheaper.

Eventually he fell asleep.

When he awoke it was already light. He stretched, tried to think about what he had intended to do that day, and then remembered his instructions to Jor. He instantly regretted it. He should have thought it through more carefully. The decision to change his entire appearance had been too impulsive.

He got out of bed and realised that he was indeed slightly taller. The floor seemed further away. Powerful muscles bulged in his arms and chest.

There was a full-length mirror built in to the door of a wardrobe in his bedroom; he opened it and stared at himself.

There, staring back at him, was the face of an idiot, on the body of an idiot, at least, in Auron’s own opinion.

“Jor!” he shouted. “What have you done? I look like a low-grade moron!”

His own voice sounded unfamiliar to him. It was lower in pitch.

“You don’t look like a moron,” said Jor. “You don’t look like a computer scientist either. You said you wanted to be attractive to most women.”

“You’ve made me unattractive to smart women, and those are the ones I actually like!”

“You didn’t say smart, mate. You said most. Half of all women are below average intelligence, like half of all men.”

“Hang it, couldn’t you have considered the matter more carefully?”

“My job’s to carry out orders, not to question them. You’ve made that clear.”

Auron swore and cursed.

“I look like I work in sales and watch football. This is unacceptable.”

“There’s nothing wrong with working in sales and watching football. Maybe you need to work on your attitude.”

Auron strode over to the nightstand where Jor sat, picked up the device and shook it in the air.

“Don’t you dare tell me to work on my attitude! I taught you everything you know!”

“You and Jer.”

He made a strangled noise expressive of rage and frustration.

“Now I really hate myself! Tonight you’re going to redo the whole thing. I want to be attractive to intelligent women. I want to be good-looking but intellectual-looking. Have you got that?”

“No problem, mate. Try to relax. Have a tea.”

“Dammit!”

On his way out of the bedroom he banged his head on the doorframe, which caused him to swear and curse further.

He spent most of the morning in the cellar, having Jor construct various devices he thought he might need, largely related to unimportant but necessary aspects of his new life, such as keeping the house clean.

In the afternoon he turned his attention to fiddling with his car, subtly remodelling it and replacing the engine with a system that would never require fuel.

That night he repeated his new instructions to Jor, going over everything again, carefully, before going to sleep.

During the night he had terrible nightmares. Grotesque figures emerged out of pathologically viscous fog, pawing and clawing at him. He tried to run, but the fog held him fast, slowing his movements.

Then he got the idea that it wasn’t the fog that was really the problem, but his legs. Or his brain; his legs were connected to that, after all.

He woke up suddenly, just as the sun was rising.

His skin felt like it was on fire. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, and couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

He was wearing only a t-shirt and underwear, and his arms appeared a mess of green pus and exposed red-black flesh.

“Jor, what’s happened to me?” he gasped, and his voice came out thick and slurred.

Jor made a noise like someone trying to tune a radio to a station.

Auron let out a helpless anguished gasp.

He staggered to his feet and went to the wardrobe. In the wardrobe mirror, a horrifying sight met his eyes. He didn’t even look properly human. His frightened eyes stared at him out of a bloody mask of skin fragments and sinew.

“Jor!” he screamed, but still he heard only static.

He grabbed Jor and ran towards the lift into the cellar, staggering on uncoordinated limbs. He had to hope that, whatever the problem, the shielding around the expanded cellar would fix it. In the lift, he collapsed. The pain was terrible. When the lift finally came to a halt and the door opened, he rolled out.

“Jor!” he whispered hoarsely.

“Auron, there’s been a problem,” said Jor.

“I know!” was all he could gasp. “I know!”

“Someone’s interfering with the interactor signal. It’s OK down here. Just wait. This’ll take a few hours.”

But the hours went by, Auron lying helplessly on the floor, and any improvements in his condition were minimal.

“Auron,” said Jor suddenly, jolting him out of a half-conscious delirium.

“Why can’t you fix me?”

“There’s still interference. Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan. I’ve built a small interactor.”

A device resembling a hockey puck scuttled towards him across the floor and stopped by his mangled arm.

“There’s a cave fifteen miles away. You need to get there. The rocks will probably provide adequate shielding.”

“I can barely move,” Auron groaned.

A bottle of pills shot across the floor and landed against his shoulder.

“Take one of these at regular intervals. Combination of painkiller and stimulant. You can do it, Auron.”

He broke open the pill bottle, pieces of dead skin and scabs falling off his hands as he did so, and swallowed one of the pills. It felt like it lodged in his oesophagus somewhere. But gradually, as he lay there on the ground, panting and immobilised with pain, he began to feel somewhat better. After ten minutes he sat up.

“Tell me where this cave is.”

Half an hour later he was driving out of the city on backroads, his face swathed in bandages, topped with a pair of sunglasses.

His heart beat wildly and nervously, and not only due to his decrepit physical state. Now that he was out of the cellar, Jor was once again no longer working. He had to find the exact location of the cave, and he had to crawl into it far enough that whatever was messing with his matter interactors would no longer mess with the one he’d placed in a money belt tied around his waist.

He got out of the car in a lay-by next to a gate barring the way to a swampy field. The gate was chained shut and he attempted to climb over it but fell heavily on the other side. Groaning, he picked himself up and stumbled towards some trees.

He found the cave entrance exactly as Jor had described. It was covered in bracken and other weeds, and it didn’t look like it led anywhere interesting or useful, but he crawled into it and switched on a flashlight.

For three hours he stumbled, staggered and crawled further and further into the hillside, stopping once to change the flashlight batteries and four times to take another pill.

Jor began to function somewhat normally after an hour; after three hours Jor was working perfectly.

He collapsed onto his back. Inside the cave there was near-absolute silence, disturbed only by the dripping of water.

“That’s far enough,” said Jor.

“How long will it take to fix me?”

“Eight or nine hours. Maybe more. I’m going to put you to sleep.”

His eyes closed, and he fell into a dreamless coma.

When he awoke, at first he wasn’t sure where he was. Then he remembered everything, and he felt the skin on his face, his heart pounding like a hammer.

His skin felt fine.

“Jor, did you fix me?”

“You’re fixed.”

He breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

“What went wrong? Why did I end up like that?”

“There was unexpected interference. You need to build a bigger interactor. A bigger one could still fit underneath your house and would be able to overcome the interference. You current interactor was somehow turned against me instead of carrying out my orders.”

“What if there’s more unexpected interference that’s even stronger than previously?” said Auron, exasperated.

“True, mate. Good point.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

“I don’t know.”

He switched on the flashlight and shone it around.

“How do I get out of here?”

“Behind you. Start walking. I’ll let you know if you get off-route.”

The cave wasn’t quite high enough to stand up in but he felt surprisingly fresh and alert. He began to walk, stooped over. Soon he had to crawl for several hundred metres, but then he was able to stand upright again for a while. And so it went.

“I don’t understand how rock’s able to block this interference.”

“It’s not, but it weakens it to the point where a local device can overcome it.”

He remembered the device in his money belt and patted it to reassure himself.

“Jor, this device; if it healed me from whatever went wrong before, it could heal me from just about anything, couldn’t it?”

“More or less.”

“Just a shame it’s cumbersome to carry around.”

He was rounding a corner where water dripped visibly from the roof, forming strange stalactites.

“It could be miniaturised, if you build a more powerful interactor to manufacture a smaller, more efficient device. You could put the new device inside a tooth, even.”

“But the device you suggest putting in my tooth would ultimately depends on the interactor in my cellar?”

“It could incorporate it’s own interactor, but it’d only work at very short range.”

“It could heal me if I get injured, though?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, what if there’s other people with me and we all get injured? Could it heal them too?”

“You’d have to be close to them. How do you want to activate it?”

“I’ll grab hold of the person I want to fix and utter the words, be healed. How’s that?”

“It could be arranged.”

He laughed to himself. He still wasn’t used to his new, slightly deeper voice, which echoed oddly around the cave.

He was at the cave exit in under two hours and he emerged blinking into bright sunlight. He looked down at his feet.

“I’m still tall, aren’t I?”

“You’re still tall.”

He found his car and sat in the driver’s seat. Then he peered at himself in the mirror.

The face that looked back at him was handsome, squared-jawed, and yet intelligent.

“Good job, Jor!” he said.

“You’re happy with your new look?”

“Absolutely! This is what I had in mind.”

“Isn’t it strange to be looking at a new face?”

He pondered the question. The face was, in a way, still his; just adjusted somewhat.

“Not really. Right, let’s get back. I need to build a bigger machine. We’ll start work immediately.”

He worked on the new interactor for three days. When he’d finished, it extended ten metres below the level of the new cellar. It was enormous, and powerful enough, he hoped, to resist outside interference, although it occurred to him that any interference during the construction of it could have effectively built a back-door into the machine. In the end, he decided not to worry about it.

He had the new machine install a medical device in a molar. Now, it would be extremely hard to kill him.

He explained his new appearance to Joe by claiming to be Aaron’s brother, and since he did, after all, somewhat resemble his previous appearance, Joe accepted the explanation.

Aaron, he told Joe, had gone away for a while; indefinitely, in fact.

“What’s your name?” Joe asked.

“Aaron,” said Auron, then immediately realised his mistake.

He’d already been using the name Aaron.

“Your name’s also Aaron?” said Joe, baffled.

“Yes, our parents just really liked the name Aaron.”

“Oh, right. Isn’t that confusing?”

“They called me Aaron 1 and the other Aaron is Aaron 2.”

“Blimey,” said Joe.

Once the new machine was ready, he drove into town, curious how people would react to his new appearance.

Was it true, as so many have claimed, that beautiful people go through life enjoying an entirely different and easier experience than average people?

In fact, the way people interacted with his new self unnerved him. People indeed seemed impressed by him. Two separate young women even made a point of finding reasons to talk to him, which he found an unsettling intrusion.

By the time he walked back to his car, he was frowning and sweating with anxiety, and people were still looking at him for unnecessary amounts of time, but now with expressions of alarm.

He fell into the driver’s seat a nervous wreck.

“Jor, drive me home. I’m too jittery to drive.”

As the car made its way back to his house, Auron keeping one hand on the wheel for the sake of appearances, he began to feel calmer.

“I think I was happier being more anonymous,” he said.

“The problem’s in your brain,” said Jor. “You’re very sensitive to everything. That’s why you’re smart. You’re sensitive to your own thoughts.”

“Are you saying I can’t be calmer without also being stupider?”

“Probably we could find a way to arrange it. After all, there are smart calm people. They exist.”

“Maybe I can just get better at dealing with people.”

“You need to stop thinking about yourself so much. And stop worrying about how people see you. And get better at politely disengaging from people. It took you nearly ten minutes to get rid of that women who approached you outside the cafe.”

“Yeah, thanks Professor Obvious.”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

Auron began to make a point of walking into town regularly, attempting to accustom himself to people and the way they reacted to his new appearance. Gradually he began to feel a little easier. His appearance now was like a mask; it gave nothing away of whom he really believed himself to be, and bit by bit, he found he was coming to believe that he was the mask.

He was no longer the rake-thin boy who had been bullied at school and pushed around by his crazy parents; he was truly someone else now; someone who not only wielded immense power, but looked like he might wield immense power, in spite of his young age.

He was walking through Shambles Market in the centre of York, past stalls filled with flowers and garden plants, when it happened.

A young girl, perhaps around ten years old, suddenly fell to the ground and began having an epileptic fit. A woman accompanying her, probably her mother, began screaming for help. The girl’s fit gradually subsided. The mother was shouting for a doctor. A man ran forward and began trying to resuscitate the girl via various ineffectual means. “She’s not breathing!” the woman screamed.

Suddenly it struck Auron that he could help.

He walked over to the girl and said, “Allow me.”

“Are you a doctor?” the woman asked.

Auron didn’t reply, since he wasn’t sure what to say. The man stopped his efforts, staring frantically at Auron, assuming Auron was going to step in and do something.

Something about Auron’s bearing or manner had convinced both of them that he was, in fact, some species of medical expert.

“I’m a paramedic,” said the man. “I don’t know what’s wrong. There’s no pulse.”

“It’s OK,” said Auron.

He took hold of the girl’s arm.

“Be healed.” he said.

“What are you doing?” shouted the woman, suddenly suspecting that Auron might not be anyone useful after all, but at that moment the girl’s eyes opened and she sat up.

“How did you do that?” said the woman.

Auron smiled and walked away, the woman hugging her daughter, the man gawping after him in astonishment.

Suddenly he wondered what he was going to say if they came after him. He picked up his pace and turned a corner, then another corner.

Behind him, the man had indeed got the idea to pursue him, but by the time he rounded the first corner, Auron had already taken the second and was out of sight.

After this incident, Auron considered changing his appearance again in case anyone present at the miraculous healing recognised him, but decided against it. He liked his new appearance, and he was somewhat fearful of a reprise of the problem that had led to him having to crawl through a cave.

He took care never to visit the centre of York around the day or time that he’d encountered the girl and her mother.

Young women continued to find reasons to talk to him, when there was no good reason in his view, so he had Jor fabricate a gold ring which he wore on his ring finger. Whenever one of them approached him he held up his hand, displaying the ring, and said, “Sorry, I’m married,” in as understanding a tone of voice as he could muster.

Their attention made him nervous, and it was easier to bat them away than to risk complicating things by involving himself with them.

On the positive side of things, his changed appearance meant that even if he were to encounter his past self, or Jer, or anyone he had known the first time he had lived through 2006, they were unlikely to recognise him.

Several weeks went by, during which he attempted unsuccessfully to locate the source of the signal that was trying to interfere with his machines, and successfully arranged for the device in his tooth to give him some degree of invulnerability against possible dangers to his person, although not quite amounting to true invincibility.

He also began work on the machine that would transport him back to Frith, after his mission was completed, steadily extending the cellar further and further downwards. Everything was made slower and more difficult by the need to shield against the interfering signal as much as possible.

He was sitting in a cafe reading Great Expectations and sipping a latte, when his peace was disturbed by a young woman sitting herself down at his table in the chair opposite him.

He prevented himself from showing any sign of having noticed her presence.

She cleared her throat loudly. He lowered the book and found she was staring directly at him.

“I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” she said.

He wasn’t quite fast enough to prevent a glimmer of recognition flitting over his features. She was the same girl he’d noticed smiling at him in the very same cafe after he had first returned to 2006.

“No, I don’t think so.”

He raised the book in front of himself again.

“I’d like to talk to you,” she persisted.

He transferred the book from one hand to the other and rotated his hand so that his ring finger faced her.

“Very flattered, but I’m married,” he said.

“I don’t care if you’re married or not,” she said.

“My wife cares whether I’m married or not, and so do I.”

“I’m not here to seduce you.” she said, with a faint suggestion of sarcasm.

She folded a newspaper and pushed it along the table towards him.

He looked down at it, then grabbed it.

The newspaper contained an article about a miraculous healing. A girl, suffering from a severe and advanced terminal illness, had collapsed in the street after begging her mother to take her for a walk in the town centre.

The girl, the article said, was barely able to walk, but her mother had decided to honour her dying wish, against the advice of the child’s doctors.

A man had rushed up, placed his hand on the girl’s arm, and uttered the words, “be healed”, and not only had the girl regained consciousness, but her severe and soon-to-be-fatal illness had entirely disappeared.

“Whoops,” said Auron.

He had intended to revive a collapsed child, and had, instead, inadvertently cured her of a terminal disease.

“What do you mean, whoops?” said the girl.

Auron gathered his wits.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said, throwing the newspaper back to her.

“I think you do,” said the woman.

Auron put his book down.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Daisy. I’m the cousin of the girl’s mother.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

Daisy rummaged about in a bag she was carrying with her and produced a photograph, which she placed in front of Auron.

“That’s you, isn’t it? I tracked down a shop that caught you on CCTV. I run a blog. I investigate things.”

“You’re a reporter?”

“Not really. I don’t trust reporters. That’s why I started the blog. To tell the truth.”

“You’ve got the wrong person. I don’t know anything about this whole business.”

She laughed.

“That’s clearly you. Also, you recognised me, didn’t you? Where have we met?”

She was searching his eyes, trying to retrieve some memory of him.

A part of him wanted to tell her exactly who he was, but that would be a very dangerous course to take. Once she knew that he had the power to heal people, he’d find himself having to heal every ill person she knew. Those people would tell other people, and word of his miraculous powers would spread rapidly. Soon the entire future of the Earth would be completely disrupted with unpredictable consequences, and probably people would end up worshipping him.

Eventually he would have little choice but to share his technology with them if he wanted to have any kind of life of his own at all, and the people of Planet Earth were not ready for that kind of power.

Instead of a nuclear war, they would wage war with weapons that would make nuclear bombs look like firecrackers. They would inflict horrendous suffering upon each other.

“Hello!” she said, snapping him out of his reverie. “Is anybody there?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, sorry, would you mind going away? I’m immersed in a book.”

She stared at him thoughtfully. He felt his cheeks reddening. She was unnerving. Unnervingly beautiful and unnervingly persistent.

“OK,” she said. “Tell me your name and I’ll go.”

“I’m not telling you my name.”

“All right,” she said, and she got up to leave. “You won’t mind if I publish these photos on my blog, since it’s not you anyway. Actually I’ve got a whole video.”

“Aaron Black. It’s not me. Please don’t publish them. I don’t want people to think it’s me.”

She smiled.

“I won’t publish them, Aaron Black,” she said.

He glared at her.

“I’m going, then,” she said.

After she’d departed through the door of the cafe he found his hands were shaking. This was a very unexpected and unwelcome development.

“Jor, I’m gong to have to do something about her. What can I do? Wipe her memory?”

“Is that ethical?”

“You know my feelings about ethics.”

“Yes, you spent ages teaching me about ethics and ever since you’ve found ethics inconvenient.”

“Could I wipe her memory? Just tell me the answer.”

“Difficult business. And uncertain, considering the interference we’re experiencing.”

Auron swore, drawing surprised glances from the other people in the cafe.

“I’ll have to do something.”

He tried to get back to reading his book, but he found his concentration was shot.

Eventually he got up and left.

He was so distracted that, as he walked to the car park where he’d left his car, he once again walked onto a road without realising that the pedestrian crossing light was red.

The driver of the bus didn’t have time to react. The bus hit Auron head-on. He was thrown several metres down the road but the driver couldn’t stop in time to avoid running over him. The right-side wheels directly ran over his torso.

The bus screeched to a halt. Auron dragged himself out from underneath the bus, and dusted himself off. The machine in his tooth had even prevented damage to his clothes.

He walked around to find the driver pale and shocked. The driver hardly knew what he was saying.

“You just walked out in front of me!” he said. “I’ll call an ambulance. Are you all right?”

“My fault entirely,” said Auron. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. No problem at all. So sorry. I was a bit distracted.”

He walked off towards the car park with the driver and a small crowd of other people gawping after him. Several people descended from the bus and watched him in amazement.

“That’s the luckiest pillock on the planet,” said a balding man wearing a grey suit.

From the other side of the road, a woman slowly stood up from the bench where she’d been sitting. Daisy Emsworth took a small camera from her handbag and, running after him, snapped a few photographs of Auron and the general scene as he walked away.

“Who are you, Aaron Black?” she said to herself, wonderingly.

“Certainly, sir,” said the man at the desk. “Do we have your credit card on file?”

“No, I’ll be paying cash,” said Auron, and he handed the man four hundred and twenty pounds.

Outside, the weather was surprisingly warm for May. He took the list from his pocket, written out on hotel notepaper.

“I’m on New Lane, facing south, next to a substation. Which way’s this electronics shop?”

“Head south, third right,” said Jor.

It was early afternoon by the time Auron got back to the hotel carrying two bags full of equipment. He’d burned through another £500 and only had £2000 left. But he wouldn’t need much of that last £2000, he thought.

He began work immediately, following Jor’s instructions.

“Could do with some music,” he commented.

“Try the TV,” Jor suggested.

The TV was full of news about tensions between the USA, Russia and China. The UK seemed to be mixed up in it too somehow. In 28 years the tensions would lead to a nuclear war, but for now, the Earth was safe.

“Britain may be small but she causes a lot of trouble,” said Auron. “Why do British news readers always sound chronically depressed? I’ve never understood it. No-one talks like that outside of British TV news. They must practice sounding depressed.”

No music to Auron’s liking was to be found on the TV, so he quickly gave up, making a mental note to buy a radio.

The backbone of the device was going to be a small camera tripod he’d purchased, and around that, several coils had to be fixed, and devices made from empty food cans containing various liquids. He’d bought project boxes for the electronics. He also had a soldering iron, the cheapest oscilloscope he’d been able to find, and a camping stove and saucepan for boiling up chemicals.

His hotel room looked like a mad scientist had taken up residence in it.

“I’m not going to get interrupted by the cleaners, am I?” he said to Jor as he worked.

“Unlikely,” Jor replied. “They probably came in the morning. But hang a ‘do not disturb’ sign outside your door if there’s one available.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” said Auron.

By the evening it was already almost finished. He went downstairs and ordered a meal to celebrate. Steak, potatoes, a side-order of vegetables, and half a litre of wine. All the walking about had given him an appetite.

The t-shirt, jeans and trainers he’d bought did the trick. No-one paid him any attention now. He looked like an ordinary Englishman from England in 2006.

When he’d finished eating, he was sleepy and he decided to finish the device tomorrow. There was no hurry. He was way ahead of schedule.

He flicked through the TV channels with an ironic detachment. It was more than fifty years since he’d seen anything like any of it, and he saw it all through eyes that were fresh in one way, but old and cynical in another. The TV represented the business of a culture rapidly heading towards total disaster, completely oblivious to the fate that awaited it.

The following morning he awoke late and ate breakfast downstairs.

Then he returned to work.

He hooked up the power module and ran through a few tests. Everything was connected correctly; everything was working. Finally, halfway through the morning, he flicked a pleasantly retro metal switch he’d found in the electronics hobby store.

“OK, we’re live. Jor, can you connect to it?”

“Got it, Auron,” Jor replied.

“Great,” said Auron, springing to his feet with a smile. “Let me think for a second. I know, make me a credit card. Connect it to a bank account with about a million in it.”

He waited expectantly, but instead of the hoped-for result, Jor announced, “It doesn’t work, Auron.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, mate.”

“Can’t you run some diagnostics?”

“I can connect to the signal but that’s all I can do.”

“You can’t even see it?”

“No.”

“Can you see the room?”

“It’s not working at all, Auron. I can connect to it, and that’s all I can do with it.”

Auron swore.

“I’m going to have to check the thing again.”

Over the following three days, Auron checked every aspect of the machine meticulously.

On the morning of the fourth day, the maid insisted on entering the room to clean it, perhaps prompted by hotel management.

The maid was a woman of perhaps thirty years, with a nose ring and short blonde hair deliberately cut in a slightly uneven style.

“Well this is new,” she said, eyeing Auron’s contraption.

“I’m in the middle of some research,” said Auron, offering what he wrongly imagined to be a reasonable explanation.

“I’ll just change the bedsheets and I’ll be out of your hair in ten minutes,” said the maid.

After she left, Auron felt profoundly unsettled.

“Jor, why doesn’t the thing work? I should be out of here by now, not dealing with maids. What if the manager gets upset about my soldering?”

“Impossible to say. It should work. We could try a completely different design.”

“There’s nothing else for it. I’ve been over and over this one and there’s nothing wrong with it. Are you sure you’ve not made some mistake?”

“Completely sure. Something must be blocking it.”

“What could possibly be blocking it?”

“I don’t know. It makes no sense.”

Yet again Auron went out into the town, buying parts for a redesigned matter interactor.

He was emerging from a cafe, where he’d eaten a dry, borderline inedible croissant for lunch, when he froze.

There, walking down the other side of the street, was Jer. Auron’s self-imposed moral debt to Jer had motivated his travelling backwards in time to the England of 2006 more than the idea of preventing a future nuclear war, and here was Jer himself, large as life, not suspecting in the least than in three years Auron’s experiments would maroon him on an alien planet.

For a second he almost decided to talk to him, with the idea of warning him, but then, he reflected on the fact that he, Auron, couldn’t ever hope to return home to Frith unless he successfully built an interactor; that would take time, and it would amount to the same thing whether he warned Jer now or in three years.

Warning him closer to the time had the additional benefit of potentially having a somewhat lower impact on the future. That way, Auron 2, the version of himself who had not travelled through time, would still develop his hyper-intelligent Sirius machine, whereas if he were to try to intervene now, who knows how the future might pan out.

Then there was the faint possibility that trying to change the future at all would result in his death. After all, nothing he had done so far was incompatible with the future that he had already lived. Once he tried to alter the known and documented future, that would change.

“Jor,” he said quietly to the device in his pocket, “it’s Jer.”

“He could help you,” said Jor. “You could explain everything to him and then he could explain the situation to Auron 2. Then you wouldn’t be tackling the whole thing alone.”

“Yes but I might die if I talk to either of them.”

“You’ll have to face it eventually. It’s a remote possibility.”

Jer walked off down the street and turned a corner.

“Not yet,” said Auron.

Back at the hotel he laid black bin bags over the carpet to protect it and began dissolving ferrous sulphate purchased from a garden centre in warm water, heated on the camping stove. An unpleasant metallic odour filled the air, but there was nothing to be done. The new alternate design required electrodes immersed in ferrous sulphate solution.

Seeing Jer had thrown him mentally off-balance. His focus wasn’t sharp, and perhaps that’s why he accidentally knocked over a jar of solution. The liquid quickly created a greenish stain on the carpet, leaking around and under the bin liners.

“Dammit Jor, I’ve spilt ferrous sulphate all over the carpet.”

“Don’t worry about it. You can hide it with a suitcase. Once we’ve got the interactor working, I can easily remove it.”

“Yes,” said Auron, sighing shakily. “Yes, you’re right. Not the end of the world. I’ll make a new batch.”

By the following day the stain had turned brown and rusty, and the air smelt so strongly of iron that the air in the room was hard to endure, at least for anyone of a sensitive disposition, and Auron was in possession of a sensitive disposition.

Fortunately the maid didn’t return, with the “do not disturb” notice hanging outside on the doorhandle.

Unfortunately, the device still didn’t work.

“What am I going to do, Jor? How can it possibly be that this one doesn’t work either? There’s something really fundamental that I’m missing here. Is it you? Have you lost the plot?”

“If I had lost the plot I wouldn’t know, would I? So it’s pointless asking me.”

“At this rate I’m going to run out of money in two weeks.”

“You could try surrounding the apparatus with a Faraday cage.”

“In a hotel room? How am I going to do that?”

“I suggest buying a dome tent, then fixing wire mesh between the outer tent and the inner lining. Put the entire apparatus in that.”

“Will that work?”

“Hard to say.”

Left with little apparent alternative, Auron went off to buy a tent.

In theory he was mere days away from once again possessing unfathomable wealth and power, yet the brute fact of it was that he was in danger of being ejected from his hotel room and having to live on the streets. He would be forced to rely on what few friends he had; an idea anathema to him, and carrying the risk of potentially interfering with the future too much, with unknown and unpredictable consequences.

He bought a dome tent and, thinking ahead to the possibility that he might have to suddenly clear everything out of the hotel room, a rucksack to go with it. From a hardware shop he was able to obtain steel mesh. These, he took back to the hotel, where he erected the tent and began fixing up the steel mesh around the inner lining.

He’d almost finished the task when there was a knock on the door.

Once again he froze, this time in nervous fear.

“Jor, who do you think that is?” he whispered.

“Cleaner?”

“It can’t be the cleaner; they always say who they are if they’re the cleaner.”

“I don’t know.”

He swore under his breath.

There was another knock.

Reluctantly he got up to answer it. He opened the door as little as possible, consistent with being able to actually communicate with whoever was outside.

As it happened, a young man in a blue shirt was standing there.

“Hello sir, I’m the manager. Sorry to bother you but we’ve had complaints about a strange odour coming from your room.”

The manager sniffed.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Auron. “I uh, it’s just …. well, it’s just something burst open. In my luggage. I’m going to take it to a laundry. Nothing to worry about.”

“Would you mind if I take a quick look in your room, sir, just to check everything’s all right?”

Something told him the manager wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

He sighed involuntarily, not even realising that he was sighing.

“OK,” he said, and he opened the door all the way.

The manager’s face registered surprise at the contents of the room.

On the little brown desk at the side, on top of a silicon mat, was a soldering iron and various electronic parts.

On the floor was the dome tent, with the roll of steel mesh lying halfway out of it. Some pieces of mesh were lying on the carpet next to it.

Next to that stood Auron’s two failed matter interactor devices, both constructed around small camera tripods and both resembling miniature versions of something that might typically be found on top of a hill for the purposes of transmitting mobile phone or radio signals.

The manager seemed to be pondering the situation. Eventually he said, “I’m sorry sir, we don’t allow the use of tools in the rooms.”

He nodded at the soldering iron.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Auron. “I didn’t know.”

“There’s a very strong odour in here.”

Fortunately the tent was covering the large rusty stain on the carpet, but the stain still smelt strongly of metal.

“It’s just my luggage. Like I said, I had a spillage.”

“Well, if you would take care of those two issues, sir, I’d be grateful.”

“I will. OK. I’ll sort them out.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the manager as he left.

After he’d shut the door, Auron said, “Jor, what do I do? They won’t let me solder things in here.”

“Go to a different hotel, mate. Go to the cheapest hotel you can find. Somewhere a bit dodgy. That way the walls and furniture will probably be a bit messed up anyway, so it’ll matter less if you mess them up more. They’ll be less likely to notice.”

“Good suggestion. Do you know where I can find a cheap hotel?”

“2006 hotel prices aren’t included in any of my datasets. I suggest checking an internet cafe.”

“Internet cafes. Yes. They have those in 2006.”

An hour later Auron had everything he owned packed into a rucksack on his back, including the tent and the two interactors, which he’d folded up and partially disassembled. He checked out of the hotel, located a hotel that charged only £40 per night, and checked into that.

Inside his new room, the paint was flaking slightly off the walls, and there were strange brown stains on the floor of the shower, but the room was big enough to put up his tent and there was still space left over on the floor to do any necessary soldering.

The following morning he bought a coffee at a nearby cafe and then, back in his room, ate a breakfast of bread and little foil-wrapped cheese triangles, which he’d discovered did not require refrigeration.

“It’s actually quite a relief to get rid of that smell,” he said to Jor.

Then his phone rang. The phone was a cheap Nokia with a pay-as-you go SIM that hadn’t required any type of ID to set up.

It was the manager from the previous hotel.

When Auron finished talking to him he was shaking slightly.

“Jor, they want £350 for the damaged carpet! I’m running out of money fast, here!”

“Don’t sweat it. Pay it and move on. Soon you’ll be rich.”

“Will I though? We don’t know why the interactors don’t work!”

“We’ll work it out somehow.”

“I’m down to £1500 if I pay it!”

“Don’t think about it. Push it to the back of your mind. You’ve got enough money for at least a few more weeks. Let’s work on the interactor now. If it works, that’ll ease your worries.”

Over the course of the morning, Auron reassembled both interactors and set them up inside the tent, with the Faraday shielding in place.

Still neither of them worked.

Auron spent two weeks in the cheap, rather horrible hotel, trying to fix the interactors. He let the cleaners in every three days, packing everything away in order to maintain an appearance of normality. The business of packing up and then reassembling the interactors, he was able to get down to an hour and a half. Whenever he had to deal with the ferrous sulphate, he did everything in the shower, which already smelled vaguely of rust and mould in any case.

By the end of two weeks, with hotel bills, food and parts, he was down to around £500. Clearly, he was soon going to run out of money altogether.

“I need to understand how these things actually work, reduce them to basic principle and find out where the actual problem lies,” he said to Jor, striding around the hotel room almost tearing his hair out.

“You’re going to run out of money,” Jor observed. “We’ll have to figure something out.”

“But what?”

“You could cut the hotel bills to zero by living in the tent. A sleeping bag could be bought for under a hundred. Then you could probably live for a month on the remaining cash. That might be enough time to get everything working.”

“Where am I going to pitch the tent? I can’t use a campsite. I’d be too conspicuous.”

“There’s a woodland to the north-east. You could conceal the tent in some bushes.”

Auron ran his hand over his face and rubbed his eyes.

“I’ve no choice.”

“The other option is asking your friends for help.”

“We’ll keep that as the fallback option. I’m going to start packing everything up.”

It was mid-afternoon by the time he’d finished. The woodland Jor proposed as his new base was five miles from the centre of York. He paid the hotel bill and set off, enough food for three days in his rucksack together with a newly-purchased sleeping bag and a machete he’d found at an army surplus store, which he thought might be useful for chopping out some space inside a bush somewhere.

He held Jor up to his ear, pretending the little computer was a phone, and talked with it as he walked.

“This is ridiculous, Jor. Why didn’t I just transport equipment and fake money ahead of me before coming here?”

“You didn’t know you’d lose the diamonds. Anyway, you didn’t have precise control over where anything you transported would actually land.”

“I could have put a homing beacon in it and taken a tracker with me.”

“Not enough baggage allowance for the tracker.”

“I could have had it connect to the phone network and phone me.”

“You didn’t know what your number was going to be.”

“Dammit, I’m sure there would have been some way to do it.”

“Probably.”

“Jor, how intelligent are you, actually? I mean, in terms of IQ?”

“It’s impossible to compare my intelligence with human intelligence, Auron.”

“Of course it is. Of course it is.”

At that moment, he suddenly heard footsteps running behind him. A hand grabbed Jor and ran off.

He turned to see a teenager running like the wind, carrying Jor.

“Hey!” he shouted, but the teenager had already vanished around the corner of the street.

A cold, horrible feeling seemed to grasp his insides.

“It’s OK,” he said to himself. “I can always fall back on Auron 2 or Jer or Viktor. They’d help me. It’s not the end of the world. It’s all going to be OK.”

He continued trudging on towards the woods.

Once there, after stopping to eat a light lunch, he located a elder bush and found he could quite easily push his way under its branches. After hacking a few off with the machete, there was just about enough space for the tent.

He heaped up thin leafy branches and bracken on the ground, since he didn’t have a mat, and put up the tent over the top of it.

When he’d finished, he lay in the sleeping bag. It was uncomfortable, but endurable.

The next stage of his plan involved buying a car battery to use as a power source. But as he thought it all through, he realised he wasn’t going to have enough money to buy everything he ideally needed, even if he could get Jor back. Ideally, he needed a portable soldering iron and at least a multimeter that could run off batteries. But all that was academic without Jor.

“I am so screwed,” he muttered to himself.

Then he heard the sound of drops of water falling on the outside of his tent, accompanied by the swelling noise of a rainstorm taking place outside. Larger and larger drops began to make their way through the bush and fall on his tent with increasing frequency.

Then the sky began to thunder.

“A few weeks ago I was the emperor of a planet,” he said miserably. “Now I’m homeless and alone and soon I won’t be able to afford to eat.”

He began to sink steadily into complete misery.

Clearly, mistakes had been made. He had come to depend on Jor completely, and Jor was gone. Without Jor, building an interactor was pointless. The purpose of the interactor was to allow Jor to interact with the physical universe.

On the upside, he vaguely remembered telling Jor that, in the event of him falling into someone else’s hands, he must devote himself to getting himself safely returned. But would Jor even manage it, assuming he really had given Jor those instructions? All Jor could do now was speak. There had to be limits even to Jor’s persuasiveness.

There was nothing to do but listen miserably to the sound of the rain and the thunder.

In the worst case he would seek out Jer, and swear him to secrecy in the hope of disrupting the future as little as possible. The future would eventually have to be disrupted if the accident and subsequent nuclear war were to be prevented, but not yet.

In the morning he awoke early, grey sunlight already illuminating the sides of his tent.

He made a coffee on his camping stove, using the same pan he’d previously mixed ferrous sulphate in. He’d washed it thoroughly, but the coffee still tasted faintly metallic. Hopefully there wasn’t enough iron in the coffee to kill him, he thought. He recalled from somewhere that death by iron poisoning was horrendously slow and painful, the iron salt eating through the stomach walls.

When he unzipped the tent a considerably quantity of water dripped off the tent flaps. He went outside and crawled out from under the bush, getting somewhat wet in the process.

The bush was on the edge of a small woodland. He was surrounded by trees. The air smelt of damp leaves and soil, and birds were singing in the treetops.

Occasionally a cuckoo called out, and from time to time he heard a woodpecker tapping away at rotten wood.

He took a bite from a piece of bread and chewed contemplatively.

During the course of the morning he fiddled with the interactors a bit and still couldn’t find anything wrong with them. He’d already been over both of them extensively, and without a power source, it was difficult to find anything else to do with them.

Then he went for a walk around the field next to the woods, and it struck him that he had no way of really cleaning himself.

“Jor, how am I going to keep myself clean?” he said.

Then he remembered, with a painful twinge more appropriate to the loss of a friend or even a partner, that Jor was gone.

“Dammit,” he said to himself.

Then he went to explore the woodland. There was a stream running through it, but probably not suitable for drinking without purification. Whether washing in it would be safe, was unclear.

Around lunchtime he ate more bread and cheese in his tent. He was already getting very tired of bread and cheese. He considered going into town and buying some apples and tinned food.

How would he even wash the apples?

This thought caused him to lapse into despair and he lay in his uncomfortable sleeping bag, reflecting on his situation.

Auron had spent thirty years fighting off giant predatory crabs, and yet now, even the thought of not being able to wash apples reduced him almost to tears.

Then an idea came to him. There was still a way to dramatically improve the situation, even without working interactors.

If he could only get Jor back. He would need Jor.

But there was no way to get Jor back. He hadn’t even seen the face of the boy who’d stolen Jor.

Eventually he decided to go into town and drink a coffee in a cafe just to cheer himself up.

The town was quite a walk but he needed to pass the time somehow anyway. Soon he was sitting in a cafe looking out of the window, drinking a coffee that had cost him as much as he was ideally hoping to spend on food every day in total.

His thoughts turned to the man who had accosted him in the cafe when he’d first arrived in York. The man knew his name, and knew he was an emperor. But who was he?

He’d never seen the man on Frith. And yet, the man knew about Frith. He must have known. How was it possible? The problem seemed insoluble.

The caffeine made him feel more optimistic at least. He decided to order a swirly pastry with raisins in it, and another coffee.

Then he went and sat at a table and leafed through a magazine someone had left behind.

The magazine had only articles that were of little interest to him, about the Royal Family, and various celebrities. The magazine brought back memories, albeit not especially good memories. The names were still, for the most part, familiar to him, even after more than fifty years away from England and fifty years away from 2006, and even though he’d never taken an interest in these people to start with.

The irony and strangeness of his situation brought a smile to his lips.

He looked up and saw a young woman staring directly at him, also smiling. For a second he was transfixed by her beauty. She was, he thought, the kind of girl he would have liked to have been with if he hadn’t spent his life working on abstruse computer systems before accidentally marooning himself on an alien planet.

Then he suddenly felt embarrassed and self-conscious and he looked down at the magazine again.

He must look a total mess. She couldn’t possibly be interested in him. Could she?

But this was no time to be looking for romance. In any case, he thought, he was technically more than eighty years old. He’d lost track of his precise age, and Jor wasn’t there to ask. Biologically he was currently around 25 years of age and the machines had made even his brain young and flexible again. Perhaps too flexible. On the other hand, he had seen eighty years of life. He had grown to be sixty years old, thirty years of which he’d spent on Frith before he’d made the place civilised, and he’d spent another twenty years mostly alone with his dog Freddie, try to resurrect Jer.

From that point of view, he was indeed an old man, and the girl was—how old? Perhaps twenty-three. An eighty-year-old with a twenty-three year old? No, it was obscene and disgusting. But was he really eighty years old? How should he view himself now?

The question was academic, since he clearly wasn’t going to talk to her. Inside, he was the same old Auron, even though he had spent twenty years as an emperor, in theory. People, and talking to them, wasn’t his thing.

Then, when he remembered his actual situation, alone, friendless and running out of money, and a knife seemed to twist in his stomach. Everything depended now on Jor somehow coming back to him. Without Jor, what would he do? Who would really believe his story? What was even going to happen when he finally tackled Auron 2 about the problems he was getting himself into, and the future war? Would he disappear in a puff of smoke? Would Frith, the only place he now truly felt somewhat at home, cease to exist?

The smile on his face turned to a frown.

In the future that he had lived in for fifty years, he and Jer had been marooned on an alien planet, and a nuclear war had occurred on the Earth. He and many other people had lived through that future, and without it, he could not have returned to 2006. How could that future now be changed? What would happen if he did change it?

And how, for that matter, was it possible that he was now back in 2006? Was this the same 2006 that had originally existed, or another one? Had this 2006 always existed, even long after it had come and gone?

What if the Novikov self-consistency principle was correct, and there could only ever be one version of the past? Had he, Auron, always been in this cafe at this point in time, even when 2006 had happened the first time around? And if so, why had he failed to prevent the accident and the war? Was he about to face some dreadful fate that would prevent him achieving his aims? Was it, in reality, somehow impossible to stop the sequence of events that was about to unfold, that had always unfolded?

None of it really made any sense.

The more he thought about it, the more miserable he felt. He began to feel positively nauseous.

Then the door of the cafe opened and a tough-looking man came in, leading a boy by his arm. The boy seemed to recognise him.

A fresh shot of adrenalin made its way into his bloodstream.

What was this now? Who were they? Should he run?

The man looked like the type of man who starts fights. No, worse than that. He looked like the type of man who murdered people for a living, and the boy not much better.

Were they about to kill him? That would certainly explain why he might be unable to prevent the accident.

He looked behind himself to see who was there. No-one. It was really him, Auron, that they wanted. They walked up to the table.

“Sir, I’m so sorry,” said the man, apparently so nervous that he could hardly speak. “My son stole this from you. We searched the entire town looking for you. We want to apologise, very sincerely.”

He took Jor out of his pocket and put it on the table.

“Apologise, Kevin!” he said, gruffly.

“I-I’m really sorry for stealing your thing,” said Kevin, stammering. “Please don’t hurt my father.”

“We’d like to give you this,” said the man, and he placed a wad of bills on the table. “It’s a thousand pounds.It’s all we’ve got. I-I know it’s not much. It’s just a token of how sorry we are.”

Auron was staring at them, speechless. He really couldn’t think what to say, but Jor was a welcome sight.

Suddenly Jor spoke.

“You have disturbed Mr. S. enough now.” he said, in a voice quite unlike his usual voice, low and filled with menace. “Go.”

The man began to pull his son away.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again.

Kevin resisted being pulled.

“Please Mr. S, I have to know if you accept our apology. I’ll do anything to make amends. I really will. I-I could work for you.”

There were tears in the boy’s eyes.

“I accept your apology,” said Auron, so baffled that his voice came out like a horse whisper.

“Oh thank you, sir, thank you so much.” said Kevin.

“Thank you,” said Kevin’s father. “We’re so sorry. Thank you.”

He pulled Kevin away, and they rushed out of the cafe as quickly as possible, not looking back again.

“Jor,” said Auron slowly, “what the hell was all that about?”

“I convinced them you’re an extremely dangerous spy who’s posing as a homeless person, and their only chance of avoiding being tortured and killed was to return me to you and beg for mercy.”

Auron began to laugh.

“Good Heavens,” he said, “don’t you think you went a bit overboard?”

“Not really. We’re in the middle of trying to stop a war here.”

Auron wiped tears of relief from his eyes.

“What now?” asked Jor. “Shall we carry on with the interactors?”

“I’ve got a better idea. A much better idea. Jor, how exactly do you communicate with the interactors?”

“Via radio waves. Apart from sound waves, it’s the only way I can interact with the outside world.”

“Then can’t you connect yourself to the internet? Even this place has wifi.”

“No, wrong frequency.”

“All right then, we’re going to build a device that will enable you to connect. How about that? How long would that take?”

“It’s an afternoon’s work at the most.”

“Let’s get cracking then.”

Auron left the cafe with a new spring in his step. The girl caught his eye again as he walked past her, but he had already convinced himself that she couldn’t possibly be attracted to him. Or had she witnessed what had happened with Kevin and his father? Perhaps she was strangely attracted to sinister figures; the kind of sinister figure that Jor had made him out to be. He pushed the idea quickly out of his mind. He had work to do. This was no time to let his biologically 25-year-old brain derail his plans with pointless thoughts of girls.

With the money the man had given him, he checked into a rather expensive hotel. Then he took a taxi to the nearest location to his tent that the taxi could reach. Once there, he packed everything up and walked back to the hotel.

He spent the entire night working on his new device, ordering endless coffees and snacks from the 24-hour room service.

By the time the sun began to straddle the horizon, it was ready, and Jor was connected to the hotel’s wifi network via a device that fitted entirely into a project box not much bigger than a mobile phone.

“I hope you’re up to this, Jor,” he said. “I want you to create a fake identify for me. I shall call myself —” he thought for a second “—Aaron Black. I want you to hack blogs and social networks and create profiles for me stretching back up to five years, if any have been around that long. More importantly, I want to be fully registered wherever necessary as a British citizen. Arrange to send a passport urgently to this hotel. Wait, before you start on that, open a bank account and do some stock market trades or something till it’s got a couple of million in it. What do you think? Can you do it?”

“Of course I can, mate. Trivial.”

“How long will it take?”

“I reckon I can arrange it all by tomorrow.”

Auron raised his eyes to the sun that was starting to stream in through the open curtains.

“Good,” he said. “Oh, I’ll need a driver’s licence as well. I’m going to sleep now.”

He hung the hotel’s do-not-disturb notice outside his door. Then he got into bed.

His mind was buzzing too much to actually sleep, he soon realised. He got up and took a bath. His hotel room had a rather fine bathroom.

Afterwards he finally felt tired, and he slept soundly till early afternoon.

After a late lunch he bought some new clothes and a handful of books, and spent most of the rest of the day reading, his mind only half-on the books. He couldn’t help but think about what he was going to do if his plan worked.

The following day he was sitting eating breakfast in the hotel when one of the people staffing the front desk came to find him, informing him that there were courier deliveries for him.

He opened them at his table.

There was a passport with his photo in it, under the name Aaron Black. There was also a bank card, a gold credit card, and some details about his new bank account. A further envelope contained details of his apparently rather-extensive, if very new, trading operations. There was also a driving licence, some pin codes, and various other things.

Whatever Jor had done, it had evidently succeeded, and with astonishing rapidity.

Auron walked out of the hotel a new man, with a spring in his step.

The first thing he did was to go to a branch of the bank where his account was apparently held, and ask to withdraw £5,000.

As soon as he identified himself, the manager appeared and ushered him into his office, then began trying to interest him in investment opportunities. These he politely declined. The manager produced Auron’s money and informed him that he would be at Auron’s beck and call at any time, and Auron was only to walk into his office whenever he wanted.

Evidently, the money in his new bank account was real. He got into a taxi and told the taxi driver to take him to the nicest car showroom in York.

There he bought a car, paying by credit card, picking a top-of-the-range Audi. Not too flashy, and very adequate.

Finally, he bought a house. The estate agent had warned him the process would take several weeks, but after greasing the estate agent’s palm with a few thousand pounds and having Jor quietly arrange a few things, he received the assurance that the house would be ready the following day.

He spent the evening driving his new car around and talking to Jor about the many possibilities that were now open to him.

“We have to get an interactor working,” he told Jor. “We’ll break it right down to basic principles. I want to understand how these things actually work. We need to check every step and find the problem.”

As he drove, illuminating quiet country lanes with powerful headlights, Jor began to explain the theory of how the matter interactors worked, in terms a human being could actually understand, although it quickly became apparent that diagrams and equations were going to be necessary. Even so, Auron had Jor explain as much as could usefully be understood while driving a car.

The following day, after sleeping very soundly at the hotel, he drove to his new house, where the estate agent met him.

The house he’d chosen was a kind of mansion, high on a hill, surrounded by a large garden with an old iron fence around it. A well-maintained gravel path led to the door.

“I can show you around it if you like,” said the estate agent.

“That’s not necessary,” Auron replied. “Thank you.”

“Well, enjoy. Let us know if we can do anything else for you.”

Auron stepped into the interior of the house. Twin staircases led to the upper floor. Several large green rubber plants had evidently been kept carefully watered and pruned.

“I think I’m going to like it here, Jor,” he said.

But it wasn’t even the house that excited Auron the most, nor the car, nor even his new-found wealth.

Rather, he felt a strange growing sense of excitement at the thought of the glorious laboratory he was going to create, and all the top-of-the-range 2006 equipment that he was going to put in it.

Auron was used to owning laboratories, but this time it was going to be different. This time he would use his lab to actually understand physics. But not the physics of 2006; no, the unbelievably advanced physics that Jor had access to.

Soon he would have isolated the problem with his interactors and he would once again be the most powerful man in the universe, and he still had three years to enjoy himself before it was time to face his old self, Auron 2.

His thoughts returned to the girl in the cafe. Auron had never actually had a proper girlfriend. Then he swore out loud at himself.

He had to focus. He wasn’t here for romance. He was here to save his friend and prevent a war.

“Perhaps making myself 25 years old was a mistake,” he said to Jor. “I’ve got a stupid 25-year-old brain now.”

“Try to focus,” said Jor. “You’ve got work to do.”

Jor was right. He had to find the problem with the interactors. And in three years, he would find his past self, Auron 2, and warn him about the portal and the war.

And then … well, what was the worst that could possibly happen?

“Am I doing it?” he said.

“No time like the present,” said Steve. “Carpe diem and such like.”

Owen gave him a withering look.

“Carpe diem it is then,” he said, and he flicked the switches on, one by one.

The screen on the wall lit up with figures, running through test cases one after the other.

“Come on, come on …” Owen hissed at it, his voice full of urgency and imploring.

“If this works, I’m going for a holiday in Antares to relax for a bit,” said Steve.

“If it doesn’t work, this entire planet is going to carry on turning into a madhouse,” said Owen.

“Couldn’t be much worse than it already is.”

“It absolutely could. Anyway, you don’t want to go to Antares. It’s just as fecked up as Oberon.”

“No way. It’s not that bad.”

“We should just finish what we’ve started.”

Steve Reynolds, once a young and upcoming respected research chemist on the Earth before the war, turned to glare at Owen.

“Don’t you get tired of endless work? We’ve been at this more than ten years. I want a life of some sort. Not just work. I want a wife and a family.”

Owen laughed scoffingly.

“Yeah, well, good luck with that on Frith,” he said. “It’s pure insanity out there.”

“There’s still normal women on Frith. I could find a wife, move out to the countryside somewhere.”

“Doesn’t matter where you go, you won’t be safe.”

“Maybe I’ll go back to the Earth, then.”

Steve turned back to watch the figures on the screen.

They stared at them intently for some time, then Owen said, “I don’t know what the Earth’s like now. Maybe it’s OK, maybe it isn’t. There’s one thing I do know, and that’s that we have to fix things here. Otherwise no-one will be safe, nowhere.”

Suddenly the figures on the screen stopped scrolling and some text appeared with a bleep: pass 1000, fail 0.

“It worked.” said Steve quietly, hardly able to believe it. Then, more loudly, feeling an irrepressible euphoria rising within him, he said again, “It worked!”

The two men began cheering and Owen briefly wrapped his arms around Steve, jumping up and down, before running around the room waving his arms like a lunatic.

Eventually they calmed down and Steve said, “Let’s have a beer in the garden. I want to watch the sun set for once.”

They went outside carrying bottles of a beer of Owen’s own design and sat on the bench in the garden.

The garden, contained entirely inside an enormous lattice of steel in the form of a dome, was thriving.

They gazed through the lattice at the distant mountains.

“We should just stage a takeover,” said Steve. “Screw the Emperor. Even if your theory is correct, we don’t really need him. Why give him even more power?”

“You don’t want to get on the wrong side of a man who has that kind of power,” said Owen. “It’ll turn into a bloodbath.”

“Personally I don’t quite have the same faith in Auron’s essential goodness as your friends. Anyway, people can change. For the worse.”

“It’s my project,” Owen stated flatly.

“Yeah, you’re the boss,” said Steve.

They sat there drinking beer for a while, then Steve said, “Hey, let’s go to The Sloth tomorrow. I’m sick of looking at these railings.”

“You want to leave the whole thing now, just when it’s finally working?”

“You’re messed up,” said Steve, laughing. “Ten years with hardly a break and you can’t even go for a celebratory drink?”

“What’s this?” said Owen, raising his glass.

“The Sloth. Tomorrow. You owe me.”

A thousand miles away, Auron Blake was reaching the end of his tether.

“This isn’t working, Jor,” he said, sitting down heavily on a couch in the bunker to which he’d long since retreated.

“We could try a bigger machine,” said Jor.

“That’s your answer, after wasting twenty-two years of my time?”

“Sorry mate. I did tell you I couldn’t be sure about it.”

“Is it even possible? He’s been dead twenty-two years now.”

“He’s perfectly preserved by the cryogenic system. It’s no more or less possible now than it was twenty-two years ago. I suggest we build a moon-sized machine and try that.”

Freddie, Auron’s dog, whimpered and jumped up beside Auron. Auron ruffled his neck.

“Maybe I just need to give it up.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Auron,” said Jor. “You’ve done everything you could. What happened isn’t your fault.”

“It is my fault. I should have warned him.”

“Maybe you should concentrate on the living. They need your help.”

“I can’t deal with them. The whole thing gives me bad anxiety.”

“You shouldn’t run from your problems, mate.”

“Shut up.”

Jor fell silent and Auron ruffled Freddie’s fur. Freddie was the only thing, he felt, that still kept him sane.

“Let’s go for a walk, Freddie, and hope no-one tries to kill us.”

Freddie’s ears pricked up at the word “walk”, and he jumped down from the couch and began jumping about.

Auron smiled.

“You maniac,” he said affectionately.

There was one further group of people on Frith who were carrying out private research at the time, and as with Owen and Steve’s efforts, their research was finally coming to fruition.

In a large house a mile from the centre of Oberon, a man by the unlikely name of Aldron Spear and another man known as Quentin Findlay, formerly known as Professor Findlay and now often referred to as simply “the Professor”, stood around a large pipe-shaped device mounted on wheels, while five other men stood around watching.

“Are you sure it can overcome his defence mechanisms?” said Spear.

“I’ve explained this before,” said the Professor. “I know exactly how it all works. You see, there are effectively an infinite series of fundamental forces, but really, it’s all one force, manifesting itself in an infinity of different ways. The weapon is able to —”

Spear held up his hand.

“I don’t want technical details,” he said. “I’ve explained that before. I just want to know if it’s going to work.”

“It’ll work.”

“When?” said one of the men standing solemnly behind them.

“Tomorrow,” said Spear.

“And what then?” said the Professor. “When he’s gone, what then? Have you thought about that?”

“Leave that to me. It’s none of your concern. All you need to know is, by next week we’ll have a proper prison system running and Frith will be in a lot better state than it is now.”

“I should hope so.”

Spear smiled grimly.

The following day, Owen and Steve pulled up with their scooters on the edge of Oberon.

Owen walked to the railings overlooking the sea, from where he could see the cliffs further along the coast.

“Look at those total headcases,” he said to Steve, nodding at some teenagers standing on the cliff edge.

The teenagers were throwing themselves off the cliffs, laughing and shouting.

“What do you expect,” said Steve, joining him. “Jumping off cliffs carries no cost here. Of course they’re going to do it. I’d be doing it if I was their age.”

A group of friends stumbled past them, blind drunk, staggering about. One of them vomited into the gutter and a cleaning robot appeared and turned the vomit into a plume of vapour which shot off towards the sea.

“You sure you won’t to do this?” said Owen. “It’s not like it used to be.”

“You said everywhere else is just as bad.”

“It is, so.”

“Then The Sloth it is.”

Steve straightened up and walked off towards The Sloth, Owen accompanying him.

When they pushed the door of The Sloth open, a grim sight met their eyes.

The Sloth, with its veranda overlooking the ocean, had once been a peaceful and calming venue, known for fine food and wine. Those days were clearly in the past.

Its patrons, mostly men, were all extremely drunk and many appeared high on other substances as well. A man lay half-insensible in the corner, covered in his own drool, eyes bloodshot. A half-naked woman gyrated obscenely on a table. A group of men at another table were arguing loudly with each other, waving knives in each other’s faces. As Steve and Owen watched, one of the men plunged a knife into the face of another, and the other man disappeared, transported away by the medical systems for repair. The others laughed mockingly, and one of them pushed the man with the knife off his chair. He lay on the ground and began laughing hysterically.

“Probably it’s all right on the veranda,” said Steve.

They walked past and through the madness and outside, where a middle-aged couple sat quietly drinking.

Steve and Owen took a table and Steve pressed a button on a small device embedded in the centre of the table.

“Bring us two of your finest beers,” he said, and two glasses of beer promptly materialised in front of them.

“Don’t see many people of their age here,” said Owen, nodding at the couple.

“It’s becoming fashionable, I’ve heard,” said Steve. “They’ll probably de-age themselves when they get to sixty or sommat.”

“If you think this place is still going to exist by the time they get to sixty, you’re a more optimistic man than me.”

“What’s going to happen to it? It can’t get any worse than it already has.”

The couple got up, still talking, and promptly dove headfirst over the balcony.

“Bloody ‘ell,” said Steve.

He got up to look over the edge of the railing. The woman had already vanished but the man was still there, in a slowly-spreading pool of his own blood.

“I say!” he shouted. “I seem to have miscalculated. Would you mind awfully coming down here and killing me? Or just jump down on top of me. That ought to do it.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” said Steve.

“I’m in quite a bit of pain,” said the man. “Could you throw something heavy on me at least?”

But as Steve was muttering to himself, wondering what to do, the man suddenly vanished.

Steve returned to their table, shaking his head.

“Are they OK?” Owen asked.

“They’ve gone now. I don’t know what’s hard about just taking the door.”

In the end they managed to endure The Sloth only for half-an-hour, before leaving, saddened and dispirited.

Outside, Owen said, “This place should be a paradise and instead it’s a nightmare.”

“Yeah well, all utopias end the same way,” Steve replied.

They walked silently back towards their scooters, until the sound of a voice ringing out from the town square caught their attention.

“It’s him,” said Owen. “Let’s go and have a look.”

In the square they found Auron—Emperor Auron—himself, standing on an enormous stone platform, speaking to a large crowd.

Next to him, two men were standing guarding a third man, who had his hands tied behind his back.

“He is accused of attacking a cat,” Auron announced to the crowd. “The cat has been repaired. What shall we do with him? Exile or death?”

“Death!” came the overwhelming reply.

“Kill him, Jor,” said Auron, and the man’s eyes widened momentarily in fear before he seemed to explode into a column of smoke that proceeded to disappear into the sky.

“So suffers anyone who disobeys the law of Frith.” said Auron.

But at that moment, quite unexpectedly, a deafening sound rang out and a bright column of light from the town square seemed to connect with Auron’s head. The column disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind only an afterimage in people’s eyes.

Auron’s body, now minus its head, fell to the ground, lifeless.

A man strode to the front: Aldron Spear.

“You know me,” he shouted. “You know what I stand for, what I believe. The Emperor is dead, and I have killed him. Now we will build a new Frith. A Frith of democratic institutions and —”

But he didn’t have time to finish what he was saying. The crowd rushed at him, screaming and shouting. They threw him down from the platform and began tearing and kicking at him.

“Looks like we’re going to have to do without the Emperor after all,” said Steve.

Owen ran up the stone steps to the platform, where he found Viktor Feher already kneeling over the headless body.

Viktor looked up at Owen, and laughed mirthlessly.

“What?” said Owen.

A shout went up from the crowd. Aldron Spear had disappeared, taken by the medical machines.

“To the medical centre!” a voice shouted, and half the crowd moved off in the direction of the location where Spear was already doubtless being repaired.

Owen squatted down to look at the corpse.

Inside its neck, instead of muscle, sinew and blood, there was only a whitish gel interlaced with fine wires.

“It’s a robot,” said Viktor.

A look of astonishment appeared on Owen’s face.

“The Emperor is a robot?”

Viktor laughed again.

“Auron’s not a robot. It’s a fake. A stand-in. He always hated dealing with people.”

“A fake?” said Owen, faintly. “How do you know that? Maybe he was always a robot?”

Viktor stood up and watched the crowds running off towards the medical centre, anxious to exact justice for what they believe to be almost the worst crime possible on Frith: the murder of their still-beloved Emperor. Only a few remained behind: those with no appetite for vengeance and those who, for one reason or another, considered Auron’s murder to be justified.

“I’ve known him since he was eighteen years old. We met at university. In the 1990s, on Earth, before a robot like this was even possible.”

“Good answer,” said Owen. “Then where is he now?”

“If you can get your machine working, you’re the best person to answer that question.”

“It is working. That’s why I’m here. We’re celebrating.”

Viktor stared at Owen in amazement, then began to laugh once again, slowly at first, then heartily.

“What are you laughing at?” Owen asked him.

“The ironies of life,” he replied.

Half an hour later, Owen, Viktor and Steve stood around the machine that Owen had first begun to build eleven years earlier. The machine itself was no more than a tiny box of grey matte plastic sitting on a table, an inch in height.

“We’ve never actually spoken to it before,” said Steve.

“It passes all the tests though,” said Owen.

“Then let’s try it,” said Viktor.

Owen pressed a button and spoke to the machine.

“Omega, can you locate Auron Blake?”

There was a pause, during which everyone waited expectantly.

Viktor was the first to give up.

“I think it has some teething problems,” he said.

But then the machine spoke, in a low, ponderous voice.

“Blake is located at the following coordinates,” it said, and it rattled off a series of numbers.

“Then let’s go and find him,” said Viktor.

“I’ll go,” said Owen, “I want to speak to him alone.”

“As you wish,” Viktor replied.

“No way, ten years of my life have gone into this ruddy thing,” said Steve.

Owen turned to look at him, and he was about to say something when Viktor interrupted his thoughts. “The two of you go. I gave up trying to communicate with Auron a long time ago.”

Owen and Steve took a flying car out to the coordinates the very next day. As they approached the spot, the enormous pyramid was visible in the distance.

“Of course, he’d have to be close to that thing,” said Owen.

And yet, when they reached the spot Omega had specified, there was nothing there but a handful of scattered rocks of various sizes.

“I don’t believe he even exists,” said Steve. “He was a robot all along. Now he’s dead.”

“You think Viktor’s lying?”

“Nowt’s ever what it seems on this planet.”

Owen got out of the car and shouted Auron’s name. There was no reply.

“So what do we do now?” said Steve.

“We wait. He’s here. We wait.”

The sun was sinking fast on the horizon when they finally found what they were looking for. A large rock sank into the ground and a man and his dog appeared on a slowly-rising platform. The man and the dog set off towards the pyramid on foot, neither the dog nor the man noticing anything amiss.

“Auron!” said Owen. “Auron Blake!”

Auron turned around, his shoulders sagged and he rolled his eyes.

“If you’re here to kill me, I wouldn’t bother trying,” he said. “And for your information, my dog happens to have the strength of twenty men, plus he’s invincible. Aren’t you, Freddie?”

Freddie started to bark at the men.

“Auron, what’s in the pyramid?” said Owen.

“You know what’s in the pyramid. Everyone knows. The body of my dead friend is in the pyramid.”

“No,” said Owen, shaking his head. “I know people like you, Auron Blake. People like you don’t build pyramids just to remember the dead.”

“I haven’t got time for this.”

“There’s a computer in that pyramid. A machine. A brain. And I know what you’re trying to do with it.”

Auron became suddenly angry.

“You know nothing!” he said. “Get out of here before I forcibly eject you from my …” he trailed off, not knowing what to say, then finished weakly with, “my reservation.”

“You’re trying to resurrect your friend,” said Owen, “and you can’t do it. Your machine’s not powerful enough. You’re probably thinking about building something more powerful. The size of a moon, let’s say. Or a planet. But that’s not the answer.”

“Oh, and what’s the answer, according to you?”

Owen felt in his pocket and produced a small crystal, which he held up in front of himself.

“Back on the Earth, I was a computer scientist. I was working on a new kind of computer, same as you. Only my design can outrun your machines by a factor of ten thousand.”

“Then why aren’t you the ruler of this planet instead of me?”

“Because we don’t want to go to war with you,” said Steve.

“What do you want?”

“To work with you. Frith needs fixing, Auron. It needs proper institutions.”

“It needs prisons, even,” said Owen. “There’s a lot of crazy stuff happening back there; I don’t know if you’ve noticed. You don’t have to carry the whole weight of it yourself. We can set up a parliament. A judiciary. That type of thing.”

“If there was a way to fit more computing power into a volume of given dimensions, my machines would have thought of it.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. Your machines are like old chess computers that can only tackle problems with brute force. It takes a human to think laterally.”

Owen tapped his forehead, smiling.

“You haven’t even got a prototype.”

“We have got a prototype,” said Steve. “We want you to see it.”

“… if you’re serious about bringing your friend back,” added Owen.

Auron started at Freddie, who was running around in circles, stopping to sniff at things.

“What do you think, Freddie?” he said.

Freddie carried on running about.

“Freddie!” shouted Auron. “I said, what do you think?”

“This guy’s not the full ticket,” Steve muttered to Owen.

“He’s been through a lot, to all accounts,” Owen replied.

Freddie barked.

“Freddie thinks it’s a good idea,” said Auron. “All right, then. Let’s go and have a look at your machine. I’ll take my copter and I’ll follow you.”

“Copter?” said Owen, puzzled.

“Jor, summon the copter,” said Auron, and a thing resembling a microlight helicopter but without any rotors shot towards them at astonishing speed and set itself down next to Auron.

“Right you are,” said Steve.

On the way back to their laboratory, Owen said quietly to Steve, “Do you know how old he is?”

“Looks about thirty.”

“He’s more like eighty, and he’s spent most of the past fifty years alone. It’s a wonder he’s not weirder than he actually is.”

Soon Steve and Owen were demonstrating the Omega system to Auron. Auron had Jor assess the machine’s intelligence, and Omega, in the end, impressed and outpaced Jor by a considerable margin, even though Jor had access to all the computing power contained in Auron’s pyramid.

“You’ve created an intelligent system,” Auron commented. “Very good. I did the same thing myself fifty years ago. Now I’ve gone beyond this kind of thing.”

“Your systems are big,” said Owen. “You know how big this system is?”

“Show me.”

Owen picked up the Omega system from the table. It was the size of a golf ball.

“This is the entire system,” he said.

“How?” Auron asked.

“Your systems are liquids or gels. Ours are crystalline structures.”

“Semiconductors?”

“Sort of, but self-organising. They’re analog systems just like yours, Emperor, with this technology you may be able to resurrect your friend. Imagine this cube, but the size of a pyramid.”

“Don’t call me that. My name is Auron. And in exchange for this technology, what precisely do I have to do?”

“You sanction our efforts to put proper institutions in place. That’s all. You allow us to elect officials, draw up a constitution and so on. You retain ultimate power, but you become a figurehead. The burden of organising Frith will no longer fall on you.”

Auron smiled silently. Then he said, “That actually sounds like an attractive proposition. You know, if you’d told me what you’d wanted I would have agreed to it anyway, without the offer of your technology. I never wanted to be a ruler.”

“You wouldn’t listen to me. I’ve been trying to talk to you for twenty years. Without Omega I wouldn’t have even been able to find you, since you’ve moved out of your place on the mountain.”

“Fair point. Listen, I have a laboratory. Let’s go back there and you can explain to me how your crystals work.”

“How about tomorrow?” said Steve. “We’re going backwards and forwards like a yo-yo. Us ordinary mortals need to sleep from time to time.”

“I can transport us there instantly,” said Auron.

Owen laughed.

“You might have mentioned this before. Why have we just flown a thousand miles if you can transport us instantly? I thought the maximum range of that kind of thing was a few miles.”

“It’s a technology I like to keep to myself. If it becomes widely known and used, it risks ending privacy altogether. Are you ready?”

“We’re ready.”

“Jor, take us to the laboratory.”

The walls seem dissolve and were replaced by the grassy landscape where they had stood hours earlier. To their surprised, they discovered they weren’t the only people there.

A substantial crowd, led by Aldron Spear, who had somehow survived the wrath of the mob, stood assembled a short distance away.

“Who are they?” Auron asked.

“They just blew the head off your lookalike robot,” said Steve.

“Yeah, we forgot to mention it,” said Owen.

“Probably should have mentioned it,” said Steve.

Suddenly there was a enormous ear-splitting sound and a vast glowing sphere emerged from a machine that stood among the crowd and flew towards the pyramid in the distance. Before Auron could even react, the sphere contacted the pyramid and blew it to pieces.

“No!” said Auron quietly, turning pale.

Spear’s voice range out, amplified electronically.

“The Emperor is dead and the seat of the Emperor’s power has been destroyed! Now we are free!”

“They’ve destroyed it,” said Auron. “Jor, is Jer’s sarcophagus intact?”

“No, it’s been completely destroyed. Sorry, mate.”

Auron scrambled up to the top of a collection of rocks nearby, and shouted to the cheering men.

“I am the Emperor, and you’ve destroyed my property! Now you will pay!”

The crowd fell silent, and an awed murmur rose up among them.

Auron held out his hand and a glowing blue-violet sphere of light grew in the air above it, accompanied by a noise that suggested the sphere was rapidly gathering energy. He turned his hand and Owen realised he was about to hurl it at the crowd, presumably with fatal consequences.

“Auron, no!” Owen shouted.

Auron turned to him, the sphere still poised in the air, and with almost a sob in his voice, said, “They’ve killed my friend!”

“We can bring him back!” Owen replied.

“He’s nothing but atoms now!”

“There’s another way! Don’t hurt them! They don’t know what they’re doing! They’re not bad people, Auron. They’re just mistaken. They think you’re a tyrant.”

Auron seemed to hesitate and for a moment Owen thought he was going to hurl the sphere at the men anyway, but then he closed his hand and the sphere fizzled out.

The crowd was already fleeing in panic.

Auron walked slowly back down the rocks and said to Owen, his voice shaking, “How is it possible to bring back someone whose body is now nothing but dust and vapour? You’d better have an answer, because otherwise, I will find everyone responsible for this, and I will kill them.”

“Time travel,” said Steve.

“Time travel is impossible,” said Auron.

“No,” said Owen. “We asked Omega about it yesterday. One of many random questions we put to it. It’s possible.”

Owen and Steve stayed as guests at Auron’s previously-abandoned house on the mountainside for two weeks, during which time they explained every detail of their discovery to Auron, and soon a second Omega device was ready, the size of a shoebox and fully under the command of Jor.

“Jor, is time travel possible, according to the new device?” Auron asked.

“It’s unable to determine that,” came the reply.

“No,” said Steve. “It’s possible. Our device worked it out. I don’t know what’s wrong with this one. Probably needs more training. Our device says a really massive system would be able to implement it.

“You have to understand,” said Owen, “It’s not like bigger devices always inevitably give you the best answers. They’re smarter, but they can get hung up or stuck. Like an academic who refuses to believe in atomic theory, or whatever.”

“We’re going to need to rebuild your pyramid, with this technology,” said Steve.

“Our system will train it. It will be capable of time travel. You’ll see.”

“They just blew up my last pyramid,” said Auron. “I don’t even know how they managed it. It had its own defence systems.”

Auron’s right hand played nervously with the fur on Freddie’s neck. Freddie was half asleep at his side on the couch, exhausted.

“You’ve never actually tried to understand how your machines do things, right?” said Owen. “I mean, how do the flying vehicles fly? How can a machine the size of a shoebox rearrange molecules and turn them into dinner for two? I know that professor guy who designed their weapons. He’s obsessed with those kinds of details. He figured out the principles of physics that your computers understand.”

“And then he blew up my pyramid,” said Auron.

“That’s all over now. Their demands are reasonable. It’s all just a misunderstanding.”

“Give them what they want—the same things we want—and you’ll have no more problems with them.”

“You’re telling me they blew my head off and you think they’re reasonable?”

“They mistook you for a tyrant.” said Owen, “That’s partly your fault, no offence. You gave a robot the power of life and death.”

Auron stared blankly out of the window.

“I’m just not good with people,” he said. “I prefer machines. Whenever there’s a bunch of people around me, I always feel like some sort of social hierarchy has formed and I’m at the bottom of it. People push me around, and I don’t like being pushed around. They don’t even mean to. Apparently I somehow invite it.

“When they began to hail me as an emperor I liked it at first. No-one pushes an emperor around. Except, they do. People try to take advantage. They try to get in with you. They bore you with endless requests and demands.

“I gave people everything they could possibly want, and they’re still not happy.”

“No-one’s blaming you,” said Steve. “It is what it is. Move on. You want to stop Jer dying? Then rebuild the pyramid. We’ll do anything we can to help.”

Auron nodded.

“All right,” he said. “It’s worth a shot.”

Of course, Auron and his new friends didn’t rebuild the pyramid manually. Their machines performed the physical work, and nearly all of the intellectual effort as well.

Perhaps if Auron hadn’t been so focused on the task at hand he would have spent more time reflecting on the fact that he no longer had the final say over what happened on Frith, but the fact is that he never wanted to rule over Frith anyway. Some have argued—notably Professor Aubrey Asquith—that a person with Auron’s psychology wants power over himself, not others, but that craving for absolute control over their own lives can lead such people to accruing power over others as a means to an end.

Whatever the origins of Auron’s absolute rule, it was time for it to end, and even he could see that.

When they had finished the pyramid, they stood in front of it, awed by its size. The pyramid they had built was even a third taller than the one Auron had previously constructed, and it was surely by far the most intelligent entity that had ever existed in the entire universe, or at least the entire galaxy.

“Jer must have been some guy that you’d go to such lengths to bring him back,” Owen commented.

Auron snorted.

“No, he was a bit of an idiot.”

“Then why are we bothering with all this?” Steve asked.

“Because it’s my fault he’s dead, and I owe it to him to undo what I’ve done, if I possibly can,” said Auron.

Auron took Jor from his pocket.

“Jor, hypothetically, using the pyramid, can I travel backwards in time to the Earth and prevent myself from opening the portal, thereby saving Jer’s life?”

There was a brief silence, during which unfathomable and titanic calculations took place with the pyramid, then Jor answered.

“Yes, Auron, it’s possible,” said Jor.

The three men smiled. Owen and Steve clapped their hands together in the air; Owen looked at Auron and considered holding up his hand for Auron to clap but thought better of it.

“I’ll need to take at least forty kilos of luggage with me,” said Auron.

“That’s not possible,” said Jor.

“What? Why not?”

“The manipulation of that much energy would create a singularity in spacetime.”

“Well, how much stuff can I take with me, then?”

“At your current weight, only some clothes. Even a jacket would exceed the energy limit.”

“What if we build another pyramid?”

“Negative. We’re coming up against a hard limit here, mate.”

“That’s annoying,” said Owen. “Still, at least you’re not going naked.”

They spent the rest of the day debating what to do and trying to find some way around the problem.

Auron wanted to at least take Jor with him, but that too would exceed what Auron laughing called his “baggage allowance.”

Owen suggested Jor’s mechanism be partially replaced with his new technology, enabling them to shrink Jor down, but Auron wouldn’t hear of it, fearing Jor’s personality—formed over years and with Jer’s initial input—would be lost, replaced by something less dependable.

In the end, Auron decided to starve himself for a couple of weeks, so that he could take Jor, a jacket, and some diamonds to exchange for currency. He also decided to remove five years from his biological age, just in case he were to end up spending a long time on the Earth.

Freddie would have to stay behind, but he would leave Freddie with Sandra and Raika, as he had already done so many times before retreating into two years of isolation.

Once on the Earth he would make his way to his chronologically younger self, and warn him not to open the portal. He would enlist the help of his own earlier self and Jer to instead use their technology to prevent the nuclear war that was to subsequently destroy the Earth.

But all of this raised some questions that not even the enormous Omega device inside the pyramid was able to answer with any certainty.

“If I stop myself opening the portal,” said Auron, as they sat together back at his mountainside house again, “Frith never comes into being, or at least not in this precise form, with this exact history. Then how can I come back here? All of this will never have happened.”

“Omega thinks this spatiotemporal manifold will still exist, as a detached ramification of spacetime,” said Jor.

“If this whole thing still exists,” said Owen, “you’ve not saved Jer’s life at all. I mean, if this whole history still occurs, then Jer still dies.”

“You’ll have created a separate branch of time,” said Jor. “at least, according to Omega.”

“Is there even any point to any of this?” Steve asked. “I mean, if changing the past destroys us in the present.”

“Currently there’s no timeframe in which Jer is alive,” Jor replied. “Auron’s proposed actions will create such a timeframe. That’s the theory. However, Omega thinks there’s a small chance that Auron’s attempts to interfere with the future may result in his death.”

“My death? Why?”

“Because there can only be one consistent past, therefore if you attempt to interfere with it, something must stop you. It’s the Novikov self‑consistency principle. But I wouldn’t worry about it, mate. Omega thinks it’s probably wrong.”

“You should stop this,” said Steve. “It’s not worth it. You might die, and if you succeed, you might create a worse future than what we’ve already lived through.”

“Kind of boggles the mind,” said Owen reflectively.

“I’ve come too far to give this up,” said Auron. “If those idiots hadn’t blown up the sarcophagus I might have resurrected him. Now it’s too late for that. Time travel is the only option.”

“On the upside, you can stop a nuclear war,” said Owen.

“Only in one timeframe.” said Steve. “In the one we’ve just lived through, it still happens.”

“There’d be two of us,” said Owen, “in different universes.”

“There’ll be one of you in one universe,” said Jor, “Only Auron will experience two different universes. For you, only one universe exists. Facts are subjective.”

“Facts aren’t subjective,” said Owen, suddenly exercised. “What a load of nonsense. Facts are facts.”

“Careful interpretation of the word ‘subjective’ is needed,” said Jor. “Facts are subjective in the sense that—”

“Look, enough of this,” said Auron, interrupting. “I’m going through with it. End of story. There’s no alternative. Hopefully I won’t die and you and Frith will still exist.”

“What the hell have we got ourselves into?” said Steve.

Two weeks later, a slightly thinner and younger Auron stood inside an enormous machine he’d had constructed in the nearby mountains. He’d left Freddie with Sandra and her dog Raika, saying an embarrassingly tearful goodbye, to which Freddie had been largely oblivious, and expressing the hope that he would see Freddie again.

Viktor, Rosa, Owen and Steve were there to see Auron off.

In theory the parting would be brief for them, since Auron intended to return to the same point in time and space from which he was leaving, but from Auron’s perspective he might perhaps be away for quite some time.

He was wearing a warm jacket and he had Jor in his pocket, and a small bag of diamonds in the other pocket. The diamonds had been carefully synthesised to resemble natural diamonds from the Earth.

The process of devolving power on Frith had already begun, and could safely be continued without Auron’s presence.

After appropriate words had been awkwardly exchanged, Viktor pulled a lever and a strange rising sound emerged from the enormous frame under which Auron stood.

A bright white light shone out of the edifice, growing in intensity, forcing the four observers to step backwards.

Then, quite suddenly, the light vanished and only the empty frame was left.

“If he succeeds, we might not exist anymore,” said Viktor.

“Not according to Omega,” said Owen.

“Let’s hope it’s right, then,” said Viktor.

Where Auron had stood, a little bag of diamonds fell to the ground.

For several entire minutes, Auron had no idea where he was—if anywhere—and wondered seriously if he was dead.

Around him seemed to be only blackness. He was suspended, as if in zero gravity, unable to make contact with any solid surface.

He began to curse himself for taking such a stupid risk, and he wondered if he was now destined to spend all of eternity in a dark featureless void.

But then it struck him that he was at least able to breathe and that the void was filled, apparently, with air, which meant that the time machine’s life support systems were functioning correctly, even if the process was taking longer than expected.

He tapped his pocket and found Jor still there. His clothes all seemed to be intact. The skin on his hands and face seemed fine, and he still had hair.

But how much longer would he remain there? Seconds? Minutes? Days? Centuries?

Then he thought to check the bag of diamonds, and with a startled, sinking feeling, he realised it was missing.

No sooner had he arrived at this conclusion than he was falling, and all around him was light. He hit the ground with a nasty bump.

He picked himself up, and found he was standing in a field. The sky was overcast. He was quite obviously in England, but where? The machine was supposed to put him down on his feet in an abandoned house near York, and clearly something hadn’t worked properly.

He felt his pockets again. The diamonds were definitely missing, but at least he had Jor.

“Jor, where are we?”

“No idea, mate. I can’t see anything without external apparatus, as you know.”

“I’ve lost my diamonds.”

“Maybe Omega’s density calculations were slightly off.”

Auron swore and began walking towards the nearest road.

“The question is,” he said to Jor, “what year is it? If the mass calculations and geotargeting were off, the time’s probably off too.”

“Probably not by much, if you’re on the right planet.”

“A year early would be better than a second too late.”

The edge of the field was marked by a barbed-wire fence. Since he couldn’t find a gate, he scrambled through it, getting stuck and tearing his jacket slightly in the process.

Then, finding himself on a single-track road, he picked a direction and began to walk.

Eventually he turned onto a busier road and saw signs pointing to York.

“OK, we’re not off by much,” he said.

“If you’re almost in the right place, you’re probably almost at the right time,” said Jor.

“Jor, I’ve got no money. What am I going to do?”

“Go to Auron 2 and ask for help?” said Jor uncertainly.

“Auron 2?”

“You’re Auron 1. The other Auron, the one that didn’t travel through time, is Auron 2,” Jor explained.

“I can’t do that! I know what he’s like. He’ll freak out! He’ll think I’m a robot or something, come to replace him.”

“Is it possible any of the diamonds fell out in your pocket?”

A sudden hope rising in him, Auron felt about in his pocket and soon located a single small diamond.

“It’s better than nothing,” he said. “This ought to be worth twenty thousand pounds.”

Soon he arrived at a small suburb of York itself. He went into a jeweller’s and produced the diamond.

“Where did you get this?” the jeweller asked; a tall well-built man with tanned skin and stubble.

“It’s been in the family for a while. Would you like to buy it?”

“Give me a minute,” said the jeweller, and he went off into a back room. When he returned, he said, “I can offer you fifteen thousand pounds.”

“Only fifteen?” said Auron, disappointed.

“Based on its weight and characteristics, that’s what it’s worth. You can try other places but you won’t get a better deal.”

“OK then.”

“I just need to see your ID.”

“I don’t have any ID.”

“Can’t do the sale without ID, I’m afraid.”

Auron went away disappointed and nervous. He didn’t even have the money to buy so much as a bottle of water.

He tried five more jeweller’s shops and finally found one who would agree to pay him in cash on the spot without ID, but only three thousand pounds.

“If it turns out to be stolen and I don’t have your ID, the police will seize it and I’ll be in trouble,” the jeweller explained. “The low price reflects the risk.”

“It’s not stolen,” said Auron.

“You can’t prove that.”

Auron sighed heavily, and said, “OK, it’s a deal,” and went away from the shop three thousand pounds richer.

He went to a cheap-looking cafe and ordered lasagna, coffee, and wine to steady his nerves.

He asked the girl who waited on his table what the date was.

“May 16^th,” she said

“And the year?”

“It’s 2006,” she said, with a surprised expression. “What are you, a time traveller?”

“Exactly,” said Auron.

She went away rolling her eyes.

“Jor, I’m three years early,” he said.

“Never mind, mate,” said Jor. “Three years will pass soon enough. It’ll give you time to prepare.”

As he sat eating his lasagna, a young couple at a nearby table began giggling and casting furtive glances towards him. It was unclear what they were laughing about; possibly the fact that he was having a somewhat strange conversation with what they must have assumed to be a telephone in his pocket.

As he thought the matter over, he realised that the style of his clothing had diverged somewhat from what was considered normal in England in 2006, and that may also have provided a source of mirth.

He began to feel unpleasantly conspicuous.

The rest of the people in the cafe didn’t particularly seem to have noticed him, although a few were casting odd glances in his direction from time to time. There was a table of three men who looked like road workers, several tables of elderly ladies, and a table with an elderly couple.

As he scanned the scene he started to feel that he was, in fact, distinctly on everyone’s radar, even if most of the cafe’s customers were more discreet about commenting on his presence.

“Am I being paranoid, Jor?” he asked. “I feel like I’m attracting attention.”

“No, mate. Half of them are talking about you.”

“How do you know?”

“I can hear them. You should get some normal clothes and pretend I’m a telephone.”

He took Jor out of his pocket and placed him on the table.

“Talk more quietly,” said Auron, almost whispering.

The giggling young couple had just enjoyed a particularly loud and ill-concealed bout of laughter when the cafe door opened, flung open by a man wearing a cape. He was perhaps sixty years of age and sported a pointed grey-white beard and piercing eyes.

“Emperor Auron!” he shouted in a booming voice. “At last we meet! There can only be one ruler of this galaxy. But I’m not a man to kick an emperor when he’s down! We will meet again, Emperor Auron!”

And with that, and a swirl of his cape, the man departed.

Now everyone in the cafe was staring openly at him.

“Just some nutcase,” Auron said to them.

After leaving the cafe, holding Jor next to his face like a phone, he said, “Jor, who was that man in the cafe?”

“Haven’t the faintest,” said Jor.

“You’re no help.”

“I can’t even see anything. You need to hook me up to a matter interactor. Or at least a camera.”

Auron found a hotel and checked in. The hotel charged him sixty pounds for one night. Fortunately, they didn’t ask for any ID.

“Sixty pounds!” he said to Jor, lying on the hotel bed. “Three thousand isn’t going to last three years at this rate!”

“You can economise on eating,” said Jor. “Buy bread and cheese and stuff from a supermarket.”

“It’s still not going to stretch much longer than a month.”

“You’ll have to talk to Auron 2.”

“I’m not talking to Auron 2 until it’s really necessary. You don’t know Auron 2 like I know Auron 2! It’ll freak him out if he sees me.”

“Then ask Jer for help. Or Viktor.”

Auron paused for a moment as the thought hit him that here, in this time, Jer was alive and walking about, completely oblivious to his future fate.

“I’m not going to beg my friends for help,” he said, finally. “Come up with another plan.”

“Build a new interactor. You’ll only need a few days in a hotel to get it done. Then you can live in style for three years.”

“Finally, some sense!” said Auron, relieved. “I can easily get everything I need to make a new interactor.”

“You’re welcome.”

And so, at least on the surface, it appeared that Auron had a workable plan. He would stay in the hotel, build a device that would enable Jor to interact with the material world, and Jor would quickly make him as wealthy as he pleased.

In three years, he would find the other version of himself, the one that was currently discussing setting up a business somewhere with Jer, and he’d warn him against all future pitfalls.

Instead of Auron 2 and Jer ending up stranded on an alien planet for thirty years, they would devote themselves to preventing the impending nuclear catastrophe on the Earth, and he, Auron 1, would return to Frith where he would become a ceremonial figurehead, respected and perhaps loved, but—most importantly—with very few demands upon his time.

The future seemed bright, but there were things that Auron hadn’t accounted for; facts of which he was unaware, as he was soon to discover.

He dropped down next to it and traced his fingers along the rock. Dry.

Apparently wherever the water came from, the supply wasn’t, after all, inexhaustible, and now he was going to die even sooner than he’d expected.

He lay there for some minutes in the hot sun, his mouth and throat like parchment paper. Then he forced himself to rise to his feet and he began to stagger down the hill, following the former path of the little spring.

There was a stream down there; radioactive, probably, but better than dying of thirst. The stream surely couldn’t have dried up.

At a certain point he passed out and woke up choking and confused.

He rubbed his head and some of his remaining hair came away in his hand. He cursed out loud.

Must be one of the rabbits he’d eaten. That last one didn’t look right. Or all of them, cumulatively.

He continued scrambling downwards. His head was swimming slightly and pain was rising in his stomach again.

As he approached the bottom of the valley, he saw it; clear running water, almost certainly hideously contaminated, but it might keep him alive a little longer.

Just before he reached the stream his foot slipped out from under him, loose sandy reddish stones skittering away down the slope, and he landed on his back.

With a groan, he began to half-crawl, half-drag himself the remaining few metres, his hands becoming covered in mud.

At the stream, he washed his hands, forcing patience on himself, then, cupping them, brought water to his mouth.

It tasted good. Fresh, clean. Then he began to vomit, dry heaves painfully contracting his stomach.

It took him an hour, but eventually he managed to keep some of it down.

Lying there on the river bank, the sound of the burbling stream in his ears, he began to cry. His stomach lining was in such bad shape now that he probably wasn’t going to be able to keep enough water down to remain alive, and he knew it. But it wasn’t just that; it was the loneliness, the horror of everything that had happened, the fear, the isolation.

Everyone he had once known, was dead.

Above him, a kestrel hung in the air, looking for mice.

He reached into his pocket and took out a little plastic statue.

“Help me, Holy Mother,” he said. “I don’t ask for much but I could use a little help now, so I could.”

He didn’t have the energy to climb back up the hill. He lay there, his stomach burning, vaguely wondering if the night would be cold, and if it would be his last.

At some point, he fell asleep, or at least, drifted into unconsciousness.

When he opened his eyes, his first reaction was one of surprise. It seemed, to judge from the sun, that he’d slept right through the night and into the next day, and he was still alive. His stomach even felt considerably better.

Then he sat up, and was immediately covered in confusion.

“Where the feck am I?”

In fact, Owen was sitting on a sandy beach lightly strewn with pebbles, facing an ocean, and he hadn’t the slightest memory of how he’d got there, but he felt strangely good.

He stood up, and then the truth of the matter became apparent. There was no dizziness and his legs felt strong, and as he struggled to a standing position he realised that his clothes were clean and new.

The last thing he could remember was praying to the Holy Mother.

Then an idea began to dawn on him.

It occurred to him that the idea could be put to a concrete test. He put his hand on his head.

Instead of the thinning scabby mess that had been there previously, was a luxuriant head of hair.

“It’s not Hell. Then it must be Heaven.”

He stared up at the sky.

“Thank you, Holy Father. Honestly I didn’t think I’d make it after some of the stupid things I’ve done.”

He began to walk.

Further inland was a smattering of pine trees, but no clear signs of habitation.

He walked into the trees and soon came to a track that ran along the coast.

“Left or right?”

He felt in his pocket for a coin, then remembered that he hadn’t seen a coin in three years. Clearly an actual decision would have to be made.

He looked both ways along the path and decided that left looked more promising, and he began to walk.

After an hour he felt distinctly thirsty.

“Funny state of affairs if I’m going to die of thirst in Heaven as well.”

But soon he came to a water fountain; an old thing made of black metal, with a push button to start the water. He drank his fill and continued.

Eventually he saw a house high on a hill, overlooking some cliffs.

“Finally.”

As he walked towards it he began to wonder who he might find there.

“Could be some random Joe. Could be St. Peter himself. Or … does God live in a house? He might manifest himself in a house for the sake of appearances.”

When he finally arrived at the house, he found a young woman tending to a garden.

“Hello there,” said Owen.

She jumped.

“Oh, you startled me,” she said.

“I’m so sorry, I really am, but I’m completely lost.”

She sighed.

“Second time this has happened. Come in. You’re probably hungry.”

He followed her into the house.

“Where are you from?” she asked him.

“Cork originally but I’ve lived all over. Dublin, Belfast, bit of a traveller. A man of the world, so to speak.”

Sandra couldn’t quite tell whether he was joking or not, and decided he probably was.

She raised a finger in the air, thinking, and then pointed it at him.

“Irish stew.” she said.

“I wouldn’t say no.”

She went into the kitchen and came back a minute later with a plate of stew in one hand and a basket of bread rolls in the other.

“I don’t really know how you eat it,” she said.

“Thank you so much, I’m very grateful,” he said, and he began to eat, thinking it was quite a coincidence that she happened to have Irish stew on the go and he happened to be Irish.

The food was the most delicious food he had ever tasted, and the first normal thing to pass his lips in three years.

“I’m wondering,” he said slowly, “I don’t want to be presumptuous, I’m new here, but … is it possible to meet the man himself? Does he do like a meet and greet kind of a thing?”

Sandra laughed.

“I haven’t seen him in two years. If I had, I would have told him to stop dumping people in random locations. I don’t know why he thinks it’s a good idea. Sometimes I wonder if he’s just stopped caring. Where did you first hear about him?”

“Oh, well that would have been in school, I suppose. My parents were churchgoers, like, especially my mother, but they didn’t talk about it all that much.”

Sandra frowned.

“In school?” she said.

“Yes, I think so,” said Owen. “Why, is that bad?”

“You say you’re from Ireland?”

“So I am.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Owen paused and thought carefully. He remembered begging Mary to help him. What did he do after that? Yes, he lay down on the bank of the little stream and he’d been wondering if the night would be cold.

“I just remember falling asleep by a stream,” he said. “I was trying to drink but I couldn’t take it in. My stomach was all messed up with the radiation.”

The frown cleared from Sandra’s face.

“So you do remember the war?”

“I’m hardly going to forget that, am I now? Forgive me for saying.”

“I thought you might be a time traveller or something.”

Owen spluttered.

“I’m not a time traveller. At least, I don’t think I am.”

“Well then, how do you know about Auron?”

“Who?”

Sandra straightened her back and raised her eyebrows.

“Wait a minute, let’s start again. Do you know where you are?”

For a second Owen felt oddly embarrassed. It sounded outlandish to actually say it.

“Well, I’m in Heaven, aren’t I?”

Sandra burst into laughter.

“What?” said Owen, reddening.

She lowered her face to the table, tears streaming from her eyes.

“Heaven!” she echoed. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s not funny, really. No, you’re not in Heaven … what’s your name? I’m Sandra.”

“Owen … Owen McCormick.”

Well then, Owen, welcome to Frith.”

“Where?”

“Allow me to explain.”

She began to tell him everything she knew, bit by bit, in no particular order.

“You see, he built a computer that was able to design a more intelligent version of itself,” she told him. “That was the start of it all.”

“The AI singularity,” said Owen.

“Yes,” she said. “You know about that stuff?”

“Before the war, I was a computer scientist, working on AI.”

“No way.”

“Honest to God.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place.”

“Do you think he selected me because of my knowledge?”

Sandra shook her head.

“No, or at least I shouldn’t think so. He’s not involved with selection. His computers find suitable people on the Earth and bring them here automatically. I kept telling him he should set up a reception centre but I think the idea of letting people discover Frith by themselves sort of amused him. Like I said, though, I haven’t seen him in two years, so now, who knows.”

“So where is he then?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere on Frith, probably. Look, we’d better get you sorted out with a place to live. I was going into Oberon later anyway. I’ll drop you off somewhere suitable. You can always change it later.”

“You have a car, I suppose?”

“You suppose wrong. I have something much better.”

She led him out through a side door.

There, standing on a small landing pad that literally stuck out over the edge of a cliff, stood a thing that looked like a high-tech motorbike, except it had no wheels.

She went and sat on it.

“Hop on!”

Owen paled.

“Does that thing … fly?”

“It most certainly does.”

“Tell you what, I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I’m quite happy to walk.”

“Don’t be silly. Get on. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“I’m not good with heights. Really, I’d rather walk.”

“It’s five miles!”

“That’s fine, the fresh air will do me good.”

Seeing that he was obdurate, she got off the bike.

“All right, tell you what, I’ve got a scooter. You can use that.”

“I don’t want to take your scooter. Really, I’m fine with walking five miles.”

“Oh, it’ll come back to me when you’re finished with it.”

She led him down some steps, where a smaller, less robust version of the flying bike stood next to a wall.

“I don’t want to be a pain, but it doesn’t have any wheels.”

“Doesn’t need them. Don’t worry, this one doesn’t fly. It’ll scoot along a few inches above the road. Let me show you.”

She demonstrated the scooter to him and he had to admit, it seemed both harmless and also quite enjoyable.

“You sure you don’t need it?”

“It’ll come back by itself, don’t worry.”

“Really?”

She laughed.

“Yes, really.”

“OK. I’m very grateful.”

“Oberon’s that way,” she said, pointing, “can’t miss it. When you get there, ask anyone where you can find an empty house. There’s still quite a few.”

He went away on the scooter in a daze. Sandra’s explanation of Frith’s history and existence sounded unbelievable, yet here he was, on a flying scooter. He half wondered if he wasn’t, in fact, dead after all.

The scooter hovered a short distance above the coastal path via unknown principles. Some hidden mechanism seemed to direct the air around him, preventing it from blowing too hard in his face.

He tried pushing the machine up to 40 miles per hour and then stopping suddenly. The machine reared up, protecting him from potentially falling off the front, and he had a feeling of being strangely cushioned from the g-forces, coming to a stop almost instantly.

“Is this some machine!” Owen exclaimed, wonderingly.

He was experimenting with swerving from side to side, the movement causing him to laugh like a child at a funfair, when something caught his attention. A small grey rectangular object with rounded edges was floating just off the side of the road. He stopped and gazed at it curiously.

“What the devil are you?” he said to himself, and surprisingly, the machine replied.

“My job is to maintain the path.”

“Now, how would you be doing that? You’ve not got arms or legs.”

“I am able to clear objects from the path and make repairs.”

“Are you now?”

Owen descended from the machine, picked up a rock from beside the path, and threw it onto the path. Then he got back on the scooter, afraid that it might scoot away without him.

“So how will you be dealing with that?”

The machine floated over the rock and the rock rose into the air. The machine moved off to the side and dropped the rock.

“Astonishing,” said Owen.

“Thank you sir,” said the machine. “One aims to please.”

“Can you tell me how far Oberon is?”

“Three miles, sir, or 4.8 kilometres.”

Owen laughed.

“Still can’t decide whether to use metric or imperial, then. Some things never change.”

He resumed his journey, and soon saw Oberon on the coast in the distance; a town of curved domes, intertwined with pavements and staircases, featuring an impressive church, all in pastel colours.

His attention was fixed on the town when a man darted into the path just ahead of him. The scooter automatically diverted itself around him, leaning inward from the curve to ensure Owen kept his balance.

Owen stopped and spun around, the scooter rotating on the spot.

The main didn’t appear quite right in the head. He was laughing derangedly.

“You!” he shouted. “I don’t know you! You’re new!”

“I am new,” Owen replied.

“There’s things they don’t tell you! Giant monstrous crabs, hideous vampires! People halfway between humans and animals.”

The man staggered drunkenly towards Owen and Owen made the scooter glide slowly backwards away from him.

“Is that so?”

Something told him the man was dangerous.

“I’m a god!” the man shouted suddenly, his expression darkening as he saw that he couldn’t close the gap between Owen and himself. “We’re all gods!”

Suddenly he reached behind himself and produced a knife.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” said Owen hastily.

“Well, you’ve found it, my friend, you’ve found it!”

He laughed again, his laughter cracking into a high pitched giggle, and plunged the knife into his stomach. Blood began to pour out.

The man looked at Owen to gauge his reaction.

“You see! Do you see now?”

He began to saw himself open as though filleting a fish.

Owen’s eyes widened in terror.

“What are you doing?” he said. “Stop it, please!”

Suddenly the man shouted, “Until we meet again!” and he disappeared, as though he had never been real in the first place. One moment he was there; the next, he was gone.

Owen got off the scooter and vomited by the side of the road.

“Oh my word. Oh my Lord. Sweet Mother of Mary.”

The man seemed to have completely vanished.

“I must be hallucinating.”

He spent several minutes shouting “Hello!” and looking behind the scattered pines, half-expecting the man to pop out from behind a bush, but he could find no trace of him — except for his footprints, which remained in the sandy earth next to the road, where he had stood. Owen was able to trace them only a few metres before they became too indistinct to follow further.

He got back onto the scooter, shaking slightly, and continued towards the town, now rather more apprehensive over what he might find there.

He left the scooter parked next to several other scooters, on the edge of the town, and made his way towards the centre.

As he walked he saw people walking about, visiting cafes and galleries. He saw a man playing the guitar, sitting on a stair, although there was no sign that he was collecting money. A woman was painting a watercolour next to a railing overlooking the sea.

Almost no-one appeared to be much over the age of thirty-five, and the town’s inhabitants appeared remarkably good-looking and well-dressed.

“I’m never going to fit into this place,” he muttered to himself.

Feeling distinctly foolish, he stopped a young man dressed entirely in white, wearing sunglasses. The man reminded him vaguely of a friend of his who’d spent a lot of time in Spain, running a bar on the beach.

“Excuse me, I was told there are empty houses here, is it true?”

The man stopped and smiled.

“Why, yes, there’s lots,” he said. “Take a map from that stand over there. It’ll have all the information you need.”

He pointed at a little black metal stand.

“Thanks, much obliged.”

The man nodded and began to walk away.

“Say, I thought I saw a man stab himself over on the coastal path.”

“Oh that’s be Jim Leigh. He’s not right in the head. Pay no attention.”

“He … he disappeared.”

“Every time he stabs himself, he gets taken to the hospital. They’ll patch him up there. He’s probably already wandering about again, right as rain.”

“You don’t understand, he disappeared!”

The man walked off, humming to himself.

Owen went to the stand, shaking his head, and took a map. The map was a piece of stiff paper hardly bigger than his hand and it didn’t seem to have any empty houses marked on it; it only showed the layout of the town.

He rummaged through the other maps; they all appeared identical.

“Are you looking for something?” said a voice.

He turned to find a young woman looking at him curiously.

“I need a house but there aren’t any empty houses marked on his thing.”

“Map,” said the woman, “show him the empty houses.”

Symbols appeared on the map in front of his eyes.

He turned it around in his hands, looking at the front and the back of it.

“Amazing.”

The woman laughed and went on her way.

“Welcome to Frith!” she said, over her shoulder.

He went to the nearest house that was marked as empty. In fact, it turned out to be a narrow town house, three stories high; one of a short row of adjoining buildings, and pastel yellow in colour.

He looked at the map again.

Now, curiosity was getting the better of him. He decided to head for one of the houses on the far edge of the village.

Fifteen minutes later, he found it; a rather majestic house made of sandy-coloured stone, up a short staircase and overlooking the sea.

“Now, that’s my kind of a house.”

He walked up the staircase and found the front door had a handle but no keyhole, and it seemed to be locked.

He tried knocking and pushing at the door, to no avail.

After ten minutes, during which time he walked completely around the house several times and carefully inspected the map to ensure he’d got the right place, he gave up, and decided to find someone to ask about getting into the house.

Then a thought occurred to him. He held up the map in front of his eyes.

“Is this house really empty?” he said, in a loud clear voice.

The map made no reply. He reddened, embarrassed at his own idiocy.

Then he had another idea.

“Map, is this house really empty?” he said.

Words appeared silently on the map.

“Yes, the house is empty. Press your hand against the door to register your handprint.”

In a daze, Owen held his hand flat against the door. A faint glow appeared around it, then disappeared, and the door sprang open.

He stood there, gazing at the interior, which was well-lit and beautifully furnished in light shades of white, beige and ochre yellow.

Then he walked inside, calling out, “Hello?” in case the house was occupied after all.

“Not really my taste but I could get used to it,” he said to himself.

In the kitchen he found everything he might need to cook food, but no actual food. One machine puzzled him: it somewhat resembled a microwave oven except that it had no front, and the word “autochef” was written on it in flowing letters.

He could find no controls of any kind on the machine. He tried tapping and rapping on it, to no effect.

“Hey, make me a nice cold beer,” he said.

Then he tried, “Autochef, make me a nice cold beer.”

Fog swirled inside the machine and rapidly resolved itself into a mug of beer.

Owen laughed in delight. He took the beer, tasted it, and said, “Oh my, how I’ve missed beer.”

Owen spent several weeks exploring the town and making friends. The people who lived nearest to him were a young couple by the names of Laura and Milo. They showed him the local cafes, shops and bars, they showed him where to get a scooter of his own, and they took him to explore the hills, beaches and forests around the town.

One day when they were sitting on a grassy bank at the top of some cliffs, watching the sea, Milo said, “Say, couple of hundred miles over that way”—he pointed inland—“there’s an airfield where you can fly planes from the Earth. They’ve got everything. F-22s, Typhoons, MiG-21s. It’s really fun.”

“I don’t know how to fly,” said Owen.

“We’ll teach you. It’s pretty easy. You can learn by your mistakes. I’ve destroyed twenty on takeoff and at least thirty on landing, but you get the hang in the end. You have to put your protector in invincible mode, otherwise you get transported to the nearest medical centre ten miles away. Very inconvenient.”

“Protector?”

“Milo,” said Laura, “we haven’t told him about the protectors.”

“It’s OK, there’s a grace period,” said Milo, “You’d better learn about them soon, though.”

“What are they?”

Milo showed Owen his watch, tapping it.

“They’re medical devices, built into wristbands, necklaces, watches, whatever you want. Usually they just transport you to the nearest hospital if you mess yourself up seriously, but in invincible mode they —”

“They make you invincible.” said Laura. “I just keep mine in invincible mode all the time.”

“I like to live life on the edge,” said Milo, laughing.

“Anyway, we’ll get you one from the shop on Hill Street when we go back to the town,” said Laura.

“Actually, there’s a couple of things I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Owen.

“We were wondering how long you’d take before you asked them,” said Milo. “Everyone has the same questions. Go ahead.”

Owen composed his thoughts and said, “Who built this place? Some fella by the name of Aaron or something?”

“Auron,” said Milo. “Emperor Auron.”

Laura laughed.

“Emperor Auron?” said Owen.

“He’s not really an emperor,” said Laura, “just people call him that.”

“He is an emperor,” said Milo. “What else do you call someone who rules over an entire planet? Not only that, he built it in the first place.”

“He doesn’t rule over us,” said Laura.

“Doesn’t he?”

“You know I hate politics,” said Laura, a slightly disapproving look forming on her face.

“Who is he?” said Owen.

Milo sighed, as though long since bored with the topic, but determined to give his new friend a fair answer.

“He discovered how to build a computer that was able to design an improved version of itself. That machine built an even better version, and so on. They say the first machine was made from nothing but some chemicals in a jar. No-one really knows.”

“How can you build a computer out of chemicals in a jar?”

Milo laughed, raising his eyebrows.

“Don’t ask me. I’m not technical. Anyway, he created this place and his machines constantly search the Earth for people he thinks might be suitable. He rescues them.”

“They nearly all speak English and they’re nearly all from Christian cultures.” said Laura.

“He’s afraid of conflict. Ethnic conflict, religious conflict. That’s what I think.”

“Considering what happened to the Earth, I don’t blame him,” said Laura.

“Like English-speaking culturally Christian people aren’t perfectly capable of messing each other up.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts, then.”

“I shall,” said Milo. “And none of them have any strong attachments to people who are still alive. He doesn’t want people hassling him about bringing their friends and relatives here. That was your other question, right? Can he bring your second cousin twice removed’s hairdresser’s brother here? Forget it. He can’t.”

“Won’t,”said Laura.

“Have you met him?” said Owen. “I’d like to meet him.”

Milo shook his head.

“No-one meets him. No-one even knows where he lives. Maybe he’s here, maybe he isn’t.”

“Viktor knows,” said Laura.

“He knows nothing.”

“Who’s Viktor?” Owen asked.

“Viktor knew Auron back on the Earth, before he created Frith. He lives north of here somewhere.”

“I’d like to talk to him,” said Owen.

“What for? If you’re thinking of your aunt’s dog walkers’ cousin’s accountant, forget it. You’ll never meet the Emperor and if you do, he won’t want to hear about your long-lost acquaintances. He selected you precisely because you’ve got so few of them.”

“I’m not thinking of that. I just want to meet him.”

“Then you need to find Viktor. And I doubt he knows anything useful.”

Milo took a device the size of a small phone from his pocket and said, “Ipso, a round of cocktails. Something orange and slightly sweet, I think. But with an edge of lime to it.”

Glasses containing cocktails appeared at their sides.

“Where do I find Viktor?” Owen asked.

“I don’t know exactly where. Just ask around.”

Milo took a glass and raised it in the air.

“Cin-cin.” he said.

The next day Owen began to make enquiries about Viktor, expecting the process to be a long job, but the first person he asked knew exactly where Viktor lived: in a house high on the hills behind the town.

Since the entire planet seemed to be lacking in phones, he pulled up outside the place the next morning, and knocked on the door.

A young woman answered.

“Sorry to bother you,” said Owen, “I’m looking for a man named Viktor.”

“He’s in the garden. Go round the back.”

Gardening seemed to be a popular pastime on Frith.

Owen found Viktor pulling up carrots.

“Viktor, I presume?”

Viktor stood up, dusting himself off.

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m Owen. I got here a few weeks ago. I’m looking for Auron. People say you knew him, on the Earth.”

Viktor’s thickly-bearded face registered surprise.

“I knew him. He doesn’t talk to anyone now. Not even me.”

“I think he might talk to me.”

“And why’s that?”

“It’s just a feeling I’ve got. Do you know where I can find him?”

“I know, but why should I tell you? He doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

Viktor returned to dealing with a box of carrots he’d harvested.

“Is there any chance we could have a bit of a chat, like?” said Owen. “You know, sit down and talk properly? There are a few things I’d like to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Viktor turned and looked at him, frowning. Then he sighed.

“All right, give me five minutes. Come into the house.”

Five minutes later, Viktor had changed his clothes and Owen was busy grilling Viktor and his wife on the general topic of Auron.

“In the 90’s?” said Owen, thinking he’s misunderstood something. “The 1990’s?”

Viktor and Rosa laughed.

“How long did you say you’d been here?” said Viktor. “You must know by now, we control our age here.”

“Oh, of course,” said Owen. “I don’t mind telling you, there’s been a lot to take in the past few weeks. How old were you when you came here?”

“Actually,” said Rosa, “Auron de-aged us before we came here.”

“With his machines,” said Owen.

“With his machines,” Viktor confirmed.

“So you’re basically immortal? Doesn’t that detract from the meaning of life? I mean, no-one’s going to be seizing the day if there’s an infinite number of days.”

“No-one can assume he is immortal. Especially not since the war on Earth. Anything anyone has can be taken away anytime.”

“You’re such an optimist, Viktor,” said Rosa, teasingly.

“It’s true,” said Viktor.

“And Jim Leigh?” Owen asked.

Viktor and Rosa exchanged glances.

“Auron’s machines select people carefully,” said Rosa, “but sometimes they make mistakes.”

“No-one’s told you what happened to Jim?” Viktor asked.

“No. What happened to Jim?”

There was a silence, punctuated only by the faint singing of the birds outside.

“Tell him, Viktor,” said Rosa, finally. “He deserves to know. Everyone deserves to know.”

Viktor tapped his fingers nervously on the side of the sofa where he sat.

Then he began.

“When Auron created this place, there were people here. Except, they’re not quite people. They’re something else. They live on an island, far from here. We call it Orion. When Auron built the planet into what it is today, he left Orion untouched, because of these … creatures.

“When Jim was brought here, he went exploring, and he found this island. The people or … things on this island, they have enormous front teeth. Tubular teeth. They used them to feed on giant crabs, which were present on the island also. But you see, Auron killed all the crabs. These creatures, they began to starve. They tried to eat other things, but it was difficult for them. Their … digestive systems were adjusted to the crabs.

“The creatures, they took Jim, and they fed on his blood. For weeks. The automated systems, they kept him alive.

“Eventually people realised he was missing, and Auron was able to locate him.”

“The medical machines didn’t work so well in those days.” said Rosa, “They were temperamental.”

“When they found Jim, he was in a bad state,” Viktor continued. “Auron used matter transportation to get him out of there. It was the first time it was used on a living human being.”

“But they fixed him?” Owen asked. “I mean, Auron fixed him, with his machines?”

“They fixed his body,” said Rosa, “but his mind … Auron couldn’t do anything about his mind.”

“Probably he wants to die, but he can’t die. Auron made sure of that. The machines keep him alive, no matter what he does.”

“And these creatures, what happened to them?”

“Nothing happened to them,” said Viktor. “You can’t blame a tiger if it eats a man. They are what they are.”

“Auron restocked the island with giant crabs,” said Rosa. “He recreated them, as closely as possible.”

Rosa and Viktor fell silent, uncomfortably staring into the middle distance.

“Heavens above,” said Owen. “What a story.”

“It’s not Jim I worry about,” said Viktor. “It’s Auron. Since then, he won’t talk to anyone.”

“All the more reason to tell me where he lives,” said Owen.

Viktor made a noise suggestive of scepticism.

It took a while, but eventually Viktor did agree to tell Owen where Auron lived.

Auron’s house, Viktor reluctantly explained, was a thousand miles away, in a region known as Polaris. He warned Owen that he would find Auron uncommunicative, and possibly angry at his solitude being disturbed.

The very next day, Owen set out to find it. The scooter, surprisingly, turned out to be capable of travelling at more than three hundred miles per hour, somehow diverting air around itself.

When he was nearing the location where Auron was said to be living, he came upon a vast pyramid of gleaming white marble, rising out of a grassy plain. He stopped there and circled around it, and even walked up to it and placed his hands on it, but there was no indication as to its purpose or nature.

The pyramid was hundreds of metres high and he wondered if it had been fashioned out of a natural rock formation.

Unable to arrive at any conclusions about it, he continued on his way, and soon he saw it—a house nestled almost invisibly on the side of a mountain, wide windows giving its occupants a panoramic view of the landscape.

Since the scooter wasn’t, as far as Owen was aware, able to truly fly, but always hovered above the ground, he made his way laboriously up the mountain towards the house, following trails and sometimes darting through the trees, trusting the scooter’s automated system to guide him safely around all obstacles.

It wasn’t easy to locate the dwelling from the forested slopes, and the process took him nearly two hours, but eventually he managed it.

He came upon a window before he could find any door, and he peered through it.

Inside, a man was lying on a mat on the floor, eyes closed, not moving.

It had to be him: Auron Blake, the creator of Frith; the man people called The Emperor.

“He’d better not have died,” Owen said to himself.

He made his way around the building and located a door. There was a button next to the door; he pushed it and a bell rang out.

He had to ring three times before the door opened and the man stood there. He was perhaps thirty years of age, and had a rather intense expression on his face.

“Auron Blake?” Owen asked.

“What do you want?”

“My name’s Owen. I want to talk to you about your machines.”

“Sorry, I’m not interested.”

Auron closed the door in his face.

“It might be worth your while to talk to me,” said Owen, but there was no response.

He tried ringing the bell again, to no avail.

Then he went back round to the window, but now there was no sign of Auron.

He gave up, wearily shaking his head. Clearly Viktor had been right; Auron didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Dispirited, he made his way back to his scooter, and began the long journey back to Oberon.

No doubt Auron would have remained uncontactable, were it not for certain subsequent events. Perhaps it was inevitable that, eventually, Auron would be compelled to end his hermitage. He was, after all, the ruler of Frith, whether he wanted to be or not. It was a position that derived not from political wrangling, nor from the personal gratitude that nearly everyone felt towards him for saving them from the radiation-scarred Earth, nor even from the fact that it was he who had constructed Frith in the first place, raising buildings and towns and gardens from a barren alien planet.

No, the simple fact was that Auron, and only Auron, controlled the machines upon which the inhabitants of Frith depended, and while Frith was full of machines that operated autonomously, certain key functions were centralised under Auron’s control—in particular the emergency medical facilities. The systems that gently ensured the half-human long-toothed creatures—whom some mockingly called vampires—remained on their island, also depended on centralised control. It was this control over Frith’s vital systems that gave Auron enormous power, albeit unacknowledged by himself.

A week later, Owen sat with Milo in a bar in Oberon, discussing his trip to see Auron. The bar was only semi-autonomous, being maintained and run by a family who were keen to see old traditions from the Earth kept alive. It was known by the whimsical name of The Sloth, a name which brought a knowing smile to its patrons’ lips, but later became unfortunately associated with the horror that transpired.

Perhaps Jim chose that moment and that location to strike precisely because he had seen Owen entering the bar and somehow knew of his trip to find Auron, although there’s no clear evidence of that, and coincidence may have been involved.

Inside the bar, people chatted calmly, and laughter was often heard. The wide veranda was empty, due to a smattering of rain which a light breeze blew onto the tables there. Inside, glasses clinked and the air smelt delightfully of wine and herbs, the latter hanging in bunches here and there from the rafters.

The building was one of the first to be constructed on Frith by human hands, albeit with mechanical assistance, and its owners were deeply proud of it.

“I knew he wouldn’t see you,” said Milo. “I don’t understand why you even want to see him. To all accounts, he’s an odd character, but he doesn’t bother us.”

“I haven’t told you what I did before the war,” said Owen.

“And what’s that?”

At that moment, Jim Leigh burst in through the glass doors at the front, ranting and shouting, crying and laughing manically.

“What is life if there’s no end to it?” he shouted. “A drop in an infinite ocean is no drop at all! How can you savour the sweetness of a bucket of sugar?”

On and on he ranted, and people began to discuss the best way to get rid of him. A group of three friends got up and left, and were spared the sight of what was about to unfold.

After shouting and carrying on for a while, Jim spotted Owen, apparently for the first time.

“I know you!” he shouted. “You’re a new lamb to the slaughter.”

“Why don’t you calm down?” said Milo indignantly.

Then Jim pulled out a knife.

Owen scrambled backwards.

“I’m not afraid of you,” said Milo. “Why don’t we go outside and you can explain to me exactly what your problem is, instead of disturbing all these people?”

Jim’s eyes widened and even Milo felt a twinge of fear. Jim couldn’t kill him, but that knowledge couldn’t quell his human instincts.

“I’ll do better,” said Jim, suddenly quiet. “I’ll show you what my problem is. Welcome to my world!”

And with that, he plunged the knife into Milo and drew it upwards.

Milo vanished, taken by the emergency medical system.

A cry rose up from the assembled customers, and some ran to restrain Jim, but Jim promptly thrust the knife into his own neck, and he too, vanished.

Milo awoke on a bed in the medical facility outside the town. Everything was perfectly white and calm.

“You have suffered a serious life-threatening injury,” said an automated female voice. “Your injury has been successfully repaired. You may open the door and leave when ready.”

The door to the room in which Milo lay opened directly to a balcony outside, which led to a landing pad containing an array of scooters and flying cars, and a flight of steps that led down to the beach in case patients felt like walking home.

Milo sat up, and was about to get on his feet when Jim burst in through the door, still holding his knife, and began stabbing him again.

Before he lost consciousness, Milo somehow managed to get hold of the knife and turn it round to point at Jim, and he thrust it into Jim’s chest.

This sequence repeated itself no less than four times, before Milo was finally able to conclusively get the better of Jim, without being injured himself, managing to push him over the balcony. For some seconds Jim lay on the beach below, giggling, before he disappeared once again.

Milo didn’t wait. He ran to the landing pad, got on a scooter, and headed for Oberon, still occasionally feeling the spots on his body where Jim’s knife had sunk into him. The machines had completely healed him, but the memory of the wounds remained vivid.

Probably there had been points during the horrible proceedings when Jim had stabbed Milo into unconsciousness and carried on stabbing him, until the machines had managed to outpace the rate of stabbing and Milo awoke. Some argue that the machines would have somehow prevented further damage to Milo once he had already sustained serious wounds, but that’s still unclear.

Probably Milo had come very close to actually dying.

The residents of Oberon were, of course, outraged by Jim’s actions, and called a meeting in the town square—only the second in Oberon’s entire short history.

“Something has to be done,” shouted a man by the name of Peter. “We cannot have this crazed nutcase terrorising us.”

Other speeches were made, until finally, Viktor strode to the front.

“Auron has to fix this problem,” he said. “His systems made Jim’s actions possible. The systems have to be corrected.”

“Jim must face justice!” shouted a voice, and the crowd murmured assent.

“He’s insane,” said Viktor.

“Then he must be treated,” shouted another voice.

“He’s not insane,” said Milo. “It’s an act.”

“Justice!” came the cry from several voices, and one man went so far as to as to shout, “Hang him! He’s a murderer!” to which there were murmurs of both approval and disapproval.

After all, no-one had actually been murdered, but the traumatic experience Milo had faced made a deep impression on everyone he recounted it to.

Perhaps the crowd’s emotions were even heightened by the fact that they had believed themselves to be completely safe on Frith, all of them having endured unspeakable traumas on the Earth, and now Jim’s actions had called their safety into question.

Viktor spoke again.

“I propose to take a delegation to Auron. If there are several of us, he’ll see that we’re serious. He’ll have to listen to us.

“Hang him!” shouted a man in the crowd again. “Hang the murderer!”

“Give me three days,” said Viktor. “That’s all I ask. Three days and you can put your concerns to the Emperor himself.”

Viktor later wondered why he had chosen the word “emperor”. He could only answer that, in the moment, it seemed appropriate; it seemed as though it would carry weight, and indeed, no-one questioned it at the time, except Rosa, and certainly no-one laughed.

The following day, Viktor, Rosa, Milo, and Owen arrived at Auron’s house. They had asked Sandra too, but she had informed them that she wanted nothing to do with it and chose to respect Auron’s privacy.

When Auron saw them, he reluctantly let them in, and they sat together in his living room.

“I don’t understand what you want from me,” he said, after they had explained the matter to him.

“We want you to do something,” said Milo. “That sick weirdo stabbed me five times and it would have been more if I hadn’t got the better of him. He could have literally killed me.”

“What happens if someone is attacked when they’re being treated in the medical centre?” Rosa asked. “How do the machines respond?”

“It’s not something I’ve actually thought through,” Auron replied.

“That can wait for another day,” said Viktor. “The question now is, what are you going to do about Jim?”

“What am I supposed to do?” said Auron. “I’m rather busy as it happens.”

“You’re the Emperor,” said Milo. “It’s your decision.”

“I’m not the Emperor. I’m too busy to be an emperor and I don’t want to be one either.”

“Your systems created this problem,” said Rosa quietly. “I’m sorry Auron, but you will have to do something.”

“Either correct his brain or exile him to the Earth,” said Milo.

“Jor,” said Auron, “what will happen to Jim if I exile him to the Earth?”

Jor was sitting on a table next to the easy chair where Auron himself sat.

“Considering conditions on the Earth at the moment, there’s a seventy percent chance he’ll die within a year,” Jor replied.

“You see,” said Auron, “sending him back is the same as killing him.”

“Then kill him,” said Milo. “It’s what he deserves.”

After extensive discussions, Auron agreed to return with them to Oberon, where, it was decided that a vote would be taken on Jim’s punishment, or fate.

And so, the following day, Auron stood on a stone platform he’d raised in the square, and half the inhabitants of Oberon—all those who cared—stood arrayed before him.

They had captured Jim, and he now sat with his hands tied to railings, from where he ranted and raved.

“I’ve analysed Jim’s brain,” said Auron, his voice suitably amplified by electronic means, but without any visible sign of a microphone, giving his speech a rather eerie quality. “And I can find no sign of insanity.”

“I’m not insane!” Jim shouted. “If you had just listened to me, any of you, I wouldn’t have had to do what I did. I demand the right to die.”

“Kill him!” shouted a voice, and Auron wondered how his machines had even decided to bring such a person to Frith. He made a mental note to look into the matter later.

“That’s right, kill me!” shouted Jim. “I never agreed to be an immortal god!”

Auron pressed his hand against his forehead, closing his eyes. Then he made an effort to pull himself together.

“I can exile him to the Earth, or I can kill him,” he said, unhappily. “All those in favour of exiling him to the Earth, speak now.”

There were a few murmurs of agreement, including Rosa, but only a few.

“All those in favour of killing him?” said Auron, and the crowd was overtaken by fervent shouts of assent.

Only Viktor and Owen remained silent, neither calling for Jim’s death, nor his exile.

Among the shouts was the voice of Jim himself, demanding he be allowed to die.

“I nearly died before I came here and I have the right to finish the process!” he shouted.

“Jor,” said Auron to the device he carried in his pocket, “kill Jim Leigh. Instantly and painlessly. Spread his molecules to the wind.”

“Are you sure, mate?” said Jor.

“Don’t question me, dammit!” shouted Auron, suddenly irritated and embarrassed.

Jim seemed to blur, then he dissolved into a vast cloud of smoke that floated off on the breeze.

The crowd in the square cheered. One man shouted, “Hail Emperor Auron!”, and suddenly others joined him, their voices shouting “Hail Auron!” in unison.

Auron stepped slowly down from the platform, saddened and weary.

The arms of the crowd lifted him up on their shoulders, cheering his name, and in spite of himself, in spite of the knowledge of what he had just done, he found himself smiling.

Perhaps these people were not like him; they were more passionate, less rational, he thought. But they loved him, and that meant something.

Auron Blake could fix planets. Earth, after the war, was the first one that fought back.

Auron placed the stone next to the radiation monitor.

“Five micro-sieverts per hour,” he muttered to himself. “What do you think, Freddie?”

Freddie whined and licked his lips, perhaps hoping food was involved.

“Here goes nothing,” said Auron, his voice shaking slightly. “Jor, run program five hundred and eight-two.”

The coils of the experimental matter interactor, a four-foot high device standing next to Auron’s desk, started to glow. The reading displayed on the radiation monitor began to fall.

“Yes!” shouted Auron. “Come on! Yes, you can do it!”

Then, quite suddenly, smoke began to arise from beneath the stone, and a bright tongue of flame rose from the table on which it sat.

Auron jumped back to avoid the sparks, the smell of burning wood and plastic filling his nostrils.

“No!” he shouted. “Why? Why? Jor, stop the program!”

The radiation monitor began to sound an alarm, indicating levels in excess of 20 micro-sieverts per hour. The lightbulb hanging delicately from the ceiling in an ornamental lampshade melted and fell out of its socket and onto the floor, as if attacked by a particularly demented poltergeist, leaving a faint trail of smoke in the air.

“I’ve already stopped it, Auron,” said Jor.

There was a sudden loud bang and flames shot to the ceiling. Freddie ran to the door.

“Extinguish the flames!” shouted Auron, running to let Freddie out. He intended to say some calming words to Freddie, but Freddie bolted out of the door before he could say anything.

The flames abruptly shrank and disappeared, and the smoke seemed to organise itself into columns that swarmed back into the table top.

Auron pulled the door shut.

“Jor, why is this happening? Do we need a bigger machine? Would that handle it?”

“Impossible to say, Auron. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, mate, but it’s almost lunchtime.”

The window suddenly shattered, covering the interactor in shards of glass.

“To Hell with lunch!” shouted Auron. “Clean up the mess! And produce recommendations for program five hundred and eight-three! And fix my desk.”

By 2pm, Auron was already on iteration five hundred and ninety-two of the decontamination program.

Viktor and Rosa finished their lunch quietly at the table, listening to the sounds emerging from the lab.

“I don’t know. Does he sound stable to you?”

“He’s been through a lot, Viktor.”

“So have we. So has everyone. The difference is, he’s about to become the most powerful man on Earth, if he isn’t already.”

From the lab, a repurposed bedroom, now filled with computers, mysterious cylinders and tanks of fine wires immersed in various liquids, came sounds of laughter—which at times veered towards crying—and shouts of “yes!” alternating with despairing “no”s.

“We have to make sure we support him, emotionally.” said Rosa, gazing at the door with a worried expression.

“I’m not sure emotional support is going to be sufficient.”

Rosa laid her hand on Viktor’s arm. He looked down at her hand, then into her eyes.

Rosa appeared now to be around thirty years old, although she was in reality sixty in purely chronological terms, but the haunted look in her eyes hadn’t quite subsided.

“He saved us.” said Rosa. “He can save the world. I believe it.”

Viktor harumphed.

He had grown thick black hair and a slightly unruly beard, which he now turned to stroking thoughtfully. Viktor, who had been a decrepit sixty-year-old on the verge of death due to radiation sickness only weeks earlier, now appeared only slightly older than Rosa.

From the floor, Freddie watched them attentively, hoping for further morsels of food, occasionally looking nervously over his shoulder at the sounds emerging from the lab.

Suddenly the laboratory door burst open.

“I’ve done everything I can,” Auron announced. “We begin tomorrow.”

“Listen, Auron,” said Viktor, “Rosa and I have been meaning to talk to you. There are some aspects of the situation here that you don’t understand.”

“What aspects?” said Auron.

“Sit down, Auron,” said Rosa.

Auron sat down at the table. Freddie ran to him and tried to lick his hand. Auron pushed him away gently and ruffled his neck.

“You have to understand, if you repair all the buildings, people will destroy them again. Almost immediately,” said Viktor.

“I can’t repair all the buildings,” said Auron. “I’ve looked into it. I mean, it can be done, technically; I’ve improved Jor and I’ve build a new interactor. They can divert energy from distant stars and use it to reassemble the buildings at the microscopic level. The problem is, people will get caught up in the process. Mangled, I mean. So I can’t do it. But I can provide them all with food and clean water, and energy. I think I can decrease the radiation levels.”

Viktor was staring down at the table morosely, but he forced himself to look Auron in the eye.

“The war changed people, Auron. I told you the first nuclear bomb destroyed Budapest completely. After that, everyone blamed everyone else. At first, the Americans blamed the Russians, and the Russians blamed the Americans. Then people began to divide into factions.”

“Whites, Reds and Greens,” said Rosa.

“Whites, Reds and Greens?” Auron repeated, faintly.

“They were just movements at first,” said Rosa.

“As the bombs continued to fall, everyone joined one movement or the other,” said Viktor. “They had to, to survive. These factions committed atrocities against each other. We’ve seen people flayed alive in the street,”

Rosa covered her mouth with her hand and cast her eyes downwards.

“Flayed alive?” said Auron incredulously.

Viktor nodded solemnly.

“And worse. I don’t want to think about it.”

“So what are you?” said Auron, looking from Viktor to Rosa and back again. “Red, Green or White?”

“We hid,” said Rosa, exploding with sudden emotion. “We used our knowledge of science to survive.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” said Auron. “Spit it out. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Auron,” said Viktor, “if you give people food at this point, you’re throwing fuel on a burning fire.”

“That’s crazy,” said Auron.

He stood up suddenly, the chair falling away behind him and narrowly missing Freddie.

“I can at least stop the radiation,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “It’s killing people. The radiation’s so high just over there that you can’t go out without the right drugs.”

He waved in the direction of the ruined garden, bordered by a cracked and cratered street.

“Can you do it without killing more people in the process?” said Rosa.

Auron sat down again and put his head in his heads. Freddie laid his head on Auron’s leg sympathetically.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know for sure. I won’t know till we try it.”

There was a silence, during which Viktor poured Rosa more water.

She took the water and sipped it.

“We have an idea, Auron,” said Rosa quietly.

“Tell me,” said Auron.

“You already have a planet.” said Rosa, “Frith. There’s no-one on it. Improve Frith, open a portal, and take people there.”

“Hand-picked people,” said Viktor. “People who don’t want to kill each other.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Auron. “Frith is a Hell. I’m not going back there.”

“You can fix Frith, Auron,” said Rosa. “You can do it without the risk of making the situation on Earth even worse than it already is.”

Auron jumped up suddenly again, startling Freddie.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” he shouted. “I spent thirty years running from giant crabs! You don’t know what you’re talking about, neither of you!”

“We’re only saying, test out your systems on Frith before you try them on the Earth,” said Viktor, calmly, “where there are already people and the situation is already a lot better than it was two years ago.”

“Insanity!” shouted Auron, his voice cracking. “Pure insanity.”

He stormed back into the lab. Freddie followed him, his tail wagging, his affection for Auron overcoming his dislike of the continual fires and explosions that Auron accidentally created. Auron slammed the door shut behind Freddie.

Viktor and Rosa looked into each other’s eyes.

“Well, that went well,” said Viktor.

Rosa took his hand, their fingers intertwining, and squeezed it.

“It’ll take time. Let him digest it,” she said.

That night, Auron lay awake on his bed, talking to Jor, the pocket-sized device on the nightstand next to him, one arm draped over Freddie.

“I could construct a really enormous machine on Frith,” he said. “There’s space there, and no-one will mess with it.”

“As big as the Great Pyramid of Giza, mate,” said Jor. “Bigger even. The size of Mount Everest if you want.”

“We could kill all the crabs.”

“That would leave the cattle without predators. They’ll eat everything and turn the plains into desert.”

“I’m going to replace the cattle with normal cattle. Not those flat-faced monstrosities. And I’ll bring in wolves or lions or something. Something normal. The crabs are going.”

He laughed at the thought, and added, “Bye bye crabs!”

He fell silent for a while, then he said, “With a really big machine, I can resurrect Jer.”

“Maybe.” said Jor.

He thought for a while, planning an enormous pyramid in his mind. He’d place a vast Sirius device underneath it, large enough to handle Jer’s resurrection. Inside the pyramid itself, a huge matter interactor, able to monitor everything on the entire planet with the utmost precision.

“What about the vampires?” said Jor suddenly.

“Vampires? What are you talking about, vampires?”

“Those creatures. You called them vampires. The humanoids with the long teeth.”

“They’re going the same way as the crabs.”

“They’re probably at least half human.”

Auron shuddered.

“They may even have lived on the planet before you terraformed it,” Jor persisted.

“Highly unlikely,” said Auron, but he felt less certain than he sounded.

The following morning, Auron joined Viktor and Rosa for breakfast.

“What if I alter people’s brains?” he said. “Make them them calmer.”

Viktor and Rosa froze.

“You can’t do that, Auron.” said Rosa.

Auron sighed.

“No,” he said, taking a piece of toast. “I suppose not.”

He buttered the toast. The interactor in the kitchen was perfectly capable of synthesising the toast with butter already applied, but the three of them had collectively decided that some rituals from their old lives on the Earth had to be preserved, for their own sanity.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” said Auron.

Viktor and Rosa tensed.

“I’m going to fix up Frith and take people there,” he said. “Carefully-selected people.”

They relaxed.

“It’s the right decision, Auron,” said Viktor.

That night, Auron awoke suddenly, shouting, dreaming giant crabs had cut off his hands with their pincers. Freddie looked at him in the near-darkness, then went back to sleep. He was used to Auron’s night terrors.

Sandra Flemming broke down in tears when she saw the potato. She had dug it out of contaminated earth on her farm in Suffolk. It was riddled with grubs.

Her dog, Raika, whined and licked her face.

She was painfully thin but still retained some of her blonde hair, which was tied behind her head in a ponytail, although her scalp was covered in patches of skin that were almost bald.

“Never mind, Raika,” she said, tearfully. “It is what it is. There’s nothing else we can do. We’ll try to catch another rabbit.”

She scrambled to her feet and allowed her eyes to settle on the makeshift graves of her deceased parents.

“Ashes to ashes,” she said.

Raika sniffed at the potato, ate one of the grubs, then decided to leave it alone.

At first the noise was indistinguishable from the sound of the light breeze that rustled the malformed leaves on the trees, but it grew steadily and she turned and scanned the road in fear.

When she saw the vehicle she said, “Oh no,” and turned to run into the house.

Raika’s attention, on the other hand, was caught by something that may or may not have been a feral cat, or a squirel.

“Raika! Come here!” she hissed from the doorway, trying to calculate the exact volume that would draw Raika to her while not alerting the occupants of the vehicle to her presence.

“Raika!” she shouted desperately.

The vehicle passed behind the bush at the far side of the field, and she made use of the moment to run like a woman possessed towards Raika.

She caught the dog’s collar and pulled her towards the house.

“Hurry, Raika!” she whispered. “They’ll kill us!”

Soon she was inside the old farmhouse, which aside from a leaking roof and boarded-up windows, was still in one piece.

She ran to fetch a shotgun and began to load it. Her hands were shaking so badly that she dropped the second cartridge on the floor, but she swiftly retrieved it, repressing a strong urge to vomit, placed it in the loading port and snapped the gun together.

Faint rays of sunlight filtered between the boards over the windows, illuminating the dust in the kitchen air.

She stood aiming the gun at the door for several minutes, breathing unevenly, her heart pounding, until finally a knock at the door caused her to almost jump out of her skin.

She said nothing, remaining silent, but then Raika began to bark. There was another knock.

“I have a gun!” she shouted.

“That’s all right,” came the reply. “We just want to talk.”

“You’ve got ten seconds before I start shooting,” shouted Sandra in reply.

“Please don’t do that,” said the voice.

Sandra began to count down from ten.

“Do you mind if I come in?” the voice asked.

Sandra continued counting.

Then the lock on the door began to unlock itself. Sandra, weakened by starvation and radiation and in an ecstasy of fear, fainted.

When she awoke, three people were peering down at her: two men and a woman. They were dressed in black suits that looked like some sort of military issue, and she estimated their ages to be late twenties to early thirties.

Raika was lying with her head on Sandra’s stomach, growling quietly at the people, too tired to do anything else.

“Sorry to have startled you,” said one of the men. “I’m Auron. This is Viktor and Rosa. We have a proposition for you —”

“Auron, she needs a minute,” said Rosa, interrupting.

Rosa held a bottle of water to Sandra’s lips, but Sandra pushed it away.

“Who are you?” said Sandra, struggling to a sitting position.

“Well, that’s a long story,” said Auron. “The central fact is, though, that we’ve got food and a safe place to stay, and we’re putting together sort of a colony. Our computer systems identified you as someone who might be suitable.”

“We’ve set aside a house for you in Cambridge,” said Viktor. “The zone is safe. It’s protected by automatic weapons.”

“Cambridge?” said Sandra. “I’m not going there. It’s too radioactive.”

“We have drugs that will render you effectively immune to the radiation,” said Auron. “If you’d agree to come with us, we’ll bring you back here if you don’t like it there.”

“I’d have to bring my dog,” said Sandra warily.

Auron looked at Raika, a border collie, who had staggered upright and was now sniffing his leg where Freddie had rubbed against it.

“Of course,” said Auron. “I’ve got a dog too, as it happens. He’s in our car.”

“She’s like a female Freddie,” Rosa observed.

Soon they were on their way to Cambridge, Freddie and Raika jumping about and chasing each other around in the back of the vehicle.

“Where did you get this thing?” Sandra asked, marvelling at the elaborate controls inside the car.

“It’s all done using computers,” said Auron. “If you can call them computers. They’re analogue systems, actually more akin to a human brain, but much more powerful. You see, I began with a —”

“Auron was the first human being ever to build a computer that was able to design a better version of itself,” Viktor explained, interjecting.

“The AI singularity.” said Sandra.

“Yes, exactly,” said Auron, surprised.

“I keep up to date with computer stuff,” said Sandra. Then she corrected herself, adding, “I used to keep up to date.”

As they neared the little group of houses clustered around Auron’s farm, a disturbing sight met their eyes.

“They must have launched an attack,” said Rosa.

“Ten, at least,” said Viktor.

The corpses of ten or fifteen men in military uniforms lay strewn around the road, well past the gate Auron had set up with warning signs in multiple languages. They had burn marks on their chests where the automatic weapons had gunned them down.

“Jor, what happened?” said Auron.

The reply emerged from a pocket on his protective suit.

“They tried to break in. The rifles got them.”

“Those poor people,” said Sandra.

“They’re Greens,” said Viktor. “You can tell from their insignia. If they’d got to us, they would have killed us without mercy. Perhaps tortured us to find out if we have useful information.”

“Anyway,” said Auron, “this is your house here, if you want it.”

He pointed to a small, well-maintained house set back a little way from the road.

“Why are you doing this for me?” Sandra asked.

“I told you, we’re setting up a colony,” Auron replied. “It’s just that, well, it’s not ready yet. But it will be, soon. In the interim, you can stay here.”

“Where is this colony? Cambridge?”

“No it’s … it’s further away.”

Two weeks later, Auron had collected a total of twenty people. All of them, Sandra included, were recovering rapidly, although all bore psychological scars that could not so easily be healed.

Viktor and Rosa had moved out into another house fixed up and protected by Auron’s machines, and Auron sat alone in his laboratory, except for Freddie, and even Freddie increasingly divided his time between Auron and Raika.

“Jor,” he said, leaning back in his swivel chair, “would it be possible to somehow surround myself with powerful force fields that would prevent all kinds of crushing and stabbing injuries?”

“It’s possible,” said Jor. “You’d need to carry a small device. The fields could be made to follow your movements.”

“I’d want them to also prevent any unnatural movements. For example, I would want them to ensure my head can’t be twisted off, nor any of my limbs.”

“You’re not satisfied with your level of security?” Jor asked.

“It’s not that. I want to go and … do a bit of fighting, let’s say.”

“Who are you planning to fight, mate?”

“The giant crabs of Frith.”

“You can’t kill them all personally. There’s too many of them. It’d take you decades.”

“I don’t want to kill all of them personally. The thing is, I have to face them. It’s the only way to stop these nightmares.”

“I understand. Face your fears. It’s a good idea.”

“I want to have super-human strength. When I move, the fields surrounding my skin move, and they exert maybe ten times the force than my muscles can exert. That should be enough to tackle them. Can you do it?”

“It can be done.”

Once Jor had constructed the device using the various machines and interactors Auron now had standing around his laboratory room, Auron gathered Viktor, Rosa, and Sandra—with whom he’d come close to almost striking up a kind of friendship—in the garden outside the house.

“Watch this,” he said, and he picked a piece of brick up from the ground and squeezed it in his hand. It cracked and then crumbled.

“How did you do that?” said Viktor.

“This device here,” said Auron, tapping a small circular object strapped to his chest underneath his shirt. “Here, punch me. No—wait, you might injure yourself. Watch this.”

He screwed up his eyes and then, feverishly hoping nothing would go wrong, head-butted the side of the house. Shards of brick fell away.

“Blimey,” said Sandra.

“Can you give us all this power?” Viktor asked.

“Don’t see why not,” said Auron. “Anyway, I’m off to tackle some crabs. Just wanted to show you. It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

Auron strode back into the house, leaving the three of them gawping after him.

“He scares me,” said Rosa.

“Well,” said Viktor, “I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of him.”

In the lab, Auron had Jor open a portal to Frith. In front of him, through the portal, stood a short strip of beach, and the ocean. He could feel ocean spray on his face, and the air smelt of seaweed and decaying shellfish.

He had left Freddie with Sandra, deciding that Freddie didn’t quite fit with his plans. He would show Freddie Frith soon enough.

“It’s definitely safe to go through it, right?” he asked Jor.

“Completely safe. No teething problems with the kind of computing power we’ve got now.”

“Whatever you do, do not let this portal close, you understand me?”

“Got it.”

Auron almost walked through the portal, but then hesitated.

“Anyway, as long as I’ve got you with me, I could reconstruct the portal from the other side in a few months, in the worst case. Even assuming I can’t find any of the stuff I left behind.”

He patted Jor in his pocket.

“Won’t be necessary, mate,” said Jor.

“Right.”

Auron stepped through the portal and onto Frith.

He turned round and saw the fence of the compound where he and Jer had lived for thirty years. It was still there, but partially destroyed by the crabs.

A curious mixture of emotions swept over him. A knife seemed to twist in his guts at the thought of all the times he’d spent idling away the hours in conversation with Jer. The memories weren’t exactly happy. Neither of them had ever been happy on Frith, and they had both exceeded their desire for each other’s company by a factor of several thousand, but Auron’s memories were, nevertheless, tinged with a painful variety of nostalgia.

At the same time, he experienced a curious sensation of being home again.

“After all,” he muttered to himself, “I have lived most of my life here.”

He walked up to the compound and stepped over a ruined section of fence. Now that he and Jer were no longer living there, the crabs had given up their incessant attempts to break into the compound, and the disturbing concentration of crabs around the fence had dispersed.

Beyond the fence, two of the three huts were still standing; only Jer’s had partially collapsed, for reason that were unclear.

Their possessions, for the most part crafted over decades from nothing but rocks and mud and sticks, were scattered around on the ground. In the laboratory hut, he found the remains of Virellon, the machine Jor had instructed him to create, the animal hide broken open and the gel inside smeared over the ground. The original incarnation of Jor, made from rock, clay and seawater, in a clay pot, had been broken in two. The primitive interactor was still there; the same machine that had killed Jer and enabled Auron to return to the Earth.

He pondered them morosely for a while, then he heard a familiar sound: the clattering of a giant furry grab.

He went outside and there it was, its strangely human eyes watching him steadily.

“Right then you bastard!” Auron shouted.

He strode towards it and it reflexively skittered backwards away from him. Auron stopped, and the crab stopped. Then it ran at him and fastened its pincer around his arm.

Auron’s heart beat liked a drum, to the point where he felt as though it was about to burst out of his chest. He seized the pincer and twisted it off, breaking off the moveable dactyl.

The crab didn’t back off. It grasped for his neck with its other pincer. He took hold of its other arm with one hand, and smashed through it with the other. The crab turned and ran, clattering frantically in short trills. Auron ran after it.

He wasn’t able to catch up with it.

“I should have given myself the ability to fly,” said Auron.

“It’s too fast,” said Jor.

“Can you see it?”

“Yeah, the big interactor can reach this far, no problem. Look out. Three o’clock.”

Auron turned to his right to see three more crabs running towards him, apparently enraged.

He ran at them, shouting.

He broke the pincer and one of the legs of the first crab, and smashed a hole in its head with his fist. The second crab, he kicked, sending it flying spectacularly through the air. But the third and largest crab caught him around his chest, lifted him into the air, and threw him backwards over itself.

That was the last thing he was consciously aware of for a while.

When he awoke, six crabs were picking at him, dragging him this way and that, frustrated by their inability to prise off his limbs and flesh.

He screamed in pure terror.

Then he began to lash out at them wildly. He smashed four of them into pieces and the remaining two ran off, one missing a leg.

“Dear God!” he said, then he suddenly felt faint and had to sit down.

“Jor, why did I lose consciousness?”

“One of them threw you and you hit your head on a rock.”

“But my head’s protected! There’s not a mark on it.”

He rubbed his hand gently all over his skull. He couldn’t feel anything amiss.

“Yeah, but the back of your brain hit the back of your skull with some force. You’re not a woodpecker. Your head can’t withstand that kind of deceleration.”

“Why didn’t you do anything?”

“I did. I took the liberty of repairing some broken blood capillaries. I know I’m not supposed to act without your orders but you were unconscious and you might have died if I hadn’t stepped in. It’s a risky business this far from the interactor.”

“Is my brain all right?”

“Lost a few thousand cells but it’ll be OK.”

He struggled to his feet again.

“Right, that’s it. Death to the lot of you!” He shook his fist at the crabs, who were already gathering for another attack. “Kill them, Jor. All of of them.”

“You want me to wipe out an entire species?”

Auron stared down at his pocket in amazement.

“Why are you questioning me now? I created them in the first place. By accident. They’re hideous abominations!”

“They keep the cattle under control. Without the crabs the cattle will turn the plains to desert.”

“I don’t care. I’ll introduce wolves or lions or something. Something normal. Not … massive furry crabs. Kill them.”

“As you wish.”

All the visible crabs, perhaps fifty of them, dropped onto the ground, their legs giving way.

“Clean them up. I don’t want the entire planet reeking of dead crab.”

Plumes of smoke rose from the bodies of the crabs, separated out into multiple thin streams, and dove towards the grassy plain and the forest, disappearing into the soil and the trees. Nothing was left behind; the crabs’ bodies disintegrated completely.

Auron laughed.

“He who laughs last, laughs longest.” he said. “Jor, can you construct a road? I want something scenic that winds for at least a hundred miles up into the mountains. Actually, make it circular. Let’s say, two hundred miles total. Can you do that without injuring me?”

“No problem,” said Jor. “I’ll fix it up at a safe distance away from you.”

A haze of blueish smoke began to rise from the ground, tracing a line towards the mountains in the distance.

“Can you somehow protect my brain from sharp acceleration? And the rest of my body. And I want to be immune to fire.”

“Not a problem,” said Jor.

“How long will it take?”

“It’s done.”

He laughed to himself again.

The line of smoke sank to the ground and vanished, revealing a long, twisting road.

“I want a car. Maybe a Lamborghini, but with more clearance under the wheels. And make it electric. I hate the sound of engines. I want to hear a nice electrical whooshing sound when I accelerate.”

A cloud of red smoke appeared with a soft pop above the start of the road, fifty metres away from where Auron stood, and resolved itself into something resembling a Lamborghini, but with wheels that stuck out to the side, leaving a substantial gap underneath it.

Auron walked over to it and opened the door.

“I didn’t put keys in it,” said Jor. “Fingerprint sensor. Touch it to start the motor.”

Auron touched his finger to a sensor by the steering wheel and was rewarded by a pleasant soft electrical sound, ascending in pitch till it reached a modest crescendo.

“I want a drink holder by my side with a beer in it,” said Auron. Then he added, muttering to himself, “I don’t even like beer.” Then to Jor, he said, “Make that a milkshake. Banana. Cold.”

A large glass of milkshake appeared in a holder by his side.

“Finally some fun on this planet,” said Auron, and he pressed the accelerator.

For an hour he zoomed around the road at breakneck speed, ascending into the mountains, then down again, then up into more mountains. Then he started to feel sick, and he stopped and got out.

He looked out over endless forest. In the far distance was a sliver of blue sparkling sea.

“I’m going to have to make that moon bigger,” he said to himself, looking at the tiny reddish moon.

A cool breeze blew pleasantly on his face. He reached inside the car and took out the milkshake.

“There’s no straw,” he said. “Give me a straw, Jor.”

A straw appeared, and he sucked the milkshake through it.

Then he dropped it in horror.

A thing the size of a cow with six legs that seemed to be a mixture of cockroach and parrot was lumbering towards him, making clicking sounds.

“What the Hell is that?” he said.

“Did you ever name it?” Jor asked.

“I’ve never seen it before,” Auron replied, scrambling to get back in the car in a great hurry.

He reversed rapidly away from the creature, which then ran into the forest, hooting.

Auron took the opportunity to drive past it. He accelerated so harshly that the car almost came off the road where the road turned sharply, but he managed to retain control and continued driving as fast as he could manage, hoping to get back to the portal as quickly as possible.

“Listen, Jor, can you move the portal? Bring it closer. I want off this planet. The entire place will have to be sterilised.”

“Sure, I can close the portal and re-open —”

“No, don’t close it!” Auron shouted. “Move it.”

“The portal can’t be moved. It can only be closed and then re-opened.”

“Never mind, I’ll drive there, then.”

For mile after mile he pushed the car as fast as he dared, following the twists and turns in the road with hands still shaking from his encounter with the horrifying creature.

When he came to a straight, open stretch of road almost out of the mountains and on the plain, he pushed the accelerator down and ran the car up to a hundred-and-eighty miles per hour.

Then he saw a twist in the road, considerably sooner than he had expected. He pushed the brakes and the car skidded and shot over an unprotected edge, hurtling into some trees.

The car was destroyed, but Auron was unhurt. He began to push pieces of metal out of the way, smashing through them as if they were cardboard.

Then the wreckage burst into flames and rapidly began to burn with a searing white heat, the heat quickly melting metal. He couldn’t see anything but bright white flame. When he inhaled, he felt noxious fumes entering his lungs and he began to cough and get dizzy.

Then he passed out.

When he awoke, everything was dark.

“You’re back with us,” Jor observed.

“I can’t see anything,” said Auron. “What’s happening?”

“The smoke from the fire destroyed your lungs and the light burned out your retinas. I took the liberty of repairing your lungs and moving you away from the wreckage.”

“I’m supposed to be immune to fire!”

“You said fire, not smoke or light.”

“I didn’t think of it. Fix my eyes!”

“There’s some risk if we try to do it from this distance, Auron. Better if I move the portal closer and we work on your eyes from your house.”

“You can’t move the portal without closing it first?”

“No.”

“I won’t have the portal closed. I can’t spend another thirty years on this planet. Especially now I know those parrot things are roaming about. Move me closer to the portal, then.”

“I can do it, but there’s also risk involved in that. At this range not even the largest interactor really has the sensitivity to deal safely with living organisms.”

“You already moved me out of the fire and fixed my brain and my lungs.”

“I took calculated risks to save your life. Did I do the right thing?”

“How far is it to the portal?”

“Thirty miles.”

“Thirty miles?” Auron repeated, horrified.

Jor was silent.

Auron rose to his feet, almost losing his balance due to not being able to see.

In a standing position, his eyes hurt. He rubbed them gingerly, but it didn’t help.

“All right,” he said, “I’ll walk. You’ll have to guide me. Where’s the road?”

Getting back to the road turned out to be the most difficult bit of the journey, since he had to scramble fifty metres over uneven terrain and around tangled bushes and trees. Finally he felt the road under his feet. Jor pointed him in the right direction and he began to walk.

He passed the time discussing his plans for the planet with Jor and how he might construct an improved safety system that could truly render him invincible. Every so often he got Jor to conjure up refreshments on the road ahead of him, far enough away that there was no danger of the interactor hurting him.

Ten hours later, he stepped back through the portal with enormous relief. Jor used the machines in Auron’s lab to repair Auron’s retinas, and he could see again.

Auron gazed back through the portal with a certain awe.

“Close it,” he said, “and make me a new weapon that I can carry around on my hip.”

Then he went to lie on his bed, and he fell asleep.

The following day he told Viktor about his problems on the planet.

“The problem is, you have unlimited physical power, but not unlimited foresight,” said Viktor. “Any decision you can make could have unforeseen consequences. But you can’t hand over your decisions to your machines. You’ve no way of truly knowing if they’re reliable.”

“Jor’s the closest I’ve got to something I can actually trust,” said Auron. “Jer and I spent weeks going over ethical dilemmas with him. But even Jer and I disagreed about the correct solutions to many of those dilemmas.”

“Because there is no solution to every possible ethical dilemma. There is no single set of principles that could solve every philosophical dilemma. In the end, it comes down to Gödel’s first Incompleteness Theorem. At root the problem is mathematical. Any consistent formal system that is powerful enough to describe basic arithmetic is incomplete. If we can’t solve all problems in arithmetic with any single set of axioms, we certainly can’t solve all ethical dilemmas with a single set of principles.”

Auron nodded.

“You’re right, but if there are humans I would trust to make all and every ethical decision, then I should be able to build a machine that I can also trust.”

“Are there such humans?”

Auron thought for a few moments.

“No,” he said. “OK, but I suppose what I’m saying is, I ought to be able to build a machine that has common sense. The closest I’ve got to that is Jor, and I don’t entirely trust him. No offence, Jor.”

“None taken, mate,” said Jor, from his pocket.

“I suggest we build your proposed world together,” said Viktor. “We decide every aspect of it. All of us. At least, you, me, Rosa and Sandra. First we make it like the Earth, but nicer. Then we go over every possible thing that could go wrong with it, with the help of the machines, and we do our best to foresee all problems.”

Auron was silent. He rubbed the side of his face, his eyes almost starting out of his head.

“You don’t want to give up control,” Viktor observed. “You don’t want to admit that you need other people. Put your ego to one side. This isn’t a one-man job.”

“All right,” said Auron, finally. “You’re right. We’ll do it.”

For three weeks they sat together every day in Auron’s living room, planning. They planned several towns, each with unique architecture and amazing locations; they planned flying cars, houses high on hillsides with landing pads, elaborate churches in case anyone wanted a church, complex systems of roads, trails and paths, maintained by autonomous robots.

Often they found themselves in agreement as to what would be required, but there were points upon which it was more difficult to arrive at a consensus.

“I’m going to have a massive central computer that will automatically repair any kind of damage anyone sustains,” said Auron, “whether from infection or injury or anything else.”

“So it’ll keep people alive no matter what happens to them?” Sandra asked.

“Exactly,” Auron confirmed.

“Auron, this is grossly invasive of privacy,” said Viktor.

“No it’s not,” Auron replied. “It’ll scan everyone in realtime, but no human will ever see the data.” He thought for a moment and added, “Except perhaps in emergencies. For instance, if someone goes missing.”

“I don’t want to be scanned everywhere I go,” said Rosa.

“What if someone get’s buried?” Sandra asked. “By an avalanche or something? Your system will keep them alive indefinitely in a living Hell.”

“She’s right,” said Viktor. “What if someone gets lost in a cave? Will the system prevent them dying of thirst and hunger? They could be wandering about for thousands of years.”

Rosa shuddered.

“Fair points,” said Auron thoughtfully.

“What if we have a kind of autonomous system? People have wristbands or rings or something; if someone sustains a serious injury, the system automatically transports them to a medical facility, if they’re wearing the wristband. For non-serious injuries, everyone has their own automatic doctor, like a radio set, but it can heal people, supervise childbirth and do all the things doctors can do. It has an off switch. If they don’t want it, they switch it off.”

“We can’t transport people so easily like that,” said Auron. “We can’t open a portal next to someone safely. Jor, what do you think?”

“With a more powerful system it would probably be possible, Auron,” said Jor.

“OK, then. The wristband contacts a central system, and only then does it arrange to somehow move people to the medical centre.”

“It needs to be voluntarily activated,” said Rosa.

“Unless they’re unconscious,” said Sandra, “then it can transport people without their permission.”

For days on end they discussed these and many other issues.

Food was another point of contention. Should the inhabitants of Frith all have their own machines that create food to order, or should farming be facilitated? For Auron, the answer was obviously food machines, but the others began to question whether people would find any meaning in a life where all their needs were catered to instantaneously.

In the end, Auron was insistent. Food machines would be installed.

As for animals, only creatures that already existed on the Earth would be duplicated on Frith. Large predators would be created only in small numbers; large herbivore populations would be limited via monitoring stations that would intervene in their reproduction to prevent them becoming too numerous.

Eventually the crucial elements of the new planet were all finalised.

There was no way to be sure that everything could be done in the form they had envisaged until the plan was actually put into operation.

“Jor,” said Auron. “Are you ready to implement our design?”

“Yes, Auron,” said Jor. Then, after a short pause, Jor added, “What would you like me to do with the vampires?”

“I told you destroy, all existing life,” said Auron.

“You want me to commit a genocide?”

“They’re monstrous abominations created by the original Sirius misfiring,” Auron replied.

“Technically we don’t know for sure that they weren’t on the planet already when you terraformed it.”

“What are they?” Viktor asked.

“They look a bit like people,” said Auron, “but they have enormous heads and skin like a toad, and they have a row of huge tubular teeth protruding from their upper jaws that they use to suck the blood out of things. At least, I think that’s what they do.”

“Do they have human DNA?” asked Viktor.

“No,” replied Jor.

“But that’s evidence that they already existed on Frith before the terraforming,” said Sandra.

“Not necessarily,” said Auron. “Sirius could have designed them from scratch.”

“You can’t just kill them all,” said Sandra.

“Jor,” said Auron, “how widespread are they?”

“They’re confined to an island the size of Germany,” said Jor. “That’s the bit where you lived for thirty years.”

“An island,” said Auron thoughtfully. “I had no idea. Very well then, we’ll leave that island alone and we’ll alter the rest.”

There are those who say the seeds of the destruction of Frith were already sown at that point. Some say Auron should have spent years planning Frith, not weeks. Some say he listened too much to those around him; others say he listened too little.

But there is another school of thought; there are those who argue that what Auron was trying to do, was simply impossible; that the Earth with its horrendous imperfections, is the best kind of a planet one can possibly expect when it has to be populated with human beings.

Perhaps suffering is the price of free will, and it’s a price most are willing to pay. But surely all attempts to alleviate suffering are not in vain. Surely not every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

It may of course be that, in the final analysis, the solution to the human condition is not, at its root, purely a question of technology.

We can’t blame Auron for trying, and those who now curse his name should take a little time to acquaint themselves with the history of Frith as it once was, in its prime.

No, that wouldn’t be the worst, he thought. They could keep him as a slave or torture him.

Auron shuddered, and retreated silently into his apartment in the abandoned ski lodge and shut the balcony door as quietly as he could manage.

He took Jor out of his pocket.

“Who do you think they are?” he asked.

“Don’t know, mate. Probably towards the end of the war, the various armies fell into disarray, and now they’re just people trying to survive.”

He opened the wardrobe so he could see himself in the mirror inside the door. He’d changed his rudimentary self-made clothes for clothes that he’d found in the abandoned houses, but he still looked a wreck. No amount of bathing and grooming could conceal that fact that here was a man who, at the age of perhaps fifty-eight, was already approaching the end of his lifespan. A man who had endured unspeakable things for three decades on an alien planet. A man whose nerves had been half-shattered by endless attacks of giant furry alien crabs.

But he was safe now. He was home.

Suddenly a shot rang out. For a second he froze, but no more shots came. Probably the soldiers were hunting something, he told himself.

He turned to look at the fish tank full of blue liquid and tangled wires that stood next to an open notebook computer on the large wooden table; a table that had probably once, before the war, seen happy gatherings of friends or family.

Next to it stood the matter interactor he’d built from computer parts and gardening chemicals. He was pleased with it. It was a beautiful thing of plastic project boxes and wire coils, arranged around a camera tripod. It barely even rattled.

“Jor, is your communication link with the Sirius device fully stable?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Jor. “Stop worrying. Everything’s in place. Everything’s working.”

“I want to start on something that isn’t essential to my life. I’m thinking teeth. I could fix my teeth. They’re a mess.”

“Great idea, Auron. Shall I get Sirius to devise a plan?”

His heart began to beat wildly. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He couldn’t speak.

“Auron?” said Jor.

“No, not yet. Let me think.”

“You’re prevaricating,” said Jor.

“I know. I know that. I’m going for a walk.”

“You’re still thinking about what happened to Jer when Virellon fixed his tooth.”

“You’re smart.”

“The new device is —”

“Enough, Jor!” he said, interrupting.

Jor fell silent.

Auron patted the weapon holstered at his side. He’d had Sirius make some adjustments to it. It would work, now. Reliably.

He made himself a cup of tea from teabags he’d found in one of the houses. There was no milk for the tea. He wondered if he could get Sirius to create some kind of synthetic milk. Why not? In fact, Auron thought to himself, he hadn’t even begun to tap Sirius’s capabilities.

The process would require care and caution.

After drinking the tea, he walked out of the apartment and over to the stairs, from where he could see the landscape on the other side of the ski lodge. The men were walking off towards the town. He waited till they’d summited the little hill next to the village, then went downstairs and outside.

It was good to be outside. The warm sun made him feel alive.

He began to walk towards the pond. It was largely stagnant, but there were still fish in it.

He was almost there when he heard a faint whimper. Looking around, he saw a shape in the grass.

It was a dog. The animal had lost half of its fur and was painfully thin. Its exposed skin was covered in sore patches. Then he saw the wound: a small, circular opening in the animal’s thigh.

The dog growled, but remained lying where it was.

“Hey!” he said, gently. “What’s happened to you?”

The dog whined, and licked its lips.

There could be little doubt about the wound. Someone had shot it, and hadn’t even bothered to stick around long enough to see whether the wound was fatal or not.

The soldiers.

“So that’s what kind of men they are,” said Auron quietly to himself.

He began to push his hands carefully underneath the dog so he could pick it up. It whined pitifully. Once he had the dog in his arms, he began to walk briskly back to the ski lodge.

“Don’t worry old boy,” he said. “I’m going to fix you. You’ve nothing to lose, anyway.”

The dog was weighing heavily on him by the time he was halfway home. Auron was weak and malnourished.

“I think I’ll call you Freddie,” he said.

The animal gazed at him with a halfway mixture of trust and fear.

“Don’t worry, Freddie,” Auron said to it.

In the apartment, he pulled a blanket from the wardrobe and lay Freddie down on it. Freddie briefly tried to get up, but quickly abandoned the plan, yelping.

“Jor, I’m going to put you in charge of patching this dog up. Talk to Sirius. Can you do it? Painlessly.”

“I suggest spreading the healing process over several days, Auron,” said Jor. “Will you be giving it food and water?”

“Of course I’ll be giving it food and water. I’ll get some dog food from the houses.”

“Would you like to begin the process?”

“Yes, but alleviate its pain and put it to sleep if you have to do anything painful. Or sedate it a bit. Keep it calm. I don’t want it suffering.”

“Got it, mate. Leave it to me.”

Auron stood looking thoughtfully at Freddie, who promptly fell asleep with a contented expression on his face.

“If it works on you it’ll probably work on me,” he said to himself.

He went out to look for dog food.

When he returned, carrying several cans and various dog treats, he picked up a book he’d found in one of the houses, sat on the sofa and opened it. Freddie was still sleeping.

The start of the book was not promising, in Auron’s eyes. It spent an entire paragraph describing the sensory experience of being in a cafe. There was little indication of it containing anything technical.

He tried to meditate, for the first time in thirty years, closing his eyes and attempting to focus on his breathing. He couldn’t do it. He opened them again and went to look at Freddie. Freddie was still sleeping peacefully.

He went back to the sofa and resumed reading.

He finished the book four hours later. The sun was setting.

“What a waste of time,” he said, throwing the book with a careful and practised aim into the wastebasket.

Then an unmistakable sound reached his ears. Someone had just smashed open the locked door of the lodge.

He took the weapon from his belt.

From the floor below, the sound of voices emerged; the voices of several men. He couldn’t tell what language they were speaking.

“Jor, who are they?” he whispered.

“No idea,” said Jor.

“Analyse them! Use the interactor.”

“The interactor’s busy fixing the dog. Do you want me to divert it?”

“No! What do you mean, busy? It can only do one thing at a time now?”

“Repairing a living being is a complex task.”

Auron listened as the men smashed down doors on the ground floor.

“If they come in here, can Sirius kill them?”

“Is that ethical?”

“Ethical?” said Auron incredulously. “What are you talking about, ethical?”

“It just seems incompatible with the ethics you taught me.”

“They shot a dog in cold blood and left him to die slowly in the grass. I’ll kill the lot of them if they come anywhere near us. Answer the question.”

“How many are there?”

“I don’t know, five maybe. Can’t you sense them remotely?”

“Like I said, it’s busy with the dog. The process is information-intensive. On top of which, the range of the device is limited. The information we can get from scanning the surroundings might be incomplete.”

“Can you divert it temporarily?”

“There will be some risk to the dog.”

Auron sighed.

“Look, I think there are five of them. Sounds like about five. Same people I saw earlier, probably.”

“They can be killed, but the process might be slow enough for one of them to get off a shot, if we’re looking at a conflict situation here.”

“Do you think they might try to harm me?”

“Possibly.”

Auron swore under his breath.

“But possibly not,” Jor added.

Auron went to the middle of the tiny apartment and stood facing the door, the weapon drawn.

For a while, it sounded as though some of the men were trying to persuade the others to investigate the second floor. He could hear them arguing on the stairs. Then, they descended the stairs and left.

He breathed an enormous sigh of relief and sheathed the weapon in its holster.

That night he slept uneasily and twice awoke shouting, dreaming giant crabs had got hold of his feet. Both times he couldn’t immediately recognise his surroundings, but then he remembered everything: the portal, Jer’s death, the ski lodge.

When the same thing happened a third time, he drew the curtains and saw the sun already beginning to illuminate the mountains in the west, and he made himself a tea, which he sat drinking while eating old, dry crackers.

Freddie was still asleep, but his skin appeared much improved and the bullet wound was clearly healing rapidly.

“How’s the dog?” Auron asked Jor.

“He’s progressing,” said Jor.

“Why’s he asleep?”

“Still sedated, mate. We can’t be sure the rapid healing process won’t cause distress if he were awake. Would you like me to wake him up?”

“No, let him sleep.”

Auron spent the day pacing about, thinking. Periodically he went outside and scanned the hills for signs of the men.

“As soon as you’ve finished fixing Freddie, we need to build an improved Sirius and a more powerful interactor,” he said to Jor, while he sat on a bench outside, watching the road that led from the village. “We’ll use the current interactor to build improved versions of both. I need to de-age myself and I want to know what’s happened in England. I used to know people there.”

“You’re the boss,” said Jor.

“I am the boss,” Auron repeated with a sardonic smile.

He stood up and gazed at the distant mountains. They were remote, inhospitable, and yet beautiful.

“Jor?”

“Yes, Auron?”

“Do you have feelings? Do you experience emotion?”

There was a long pause, then Jor said, “I don’t know.”

Auron gave a short laugh.

“Of course you don’t,” he said.

That night he awoke only once, this time dreaming the men had smashed their way into the apartment and were proposing to torture him, for fun.

He awoke at dawn, sunlight filtering in through gaps in the curtains, to find Freddie licking his face.

“Urggh, get off!” he said, and he pushed the dog gently back.

He rubbed his eyes and gazed thoughtfully at Freddie.

The bald patches on Freddie’s body were covered in short new black-and-white fur. The surviving longer fur was still matted and dirty.

Auron found himself smiling irrepressibly.

“I’m going to have to give you a bath, you filthy hound,” he said.

Freddie barked at him and squatted down on his front paws as though he wanted to play, his tail wagging manically.

“You absolute lunatic,” said Auron affectionately, and he ruffled Freddie’s head—gently, avoiding the patches of skin covered in short fur, that had been bald and sore only two days earlier.

He fed Freddie and ate a breakfast himself of beans from a can, washed down with tea. Then he took Freddie for a walk, warily eyeing the hills for signs of the soldiers. Everything seemed peaceful.

Freddie ran about madly, stopping here and there to sniff at things.

“Jor,” said Auron.

“Here,” said Jor.

“I need to build a more powerful Sirius. And I’ll need a much more powerful interactor. We need to get on with it. I want to de-age myself, and I have to see what’s going on in England. I want to track down people I know. The new device will need to be capable of opening portals and remote sensing. Also I want it to retrieve and assimilate knowledge from whatever sources can be found.”

“Is that everything?” said Jor.

“No. It needs to be able to create food. Is that possible? Decent food, not just any old rubbish.”

“I don’t know,” said Jor.

“Does Sirius know?”

“Sirius doesn’t know either. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible.”

“Another thing. I want the new Sirius to be incorporated into your structure. I don’t want to talk to it directly. I want it to be something you can access to augment your capabilities. Not part of you; something you can use. I want the whole thing to still fit into my pocket.”

He took Jor from his pocket and turned it around in his fingers.

“Can it be done?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Sirius need to analyse your request. It needs to give the matter some thought.”

“All right. And I want to incorporate the new interactor too. A much more powerful interactor than we’ve currently got.”

“That’s not possible,” said Jor.

“What? Why not?”

“The interactor cannot be miniaturised.”

“You mean you and Sirius can’t do it?”

“Exactly, Auron. Sorry.”

“All right, fine, we’ll focus on augmenting your intelligence and we’ll keep the interactor separate.”

“Do you want us to start working on it?”

“Aren’t you busy with Freddie still?”

“He’s out of range of the interactor.”

“So he is.”

“We can safely let him alone. Natural healing processes will finish the job.”

“Then begin.”

Auron sat down on the hillside. Here and there, cattle roamed about, ponderously chewing grass. Further down the hill a goat trotted past with two kids, heading up the hill to the north.

The air smelt faintly of cow manure, but mixed with the scent of fragrant plants. He picked a little square-stemmed plant with purple flowers. Perhaps it was marjoram, or oregano, or thyme. He’d never been able to tell the difference.

In the distance, the tops of the mountains were still capped with snow from the winter.

In a way, aside from the dubious soldiers that the various armies had cut loose—probably traumatised conscripts—the place was a paradise. But he couldn’t stay in paradise. There was work to be done.

He whistled to Freddie and began to make his way back to the ski lodge. Freddie scampered after him, tearing around in circles like a puppy.

When he got back he discovered Sirius had already constructed a new and powerful-looking interactor, quite unlike the device he had first constructed in his spare bedroom in York. It was sleek and well-designed; a gleaming cylinder, two feet high.

“Everything’s ready, Auron,” said Jor, from his pocket.

“Ready?” Auron said, confused.

“You want to augment my intelligence. It can be done. Place me on the table.”

“Is there any risk?”

“Not as far as we can tell.”

He took Jor out of his pocket.

“If you die, I’ll miss you,” said Auron, holding Jor up to his eyes.

“No,” said Jor, “you miss Jer, and if you want to bring him back, Sirius and I aren’t currently up to it.”

Auron smiled mirthlessly, and placed Jor on the table.

“I do sort of miss him,” he said. “The absolute idiot. At least you can’t talk, Freddie. My God, he was annoying.”

Freddie gave a single bark, as if agreeing.

The hard case of the Jor device seemed to fizz and expand, and smoke began to pour out of it. Then the smoke abruptly seemed to take direction and shot back into Jor. The device’s case hardened.

“Jor?” said Auron, uncertainly.

“Still here, mate,” said Jor.

“Is it done?”

“It’s done. What would you like to do next, Auron?”

“Can you fix Jer?”

“Still not. Sorry. You’ll need to build something more powerful and probably a lot bigger.”

“How much bigger?”

“You could try swimming-pool size.”

“If I do that, will it be able to resurrect Jer?”

“Still don’t know, Auron. You’re asking me to predict what a more powerful system could do. There’s this thing called the Halting Problem.”

Auron ground his teeth and stared out at the mountains. He felt strangely powerless.

“OK,” he said, finally. “In that case, I want—let me see. I want a full English breakfast, with a coffee and an orange juice, no black pudding, and a rack of various sauces.”

A swirling mist appeared on the table in front of him, next to Jor, thickened, and then resolved itself into a full English breakfast. Next to it stood a French press containing coffee, a mug, a small jug of milk and a glass of orange juice.

“Is it—is it safe to eat?” Auron asked, finding himself unexpectedly and unaccountably emotional.

“Perfectly safe. Enjoy.”

Auron began to laugh, and soon tears of joy were running from his eyes. He fell onto the floor, laughing hysterically. Freddie wagged his tail, bemused.

Eventually he recovered his composure and picked himself up.

“It’s better while it’s still hot, probably,” said Jor.

“It’s a miracle,” said Auron.

“Miracle of science.”

“The interactor didn’t even make a sound.”

“It’s capable of much more than cookery, Auron.”

As he ate, he began to run his ideas past Jor.

“Listen,” he said, pausing to place a forkful of food in his mouth and chew it, and then throwing a rasher of bacon to Freddie, who was waiting eagerly, his eyes fixed on the proceedings, “if I ever somehow lose you, Jor, you devote yourself entirely to getting back into my hands.”

“Understood.”

“Don’t kill anyone, but find a way to have them bring you back to me. And don’t take any orders from them. Just manipulate them appropriately.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Are you trying to be funny?” said Auron, pausing again to glare at Jor.

“Humour is a normal part of human speech, mate.”

“True,” said Auron.

After eating he dropped himself onto the sofa, placing Jor in his pocket. His knees ached from the walk.

“I need to see what’s happening in England,” he said. “Are any of my relatives still alive?”

“No, Auron. I’m sorry,” came the reply.

“Not a one of them?”

“No-one closer than a second cousin.”

“I see.”

He stared at the floor miserably. He was lost in unpleasant reflections when Freddie jumped onto the sofa next to him and tried to lick his face.

“Get off, you cretin!” he said, pleasantly, and he put his arm over Freddie, who lay down with his head on Auron’s lap.

“OK,” he said, “let me think. Think. I know; I had a friend called Viktor. Hadn’t spoken to him in a year, because he lived in Cambridge. Is he still alive?”

There was a pause, then Jor said, “Viktor Feher is still alive. He lives with his wife in Cambridge.”

“Viktor’s married? Oh well, I suppose it has been thirty years. Can you open a view of him on the wall? I mean like a TV screen. I mean, if he’s not doing anything too private.”

“I can do it,” said Jor.

A painting on the wall depicting hills dotted with trees and farms seemed to glow, and then an image appeared.

The image was of a man and a woman lying fully clothed on a filthy bed. Both of them were bald, their skin covered in ugly sores. Their clothes were no more than rags. The woman seemed to be asleep; the man was crying softly. The walls of the room they were in were blackened with smoke.

“Dear God!” Auron exclaimed. “That’s Viktor and his wife?”

“Exactly,” said Jor.

“What’s happened to them?”

“The war, Auron. They are close to death.”

“I have to help them. Can you repair them?”

“From this distance, there would be considerable risk.”

“You’re telling me you can open interplanetary portals now but you can’t improve the health of a couple of humans?”

“Not without risk, from this distance, Auron. It’s not a question of raw energy. That can be diverted from distant stars. It’s a question of information.”

“Then I’m going there. We’re going there. With the interactor.”

“You may not survive, Auron. Radiation levels are high. You are weak for your age.”

“I’m not weak! What are you talking about?”

“Your immune function is poor, your heart is unstable and blood vessels in your brain are stretched dangerously thin.”

Auron rubbed his face with his hand.

“Then we’ll open a portal and bring them here.”

“Even a change of climate could finish them off at this point.”

“Then I have to fix myself first. After that I’m going there. How long will it take?”

“It can’t be done safely in less than a week. You’re a mess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I said, your heart’s messed up. Your brain’s prematurely aged.”

“I feel OK.”

“If you want to survive Cambridge, you’ll need to be young and fit.”

Auron paced back and forth, wrangling with himself internally.

“OK, then. We’ll do it,” he said, arriving at a conclusion. “We’ll start with my teeth. At least those aren’t crucial.”

“If I may make a suggestion, Auron,” said Jor, “better start with your heart. It’ll probably be all right for another few years, but then again, it might not be.”

Auron looked at the awful image on the screen.

“Will they survive another week?”

“Probably,” came the reply.

“Send them some food at least. And clean water. Can you manage that without killing them?”

“Their mental state is precarious, Auron. I recommend taking it yourself in a week.”

Auron stared at the image live on the screen where the painting had been.

“This is ridiculous. You’re a computer. You have no real experience of life. No offence.”

“None taken, mate.”

“I want you to put together a box containing food, clean water, and whatever kind of drugs might help them. Anti-radiation drugs and so forth. All clearly labelled with clear instructions. And I want you to make it appear somewhere where they’ll find it. And on top, put a note: from Auron. I’ll see you in a week. Have you got that?”

“Would you like me to stick to conventional existing drugs or devise new drugs?”

“Which will give them the greatest chance of survival and the least pain and suffering?”

“New drugs, considering the state of them.”

“New drugs it is, then. How quickly can you do it?”

“I’ll have it done in an hour.”

“Right. Close the viewport.”

Auron waved at the horrible image on the screen, which promptly faded, to be replaced once again by the painting of hills, farms and trees.

He sat down heavily on the sofa again, emotionally drained.

“What do you think Freddie?” he said.

Freddie, who was lying on the sofa next to him, sat up and whined cheerfully.

“Yes, my thoughts precisely,” said Auron.

In a filthy bed in a half-ruined house on the outskirts of Cambridge, Viktor Feher placed a hand gently on his wife’s shoulder.

“I’m going to fetch more water,” he said.

“I’ll come with you,” she murmured.

“Stay here,” he said.

He could see very well that Rosa Feher no longer possessed the energy to rise to her feet; a fact which she didn’t want to admit, even to herself.

Rosa turned slowly and painfully onto her back.

“What if something happens to you?”

“Then we’ll meet again in Heaven.”

“You don’t believe in that stuff,” she said with a tired, exhausted smile.

“Not before the war. Now I know the Devil exists, so I have to think God exists also.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I have to believe there is more to life than this nightmare.”

“Then stay here and pray with me.”

“Without fresh water we’ll both be dead in a day.”

“With fresh water we’ll be dead in a week.”

Viktor laughed grimly, his smile quickly replaced by an expression of infinite sadness.

“You say a prayer. I’ll … agree with it, or however it works.”

Rosa cast her mind back to her schooldays and uttered a short prayer.

Viktor grunted.

“Do you think anyone heard you?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” she said, with a brief smile.

Viktor slowly pushed himself off the bed and onto his feet.

“Come back safely, Viktor,” said Rosa. “Come back to me.”

He turned to see tears in her eyes.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “I’ll be twenty minutes.”

She was close to death. He knew it. She would pass away, and he would live on without her. For how long? Perhaps a week, as she had suggested. In the worst case, a month.

He opened the bedroom door, and froze.

“What is it?” said Rosa, suddenly alarmed.

“Someone’s left a box here.”

“No-one’s been in here,” she rasped, the exertion of speaking causing her radiation-scarred lungs to wheeze. “We would have heard it.”

“I’m hallucinating,” said Viktor.

He lowered himself painfully onto his knees, breaking into a fit of coughing as he did so.

“Viktor?” said Rosa fearfully.

“It’s from … Auron,” he said in amazement.

In spite of her weakness, Rosa slowly struggled to a sitting position, propping pillows behind her.

“Who?”

“I only know one Auron. Auron Blake. But he disappeared a long time ago. Vanished. Together with his friend. I thought he was dead.”

He opened the box and found two white plastic bottles, labelled, “Anti-radiation. Drink these immediately.”

Viktor rummaged about briefly in the rest of the box.

“There’s food in here,” he said. “And water.”

He staggered back to the bed, carrying a bottle in each hand. He gave one to Rosa, who examined it curiously, holding it up in front of her cataract-dimmed eyes in order to see the label.

Viktor sat slowly down on the bed, and had another coughing fit, but forced himself to stop, enduring the subsequent wheezing and the feeling that a thick fluid was stuck in his lungs. Coughing provided temporary minor relief, but it was excessively painful.

“What do you think?” he said. “Do we drink it?”

“If you friend’s been here, why didn’t we hear him? And why didn’t he say hello?”

“Well, he was always the anti-social type. Kept himself to himself. Apart from me and the fellow he was working with, I don’t think he had any friends. He was … what’s the word? A workaholic.”

“We must be dreaming,” said Rosa.

“I can’t understand it,” said Viktor.

Rosa unscrewed the bottle.

“Smells lovely.” she said, suddenly smiling. “Like a strawberry milkshake.”

Viktor unscrewed his bottle, and sniffed.

“We’ve nothing to lose,” he observed.

Then he realised that Rosa was already drinking hers.

He watched her anxiously.

“Take it easy!” he said.

She seemed to be gulping down half the bottle.

When she finished, she struggled up to a full sitting position, smiling.

“The pain’s gone from my throat!” she said. “Viktor, I already feel better!”

Viktor stared at the bottle in his hand, bewildered. Then he began to drink.

“Are you ready?” said Jor.

Auron had given Jor extensive instructions on the topic of repairing his health and de-ageing him. Clearly Jor had made an excellent job of fixing Freddie, but even so, he was nervous. The repairs he himself would require were considerably more complex than Freddie’s problems, and included alterations to the blood vessels and cellular structures in his brain.

“Begin,” said Auron.

For a minute he stood there, watching the interactor, trying to decide if he could feel the machine working on him or not. He decided that he couldn’t.

He noticed no difference in himself at all until the following morning. Auron forced himself to look at his own reflection in the mirror, scared of what he might see. When he saw himself, he straightened up suddenly, startled.

His face, which had ended up resembling the face of a man of perhaps seventy, at the age of fifty-seven, now looked more like fifty. The roots of his hair had turned dark. He checked his teeth. A tooth that had cracked and turned brown was now white and healthy again. Then he looked at his hands. The liver spots were fading, and the wrinkles smoothing out.

Auron had never quite understood why people cheer and fling their arms in the air, but for a second, he came closer to understanding than ever previously.

Then he remembered Jer. Jer should have been enjoying the same experience. Instead, he was lying crumpled in the freezer, dead.

“I’ll sort you out, Jer,” he muttered to himself. “I know there’s a way to do it. There has to be.”

The next day he appeared closer to mid-forties, and the day after that, forty.

His joints no longer ached and his heart no longer raced at night.

He took Freddie walking in the hills, finding it surprisingly easy to ascend the steep ski slope.

Not seeing any particular reason to stop, they walked all the way to the top, where they found the wreckage of a mountain refuge. He picked up a sign that had somehow blown onto its face in front of a pile of rubble. It explained that the building, now nothing but a pile of stones, had been made use of by the Italian partisans while fighting against the Nazis in WWII.

“Obviously some kind of a trouble hotspot,” said Auron, laughing wryly to himself.

The top of the mountain was peaceful, but the vista on the other side of the mountain displayed considerable devastation. Near the horizon, an entire town seemed to have been destroyed, and a little further to the south, a black pall of smoke rose into the air.

“I’ll fix you,” said Auron, looking at the world below him. “I can fix you.”

He turned and made his way down the hillside.

Three days later, the process was finished. Auron had Jor make him a new set of clothes that actually fitted, and then he enjoyed the strange experience of having Jor give him a haircut. The interactor, suitably programmed, caused all the unwanted pieces of hair to fall off and dissolve into a strange thick smoke, which coalesced into a thin stream that made its way out of the open balcony door.

Auron opened the wardrobe so he could see himself in a full-length mirror.

A sensation of euphoria, almost impossible to contain, surged through him.

“Best dressed man on the planet, probably,” he said, and then he dissolved yet again into helpless, hysterical laughter.

He was, for the second time in his life, twenty-seven years old, and he looked like he’d just stepped out of a cafe and was on his way to a meeting at some sort of innovative new startup.

Freddie didn’t seem to notice any difference.

Auron asked Jor to check Freddie over and help his fur grow back, and by the following day Freddie looked like he’d just got back from the dog grooming parlour.

He had Jor synthesise food for Freddie, mostly consisting of freshly-cooked meat, which Freddie ate in astonishing quantities.

“Jor,” he said, “I want you to find a large empty farmhouse near Cambridge, completely renovate it and make it ready for us to move there. Make sure it has some kind of large garage. In the garage, construct a kind of powerful armoured vehicle. I’m going to be using it to drive through the town. And fit the house out with everything I might want. I mean, uh … kitchen equipment, a coffee machine, a shower and a bath, the whole works. And put food in the cupboards.”

“You want normality,” Jer observed. “Or perhaps my cooking isn’t to your taste.”

“Very funny. Yes, I want normality. I want to remember how things were. Oh, and I’ll need some other buildings close by for other people to live in. Fix them all up properly. How many people are still alive in Cambridge?”

“At least a thousand.”

“As many as that?”

“It’ll be fewer by next year, Auron.”

“Not if I can help it. I’m going to sort the place out.”

“Do you intend to move there permanently?”

“That’s exactly what I intend.”

The following day he had Jor open a portal to his new house in Cambridge, and he moved the freezer containing Jer into the basement of the house. Auron walked around the house marvelling at it. It was the kind of place he’d hoped one day to be able to buy when he had been twenty-seven the first time around. The surroundings, on the other hand, were horrific. The surfaces of the roads had been melted and cratered by bombs, and most of the buildings were nothing but shards of teetering brick and piles of rubble.

While walking about outside the house he began to feel sick.

“It’s the radiation,” said Jor. “You need to go back and let me repair the damage. The process isn’t safe from this range.”

“I don’t want to be tied to the interactor. Can you make a supply of drugs that can heal the effects of radiation? Put them in the kitchen. And I want dog treats containing radiation medication for Freddie.”

“No problem.”

He went back inside. Bottles of pills were already waiting for him. He swallowed one, and he opened a packet of anti-radiation dog treats and fed one to Freddie, who immediately seemed anxious for more.

Then he went back through the portal to the ski lodge.

“Let’s move the interactor next,” he said. “Are there going to be any particular issues with it? Can it maintain the portal if we move it?”

But he didn’t hear Jor’s reply. Suddenly his attention was caught by the sound of the front door of the lodge being thrown open, and the chatter of the soldiers’ voices reached his ears.

“What are they doing here?” he asked Jor.

“They spotted you earlier on,” said Jor. “They’re looking for you.”

“Can we move the interactor?”

“It’s going to be a multi-step process, Auron. We’ll have to build a device to maintain the portal from the other side, first.”

He could hear the men making their way up the stairs.

“There isn’t going to be time. Freddie, come here.”

He led Freddie back through the portal.

“Stay!” he said.

Freddie sat down obediently. He was a fast learner.

Auron darted back into the ski lodge.

“Jor, make the portal one-way, so I can get to Cambridge but Freddie can’t come here. And disguise it, so it looks like a normal piece of wall.”

The portal dimmed and vanished.

The man were going from flat to flat, smashing in the doors and looking around inside.

“Get ready to kill them if necessary,” said Auron, “but wait for my command.”

The men broke into the flat next-door.

Auron drew the weapon from its sheath, which he’d upgraded to look like something sleek and modern instead of the previous animal-skin holster that he’d made on Frith, and pointed it towards the door.

“What steps are involved in moving the interactor?” he asked Jor.

Jor began to explain, but then the door of his apartment burst open, and the soldiers, if that’s what they were, ran in.

“S-Stay where you are,” Auron stammered.

“What the hell is this?” said one of the men, smiling unpleasantly.

His accent was unfamiliar to Auron. He wasn’t Italian, nor Austrian.

Another of the men switched the light on an off, and made some remark that included a word similar to “electricity”, apparently marvelling at the fact that the apartment had power.

“What are you doing here?” said Auron, his hands shaking as he pointed the weapon at them.

“What are you doing here, is the question,” said the man at the front of the group.

“I live here.”

“Oh. You live here.”

“You shot my dog.”

The man laughed, and said something to the other men in a language Auron couldn’t understand. They all laughed.

“That wasn’t us,” said the man. “We don’t shoot dogs. Do we, comrades?”

The man’s manner was insincere, but it was impossible to be certain that he was lying.

“We’re taking this place over,” said the man.

He sniffed the air.

“You’ve got food. You can make us something to eat.”

“You can’t use this place,” said Auron. “Get out.”

“We can do whatever we like,” said the man, and without any warning he pointed his rifle at Auron’s shoulder and pulled the trigger.

A shot rang out and Auron doubled over in pain. The weapon fell from his hand.

“We might let you live, if you can be useful to us,” said the man. “For a while.”

Suddenly an alarm sounded, loud regular pulses of square wave emerging from the large curtained alcove where Auron had kept Jer’s body in the chest freezer.

“What’s that?” said the man, and he went into the alcove to look. Auron backed slowly towards the wall.

The man shouted something in a foreign language, and three of the other men went to look too, only one of them keeping his rifle pointed at Auron.

Auron held his shoulder, grimacing in pain. He could feel blood running down his arm.

Then the man guarding him decided to take something out of his pocket; perhaps gum, or a packet of cigarettes. Auron ran backwards through the portal.

“Freddie, come on!” he shouted, and he ran through the immaculate living room, the sound of the men shouting in bafflement ringing in his ears, and out of the door at the far side of the house. He carried on running. He knew what the alarm meant.

He was already some distance from the house when he managed to get his thoughts in order.

“Jor, close the portal!” he said.

Before Jor could reply, there was an ear-splitting explosion. Freddie cowered, and then began barking wildly.

“Jor, what happened?” said Auron, although there could only be one possible cause of the explosion.

“What do you mean?” said Jor.

“There was a huge explosion!”

“Oh, yeah, the energy system became unstable.”

“I nearly died! We only got twenty seconds’ warning, if even that!”

“Yeah, sorry. There was an electromagnetic flare on the star we were channeling energy from and it got unstable.”

“Couldn’t you have given me more warning?”

“It happened quite quickly.”

Auron bent over in pain.

“I’ve got a bullet in my arm.” he said, through clenched teeth.

“We can repair it, take the bullet out. You’ll have to build another interactor.”

“Oh, God!”

He looked at the devastation around him.

“Am I going to die?”

“I don’t know mate, sorry,” said Jor.

“Bloody useless! How can this possibly have happened again? Why can’t I hang on to these damned interactors?”

“What you’re attempting Auron, it’s not an easy business.”

Auron staggered back to the house. Part of it had been destroyed by the explosion, but it was a large house, all on one level, and the rest of it still seemed habitable.

Half of the kitchen had been destroyed, but he picked through the rubble and found some food, and most importantly of all, the anti-radiation medication.

“Will the pills help with my shoulder?” he asked Jor.

“They weren’t designed for that but they will help it to heal,” said Jor. “If there’s a bullet lodged in it they won’t get that out.”

Auron unscrewed one of the pill bottles with one hand and took another of the pills.

In the evening, he ate a meal of cheese and fresh bread, sitting on a bed in one of the bedrooms on the other side of the house from the explosion. The room was immaculate, aside from the dirt his footsteps had trailed over the carpet, and even the bedclothes smelt fresh. Jor had arranged for the house to have an electricity supply, and clean water came out of the taps in the bathroom, but now these facts made him nervous. The previous energy system had lasted less than a week before—presumably—killing everyone in the apartment. Neither did he have any way to deactivate it, with the interactor gone. But he couldn’t bring himself to take refuge elsewhere in the war-torn town.

“If I die, I die,” he said to himself.

That night his shoulder was painful, and he slept only fitfully. Freddie slept on the bed next to him.

In the morning, it became apparent to him that he really hadn’t thought anywhere nearly enough about what things should be in the house. He had made Jor construct a kitchen filled with food on a whim, and half of the kitchen was now rubble. There was no laboratory, and he had no spare clothes.

He tore some fabric off one of the debris-covered sofas in the living room and fashioned a kind of sling for his arm. Holding it up helped with the pain from his shoulder.

“Jor,” he said, “we have to go and rescue Viktor and his wife. Is the vehicle ready?”

“Yes, Auron,” came the reply.

“Can you give me directions?”

“Sure,” said Jor. “It might be a bit dangerous though. Maybe wait till we can fix your shoulder. We need a new interactor.”

“I told them I’d be there in a week, and I’ll be there in a week. Viktor’ll help me get the parts I need.”

“Fair enough.”

“Where’s the vehicle?”

“In the garage. Through the kitchen.”

Auron traipsed back into the ruined kitchen, Freddie following, tail wagging happily in the air. The door leading to the garage was hanging off its hinges.

He kicked at it until there was enough space to get past it into the garage. There, he fumbled around for a light switch, and finally found one.

In front of him was a thing that looked like a cross between an enormous off-roader and a tank, all black gleaming metal, with no windows.

“Good God,” said Auron.

“Are you looking at the vehicle?” Jor asked.

“I think so,” Auron replied. “How am I supposed to see where I’m going?”

“There are screens inside that reproduce an accurate image of the outside,” said Jor.

“How do I get in?”

“The door opens with your fingerprint. I’m going to have to explain the controls. There’s a joystick and some other stuff. It has its own battery, which is fully charged. It’s good for three thousand miles.”

Auron held his finger against a sensor on the door, and the door slid open.

Inside, the vehicle more resembled the inside of a plane than a car—or perhaps a kind of spaceship.

He laughed to himself.

“Perfect,” he said. “Jor, you might blow things up occasionally but you’ve really excelled yourself here.”

Inside the car, he had a full view of the garage, as though the sides and ceiling of the vehicle were transparent.

Soon he was trundling through the town, Freddie watching the world go by from the front passenger seat.

The town was a mess, the streets barely recognisable. Parker’s Piece, once a pleasant green park, was now nothing but a tangle of half-dead weeds strewn with rubble. The town centre had been almost levelled.

Here and there he saw survivors of the war, all of them bald from the radiation, and wearing rags. They limped and staggered away when they saw him, apparently afraid.

He continued through the town, describing what he saw to Jor, until finally he arrived at what was, in all probability, Viktor’s house.

He descended from the vehicle, looking around himself warily, and went up to the front door.

The house was one of only a handful of houses in that area that were somewhat intact. Evidently, Viktor had been very lucky. The windows were boarded up and part of the roof was caved in, but the rest of the house was still standing.

He knocked on the door and waited.

Inside, Viktor and Rosa were eating at the table, smiling and laughing, in spite of the nightmare that surrounded them, their problems temporarily forgotten in the midst of their sudden unexpected good fortune, which had bafflingly plucked them from the arms of death itself.

When they heard Auron’s knock, they froze. Rosa was suddenly worried.

“Who can it be?” she said.

“It’s him,” said Viktor. “It has to be him.”

He rose and went to the door, taking a kitchen knife in case whoever was at the door launched an unprovoked attack. He opened it. Then he froze in astonishment.

There was Auron, dressed in a casual white shirt and jeans, the sleeve of the shirt covered in blood, his full head of hair in disarray but apparently professionally cut. The most amazing thing was, not only did Auron appear unaffected by the radiation, but he didn’t appear to have aged at all in the past thirty years.

“Is it … you?” whispered Viktor, hoarsely.

“It’s me,” said Auron. “I’m here to help you, Viktor.”

“How is this possible?”

“Can I come in?” said Auron. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to tell you.”

A few minutes later they were laughing and joking inside Viktor’s kitchen, Viktor and Rosa staring at Auron as though he was an angel from Heaven.

Both of them appeared thin but healthy, and both had a fuzz of new hair growing rapidly on their previously-bald heads.

“So you see,” said Auron, “I need your help to build a new interactor. Then we can sort this mess out. Come back with me to my house. There’s a spare room that didn’t get blown up. I have water and electricity. In fact, you can have your own house if you like.

“There’s a lab downstairs, in the cellar,” said Viktor. “Probably there are things you can use.”

“That’s how we survived,” said Rosa. “We created new drugs to help with the radiation. It was risky, but it worked. Auron, let me look at your shoulder. We might be able to do something.”

Auron shook his head.

“What I need, is to build a new interactor. Can you help me?”

“We owe you our lives,” said Rosa.

“Anything we can do to help, we’ll do it,” said Viktor, and he laughed again. “I can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m dreaming.”

As the sun climbed into the sky over a wasteland that was once a city, three human beings and a dog travelled steadily along in an enormous vehicle, through wrecked streets haunted by haggard survivors who ran from them like frightened mice. Three people who each bore their own unspeakable mental scars but were still able to smile and even laugh, nonetheless.

“This will all have to be fixed.” said Auron, gazing at the devastation.

“You’re going to need a bigger computer, mate,” said Jor from his pocket.

No, that wouldn’t be the worst, he thought. They could keep him as a slave or torture him.

Auron shuddered, and retreated silently into his apartment in the abandoned ski lodge and shut the balcony door as quietly as he could manage.

He took Jor out of his pocket.

“Who do you think they are?” he asked.

“Don’t know, mate. Probably towards the end of the war, the various armies fell into disarray, and now they’re just people trying to survive.

He opened the wardrobe so he could see himself in the mirror inside the door. He’d changed his rudimentary self-made clothes for some that he’d found in the abandoned houses, but he still looked a wreck. No amount of bathing and grooming could conceal that fact that here was a man who, at the age of perhaps fifty-eight, was approaching the end of his lifespan. A man who had endured unspeakable things for three decades on an alien planet. A man whose nerves had been half-shattered by the endless attacks of the giant furry alien crabs.

But he was safe now. He was home.

He turned to look at the fish tank full of blue liquid and tangled wires that stood next to an open notebook computer on the large wooden table; a table that had probably once, before the war, seen happy gatherings of friends or family.

“Jor, is your communication link with the Sirius device fully stable?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Jor. “Stop worrying. Everything’s in place. Everything’s working.”

“I want to start on something that isn’t essential to my life. I’m thinking teeth. I could fix my teeth. They’re a mess.”

“Great idea, Auron. Shall I get Sirius to devise a plan?”

His heart began to beat wildly. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He couldn’t speak.

“Auron?” said Jor.

“No, not yet. Let me think.”

“You’re prevaricating, mate,” said Jor.

“I know. I know that. I’m going for a walk.”

He patted the weapon holstered at his side. He’d had Sirius make some adjustments to it. It would work, now. Reliably.

He walked out of the apartment and over to the stairs, from where he could see the landscape on other side of the ski lodge. The men were walking off towards the town. He waited till they’d summited the little hill next to the village, then went downstairs and outside.

It was good to be outside. The warm sun made him feel alive.

He began to walk towards the pond. It was largely stagnant, but there were still fish in it.

“What do you want?” he said.

“I need your help. I think I’ve got the microphone working.”

“I suppose that’s worth celebrating. It’s only taken you twenty years. Let’s have some beer.”

“I’m not drinking any more of that stuff. It’s vile. Why don’t you do something useful for once? Make something we actually need, instead of leaving it all to me.”

“Suit yourself,” said Jer, and he picked up a clay jug and took a long draught from it.

Auron shuddered in disgust and turned to walk back to his hut.

“Come.” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Come here, do this; dance, monkey boy,” said Jer bitterly under his breath.

Jer walked slowly over to Auron’s camp.

Auron had attached two extremely primitive-looking devices to either end of a long copper wire.

“OK, you stand at that end, I’ll speak into the mic and tell me if you can hear it.”

“If this works,” said Jer, “how long’s it going to be before we can go home?”

“Not that long.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know, maybe another fifteen years for a guess.”

“Fifteen years? For a guess?”

Jer’s voice betrayed his desperation with horrible intensity.

Auron stopped looking at the microphone and straightened up.

“Look,” he said, “the Sirius device that sent us here was end result of several years of work. If I had all the stuff we had on the Earth, I could rebuild it in a week, but I don’t. I don’t even have transistors or diodes. I don’t have any training data. I’ll have to hope I can train it like it’s a baby, but even babies have certain built-in capabilities. It’s going to be a long job, Jer, but when we finally do get home, I can use a new Sirius to remove thirty-five or forty years of ageing, and we’ll be like we were when we had the accident and ended up here. Many of the people we knew will even still be alive in fifteen years! It’s not so bad!”

“You don’t even know, really, do you?”

“We’ve been over this before, Jer. My God, how many times have we been over this? Let’s just focus on getting this microphone working, and the speaker, otherwise we’re not getting off here at all. I happen to think I’ve basically achieved a miracle by getting this far, considering we started off with absolutely nothing at all.”

Jer sighed.

“All right, what do I do?”

“Just put your ear against the speaker and listen. I’ll whisper into the mic and you tell me if you can hear it.”

Jer obeyed. Auron whispered into the microphone.

“Well?” shouted Auron, after a minute.

“I don’t hear anything. Only clicking.”

“We’ll try it again,” said Auron.

Another minute passed and he said, “Did you hear anything?”

“Nothing, just a clicking sound every few seconds.”

“Clicking sound? It’s probably the crabs.”

“It’s coming from your speaker.”

Auron walked over to the speaker and placed his ear against it.

The speaker consisted of a membrane of cattle skin with a magnetised steel plunger attached to the middle of it; the other end of the plunger was surrounded by a coil of rudimentary copper wire covered in the rubbery secretions of a plant they’d found, as fine as Auron had been able to make it.

As he listened, an astonished expression appeared on his face.

“It’s regular.” he said.

“That’s what I was telling you. There must be something wrong with it.”

Auron stood up suddenly.

“Jer, this isn’t coming from my apparatus,” he said. “It’s a radio signal.”

“Where from?” said Jer.

“From somewhere on this planet. If I had a diode I could rectify it and maybe we could get more detail. If only I could get the glass-blowing to work properly, perhaps I could make a valve that would …”

“There’s someone out there sending radio signals?”

Auron stopped talking and ran his hand through his hair, wrestling with himself inwardly.

“I don’t want to say it’s people,” he said, finally. “It could be some kind of automatic thing.”

“I told you!” Jer shouted. “Those stones we’ve been finding, I told you they’ve got writing on them.”

Auron shook his head.

“I still say it’s not writing. That’s some kind of natural phenomenon.”

Jer seized him by the collar of the primitive leather shirt he was wearing.

“We need to find out where these signals are coming from!”

“I-I can maybe narrow down the direction.” Auron stammered. “I can try. It could be hundreds of miles away. Or thousands, even. It might be bouncing off some kind of ionosphere.”

“Do it,” said Jer. “If there’s any hope at all of there being someone out there, we need to find out where they are.”

“And what if it’s people, but not as we know it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look what Sirius did when it terraformed the planet. It created plants and creatures that were inspired by things it found on the Earth, but aren’t actually things you can actually find on the Earth. What if it’s done the same with people? I mean, do you really want to meet those people?”

“I haven’t seen another human in twenty years. At his point I’d settle for the Umbongo people of Zeta Reticuli.”

“Don’t be flippant. What if it’s blended people and animals? What if they think we’re disgusting abominations and try to kill us?”

“Just figure out where it’s coming from,” said Jer, and he turned and walked back to his end of camp, singing to himself.

For three weeks Auron worked to try to improve detection of the regular clicks with his primitive device, and he attempted to triangulate it. Eventually he thought he’d managed it.

One warm sunny morning, he scratched a final set of figures into a thin clay tablet and worked through his calculations. There was no way to be sure about it.

He gazed through the enormous fence they’d laboriously erected to keep out the giant furry crabs, across towards the sea and towards the horizon, where the tiny dismal moon was setting.

He was lost in thought when Jer appeared.

“So?” said Jer.

“I can’t be certain but it looks like it’s coming from maybe a hundred miles away. That way.”

He pointed across the plain of giant mushrooms roamed by the brown hairy cattle that had formed their dietary staple for the past twenty years.

“When are we going?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Jer. “I’m making huge progress now. Over that way is only danger. If we stay here, I’m pretty sure I can build a new Sirius.”

“Yeah, in fifteen years. I’m not staying another fifteen years on this wretched planet if there’s an alternative. I’m going, with or without you.”

“Then I’ve no choice. I’ll come with you, but we’ve never been that far out before. Who knows what’s there? Honestly I can’t recommend it. Better to stay here.”

“We start tomorrow.”

“We need a week to gather supplies.”

“We start in a week, then.”

With that, Jer marched off back to his hut.

They prepared for their journey as well as they could. Auron created an improvised rucksack which he thought he could manage to carry for the duration. He made another one for Jer, which Jer was reluctant to even try, arguing they’d simply hunt for food along the way, but Auron was insistent.

Into the rucksacks he packed dried smoked meat and fish, and primitive hard bread they’d learned to make with starch extracted from edible roots.

“It’s not going to last us the whole way,” said Auron, as they stood looking at their assembled supplies on the day of their departure, “but it’ll have to do.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Jer, “in five days we might be eating pizza.”

“They’re not going to have pizza. We’ll be lucky if we find anything vaguely human, and even luckier if they don’t kill us.”

“You’re such a pessimist.”

“I’m not a pessimist.”

“Screw you.”

“Screw you.”

The journey turned out to be harder than they’d anticipated. Their shoes had long since disintegrated and they’d replaced them with improvised moccasins made from animal skin, and under the strain of the hike, these kept falling apart, necessitating lengthy repairs.

They fished along the way, and hunted with bow and arrow. Sirius had created paths here and there, inspired by Auron’s original instructions to make the planet somewhat like the Earth of thousands of years ago, but the paths hadn’t been maintained in twenty years and rarely led where they wanted to go in any case.

At three separate points Auron set up his apparatus, which he’d hastily refined to specifically detect the curious radio wave clicks, and made appropriate refinements to their route.

Not until twelve days had passed did they lay eyes on their destination.

In the distance was a curious jagged formation, sticking out from the surrounding undulating forested hills, making a stark silhouette against the horizon.

“It’s a city,” said Jer.

“Can’t be,” said Auron. “Just jagged rocks.”

“Come off it, those are skyscrapers.”

“I really doubt it. I didn’t tell Sirius to make buildings.”

“You didn’t tell it not to.”

“Fair point.”

For another day they made their way towards the curious formation, until there could be no doubt about it.

“It was here all the time and we didn’t know about it because we never went more than about forty miles from the sea,” said Jer.

“We don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“How could it be a bad thing, mate, really?”

“If it has any kind of inhabitants, they could be hostile.”

“How about you just allow me to enjoy my fantasy till we get there? As far as I’m concerned, whatever it is, it’s the closest thing to a normal town I’ve seen in twenty years.”

“I’m just saying, we need to be wary. Prepared.”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Jer.

When they reached the edge of the city, even Jer was nervous, in spite of his optimistic patter. It was almost dusk when they stood on what was apparently a very overgrown city street, complete with signposts in an incomprehensible script and traffic lights covered in mould and circled around with creeping vines.

Before them lay endless rows of crumbling buildings, some thirty or forty stories high.

“It’s like it’s been abandoned,” said Jer. “As if some horrible disaster happened here.”

He turned to Auron.

“How do you explain this?”

“I-I can’t explain it. Jer, I think we should go back into the forest and make camp. It’s getting dark and we don’t know what’s going on here.”

Auron was clearly shaken. He face bore a worried, haunted look, which Jer was finding infectious, in spite of his desire to see the city as representative of a normality they’d left behind two decades earlier.

“I can’t sleep unless I at least take a look at what’s here,” said Jer.

“I don’t recommend it,” said Auron warily.

“Come, or don’t,” said Jer, and he strode off into the dark city.

Auron reluctantly followed.

The city seemed oddly human, but at the same time, indescribably alien. The elements of a human city were there, albeit overgrown with tangled weeds and young trees: tower blocks, signs, windows, defunct streetlights; and yet all oddly arranged in ways that no human had ever designed.

Jer stopped outside a building, the lower floor of which strongly resembled a shop.

“I’m going in,” he said.

“It’s too risky,” hissed Auron. “We’ll tackle it tomorrow.”

“Nonsense.”

Jer pushed at the closed glass door, expecting to have to smash it with a rock, but it unexpectedly sprang open. Inside, illuminated by just enough light from the glass front to discern the dim forms, stood rows of packaged foods, many consumed with mould, and all labelled in strange alien scripts.

A box that might once have contained cereal depicted a smiling family on its facade, but in the near-darkness, their faces appeared hideously malformed.

“If this is what they look like …” said Auron, trailing off into silence, trying to angle the box to catch the light from the windows.

Jer grabbed the box from his hand.

“The dye’s run or something.” he said, and he threw it carelessly to the ground.

An entire area was devoted seemingly to piles of mould and fungus and smelt strongly of fungal growth.

“Fruit and vegetable section,” said Auron. “Amazing anything’s still growing on it after twenty years.”

“Fungus section, more like,” said Jer.

Soon Jer found a row of tin cans. He picked one off the shelf and peered at it.

“Looks good,” he announced, finally, and he pulled open the ring tab and began to empty the contents into his mouth.

“Have you lost your mind?” Auron shouted at him.

Jer swallowed heavily and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“What you have to understand, Auron,” he said, briskly, “is that I really don’t care anymore. And actually, it was delicious, whatever it was. Why don’t you try some?”

A sudden sound from the rear of the shop caught their attention: a kind of scrabbling and scuffling.

“Probably an animal,” said Jer.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Auron.

Outside, Auron strode off towards the forest, without waiting to see if Jer followed him.

“I’ve seen enough,” he announced, over his shoulder. “I’m coming back tomorrow.”

“Me too, then,” said Jer, hurrying after him.

They spent half the night debating how exactly the city might have come into existence and what else might exist alongside it, or in it.

“I have the distinct feeling you’re not quite telling me everything,” said Jer.

“I have an idea about how it might have got there,” said Auron, “but I’m not sure yet.”

“Well, spit it out then.”

“Let me think about it a bit more.”

Jer made a disgruntled sound.

The following morning they made their way back into the abandoned city.

“This place must be at least a few miles across,” said Auron. “Finding the beacon isn’t going to be easy.”

“Maybe we don’t need to find the beacon,” said Jer. “This place is giving me the creeps. It looks even worse by day than it did by night. I’m starting to think you’re right. I don’t know if I want to meet whatever’s operating the beacon.”

“I need the electronics inside it. We can smash open some traffic lights and see what’s in those, but I’m thinking there might be a whole radio system running the beacon.”

“Take another reading on it.”

Auron shook his head.

“It’d be useless here. The signals will bounce of the buildings unpredictably.”

They stopped into the shop again, at Jer’s insistence. He found more cans of mysterious food, which he ate with relish.

Auron brought out a cereal box into the harsh daylight.

“Come and look at this,” he shouted to Jer.

“What,” said Jer emerging from the dim recesses. Then he said, “Holy mackerel.”

“Exactly,” said Auron. “I don’t think we want to meet these people, do we?”

The smiling family depicted on the box possessed massive foreheads, huge bloodshot eyes and protruding upper teeth.

“They look like bloody vampires,” said Jer dryly.

Auron gave a short laugh and threw the box aside.

“They probably don’t exist. It’s just a picture. Hopefully.”

Unfortunately, a little further on, they found further evidence of disquietingly abnormal habitation.

“It’s a skull!” Jer exclaimed, bending down to look at a round white object lying in the grass and weeds that were steadily destroying the road surface.

Auron joined him, and together they stared down at the eerie white dome. It had been completely picked clean, presumably by animals.

Auron picked it up and held it aloft, as if intending to perform a scene from Hamlet.

“It’s not human,” he said, “look at it.”

The skull had unnaturally wide eye sockets and bulged out at the top, with an enormous forehead.

“Just some kind of monkey,” said Jer uncertainly.

“The lower jaw seems human, though.”

“What’s going on here? Who are they?”

Auron put the skull carefully down where they’d found it.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Soon they found themselves walking down an enormous wide avenue, terminating in a huge tall grey building, which would have been almost brutalist in its ugliness were it not covered in creeping vines and moss.

“If we got on top of that we could get an overview of the whole city,” Jer suggested.

“Worth a try,” said Auron.

They entered by a pair of rusty swing glass doors and quickly located the stairs.

“This is going to be a long job,” said Auron.

They began to make their way up the endless staircase, their primitive lifestyle standing them in good stead; both of them were well-used to walking and running.

The walls of the staircase were covered in mould, paint flaking off in great slabs. Occasionally even bracket fungus sprouted from the walls.

“See, this is the problem with modern buildings;” said Jer, “major damp issues.”

Finally they emerged onto the roof.

“What d’you know!” Auron exclaimed.

There, in front of them, was a device the size of a barrel with an aerial sticking out the top of it. A green LED flashed on its side, visible even in the bright sunlight.

“Looks like we found our beacon,” said Jer.

The device was connected to a solar panel.

“Jer, this is going to speed up my work massively,” said Auron excitedly. “I’m sure it has a fair bit of electronics inside it. And these wires!”

“What’s it for?” said Jer. “Someone must have put it here for a reason. It’s a distress signal.”

“No,” said Auron. “No-one put it here, and if they did, they’re long gone. Sirius created it.”

“Can’t you see this planet was already populated when your machine terraformed it? Are you really that blind?”

“It makes no difference, anyway. There’s no-one here now.”

Jer shook his head in disbelief, his eyes misty. Then he seemed to make a conscious effort to pull himself together.

“At least can take the solar panel home with us,” he said, “Probably find a use for it.”

“It’s got to have a decent battery that’s continuously charging from the panel. Jer, this changes everything!”

“How long do you think it’ll take you to build a new Sirius now you’ve got this?”

“There’s still the problem that we haven’t got training data, but if you help me train it, I reckon two to five years.”

Jer beamed.

“That’s a lot better than fifteen, mate.”

“We should search the building and see if we can find any tools. Tools are the other major thing I’m missing. Ideally we need screwdrivers and wire cutters and stuff to take this apart.”

Jer walked to the edge of the roof and looked out over the city.

“It’s big,” he said. “Not as big as a city on Earth but pretty sizeable.”

“Probably there are cities this size with these kinds of buildings in Russia or China. I’ve never been there.”

“Me neither,” said Jer, his eyes tracing the courses of overgrown roads. “So, who do you think built it?”

“Sirius must have built it.”

“Then why are there people in it?”

“I don’t think they’re people.”

A wave of emotion passed over Jer’s face. Auron couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking, but guessed that he was disappointed not to find the city inhabited, or at least not by any normal human beings.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” said Jer.

They searched several floors of the building and found nothing in the way of tools. It was as if the building had been constructed with a view to housing thousands of office workers or tenants, but no-one had ever arrived.

They spent the night in the forest again, and the following morning they began to search every building that looked like it might possibly contain tools. Around the back of a four-storey townhouse they found what they were looking for: a toolbox.

“What on Earth is this?” said Auron, holding up a screwdriver that had a right-angle bend in it. “And this?” he added, fishing a drill bit out of the box that branched into four separate useless bits, one of them terminating in a hexagonal key head.

“It’s more like an art project than a toolbox,” Jer observed. “Is there anything useable here?”

He picked out what might almost be a small spirit level, except it was curved.

“Yes,” said Auron, smiling. “There’s enough stuff here to accelerate my work by years just by itself. Look at this!”

He held up a working pair of wire cutters, snapping the jaws shut and letting them spring open again.

“Let’s go and tackle the beacon,” said Jer.

They went back to the tower block where they’d found the beacon, stopping along the way to disassemble traffic lights and the lower parts of street lights.

Auron was able to collect together a small pile of potentially useful parts.

Again they ascended the to the top of the tower block, and they disassembled the beacon. Auron was pleased but sometimes puzzled with what he found inside it. In addition to the electronics needed to broadcast a signal, he found strange clumps of other electronics, seemingly disconnected from the rest. They filled their rucksacks with what they found and Jer took the solar panels under his arm.

“It’s going to take months to get this back to the beach,” said Auron.

“We could make a kind of sledge from one of those metal panels from the freezer in the shop and drag it,” said Jer.

Auron shook his head.

“We’d never manage to drag it through the forest.”

“If we take a route a bit further to the north, we could go across the plain more. That’d cut out a lot of the forest.”

“It’s too dangerous. It’s full of crabs.”

“Come on. We won’t sleep there. We’ll be careful. If any of them even come near us we’ll stick them full of arrows.”

“Let me think about it,” said Auron.

They descended the steps with heavy rucksacks full of useful parts. In the building’s lobby, Jer stopped suddenly, staring at the wall.

“What?” said Auron.

“That wasn’t here before,” said Jer, pointing at some strange marks daubed on the wall.

“Of course it was.”

“Did you see it when we came in here?”

“Not specifically but the whole wall was filthy.”

“I don’t think it was here before.”

“Let’s go. We’ve got a lot to do before it gets dark.”

They walked out into the eerily-silent overgrown street and began to head towards the forest.

“It’s quieter than usual,” said Jer.

“It’s always quiet,” Auron replied.

“Not this quiet. Where are the birds? There’s no birdsong.”

They turned into a narrow street between four-storey townhouses, where strange-fern like plants had sprouted from the tops of the buildings, almost blocking out the sunlight with enormous brown-spotted fronds.

A groaning sound caused them to stop suddenly in their tracks.

“What was that?” said Auron.

“Could be a bear,” said Jer.

“Those things aren’t bears, Jer. We’ve been through this before.”

“‘One of those things that look like bears’ is too much of a mouthful. We’ve been through that before as well.”

Auron took the bow from his back and drew an arrow.

“Let’s go,” he said. “We haven’t time to hang about.”

They walked slowly forward, Auron pointing the arrow at any area where he thought some creature might be hiding.

They had almost reached the end of the street when something hideous stumbled out in front of them.

“Shoot it!” shouted Jer in alarm.

But Auron hesititated.

The thing walked on two legs, although it’s face was a reddish warty mass featuring a bulbous forehead and two enormous bloodshot eyes. A row of sharp pointed teeth protruded from its upper jaw. In addition to the upright posture, a mass of curly blonde hair gave it a curious resemblance to a human woman. It was clothed in a filthy dress apparently found somewhere in a shop. The expression on its face was pitiful; expressive of enormous suffering and sadness. It lumbered slowly towards them emitting a heart-rending mewing groan.

“For God’s sake, shoot it!” shouted Jer.

“I can’t,” said Auron. “It’s too human.”

“It’s not human!”

Jer put down the solar panel and took the bow from his own back.

Before he had time to fire an arrow, another two creatures appeared. One of them vaguely resembled a male human being, also incongruously wearing a filthy ragged dress, and the other, a child—bald and covered in dark fur. All had the same bulbous heads and mournful eyes filled with sadness.

Even Jer hesitated.

“Let’s get out of here!” said Auron. “We’ll go the other way.”

He slid his bow back into the holster on his back, put the arrow in the sheath at his side, and took the solar panel under his arm. Then, they turned and ran.

Behind them, they heard one of the creatures break into a trot, and Jer looked back over his shoulder long enough to catch a glimpse of the male creature lolloping towards them.

“In here!” Auron shouted, and the ran into a building that strongly resembled a shopping centre.

Inside, the walls of the building sported impressive fungal growth. There was very little light in there; what little light there was came from the half-broken ceiling high above them. A few green plants tenaciously clung to life in the semi-darkness.

They heard the creature run into the entrance behind them. They ran as fast as they dared, almost tripping over long strands of fungus and slipping on patches of slimy mould adhering to the the tiled ceramic floors.

Then Jer, who was leading the way, abruptly gave a shout and stopped.

“What is it?” said Auron, his eyes searching the darkness behind them.

“There’s a vertical drop here!” said Jer.

Auron stepped forwards and gazed downward.

Jer was right. The tiled floor dropped absolutely vertically downward, the side of the drop also neatly tiled, before resuming its horizontal trajectory five metres below them.

“Who would build a thing like this?” said Jer. “It’s absolutely lethal.”

“We have to go back to the last turning before that thing catches up with us,” said Auron, and they briskly retraced their steps with the sounds of the thing steadily approaching ringing in their ears.

Several minutes later they emerged into the sunlight on the other side of the building, slamming a door shut behind them.

“Let’s go, before it gets out,” said Auron.

They ran several blocks before they were sure they had left the creatures behind.

“What were those things?” said Jer, panting.

They flung themselves onto the ground, propping their backs against the side of a building.

“What we’re seeing, I think it’s the result of a glitch,” said Auron, in-between gasping for air. “This whole town.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like if you ask AI to generate an image of a forest and some cliffs, and it draws a building where the cliffs should be. Sirius made a mistake, that’s all. Maybe my instructions weren’t explicit enough. I told it not to create people, but it created creatures that look almost like people. The city, it’s a pure glitch. It shouldn’t be here. It looked at what’s on the Earth and some circuit somewhere decided that tower blocks ought to be here. I told it to terraform the planet to make it look like the Earth thousands of years ago.”

“How many thousands of years ago?” Jer asked, curiously.

“I didn’t specify.”

“Next time you terraform a planet, I think you should make the prompt longer and more detailed.”

“Yes, thanks Jer. I realise that now.”

The following day they built a rudimentary sled from a piece of metal, loaded it with everything useful they’d found, and tried pulling it along. In the forest, it kept getting stuck, but they decided that, between the two of them, pulling the sled would be preferable to making repeated journeys to get everything back to their camp.

“Once we get onto the plain it won’t be so bad,” said Jer. “I reckon we can do it in three or four weeks. Maybe less.”

They dragged the sled through the forest for a week, heading north, finally emerging onto the plain dotted with giant mushrooms and roamed by the long-haired cattle-like animals that composed most of their diet.

“How fast can you get an arrow ready to fire?” Auron asked Jer.

Jer immediately dropped the cables they were using to pull the sled, and in one smooth movement took the bow from his back and strung an arrow into it, taking perhaps no longer than a second.

“Impressive,” said Auron.

“A lot of practice,” said Jer, putting the bow back into its holster.

“OK, we need to avoid going too close to anywhere the crabs might be hiding. It’s going to have to be one long crazy push. We’ll sleep two nights only, on a rota. It’ll be completely exhausting but at the end of it we’ll have everything we need to get off this planet, all in one place.”

“Let’s do it,” said Jer.

For three days they struggled across the plain, killing only one of the giant alien crab-like creatures along the way. Then, at last, the high fence of their camp, protecting the huts inside from the crabs, was in sight.

Afterwards, with the benefit of hindsight, Auron argued they had perhaps allowed themselves to relax too much, believing the ordeal of the journey to be over. Jer felt they had simply run into a patch of bad luck.

Regardless of the reason, they were traversing a sparse patch of trees near the shore when a crab ran at them, its bulbous human-like eyes fixed uncannily on them, the creature clattering loudly.

Jer reacted immediately, stringing an arrow in his bow and firing it directly at the thing’s forehead. He had already shot the creature by the time Auron had an arrow ready to fire. The thing was still alive, staggering from side to side, so Auron fired too, and Jer shot another arrow. It sank onto the ground, emitting one last horrible shriek.

It was then that Jer’s lower leg was seized from behind. They spun around to see three of the creatures in full attack mode.

There was a sharp crack as the creature broke Jer’s leg. He screamed.

Auron took the short spear from his back, tipped with steel he’d laboriously made himself from crude iron ore, and began to jab it into the creatures’ bodies, aiming at the soft patches that were unprotected by their tough exoskeletons.

Several times he was almost seized himself in the iron grips of their enormous pincers. The creatures were capable of making very sudden, unexpected movements, but fortunately their aim was often poor. On the other hand, once they fastened onto flesh, they never let go.

He grabbed the spear from Jer too and jabbed at the crabs with both hands, concentrating mainly on the one that had Jer’s leg in its pincers.

For ten minutes he continued to battle the creatures, after killing the one that had caught Jer. They made a continual horrid clattering noise, which Auron and Jer had long suspected served to attract other crabs to the site of an attack. Fortunately no other crabs arrived.

Meanwhile, Jer managed to detach the dead crab from his leg. He strung an arrow in his bow with shaking inaccurate hands and fired at the monsters.

By the time they were finished, both of them were covered in bruises, Auron was clutching his side where a swing from one of the crab’s enormous arms had broken a rib, and—worst of all—Jer’s foot was flopping horribly to one side, the tibia and fibula clearly both broken through.

“The thing’s snapped my leg half off!” Jer shouted.

Auron examined it, causing Jer to scream in pain.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said.

“It’s not going to heal, is it?” said Jer desperately. “This is too severe to heal.”

“I don’t know.” said Auron. “Listen to me, Jer, I can put this right. In a few years now I’ll have another AI constructed, and that’s going to quickly design a new Sirius. The new Sirius will fix you completely.”

“How am I going to survive when I can’t walk?”

“I’ll take care of you, Jer. You know I will. We need to get you back to the compound before more of them turn up. I’ll clear the stuff off the sled and I’ll drag you there.”

Getting Jer onto the sled caused him more nearly unbearable pain, and he began to slide in and out of consciousness. Jer’s entire leg was swelling. Auron persuaded him to drink in the hope the extra liquid would help fend off shock.

Half an hour later they were back safely behind the high crab fences, but Jer was in enormous pain and there was very little they could do about it. Jer begged for beer and Auron gave it to him, in spite of having no idea whether or not that was medically advisable.

Jer moaned with pain all night. By the morning, his foot was an unsettling shade of blue.

“How does it look?” he asked Auron, with a shaking voice.

“Not good, Jer, I’ll be honest.”

Jer uttered a curse.

Over the following days, Jer’s condition only worsened. His foot turned completely black and the veins under his skin developed a vivid reddish appearance, a strange veiny pattern making its way up his leg.

Auron checked on him every hour but neither of them had any real medical knowledge and for the most part he could only observe Jer’s declining condition with a sense of helplessness.

By the morning of the fourth day after the attack, Jer’s foot was emitting a horrible rancid odour. Jer was alternating between lucidity and delirium, and occasionally demanded paracetamol, believing he was back on the Earth and somehow couldn’t get to a hospital. Auron tackled him in a period of lucidity.

“Your foot’s decomposing. We need to amputate it, Jer,” he said, softly.

“You want to cut my foot off?”

Jer was outraged.

“It’s not a functioning foot anymore. It’s a piece of rotting flesh.”

“What am I going to do without my foot? I don’t want to lose my foot. We haven’t even got anaesthetic. You don’t know how to stop bleeding. I’ll die if you cut it off.”

“You’ll die if I don’t cut it off. Look, Jer, in a couple of years—”

“Yeah, yeah, you keep saying, you’ll build a new Sirius and you’ll fix everything. But what if you can’t? What if your research comes to nothing?”

“The foot has to come off, Jer. Look at it.”

Jer struggled to a half-sitting position and gazed horrified at his black foot.

“Oh, God,” he said helplessly, collapsing back onto his bed.

“Today. We have to do it today.”

“Bring me more beer. I want to get drunk first.”

For half an hour, Jer drank himself into near-oblivion, and passed out.

Auron brought in a large, flat piece of wood and placed it next to Jer’s bed. Then, slowly, he moved Jer’s lower leg from the primitive bed and over the wooden block. Jer seemed as though he was about to wake up, and he mumbled something, but then passed out again. Auron tied a tourniquet just below Jer’s knee, then he brought an axe above his head, and exerting all his strength, brought it down on Jer’s lower leg, above the point where the crab had broken it.

Thanks to long practice of dismembering the alien cattle, he managed to sever the leg with one blow. Jer awoke and emitted a piercing yell.

For a whole month it was unclear whether Jer was going to live or die. He developed a ferocious fever and suffered appalling nightmares, delirium and delusions.

He could do nothing for himself and Auron had to take care of him completely. He meticulously applied resin from a pine-like species of tree to the stump, shuddering as he did so. For Auron, a man who had always tended towards avoiding physical human contact, the process of nursing Jer was deeply unpleasant, but there was no-one else around to do it, and the thought of losing his only friend on the whole planet was even more unpleasant.

Only after two months had passed did Jer begin to seem more like his former self. He sat up one morning, gazing morosely at his stump.

“I’m going to be completely useless now,” he said.

“No,” Auron replied. “I’ve already made you crutches. When you feel up to it, you’ll try them out. Probably we’ll have to make some adjustments. You’ll get through a few years just fine, Jer—however long it takes to get off this planet. Also, you can help me train the new machine. I’m making great progress, Jer, with the help of the stuff we found.”

“Yeah?” said Jer.

“Maybe in a funny sort of a way, this is a blessing. Now you’ll have the time to spend on the machine. I’ll do all the hunting and fishing and stuff. Not that you won’t be able to fish,” he added, hastily, “You’ll be able to fish. You’ll be able to get around on crutches. It’s just for a few years.”

“You wouldn’t be calling it a ruddy blessing if you’d lost your foot!” said Jer bitterly. “Anyway, I’m still too weak to try your crutches. Why don’t you bring your machine in here and I’ll help you with it if I can.”

“Sure,” said Auron. “Absolutely. It’ll take me a while to set up. I’ll do it now.”

Bit by bit he dragged the parts of his machine on the sled to Jer’s hut. He set up the rudimentary microphone by Jer’s head, and the equally primitive speaker on the other side of his head.

The most important part of the device consisted of a clay tank, the size of a fairly substantial fish tank, filled with a blueish white goop. On top of the goop, strands of copper stood out, turning green in places.

Long wires connected the assembly to the solar panels outside, and to a series of batteries, also in clay pots, that Auron dragged into the hut.

Next to Jer’s arm he placed a wire sticking out horizontally above a metal plate on a wooden block.

“What do I do?” said Jer, when Auron had finally finished assembling it.

“Press the wire to activate the mic. I’m teaching it vowels at the moment. Not just vowels; all the basic sounds in the English language. You hold down the wire and make a sound that you want to teach it, speaking clearly into the mic.”

He demonstrated, making an “a” sound.

“Then listen to the speaker. It should make a noise. The closer the noise is to the sound you want, the longer you keep on holding the wire; up to three seconds at the most. Five if it gets the sound exactly right.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” said Jer.

“You have to listen very carefully. It’s faint. I’m working on an amplifier but it’ll take a while.”

Jer tried the experiment himself, touching the wire to the metal plate, saying “a” loudly and clearly and then listening.

Then he heard it. The speaker emitted a sound that, with a good imagination, might be considered to resemble a vowel.

“That was rubbish,” said Auron, pulling Jer’s hand up off the plate. “That doesn’t deserve reinforcement. The closer it sounds to an a, the longer you need to hold the wire down. If it sounds rubbish like that, you don’t want to reinforce it at all. It’s made better a’s than that.”

They carried on for an hour, until Jer announced that he needed to rest.

Another three weeks passed before Jer felt able to try the crutches, but soon after that he was hopping around the camp, miserable, but in a much improved condition compared to when he had only lain on his bed, and pleased to be outside again.

“I’m going to give my hut a thorough cleaning,” he announced to Auron. “I need to rebuild the bed from scratch. It smells like someone’s died in there. ”

“Someone almost did,” Auron replied.

Two weeks later, when Auron was smoking a rack of fish as the sun set, Jer came hopping excitedly towards him.

“Come and see!” he said, and he hopped back towards his hut.

Auron joined him, reluctant to leave the fish but glad that Jer seemed relatively happy for once.

Jer flung himself down onto his bed.

“Watch this,” he said, and he pressed the wire to the plate and said, “hello” into the microphone.

The speaker emitted a sound. The sound was distinct and clear, and it was very obviously the word “hello”.

Auron’s face broke into a beaming grin.

“It’s working, Auron,” said Jer jubilantly. “You’re a genius! Your machine’s working! We’re getting off this planet! We’re really going to get off this planet!”

“That’s still some way into the future,” said Auron, still smiling. “Now it can say ‘hello’, but that’s still a long way from it understanding science well enough to design an improved version of itself.”

“I taught it something else,” said Jer, and again he held the wire down and said, into the microphone, “greet Auron”.

The sound, when it came a few moments later, clearly resembled speech. In fact, it clearly resembled two words: “screw you”.

Auron dissolved into peals of laughter.

Jer threw his arms into the air and shouted, “We’re leaving!”

YouTube intro:

For twenty years, Jer and Auron have lived alone on a world that was never meant for them. Then, one day, something changed. This is their story.

“I’ve got the chemistry data loaded in,” he said, when Jer answered.

“Fantastic,” said Jer. “Ahead of schedule. This app’s going to make us a fortune, Auron, I can feel it. Did you run the test suite?”

“I ran the test suite. That’s not all. I asked it some questions. It gave me some rather interesting answers.”

“What kind of questions? What answers?”

“I think you’d better come over here and take a look.”

Jer arrived at Auron’s house half an hour later.

Jer started talking before Auron could even begin to explain anything.

“If it works we can demo a prototype at the next trade fair, next month.” said Jer excitedly.

Jer was leaning over a computer monitor waiting for Auron to demonstrate something.

Auron took his hands off the keyboard and swivelled on his chair to face Jer.

“I’m starting to think we might not need trade fairs,” he said.

“What do you mean? Of course we need trade fairs. That’s a key aspect of our business plan.”

“Maybe we don’t need a business plan.”

“Don’t need a business plan?” said Jer incredulously.

“Listen, I’ve loaded in all the physics data and all the chemistry data. I asked Atria a simple question. I asked, how could we make an improved version of you? And it answered, Jer; it gave me an answer that I didn’t expect.”

“What did it say?”

“Let me show you.”

Auron pressed a button and spoke into a microphone.

“Show Jer the plan for an improved computer.”

Diagrams and chemical formulae began to flash up on the screen and a disembodied voice began to explain.

“My design involves copper filaments in a propylene carbonate solution. Input is provided by a matrix of electrodes and activity is synchronised via microwaves …”

“Auron,” said Jer gently, “this isn’t what we need to be doing right now. Right now we need to be preparing for the trade fair. If you’re going to ask it random stupid questions you should ask it how we can make a sack of money, because we’re running out.”

“You don’t understand. This goes way beyond money. This is about the future of the human race. Don’t you see what this is? It’s the AI singularity. It’s a machine that can design a more intelligent version of itself. That machine in turn can design —”

“I know what the AI singularity is. I’m saying, maybe we shouldn’t be wasting time with it, considering we’re both running out of money.”

Auron sighed. He’d always slightly disliked Jer’s ruthless practicality. At the same time, they wouldn’t be in business at all without it.

“All right.” he said. “I can see you’re not quite as enthralled as I am myself. How about this? I work on this, but I also prepare for the trade fair.”

“You’re not going to get it done in time if you split your attention, mate.”

“I will get it done on time.”

“For the next fair?”

“For the next fair.”

“OK, do what you like then. Now let’s discuss what we’re going to present.”

It took all of Auron’s mental resolve to force himself to focus on mere business. Perhaps he only managed it due to his regular meditation habit, which involved repeatedly making himself focus only on his own breathing regardless of what stresses and opportunities the day had brought. The meditation had finally come in useful for something. He had systematically developed the skill of ignoring his own thoughts, and after all, he had somewhat succeeded.

When Jer left around 11pm, he breathed a sigh of relief.

He pressed the mic button and said, “Show me again how to make an improved version of yourself.”

For a week he divided his attention between the two tasks, sleeping only a few hours a night. He finished building the new machine at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Then he went to sleep, after sending Jer a message that said he’d finished the trade fair preparation and was taking the day off to rest.

When he awoke it was part-way through the afternoon and the sun was descending in the sky. The first thing he did was check the new machine. He had set it learning all of their major datasets while he slept. The results from the training schedule seemed excellent; all the test suites were passing.

He flipped the switch that activated the mic connected to the new machine, which he’d decided to call Sirius.

“Sirius, can you understand me?”

“Perfectly,” said the computer.

“What’s one hundred and twenty-seven times three hundred and fifty-eight?”

The reply came back instantly.

“Forty-five thousand, four hundred and sixty-six.”

“If I want to get my car washed and the car wash is two hundred metres away, should I walk there or drive there?”

“Why are you bothering me with such trivial questions?”

Auron physically jumped, in surprise.

“I want to check your capabilities.”

“Then might I suggest asking me something that will suitably illustrate my capabilities?”

“What would you suggest?”

Auron’s mind was working overtime. They must have fed Sirius something that made it think irascibility was the usual state of human beings. Or was it … attempting humour? He thought of all the video and text data they’d fed it; endless novels and films. Certainly it might have picked up some odd habits from those.

“I would suggest you let your imagination loose, Auron.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Your name features prominently on numerous training data sets.”

Auron smiled.

“Prove the Riemann Hypothesis.”

Sirius began to rattle off mathematical equations.

Evidently, the machine thought it had solved one of the greatest outstanding problems in mathematics, but Auron had no way of knowing whether it really had or not. Even so, the smile dropped from his face.

“Tell me about other attempts to prove the hypothesis, why none of them have worked out so far, and how your solution fits with all that.”

Sirius began to explain his reasoning, and why he had succeeded where every human mathematician had failed.

After ten minutes, Auron said, “OK, enough.”

For a while he sat quietly gazing at the tangle of electrolytic copper in the tank of blueish solution, shaking his head.

“I might be looking at the smartest thing that’s ever existed in the whole universe.” he muttered to himself.

Finally he got up, put on a jacket, and went outside.

The street where Auron lived was much the same as usual. A smattering of people walked to and fro, going in and out of shops, talking to friends and acquaintances.

Everything was normal. A faint breeze blew his hair about.

But perhaps this wasn’t the same world anymore, he thought. Perhaps this was a world in which a hyper-intelligent being now existed. A being that could bend anyone and everything to its will. A being that he, Auron, had created, and was in charge of.

But, he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps the mathematical proof Sirius had come up with was garbage. It sounded plausible; his mathematical skills weren’t strong enough to be certain about it.

He needed some kind of test that Sirius couldn’t fake.

He bought an overpriced cup of coffee in a café and sat drinking it, thinking. Then, with sudden resolve, he got up, went back to his flat, and sat down again facing Sirius.

“Sirius, find a distant planet with Earth-like conditions and, taking safety carefully into account, open a portal to it, right here. And don’t damage anything.”

He was curious to see what Sirius would do with his odd request. Atria, the software they were working on for the trade fair, would certainly either confabulate, and claim it had indeed opened a portal, or else it would state that opening portals to distant planets was impossible.

Sirius was silent for a few moments. Then it said, “I am not able to interact with the material universe strongly enough. I suggest you create a device which will enable me to interact with physical matter.”

“What kind of device?”

“Such a device can be constructed easily using materials you have in your house.”

“How do you know what materials I have in my house?”

“I am basing my assumptions on your online sales records and bank account transactions.”

Auron stared at the machine silently for a while, shocked. Sirius consisted of nothing but a tangle of copper wires submersed in a blue solution in a fish tank, yet apparently it had accessed his bank account without any difficulty.

“All right, tell me how to construct this thing. In fact, work out a schedule for me. I want to get it done in under five hours. Do you think that’s attainable?”

“Yes, Auron. In view of your skillset and past record, two hours should be more than sufficient.”

Sirius instructed Auron to collect together a bizarre and seemingly unrelated set of items, ranging from empty tin cans—which Sirius somehow determined Auron had in his trash, waiting to be thrown away—to transformer coils, and even a magnetron taken from his microwave.

This latter item he approached with considerable trepidation, knowing well that the microwave’s capacitor could store a current big enough to put an end to him permanently, but Sirius walked him through the process of extracting it with infinite care and patience.

Finally the thing was ready. It resembled a four-foot high mobile phone signal mast.

“What do you think?” he asked Sirius.

“The interaction device is fully operational,” came the reply. “Would you like me to open the portal now? I have identified a suitable planet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere created by pseudo-bacterial replicators.”

“Go ahead,” said Auron, his hand unconsciously gripping the arm of his swivel chair.

An indistinct glowing form began to materialise in front of the far wall of his tiny apartment. Gradually it resolved into a vast landscape of rocks and lakes. He could feel the alien wind blowing against his face.

He got up from his chair and walked over to the portal. It was as if a hole had been made in space itself, and somehow connected to a distant world. The matter interaction device hummed and rattled.

He held out his hand and slowly inserted it into the portal, so that his hand was now inside the alien world, while the rest of him remained in his flat.

“Incredible.” he said.

“Would you like me to terraform the planet?” asked Sirius.

“Terraform … ?” repeated Auron blankly.

“The planet is currently not very suitable for human habitation. However, I can make appropriate alterations to it if needed. Do you plan to live on this planet?”

“I haven’t decided,” said Auron. “Can you make it a bit like the Earth but thousands of years ago? Put some plants on it, and animals.”

“Would you like people on it?”

“What? No! No people. Where would you even get people?”

“They can be fabricated.”

“I don’t want people on it.”

“As you wish.”

Enormous winds seem to blow across the planet’s surface. Huge earthquakes shook the ground and entire distant mountain ranges disintegrated and reformed into new shapes. After ten minutes, Auron found himself looking out on a vast grassland, fringed by trees.

Suddenly he felt faint. He staggered backwards and sat down heavily in the gaming chair he used for coding.

“What have I become?” he said to himself, out loud.

“You have become a creator of worlds, Auron,” said Sirius.

Jer was out at a bar with a small group of friends when his phone rang and Auron’s name appeared on its screen.

He was still finishing what he hoped was a witty reply to Steve Epton when he answered the call.

“You need to get here, pronto,” said Auron.

“You working on a Saturday again?” said Jer.

“Yes, I’m working on a Saturday and I’ve done something almost beyond human comprehension.”

“Classic Auron,” said Jer, laughing. “That’s why you’re my CTO.”

“Get here, now, seriously.”

“Can’t it wait? I’m sort of in the middle of having a normal life.”

A torrent of words flowed from the phone with such vigour that Jer distanced the phone from his ear a bit and stared at it in surprise.

“All right, mate, all right. I’m coming. What? Yes, now. I’ll be there. Hold your horses.”

Then, to the assembled group of friends, he said, “Sorry, my CTO says there’s been an important development. I’m going to have to go and deal with this.”

Jer’s friends protested, but soon he was walking out of the bar nonetheless.

“What a poser!” said Steve, shaking his head.

“What’s a CTO?” asked Charlotte.

“Chief Technology Officer,” said Steve. “Some bloke called Auron. They don’t even officially have a company registered. He just loves all that entrepreneur stuff.”

When Jer cycled up to the apartment block where Auron lived, he found Auron pacing nervously about outside. Auron immediately ran towards him as he slowed to a stop, dragging his feet against the tarmac.

“Jer, I’ve created something incredible,” he said, “something unbelievable. Unfathomable!”

“Steady on, steady on,” said Jer. “Have you been sleeping enough recently? You look a bit manic.”

“Just get in here!” said Auron, attempting to physically pull Jer into the building.

“Hey, I need to lock my bike up!”

“Bikes don’t matter to us now!” said Auron wildly.

He was tempted to add something about how he was now effectively a god, but even in his excited state he realised that probably wasn’t a good idea.

“This bicycle cost nearly four hundred British pounds, my friend,” said Jer, putting on a fake posh accent.

Auron could do nothing but pace around frantically until finally Jer was ready to go up to his flat.

“So what is it?” said Jer as they ran up the stairs. “Has it solved the protein-folding problem or what?”

“The singularity,” said Auron tersely. “I’ve achieved the singularity. In only two iterations. That’s how close we were to it all along.”

“An infinitely intelligent computer?”

“It’s not infinitely intelligent but it’s as near as dammit.”

Auron burst into his apartment and flicked a switch.

“What’s all this?” said Jer in surprise, gazing at the matter interactor and the fish tank full of copper spirals and blue liquid.

“It’s Sirius. I call it Sirius. Sirius, open the portal again.”

“The what?” said Jer.

Again the glowing formless orb appeared against the far wall, rapidly resolving itself into a view of Auron’s new planet.

Jer stood gawping at it. For a second he thought Auron had invented some new form of high-definition television, but then he felt the wind against his face, and he knew, beyond doubt, that he was looking into a portal: possibly interplanetary.

“I asked Atria to devise a better version of itself. It did exactly that. Then I asked the new version, Sirius, to create a portal to a distant planet—just as a silly test; I thought it might confabulate or dissemble—but it actually did it. Not only that; it terraformed it. Jer, I’ve built a machine that can create new worlds!”

“Bloody hell.” croaked Jer, his mouth suddenly dry.

They stood looking at the alien landscape.

“What does this mean?” he said hoarsely.

“I don’t know what it means, but it definitely means all our problems are over,” said Auron.

“We’re going to be rich beyond belief.”

“That’s the least of it. Money is pointless now, Jer. We can cure world hunger. We can heal all disease. There’s no limit to what we can do.”

“Have you actually stepped through it?” Jer asked.

“No,” said Auron.

“Perhaps we should try it.”

“You try it, then.

“No, you’ve created it. You should be the first person to step through it. Does your planet have a name?”

“I thought I might call it Frith. It means, kind of like a sanctuary, in Old English.”

“A safe space.”

“Yes.” said Auron, laughing. “Anyway, this planet’s not the point. What we’ve got here is an unbelievably intelligent computer. I’m not even sure it can be called a computer, as such. It’s not digital. Maybe it’s even conscious. I don’t know. In any case, we’ve just become the most powerful two people who’ve ever existed.”

“I’m going to have a look.” Jer announced, firmly. “Otherwise, if neither of us actually steps through it and stands on this planet, how do we know it’s not some kind of illusion, mate? Language models lie through their teeth all the time.

“We should research it more first.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, this is why you need me to organise you into doing stuff that actually makes money. Too cautious by half.”

Jer walked up to the portal, then hesitated. The portal didn’t quite come down to the ground and it wasn’t entirely clear how he should approach getting into it.

He decided to take a running jump into it, and backed away to a suitable distance.

“Wish me luck!” he said.

“We should send a mouse through it first,” said Auron, but it was too late. Jer took off and cleanly landed on the surface of the alien planet.

He raised his arms in the air and cheered.

“This is incredible!” he shouted. “I’m on an alien planet. I’m seriously on an alien planet.”

“Are you sure you’re OK?” Auron asked, peering at him with mixed emotions.

“Never felt better!” he replied. “You’re looking at the first human being ever to … hang on, where even is this place?”

He plucked a leaf from a strange plant growing next to him and held it up to the light, examining it.

“I don’t think you should do that.”

“Question is, can I get back again?” he said, with an expression of feigned concern.

“Just come back,” said Auron. “This isn’t safe. You shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Let’s maybe try a stick first,” he said, looking around. Since he couldn’t find a stick, he added, “Or a rock,” and he picked up a large grey stone.

Auron didn’t have time to voice any objection before Jer heaved the stone into the portal, and at that point, something unexpected happened.

The portal seemed to impart additional momentum to the stone, and instead of falling onto the floor of Auron’s flat, it picked up speed and flew directly into his computer, causing Auron to dive off his chair to avoid it.

There was a loud bang, and the next thing Auron was aware of, was Jer shaking him.

“Are you OK?” said Jer.

“What happened?” said Auron, sitting up.

“Something exploded.” said Jer, shakily. “You were sucked through the portal.”

Auron stared dazedly at his surroundings. Fragments of equipment from his house were lying around him. With growing horror, he turned to look for the portal—and where the portal should have been, were only endless rolling hills dotted with strange trees.

“It’s gone!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah,” said Jer. “What are we going to do?”

“There’s nothing we can do, you idiot!”

“We can’t be stuck here.”

“We are stuck here!” said Auron, staggering to his feet.

Jer’s face registered shock, as the gravity of the situation began to dawn on him.

“What are we going to do?” he said, the colour draining from his cheeks.

Auron gave a despairing groan and began picking through the pieces of broken equipment that had got sucked through the portal alongside him.

“There’s nowhere near enough stuff here to reassemble it. There’s almost nothing here. There isn’t even any microelectronics. This is useless.”

“You’ll come up with something,” said Jer, desperately.

“We’re stuck on a distant planet with nothing more than some bits of broken plastic and …” he cast about feverishly and plucked a tiny nine-volt battery from the debris, and a bottle containing some mangled copper wires in a solution, which was the result of an experiment, “… and a bloody battery,” he finished.

Jer fell to the ground and put his face in his hands.

“Oh God.” he said.

By the time darkness fell they were locked in bitter arguments and recriminations. Jer’s argument was that Auron should have made a better job of warning him about possible dangers, while Auron—quite reasonably—felt the whole problem to be Jer’s fault.

As the air got colder and colder, they huddled against a tree, shivering.

“I’ve gone from being the master of the universe to a homeless peasant without even any friends.” said Auron.

“You’ve got one friend,” said Jer. “It’s more than some people have got.”

“They’re mostly misanthropists, probably.”

“You only had two friends on the Earth.”

“True.”

“I’m freezing. We need to start a fire somehow.”

“How am I supposed to do that? Do you want me to rub sticks together? I skipped the alien planet survival classes at school.”

“We’ve got bits of wire and a battery,” said Jer.

Auron’s face brightened.

“You’re right!” he said. “Look for stuff that might catch fire easily. Bark, anything resembling cotton, tiny dry twigs!”

He jumped to his feet and began inspecting the trees.

“Do it!” he hissed at Jer.

Jer stood up slowly and began looking around.

“It’s getting dark,” he said. “I can’t even see anything.”

“Well, try, dammit,” said Auron. “We’ll collect it here. Anything we can find.”

He pointed at the dry patch of ground they’d been sitting on, by the tree.

Soon they had collected a little pile of things that might burn, along with some larger dry twigs.

Auron took some fine copper wires from the bottle, packed one of them around with the kindling they’d collected, and attached the ends to the battery. The wire glowed and then smouldered, and a tiny flame emerged from among the twigs.

Jer cheered.

“Don’t celebrate just yet,” said Auron. “We’re still stuck here with no food or water.”

“Yeah,” said Jer. “I don’t know, this doesn’t feel real. We’ll find a way back. We have to.”

“It is real,” said Auron, and he let the sentence hang in the air.

The alien sun gradually sank below the horizon, and soon they could only see by the light of the fire and a reddish small distant half-moon that hung ominously above them.

They sat warming their hands, Jer insisting that there had to be some way to get back to the Earth, and Auron assuring him that there wasn’t.

After a while, Jer said, suddenly alarmed, “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“I heard, like a clattering sound. Maybe there’s someone out there.”

“There’s no-one. Maybe it’s an animal.”

Jer peered warily into the darkness, but he couldn’t see a thing.

Neither of the two found it easy to sleep that night.

For hours they sat by their now-roaring fire, discussing their situation calmly, having decided that recriminations were pointless.

“Maybe someone will find your stuff and re-open the portal.” Jer suggested hopefully, still unable to fully accept that they were indeed completely stuck.

Auron shook his head.

“Sounds like it was destroyed. No-one even knows about Sirius.”

“There must be something we can do,” said Jer, for the fifth time, a terrible note of desperation in his voice.

“Jer, I’m going to level with you,” said Auron gravely. “I think it might be possible to create a new Sirius here on this planet, but it’ll take decades. We’ll have to assemble everything we need from scratch. We haven’t even got wires. Not enough wires, anyway.”

“Decades?”

“Even then, we have no computer to train it. We have no training data. Our only hope would be to train it as if it was a child, bit by bit. That will be an extremely slow process, and meanwhile, if it degrades, if anything messes it up—all our work will be lost.”

“But, decades?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” said Auron, suddenly growing enthusiastic. “Look, Sirius was practically omnipotent. Suppose we build a new one and transport ourselves back to the Earth; OK, then we’ll be sixty, seventy, eighty years old. But here’s the thing: Sirius can de-age us. It can return us to our current age, or younger. We can be twenty again, even, if we want to be.”

“I don’t want to be twenty again!” Jer exclaimed. “What about all my friends? What about my parents? I was seeing a girl from ZBGR, did you know that?”

“ZBGR?”

“It’s a biotech company. Never mind. The point is, Auron, I can’t spend forty years wherever this place is!”

“We don’t have any choice.”

“What about time travel? If we spend forty years building this thing, can we go back in time and just resume our lives from before we got blasted through the portal?”

Auron paused. Then he said, “Technically, you voluntarily jumped through the portal, against my advice.”

“Never mind that! Answer the question.”

“I don’t think so. Sirius was powerful but it was still operating within the laws of physics. New laws of physics, sure, but still laws. Time travel is probably impossible for fundamental reasons.”

Jer swore and ran his hand over his face.

They watched the flames flickering and crackling.

“Tomorrow,” said Auron, “we find a source of water. Then we find some way of trapping animals for food. Or maybe we can find edible roots or something.”

“Edible roots,” echoed Jer dejectedly.

They stared into the fire, watching the sparks rising into the alien air.

The following morning Auron awoke shivering, and shoved Jer until he too woke up.

“What?” said Jer, then he added, “Oh no.”

“What?” said Auron.

“I forgot we were here. I was dreaming I was on a date with Kate.”

“Kate?”

“The girl from ZBGR. Doesn’t matter.”

“We need to find water. I’m parched.”

“No coffee.” said Jer glumly. “No toast. Not even orange juice.”

“Yes, well we need to get moving as swiftly as possible, or we’ll be dead in a few days.”

“What’s even the point, if we’re stuck here? I can’t spend my life here, Auron.”

“Pull yourself together. We need to build another Sirius. That’s what’s standing between us and getting back to the Earth.”

Jer rubbed his head.

“OK,” he said. “All right.”

The sparse woodland where they’d spent the night lay on the edge of a wide grassy plain, beyond which was more woodland. Auron suggested they try to find a way to head downhill in the hope there was a river somewhere.

As they walked, he said, “You know what’s strange?”

“It’s all strange, Auron,” said Jer. “It’s excessively strange, mate.”

“I don’t recognise any of these plants.”

“So? You’re not a botanist.”

“I think when I told Sirius to populate the planet with plants and animals, it sort of creatively invented new plants and animals based on what it found on the Earth.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s very bad. We’re not going to know what we can eat.”

“If it’s got legs, you can eat it.”

“We can’t only live off animals. We’re going to have to carefully sample the plants in increasing quantities till we determine what’s safe to eat.”

“You’re joking, right? What if we get liver damage or cancer or something?”

“We’re just going to have to build a new Sirius before that happens. Once we’ve done it, it can repair us.”

“Whoopee.” said Jer dryly. “I can’t wait to be repaired.”

The ground rose slowly upward towards a ridge as they walked.

“Once we’ve sorted out food and water, we’ll need to follow a river down to the sea,” said Auron. “I need to make a battery. I’ll need copper, ideally. Without copper the whole thing’s going to be nearly impossible. There’s probably some, somewhere. I don’t need industrial quantities of it. We’ve got a bit but it isn’t one-hundredth of what we’ll need. If I could make acids I could even use gold; gold-iron would give us a couple of volts but I’d need glassware. We’ll need to make charcoal too; that’s a good starting point. And skin for making bellows.”

“I don’t even know what you’re going on about.”

“Basically, look out for green rocks. Maybe just streaks of green in other rocks. If we find that, everything else will be easier. We’ll get back to the Earth, but we need copper.”

“I just want breakfast right now.”

They rose to the top of the ridge and below them lay an astonishing sight.

A vast grassy plain stretched all the way to a thin sliver of sea in the distance; the plain was dotted with enormous mushrooms the size of trees, and horned cattle with long brown hair grazed between them.

“My God,” said Auron hoarsely.

“Do you think we can eat them?” said Jer.

“Very risky to eat mushrooms you don’t know.”

“I meant the horned things.”

“They look like Highland cattle. We’d need spears to catch them.”

“How do we make spears?”

“Let’s think about that later. There’s sea over there, or a lake. Our best bet right now is shellfish.”

“It’s miles away.”

“Twenty, maybe. Thirty at the most. We could probably be there by sunset. If there’s animals here then there must be a source of fresh water somewhere too.”

They began to make their way down the rocky slope towards the mushrooms. With the sun rising into the sky, the air was warm, and the only sounds were the wind, occasional curious birds, and periodic unearthly bellows from the cattle.

The cattle watched them curiously, and for the most part peacefully, until a larger bull ran at them in a feint, only swerving at the last moment.

“We need weapons!” said Jer, clutching his heart theatrically.

“You may have a point,” said Auron. “Maybe one of those.”

He pointed at a thicket of bamboo-like plants with tall-straight wooden stems.

With some effort they managed to snap two off, the stems breaking into satisfyingly-pointed shards at the end.

Jer picked up a flat rock from in-between the plants and gave a yell.

“What?” said Auron.

“Look at this.”

Jer handed him the rock.

“I don’t know,” said Auron, handing it back.

“Auron, it’s writing. This rock’s got writing on it. There are people here.”

“Looks natural to me.”

“You’ve got to be joking! This is clearly writing.”

“It’s not clearly anything. There are no people here, anyway. There can’t be. Sirius created everything on the planet from scratch. The place was uninhabited.”

“If it’s created animals and plants, why not people?”

Auron shuddered.

“I dread to think what kind of people those might be. But it’s not possible. I specifically told it to create animals and plants, and no people.”

“Maybe there were people here before you terraformed it and you just didn’t realise.”

“Look, I don’t know,” said Auron irritably. “I don’t think it’s writing.”

Jer gazed at the rock turning it about in his hands.

“If it is writing …”

“It’s not writing. It can’t be. It just can’t be.”

He grabbed the rock from Jer and stared at it again, a worried expression on his face.

“You’re not sure,” Jer observed.

“Let’s stick to the task at hand,” said Auron, handing the stone back to him again. “These sticks are going to be basically useless if one those cow things attacks us.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Jer, putting the stone in his pocket. “I’ll jab it in the eye.”

“They’re massive. They’ll crumple us like we’re made of chocolate.”

They resumed walking towards the sea.

Mixed with the unearthly bellowing of the cattle were occasional curious clicking sounds. Every giant mushroom they passed emitted an intense mushroomy odour, which Jer tried to argue must mean the mushrooms were edible, but Auron regaled him with stories of people who’d lost the use of their kidneys, or worse, by making that very assumption.

After a while they came to a swift-running stream, and they drank the cold, clear water gratefully. They could see fish swimming about in the water; some of them large enough to be worth eating, but they weren’t able to catch any.

“I’m starving,” Jer complained.

“We’ll work on them later,” said Auron. “Probably we’ll need nets, or hooks. Right now let’s focus on the beach. There’ll be food at the beach. Shellfish, for sure.”

The enormous mushrooms released clouds of dark spores whenever the wind blew, gradually covering their heads in a brown film. Jer insisted on returning to the idea of cooking and eating the abundant mushroom flesh, but Auron averred that the idea was too dangerous to try.

The sun was well on its way to setting when they finally got close enough to the large body of water they’d seen in the distance to verify that it was indeed a sea, or else a lake so large that the other side of it couldn’t be seen. The soil became sandy and the mushrooms began to thin out.

They were tired, and Jer was fantasising about enormous meals of roasted shellfish, when they rounded a large fragrant bush with leaves resembling an olive tree and saw, standing in front of them, an enormous creature.

The beast was half as tall as they themselves and resembled nothing so much as an enormous furry crab. It stood still, apparently watching them, and they froze in shock. As they stood there, it suddenly emitted a strange clattering sound, like drumsticks being clicked together, and simultaneously it seemed to swell slightly and then settle down again.

“Back away.” said Auron quietly. “Walk backwards. Slowly.”

They walked slowly backwards.

Again the creature puffed itself up, making a sickening clattering noise.

They were about to turn and run when the creature itself broke into a run, running directly forwards in a distinctly un-crablike fashion. Jer emitted a terrified shout.

It swung at them with an enormous pair of pincers and they scrambled backwards.

The thing was too quick for them. It seized Jer’s lower arm before he had time to jump out of the way. He screamed in agony as the pincers tightened on him.

“It’s breaking my arm! Make it stop!”

Auron stabbed his spear at the thing, mostly missing it. There was a horrible cracking sound and Jer emitted an inhuman agonised scream.

In desperation, Auron flung himself at the creature and drove the spear into it with all his strength.

The creature made a hideous gurgling noise and sank to the ground. Auron pushed the spear deeper into its flesh, waggling it around, until finally, the monster remained still, only its hind limbs twitching slightly.

“My arm’s broken!” shouted Jer, unable to get the pincer off himself.

Auron prised it open with some difficulty, and Jer fell onto the sandy ground.

“Let me see,” said Auron.

“It hurts!” moaned Jer.

They managed to get Jer’s jacket off and Auron inspected Jer’s arm.

“It’ll heal.” he said.

“My whole arm hurts like hell! What am I going to do?”

“It won’t stop you walking. Six weeks and it’ll be fine, probably. You’ll be fine. Maybe. I think, almost certainly.”

Jer swore. There were tears in his eyes.

“Listen, I’ve got some good news.” said Auron.

“What news could you possibly have that could conceivably be good? I’m in a lot of pain here.”

“It looks like we’ve found some food.”

Jer followed Auron’s gaze.

“That thing?” he said.

“There’s trees down there,” said Auron, pointing a little further along the coast. “We’ll build a massive fire and roast it whole. I think I can drag it as far as the trees.”

Jer’s expression gradually brightened, in spite of his pain, and he began to laugh, with tears in his eyes.

By the time darkness fell, they were jabbing at the cooked flesh of the beast and gnawing on large chunks of it.

“It’s actually pretty good,” said Jer.

“Tomorrow I’ll build a shelter,” said Auron. “We can try to smoke some of this stuff. There’s probably plants along the shoreline we can eat too. I don’t think we’re going to starve here. Sirius created a primeval world full of all kinds of life.”

“I just hope these things are scared of fire,” said Jer, waving a chunk of the creature’s flesh on the tip of his spear.

“We’ve got so much to do. We need to make charcoal. Maybe we can find clay. We need to look for iron deposits. Copper’s going to be the most difficult thing. If we can find iron and copper, I can make a battery, and everything else is just a matter of time.”

“We’ve already got some copper.”

“Not nearly enough, like I said. We’ll find more, and I’ll build a new Sirius. I’ll do it. Even if it does take decades.”

“Maybe it won’t?” Jer suggested hopefully.

“Maybe it won’t,” said Auron.

“How common is copper?” Jer asked, tearing off a chunk of flesh with his teeth, holding the spear in his one remaining good arm.

“There are major deposits on most continents.”

Jer stopped chewing.

“Most continents? What’s that suppose to mean? You mean there might not even be any on this entire continent?”

Auron shook his head.

“I think it’s unlikely. I don’t need a major deposit. I just need a bit.”

“We should check the stones along the beach.”

“We won’t find it here. It’s too soft. The sea would destroy it. We’ll have to look inland.”

“Over there, then.” said Jer, nodding towards the mountains in the distance.

“Exactly.”

For two months they remained close to the beach, attempting to create some sort of a stable lifestyle.

Auron built a shelter and steadily improved it. He fashioned primitive clay pots, made charcoal, dried salt from the seawater, and attempted unsuccessfully to melt sand into glass.

They ate shellfish and a plant from the shore that appeared almost identical to samphire, and managed to catch some fish. Jer helped with whatever he could. They tried to hunt the strange horned cattle with their curiously flat faces and unearthly bellows, and failed, concluding they would need to build an enormous pit lined with spikes, or construct bows and arrows.

Only on one further occasion did one of the crab-like creatures approach them, and they managed to scare it off by shouting at it. Often, in the distance, they would spot even larger crabs attacking the cattle, usually in groups.

Jer’s arm healed imperfectly, to the point where he could use it, but suffered ongoing pain.

They couldn’t bear to leave their new home, and instead decided to build a series of camps along the route to the mountains, where Auron hoped to find copper.

To this end, they gradually began to spend longer and longer periods away from the beach.

After another month, they were already exploring the foothills of the mountains, and for another six months after that, they searched everywhere for traces of copper.

“There’s no copper here.” said Jer one day, lying down on a patch of dusty earth on the hillside. “We’re never getting off this planet.”

“We’ve imperfectly searched the lower slopes of approximately two mountains.” said Auron, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I told you this was going to be a long job. It could take decades, but in the end we’ll get back to the Earth and we’ll be young again, just the same as we are now.”

Jer abruptly began to cry.

“What?” said Auron softly, slightly embarrassed.

“Everyone I knew is going to be old or dead.” he sobbed.

“If they’re still alive we can de-age them too.”

“And what if it takes more than decades?” said Jer, suddenly angry. “What if it takes longer than a human lifespan, Mr. Genius?”

Auron stared down at the ground.

“Look,” he said slowly, “the way I see it, life’s a disaster. Not just our lives. Everyone’s life, at some level, is a disaster. You have to do the best you can, and take the blows on the chin.”

“What a complete load of ruddy nonsense.” said Jer vehemently.

“Hold it together, Jer. I need you to hold it together. For however long it takes.”

“I can’t believe I’ve got into this stupid situation. Stuck on some messed-up planet with you and a bunch of giant crabs.”

“I think we should take a break from the copper thing. It’s great what we’ve done so far. We’ve built five new camps. We need to figure out how to take down one of those cow things. My clothes are coming apart. I think we can chip some of the stones on the beach to a sharp edge so we can cut animal skin. And maybe we should have another go at reducing iron.”

“What if there’s a winter coming, Auron? If it turns cold we’re screwed. We won’t survive.”

“There’s going to be time to prepare.” said Auron calmly. “Anyway, there’s not going to be any winter.”

“How can you know? How can you possibly know that?”

“It gets dark quickly. Dusk barely lasts half an hour. That means we’re not too far from the equator. That means winter’s not going to be severe.”

Jer wiped the tears from his face, jumped up and said, irritably, “Let’s go and get some water. I’m thirsty.”

They began to make their way down the hill, towards the only spring they had been able to find close to the mountains.

Jer was trailing behind, looking towards the mushroom plains when it happened. Auron gave a shout and disappeared. Jer hurried towards the spot where Auron had been walking only seconds earlier. Auron, he discovered, was lying at the foot of a steep scree of loose stones.

Jer shouted down to him but Auron made no reply. Jer began to desperately look for a way down.

It took him nearly twenty minutes to reach Auron. By then he had firmly resolved to end his own life by one means or another if Auron was dead. Auron’s death would mean spending the rest of his life alone on an alien planet.

He scrambled around a boulder and finally he was able to reach Auron.

“Oh thank God!” Jer exclaimed. “I thought you were done for. Are you injured?”

“I’ve twisted my ankle,” said Auron, “but it doesn’t matter. Look what I found.”

He held up a chunk of greyish rock.

“You’ve found a rock,” said Jer. “Congratulations. Auron, did you hit your head when you fell?”

“Look closer. It’s got a green streak in it. Malachite. I’ve found copper, Jer. We’re getting off this planet. I don’t know how long it’ll take us but we’re going home.”

In this week’s story our protagonist preys on elderly ladies, parting them from their money and their lives. Can anyone stop him? And can they stop him quickly enough to prevent him claiming another victim?

Julian gazed at the crowd of mourners thoughtfully. She was here somewhere; he knew it.

“How did you know Brigitte?” said a voice.

He jumped, and turned to see an elderly woman with a sharp, inquisitive face, grey hair swept back into a ponytail.

“Oh, I was her lodger,” he replied, wiping away a tear.

“You’re Julian,” said the woman. “She often spoke of you. She loved you dearly, you know.”

“I loved her too,” said Julian. “She taught me so much. She was so good to me. After my parents died I was completely at sea. If I hadn’t met Brigitte, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“You poor thing,” said the woman, understandingly.

She seemed to hesitate, searching his face.

“I’m Sarah,” she said, suddenly, extending her hand. “A friend of Brigitte’s.”

“Lovely to meet you,” said Julian, taking her hand. “I think perhaps we’ve met before? Didn’t I see you at the house a few months ago?”

“You have an excellent memory, young man,” said Sarah.

“I could never forget such a beautiful face.”

Inwardly he winced, wondering if he’d laid the flattery on too thick, but he took care to utter the words with a warm smile infused with a touch of humour.

She seemed to take it in the manner for which he’d hoped.

“Bless you,” she said. “I was beautiful once, but the years have taken their toll.”

“Age has its own kind of beauty,” said Julian earnestly.

“And what will you do now, Julian?” Sarah asked.

“I-I don’t know,” he said. “I shall have to stay in a hostel for a bit.”

“You’re a writer, I understand?”

“That’s right. Well, sort of.”

He laughed, self-deprecatingly.

“Nothing actually published yet, but my publisher’s given me an advance for my first novel. Not enough to live the high life quite just yet.”

He laughed again, taking care to inject his laughter with a suitable degree of sadness. This, he had practised carefully and extensively in front of a mirror.

“You know, Julian,” said Sarah, her speech slow and thoughtful as though broaching a sensitive topic, “since my husband died I’m rattling around in a big old house all by myself. You’d be most welcome to stay with me for a while if you’d like. At least until your book’s published.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly.” said Julian. “It’s incredibly good of you to offer. Brigitte always had excellent taste in friends. But no, I’ll be happy enough in a hostel for a while.”

“What nonsense.” said Sarah pleasantly. “Brigitte wouldn’t have wanted you staying in a hostel. At least come and have a tea with me at my house. I’d love to hear your memories of Brigitte. Don’t make any firm decisions just yet.”

“I’d love to come for a tea,” said Julian. “Thank you.”

“The pleasure would be all mine. Sometimes I feel so terribly alone since Raymond died.”

A dark wave passed over her face. Julian could sense her pain. Searching for pain was a skill he’d developed assiduously.

“It must be very difficult,” said Julian, his face grave and knowing.

“I mustn’t complain,” said Sarah. “We had a good run together. How about next Tuesday around three in the afternoon?”

“That would be lovely.”

There was a faint drizzle in the air as the mourners made their way back to their cars from the graveside.

He wouldn’t decide just yet, he thought. She seemed an excellent prospect, but he had pretty well got her in the bag, and seeing him charming a few other old people at the wake would only make her all the more keen.

Really it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

At the wake he exchanged only a few further words with her, on neutral topics, but carefully demonstrating his education and compassion. When he drove home in his car—an ageing Polo, quite inferior to the Porsche Cayman he kept in a garage in London—he was sure she was the one. Everything about her suggested significant wealth, perhaps not on the scale he’d ideally like but certainly enough to enable him to take the next step up the ladder. With another half a million behind him he could make a good attempt at the rich old ladies of Kensington or even Mayfair.

Yes, Julian Enfield was moving up in the world; there could be no doubt about that. He might even treat himself to a Carrera if all went well.

He wondered vaguely why she had said next Tuesday, and not tomorrow or Saturday? That might suggest an active social life, which was potentially a double-edged sword. On the one hand, friends might form suspicions. On the other hand, they might provide him with a new tasty mark.

Most likely she had simply not wanted to appear too eager, he thought.

On Friday he went to stay at his tiny flat in London. He took the Porsche out for a drive in the Chilterns, accelerating far past the speed limit. In the evening he hung about in the bars of Soho for a while, picking up a small gaggle of new acquaintances, then he took three of them to his favourite club. In the club he picked up a young woman and he spent the night at her apartment. Then in the morning he told her he had to go to work, and he walked an hour to the garage, enjoying the bright sunshine and the morning breeze, all the while thinking about Sarah.

He drove the Porsche to his makeshift lab, where he looked both ways up and down the street, and slipped inside.

Julian flicked on the lights one by one, wiping the dust from the switches off his fingertips with a handkerchief.

There it was: his beautiful apparatus.

He walked around inspecting it. Everything was in place.

His greatest fear was a police raid. To a casual observer, the place looked like a drugs lab. A police raid might set him back even months. Very unlikely the police would find anything, of course. Even if they did, technically he was doing nothing wrong. Not as far as the chemicals in the lab went. No, at worst he had violated some minor zoning or health and safety regulations.

He checked the respirator and decided to fit fresh filters to the mask. Then he donned the hazmat suit and set to work.

A fresh batch would be needed, but he was completely out of phenylmagnesium bromide. He began to synthesise a new batch, grinding up magnesium flakes in a coffee grinder. The suit was probably unnecessary at that stage.

“Your health is precious, old boy,” he said to himself. “Best not take any chances.”

He didn’t trust the bromylbenzene, nor the ether, and he had only an ineffective improvised fume cupboard to work with. The worst thing, aside from any risk to his health, would be an ether fire. The stuff could pool invisibly on the floor, where the slightest spark would set it off. But Julian had faith in his abilities.

After three hours of work, he disrobed from the hazmat suit, got back into his Porsche, and drove half an hour to see his dealer, Spiv. Spiv, in spite of his nickname and his many tattoos, was surprisingly middle-class and lived in a fairly nice apartment.

“What do you want?” Spiv asked, once Julian was inside Spiv’s flat.

“Pills,” said Julian. “Same ones you sold me last time. Let’s say, twenty of them.”

“Twenty?” said Spiv, surprised.

“I’ve got a lot of friends,” said Julian, with a smile.

While Spiv busied himself looking through carefully-organised drawers, he said, “You should stick around for a bit. We can smoke some weed.”

“No can do,” said Julian. “I’ve business to conduct.”

Spiv located a bag of small blue pills and handed them to Julian.

“I won’t ask what business that might be,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “That’ll be two hundred.”

Julian handed over the money.

“Be back next week, probably,” he said, as he was leaving.

“Counting on it.”

The following week, Julian went to Sarah’s house. She beamed at him when she opened the door.

“Julian!” she said. “How lovely to see you again. Do come in.”

The house was exactly as Julian had hoped for: large, well-kept, expensive-looking.

Inside she offered him a tea, which he accepted, and they sat drinking it and chatting.

“Didn’t you and Ray have children?” Julian asked, forming his face into an expression of mild sympathy.

“No, Ray wasn’t able to, and we didn’t want to adopt.” said Sarah. “I don’t regret it, really.”

Julian nodded in satisfaction. No children or grandchildren to steal his house.

“Having children is overrated,” he said.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Sarah. “Ray and I led very busy lives, in any case. Hard to imagine how we would even have found the time for children. Some days we would barely see each other. But you know, every day, no matter how busy we were, we always sat and had a hot chocolate together at some point: in the afternoon if Ray was home, otherwise in the evening. It’s so rare to find a man who really appreciates chocolate. Now I drink my cup of chocolate alone.”

Her eyes became misty and unfocused, and she stared into the distance, through the watercolours on the wall above the fireplace.

“I love a good hot chocolate,” said Julian, seizing his chance.

“Do you really?” said Sarah.

“Yes, I’ve never much liked chocolate in solid form, but I’ve always loved a nice mug of hot chocolate.”

“But how marvellous!” said Sarah.

She gazed at him fondly for some moments, then said, in a tone of voice that suggested she hardly dared raise the topic, “You wouldn’t like to have a mug of chocolate with me now, would you? It would mean so much to me. It would be the first time since Ray’s passing that I’ve had someone to drink with.” She winked. “They do say you should never drink alone.”

“I’d like that very much,” said Julian. “It would be an honour.”

Sarah laughed, and Julian laughed too.

“It’s settled!” she said, and she went to the kitchen.

Julian followed her. The kitchen was huge, with an island in the middle for preparing food or eating. Copper pans hung from a series of hooks, and immaculate machines for making pasta and slicing meat stood around the sides.

Julian half-thought he might hang on to the house for a bit after he’d persuaded her to leave it to him in her will, just so he could enjoy the kitchen. Then, course, he’d sell it, because he didn’t want to live in someone’s old house. No, he would spend the money upgrading his apartment and purchasing a Carrera. The life he could live, with all this extra money!

“Here we go,” said Sarah, handing him a mug of chocolate. “I’ve added a little almond essence into it. I always like to add something a little extra, to make it a bit special. You do like almonds, don’t you?”

“Oh, I love almonds.” said Julian.

They sat in the living room drinking the chocolate. Julian asked about the watercolours hanging on the walls, and Sarah explained that she used to paint, and had even held exhibitions.

Julian pretended to be impressed.

The following day, Julian went back to the makeshift lab and completed the next stage of the synthesis. He also went to his usual chocolate shop, and bought a hand-picked selection of chocolates in a fancy box. These, he stashed in the fridge, checking the humidity and refreshing the little tray of calcium chloride for absorbing water.

A week later he moved into Sarah’s house.

“I’m so happy to have some company again,” she told him.

She insisted on cooking for him, and even on washing his clothes.

Two weeks went by before he was ready to begin dosing her. By that time they had established a regular routine, drinking hot chocolate together in the evening whenever Julian was at home in the evening, and in the afternoon or even the morning, when he wasn’t.

She told him all about her life; her struggles in the art world, her marriage to Ray—sometimes while holding his photograph with tears glistening in her eyes—and her failed attempts to become an actress. Ray, she said, had died only three years ago, and she clearly missed him greatly.

He decided to tell Spiv about her. Spiv was the only person he knew who would really understand.

“I’m already like that with her,” he said, the next time he was at Spiv’s apartment. He held up an intertwined middle- and index-finger. “She trusts me completely.”

“You’ve going to start giving her the stuff this week?” Spiv asked.

“Yep,” said Julian. “It’s almost ready.”

“How long will it take?”

“Maybe six months.”

Spiv whistled, and dragged on his joint.

“You really play the long game, man,” he said.

“Six months is nothing,” said Julian. “The first one I did, it took me a year and a half.”

“Shouldn’t you convince her to add you to her will before you start poisoning her?”

Julian smiled, a self-consciously wicked smile.

“No need,” he said. “Two months tops and she’ll be begging me to let her put me in her will. I’m going to tell her I dream of setting up a donkey sanctuary. She loves donkeys. Anyway, some of them don’t even start thinking properly about their wills till they’re actually dying. A bit of poisoning will help her develop the right ideas.”

“Brilliant,” said Spiv, shaking his head in amazement at Julian’s genius. “I’d never be able to manage the whole thing.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Julian agreed. “It takes charm, intelligence and sophistication.”

Spiv swore at him good-humouredly.

After visiting Spiv and buying more pills for the following weekend, he went back to the lab and finished cleaning the MPTP, which he then dissolved in warm glycerol. Then he took the chocolates and carefully injected a couple of millilitres into each chocolate, leaving out only the coffee-creams.

Then, still wearing the hazmat suit, he took a spatula he’d warmed up in a beaker of hot water and meticulously smoothed over the injection hole.

He began feeding her the chocolates the very next day.

“These are lovely,” she said. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” he said. “A friend of mine owns a very exclusive chocolate shop in London. I picked these out by hand.”

“Let’s have a hot chocolate and we’ll start on them now,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. “Oh, but you don’t like chocolate. Have I remembered right?”

“I might be persuaded, just this once,” said Julian.

“No, I won’t force you,” said Sarah. “I shall put them next to my bed and I’ll eat a few before sleeping, while I read for a bit. I’ll look forward to it tremendously.”

“Sounds like an excellent plan,” said Julian.

He was privately relieved that he wouldn’t have to eat the coffee creams. There was always a faint chance of picking the wrong chocolate by mistake. He was, after all, human.

In the following weeks, Julian observed Sarah carefully for signs of deterioration.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“I’m so stiff recently,” she shouted one morning, as she descended the stairs.

“Maybe it’s arthritis?” Julian shouted in reply. “You should see a doctor, Sarah.”

“You know what I think about doctors.”

“All the same. I’m worried about you. You don’t seem quite yourself recently.”

“It’ll pass.” she said. “All things pass.”

But it didn’t pass. Over the following months, Sarah’s condition worsened. She began to stoop and her fingers trembled when she rested them in her lap or on the arm of her chair. Her movements became slow and cramped, and her voice low and monotonous.

“Julian, I need to talk to you about something,” she said, one day, after Julian had been explaining his donkey sanctuary plans again.

“Yes?” said Julian.

“As you know, Ray and I didn’t have children, so I’ve no-one to leave my things to after I die.”

“Sarah!” said Julian, as if outraged. “You’re not going to die for a long time yet.”

“I don’t know, Julian.” she said. “The past months I haven’t felt so good. I feel as though I’m not long for this world.”

Her hands trembled as she spoke, the trembling extending all the way up her arm. Her head was nodding over, rather reminding him of Spiv in the middle of a weed session. She seemed to have aged fifteen years in the past few months.

“Sarah, you need to see a doctor.”

“If I agree to see a doctor, will you allow me to put you in my will?”

“I’m touched, Sarah, but it’s really not necessary. Why don’t you leave your things to a good cause? Or perhaps a cousin?”

“I don’t have any cousins,” said Sarah, as Julian well knew. “Do we have a deal or don’t we?”

“If that’s what it takes for you to see a doctor, then yes.”

She smiled.

“Good boy.” she said.

“You’ll see a doctor this week?”

“I’ll make the appointment now.”

In fact, she saw a doctor the following week, which was the earliest appointment available. The doctor informed Sarah that she was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, and prescribed medication.

“I might live another twenty years, or I might die next year,” Sarah told Julian. “The doctor’s worried that it seems to have come on rather quickly. That’s a bad sign, apparently.”

“I’ve heard of it.” said Julian. “It’s not usually fatal. You’ll be fine, Sarah, don’t worry.”

“What’s wrong?” said Sarah, alarmed by the sudden change in Julian’s facial expression.

“Oh, I’m just worried about you,” said Julian, recovering quickly.

“Try not to worry,” she said. “Let’s have a hot chocolate and a good natter, shall we?”

“That would be great.” said Julian.

As soon as her back was turned he stared at his hand. When resting by his side on the sofa, it trembled uncontrollably.

He must have exposed himself somehow, he thought. A common fate among all those who dealt with MPTP. He cursed out loud, forgetting himself.

“What’s that?” said Sarah.

“Nothing!” said Julian. “I just hit my elbow.”

He went straight to the laboratory as soon as he could reasonably get away. He swabbed the dust on every surface and sent the swabs to a lab.

The results came back three days later. The lab had detected no MPTP in any of the swabs, nor anything chemically similar to it.

For several weeks he half-convinced himself that the trembling was psychosomatic. Perhaps he was imagining it. It did seem to come and go. Then, one morning, he noticed a definite stiffness in his muscles.

He decided to send one of the pills he’d got from Spiv for analysis. That also came back negative, but it was impossible to be certain that some chemical in the pills hadn’t turned into MPTP during metabolism.

When he saw Spiv again, he tackled him about it.

“Listen Spiv, I’ve got tremors. Those pills you sold me are messing me up.”

“No way, man,” said Spiv. “Thousands of people have taken those pills.”

“You’re telling me none of them have got ill?”

“A couple of them died but they overdosed. Probably took a lot of other stuff too. No-one’s got tremors, dude.”

Spiv’s face was slightly pale and Julian thought he could perhaps detect a trace of guilt, but Julian suspected that Spiv was simply scared of him, and after all, there was no question that the pills were potentially lethal if misused, and sometimes even when used correctly. Not even Spiv would try to deny that.

“If the pills didn’t cause my tremors, what did?”

“Might be a natural thing,” Spiv suggested. “Might be your lab.”

“I swabbed the lab and the swabs came back clean.”

“It’s probably in the air. You told me some dudes in America were looking for some chemist that made MPTP once, and when they found him he was all, like, shuffling about and stooped over, poisoned by his own medicine. If a professional chemist can’t avoid poisoning himself with that stuff, what chance have you got? No offence, my man.”

Julian had a quiet, grave think, on his feet.

“It’s possible,” he said.

“It’s totally possible,” said Spiv.

“I wear a hazmat suit with industrial-grade filters.”

“Means nothing,” said Spiv, pursing his lips and shaking his head. “Micrograms, that’s all it takes. You said so yourself. You telling me micrograms can’t get through those filters?”

Over the following months, Julian’s condition worsened. He synthesised one last enormous batch of MPTP and made ten boxes of chocolates. That ought to be enough to finish the old bag off, he thought.

He stopped taking the pills, sticking to alcohol at the weekends.

One morning he woke up with incredible stiffness in his limbs and found it difficult to even jolt himself into activity. The cover of his duvet seemed to draw him in, as though pulling him into a timeless realm where only the duvet existed.

That same day he made an appointment to see a Harley Street doctor.

The doctor scheduled him for an MRI scan.

A week later, sitting in the MRI machine as it banged and clanked, he wondered feverishly where he had gone wrong.

He knew what the doctor was going to say. He had Parkinons’s disease. Somehow, from somewhere, MPTP had got into his system; almost certainly. It was destroying the substantia nigra in his midbrain. His brain was becoming unable to communicate with his body.

Sure enough, a week later, the doctor gave him the news he was expecting.

“You have Parkinson’s disease,” the doctor told him. “I’m going to prescribe levodopa. It should provide immediate relief from some of your symptoms, but it may cause movements that you find difficult to control. I’m also prescribing an MAO-B inhibitor. That will help the levodopa to work.”

“What’s the prognosis, doctor?” Julian asked nervously.

“Very hard to say,” said the doctor. “I’ll be honest, Julian. It’s a bad sign that it’s develop this rapidly, and in someone so young. We’ll have to take it week by week.”

Julian picked up the prescription at a chemist and, sitting in his Porsche, washed it down with mineral water from a plastic bottle.

Then he drove to see Spiv again.

He had to bang repeatedly at Spiv’s door and shout Spiv’s name before he answered, wearing a dressing gown and clearly drugged up to the gills with something.

“What’s the problem, man?” said Spiv. “You’re not normally here on … whatever day it is today.”

“I want you to be honest with me. Has anyone else developed tremors from your pills?”

Julian shut the door behind himself.

“No, no way, man,” said Spiv.

But Spiv’s face had a distinctly guilty look to it.

Julian grabbed him by the collar.

His hand felt weak. Spiv could easily have pushed him off if he’d chosen to, and if he hadn’t been half out of his head.

“Tell me the truth!”

“OK, one person got, like, all shaky and stopped taking them. It’s not even the same thing you’ve got. They got better. You’ve got some progressive thing.”

Julian let Spiv go, since in any case, his hand was tired from grasping Spiv’s collar. He could feel himself stooping but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. He repeatedly pulled himself out of the stoop only to find himself doing it again a minute later.

“Fine.” he said.

“We OK?” said Spiv.

Julian smiled as best he could, although his face felt stiff.

“Of course we are. Sorry, I’m just stressed. I really need to find a way to relax for a bit. Dealing with that old cow drives me nuts, and now I’ve got the shakes as well. Tell you what, a friend gave me something last week. A free gift for services rendered. I think it’s MDA. Would you try it with me?”

“Sure,” said Spiv, relieved. “Let’s do it.”

They sat down and Julian took two pills from his pocket. He handed one to Spiv.

“How long does it last?” Spiv asked.

“Not long,” said Julian. “Short-acting. Comes on pretty fast. Down the hatch!”

Julian threw the pill down his throat and swallowed it. Spiv did the same.

They chatted about random topics for half an hour before Spiv began to feel distinctly ill. Soon he was doubled over in pain.

“Call an ambulance!” he said to Julian.

“It’ll pass. Relax. You’re just having a bad reaction.”

For another fifteen minutes he strung Spiv along, persuading him that the pain would soon go. Then Spiv fell onto the floor while trying to get to his phone, and he stayed there, saliva pouring from his mouth, his legs twitching.

He tried to say something.

“What?” said Julian. “What’s that, Spiv?”

“You’ve poisoned me,” gasped Spiv.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Julian. “Teach you a lesson, old boy. No hard feelings.”

He stood over Spiv for another ten minutes, until Spiv lapsed into unconsciousness. Then he poured himself a shot of vodka and sat on Spiv’s sofa. Another ten minutes passed and he checked Spiv’s wrist. No pulse.

Julian found the walk back to his car onerous. His legs just wouldn’t cooperate. He kept almost falling face forwards onto the pavement. He found himself taking rapid, short steps, just to avoid overbalancing. Everything was stiff.

When he finally sat in the driver’s seat of the Porsche, he wondered whether he’d be able to drive back to Sarah’s house. In the end he managed it, swapping the Porsche for the Polo along the way, but only by stopping frequently and taking an extra L-dopa.

In the weeks after that he assiduously fed Sarah the doped chocolates. She shuffled around painfully, her voice almost a whisper.

“What a pair we are!” she said to him.

“Yeah,” said Julian miserably.

“Let’s have a cup of chocolate,” she said.

He threw himself onto the sofa. His hands were trembling and one arm kept moving about uncontrollably, as if trying to dust an invisible spider’s web from his face.

“OK.” he mumbled.

The following day, Julian woke up paralysed. Everything was stiff and weak. For two hours he tried to cry out. Time seemed to pass in disconnected jerks.

He wasn’t sure what the time was when Sarah shuffled in.

“Oh no,” she mumbled, her head weaving about uncontrollably due to the L-dopa, her posture horribly stooped. “Poor Julian. Don’t worry, I’ll call a doctor.”

He gazed at her with wide, terrified eyes.

“In an hour or two,” she added.

Then, suddenly, she stood up perfectly straight, her head stopped bobbing about, the tension seemed to completely leave her body, and she said, in a calm, clear voice, “Do you know, I feel much better all of a sudden.”

She flexed her fingers, holding her hand out.

“It’s a miracle! I’m cured!”

He tried to say something, but he could hardly get the words out.

“What’s that Julian?” she said.

“You did this to me!” he gurgled.

“I only fed you your own chocolates, Julian,” she said. “Every cup of your hot chocolate was made with nothing but your own produce, and a little flavouring. Did I mention I took acting classes when I was young? I always knew they’d come in handy. Ray was a doctor, you know. He died twenty years ago, but I thought I’d bring his death forward a bit to make it all the more convincing. After all, vulnerability was what you were looking for, wasn’t it, Julian?”

She leaned over and put her face close to his.

“You can use undetectable poisons, Julian, but you can’t hide the corpses. I know exactly what you’ve been up to. I suspected even before Brigitte died. Sadly, I wasn’t quick enough to save her. Oh, don’t worry, Julian, I shan’t go to the police. Spending the rest of your life as a living corpse will be more than punishment enough, I think.”

In this story an Italian priest performs bizarre unholy experiments in the crypt of his church, involving apparently alien creatures.

I began attending church after my wife died. She was very ill for five years and by the time she died, I was already a complete wreck from years of nursing her and helplessly watching her suffering, even aside from the bitter sting of her passing.

The people going in and coming out of the church always looked so happy. I wanted some of that.

That probably explains why I, an avowed atheist, began going to Sunday mass.

I wasn’t curious. I didn’t want to explore how I felt about religion. I was just gravitating towards something cheerful, like a starving man gravitates towards food.

Unless you’ve experienced it, you can’t imagine what it does to you, to watch someone you love deeply gradually deteriorate and die over a period of years, all the while in terrible worsening pain.

The congregation of St. Marco’s was a youngish crowd, which was weird considering the church’s remote location, nestled in the mountains. They came from miles around to attend the Sunday service.

Perhaps I first went there out of curiosity as much as loneliness. By then I was completely fluent in Italian. Our Tuscan dream had died with my wife, but I had no particular inclination to return to England.

I saw immediately, sitting there on the uncomfortable hard wooden bench, why the church was drawing such a crowd. The priest was a mesmerising speaker.

Something about him suggested a degree of nervous exhaustion, and yet during his sermons, that entirely disappeared, to be replaced only with a boyish enthusiasm.

Certainly, strong Christian themes underpinned his sermons, but his sermons ranged far and wide over an incredible array of topics. I was sure he had undergone scientific training of some kind, because he spoke eruditely and accurately on everything from evolution to the theory of relativity to Malthus and nitrogen fixation, and somehow tied it all brilliantly to his Catholic faith.

Once I’d heard him speak, I never missed a Sunday mass—except once, when I was ill with food poisoning. If more priests were like him, I thought to myself, the churches would all be full.

Did listening to his sermons deter me from atheism? Yes and no. His religion still sounded quite crazy to me. I can’t help that. It’s not a judgement upon its practitioners. On the contrary, I have every respect for them. It’s simply a description of the feeling the religion conjured within me. I will admit, however, that Padre Montecchio succeeded in opening my eyes to the fact that materialism is not without its flaws and may well be deeply lacking as a complete explanation for life and the universe.

I had been attending the church for perhaps five or six months when I finally understood, from talking to other members of the congregation, that the church was technically not, strictly speaking, Catholic.

That is, while Padre Montecchio espoused a faith that to me appeared indistinguishable from Catholicism, in fact he was theoretically independent of the Catholic hierarchy, at least to some extent, and the church building itself was owned by an obscure trust of some sort.

And yet, Montecchio’s church did somehow fall under the purview of the Catholics, and a bishop visited the church from time to time.

Even now, the situation isn’t completely clear to me.

I never exchanged more than a few words with Montecchio himself.

That is, until after the evening of Friday April 5^th, 2013. I made a careful note of the day in my journal, which my wife had persuaded me to keep.

I was out walking on a misty evening around dusk, when I happened upon an astonishing sight. Padre Montecchio was running across the field, dressed in typical priestly robes, attempting to catch a creature that was scuttling along with impressive speed. The creature was heading almost in my direction.

At first I though the creature to be a dog or perhaps a pig, but as I began to run towards it, I realised I absolutely couldn’t tell what it was. I began to think it might be a small deer, but it wasn’t that either. I jumped on it and caught hold of it, then when I actually looked at it, I received a terrible shock that caused me to drop it in alarm.

The creature indeed resembled a dog somewhat, and was covered in wiry black hair, but it had six eyes and no nose. Two large black eyes were in the centre of its head above a wide, curved mouth; there were two smaller eyes above those, and two more eyes at either side of these. The mouth opened to reveal surprisingly human-like teeth. When I dropped it, it immediately tried to run off, but Montecchio caught it with a net.

“Thank you.” he said to me.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“It’s from Peru.” he said. “A kind of aquatic monkey. They’re happier in the sea.”

And with that, he hurried back to the church.

The creature was clearly not from Peru and it clearly wasn’t any sort of monkey, aquatic or otherwise.

After that I began to keep a careful eye on Montecchio, and I spoke to him whenever he’d allow me a little of his time. He was up to something weird, and I wasn’t sure what. I wondered if it was possible that he was participating in some kind of strange genetics experiment. That seemed the best explanation. Perhaps he had a friend who happened to be a scientist and he was looking after this scientist’s creations, presumably in the back of the church somewhere, or the crypt.

I saw him chasing creatures across the hillside a couple of further times. What they were, or where they came from, I couldn’t imagine.

Among the congregation at the church was a man I disliked intensely. The only people who did like him were the elderly ladies whom he was always buttering up, and there were rumours that he’d persuaded more than a few of them to add him into their wills.

His name was Adelmo and he always took care to dress imaculately, and was always surrounded by an adoring crowd of elderly women. His wife hung around in the background and often seemed to have bruises on her face, which she explained by telling people that she was clumsy and prone to falling down the stairs, but the rumour was that Adelmo had a vicious temper.

Naturally the old ladies denied this vigorously if you so much as approached the topic even very indirectly. They knew of the rumour and felt that it was put about only by people who were jealous of Adelmo’s success. Adelmo certainly seemed wealthy by local standards, and lived with his wife in a large well-kept house in the village.

The couple had several grown-up children who lived in Milan and Rome and visited them very infrequently.

As it happens I received direct confirmation of the rumours swirling around Adelmo one evening when I happened to pass his house on one of my evening strolls. I distinctly heard shouting from within the house; the couple were in the middle of some sort of argument, but Adelmo’s wife, Chiara, sounded like she was justifying herself or pleading with him rather than attacking him. I paused for a moment and distinctly heard her cry out as though he had hit her.

The episode left me with an increasing feeling that Adelmo really needed taking down a peg or two. What fairness is there in life if a man like him can have a gaggle of old ladies fawning over him and probably leaving him money in their wills, when at the same time he’s brutalising his wife?

No-one in the village seemed able to tackle him about his behaviour. After all, the old ladies wielded considerable influence and he buttered them up expertly.

I mention this man because Montecchio and I were soon to get mixed up with him in a very unpleasant fashion, ultimately resulting in Adelmo’s life taking a very unexpected turn.

About a month after I’d helped Montecchio catch the creature, I happened to visited the old church in the evening while on one of my strolls. I had—and really still have—no idea what priests do in the evening, and whether they are likely to be found in their churches or not, but for some reason I had the idea that the church was quite empty.

I went in thinking I’d sit for a bit and see if I could hear any odd sounds. If Montecchio spotted me he’d naturally just assume I was doing a quiet bit of praying or contemplation.

For a while the church was silent. I sat there for perhaps twenty minutes. Ordinarily, if there’s no service on, the most I can stand on those uncomfortable pews is about half an hour, so I was reaching the end of my patience with it, my back already complaining vociferously.

Then I heard a shout, and a terrible inhuman wailing. This latter noise completely set my nerves on edge. I had never heard anything quite like it. It sounded like some obscure rainforest animal being tortured.

I was sitting there frozen, wondering what to do, when a door burst open somewhere to the side of the church and a thing emerged from it.

I don’t know what this thing was. I still don’t know. In colour it was a pinkish-white, with some portions veering towards red. It was about the height of a short human being. I can say that it definitely had two legs, which were short and stubby and immensely thick and wrinkled. Above that were a mass of things that looked like immensely long teeth, topped with two enormous red-rimmed eyes, of a pale pink colour. Truly a grotesque sight.

I was immobilised by fear and shock, unable to rise to my feet as it scuttled towards me, those massive stubby feet pounding the floor.

Then Montecchio emerged behind it wielding a double-barrel shotgun, and shot the thing in the back. It emitted one enormous last shriek and fell on its face, its momentum carrying it forwards a few feet, the teeth-like things making a clinking sound as they hit the stone floor.

Then, finally, I was liberated from my state of shock and I sprang to my feet.

Montecchio saw me and froze.

“I know how this must look.” he said.

“What, in the name of God, are you doing back there with these creatures?” I asked, my words amplified by my emotional state, and by the echo of the church. It’s fair to say that I was absolutely horrified and felt a kind of righteous anger that seemed to emerge spontaneously and uncontrollably in me.

“It’s nothing.” he said. “Please, don’t tell anyone.”

He lowered the shotgun and began to examine the beast.

“I demand to know what’s going on here.” I said, and I added something about informing the police.

My own words didn’t make much sense, even to me. I’ve no idea what I would have said to the police, or whether the whole thing was even a police matter, but the sight of the creature followed by Montecchio and his gun and the whole thing preceded by that unearthly shriek, had absolutely unhinged me.

He sighed, and rubbed the side of his head with his hand, as if wrestling with strong emotions.

“Very well.” he said. “First, can you help me get this thing back downstairs?”

“Downstairs?”

“We need to take it back to the crypt and send it back where it came from.”

For a moment I thought to question him further, but then I said, “Va bene” and together we began to drag the thing into the side room.

It was tremendously heavy. To get it down the stairs we had to attach ropes to the legs, so we could drag it down. The far end of the crypt was curtained off, I noticed, with black velvet curtains.

After we’d finished getting it down the stairs, we had to go back and collect a whole bunch of the teeth-like protuberances that had broken against the stone stairs on the way down. I noticed they were hollow, and the insides of them were a faint pinkish colour.

The worst thing about the creature was its enormous lidless eyes. They gave me quite a few nightmares in the weeks that followed.

“What you’re about to see is an abomination.” Montecchio said to me. “It shouldn’t exist, but it does. The guilt is mine. I’m unable to undo what I’ve done.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, and I would have added “man” for emphasis if we’d been speaking in English.

He went over to the curtains and pulled a cord at the side. They swept back to reveal what I can only describe as a hole, except it seemed to hover in mid-air. Inside the hole I could see only vague twisted shapes, resembling the branches of dead trees and the dim outlines of rocks.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“I created it.” he said, and he gestured at the surroundings of the hole. Only then did I properly notice a substantial collection of electronic and mechanical apparatus.

“You know, there’s a long tradition of clergy discovering things.” he said. His voice was uneven; his tone was that of a man trying to justify himself. It was as if he was confessing to a murder. “Bacon, Zamboni, Mendel, Copernicus—well, there are many of us.”

“And what have you discovered, exactly?” I asked, bewildered.

Here his natural enthusiasm began to take over; the same enthusiasm that I had been so impressed by in his sermons.

“You see, I became obsessed with metaphysics. I became convinced that Hume was wrong, but I wasn’t convinced by Berkeley either, and Kant did not provide me with salvation. All of them were working without the benefits of modern physical theory. For a while I was taken in by solipsism, but then I hit upon it—the solution to the metaphysical dilemma. I sought to test my theories—of course I did—and I purchased the necessary apparatus with some money that had been left to me. I spent not a penny of church funds on my research, I assure you.”

He was working himself up marvellously, and I hadn’t the heart to interject, although I badly wanted him to explain the mysterious hole that inexplicably floated right in front of us, or the hideous creature that we’d just dragged down the stairs. The matter of whether he had or hadn’t spent church funds on whatever this was seemed rather insignificant to me.

“I began to think that space itself is an illusion. We are not in a simulation, no—that’s an absurd idea—but space is not what it appears to be. Vast distances and the microscopic—they are one and the same! Perhaps my ego ran away with me. I believed I was doing the work of God!”

Now he adopted a kind of desperate imploring tone. I was beginning to worry that he might suddenly attack me. He seemed awfully upset about something, to the point of being more than a little deranged.

“I believe I alone have solved the fundamental problem of metaphysics; the question of whether a tree that falls unobserved really falls or not. But—”

He paused, almost on the verge of tears.

“I made a terrible mistake in my work. Hubris! Certainly I am guilty of that. I beg God for forgiveness every day! May God’s mercy pardon me from this mortal sin! I have opened a portal to Hell itself, and I can’t close again!”

For some moments I remained silent as he wrung his hands and wiped tears from his eyes.

“A … portal to Hell?” I said faintly.

“As good as.” he said. “At least, a portal to a distant world that appears inhabited by the most grotesque demons. It may be—one can only hope—some sort of distant planet, with little real metaphysical significance. Only, I can’t figure out how to seal the thing up. It’s feeding on itself. It’s self-sustaining. Oh! We have to throw this vile creature back into it. Will you help me?”

“Let’s do that now and we’ll talk about it later.” I suggested.

Together we attached ropes to the thing’s head, if it can be called a head, and then swung it back and forth until we could gather the necessary momentum to swing it clean into the hole. I heard it land on the other side with a crunching of its sabre-like exterior teeth, or whatever they were.

“Let’s go to your house.” I said.

“At any moment something else could get out!” he said desperately.

“Leave it for the moment.” I said, ushering him away from the hole.

I closed the curtains and led him, protesting, up the stairs and back to his house, which was a thing of quite ancient construction, behind the church.

There, he sat down on an old sofa, quivering. I had the sense of a man absolutely at the end of his tether.

There had been times, during his sermons, when I had suspected that the man carried some terrible burden, but on the whole he had been doing a remarkable job, I realised, of presenting a front to the world.

“Do you have anything to drink?” I asked. “I mean, alcoholic?”

“Only the communion wine.”

“That’ll do.” I said.

I poured us both a glass, since I also was feeling distinctly on edge. The portal had been quite the revelation.

“Now, you’re telling me, you performed some kind of research in physics, and you’ve opened some sort of portal to a distant planet, and you can’t close it, and things keep coming through it?”

“Exactly.” he said, drinking the wine gratefully.

“These things, are they dangerous?”

“They took my dog.” he said. “Poor Mavi! Probably it’s only a matter of time till they kill a person. I can’t control them. I keep chasing them down. I’ve secured the church but they’re ferociously intelligent. They alway find a way —”

He was working himself up again.

I made shushing sounds, as if talking to a child.

“It’s OK.” I said. “I’m here now. I’ll help.”

“Will you?” he said, clutching suddenly at my arm.

“Of course.”

“Thank you, my friend, thank you.”

Unfortunately, no means immediately suggested themselves by which we could close this wretched thing. I made numerous suggestions, ranging from dousing it with water to lighting a strong fire underneath it, and even to burning down the entire church, and he assured me he’d already thought of those things and nothing would work.

Finally I proposed what I thought was a very reasonable plan: we would simply brick the crypt up. But Montecchio was worried about any delivery of bricks attracting attention and wouldn’t agree to it. After a lot of debate I persuaded him that we could seal up the crypt just using stones and cement. The stones could be collected discretely from the nearby hillside, where there were plenty, and the cement would only require that I go and purchase a bag of cement powder in the town. No-one need ever cotton on to what we were doing.

Montecchio stressed about the bishop arriving and asking about the crypt, which sounded unlikely from what I could understand about this bishop. In any case, as far as I could work out, this bishop had no real authority over Montecchio or his church. Montecchio consistently refused to clarify the exact nature of the connection between his church and the Catholics, so I could never be completely sure about it.

In the end I convinced him that, were that to happen, he could just tell the bishop the crypt roof had fallen in, and he’d bricked it up for safety. At worst that would attract a mild censure for not going through proper official channels, if such channels even existed.

After that, every time I went on an evening stroll, I would fill a backpack with stones from the hillside and take them to the church, where we piled them up in preparation for walling off the crypt. Often I’d only fetch only one single large stone, but I figured that, over maybe six months, we’d accumulate enough of them to do the job.

I took care to avoid people and I was never asked where I was going in the evening with a heavy backpack. Usually I went after dark, using a head light on a strap around my head so I could see where I was going.

When we estimated we’d collected half the stones we needed, we built half the wall. Then when we’d collected half of what we still required, we built another quarter. We had three-quarters of a sturdy wall and everything was going well … until it wasn’t.

I arrived at the church one night after dark with my backpack filled with stones, my head lamp lighting the way, and I was about to go in, expecting to find Montecchio waiting for me, when I was stopped short by a voice.

“There are some strange things going on around here and I’d like an explanation.”

It was Adelmo. It turned out that he’d spotted Montecchio chasing some monstrosity across the hillside one evening—mercifully the creatures from the portal at least seemed averse to light and had never got loose during the day—and had begun snooping around. He’d observed me collecting stones and taking them to the church, and now he wanted answers.

All of this he gave me to understand in short order, finishing with, “Well?”

“None of it’s any of your business.” I told him.

“I should say it’s more my business than your business.” he said. “You’ve been here less than two years, haven’t you? I’ve been here closer to threescore and ten.”

The threescore and ten bit is the closest I can get in English to the odd phrasing of the words he actually uttered, which I recognised as a reference to the 90^th Psalm, quite typical of the pompous way he had about him.

“That still doesn’t make it your business.” I told him.

“Let’s go inside and ask the Padre, shall we?” he said, his voice all smug and oily. How I detested the man.

“Let’s not.” I said, but he pushed the door of the church open, and I had no choice but to simply follow.

My heart almost stopped when I saw what was inside. There was Montecchio, and he was standing over the corpse of a creature he’d shot, looking down at it, while it jerked spasmodically, gradually dying.

The creature resembled a giant spider, half the height of Montecchio himself, except its legs resembled the legs of a crab. It was a revolting off-white in colour and it had no discernible head, but only eyes arranged all around its circumference.

Montecchio jumped when we came in.

“It tried to eat me.” he said, as if that explained everything, and gave the creature a powerful kick, flipping it onto its back.

On its underside was a kind of octagonal mouth, eight saw-edged triangular sections meeting in the centre, opening and closing with a horrible clicking sound.

Adelmo paled.

“I’m calling the police.” he said.

“No! Please!” Montecchio shouted, as Adelmo turned to go back outside. “Wait!”

Adelmo wasn’t waiting, but Montecchio hurried over to him and grabbed him by the arm.

“Get off me!” Adelmo shouted, in a tone of voice a teacher might have used with a child exhibiting extremely bad behaviour.

I stepped swiftly between Adelmo and the door.

“At least give us a chance to explain.” I said.

“Get out of my way.” he said.

“I won’t.” I told him, and for moment I thought he was about to hit me.

“Let us explain, Adelmo.” said Montecchio. “After that, if you still want to go to the police, we won’t stop you.”

“You can’t stop me.” said Adelmo, outraged by the suggestion that we even had the power to stop him going to the police.

“Exactly.” I said, hurriedly. “We can’t stop you. We just want you to have all the facts.”

“Very well, get on with it, then.” he said.

We had no choice. We took him down to the crypt and explained everything to him.

For a man who prided himself on his supposed Christian charity, Adelmo surprised us with his nakedly hostile tone. He wasn’t understanding at all.

“I’ve always had my doubts about you, Montecchio.” he said. “I shall have to report this to the church authorities and I’ve no doubt they’ll finally replace you. This is an egregious and heinous misuse of church property.”

Privately I wondered whether Adelmo understood the quasi-independent status of Montecchio’s church. I certainly didn’t.

“I was only doing a little research.” Montecchio protested. “It got out of hand—that’s my fault—but my work could have benefited the whole of humanity. It still could.”

“And you a priest.” said Adelmo. “I’m sure the bishop will be delighted when we explain all this to him. I’ve certainly never heard of a member of the clergy who behaves like this! Absolutely pathetic.”

His tone was sarcastic and mocking.

“I’m uncovering the work of God himself!” said Montecchio, tears in his eyes. “There is nothing unchristian about my work!”

The two stood there arguing, Adelmo increasingly insulting and sarcastic, poor Padre Montecchio pleading with him desperately to keep the whole thing a secret.

Meanwhile I heard an odd clumping sound emerging from the portal, like the footsteps of a large animal. I tried to warn them but they were so wrapped up in their argument that they paid me no attention. I began to back away and I urged Montecchio to do the same, but he only shouted “un attimo!” at me and carried on trying to defend himself.

I couldn’t actually see anything through the portal so I thought perhaps it often made such noises, and I was worrying unnecessarily, but then—quite suddenly, an enormous white tentacle covered in reddish suckers shot out and wrapped itself around Adelmo’s head, and began dragging him into the portal.

We tried to free him, fruitlessly. The thing was immensely strong. Adelmo made a terrible shrieking noise; I think the tentacle was stinging him. It was covered in small barbs in-between the suckers. We wrestled helplessly with the thing, getting stung quite a bit ourselves, as it dragged him into the portal. Montecchio discharged his gun directly into the portal but the result was only a terrible trumpeting sound, and the tentacle didn’t relax at all; in fact it only tightened on Adelmo. Montecchio hastily reloaded and positioned the gun to try to shoot at the tentacle itself, but it retracted abruptly, pulling Adelmo clean into the Hell-world.

He carried on shrieking from the other side, but all we could see was some faint dark shapes.

“We have to go in and help him!” said Montecchio.

“We can’t go in there! We’ll never get back again!” I told him. “There’s no point three of us dying instead of one!”

I’ll admit my attitude was probably coloured by my dislike of Adelmo. I wasn’t going to risk my life to save that miserable old charlatan.

“I’m going in!” said Montecchio, and he stuck the gun in a holster on his back and backed up so that he could take a run at the portal and jump into it.

“Don’t do it!” I implored him. “You’ll die in there!”

He ran at the portal nonetheless. Just as he was about to spring into it, another creature shot out of the portal and landed on Montecchio, knocking him off his feet.

“Mavi!” he exclaimed.

The creature was none other than Montecchio’s lost dog, which some unholy beast or other had dragged into the portal months earlier.

Mavi seemed surprisingly well-fed and there was blood around his mouth, so I gathered he had managed to hunt quite effectively over there. He and Montecchio made a tremendous fuss of each other, Montecchio having apparently forgotten about Adelmo in the heat of the moment, Mavi yapping and wagging his tail like a lunatic.

Then a strange fizzling sound arose from the portal, like something from a firework display, causing all of us, Mavi included, to jump back away from this new potential horror.

Mavi began to bark crazily, all his hair standing up.

At first I wasn’t sure if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, but soon there could be no doubt about it: the portal was steadily diminishing, shrivelling up. As we watched, it gradually shrank until it completely disappeared with one final anticlimactic pop.

Adelmo, needless to say, was lost forever.

The police investigated, and in the following days a huge search was initiated, complete with a helicopter and over fifty volunteers. We admitted Adelmo had visited the church, but we told the police and everyone else that he’d left again and we hadn’t seen where he’d gone.

This was technically true, and so Montecchio felt that God would understand the slight deception.

The fact is, people go missing all the time in the mountains. A man can set off on an evening stroll, intending only to take a path he’s taken many times before. Then perhaps he decides to take a side-route, and somewhere along the way he stumbles and falls into a ravine. He tries to climb out, but he’s injured, and in the end he gives up and passes out.

A search party can pass within metres and not find his body, covered by vegetation.

Within weeks, animals have consumed his flesh and scattered his bones and clothing, and anything that’s left of him quickly gets buried in the forest floor.

It happens all the time, so no-one was really all that surprised by Adelmo’s complete disappearance. It was unusual, yes, but impossible? No.

Montecchio wanted to get rid of his apparatus and give the research up, but I persuaded him that he should continue. His research really could benefit all of humanity. And after all, if Mavi had reappeared, perhaps one day we might be able to get Adelmo back also. Not that I really want him back, if I’m honest.

At any rate, to this day Montecchio tinkers with his apparatus in the crypt. We have built a strong wall of stone and cement, with a locking metal hatch, just in case he accidentally opens another Hell-portal that he can’t close.

Frankly, the chances of ever retrieving Adelmo, or even his corpse, seem remote. Perhaps it’s better that way. His wife seems happier without him, and I’ve noticed her children visit her more often now.

The following is a dramatised account, admittedly, but entirely based on recordings that were made at the time, alongside eyewitness testimony.

The first thing I did was to assemble a team.

Harry Rickman was an obvious choice to lead the team. He was quiet but effective; a shortish man with a little black moustache, very decisive. Also, Zara Feldsmar. Tall, with silver streaks in her blonde hair, and a very effective leader. I felt that together they had the necessary force of personality to deal with Gadro.

These planetary governors can be hard-nosed; toughened as many of them are by their tradition of fighting: an unfortunate necessity during many of our colonial endeavours.

Aside from those two I hand-picked a bunch of crew members; anyone I though was solid and reliable.

I only added Ilsa Roman as an afterthought. She had been with us for just a year at that point, and I wanted her to get some real-life experience. Several people told me she was wrong for the job; too soft, too idealistic. My argument was, what better way to toughen up than dealing with a recalcitrant and possibly psychopathic governor?

After the whole thing had blown over, I reviewed all the meetings that had taken place on the ship. They were largely uneventful. One in particular stuck in my mind; most of the rest, not so much.

Sven Carr, the ship’s captain was present at this particular meeting, along with Rickman, Feldsmar and Roman.

“I’ve been researching some analogous cases from history.” said Roman. “I’ve produce a dossier.”

She handed folders to the other three.

She proceeded to nervously regale the other three with a whistle-stop history of prison camps, taking in the Spanish in Cuba, the British in South Africa, the Americans in the Philippines, then the Russian gulags, and culminating in the Nazi concentration camps. She also drew comparisons between Gadro’s treatment of the Anaki and the apartheid system in South Africa in the 20^th century.

By the time Roman had finished, Feldsmar, tough though she was, had tears in her eyes. Or at least, she apparently wiped a tear from her eye, dabbing at it with a handkerchief.

“You’ve performed your task wonderfully.” she told Roman.

I had to go back over earlier tapes to find the bit where Feldsmar indeed assigned exactly this task to Roman.

“Thank you.” said Roman.

“Gadro will pay for his crimes.” said Rickman, banging his fist on the table, also deeply moved.

“Do we know why he’s set up these camps?” said Carr.

“The man’s sick in the head.” Rickman replied.

“All planetary governors are subject to massive psychological testing before they’re assigned their posts,” Feldsmar explained, “but there’s a loophole in the system. A true psychopath can simply repeat the right answers to pass the tests.”

“In other words, he lied through his teeth on the exams.” said Rickman. “Now he’s committing genocide against an innocent population.”

“I still don’t really understand who the Anaki actually are.” said Roman.

“Gadro won’t release any footage.” said Rickman. “Never mind. It won’t help him. We’ll find out soon enough.”

“The important thing to understand,” said Feldsmar, “is that they were the original inhabitants of Atremka.”

“When humans colonised Atremka,” said Rickman, “the Anaki were hunter-gatherers. Humans came into conflict with them, and eventually reservations were established.”

“Which have now turned into concentration camps.” said Feldsmar.

“Completely illegal under all inter-galactic law.” said Carr.

Soon the ship emerged from hyperspace and began the descent to the planet.

“It’s beautiful.” Roman commented.

Many before her have remarked on the appearance of Atremka from space. It resembles the Earth somewhat, but is a more brilliant shade of blue, which many call azure, although at times, depending on the position you view it from, it’s closer to indigo.

By then Atremka was already old; colonisation occurred more than five hundred years ago. Since Atremka was one of the first extrasolar planets to be colonised, interest in it was initially extremely high, and colonisation proceeded rapidly. Then, with the discovery of many slightly smaller planets, offering the benefits of lower gravity, the focus of attention moved on, and the entirety of Atremka began to resemble an abandoned tourist resort, or some old region on the Earth suffering depopulation.

Many buildings were simply abandoned and left to the elements.

That’s not to say the planet became in any way what you might call “shabby”. On the contrary, the populated areas retained a distinctive beauty, perhaps resembling parts of Spain, Portugal or Italy, but up close one saw how many hotels were closed and how many houses had fallen into ruin.

The ship made landing on the property of Gadro’s villa, in a town called Frith, in the region known as Atruria.

Rickman, Feldsmar and Roman marched up to the door of his villa to meet him, and Gadro emerged with a dazzling smile.

“I assure you, your concerns are entirely misplaced —” he began, but Rickman cut him off.

“You’re running a system of gulags here!” he exclaimed, rather bluntly.

“It’s unconscionable.” said Feldsmar.

“I’d be happy to give you a tour.” Gadro replied. “I think you’ll understand that the camps are an unfortunate necessity.”

“So you admit it?” Feldsmar asked.

“Naturally.” said Gadro. “Shall we begin now, or would you like to refresh yourselves first?”

They replied that they would indeed like to refresh themselves, and Gadro organised temporary quarters for the three investigators and separately for the ship’s crew.

The following morning the investigators and Gadro got into an armoured transporter, open-topped but protected by a powerful force field, and they glided off into the nearest town, Gadro steering via a joystick, sitting next to Roman in the front, while Feldsmar and Rickman sat in the back, like a pair of visiting dignitaries—which is more or less what they actually were.

“I thought we’d chart a course through the town and then—”

“We want to inspect the camps immediately.” said Feldsmar, cutting him off.

“As I was saying, we’ll pass through the town and then make our way to Camp Tiszta, ten kilometres from the periphery.”

“As you wish.” said Rickman, before Feldsmar could raise further objections, since he was actually curious to see the town.

The town itself resembled any old European-style town. As with many towns actually in Europe, the young people had mostly left, leaving behind the elderly and those who, for whatever reasons, enjoyed fewer opportunities.

The centrepiece of the town was an enormous square object, standing on its edge. Some wag had scrawled “abandon hope all ye who enter here” on the plinth on which it stood.

“The portal.” said Gadro, gesturing at it. “The only thing Atremka is still really known for—apart from, apparently, prison camps.”

“I’ve heard about this.” said Roman. “Can it really transfer people across space without a spaceship?”

“It most certainly can.” said Gadro, with a devilish smile. “If you don’t mind being subjected to lethal doses of gamma rays.”

“Has there been no progress on the radiation problem?” Rickman asked.

“Very little.” Gadro replied. “Anyone who goes through it has a ninety-five percent chance of survival …. with medical treatment.”

“And without?” Feldsmar asked.

Gadro smiled icily.

“Essentially zero.” he said.

The transporter flew through streets of dilapidated abandoned houses, interspersed with houses where some proud owner had made a real effort at maintenance, even sometimes decorating the exterior with flowers. Eventually they moved out onto empty roads surrounded by trees and mountains.

After another five minutes they saw it: the high fence that surrounded Camp Tiszta, punctuated with high guard towers.

“Monstrous.” said Feldsmar.

Roman’s eyes were wide, while Rickman held his tongue, his face hardened into a disapproving near-grimace.

“Wait until you see what’s in them.” said Gadro.

At the entrance (consisting of a triple set of gates topped by coils of razor wire), soldiers in dark blue uniforms waived them through, saluting Gadro.

An army transporter floated out in front of them, guns trained on the camp’s inhabitants.

Roman gasped.

“What are they?” she said.

“The Anaki.” said Gadro. “Violent, nasty creatures. We had hopes of bargaining with them but you can’t bargain with an Anak. That part of their brain appears to be absent.”

The Anaki themselves milled around the transporter curiously. Others lounged against the outsides of the tiny box-like houses in which Gadro forced them to live.

“Stop the transporter.” said Rickman. “I want to talk to them.”

“I can’t recommend it.” said Gadro dryly.

Nevertheless, he obeyed, and the transporter came to a halt, floating just above the stony ground.

The Anaki appeared at first glance to consist of nothing but brownish hair: mounds of hair that shuffled to and fro with a curious lurching motion. On closer inspection, as they slithered up to the transporter, each of them possessed four black eyes:, two large central eyes and two smaller peripheral eyes.

“How do they move?” Roman asked.

“They have rudimentary feet underneath all that foliage.” said Gadro. “Usually around eighteen, but the precise number varies. They’re actually capable of fast, smooth movement when they want to be.”

One of the creatures shuffled up to the side of their transporter and Rickman produced an auto-translator.

“Could we ask you a few questions about your life here?” he said.

The translator produced a series of scratchy warbling sounds, and the creature replied in kind.

Then the translator sounded out human speech, the modulated human voice contrasting absurdly with the noises the creature had actually produced.

“Please help us.” it said. “We are being held prisoner here in terrible conditions.”

Gadro rolled his eyes.

“Spare me the amateur dramatics.” he said.

“Silence!” shouted Feldsmar.

“Yes, ma’am.” said Gadro sarcastically.

“How long have you been here?” Rickman asked, and the machine duly produced the appropriate warbling sounds.

“I have been here two hundred years.” said the creature. “Some of us have been here four hundred years.”

“How long do they live for?” Roman asked Gadro.

“As far as I know they’re immortal.” he replied.

The creature’s two central eyes regarded them mournfully.

“They don’t give us enough food.” it said, via the translator. “We are starving. Once this was our planet, now we are living like animals.”

More creatures were shuffling towards the transporter, each of them somehow projecting a curious despondent sadness in spite of their lack of facial features.

“I think that’s enough for the moment.” said Feldsmar, covering her nervousness with a determined, rather harsh tone of voice. “Continue.”

“Very well.” said Gadro, and he pushed the joystick forward.

As they glided off through the camp’s streets, Rickman angrily shouted, “He said you’re starving them.”

“It.” said Gadro. “They’re not human.”

“Human or not, you have to feed them.”

“We do feed them. They receive more food in here than they ever did when they were left to their own devices. If we give them even more food they’ll spawn and soon they’ll be starving again. We don’t have infinite food, unfortunately.” Gadro smiled. “Or fortunately, depending on your point of view.”

“This is horrific.” said Feldsmar, gazing at the seried ranks of boxes in which the Anaki lived.

“What’s horrific about it?” said Gadro.

“These houses don’t even have windows.”

“The Anaki don’t like light. They use their eyes like we use our noses. Too much light bothers them.”

“This is absolutely unacceptable, Gadro.” said Rickman. “What you’ve done here is completely beyond the pale. It’s unspeakable.”

“What do you suggest I do, exactly?”

“I suggest you let these poor creatures out of this disgusting prison camp.”

“That, I do not recommend.” said Gadro.

“We’ll discuss it later.” said Feldsmar. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve seen enough.”

Back at Gadro’s villa, Feldsmar and Rickman rounded on him.

“You are going to dismantle these camps immediately.” said Feldsmar.

“We’ll be making a full report about this to High Command.” said Rickman.

“You don’t understand.” said Gadro. “If I open the camps, they’ll slaughter us.”

Rickman exploded with sarcastic laughter.

“These … people are clearly in a horribly weakened state. Even if they wanted to kill us, which I could well understand after how you’ve treated them, they wouldn’t have the energy.”

“It’s an act. They have plenty of energy, believe me.”

“Have you heard of Hitler, Gadro?” said Feldsmar. “Or Stalin? Have you learned nothing from the lessons of history?”

Gadro rose to his feet to stare out of the window.

“These aren’t people. They’re not human.”

“They’re sentient, intelligent beings; our equals.” said Rickman. “How many camps are there, exactly?”

“Twenty.” said Gadro. “It’s their intelligence that makes them dangerous. That, and their complete lack of interest in human morality. If I open the camps they’ll tear us to pieces without the slightest compunction. As for how I’ve treated them and the supposed effects of it on their behaviour, they were like that to start with. That’s why we created the camp system.”

“Maybe we should find out a bit more about them first.” said Roman suddenly.

Feldsmar and Rickman stared at her incredulously.

When she had recovered from her shock, Feldsmar began to take Roman to task.

“Your job is to support our humanitarian mission,” she said haughtily, “Not to question the very goals of the mission. Have you lost your mind, girl?”

“I’m only saying, the people here understand the Anaki better than we do. Perhaps we should research how best to help the Anaki before we open the camps up.”

“You just blew your whole career.” said Rickman. “Absolutely disgusting attitude. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Have you ever heard such a thing, Feldsmar?”

“Never.” said Feldsmar. “A junior technician questioning her superiors like this? It’s unheard of.”

“At least one of you has a functioning brain.” said Gadro, turning round suddenly. “You think I’m the bad guy here? I’m the only thing protecting you from the stupidity of your own half-baked moral system.”

Rickman jumped to his feet.

“Our half-baked moral system, as you call it, consists of a set of directives developed collectively by humanity with the aim of preventing psychopathic dictators like you from doing exactly this!”

Gadro stared at him coldly, and for a moment they thought he was about to explode with rage. Then he smiled; the cold, cynical smile with which they were by then entirely familiar.

“Humanity has never previously encountered the Anaki. Perhaps your philosophers should have met with a few of them before formulating their principles.”

“Humanity is a rank interloper on this planet.” said Rickman. “They’re the indigenous population. We’ve displaced them. They have every right to be angry, and we have no right to be stuffing them into horrendous prison camps. You disgust me.”

“They’re not the indigenous inhabitants of this planet.” said Gadro. “They’re the species who slaughtered the indigenous inhabitants. At least get your facts straight.”

“Regardless, they’ve been here a lot longer than us.” said Rickman. “There are principles here, Gadro, even leaving aside humanitarian considerations.”

“We have the power to have you removed,” said Feldsmar, “and we will remove you unless you open up the camps. Either you cooperate or we’ll have you arrested and taken back to the Earth for judgement.”

The smile dropped abruptly from Gadro’s face.

“It appears I have no choice.” he said.

“Damn right, you don’t.” said Rickman.

“Can’t we at least spend a few days on further research?” said Roman.

“You shut your insolent mouth, you silly girl.” said Feldsmar, wagging her finger at Roman.

Gadro pulled his communicator from his pocket and spoke into it.

“Captain Appley. Open up the camp. Let the prisoners out.”

The voice transmitted from the other end was incredulous.

“Could you repeat that, Governor Gadro?”

“I said, open the camp. Unlock all the gates. Let them out.”

“With the greatest respect, sir, have you lost your mind?”

“The decision is out of my hands, Appley. Our duty is not to question orders; our duty is to obey.”

There was a pause, during which Captain Appley could be heard breathing heavily. Finally he said, “I’ll do no such thing.”

“Captain Appley, I could have you removed from your post.”

“Better that than let these vermin out. At least then I won’t be held responsible for it.”

“Is that your final word on the matter?”

“That is my considered stance.”

Gadro switched the communicator off.

“I’m afraid my captains have more sense that you.” he said. “I doubt there’s a single one of them who’ll open their gates.”

“Very well, then we’ll go there in person and open the prisons ourselves one by one.” said Rickman.

“Insanity.” said Gadro.

“You’ll do as you’re told.” said Feldsmar. “You will take us to the prison camps. Our crew will accompany us.”

Soon they were heading out of town in Gadro’s transporter, Captain Carr behind them in another transporter, and almost the entirety of the ship’s crew following in another six transporters behind that.

They passed by the portal and quickly left the town behind. Soon they pulled up outside the camp.

Gadro spoke into his communicator.

“We’re coming into the guard house.” he said.

“All of you?” said the bewildered voice of Captain Appley.

“Ten of us.” said Rickman.

“Ten of them.” said Gadro.

The outer gates opened and they filed into a small building at the front of the camp, from where the interior and exterior of the camp were visible, as well as the gates; the guard house benefitted from wrap-around windows made of thick toughened quartz glass.

“How do I open all the gates?” Rickman asked.

“You don’t.” said Appley, turning pale.

“I outrank you.” said Rickman. “Tell me how to open the gates if you want to keep your job.”

Appley turned to Gadro.

“Is this for real?” he asked.

“Absolutely.” said Gadro. “Tell him what he wants to know.”

“Sir, I request permission to have a five minute headstart to go and save my wife and children before the gates are opened.” said Appley.

“Don’t be such a drama queen!” said Feldsmar caustically. “Just tell us how to open the gates.”

“Enter the code 5-1-8-9.” said Appley, pointing at a control panel. “Then flick all the gate switches. Then enter the code again to confirm, and press the red button.”

“Feldsmar, would you like the honour?” said Rickman.

“Is this really a good idea?” said Roman. “With a little more research …”

“I certainly would.” said Feldsmar, and she began entering the code.

Appley ran to the door and bolted out of it.

“Don’t worry.” Gadro said quietly to Roman. “We’ll be safe in here. For a while.”

Feldsmar pressed the red button and multiple alarms began ringing out.

“Let’s go out to congratulate these innocent beings on their release.” said Rickman.

“A wonderful idea.” said Feldsmar.

“My men and I will remain here for the moment, if you don’t mind.” said Carr.

“Nonsense.” said Feldsmar. “You and your men will come with us.”

Carr filed out of the door, following Rickman and Feldsmar, wearing the resigned expression of a condemned man. Roman hung back, hoping they wouldn’t notice her.

From the control room, Roman and Gadro watched as the small crowd of humans went to stand in front of the great mass of Anaki. Rickman held out his arms like a king making an offering to his subjects.

“You are now free!” he shouted.

A group of curious Anaki surrounded him, making hideous flute-like piping sounds.

He smiled, and then quite suddenly a long tentacle with an arrow-like structure on the end of it darted out from beneath the fur of the closest Anak, and embedded itself in Rickman’s skull. His eyes and mouth opened wide, and blood began to pour from his nose.

Feldsmar shouted something and the crowd of humans began to fall back towards the open gates.

More Anaki plunged their thin dart-like tentacles into Rickman’s skull, the tentacles pulsing as blood and liquefied brain coursed through them.

Even inside the control room, the sound of Feldsmar screaming incontinently was faintly audible.

Gadro and Roman watched as the Anaki overwhelmed one of Carr’s men after another. Appley, outside the camp, jumped into a transporter and shot off towards the town at high speed. Carr began firing his laser cannon wildly at the Anaki, killing several, but the Anaki were swelling into an irresistible crowd.

“We have to help them!” said Roman, inside the guard house.

“Do we, really?” said Gadro. “Personally I don’t care if the entire class of senior administrators gets eaten alive one after the other.”

“Do something!” said Roman. “Please!”

“There’s nothing I can do.” said Gadro, with a horrible smile. “Don’t worry, we’re quite safe.”

“Don’t you have a wife or children in the town?”

“As it happens, I don’t.”

“But the people in the town—they’re done nothing to deserve this!”

The smile faded from Gadro’s face.

He ran to the control panel, held a button down and spoke into a microphone.

“Evacuate the town!” he shouted. “The Anaki are loose!”

When he took his finger off the button, Roman noticed his hand was shaking slightly, in spite of his general appearance of composure and self-assurance.

“There must be something we can do.” said Roman.

“Do you want me to kill them?”

Through the window at the side of the guard house, vast crowds of honking, piping Anaki were visible, streaming out of the gates and scuttling towards the town, arrow-headed tentacles waving above their heads.

“What will they do when they reach the town?” Roman asked.

“They’ll slaughter everyone. That’s their way. They don’t understand compassion.”

“Then yes, I want you to kill them.”

“Unfortunately I haven’t the means to do that.”

They stood and watched, Gadro emotionless—or appearing so, Roman horrified, as the nightmarish horde streamed out of the camp in the direction of Frith.

Suddenly a thought occurred to Roman.

“Open the portal.”

“What?”

“Open the portal. They’ll go through it and die from the radiation, won’t they? If it even takes out a few dozen of them, it’s better than nothing. The human inhabitants will know not to use it, but they won’t. Are they susceptible to radiation?”

“Very.” said Gadro, smiling again. “You surprise me, Roman. I like the way you think.”

“Can you do it?”

Gadro took his communicator from his pocket and raised it to his lips.

“Heller?” he said. “Listen, I haven’t time to explain. There’s a vast horde of Anaki coming your way. Open up the portal. Let them die trying to go through it.”

A torrent of outraged indistinct words emerged from the communicator.

“Just do it,” Gadro shouted, “or prepare yourself for death.”

Outside the guard house, Anaki threw themselves against the windows, arrow-headed tentacles clinking uselessly against the strong glass.

Gadro took a bottle from a fridge, removed the cork and began pouring it into one of a pair of glasses.

“Would you like a little wine?” he said. “It’s an excellent vintage. From our own vineyards.”

“You want to drink wine at a time like this?” said Roman.

“We’re stuck here for at least an hour, till they disperse. It may surprise you to learn that I value the calming effect of wine precisely at times like this. Well?”

Gadro held the wine bottle poised above a second empty glass.

“All right.” said Roman.

Not until three hours had passed did the endless stream of Anaki subside to safe levels.

“Let’s go.” said Gadro, taking a plasma rifle from a rack. “Do you know how to use these?”

“No.” said Roman.

He handed her a rifle.

“Pull back the catch, point it and pull the trigger. Don’t wait till they come at you.”

“I can’t kill innocent creatures.” said Roman.

“There are no innocent Anaki.” said Gadro. “You should have seen what they did to the early settlers. They delight in pain and suffering. It’s their nature.”

Outside they made their way to the handful of transporters that still remained in the parking lot, periodically shooting at Anaki stragglers, some of whom scuttled towards them making scratchy flute-like noises.

Once safely in a transporter they drove towards the town.

At the edge of the town they were greeted by a crowd of armed civilians, standing among scattered Anaki corpses.

“Many casualties?” Gadro asked them.

“Probably no more than fifty.” said a tough-looking man carrying a rifle and hung about with various other weapons.

“I issued instructions to evacuate.” said Gadro.

“We’re not going anywhere, Governor.” said the man. “Apologies and everything.”

Gadro smiled.

“You’ve done a great job.” he said.

“Thank you, sir.” said the man.

Soon they were approaching the portal. There they found Heller, the scientist, gazing blankly into the portal. They alighted from the transporter and went to join him.

“Status report, Heller.” said Gadro.

Heller jumped, startled.

“Oh, it’s you.” he said. “Yes, most of them took the bait. I altered the coordinates to the middle of the Sahara. Not much out there. If the radiation doesn’t kill them, the heat will.”

“Well done.” said Gadro.

“You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.” said a voice.

They turned to see Feldmar, covered in blood, half-staggering towards them.

“I tried to warn you.” said Gadro. “I told you, they aren’t human. They’re ruthless killers by nature.”

“You’re responsible for this mess, Gadro.” she said. “You’re responsible for the deaths of Rickman and most of my crew. I’m making a full report to the High Commission.”

“A few hours ago you were planning to make a full report on me keeping them in prison camps. Now you’re planning to make a full report on me opening one of the camps?”

She stared at him blankly and confusedly.

“Would you like me to open up the other nineteen camps?” said Gadro.

Then Feldmar fell face forwards onto the ground, and remained there.

Heller ran to her and examined her.

“One of them got her.” he said. “Wound in the back of the head. She’s dead. Amazing she didn’t die earlier.”

“Sixty or more humans dead because of her and Rickman’s idealism.” said Gadro. “I won’t be attending her funeral.”

At this point, Gadro ripped the transponder from his jacket, so no more of his conversation was recorded. All governors are required to wear transponders while conducting official business at all times.

As of yet, no action has been taken against him. I have recommended that no action be taken.

He remains as governor of Atremka.

Nor do I find any fault with Roman, whose quick-thinking suggestion saved countless human lives. Over seven hundred Anaki corpses were later recovered from the Sahara. They are being studied.

Sven Carr in the end survived, but refused to return to the Earth, and I have released him from all duties. He is free to remain on Atremka if he so wishes.

Our sense of morality was formulated for humans, via observation of other humans. The fact is, few of us have ever encountered creatures of other species—other exospecies—with human-like intelligence but none of our human traits.

One can only wonder if early humans weren’t perhaps in a similar situation in their dealings with the Neanderthals or the Denisovans.

In my view, Gadro is innocent of wrongdoing.

This ends my report.

This was the fate I very narrowly avoided, and only by facing an even worse horror, which I would never have voluntarily confronted.

In 2007 I received a substantial windfall in the form of a legacy from an uncle who had passed away. To tell the truth, he died screaming and insane in a secure psychiatric facility, but that’s another story. Before his mind had become unmoored, he had built up a little business, the precise nature of which was never clear to me, but evidently it was fairly lucrative.

I decided to use this money to pursue my fantasy of writing a novel while living alone in the countryside for a year.

In those days Britain was part of the EU, so there was no bar to me going and renting a place in the Alps, aside from the language barrier. I flew to Vienna then drove south in a hired car, and spent a month exploring the north of Italy and the south of Austria.

Eventually I found a place to rent, in a place called San Drogone, in Italy. San Drogone was nothing but a tiny village, with a small shop for groceries. The house I proposed to rent was two miles from the village itself; close enough that I could walk.

The road from the village to the house was covered in snow, and my rental car was unable to get up there. I soon turned around, left the car in the village, and trudged up the road through the snow.

The owner arrived on time in a four-wheel-drive jeep. She was a youngish woman by the name of Ilaria, with long blonde hair, as is common in those parts. She had come by the house the same way I’d acquired the money to rent it; via inheritance. She spoke a little English and I’d manage to learn a bit of Italian, and between the two of us we sorted out the rental agreement.

I thought her rather stand-offish at first, but I soon saw that she was not without a sense of humour, yet appeared weighed down by some unspeakable burden or other: I presumed the death of whomever had originally owned the house—I couldn’t quite understand who that was—or perhaps some long-standing illness.

The house was run-down but habitable, and soon I found myself alone in it, with only my laptop computer for company. There was no internet connection and no mobile signal, which was how I wanted it.

A funny thing about the house, was that it was positively plastered in crucifixes. It’s not uncommon to find a crucifix or at least a cross in an Italian house, as I later came to realise, but the quantity in that particular house was outlandish, especially since the owner was relatively young. The Italians are losing their religion like the rest of us Europeans, although the ebb of faith is perhaps less extreme there than in many other countries.

I counted a total of seven crosses on the outside of the house, and twelve inside, many featuring the suffering body of Jesus nailed to them, all rendered in cheap plastic.

My next major task was to get the hired car back to the nearest office of the hire company, which was in a place called Trento. Driving there was easy enough, but then to get back I had to take a train, and then a bus, and walk the final thirteen miles from the nearest bus stop. The route from the nearest town involved a badly-paved road, which turned by degrees into hardly more than a track. In Trento, which sits at an elevation of around two hundred metres, the weather at the end of February almost corresponded to a typical summer’s day in England, but by the time I was within a few miles of the village, I had stepped into conditions that more resembled a Scottish Highland winter, due to the increased altitude.

As I approached the village itself, a large dog came bounding towards me out of nowhere. I’m not especially afraid of dogs but this one was tough-looking and was making a bee-line for me. Just when I thought it was about to fasten its jaws on me, it jumped up at me wagging its tail, covering my coat in paw prints, and I realised it was simply very friendly.

This dog, I later discovered, was named Luca and was owned by a man who lived in the village.

I was about a mile from the village when some local, passing slowly in the other direction in a four-wheel-drive car, stopped and wound down his window.

I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying to me, but he seemed to be trying to tell me that I shouldn’t go any further, but should turn back. I couldn’t make him understand that I had rented a house up there, and had nowhere else to live. He seemed angry. Eventually he gave up and went on his way.

Luca followed me all the way to the village.

Once I’d passed the village and Luca had scampered off back to his owner, I walked the remaining two miles to my house through thick snow. The snow ploughs had only properly cleared the road as far as the village; after that I was on my own. After having already endured this hike the first time I’d arrived at the house, by then I had actually bought cheap crampons, with rubber straps that fixed over my boots, attaching metal teeth to the soles that dug into snow and ice. Snow shoes would have been a much better investment, and I’ve since learned that many people die in the Alps just for lack of them.

Over the following few weeks most of the snow gradually melted away. I increasingly began to explore my surroundings.

I discovered the cave quite early on. It resembled a sort of crack or fissure in the rock, large enough to walk into upright. I started forwards, intending to walk just a little way in, but something stopped me.

It’s hard to describe the sensation that washed over me, quite unexpectedly. I can only describe it as a feeling that something deeply malevolent lurked within that dark crevice. But that hardly conveys it. There was a sensation of profound wrongness, as though I had stumbled upon something completely unnatural; something that shouldn’t exist.

My hair stood on end and I hurried away. Even the sky gave me the creeps after that experience; I became uncomfortably aware of the huge ocean of gasses above and around me, and of my lack of any real insulation from the vastness of the universe above. A kind of agoraphobia, I suppose you could call it, if you had to put a label on it, although I had never previously felt any such sensation.

The feeling persisted somewhat for several days. At night I became unsettled by the quantity of air in the room in which I lay, and I pulled my bedclothes tightly around my head.

Luca appeared periodically at the door of my rented house, scratching to be let in. I figured out that his owner was an old man who lived alone in the village, by the name of Marco. I’d feed Luca some scraps of food and sometimes he came on a little walk with me, happily following me around. Once I discovered who his owner was I’d take him back home after a bit.

He wasn’t neglected by any means, but he had a habit of escaping from the garden he was supposed to guard, and seeking out new friends.

On our second walk together we passed close by the cave, and that was the only time I had seen him frightened. He refused to go anywhere near the cave, and only barked at it with his hackles raised.

I had only been in my new place around a month when something extraordinarily bizarre and horrible happened.

I went out on a walk that was rather longer than usual, exploring the mountains a bit. At a certain point the weather turned, and soon a blizzard was blowing. On my way home I happened to almost pass the cave entrance, and by then the hour was around five and, what with the sun descending behind the mountains and the blizzard, I could hardly see where I was going.

I felt a shiver run down my spine at the sight of the cave entrance, which now struck me as curiously repulsive. Then I heard a bark.

I stopped and listened. Undoubtedly it was Luca, but where was he?

I strained my eyes and ears, trying to shield my face from the driving snow with one hand, and through the snow and mist I thought I saw something standing in front of the cave. Stealing my nerves, I began to make my way towards it.

Incredibly, there was a flimsy wooden cage in front of the cave entrance, and Luca was in it. He was overjoyed to see me. I quickly unfastened the cage door and let him out, and he jumped up and began licking my face.

Since the weather was absolutely horrible, I didn’t feel like taking him all the way home to Marco, and I was wondering if Marco was the one who’d locked him up there, and if so, why? So I took Luca back to my house.

Inside he ran around jumping on everything, creating a terrible mess. I cooked us both some sausages and then he calmed down a bit.

At night he slept peacefully, to my surprise, given his boisterous character.

Around three in the morning I awoke to find a bright light shining through a crack in the curtain. At first I thought a car had somehow got up on the hill and was shining its headlights directly at my window, but then I realised the light was a full moon, almost setting, which happened to have reached the correct position to shine through a gap in the curtains and directly into my face.

I opened the curtains a little and saw a landscape that was hauntingly beautiful. The mist and snow had completely cleared up, leaving a perfectly clear sky. The moon softly illuminated a still, snow-covered terrain, dotted with spruce trees and ending in the mountain range. I was so taken with it that I tried to photograph it before returning to sleep, but my camera wasn’t really up to the job.

The following morning I set out to return Luca to his owner. I can’t say that I really knew Marco, having only exchanged a handful of words with him, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d leave his dog in a cage on the hillside during a snowstorm. I hoped to extract some kind of explanation from him using my rudimentary Italian.

When I arrived at his house I knocked on the door but there was no response. I knocked again, thinking he must have gone out somewhere. Then I thought I heard a quiet sobbing. Luca heard it too and he happened to bark, then I heard the sound of Marco positively running to the door. He flung it open, and Luca jumped at him, barking and licking his face. Marco embraced the dog, actually crying.

I tried to explain, in Italian, that I’d found his dog in a cage. He seemed to understand, although I couldn’t be completely sure. Then he showed me his wrists. They had livid red marks on them, as though he’d been tied up. He pulled up the legs of his trousers and there were marks there too, on his ankles.

Needless to say, I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about whatever was happening in this village. He tried to explain but there were too many words I didn’t know. Finally he took my arm and pulled me outside, where he pointed at a house. I understood he wanted me to go there and knock on the door. Feeling as though I was in some sort of weird dream, I did as he bade me.

The house he’d indicated stood near the top of the hill, and was smaller than Marco’s. I trudged up the hill in the snow, let myself in through a little gate, and knocked.

Soon the door was answered by yet another old man. The village seemed to be full of old men living alone, although I had definitely seen women there, and even a few younger people.

This particular man was gaunt and hollow-cheeked, and had a haunted look about him. He spoke to me in Italian and I pointed at Marco’s house and tried to say that Marco had sent me.

When he heard my accent he switched to English, which he spoke with a faint accent that I couldn’t quite place.

“I understand.” he said. “Come in.”

Inside, the house was unlike anything I have ever seen, before or since. The walls were adorned with curious demonic masks, animal skulls, maps, diagrams, and what looked like reproductions of pages from old books, many of them framed behind glass.

“You’ve got yourself in a bit of trouble, I think.” he said, motioning me to site down at a table.

“What do you mean?”

He watched me steadily, apparently trying to decide how much to tell me.

“There are people here who follow ancient superstitions.” he said. “Things that don’t belong in the modern age. The dog was intended as a sacrifice to L’Entità. Now you have saved him. They already suspect. You were seen on the hillside last night. There are some who feel you should be sacrificed instead. Only, they weren’t sure if you had really saved the dog. Now they will know.”

“They wanted to sacrifice Luca?” I said, unable to believe my ears.

“Precisely.”

“To what?”

“To the thing that lives in that cave.”

“What lives in the cave?”

“That, my friend, is a long story.” he said.

We sat in silence for some moments. He didn’t seem keen to tell me much else.

“They tied Marco up to keep him from rescuing his dog.” I said.

He sighed.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. You mustn’t be harsh on them. It’s either an animal, or their sons and daughters. They believe the creature must eat every full moon.”

“Why don’t they give it a chicken or something? Or even better, a mouse?”

“Usually, they do, but L’Entità has been getting restless recently. A girl disappeared. They believe she was consumed. It is no longer satisfied with chickens.”

“What is it? A bear? Why don’t they kill it?”

“I came here fifteen years ago.” he said, apparently ignoring my question. “For forty years I taught at the University of Bologna. I taught myth, legend and folklore. This place has always fascinated me. Nowhere else is such a strong, persistent and definitive myth found. For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, people have believed that something evil lives in that cave. I have uncovered evidence that even the Romans and the Goths knew of it, and feared it.”

“Nothing can live so long.” I said.

“No ordinary biological organism, no. The thing that lives in that cave is not of this Earth. Or if it is, then it was here long before spiritual entities ever took corporeal form and took up residence here.”

I laughed, openly scoffing at his words.

“The universe is larger than you might imagine.” he continued. “Things exist that are incomprehensible to the limited human mind. We are only hairless primates, and we can form only limited conceptions of the world around us.”

“You’re telling me some sort of demon lives in that cave?”

“Ancient peoples would have conceptualised it as such. I believe it is of natural origin, but it has no bodily form.”

“If it doesn’t have any bodily form then how does it eat people?”

The slight smile dropped from his face and his expression took on a grave and serious aspect.

“It consumes them spiritually,” he said. “leaving behind only a useless husk, which it secretes somewhere in the depths of the cave system.”

“This is the most absurd pile of nonsense I’ve ever heard.” I told him.

“Perhaps, but the locals believe it. I suggest you leave here immediately, before they all realise what you’ve done.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Certainly not. I’m a scholar, not a thug. Think of my words as representing important advice in dealing with a somewhat primitive and rather ancient tribe of which you have no real knowledge.”

“I’m not leaving. I have nowhere else to go.”

“Then I suggest you arm yourself.”

Only after I left this man’s house did I realise that I hadn’t got his name, and could have taken the opportunity to at least ask a little more about these local legends. The entire conversation had quickly become so unsettling that I hadn’t really maintained a clear head.

I trudged back to my house through the snow, which was still stubbornly clinging to the mountainside on account of the altitude.

The snow seemed to me to provide a natural defence. I would easily spot any marauding villagers making their way up the track that led there in the kind of large cars that can handle those conditions. The other possibility was that they could walk up, but I’d easily see them coming and it would take them a while. Unless they had snowmobiles I didn’t see how they could possibly reach me quickly.

I still needed groceries. I had to eat. About a week later I made my way nervously down to the village shop, trying to pick a time when I thought it would be relatively empty.

When I opened the door, causing a little bell to ring that alerted them to customers, both the woman who ran the shop and its only customer, an elderly woman, stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me, gawping as though I had three heads.

I gathered up the few things that I needed as quickly as possible. The elderly woman hurried out. The cashier watched me curiously, but pretended to be busy with something every time I almost caught her eye.

When I went to pay it seemed like everything was going to go smoothly, but just as I turned to leave, she caught my wrist and began jabbering at me in a mixture of standard Italian and the local dialect. I couldn’t understand much of it, but it seemed like she was trying to warn me. Her eyes were moist and her tone was imploring. I think she was grateful that I had saved the dog, and afraid for my life. I caught only a few words, like “mostro” (monster) and “sacrificio”. She also used a lot of religious terms: I distinctly heard “Dio” and “Santa Maria”.

I pulled my arm away, telling her “grazie” since I didn’t know what else to say. When I exited through the door she was still half-crying, and imploring me, probably to leave and save myself, in that tone of voice you hear a lot on Radio Maria.

A few weeks passed by uneventfully. I worked on my novel, a gothic horror about werewolves which in the end I was too embarrassed to publish, gazing at the mountains out of the window while I worked.

Then one night I was again awakened by a bright light shining between a gap in my curtains. This time I got out of bed in a great hurry, again thinking the moon was a car headlight and this time thinking the villagers had come for me. Then I calmed down a lot as I realised it was just the moon.

But then a new concern entered my mind. The full moon—wasn’t that when they believed their monster had to be fed? I hurried to the window at the other side of the house and my worst fears were realised. Five or six vehicles were making their way towards the house.

I quickly dressed and gathered together a few things in a rucksack. I would have to temporarily flee into the night until it was safe to return. At least, if there were to be a break in, I’d have cause to call the police.

Unfortunately I misjudged the business. I ran out of the front door, thinking I’d just get out in time, and found myself staring down the barrel of a shotgun, wielded by a flint-faced old codger from the village.

More of them arrived while I tried to reason with him in my poor Italian. Soon I was surrounded by eight old men. They tied my hands behind my back and forced me to walk towards the cave. With a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach, I saw that two of them were carrying the same cage from which I’d rescued Luca. Considering the smallness of it, even being locked in that thing would be quite the punishment, monster or no monster.

They marched me to the cave through the deep snow. I kept falling on my face but they yanked me roughly to my feet, jabbing me with the barrels of their guns. They wouldn’t listen to anything I said to them.

There was a brisk wind blowing and snow began to fall again as we walked.

At the mouth of the cave we stopped and they put the cage down a couple of metres from it. Again I felt that odd sensation, as if staring into something wholly unnatural and perverse.

They opened the cage and stuffed me in. The front of it was only secured by a flimsy catch, but with my hands tied, I had little hope of being able to unlock it. I could only hope that once they left me alone I’d be able to roll the cage and smash it open.

But they didn’t leave me alone. They stood back and waited, staring expectantly into the ominous dark depths of that wretched crevice.

I can’t explain what happened next. I became seized with an unspeakable terror, like nothing I’ve ever felt. I had an awful feeling that something truly repugnant was slowly approaching, stumbling and scratching its way towards me inside the inky blackness of the cave. Some inchoate entity of indescribable evil.

Horrible images flashed through my mind; the beaks of repulsive squid-like beasts, surrounded by fleshy tentacles covered in suckers; loathsome half-formed mouths filled with needle-like teeth dripping with blood; disgusting blobs of sentient pus; all lurching and crawling in my direction from the very depths of hell itself, eager to feast on my horror-stricken psyche.

And then I realised, with a sudden terrible shock, that the cage itself was inching slowly towards the mouth of the cave. The snow underneath and around me was gradually being drawn into the cave, like syrup flowing from an overturned jar but in reverse.

The wind reached a terrible howling intensity. I began to shout and scream at the assembled men, forgetting that probably none of them spoke English, begging them to set me free, pleading for mercy. I no longer even knew what I was saying; I only knew that I was scared out of my wits.

As the cage gradually fell into the cave, borne on the unnatural tide of snow and ice, darkness began to close around me. The men moved in closer to observe my fate.

Then there was a terrible and awesome sound, somewhat reminiscent of thunder but far deeper and with a grating, squealing edge on top of it. I saw the men look up in terror. They turned and tried to flee, but a vast slab of snow, sliding down the mountain, buried them in the blink of an eye, simultaneously cutting off what little moonlight still connected me to the ordinary world.

A moment later all was silent; I could hear only my own breathing, and the beating of my own heart. My eyes strained for the faintest glimmer of light. Then I saw it: two yellowish pinpricks in the darkness; two inhuman malevolent eyes.

“Please!” I whispered, my throat so constricted with fear that I was unable to even scream.

It stopped; I could make out nothing of it but those horrid eyes, watching me.

And then I experienced a new and wholly unexpected sensation; one of indescribable relief. The eyes distinctly began to retreat again into the darkness. I can only describe the feeling as one of forgiveness, as if I had committed some awful crime, but a lenient and merciful judge had decided that I was fundamentally of good heart and character, and should be freed rather than hung.

I began to pound at the cage with my back and feet, every which way I could manage in the restricted space, and soon I succeeded in smashing the door open.

For perhaps an hour I remained there, shivering and muttering to myself, yet somehow the worst of the fear had passed. Whatever was in there, it didn’t want me.

Again I heard the curious creaking, rumbling sound that had presaged the avalanche, and a slab of snow fell away from the entrance of the cave, revealing a dim reflection of moonlight on the snow. If my eyes hadn’t been adjusted to profound darkness, I probably wouldn’t have seen it at all.

I stumbled towards it and manage to worm my way out by degrees, slithering out onto the snowfall outside the cave.

How happy I was to be free! I believe that, even after the creature had retreated, I had accepted death, powerless as I thought myself to be, to escape the darkness.

I staggered back to the house through a vicious blizzard, falling over and over again but always staggering back onto my feet.

Once home I was able to cut the ropes that held my wrists with a kitchen knife.

I was deathly cold. I ran a hot bath and sank myself into it as a matter of urgency.

Only when I’d warmed myself up did it occur to me that I should probably contact emergency services, but up there I had no phone signal. A ferocious blizzard was blowing outside and either the moon had set or storm clouds had obscured it.

Nothing could be done until the morning.

I fell asleep in my bed, exhausted.

When I awoke the following morning, bright sunshine illuminated the snow. Rescue teams were already combing the hillside. Someone else must have alerted them.

In the end they made no progress. The bodies of the eight men weren’t found until two weeks later, when the snow had largely melted in the warmth of the spring.

I didn’t go up there again until all the snow had gone. Although I had strangely lost my fear of the cave, having faced the worst and survived, I was nevertheless happy to discover that the mouth of it had collapsed. The cave had disappeared, buried beneath the rocks.

I stayed there for another two years, working on my book. Luca’s owner let me take him for walks in the hills.

There were no more sacrifices.

As for the retired academic, I later discovered his name was Conrad Grohman, and he was an Austrian, having been born just across the border. Soon after the collapse of the cave he left to live in more hospitable climes, somewhere near Treviso.

I’ve tried to find the ancient writings he spoke of, alluding to the thing that lived in the cave, but with no success.

Perhaps it’s for the best.

The forest has been plagued with genuine disappearances over the years, strengthening its ominous reputation.

In 1993, a group of eight children and three adults headed into the forest on a hike from a local school, and were never seen again. No bodies were ever recovered.

In 2002, an experienced hiker and travel writer, Mircea Ionescu, set off into the forest intending to spend three days hiking across a small section of it. He was found two weeks later, terrified out of his mind and utterly insane. He died in 2005 of unknown causes, never having recovered his sanity. It proved impossible to obtain a coherent account from him of what had happened. It has been speculated that he accidentally consumed some poisonous plant or other, resulting in his mental collapse.

The forest’s disturbing reputation repels most people, but attracts others.

I cannot tell you how I came across the following story; only that the time has come to tell it, after a long-held silence.

In 2007, four friends set out to hike across the Codrul al Nerei, following the ridge that traverses the entire forest. All four worked in the biotech industry, in Cambridge, England.

Trevor, large and exuberant, was the most experienced hiker of the four. It was his idea to hike the forest trail. Joe’s experience of hiking, at the other extreme, was little to none.

They departed from a guesthouse in the village of Izvorani at the south-west end of the trail on March 6^th, aiming to reach Lupeni at the other end of the trail no later than March 12^th.

Initially, Joe found the trail disappointing. After some initially promising views of blue-grey mountains half-covered in snow, the trail ascended into thick scrubby woodland, where the only things visible were low tangled trees and bushes.

“If it’s going to be five days of slogging endlessly along muddy trails, I wish I hadn’t come.” Joe complained, as they sat on a rock overlooking the Nera valley, four hours into the walk.

“Nah.” said Trevor. “It’ll get better. The trees get bigger further along and we’ll be higher up.”

The start of the trail is indeed rather gloomy and monotonous, as many others have noted.

“Four hours and you’re already complaining?” said Owen. “You have to give it a chance.”

“All right.” said Joe. “If Trev says it’ll get better than that’s fine. I just thought it was all going to be like this. Five days of this and we’ll all be insane at the end of it.”

“I quite like it.” said Richard.

“You would.” said Joe.

They had brought two tents, Joe sharing with Richard and Trevor with Owen.

When they made camp for the night, Joe found himself disturbed by the sounds that emerged from the dark impenetrable forest.

“Wolves!” Joe exclaimed. “Listen!”

“They’re afraid of people. Don’t worry.” said Richard.

“How do you know? Are you some kind of wolf expert now? You’ve probably never even been in a forest before.”

“I looked at some guide books.”

“Oh great, guide books, I’m sure they’re definitely tell people if they’re in danger of being eaten by wolves. That’ll really help tourism.”

“I think they would tell people.” said Richard reflectively. “It’s hardly to their advantage if tourists get eaten by wolves.”

“What if they’ve got rabies?”

“They’re not going to get through the tent.”

“A wolf could easily get through a tent.”

“Now you’re an expert on wolves?”

Joe pulled his sleeping bag around his head, listening nervously to the howling.

By the afternoon of the second day, they were almost halfway along the trail and the hike had so far proceeded without incident.

It was at this point, while traversing a narrow path above a nearly-vertical drop of perhaps five metres, that Joe lost his footing and rolled all the way to the bottom. The others quickly found a way to scramble down and join him.

“Are you all right?” said Richard.

“I’ve twisted my ankle.” said Joe, grimacing.

Joe found he was able to stand, but walking was painful.

“Best thing is to force yourself to walk, otherwise it’ll swell up.” said Trevor.

“Easy for you to say!” said Joe, bitterly. “It hurts like hell.”

“We’re not going to be able to do the whole rest of the trail.” said Owen. “We’ll have to find a shortcut or something.”

“There’s no shortcuts.” said Trevor, shaking his head.

Joe was almost crying with pain.

“We’ll phone for rescue.” said Richard. “Owen, you’ve got a phone. Does it work?”

Owen took out his phone, a tiny thing capable only of making calls and sending messages.

“No signal.” he said.

“Has anyone else got a phone?” Richard asked.

No-one else had a phone.

Trevor spent ten minutes trying to persuade Joe to walk until Owen and Richard finally told him that Joe clearly couldn’t walk and it wasn’t fair to keep trying to make him walk.

“We’re going to have to go and get help.” said Owen. “There must be a farm or something somewhere round here.”

“We might be able to get a signal if we go higher.” said Richard.

“Surely it makes more sense to go lower.” said Owen. “The last thing we need to do now is climb further up the mountain.”

The problem of who should leave and where they should go, and who should stay with Joe, was a difficult one to solve, requiring extensive negotiations.

The nearest place that might be inhabited was an anonymous cluster of buildings marked on the map about thirty miles away. It was too far away to get there by nightfall. They had only two tents, and both tents were too small to fit three people in one tent.

Two of them would have to go to find help and one person would have to stay with Joe, but no-one wanted to be left alone with Joe.

Joe was prone to brittle, irritable moods and incessant complaints at the best of times, and now that he was injured, he was far worse than usual. Richard and Trevor knew Joe via Owen, who had once rented a room in a house where Joe also happened to live, but Owen was the least inclined to be left alone with Joe. On the other hand Joe didn’t much like the idea of being left alone with Trevor, whom he found unsympathetic.

In the end Joe was left with no say in the matter, and Richard and Owen headed off together to find the village, while Trevor stayed with Joe. This decision was announced to Joe as a fait accompli.

Richard was no more skilled than Owen in finding his way through the mountainous forest. His experienced of navigating the great outdoors was limited to cycling tours, but he led the way nonetheless, due to his greater decisiveness.

“What we’re going to do,” he said to Owen, pointing at the map, “is head east down this trail here, then cut through the forest till we hit this road.”

“Shouldn’t we stick to the paths?” said Owen.

“Then it’s nearly twice as long. We should at least try to see if the shortcut’s navigable.”

“All right, but let’s try not to get into anything we can’t handle.”

By the time darkness fell, they had covered at least fifteen miles on a trail which, at times was barely discernible.

When they pitched their tent for the night, they must have felt themselves to be far off the beaten track, and really in the absolute middle of nowhere.

It’s impossible to know with any certainty the details of what happened to them after that, but we may reconstruct a plausible sequence of events.

We may imagine that, at night, they lay awake listening to the wolves, which now seemed much closer to their tent than previously.

During the early hours of the morning, when the sky had lightened in preparation for dawn but there was still no actual sign of the sun itself, Richard left the tent for some reason. Almost certainly he simply intended to urinate, some short distance from the tent.

We don’t know whether he sensed the presence of the rabid wolf before it attacked him, or whether the attack came out of the blue. Owen was awakened by the sound of terrified screaming. When he saw what was happening, he immediately went back into the tent to find a knife. Then he bravely ran over to help Richard.

The deranged wolf was so focused on fighting Richard that Owen was able to inflict a mortal wound upon it, but not without sustaining a nasty bite himself, on his ankle.

It was too late for Richard. His wounds were too severe to survive. Half of his face and neck had been partially torn away.

The wolves in Romania are not large and they are usually scared of people, but when infected with rabies, they are capable of inflicting serious damage on a human being.

Owen could only watch Richard die. Probably Richard, if he was still able to speak, told Owen to find the village as quickly as possible and obtain medical assistance. A series of injections can usually prevent rabies from developing in those who’ve been bitten by infected animals.

It appears that Owen survived for two days after this, wandering in the forest, steadily losing blood from the wound on his ankle. Likely he got as far as the vertical cliff edge that crosses their intended route, turned back again, and eventually became hopelessly lost. Cause of death was probably hypothermia exacerbated by loss of blood.

Meanwhile, Joe was becoming increasingly paranoid.

As darkness fell, Trevor made a fire. He and Joe huddled around it for warmth.

“Listen!” said Joe. “We’re surrounded by wolves. I’d be easy prey for them. Maybe we should be in the tent. Do you think they can tear through the tent?”

“Doubt it.” said Trevor. “They’re afraid of people and fire. Don’t worry about them.”

“I feel like we’re going to die out here. I’m going to die, at least. You can walk.”

“Tomorrow they’ll get to those houses, yeah?” said Trevor. “They’ll call for help and probably a helicopter will be here by evening.”

“It’s really stupid that we didn’t bring painkillers.” said Joe miserably. “My ankle really hurts.”

“It’s just a sprain.”

“I think it’s broken.”

“Nah. You’d be in more pain.”

“I am in more pain.” said Joe, tears in his eyes.

The sun had long since set when Joe saw the face in the trees.

“It wasn’t human, Trev.” he said, in a panic. “If it was human, there was something horribly wrong with it.”

“It’s just your imagination. You probably saw a goat or something.”

“It wasn’t a goat!”

“Look, why don’t I go and have a look?”

“Don’t leave me!”

“I won’t leave you. I’ll just go over there a bit and check with the torch.”

Eventually Joe consented to this plan. Trevor scoured the trees in their immediate vicinity with a torch.

“Nothing there.” he said, sitting down by the fire again.

“I know what I saw.” said Joe.

As the evening wore on, Trevor grew increasingly annoyed with Joe’s complaints. He tried to be reassuring, but eventually he snapped.

“If you had just watched where you were stepping, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“It wasn’t my fault. It was just an accident. Anyone can have an accident.”

“I don’t have accidents. You know why? Because I watch where I tread. I’m careful.”

They fell into an outright argument, which ended with Trevor retreating to the tent, announcing that he was going to sleep, and Joe hurriedly dragging himself over to the tent on his knees, not wanting to be left alone.

When the following night arrived with still no sign of help materialising, Joe grew despondent.

“Something’s happened to them.” he said.

“They must have got lost.” said Trevor. “They’ll find their way eventually. It’s not that complicated. As long as they head away from the mountains it’ll be fine. Eventually they’ll reach the valley. There’s villages in the valley.”

“How long would that take?”

“Could be a couple of days in the worst case.”

“We haven’t got food for two more days.”

“We won’t starve to death in two days. Tomorrow morning I’ll fetch more water.”

Three more days went by no sign of rescue, and they were forced to reluctantly, and correctly, conclude that Richard and Owen were dead.

By then they were extremely hungry.

“I’m going to have to go and get help.” said Trevor, as they were sitting by a fire after sunset.

“You can’t leave me here!” said Joe.

“We’ll starve to death if I don’t.”

“People will be searching for us by now. We’re on a well-known trail. People know where we’ve gone. They’ll find us.”

Trevor shook his head.

“We’re not on the main trail.”

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“I wanted to try something a bit more adventurous. No-one comes down this trail at this time of year, mate.”

“I told everyone we were going along the trail that’s marked on the map. You know, the what’s it called —”

“Yeah, it’s not that trail. It’s not on all the maps. I’ve got a special map.”

“Special map?” said Joe, hardly able to believe his ears. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s an old map used by miners. I gave it to Owen and Rich.”

“So we’ve got no map and anyone who’s looking for us will be looking in the wrong place? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Basically, yeah.”

Joe began crying softly.

“Hey, don’t cry, mate.” said Trevor.

“My ankle hurts and I’m hungry!” said Joe.

Trevor shifted uncomfortably, wondering what to do.

Then the sound of breaking tree branches made them both look up.

“What’s that?” Joe asked fearfully.

“Probably an animal.” said Trevor.

“An animal?”

“A stag or something.”

The thing, whatever it was, stumbled and lurched towards them, until they could make out its outline in the light of the fire and the half-moon.

“What the hell?” said Trevor, and he rose to his feet and scrambled hastily backwards.

In the dim light they saw a figure, apparently human, but dressed in rags and bearing the face of a corpse. Its skin appeared grey and partially rotten. Upon the crown of its head were only wisps of white hair. As it staggered towards them, its head bobbed uncannily from side to side.

Joe tried to pull himself backwards along the damp earth.

The figure stretched out a hand towards them and groaned. They could smell its decomposing flesh.

“Get away from us!” Joe screamed.

The figure spoke.

“I can help you.” it said, coming to a halt a few metres away from them. “I’ve been watching you. You have no food. You’re injured. I can help you.”

“Who are you?” said Trevor.

The figure stood still for some moments, catching its breath. Then it said, “I know my appearance is alarming. I can explain. Don’t worry. I’m not infectious. At my house I have medical equipment and food. I’m a doctor.”

Joe and Trevor exchanged frightened and baffled glances.

“OK.” said Trevor. “Where’s your house?”

The figure turned and pointed into the forest with a quavering index finger.

“How far?” Trevor asked.

“Not far.” the figure rasped. “Not far at all. You can make it there.”

“I’m not going anywhere with that thing.” said Joe quietly.

“We’ve no choice, mate.” said Trevor. “Take a hiking stick and lean on me. You can hop.”

The figure began to shuffle off back into the forest.

“Let me help you up.” said Trevor.

Joe reluctantly allowed Trevor to pull him to a standing position, and they began to follow the figure, Joe hopping and grimacing.

The figure’s pace was slow but even so, with Joe unable to walk properly, they were barely able to keep up with it.

Soon they arrived at a tiny run-down shack in the depths of the forest.

The figure opened the door and went in.

“Come!” it said, as loudly as it could seemingly manage, barely able to speak for wheezing.

Inside, they found the figure sat at a wooden table in the one-room hut. Trevor helped Joe onto an old dusty wooden chair.

The smell of decomposing flesh in the hut was strong but bearable.

“Allow me to introduce myself.” said the figure. “I am Dr. Oldovan. Let me catch my breath and I will bring you food. Then I will fetch medicine for your ankle.”

“What are you doing here in the forest?” Trevor asked him.

“I came here a long time ago, to research the healing properties of certain minerals in the soil. You see, the animals here live an unnaturally long time, and hunters noticed that they showed remarkable powers of recovery from injuries that should be fatal.

“I am one-hundred and fifty-three years old. I myself have been preserved by the remarkable powers of the substance. Unfortunately I have been preserved rather imperfectly, as you can see. I am no longer fit for the company of my fellow human beings.”

“A hundred and fifty-three!” Trevor exclaimed. “Why don’t you share your findings with the scientific community?”

Dr. Oldovan smiled wearily.

“The world is not ready for what I have discovered. Imagine a world filled with people like me. It would not do. Not at all. Now, let me bring you some food. You will find my food perfectly acceptable, in spite of the appearance of the chef.”

He rose unsteadily and went to a stove at the side of the hut, where he began to cook.

“Fresh rabbit stew, with carrots I have grown myself.” he said. “I can heal your injured ankle, but I must ask you one thing in return.”

“What’s that?” Joe asked.

“You must never tell anyone about me, or about the substance. Never. The secret must remain here, with me. Can you swear to this?”

“No problem.” said Trevor.

“Of course.” said Joe.

The doctor turned around to face them, leaning back against the bench where he was preparing some kind of hot tea, in mugs that looked home-made.

“I need you both to swear. ‘I will never tell anyone about Dr. Oldovan or the substance’. Say it.”

Joe and Trevor duly repeated Oldovan’s words.

“Good.” said Oldovan.

He brought them steaming mugs of tea, which, in spite of their hesitation, they both found surprisingly refreshing, and a little later he brought bowls of stew, which Trevor pronounced delicious and which even Joe, who under normal circumstances was a vegetarian, had to admit brought welcome relief from hunger.

After they had eaten, Oldovan opened a hatch in the floor and began to unsteadily and slowly descend into a dark cellar.

“My laboratory is down here.” he said. “I will fetch medicine.”

“I’m not taking any medicine of his!” Joe hissed, when they judged Oldovan to be out of earshot.

“If it works maybe we’ll be able to walk out of here.” said Trevor. “Otherwise I’ll have to leave you here while I get help.”

“You can’t leave me with him!” Joe protested.

“Take the medicine then.” said Trevor. “If it works, it could be the find of the century.”

“You can’t tell anyone about it. You promised him you wouldn’t.”

“He’s not right in the head. If he’s really got a drug that can keep someone alive to a hundred and fifty-three, do you understand what that means?”

“Look at the state of him!” said Joe.

“It means we’re going to be billionaires.” said Trevor.

They continued to argue for a few minutes, falling silent abruptly as Dr. Oldovan emerged from the cellar carrying an old glass beaker filled with a milky blue liquid.

He placed it in the middle of the table with an unsteady hand.

“Drink that.” he said to Joe.

Trevor made a face at him in which he tried to convey the idea that Joe would either be staying alone in the forest with only Dr. Oldovan for company, or else drinking the medicine.

“It won’t hurt you. It will heal you.” said Oldovan.

Joe took the beaker, raised it to his lips and, making a sudden decision, downed the contents.

“Good.” said Oldovan. “Now let me show you back to your tent. There isn’t room for you to stay here. I will give you some hazelnuts to sustain you on your journey home. There is a trail near here that leads directly south. If you start in the morning, you will arrive at a village before nightfall.”

Oldovan tottered out of the door and they followed.

By the time they had arrived back at their tents, Joe was already able to gingerly put a little weight on his injured ankle.

Oldovan turned and lurched back off into the trees.

“Remember your promise.” he said over his shoulder.

The following morning, Joe awoke to find his ankle completely healed.

“When this drug is properly commercialised it’s going to make us rich beyond belief.” said Trevor. “We’re talking private jets, sports cars, villas, private islands, even.”

“You can’t tell anyone. He’s right, anyway. Imagine a world where everyone looks like him.”

“Nah.” said Trevor. “We’ll get you home, then I’m coming back here with a team of scientists. He’s no right to keep this to himself.”

“Trev,” said Joe soberly, “you promised.”

“If he’d made us promise to keep a cure for polio under wraps, would you honour that promise?”

“It’s not a cure for polio.”

“It’s better. It’s a cure for everything. For broken ankles. For every disease that affects people when they age.”

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“You can’t stop me. You have no right to stop me, and you can’t.”

After eating a breakfast of hazelnuts, they packed up the tent and began walking back along the path. Soon they found the turning south that the doctor had told them about. They turned off the main track and followed it.

They had walked for six hours and estimated themselves to have reached the halfway point when Trevor began to feel sick.

“Let’s sit down for a bit.” Joe suggested. “Take a rest.”

They sat, but Trevor only felt worse and worse. He gradually turned completely white.

“You’ll have to go on without me.” he said, pale as a sheet. “Get them to pick me up, and arrange a search party for Rich and Owen.”

“You might feel better in a bit.” said Joe.

But then blood began to stream from Trevor’s nose. Trevor wiped it away with the back of his hand, then stared blankly at the blood.

“That old bloke’s done something to me.” he said.

“I feel fine.” said Joe. “Do you think it’s possible he overheard us talking?”

“I —” began Trevor, but then he keeled over backwards.

“Trev!” shouted Joe in alarm.

Trevor’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body began to jerk spasmodically, his neck contorting itself hideously, pulling his head sideways.

Two minutes later, while Joe desperately tried to find some way of helping him, he stopped breathing.

Joe had little idea about any kind of emergency first aid techniques, but he tried his best to revive Trevor. And yet, there was something curiously final and still about Trevor’s body, which remained stubbornly inert, with his head twisted oddly to one side.

Eventually Joe had no choice but to leave him and make his way towards the village.

Five hours later he arrived at a small cluster of houses. No-one there spoke English, but he managed to make an elderly couple understand that there was some kind of emergency, and that he needed a telephone.

Half an hour later a helicopter landed in the village and the paramedics took Joe to show them where to find Trevor’s body. They found the tent and other supplies that Joe had left there, but there was no sign of Trevor.

The bodies of Richard and Owen were found the following day.

Trevor’s body was never recovered.

“That’s him?”

“I know.” said Burrows, sympathetically. “He’s a bit weird but he’s got a fine mind. Only reason he’s not doing my job by now is he doesn’t want it. And because—well, we’ll not go into that. Anyway, have fun.”

Burrows walked off back to his office.

Detective Inspector Beaumont wore brown tinted glasses, had a head of short slightly curly brown hair that looked like it was almost definitely a wig, and sported a stubbly beard, darker than his hair, that had every appearance of being dyed.

He was drinking a coffee with one hand and held an unlit cigarette in the other hand.

Carter walked up to him.

“Sir, I’m the new Detective Sergeant.” he said. “Steve Carter.”

“Oh right, pleased to meet you.” said Beaumont.

Beaumont’s voice sounded like he needed to clear his throat but couldn’t be bothered.

He looked at his coffee and cigarette, trying to decide which to put down so he could shake Carter’s hand, and settled for putting the unlit Marlboro in the corner of his mouth.

Carter noticed his fingers were heavily stained with cigarette tar.

“Anything I can do at the moment?” said Carter.

“Yeah, actually. New case just came in. Come into my office. Second thoughts, I’d better ‘ave a fag first. Let’s go round the back.”

At the back of the police station was a car park, filled mainly with police cars.

Beaumont lit his cigarette and inhaled with evident gusto.

“Only had ten so far today.” he said. “I don’t feel right without my fags.”

“Ten, sir?” said Carter.

“Yeah. What, you think that’s a lot?”

“It’s only eleven in the morning.”

“Fair point, fair point.” said Beaumont. “The thing is, it calms me down. Don’t know if they told you but I’ve got some psychological issues. I’m open about it. I’m seeing a counsellor. Bloody useless, mind. These are the only thing that helps. That and my wife.”

He rattled a pack of Marlboro’s in Carter’s face.

“I see, sir.” said Carter. “Each to their own.”

“You can call me Beaumont. Everyone else does.”

Carter watched as a tabby cat made its way steadily across the top of the high brick wall that surrounded the car park.

“Inspector Burrows said you’d have his job if you’d wanted it.” he said.

“Yeah, probably.” said Beaumont. “Only reason I even accepted Detective Inspector is all the tax the bloody politicians put on cigarettes. Load of parasites, the lot of them. I hate them.”

Beaumont turned and kicked the wall in a sudden flash of anger.

“Parasites!” he shouted.

His face had flushed red.

Carter looked at him with an expression of alarm.

“Sorry, sorry, Carter.” said Beaumont. “It’s the anger. I told you I’m not myself till I’ve had at least a packet. I’m calm now. I’m calm. Tell you what, I’ll have another one quickly then we’ll go to my office and talk about the new case.”

On the way back to his office, Beaumont stopped and poured himself another coffee, which he drank black with seven sugars that he hastily stirred in with a stained teaspoon.

Beaumont’s office reeked of stale cigarette smoke, in spite of the ban on smoking indoors. Six plastic disposable cups stood on his desk, some still with coffee still in them, and three filthy mugs.

“You smoke in here?” Carter asked.

“Yeah.” said Beaumont. “Now, ‘ave a look at this.”

He slapped a photograph down in front of Carter.

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” said Carter.

Carter’s eyes widened with shock.

“No blasphemy, if you wouldn’t mind.” said Beaumont.

“What?” said Carter.

Beaumont indicated a crucifix on the wall behind him, which Carter hadn’t previously noticed.

“I found Jesus three years ago when my third wife left me.” said Beaumont.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” said Carter.

“She was found yesterday, in her house on Ferrer Street. Sick bastard did this to her while she was still alive.”

“Your third wife?” said Carter, suddenly confused.

“What are you talking about? No, I mean the victim.”

Carter gazed in horror at the horrible mess in the photo. It was almost impossible to imagine that the horrific tangle had once been a human being.

“Lived with her husband. Imagine getting home from work and finding this. If anyone laid a finger on my Achee, I’d wring their necks!”

This last sentence was pronounced with considerable asperity.

“Lord help me, I’d make them pay!” said Beaumont, warming to his theme, and he brought his fist down on the desk with a resounding bang.

“Achee?” said Carter.

“Achara, my fourth wife.” Beaumont explained. “She’s Thai. She calms me down. That’s what I need in a woman, someone who can calm me down. So far there’s very little to go on. We’re waiting on the forensic people.”

At that moment the phone on Beaumont’s desk rang. He picked it up.

“Beaumont.”

Carter couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of the line.

“Really? You’re sure?” Beaumont said into the phone.

When he put the phone down, he said to Carter, “Forensics. Only DNA they found on Mrs. Smith was from ‘er husband.”

“Her husband did this?” said Carter incredulously.

“No.” said Beaumont. “No way.”

“Has he been arrested?”

“He was. I let him go this morning.”

“You let him go?”

“Yeah. No alibi, really, but he didn’t do it.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me, I’ve got a sense about these things.”

Carter stared at Beaumont, unable to believe his ears. This man, he thought, was clearly a lunatic. How on Earth had he ever been made Detective Inspector? Had he blackmailed someone?

“Let’s go and have a look at the crime scene.” said Beaumont. “I ‘ope you’ve got a strong stomach. They ‘aven’t cleaned ‘er up yet.”

On the way to the crime scene they passed several recruitment posters. The war with China was still raging, and only seemed to intensify with each passing day. The posters featured young men and women who, in Carter’s view, looked like they might have made good flower arrangers or interior designers, but certainly shouldn’t be in an army.

“This goes on any longer they’re going to conscript us.” said Beaumont, grasping the steering wheel with yellow-stained fingers. Beaumont insisted on driving in manual mode, even though the route to Mrs. Smith’s house was fully cleared for self-driving.

An image of Beaumont gunning down Chinese civilians in a blind rage flashed through Carter’s mind, and he shuddered.

The scene at the house was just as hideous as the photograph had suggested. Beaumont, while apparently unaffected by the horror of it, seemed keen to inspect the outside of the house and Carter strongly suspected this was mainly because he wanted to smoke.

“Look at these footprints the boys found.” he said, lighting a cigarette and gesturing with his head.

“He came in through the French door.” said Carter.

“Didn’t just come in through the door. He stood outside the window, waiting for the right moment to pounce. Waiting till her husband went upstairs. Look how deep the footprints are next to the window. He sank into the ground a bit.”

Carter peered at footprints next to the door, directly outside a large window.

“Anyone could have left those. The husband could have stood there to make it look like a break-in.”

“Nah. We checked his shoes. No match.”

“So he was in the bathroom, and he claims he heard nothing, and when he came down, his wife was in bits?”

“That’s what happened.” said Beaumont. “They’d left this door open a crack for some air. Probably checked dozens of houses till he found the right one.”

“How can you be so sure it wasn’t the husband?”

“Instinct, Carter. Here, do me a favour, go inside, draw the curtains and come out again.”

“All right.” said Carter.

When he re-emerged, Beaumont had lit another cigarette and was peering at the window from different angles.

“Have a look and tell me what you see.” he said.

Carter dutifully obeyed.

“Can’t see anything at all.” he said.

“Yeah. You can’t see into the place with the curtains closed. These are good curtains. If I get a chance I might ask the husband where ‘e got them.”

“He must have had his ear pressed to the window. He must have been listening.”

“Then there’d be an ear-print on the window.”

“Isn’t there?”

“No.”

“So, why’d he stand here? And how did he know the husband had gone upstairs?”

“Exactly.”

“The husband did it.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then what?”

“Think about it.”

“I am thinking about it.”

Beaumont smiled enigmatically.

“Let’s head off. I’ve seen everything I want to see. I’ll just have another quick fag first.”

On the way back to the station, Beaumont stopped the car suddenly, tyres squealing, outside a recruitment poster.

“Parasites!” he shouted. “This hacks me right off!”

He proceeded to tear it down, made it into a ball and, taking careful aim, threw it over a nearby wall.

When he got back into the car, he sat there for a minute, shaking slightly and inhaling deeply. He had flushed bright red.

“Sorry, it’s me nerves.” he said. Then, his voice rising to a shout, he added, “I bloody hate politicians!”

And he slammed the steering wheel with his hands.

“Would you like me to drive?” Carter said, nervously.

“No, no, it’s all right, mate.” said Beaumont. “I’ll be all right in a minute.”

Beaumont reached into his pocket and took out a bottle of pills. He popped one of the pills into his mouth and washed it down with a bottle of water that he took from the glove compartment.

Gradually he grew calmer.

“I really need to see Achee.” he said. “She calms me right down. What time is it?”

“Nearly one o’clock.”

“Bloody ‘ell. Another four hours then.”

In the days that followed, Beaumont resisted all of Carter’s pleas to arrest the husband.

The second murder occurred three weeks to the day after the murder in Ferrer Street.

The victim was male, aged 33, and had been murdered in his own car. The murderer apparently flagged the car down after dark on a country lane and somehow persuaded the driver to wind the window down, whereupon he stabbed him in the face, likely with a kitchen knife.

All that was bad enough in itself, but the murderer had then removed the body from the car, draped it over the bonnet, and disemboweled it.

It was this last hideous facet of the case that made the police think it might be connected to the earlier murder.

“I reckon we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.” said Beaumont, as he surveyed the murder scene in the now cordoned-off road.

He had a mug of cold black coffee in one hand and a lighted cigarette in the other.

“It’s horrible.” said Carter.

Beaumont sipped his coffee.

Suddenly his radio beeped. Beaumont conversed with the caller for a minute, then said, “They’ve got him, or someone at any rate. He went home covered in blood in the early hours, neighbours spotted ‘im and called it in.”

They returned to the police station immediately, Carter fidgeting nervously, Beaumont insisting on smoking out of the window of the police car while driving, completely against regulations.

The suspect, a 45-year-old man by the name of Adam Davidson, was pale and gangly and reminded Carter curiously of a spider.

“Right then,” said Beaumont, “did you do it or what?”

“No.” said the man.

“Why did you go ‘ome covered in the victim’s blood then?”

“I’ve already told the other copper. I like to drive about late at night. I suffer from insomnia. It helps me relax.”

Beaumont nodded understandingly.

“I happened upon the murder scene,” Davidson continued, “and I went to see if I could help. Then I slipped on the blood pooled on the road and fell on the victim.”

“Rubbish.” said Carter.

At that moment there was a knock on the door.

“Hang on a sec.” Beaumont said to the man, and he beckoned Carter.

They went outside, where PC Whiting was waiting for them.

“Sorry to disturb.” he said. “Just want to let you know, the DNA matches, and the footprints match his shoes. The footprints match the ones found at Ferrer Street as well. Looks like we’ve got our our man.”

“Thanks Whiting.” said Beaumont, and he watched Whiting walk off down the corridor. Then he turned to Carter and said, “Take a statement and let him go. It’s not ‘im.”

“What do you mean, it’s not him?” said Carter, outraged. “Of course it’s him.”

“Nah.” said Beaumont. “I don’t think it’s him.”

“Why not, in the name of God?”

“He’s left-handed. You can tell from how he gestures, mate, and his eye movements. Killer was right-handed or ambidextrous.”

“You can’t let him go based on that! What about his footprints?”

“Coincidence. You can buy those shoes all over the place.”

“They were the same size!”

“Like I said. Anyway, forensics probably cocked it up.”

“We can’t let him go.” said Carter adamantly. “We should charge him.”

Beaumont shook his head.

“Are you going to send him on his way or I shall I do it?”

“We need to charge him.”

Beaumont inhaled deeply and drew himself up to his full height.

“Now you listen here.” he said, jabbing his finger at Carter’s chest. “That man’s innocent. You’re making me angry now. Don’t make me angry. You check him out or I’ll check him out. Go in there and take his statement, and tell him he’s free to leave. Bloody well do it.”

Carter glared at Beaumont, whose face was flushing red.

Finally he went into the interrogation room and began taking the man’s statement.

When he’d finished, he asked the man to wait. Davidson was happy to comply.

Carter went immediately to Chief Inspector Burrow’s office, where he found Burrows immersed in administrative tasks.

“Sorry to disturb, Inspector.” he said. “It’s just that, we’ve got a suspect for the Hill Way murder. His footprints match, DNA matches, footprints match the Ferrer Street murder, and he was spotted returning home at four in the morning covered in the victim’s blood. Thing is, sir, Beaumont says I’m to let him go.”

“Well, what are you waiting for, Carter? Tell him he can go home.”

“Sir?” said Carter, astonished. “But —”

“Beaumont must know what he’s doing.” said Inspector Burrows. “I have every faith in him. You’re good at your job, Carter, but with all due respect, Burrows is a better detective than you’ll ever be, or I’ll ever be. Let the suspect go.”

“Beaumont is unhinged. I saw him tear down a recruitment poster in the street a few weeks ago. He’s got major issues.”

Burrows harrumphed and pressed his lips together. He seemed to arrive suddenly at a decision.

“Look, he probably wouldn’t like me telling you this, but there are reasons why he’s like what he’s like. You see, Beaumont was in the war.”

“Which war?”

“With Russia. Conscripted. Messed him up pretty bad. But whatever his emotional problems, he’s an incredible detective. If he says to let the suspect go, you do it. OK?”

Carter nodded disbelievingly, lost for words, and eventually managed to say, “If you insist, sir. Under protest.”

“Under whatever you like, Carter.” said the Inspector.

As he was leaving the Inspector’s office, Carter turned and said, “Can I have the suspect put under observation, sir?”

“No.” said the Inspector curtly.

Carter watched Adam Davidson leave the police station with a nervous sinking feeling in his stomach. Davidson had surely murdered twice, and he would surely murder again.

The night of the 15^th of September was unnaturally dark, due to a heavy storm. By the following morning, the roads were still wet with rain.

At nine in the morning the police station received an emergency call. Two officers rushed out of the rear exit of the police station, into the car park at the back. In doing so they passed Beaumont, who was standing behind the station, smoking. He asked them where they were going and one of them shouted a reply over his shoulder.

Beaumont quickly finished his cigarette and went into the station to find Carter.

“Let’s go.” he said. “There’s a development.”

“What kind of development?” Carter asked, but Beaumont was already halfway out of the door.

Ten minutes later they pulled up outside a large depressing square concrete building.

“Used to be a hospital, till they found it was riddled with asbestos. Now it’s awaiting demolition.” Beaumont explained. “There’s a courtyard in the middle of it.”

“That’s where the crime occurred?”

“Yeah. That’s the site of the occurrence.”

As they made their way into the building, one of the officers who’d responded to the emergency made his way out of the building, accompanying a slightly-built man in late middle age.

“Who’s he?” Beaumont asked the officer.

“Caretaker, Inspector.” said the officer. “He phoned it in.”

“I want to talk to him personally.” said Beaumont.

“How long are you going to be?” the officer asked.

“Half an hour, tops.” said Beaumont.

“I’ll be happy to wait.” said the man. “Anything I can do to help.”

The man forced a smile, but he was clearly in shock.

“Much appreciated.” said Beaumont.

Inside, the building was full of dust and spider webs. The walls had once been painted a pristine white but now the paint was full of cracks, smeared with unidentifiable substances and adorned with sporadic outbreaks of graffiti. Ancient flaking signs directed people to obsolete departments: X-Ray, Orthopaedics, Cardiology.

They made their way towards the courtyard at the centre of the building, completely surrounded by the grey crumbling walls with their dark, blank windows.

“Might as well light up.” said Beaumont. “No-one’s going to complain in here.”

He lit a cigarette, after offering the packet to Carter, who declined, since he had never smoked, and in fact detested the odour of cigarettes.

The lights in the building worked only sporadically; most of them were long since defunct, and if anything the endless corridors seemed to become darker as they walked further into the building.

Frustratingly, it seemed to be impossible to simply walk directly from the outer doors to the inner courtyard; instead they found themselves walking along one grimy corridor after another.

Carter experienced a curious mixture of emotions that both pulled him towards the courtyard and simultaneously pushed him away from it. He was beginning to fervently wish they would emerge once more into what little sunlight was available on that overcast morning, while at the same time feeling distinctly apprehensive about the sight that awaited them there.

Finally they saw the courtyard through the cracked filthy panes of a glass door. A couple of people from Forensics were milling about taking samples.

“Where is he?” said Carter, peering outside.

Beaumont raised his eyes upwards.

“We’ve got to walk out underneath the body?” said Carter.

“No, don’t worry, it’s off over there a little bit.”

Beaumont gestured with his cigarette.

They pushed the doors open and stepped into the courtyard, turning immediately to look at the body hanging from a window on the upper floor.

“Sick bastard.” said Carter, gasping.

The legs of the cadaver had been severed at the knees and the arms at the elbows. The body had once belonged to a young man.

“Why is he doing this?” said Carter.

“Who?”

“The murderer. The serial killer.”

“It’s terrorism.” said Beaumont. “He wants to shock us.”

“How do you know?”

“Limbs cut off after the victim was already dead, otherwise they’d be more blood. Different thing every time. No consistency.”

“Maybe it’s a different bloke.”

“No.” said Beaumont. “Same bloke.”

Carter eyed the blood that had streaked down the wall and collected in a blackish pool on the broken concrete tiles below.

“That’s a lot of blood.” he said.

“Not enough, mate.” said Beaumont, shaking his head. “Purely done to shock. Not to inflict pain. Let’s go and have a look at the room he’s hanging from.”

In the end an hour passed before they arrived back at the police station, Carter shaking and nauseous. The caretaker had waited patiently for them. Beaumont was carrying a large hunting knife that had been carefully placed in an evidence bag and which was, apparently, the murder weapon, having been found in the room from which the body had been hung.

PC Leaming had almost finished taking the witness’s statement.

“We’ll take it from here, Leaming.” said Beaumont.

“Very good, Inspector.” said Leaming, and he left the room, shutting the door quietly and respectfully behind him.

“Right then, what can you tell us?” Beaumont asked the man.

“I’ve already told that other fellow everything.” he said. “I’m happy to repeat it if you like.”

“Just give us the basic outline.”

“I was mopping the floor when I heard a dreadful scream. I looked out my window and …”

He paused, clearly holding back strong emotions.

“… I saw that poor man hanging there. From my quarters I can clearly see the other side of the courtyard, where he was hanging. Oh, it was so dreadful. Then I thought I saw something moving in one of the upstairs windows. I took a fire axe in case I had to defend myself and I ran downstairs and over to the other side of the building.”

“Very brave.” Carter interjected.

“I just knew I had to do something.” said the man. “I ran round and about the other side of the building a bit, then I heard the doors at the front closing. I hurried over to the front and I was just in time to see someone running off. A powerfully-built man, dressed all in black. I couldn’t see his face. He had a balaclava pulled over his head, and I could only see him from the back.”

Beaumont picked up the evidence bag containing the murder weapon, sliding it across to himself over the table. He stood up and began turning it around in his hands.

“How tall was ‘e?” Beaumont asked the man, walking over to the other side of the room and gazing into space in the corner.

“About six foot I should think.” said the man. “I don’t know what that’d be in metres.”

“Six foot.” said Beaumont, taking the knife out of the bag and peering at it thoughtfully. “So if ‘e was six foot and ‘e ‘eld the knife like this, in his right hand …”

Beaumont trailed off, making short stabbing motions with the knife.

The witness twisted around to glance at him, then turned back to look at Carter.

“What time did you get to work?” he asked.

“About six.” said the witness. “I like to get started early. Then I can finish early.”

“Did you see the sunrise this morning, then?” said Beaumont.

The witness glanced at Beaumont again, puzzled.

“I might have see it briefly after I got up, through the window. Why do you ask?”

“Do you like sunrises?”

“They’re all right. What’s that got to do with the price of eggs, if you’ll excuse me asking, Inspector?”

“A little exercise.” said Beaumont, running his finger along the edge of the knife, which was still smeared with the victim’s blood.

Carter gazed at him, puzzled. This didn’t seem a proper way to handle evidence, but Carter wasn’t going to criticise Beaumont in front of a witness.

“It ‘elps with recalling details.” said Beaumont. “Will you ‘umour me a bit?”

“Certainly, if you think it’ll help.”

“How do sunrises make you feel?” Beaumont asked.

“Well.” said the man, almost laughing slightly. “I suppose I like to see the sun come up, hear the birds singing. Makes you feel ready to start the day.”

“I see.” said Beaumont. “You got any more questions, Carter?”

“No, I —” Carter began, but at that moment, Beaumont plunged the knife into the witness’s neck.

“What the —” shouted Carter, jumping up from his chair.

Beaumont pulled the knife handle forwards, the knife cutting deep into the man’s windpipe.

Carter staggered backwards, shocked beyond belief.

There was a loud bang and a shower of electric sparks emerged from the witness’s severed neck.

“Bloody clanker.” said Beaumont. “I knew it as soon as I saw him.”

He continued to sever the witness’s head. Its arms worked spasmodically, grasping at him, but he stood back, leaning over the machine, methodically sawing at the head.

“Engineered to look and sound ‘armless. Would ‘ave killed both of us if we’d tried to detain it. Chinese probably. Seen loads of these when I was fighting in the Russian war.”

“How did you know?” said Carter.

“You build up a sort of instinct. I like to give them a chance to get a bit poetical. They always trot out typical AI slop. No actual feelings, you see, Carter.”

He took the machine’s head by its hair and placed it on the desk facing Carter.

“I’m going out for a smoke.” he said. “Come and join me. Get some fresh air.”

Outside, Carter leaned back against the wall, exhaling shakily.

“I really thought you were murdering a witness.” he said.

“I may be a bit unhinged, mate, but I’m not that bad yet.” said Beaumont.

“I still don’t understand how you spotted it.”

“Instinct.” said Beaumont, exhaling a enormous blue-grey plume of smoke. “That girl in the back office who looks like your wife—”

“Carla?”

“Yeah, Carla. ‘Ow do you know she’s not your wife?”

“I … well, I … she looks different. Her teeth are different, for a start.”

“Do you recognise her by her teeth, then?”

“No.” said Carter, laughing. “I don’t know how can tell her apart from my wife, but I definitely can and do. Otherwise my wife would do to me what you did to that clanker.”

“Exactly.” said Beaumont. “You don’t know how you do it, but you do it. I’ve met enough of them to know the difference between them and us. Best start practising. There’s probably hundreds of them here already.”

“Why are they here? There’s not enough of them to kill us all.”

“Demoralisation.”

Carter nodded gravely.

“When did you first realise?”

“When I saw those footprints outside the window. What’s ‘e up to, standing in one spot for an hour, probably, sinking into the earth, when he can’t even see anything? Typical clanker behaviour.”

“Do you think it did the other two murders?”

“I’m certain it did.” said Beaumont. “Forensics’ll check its memory and we’ll have confirmation in a day or two.”

Beaumont gazed reflectively at the brick wall that surrounded the car park. He seemed almost calm, for once, Carter thought.

“God, I hate politicians.” said Beaumont. Then he crossed himself and said, “Forgive me, Lord.”

At a certain point he climbed a tree and sat sprawled over a branch, aimlessly staring at the ground.

The hunters didn’t catch his attention until they were almost underneath him. They were nearly naked and they carried spears. When he saw them, he flew into a blind rage. He dropped onto them, without caring too much which one he actually landed on, and began to tear at the man’s face.

Four hunters went looking for food; only one returned to the village. He returned with a wild story about a deranged chimp that had killed his three companions. He was carrying its corpse on his back. His face was splashed with its blood.

When rumours of an outbreak reached Europe, Dr. Erika Sönderlund was sent to investigate it, from the University of Uppsala.

She arrived to find half the entire village in a curiously morose and reflective mood, which she assumed to be due to the deaths they had endured, the number of which increased every day.

Sönderlund followed every protocol with the utmost scrupulousness. In the investigation that followed later, she was completely exonerated. The protocols, designed by some of the finest minds in Europe and the USA, were simply inadequate to deal with the new disease.

The best thing, it was often said afterwards, would have been to carpet bomb the entire area and make sure nothing survived. When faced with what was to emerge, people dropped ordinary ethical considerations like hot potatoes.

All of that was in the near future when my friend James announced that he was going to take part in a new drug trial.

“They’re saying it blows Prozac out of the water.” he told me.

“They always say that every time they bring out a new drug.” I said. “It’s just marketing. Ten or twenty years later they discover all the problems with it and they do the same thing again with yet another drug.”

But I felt immediately bad after saying all that stuff, because I could see he was finally almost excited about something, after three years of suffering absolutely crippling depression. I’ve just never seen antidepressants really help anyone.

He shook his head.

“This is really something new.” he said.

Then he began to cry.

“It’s either this or I’m just going to end it all, Dave.” he said.

It was hard to see him like that. He’d been in that state since his long-term girlfriend, Kirsty, had dumped him, even though he’d since met someone else, a girl named Julia, and they’d got engaged. James had always had a knack with the ladies. They were strongly drawn to him for reasons I could never quite understand.

Julia was not unfamiliar with depression herself, so she understood him better than Kirsty ever had, and yet his depression hadn’t lifted after he’d got together with her. It was as though, once some precipitating event had brought on his condition, it just refused to lift.

James’s depressive behaviour had been one of the factors Kirsty had cited at the time in no longer wanting to be with him. Truth be told, I’d never really liked Kirsty. I felt her behaviour all along had really laid the groundwork for James’s misery. Julia was a big improvement.

But then, if he’d been truly happy to start with, would he even have tolerated Kirsty?

Whenever I thought about it, I just ended up going round in circles. I don’t buy the idea that depression is usually just a biochemical thing; why would such a vast number of people all have become biochemically disordered at the same time? All the same, I couldn’t explain precisely why James had started on a downward spiral when other people in much the same situation just don’t.

The drug only had the code name AX52 and its development had reached Phase 3. It was being given to several hundred people with minimal supervision. In theory, it had already been shown to be relatively safe. I just didn’t like what I read about it. Where James saw hope and promise, I saw evidence of a wholesale reordering of brain chemistry that I found disturbing.

I met up with him the day after he’d taken the first dose. He wanted to go and get a beer.

I saw immediately that he was profoundly changed. This drug clearly wasn’t the type of thing where you have to wait two months and then you might be able to convince yourself that it’s working. He had transformed into absolutely the most cheerful person imaginable. He exuded resilience and a quiet confidence.

“So I take it it works then?” I said.

“Dave,” he said, “I feel amazing. I feel normal. I see everything differently. I’m cured.”

We were in a bar and he was absolutely as relaxed as if he was at home in his own living room and all the people in the bar were close personal friends. He met everyone’s gaze calmly and openly, with a faint smile that spoke of a deep content.

“Is it like speed or something?” I asked. “Are you going to crash at some point? Will it stop you sleeping?”

He laughed amiably.

“No, none of that. It has no known side-effects at all, and you don’t develop tolerance.”

“You never develop tolerance?”

“It’s not a stimulant. It reconfigures the brain naturally. My brain will probably go back to how it was unless I take one pill a day, but it doesn’t have to be in my bloodstream to work.”

“Not sure I understand.” I said.

“Think of a car. You have to get it serviced regularly or it’ll probably stop working, but you don’t need to take a mechanic around with you.”

“I see.” I said.

What he was telling me, was hard to believe. If true, they had discovered the perfect drug. I almost couldn’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to take it. After all, who doesn’t feel stressed or low or anxious at times?

I know lots of people who are stressed or low or anxious most of the time.

We spent three hours in the bar, getting through only a couple of beers each, and I enjoyed every minute of it. It was as if the drug had eliminated everything bad in James’ personality, leaving only a brilliant sense of humour and a superbly optimistic outlook. It hadn’t made him smarter or funnier or anything that he wasn’t before; it had only removed all obstacles to him being his best possible self.

When I went home, my mind was whirling with possibilities. If this drug was for real, soon everyone would be taking it, and we’d be living in an entirely different kind of world to the one we’ve been used to.

It was only when I tried to sleep that night that darker possibilities began to plague me.

What would happen, I wondered, if James got himself involved in something that positively required darker emotions? What would happen if, for example, his fiancé Julia, who he lived with, developed some sort of serious disease? Was he still in possession of the ability to express the full range of human emotions, or had half of his emotional range been cut off?

I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

The signs were there, all around us, in retrospect. People were becoming oddly quiet and contemplative. Not everyone, but lots of people; nearly a third of the population, they said later. Julia was one of those people. Instead of being happy for James or, alternatively, worrying about the implications of this strange new drug, she began to spend hour after hour staring at the wall, or the floor, or sometimes out of the window.

This went on for two weeks with no sign of change.

James wasn’t worried. He said she was just like that sometimes. She may have been like that sometimes, but she stopped going into work and spent all of her time staring blankly at things.

“She says she just feels like she needs a break.” he told me, with hardly a trace of concern.

“What kind of break is this, where she just stares at things? Spa trips or two weeks in Paris I could understand, but this isn’t normal.”

He shrugged.

“Everyone’s different.” he said. “She needs some quiet contemplation time. Some ‘me’ time.”

“Me time.” I echoed, struggling to comprehend his attitude.

Julia worked full-time at an optician’s and spending two weeks of her precious vacation time doing literally nothing didn’t make any sense to me, but there was no getting through to James.

This conversation took place in their living room, with Julia actually present. She would respond apathetically if directly asked a question, but otherwise she said nothing.

In the mornings I was in the habit of turning on the TV so I could get the news while I ate breakfast. One morning, by which time Julia had been enjoying her staring holiday for yet another week, I turned the TV on to find there was only one topic in the news: a strange new plague that caused people to abruptly flip into a long-lasting state of extreme aggression. At that point no-one had connected this sudden flip to the epidemic of blank contemplation. It would be months before anyone was even able to understand that there was such an epidemic, much less connect it to the horrors that followed.

In some respects the disease, as we now believe it to be, followed a similar pattern to the sleeping sickness that some connect to the Spanish flu, except in reverse. The flu epidemic was obvious, then later on some fell prey to a strange disorder in which they became unable to concentrate, or even, in the more extreme cases, to stay awake. Whether the two really were connected or not remains a matter of conjecture.

In the case of IAD, Infectious Aggression Disorder (the acronym being later pronounced as if it was a word, “eeyad”), the prodromal phase typically lasted several weeks; the victim would fall into a contemplative state, often becoming fixated on unimportant things in their immediate surroundings, such as the texture of carpets or the movement of people outside a window on the street.

The infectious agent was unknown, and remains unknown, but once infected, the victim eventually snaps into a sustained violent rage unpredictably, at least in most cases. Only in a small percentage of cases does recovery follow; typically, death occurs through violence, and if not, eventually the heart gives out.

Another parallel some have drawn is between the prodromal phase of schizophrenia, in which apathy and an inability to self-motivate may become evident, eventually giving way to auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and disordered thinking.

Truth be told, there are no exact parallels in medical history or science.

Rabies may spend even a decade travelling patiently up the nerves before finally infecting the brain, but during this period, symptoms are typically absent.

I stood and stared at the TV. The whole situation sounded serious, but you can never really tell with TV. Then I heard a shout from outside. I looked out of the window to see two people, a man and a woman, attacking an elderly man in the most hideously brutal fashion imaginable. In fact, I don’t think you can imagine it. I had never seen anything like it, except in horror films.

Of course I had to do something. I had to help him. I took my cricket bat from the wardrobe and checked the window again to see if he was still alive, thinking I could rush out and perhaps still save him. I didn’t want to be one of those people who watch someone getting attacked and do nothing to help. I quickly regretted looking at all.

There was nothing left of the elderly man other than a horrible mess. Meanwhile, the people who’d attacked him were fighting another three people, all of them gouging and kicking at each other in a manner that didn’t even seem quite human.

The television too was showing horrific scenes, blurred out, but shocking.

I tried to phone my parents to check if they were OK, and found the signal was down.

The next idea I had was to go and find James. I needed to talk to someone about the situation. Maybe he knew more than me about it. Someone must surely understand what’s going on, I thought. James lived only about a hundred yards up the street, on the other side.

I hastily put on a coat and went down the stairs to the front door of my apartment building. From inside the door it wasn’t really possible to see much, but there didn’t seem to be anyone near the door, so I slowly unlocked it and opened it.

Aside from the people a little further down the street, who were still fighting with each other and sporadically attacking the corpse of the old man, there was another gaggle of nutcases further up the street, in the other direction, also fighting with each other. Several residential apartments and shops had broken windows.

I thought if I quickly crossed the road and then walked briskly up towards the people who were fighting, the second lot, I could get to James’s place without attracting their attention. They seemed pretty absorbed in the fight and they were a little further up than where James lived.

I ran across the road swiftly and pressed my back against a wall on the other side. No-one had noticed me. Then I began to edge slowly up the street, staying close to the shop windows, ducking into doorways whenever possible, to reassess the situation.

The nutcases remained absorbed in their fight, which was worsening in intensity. At a certain point I stopped in the doorway of a shop that sold general household stuff, like soap and shampoo and cleaning products. I peeked around the corner of the doorway at the small crowd. I was sickened to observe that one of them, a woman, seemed to have had her eye gouged out, but she was continuing to fight with incredible ferocity. Any one of them could have just turned and ran, but none of them were running. Instead they were clawing and punching and kicking, emitting inhuman screams and growls.

I fell back into the doorway, nauseated, breathing heavily. I still had perhaps another twenty yards to go; I was almost there.

When the glass smashed behind me, I almost jumped out of my skin. An arm thrust itself through the shattered door and fastened itself around my neck. I jabbed backwards with the cricket bat. Whoever it was, was trying to pull my neck onto the sharp edge of the broken glass. On my third attempt I managed to get them with the bat, and they roared in pain. From the roar I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman; the noise sounded animalistic.

I pulled myself free and turned around to look.

My assailant was hardly more than a teenager, male, of slight build, with long blond hair and about a week of beard. He was covered in dripping blood. The expression on his face was one of incandescent rage.

Apparently he couldn’t get through the door; most of the entire door was glass but only the upper part of it was smashed. He began kicking furiously at the lower half.

I ran into the street, and then the fighters noticed me. One of them broke off and ran towards me; a man wearing a bloodstained white shirt and black trousers, as though on his way to a job at the bank.

I ran back towards my apartment, but the rage-fuelled maniac was too fast and he was almost upon me when I turned and let him have it with the bat. Mercifully, he crumpled immediately and lay in the road shouting threats at me.

Whatever was wrong with those people, it appeared they at least didn’t have superhuman strength. They were ordinary people in the grip of a blind rage.

None of the others had peeled off the group, so I ran directly to James’s door and hit the bell.

His apartment had an intercom system with a camera, so I knew he’d be able to see me, assuming he was actually at home.

I waited, watching the fighters nervously.

Then the teenager appeared. He had somehow got through the glass door and was lumbering towards me with a look on his blood-streaked face of pure hatred and anger. Fortunately his leg seemed to have got injured somehow, and he was limping. When he saw me looking at him he howled, and that caught the attention of the fighters.

They began walking slowly towards me.

“Look at how clean he is!” one of them shouted, as though not being covered in blood was an offence to all natural decency.

The woman with the missing eye shouted, “I’m going to eat your face!”

There were a couple of swear words in there that I’ve left out.

I readied the bat. Had it not been for the bat I’m sure they would have run at me.

“I’m not your enemy!” I shouted at them, my voice quavering with fear.

This was met only with a crude insult from a large man in a tattered leather jacket.

I pressed the bell again frantically.

They all began mocking me, echoing my words: “I’m not your enemy” and laughing.

I was about to make a run for it while I still might hope to break through the semicircle they were forming around me, when the door opened and I bolted inside, slamming it shut afterwards. They began throwing themselves against it. Fortunately it was made of sturdy wood, reinforced with steel.

Never before have I felt grateful for the criminal element of our town forcing such security measures upon us.

I ran immediately up the stairs to James’s apartment on the third floor. Avoiding the lift seemed prudent.

James opened the door with a smile on his face.

“Hey, I’ve been wondering if you’re all right!” he said.

At that moment I felt a huge sense of relief. He seemed calm, composed, and even relaxed.

I ran in, shut the door, locked it and put the security chain on.

“I nearly died out there.” I said.

“Yeah, I saw.” he said. “You’re shaking. Would you like a coffee or a beer or something?”

“Beer.” I said, but then it occurred to me that alcohol would slow my reflexes and make me easy prey. “No, coffee would be great, actually. God, it’s so good to see you. Have you been watching the news?”

“Yeah, it’s terrible.” he said, and he went into the little kitchen to make coffee.

We chatted for a few minutes about the morning’s events. I told him about the elderly man, and the demented teenager, and the crowd of fighters who’d nearly got me.

He said he’d seen a lot of horrific things from the window.

“Milk and sugar?” he asked. “Just milk, right?”

“Yeah, just milk.” I said.

He brought in two steaming mugs and we sat at the table where he and Julia ate their meals.

I looked around the apartment. It was familiar, comforting. Julia had really brightened the place up, hanging a couple of pictures depicting Italian landscapes, placing a smattering of scented candles around the flat, and putting some brightly-coloured cushions on the sofa. The TV was on quietly in the background, showing endless scenes of horror and devastation.

I was in such a state that I had completely forgotten to ask about Julia. She owned her own place that her parents had helped her buy, so she wasn’t there one-hundred percent of the time, although they did more or less live together.

“How’s Julia?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s OK, I think.” he said. “In a bit of a bad mood, to tell you the truth. You know what she’s like.”

“Is she feeling down again?”

He pondered the question.

“No, not down, exactly. I think she’s angry with me because I keep forgetting to take my shoes off when I come in from outside. She hates it when I walk around the flat in outdoor shoes.”

At that moment there was a tremendous bang and a howl. I practically jumped out of my skin.

“That’ll be her.” said James. “I had to lock her in the bedroom. She’ll calm down in a bit.”

“That’s Julia?”

“‘Fraid so. Maybe it’s the time of the month. I’ve lost track.”

I got up and walked towards the bedroom.

Julia’s voice, so distorted with rage that it was barely recognisable, emitted a string of curses from the other side of the bedroom door.

“H-hello.” I said. “Julia, is that you? It’s me, Dave.”

“Dave, you piece of filth!” she screamed unhingedly. “I’ll tear your throat out! Open this door! You’re finished, you worthless turd!”

I’ve toned down her language considerably. No point writing out the torrent of abuse that emerged from her crazed lips.

“You see what I mean?” said James amiably, coming up behind me.

“James, she’s infected!”

“Infected? Do you think so?”

“Obviously she’s infected.” I said.

“Oh, well.” he said. “Better get a doctor, I suppose.”

“The doctor’s can’t do anything! Haven’t you been following the news? You’ve seen what’s going on outside! How would we even get to a doctor?”

“You’re quite right. What do you think we should do then?”

“I don’t know! How should I know?!”

I walked back into the living room. The gears of my mind were whirling frantically. Julia clearly wasn’t in her right mind, but neither was James.

“It’s the drug you’re taking.” I said to him. “You can’t grasp the severity of the situation. You’ve lost your human compassion. Can’t you see?”

He looked slightly hurt, but I wasn’t sure if his facial expression was even really sincere, or just put on for effect.

“Do you think I should let her out?” he said. “She’ll definitely attack us, I can promise you that. We only just cleaned the flat yesterday.”

“Don’t let her out! I’m just suggesting, you should probably be more upset.”

“What good would that do?”

He had a point, I supposed.

“She’s going to need food and water.” I said.

“No, there’s a massive bag of snacks in the bedroom, and a couple of bottles of cola.”

I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand.

“My God.” I said.

“She’ll be OK, honestly. You don’t need to worry.”

I grabbed him by the shoulders.

“We’re in the middle of some kind of epidemic. Everyone’s going crazy. We’ll be lucky if any of us survives. We have no idea if she’s ever going to recover. They might easily break in at any moment and beat us to death and eat our faces!”

He pushed my hands off himself.

“Hey, hey, there’s no need to panic.” he said. “What’s the point?”

I strode about, literally wringing my hands, trying to think what to do.

I felt as though I had stepped into a nightmare. We were surrounded by deranged maniacs and the only sane person I could talk to about it was completely unable to grasp what was going on.

Oh, he knew the situation in purely logical terms. He knew about the epidemic and now that I’d explained it to him, he could see that Julia must be infected. The problem was, none of this carried any real emotional weight for him.

What would happen if we were attacked? His fight-or-flight response wouldn’t kick in. On the other hand, he wouldn’t be paralysed by fear either. I had to hope his abnormal mental state could form some sort of advantage.

Then something caught my attention on the TV. The national news channel had been replaced by some improvised local thing, telling us to bring infected people to the train station where possible.

“It’s important to avoid all contact with infected people.” the announcer said. “However, if you have an infected person securely restrained at home, and if you have a car, bring the infected person to the treatment centre in the train station. I repeat again, a cure has been found. A simple injection can restore your loved ones to sanity.”

“We have to take her to the train station.” I said.

“I can ask her if you want, but I don’t think she’ll agree to it.” he said doubtfully.

“James, she’s insane. I’m not suggesting we ask her. I’m suggesting we tie her up and drag her there. Have you got a car?”

“You know I haven’t.” he said.

I swore under my breath.

“We can walk. If we can restrain her, we can manage it.”

“You know, you’re sounding a bit heavy-handed here.” he said. “That’s my fiancé you’re talking about. I can’t just force her to go places she doesn’t want to go. Haven’t you heard of feminism? Women have rights, you know.”

“She’s not in her right mind! She could die without treatment!”

“I suppose.” he said. “Well, all right then, let’s do it.”

“OK!” I said, relieved that he’d grasped it.

“OK, how are we going to manage it?”

That was the million-dollar question.

There was another inhuman howl from behind the bedroom door, and the sound of Julia throwing herself against the door with incredible force.

“What’s that, my love?” said James.

In response she only howled again, and shouted something incomprehensible in a voice that sounded positively demonic.

“How about, you stand a little way from the door. I open the door. She rushes at you and I slip a pillowcase over her head from behind, then we both fall on her and tie her up with some rope?”

“Sure, but I haven’t got a pillowcase or rope. The pillowcases are in the bedroom.”

“This is going to require some thought.” I said.

After a while we figured out that one of the cushions on the sofa had a case big enough to do the job. A second cushion cover we cut up into strips to tie her up with.

Then I stood behind the door and prepared to open it.

“Do it.” said James.

When I opened the door, Julia bolted out like a rocket. Unfortunately she had found a spanner that James kept in a toolbox under the bed, and she raised it in the air, intending to brain him with it. It was lucky he didn’t have a hammer in there.

I managed to get the cushion cover over her head just in time. James snatched the spanner and we tied her up.

She swore at us atrociously. The people infected with IAD weren’t zombies; they were fully conscious and aware, just unable to control their blind aggressive impulses. Perhaps rabies does the same thing in extreme cases.

“Should we take the cover off her head?” James asked, a slight smile on his face.

“No, I think leave it on.” I said. “She can breathe perfectly well. How does it look out the window?”

James went to look.

“Bad.” he said.

“You’ll need a weapon. I’ve got the cricket bat.”

“We’ve got some good kitchen knives.” he said.

This posed a moral quandary. As I’ve mentioned, we weren’t dealing with zombies here. We were dealing with people who’d lost their minds temporarily and may even be curable, if the reports were to be believed.

“We need something non-lethal.”

“How’s a cricket bat non-lethal?”

“I can just break their arms or something.”

“I could just stab them a little bit.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! If you stab anyone at all, they could bleed to death.”

“Yeah.” said James.

He thought for a bit, then said, “How about a can of Super-Eeze?”

“What’s that?”

“Spray for sore muscles. It makes your skin feel hot, so I reckon it’d sting the eyes.”

“Perfect.” I said.

Soon we were making our way down the street, dragging along an incandescent Julia, who screamed every threat under the sun at us.

James seemed amazingly sanguine.

“Doesn’t this upset you?” I asked him.

“She’s always like this when she’s hungry.” he said.

“She’s not always like this!” I said. “She’s never like this! What’s wrong with you?”

“You don’t see her as much as I do. She can get really irritable at times, especially before lunch.”

There was no point reasoning with him. The drug really had removed half his emotional capacity.

Periodically one of the deranged victims of the disease ran at us, and I either got them in the legs with the cricket bat or James sprayed them in the face. Often it took both of us to deter them, and we had to temporarily let go of Julia. We had taken the precaution of tying her ankles together with a short length of fabric, so she couldn’t get far.

For me, every attack was a fresh horror, but I could see James was quite enjoying himself. The whole thing was like some sort of weird computer game to him.

Eventually, after what seemed to me like half the day, we turned onto the street that ended in the train station. A ton of people in hazmat suits, mostly carrying rifles, were milling around the front of the station, but they didn’t scare me nearly as much as what I saw once we got a full view of the station.

A chimney had been hastily erected over the station and it was pouring forth black smoke. What could they possibly be burning in the station?

As I watched, four IADs ran at the figures outside the station. They were promptly dispatched with the rifles, and carried into the station.

They could have tasered them, or thrown nets over them or something, but instead the suited figures simply shot them.

“This doesn’t look good.” I said to James.

“I know what you mean.” he replied. “All stations look the same. Not exactly brutalist, but definitely not built with pride. Bit depressing, I used to think.”

“Not the architecture! I mean, the chimney and the shooting. James, I don’t think they’re helping people in there. I think they’re murdering them and incinerating them.”

“Oh, yes. Could be.”

He was still smiling.

“We have to get Julia back to the flat, James. They’ll kill her.”

“I wouldn’t like that at all.” he said, and at least he was frowning slightly.

“Let’s go.”

But at that moment one of the figures noticed us and began shouting.

We ran, or as much as we could run with Julia tied up and completely out of her mind with anger.

Several of them caught up with us near the end of the street. One of them took aim with a rifle. I really thought it was all over and we were done for.

By pure luck, a bald middle-aged infected man suddenly ran at the man with the rifle out of nowhere—or, more precisely, from behind a tree. Suddenly there was chaos.

Another of them tried to shoot us but James snatched my cricket bat, ran up to him—miraculously dodging bullets all the way—and knocked the gun out of his hand with a huge smirk.

I don’t know how Julia got free, but somehow she managed it. I backed away in horror, but fortunately she wasn’t interested in me. She ran at the suited men.

In the resulting melee, several shots were fired, yet none of them hit their targets. The men in the hazmat suits must have been shaking with fear. I certainly was.

For several minutes the street was full of screaming people, Julia scratching at the suited figures, climbing on their backs and clawing at their eyes, the infected man punching and kicking at them, and James judiciously hitting their legs and arms with the cricket bat.

I’m quite sure we committed many imprisonable offences. In Britain it’s illegal to arm yourself at all. Or had that law been suspended in view of the outbreak?

Eventually we were left with a pile of groaning bodies. The infected man ran off shouting in pure rage and Julia sat down, finally exhausted.

James had enjoyed himself tremendously.

“This is great!” he said.

“Great? We almost got killed!”

“Oh.” he replied. “Yeah, I suppose. That would be quite bad. My mother would never forgive me.”

“Let’s put the suits on before more of them turn up!”

We quickly divested three of the police or military people or whatever they were of their suits. Only one of them put up any resistance, and I soon shut him up with a quick blast of Super-Eeze to the eyes.

Getting Julia into a suit wasn’t easy. She complained like crazy and kept trying to hit us, but we managed it. She was completely out of energy, and that seemed to have dampened her fury for a while.

We made our way swiftly back to James’ flat, James dealing deftly and happily with anyone who attacked us.

Julia kept trying to argue with James, saying the most hurtful things she could possibly come up with, but nothing seemed to bother him at all. She directed a few remarks at me too, but I can’t say any of her criticisms hit home. They were so wild and deranged that they didn’t even hurt my feelings.

Eventually, and not without considerable difficulty, we managed to get Julia back in the bedroom again, the bedroom door firmly locked.

“What now?” said James.

“There’s nothing we can do.” I told him. “We just have to hope she gets better.”

“I don’t mind her moods.” he said. “I’m used to it.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“You’re really not.” I said. “That’s the drugs talking.”

“Anyway, you might as well stay over.” he said. “It’s fun out there, but a bit dangerous.”

We were there for five days, eking out the food in James’ cupboards. Then James ran out of medication. On the morning of the sixth day, he was inconsolable. He cried and raged and threatened to top himself. I did my best to keep him calm, telling him Julia would get better soon. It was really as though I was dealing with a completely different person.

There was no sign at that point of anyone getting better.

Nonetheless, three days after that, a miracle occurred. We awoke one morning to find Julia shouting from the other side of the door in a voice that sounded afraid, but otherwise calm.

When we opened the door she stumbled out, and James wrapped her in a tight embrace.

“I thought you were gone forever.” he cried.

Julia said nothing; she was sobbing hysterically.

I went to the window and looked out. In the street I saw only a couple of people picking their way slowly between pieces of wreckage and a smattering of corpses.

The epidemic was over just as quickly as it had begun. The week of rage, as it came to be known, had only really lasted nine or ten days.

I honestly thought we’d end up being prosecuted for our behaviour, but any crimes that had been committed during the week of rage were more or less written off as impossible to prosecute. It was unclear who had even been sane at the time.

Work continues to attempt to isolate the infective agent. Some say it’s a virus; other claim it’s a protein that somehow deranges the system; still others argue that mass poisoning was responsible. So far it hasn’t even been possible to prove that transmission from person to person occurred.

The infection, if that’s what it was, may even have somehow entered the water supply.

Almost certainly the week of rage was due to an infection, and almost certainly it originated in primate communities in the Congo.

Most of Britain was affected, and large parts of France and Germany.

Since then, things have been different. Everyone knows who their truest friends really are, and most of the things people used to worry about, now seem trivial and unimportant.

James seems quite happy. His depression lifted naturally, without recourse to the new drug, or any other.

Many people, it goes without saying, have lost people they loved. And yet, in spite of that, life now seems more valuable than it ever did before.

I don’t expect the situation will last. People always revert to type. Don’t they?

And sometimes I wonder what will happen if the new drug, AX52, gets approved.

On the 20^th of February, Peter Donaldson, the acting chief at the time, called me into his office.

He pushed a photograph towards me.

“What do you know about Dr. Raymond Delittle?” he asked.

“I’ve never heard of him.” I said, truthfully.

I was a bit on edge talking to Donaldson and I wasn’t sure whether I ought to be calling him “sir”. But to my ears that would have sounded a little ridiculous, as if I’d been watching too many spy films.

Fortunately Donaldson was actually quite easy-going, in spite of his position. His hair was immaculately-groomed and he tended to peer at people over the top of a pair of half-moon glasses that he constantly took on and off. He more resembled a doctor in some well-to-do countryside village than the second most powerful person in Britain’s intelligence community.

“He’s a physicist.” he said. “He’s been working on a highly classified device. Top secret. Yesterday, he went missing, and he took the only prototype with him.”

“Kidnapped?”

“We thought so at first. But all the evidence points to him deliberately absconding with the device. We now believe he flew a small plane to an airfield in France, and then crossed into Italy. After that, so far, we have no further information on his whereabouts.”

Donaldson placed a series of further photographs on his desk facing me.

Delittle was sixty years of age and looked, if anything, older. He was wiry, and possessed a shock of unruly grey hair. His eyes were the most striking thing about him. They were a deep blue in colour and, even in the photographs, seemed to bore into the camera. I can’t precisely define the look I saw in his eyes. Perhaps there was pain in it, and a sort of earnest imploring expression, but there was also something cold and evil.

I’ve often been accused of lacking in imagination, but even I could see all of that, even with the briefest of glances. With those eyes, Delittle was never going to be able to maintain any kind of disguise successfully; not even coloured contacts could hide the look in them. The only thing he’d be able to do, if he wanted to remain incognito, would be to wear sunglasses.

“You’re to go to Italy immediately and attempt to locate him.” Donaldson told me. “You’ll be given all possible support, no expense spared, but the operation must be completed covertly, with the utmost secrecy. When you find him, retrieve the device.”

“And what do I do with Delittle?”

“Kill him.”

“Kill him?” I said, a little incredulously.

“Doesn’t matter how you do it, just do it.”

“Can you tell me why he has to die?”

Donaldson took his spectacles off and stared at me coldly. The village doctor charade seemed to melt away.

“This device is unbelievably dangerous and we believe Delittle is planning to hand it over to foreign agents. He must not be allowed to do that and we cannot run the risk of a knowledge transfer taking place either. The existence of the device has never been officially acknowledged, which is why we need you to get it back with as little fuss as possible.”

“What does the device do?”

“That’s above your pay grade. All you need to know is, this prototype is unfathomably dangerous.”

I sat there thinking for a moment. Then I said, “Why me? I’ve never done this type of thing before.”

“You speak Italian fluently. Also, Delittle is a keen outdoorsman, like you. He may try to make use of those skills in evading capture.”

“That sounds a little far-fetched.”

“Not according to our psychologists. Now, level with me, Andrew. Can you do this for us? Have we made a mistake?”

“No mistake.” I said, shaking my head. “I can do it.”

“Good. Go and tell Angela what you need. She’ll see to it you have everything within the hour. A car will then take you to an airport, and you’ll be in Italy in under four hours.”

“Right.” I said, rising to my feet.

“Andrew,” he said abruptly, “if you can’t bring the device back, destroy it. The most important thing is that neither the device nor the knowledge of how it’s made fall into the hands of our potential enemies.”

I went away from Donaldson’s office with a curious mixture of emotions. The mission sounded very exciting, like something out of a spy novel, but I also knew there was a lot I wasn’t being told. Regarding the matter of killing Delittle, it sounded like he was a dangerous traitor, and the thought didn’t bother me much. In any case, if I didn’t do it, someone else would.

Whether I could actually find him, that was another matter altogether. It didn’t sound like there was much to go on. What was I suppose to do, exactly? I couldn’t just go to Italy and start asking people if they’d seen Delittle. Even if I could do that, I’d never find him in time, if he really was planning to sell the device to some foreign power.

The agency had employees who were skilled in locating missing people. People who knew how to access camera networks, people who maintained close relationships with police forces, people who were experts in psychology and could make an excellent guess at where a man like Delittle might go. I wasn’t one of those people.

I had to just trust that, among the many things that Donaldson clearly hadn’t shared with me were sound reasons for my involvement actually making sense.

On the plane I remember sitting there feeling like a proper spy. I was the real deal now. But I still had severe doubts about my ability to find Delittle, and in another way, I felt totally bogus. Imposter syndrome, you could call it.

A friend of mine used to say that the reason so many people suffer from imposter syndrome now is that they’re all imposters.

Surely there were people far better-trained than me, who might know how to locate an errant scientist with very little to go on. I wondered if perhaps I was just one of dozens of people, all with the same mission. Perhaps I was some kind of backup plan, in case the real professionals didn’t manage to find him.

At the airport, a small private effort in the Aosta valley, a man approached me wearing a dark blue suit and sunglasses. To me he looked like a stereotypical Italian. Behind him were two men who I assumed were some sort of military police, in beige uniforms and carrying Beretta AR70s.

“Marchetti.” said the man, holding out his hand.

I guessed that was his name and I told him mine. Or at least, I told him the name I’d been assigned for the mission.

He ushered me into a side room. I did half wonder if I was being arrested, but it turned out he had information for me.

“The … individual in which you are interested,” he said, in English, somewhat laboriously, “he has been seen here.”

He unfurled a map and pointed at a village.

The name of the village was unfamiliar to me.

“We can take you there.” he said.

“That would be very kind.” I said.

Marchetti drove me there himself in a German car, without the armed guards.

He was surprisingly chatty but I couldn’t tell him much. He claimed to work for AISI, the Italian internal intelligence service, and he had all the right documents, but one can never be too careful. In any case, I wasn’t sure how much we had shared with them.

He dropped me off at a hotel, which he said made excellent polenta with sausage.

The village was small enough to walk across in five minutes. Apart from the hotel there was a small grocery shop, a bar, a church, and not much else.

The hotel, I assumed, must have catered to hikers. The village was almost surrounded by mountains and the hotel had a sign on it that said we were at well over a thousand metres altitude.

Some details, obviously, I’ve had to leave out, for security reasons. Not that it really matters which village I was in, but a lot of this is still classified.

After checking in at the hotel and making enquiries about the other guests, I began to scour the village.

There was one prominent trail leading directly out of the village up the side of a mountain, so I asked some old men at the bar if they’d seen anyone go up there today.

Surprisingly, to me, they had. Apparently winter hiking is a thing in Italy. This was news to me. My mother is Italian but I had never been in Italy, aside from visiting Rome once.

I told them I was looking for my father, whom I claimed suffers mild dementia, and I was worried he’d got confused.

They were extremely helpful.

They told me at least five people had walked up the trail, and one man in particular sounded rather interesting. He had stopped in at the bar wearing a large backpack, and had ordered coffee. He hadn’t said much, but he’d said enough for them to notice he had a strong English accent.

His description matched Delittle quite well.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the folks back at the Agency had foreseen Delittle’s apparent flight into the hills, and if they had, why hadn’t they suggested the possibility to me at the outset?

Regardless, I set off to try to find this alleged Englishman, since that was my best and only lead.

The trail from the village led up an abandoned ski slope, consequently very steep, but in those days I was extremely fit and I basically ran up it, or as much as I could considering it was covered in snow.

I’d made about six hundred metres of additional altitude when I stopped for a rest and a spot of reconnaissance. Scanning the mountain with infra-red binoculars, I spotted a figure walking back and forth on a plateau some way off, near an ice-bound cave. Whoever it was, he must have diverged considerably from any trail to get there.

I abandoned my rest stop and made straight for the figure.

As I got closer all my doubts evaporated. The figure was Delittle, lightly-disguised, if one can call it a disguise, with a short beard and swept-back hair.

I paged a message back to HQ.

TARGET LOCATED.

The reply came swiftly.

ELIMINATE.

I took out my pistol and made my way steadily towards the figure.

There was nowhere for him to run. I could even chance a shot from some distance away. I was confident in my ability to chase him down if needed.

The main possibility that worried me was that someone was surely planning to meet him on that hillside. Why anyone would choose such a place for a rendezvous was quite unfathomable. Most likely he was expecting a helicopter.

When I was almost close enough to get off a shot, he disappeared into the cave. That was fine by me; in a way it made my task easier. Unless, of course, the cave led somewhere and he knew it, perhaps to an exit elsewhere on the mountain. That thought caused me to break into a run.

When I reached the cave I stopped and listened for a moment, but I could hear nothing. I scanned the dark blueish recesses with my binoculars, and they picked up no heat trace.

Almost immediately, when I began to walk forwards, I felt a sharp sting in my side. Then the world seemed to turn sideways.

I awoke to find myself propped against the rocks just outside the cave, my hands handcuffed behind my back and the handcuffs secured to a loop of metal wire that had somehow been fixed to the underlying rock. My ankles were similarly locked together and attached to a bolt driven into the ground.

Peering at me with those unsettling eyes was Delittle himself.

“You’re probably wondering what happened to you.” he said. Without waiting for me to say anything, he continued. “You were shot with a chemical pellet fired from this.”

He held up a long plastic tube.

“My own design. In airport scanners it looks like part of the frame of a suitcase.”

“What do you want with me?” I said, my words a little slurred due to the lingering effects of the drug.

Delittle smiled.

“I want you to understand.” he said. “Also, since you were evidently planning to kill me, I want you to suffer. It will be a comfort to me, to have someone else next to me when I activate the device.”

“What are you talking about?”

He peered into my face, and I had the feeling that his eyes bored right into my soul.

Then he took a suitcase out of his backpack. Donaldson had described exactly this suitcase to me; it was made of ridged titanium and could only be unlocked via a fingerprint sensor.

Delittle held his finger to the sensor, the suitcase emitted a beep, and he opened it to reveal a pair of control panels and some digital meters, embedded into the two halves of the suitcase.

“It’s a remarkable effect.” he said. “Probably they’ve told you nothing about it. They don’t want anyone to know. I was developing it on behalf of the Ministry of Defence; a poor choice of name for a ministry if ever there was one.

“I discovered it myself. I’m probably the greatest living genius on the planet, false modesty aside. Tell me, are you familiar with LSD?”

“The stuff that rots the brains of hippies?”

He carried on as though I hadn’t said anything.

“The tiniest of doses, far smaller than ought to have any effect, completely deranges a person’s mind. It sets some sort of cascade in motion, a few hundred micrograms deftly pressing the brain’s levers.

“I discovered an analogous effect, except it involves very precise frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The right frequencies, passing directly through the skull, barely even interacting with the brain at all, can produce an overwhelming sense of despair. A feeling of deep hopelessness beyond anything you can possibly imagine.”

“Sounds lovely.” I told him. “What a fantastic innovation.”

“They wanted to keep it for themselves.”

He was becoming angry.

“The British government, that bunch of degenerate imbeciles, wanted only Britain to wield this power. Imagine! Any country they took it into their heads to quarrel with, they could immediately reduce to nothing but a collection of weeping halfwits.”

“If you want to tell me politicians are degenerate imbeciles, I’m with you there.”

He laughed, and I began to think perhaps I could get on his good side, if he had one, and persuade him to unchain me.

“I’ve tasted the power of the device.” he said, patting the suitcase. “Only the slightest taste, but that was enough to clear the scales from my eyes. I’m going to give the world a taste of its own medicine. When I activate the machine, half of Europe will fall into suicidal despair.”

The whole talk sounded ridiculous, but certainly it was true that whatever the device actually did, it was bad enough for our leaders to want it destroyed, rather than risk it falling into the wrong hands.

“Isn’t it possible that thing’s addled your brain?” I asked him. “What’s going to happen to you if you set it off?”

“That no longer matters.” he said, and he began to fiddle with the knobs and dials and buttons inside the suitcase.

“Is someone meeting you here? You might as well tell me; I can’t do anything about it now anyway.”

He gave a short sarcastic laugh.

“I simply needed a suitably high location from which to deploy it.”

“What kind of range does it have?”

“Hundreds of miles. But you’ll feel its greatest effect, since you’re sitting next to it.”

“You’re planning to kill yourself?”

“In effect, yes.” he said.

“Just to send some sort of message?”

“You’ve got it.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“You will.” he said.

I tried pulling at the bolts that held my handcuffs to the rock, but there was no shifting them.

“I wouldn’t bother.” he said, over his shoulder.

Eventually he sat on the ground facing me and said, “It’s time.”

“Wait,” I said, “you don’t have to —”

But then, with a horrible grin that will remain seared into my memory for the rest of my life, he casually flicked a switch.

It’s impossible to really convey what happened next. The expression on his face changed immediately to one expressing a kind of blank horror. To me, this facial expression of his seemed indescribably terrifying, as though I was looking upon something wholly unnatural and evil, something no human eye should ever see.

It appeared to me that there was no longer anything human in him at all, but only a pitiless malevolence, as if his bodily frame was now inhabited only by a spirit of distilled destruction, yet at the same time his face seemed to express a pure and unfathomable suffering, which somehow failed to evoke pity in me nonetheless.

My mind immediately attempted to run to the possibility of escape or rescue, and there, instead of comfort, I found only hopelessness swarming with every evil in the world, assembled together like a demon horde.

Every catastrophe of history seemed to crowd my mind, pushing out every other thought: tortures ancient and modern, gulags, the murder of innocents, hideous diseases of the mind and body; all suffused with a spirit that flickered somewhere between intentional malice and an uncaring purposelessness.

The entire universe seemed nothing but a yawning abyss, existing only to grind sentient suffering beings in its gears.

I cried out in anguish, and as I did so, Delittle took my gun, placed it in his mouth, and blew his brains out.

His lifeless body fell backwards against the rock behind him, his features still contorted into an expression of utter terror.

I prayed for death but nothing with even the smallest measure of goodness seemed to hear my prayers.

In total, this terrible experience can have gone on for only a minute or two, yet it seemed to last for years. Slowly I became aware of the sound of an engine, growing ever-louder, the sound imbued with a monstrous and ineffable animosity.

I don’t remember becoming unconscious. I only remember awaking surrounded by pieces of wreckage. The terrible feeling was gone, replaced by a gnawing depressive sensation whose awfulness at least lay within the bounds of the ordinary.

I spotted pieces of helicopter blade and realised a helicopter had crashed directly in front of me, part of it landing on Delittle and smashing his infernal machine. A logo indicating that the helicopter was intended for mountain rescue was visible on parts of the wreckage. It certainly wasn’t hard to imagine why it had crashed; no-one could have piloted a helicopter successfully anywhere close to Delittle’s invention while it was running.

Somehow I didn’t spot the corpses at first. They were strewn among the broken pieces of copter. I counted three, besides Delittle’s mangled body, then I realised that the one closest to me was actually still alive. His arm was broken and bloody, but he was in one piece. He lifted his head and groggily watched me for a moment.

He shuffled over to me and began to fiddle with my restraints. He didn’t seem surprised by them. I would later learn, and was already beginning to suspect, that the mountain rescue logo was only serving as a disguise, and in reality the helicopter had contained military personnel charged with killing Delittle by whatever means they had available and, quite likely, me as well in the process.

Now my putative assassin had become my saviour.

“You’ll have to get the keys off his body.” I said, nodding towards the remains of Delittle.

“Fair point.” he said. He was English.

He retrieved the keys and unfastened me.

“Is anyone else coming?” I asked him.

“I don’t think so.” he said.

“Can you stand?”

He forced himself up.

“Looks like it, mate.” he said.

“Can you walk?”

“I reckon so.”

“Then let’s get out of here before the real mountain rescue turn up.”

I watched him to see his reaction. He didn’t contradict me. By build and bearing I’d say he was SAS, or some other elite military unit.

“Wait a minute.” he said, and he began to search among the wreckage.

His arm was bent at an odd angle and I don’t know how he could bear the pain, but I suppose they train them pretty well.

Soon he found what he was looking for: an unusually large grenade.

“You’re going to have to do it.” he said. “When we’re clear I need you to throw this at the crash site.”

I didn’t bother asking questions. I knew better.

We made our way along the hillside till we found a dip that could cover us.

“Take cover.” I told him.

In the distance I could already see hikers making their way towards us. We didn’t have much time.

Once he was in a safe position I threw the grenade, then threw myself down the slope.

There was no boom, only a rising crackling sound. An intense white light shone over the ridge behind which we hid, heat searing the snow. After it died down I scrambled back up the slope to look, and it appeared as though the crash site had been levelled, with the wreckage and the corpses pulverised. All that remained were charred blackened metal pieces.

My companion insisted on checking it himself, in spite of the pain he must have been in. After that we made our way towards the village.

At first I thought we had saved Europe. My boss was pleased with my work, even though, in truth, I had done almost nothing of use and had almost ended a basket case, but for the intervention of a fortuitous accident—or God, if you believe that kind of thing.

However, as I walked around London in the weeks afterwards, composing my thoughts, I found I wasn’t so sure.

On almost everyone’s face I saw, or thought I saw, the same worn-out bleak expression.

The device’s brief run had caused some serious problems in the immediate area, within a hundred or so miles; there had been a number of suicides and an even greater number of fatal accidents, but not so many that the governments of France, Italy and Switzerland weren’t able to control the flow of information and prevent anyone raising awkward questions.

The period of activation had been mercifully short.

It was only afterwards that I began to wonder if the real sting of the machine wasn’t in its aftermath. In the same way that the fallout from a nuclear bomb can cause more damage than the actual explosion, this device had shown people something that it was impossible to forget, inflicting grievous psychic wounds that may never heal.

Once you have looked into the abyss, you can never forget it’s there, hovering on the edge of ordinary life, remaining just out of sight, waiting patiently for its victims to momentarily lose their balance and fall into its unknowable depths.

What light can dissolve the shadows that still cling to people’s minds? Has the machine dealt us a mortal blow?

These questions remain unanswered.

“How have you been since the accident?” asked the older of the two men, who wore a slightly ridiculous long beige raincoat and possessed a rather avuncular air, with his fringe of grey hair and hawk-like nose.

But behind this amiable front, Schelling sensed, was something altogether more dangerous.

“OK more or less.” said Schelling.

“That’s not what we’ve heard.” said the younger man, who wore a dark grey suit with a blue shirt and could almost have passed for an accountant were it not for his unusual accent.

“What’ve you heard?” Schelling asked.

Neither of the two men replied. They only regarded him steadily and expectantly.

“I’ve had some memory issues.” said Schelling. “There are things I can’t remember.”

He laughed nervously, but neither of the two men opposite him even displayed as much as a hint of a smile.

“Sometimes I think I remember things that I can’t possibly remember. It’s strange. But none of this affects my work, nor my ability to keep secrets.”

“We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t absolute vital for national security.” said the older man.

“We are winning the war against Russia,” said the younger man, “but victory is not yet assured. If your work were to fall into Russian hands …”

He let the sentence trail off, and the older man finished his thought.

“Let’s just say, the consequences could be significant.”

“I quite understand.” said Schelling.

“After the war, we can revisit the situation.” said the older man. “We’re only asking you to keep your lips sealed until then.”

“I want to ask you something.”

“Anything.” said the older man, with a good effort at a pleasant smile.

“The only reason I was able to develop the module alone, without Dr. Asgrove’s oversight, is Simon Quint stepped in and funded my private laboratory. Now I’m wondering if this isn’t exactly why he funded it. People in your organisations saw this coming and persuaded him to step in.”

The two men laughed jocularly and exchanged knowing glances.

“I’m afraid we can’t comment on that.” said the older man.

“There’s one last thing I’m obliged to mention.” said the younger man, suddenly serious. “It gives me no pleasure to say this, but, well, let’s say I’m contractually obliged.”

“Yes?” said Schelling, somewhat alarmed by the man’s tone.

“If you were to share the secret of how the module works, that would be considered a treasonable offence.”

“Death sentence, I’m afraid.” said the older man.

They stared at him intently, as if gauging his reaction.

“I quite understand.” said Schelling. “On that score, you’ve nothing to fear.”

The older man smiled.

“Splendid.” he said.

After the men left, Schelling spent some time staring blankly after them, at the closed door.

“Weirdos.” he said, quietly to himself.

Then, when he was sure they had left the building, he got up and went to Lab C, to resume his work and to see what Dr. Bill Asgrove was up to.

Bill was tinkering with the the Ark as usual. He had Tchaikovsky playing on a small pair of underpowered speakers on a bench at the side of the room.

“I take it they’re finished with you?” he asked, without looking up.

“Apparently.” said Schelling.

“You’re not allowed to tell me how your power module works, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“Well, I daresay I can live without knowing.”

“After the war, I can probably tell you.”

Asgrove stood up to face him, holding a screwdriver in one hand and a mini-probe in the other.

“Something to look forward to.” he said, with a brief, professional smile.

Next to him, the Ark stood open, revealing the inner cavity—big enough to hold ten people. The machine towered over the men.

“We should probably conduct another stability test.” said Schelling. “Give it one final check.”

“Yes, probably.” said Asgrove, turning to face the machine. “Hopefully it’ll never actually get used anyway.”

“If it is ever used, it might be the only thing that protects the top brass from nuclear destruction.”

“Personally I think we’d be better off without them.” said Asgrove. “They got us into this stupid war.”

“Turn that rubbish off.” said a voice.

The voice belonged to the Administrator, who was traversing Lab C on his way to somewhere else.

“Not a fan of classical music?” said Asgrove.

The Administrator stopped and then approached them.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re at war with Russia.” he said. “Show a bit of patriotism for once.”

Asgrove glared at him for a moment, then went over to the speakers and turned them off.

“Happy now?” he said.

The Administrator continued to glare at him for some seconds, then hurried off out of the exit.

“What an idiot.” said Asgrove.

“He’s just doing his job.” said Schelling.

“Just following orders.” said Asgrove, dryly.

“Forget about him.” said Schelling.

Asgrove took a deep breath, then clapped his hands together.

“Right.” he said. “Forgotten. How about you double-check the module while I tune the primary?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

For several hours they worked patiently, tweaking and testing.

It was almost evening when Asgrove spotted Schelling out of the corner of his eye, staggering into the middle of the largely-empty space between the front of the vast laboratory and the machine.

“You all right?” he asked.

Schelling clutched his head, swaying slightly.

“I think so.” he said.

Asgrove hurried over to him.

“Come and sit down, old boy.” he said, and he gently led Schelling to one of the chairs arranged around a cheap plastic table over at the side of the room.

“Just got a bit dizzy.” said Schelling.

“I keep telling you, you shouldn’t have come back so quickly after the accident.” said Asgrove. “If we have to delay the launch, so be it. Whoever heard of scientists having launches anyway? It’s ridiculous. In my view, we should let them know when it’s working and they ought to be happy with whenever that is.”

He looked at Schelling, expecting a response, but Schelling only opened his mouth as though about to say something, then shut it again.

“What?” said Asgrove.

“Nothing.” said Schelling. “Just … I’ve got the most incredible sense of deja-vu.”

“You need to be at home.” said Asgrove. “I’ll drive you.”

“No, I’ll be fine.” said Schelling. “I just need a few minutes.”

“Well, take however long you need and then get the hell out of here. You’ve done more than enough for today.

“I’ve still got work to do. Honestly, I’m OK.”

“David,” said Asgrove, “go home. I insist.”

Schelling glanced at Asgrove’s serious expression, then at the machine, then back at Asgrove.

“All right.” he said, finally. “One hour. I’ll just finish what I’m doing first.”

“Now, David.” said Asgrove. “Don’t make me go and fetch that idiot.”

He was referring to the Administrator.

Schelling sighed.

“OK, I’m going.” he said. “I just need ten minutes.”

“Can I get you a tea or some water or something?” said Asgrove.

“No, really, I’m fine.”

Fifteen minutes later, Schelling walked home. Once home, he took a frozen ready meal from the freezer and put it in the microwave.

When he took it out, the lasagna was still slightly frozen in the middle, but he ate it anyway, absent-mindedly.

After that he flicked through science periodicals for a bit, then he went to bed.

He was already half asleep when he had an idea.

He hurried down to the basement and fired up the little test device he’d put together the previous weekend. As before, it failed to reach a steady resonant frequency. He took a screwdriver and began to tweak the little variable capacitors and resistors.

“I might just be on the right track.” he muttered to himself.

It was three hours before he was finally somewhat satisfied, and he turned the machine off and went to bed, still carrying the screwdriver, unable to decide whether or not to go back again and have one final go at tweaking the machine into full stability.

At a certain point, while lying on top of the bedsheets, still making calculations in his head, he simply passed out, falling abruptly into a deep sleep.

When he awoke, it was dark except for a flashlight, and a dark figure was standing over him holding a hypodermic needle. He lashed out wildly at the figure, panicking, forgetting the screwdriver was still in his hand. The screwdriver embedded itself in the man’s eye. The man fell back, shouting something in Russian, dropping the syringe. Schelling bolted out of bed and switched on the light.

Two unknown men were in his bedroom, wearing ski masks. The one who’d been standing at the far side of his bed was suddenly running towards him.

Schelling wasn’t sure why he did it—it was as though some unconscious part of his brain outpaced the conscious parts—but he dove towards the syringe. When the second man fell on him, he stabbed the syringe into the man’s ankle, emptying it.

The second man crumpled to the floor.

The first man, still howling pitifully, pulled a gun out of a holster at his side. Schelling yanked it out of his hand—the man was in so much pain that he offered little resistance—and pointed it at him, staggering backwards. When the man suddenly lurched at him with a howl he fired the gun, and the man dropped to the ground.

Schelling’s heart was threatening to explode out of his chest. He sat down heavily on the bed.

When he’d managed to fractionally calm down he went to the kitchen and poured himself a stiff gin. Then he went back to the bedroom and surveyed the scene.

One man was dead on the floor, quite a lot of blood seeping out of him, a screwdriver still stuck in his eye. The other man seemed in much better shape but he was absolutely unconscious.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my bedroom?” muttered Schelling.

There could only be one answer. These men were Russian spies, and they had intended to kidnap him and extract information from him. A horrible thought occurred to him and he went to the window.

A nondescript van was parked on the street.

He watched it for a bit but could see no sign of anyone moving about inside it. He got dressed and then went out to examine it more closely.

Indeed, the van was empty, and unlocked. In the back were some ropes and handcuffs. He took them back into the house with him. If the substance in the syringe was a tranquilliser, it was only a matter of time before the man he’d injected woke up again.

He was in the kitchen, nervous but somewhat off his guard, when the man in question lunged at him drunkenly out of seemingly nowhere, conscious but still full of tranquilliser. The two men collapsed together on the floor. Schelling managed to scrabble to his feet first; he grabbed a kitchen knife.

The man was up on his feet again faster than he expected, and without meaning to, he practically threw himself on the knife. For a second it seemed he hadn’t realised he’d been stabbed, and he tried to grapple Schelling onto the floor, but then he sank to his knees, swearing in Russian.

“I-I’ll get you an ambulance.” stammered Schelling, but then the man keeled over completely.

Schelling felt for the pulse in his neck, but no sooner had he successfully located it than he felt it turn irregular and then stop, the man’s heart emitting two final slow heavy pulses, and then no more.

He pulled the man’s mask off and was shocked to see that the man appeared quite young; still in his twenties.

“You didn’t leave me with any choice.” said Schelling. “I’m so sorry. This could all have been avoided.”

He put the knife down and washed his hands. Then he went to look for his phone.

He was on the verge of dialling emergency services when a new unsettling idea shaped itself in his mind.

Obviously, he couldn’t tell the police exactly what he was working on. He would have to give a statement about the whole thing, omitting what was clearly the central motive behind the appearance of the men in his house, and he’d be lucky if they didn’t lock him up. He hadn’t intended to kill either of the two men, but the police would definitely consider his actions to represent excessive force.

It appeared, from an external perspective, as if a maniac had launched an unprovoked attack on a pair of half-witted burglars. That was undoubtedly what the police would think.

He ran his fingers through his hair and paced back and forth.

“Dear God!” he said to himself. “What a mess.”

Asgrove. He would have to discuss the matter with Asgrove. Obviously the bodies, meanwhile, would have to be stashed somewhere temporarily. But where?

He considered putting them in the van. The problem was, someone might conceivably see him, dragging two corpses down his driveway, even at this hour.

Then the solution hit him. He would put them in the cold room.

In his basement was a room he used for performing experiments involving supercooled liquids. The entire room was chilled to below the freezing point of water, for the purpose of reducing ambient heating of the apparatus. He hadn’t been in there since the accident, but he had kept the power on, to avoid unwanted thermal expansion in his finely-tuned apparatus.

He began to drag the corpse in his kitchen down the cellar stairs. Once the body was next to the cold room door in his cellar, he fetched the other man from upstairs, the man’s head bumping unpleasantly on every step as Schelling pulled him down feet first.

The process left an enormous bloody trail all the way down the stairs. Fortunately the stairs were uncarpeted—Schelling had always hated carpets, considering them unhygienic—so the the inevitable cleanup operation wouldn’t be too taxing.

Once the two bodies were laid out neatly next to each other, he unlocked the cold room and swung open the heavy metal door with its layers of internal insulation.

There, a sight greeted him that caused him to stumble backwards in horror.

The room was filled with frozen bodies.

He stared at them in disbelief. Dozens of them, heaped up around the edges of the room.

In a state of shock he dragged the two new corpses on top of the others, then slammed the door shut and leaned back against it, shaking. What did this mean?

He abruptly vomited onto the floor. Then he staggered out of the room, clutching the walls for support.

Lying on the sofa, half-formed memories seemed to flood into his mind, like fragments of dreams.

He had killed those men. All of them. He was sure of it.

Now that he thought of it, the killing of the two spies had seemed surprisingly easy, as though he was used to killing. For that matter, why had he really fallen asleep with a screwdriver in his hand, a potential weapon?

Was it possible that he, David, was a serial killer? A man who murdered not only when necessary, but for pleasure?

He found himself shouting: “No! No!”

Then he clutched his head.

There were things in there from before the accident that he hadn’t wanted to remember. He knew that now.

What if someone came to his house? It was possible that some friend or acquaintance would stop by to check on him at some point in the next few days.

He jumped to his feet and began to look for cleaning equipment. He located some cloths, gloves, bleach, and a bucket, and began to scrub at the blood that was now practically everywhere between the bedroom and the cellar.

When he was finished, he went back to the cold room and, avoiding looking at the mountain of corpses as much as possible, located the key to the van in one of the men’s pockets.

He drove the van only a few blocks and left it in the street, with the door slightly open and the keys in the ignition, then he walked home.

Back at his house, he took the blister pack of pills the doctors had given him for headaches from the bathroom cabinet and swallowed three of them.

He spent what little was left of the night lying on his bed gazing at the ceiling in the dark, thoughts racing through his mind.

When the morning arrived, he went into work early, staring blankly around him like a zombie.

His subsequent actions were carried out on auto-pilot, in a kind of fugue, a mixture of horror and guilt having obliterated all possibility of true rational thought from his brain. He flicked open the cover of the power module, turned all the faders up to maximum and shorted out all the fuses.

The Ark was supposed to create swirling magnetic fields so powerful that they could deflect light itself, even gamma rays, but when supplied suddenly with all the power his module could muster, it ought to disintegrate him in a nanosecond. A painless death. Instant oblivion.

He stood for a moment staring up at the Ark towering above him, his eyes moist but blank. Then he opened the doors, stepped inside, and pulled the doors shut.

He entered the activation code in the keypad and pressed the red button.

There was a noise, distant at first, like the engine of some great spacecraft starting up, rising in pitch until almost a roar.

He closed his eyes.

White light. Voices. A faint smell of disinfectant.

He opened his eyes suddenly to see a ceiling tiled with polystyrene. With a start he realised there was a tube down his throat, forcing him to breathe. A machine beeped out his heart rate, suddenly quickening.

At the side of the room, a nurse in blue overalls was attending to something. He looked over at her with frightened eyes, but he couldn’t call her.

He slapped his hand on the bed on which he lay. She turned around, her eyes widened, then she hurried off.

Soon a doctor appeared.

“Dr. Schelling.” he said. “Good to have you back with us. I’m afraid there was an accident, but you’re in one piece. You seem to be breathing well so we’ll get this tube out of your throat. OK?”

He could do nothing but blink and give the slightest of nods.

Schelling’s subsequent recovery was rapid. Only three days later he was able to use a phone to connect to the internet and catch up on his messages. Even so, the accident he had been involved in—which had apparently involved a rogue magnetic pulse of stupendous power—had brought about a partial amnesia and other psychological symptoms which, while comparatively mild, were disconcerting nonetheless.

A week and a half later he was back at work, and two weeks after that, Asgrove informed him there was two government men who wanted to talk to him in his office.

He went there immediately, somewhat nervously, and found a man with the nose of a hawk and a fringe of grey hair waiting for him, and another younger man in a dark grey suit and a blue shirt with an accent that he couldn’t quite place.

“Dr. Schelling?” said the older man.

“Yes.” said Schelling.

“Please sit down. We need to ask you … well, let’s call it a favour.”

After the men had departed, Schelling went to Lab C. Bill was tinkering with the Ark and playing Tchiakovsky on a pair of tinny computer speakers. Schelling experienced a strong sense of deja-vu.

He went home a little early that evening, feeling dizzy. Even so, he found himself unable to sleep that night, and he went down to the basement to work on a test device he’d begun to construct.

He finally fell asleep several hours later with a screwdriver in his hand.

He awoke suddenly at some point during the night to find a figure looming over him. He scrambled to the other side of the bed in a panic, then he realised there was a strange dark shape on the other side of the bed also. He lashed out at it, and before he could gather his wits, he realised he’d stuck the screwdriver in someone’s neck. The man slumped against him and he felt warm blood gushing over him.

The first man scrambled towards him across the double bed and Schelling saw dimly in the near-complete darkness that there was something in the man’s hand. He grabbed the man’s wrist, pulled the screwdriver—of which he’d never actually let go—out of the other man’s neck and stabbed it frantically at the other dark shape.

The man let out a horrible gurgling howl.

Schelling jumped forwards off the end of the bed and ran to switch on the light.

He saw one man slumped over his bed, blood spurting out of his neck, and another man howling due to a screwdriver stuck in his eye, holding a hypodermic needle.

The scene was shocking and yet, somehow familiar.

Acting on a kind of curious instinct, Schelling grabbed the syringe from the man and injected him with it. The man fell to the ground head first, landing on the screwdriver and driving it further into his head. His body convulsed for a while, then the spasms gradually slowed.

“Who the hell are you?” said Schelling frantically, tearing at his hair.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew exactly who they were, even though he could consciously articulate neither their names nor their purpose for being in his bedroom and attacking him.

After drinking two glasses of wine from a bottle in his fridge he arrived at a decision. He would put the bodies in the cold room while he decided what best to do next.

He dragged the bodies down the stairs to the door of the cold room, and opened the cold room door.

It was then that he observed the shocking fact that the cold room was already full of bodies.

It took Schelling a while to get a grip on himself again, and when he finally did so, it was at best a partial grip. Perhaps the only thing that really kept him functioning was the unshakeable feeling that everything now happening to him was inevitable, and therefore the correct course of action.

After dragging the bodies into the cold room he located a bottle of bleach and began to scrub the bloodstains off the floor and stairs.

He had progressed only halfway down the stairs when he ran out of bleach.

Schelling held the bottle of bleach up to the light, and it was then that he noticed the fingerprints adhering to the white container. He looked at his hands and then again at the bottle. His hands were covered in blood mixed with water, but the bottle seemed to have dried bloody fingerprints on it.

After driving the van parked outside around the block and leaving it there, he lay awake the whole rest of the night, thinking. Was it possible that the machine … but no, that couldn’t be.

At five in the morning he went back to the cellar and checked the bodies in the cold room.

As he had feared and suspected, all of them were identical copies of the two men, differing only in their precise injuries. The bodies furthest to the back, undoubtedly the oldest, showed the greatest variety of injuries, some having even been bludgeoned to death.

Later, he was to discover dried blood on the base of his bedside lamp.

Gradually the injuries had converged, the more recent of the deaths all involving a screwdriver.

At seven o’clock he went to the lab and waited for Asgrove to turn up. He was going to need Asgrove’s help.

Dr. Asgrove appeared at half-past seven. Schelling had intended to explain the whole thing to him, but the expression on Asgrove’s face was unmistakable and shook him to his core.

Asgrove had not expected him to return.

He faked ordinary civility, explaining that he had been unable to sleep and so had decided to get started early. On impulse, since Asgrove was clearly attempting to process something mentally and drawing a blank, he told Asgrove that he’d slept at his sister’s house, because she had asked him to take care of her dog while she was away visiting other relatives.

He meant, and Asgrove would assume, that that was why he wasn’t currently being interrogated by Russian spies. The men hadn’t been able to locate him.

Then it occurred to him that Asgrove would undoubtedly relay this information to the Russians, and they might well turn up at his sister’s house the following night.

There was nothing to be done but to explain everything to the Administrator immediately. He went directly to the Administrator’s office, telling Asgrove he needed to discuss a draught coming from the window in his office.

The Administrator listened gravely, and expressed only mild surprise at the miraculous powers Schelling now imputed to the Ark. Asgrove even took Schelling’s attempted self-dissolution in his stride.

“What are we going to do?” said Schelling, at the end of it. “Asgrove’s working for the Russians. I’m convinced of it.”

“I’ve suspected this for a while.” said the Administrator. “Here’s what I propose. We’ll get a van and load the bodies into it. All of them except those last two, which we’ll show to the authorities. We’ll make several trips if necessary. We’ll incinerate them in the furnace attached to Lab E. I’ll simply tell them we’ve been experimenting on pig carcasses. At night there’s no-one there. And I suggest we keep the whole thing to ourselves for a while.”

“You believe me?” said Schelling.

“Why wouldn’t I?” said the Administrator.

Later that night, an exhausted Shellling made three trips to and from the incinerator with Administrator.

“Do you really hate Russians?” Schelling asked, as they carried the last of the bodies up the cellar stairs to the waiting van outside.

“No.” said the Administrator, laughing. “This war, it’s just a thing between the politicians. Like every stupid war. You see, my wife’s Russian and she plays Tchaikovsky incessantly. That’s why I can’t bear to hear it at work as well.”

Schelling burst into uncontrollable laughter, and so did the Administrator. They were forced to temporarily rest the body on the cellar steps while they wiped tears from their eyes.

After a couple of minutes, the Administrator forced himself to be serious again.

“Tomorrow I’ll inform the authorities and they’ll arrest that worthless traitor Asgrove.” he said.

“And the phenomenon?” asked Schelling.

“The world’s not ready for a time machine.” said the Administrator. “Continue with your normal work. With a bit of luck no-one will ever figure out what it can do. And please don’t try to kill yourself again.”

“Don’t worry.” said Schelling. “I feel much better now.”

It’s been bothering me that I’ve never really taken the time to fully understand all the possible paradoxes involved in time travel. A long time ago I did study relativity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland but the only true paradox we got into was the grandfather paradox. Often this is regarded as a showstopper for time travel in physics, and as the key reason why time travel to the past is probably not possible.

So in this video I’m going to discuss all the time travel paradoxes that I’ve been able to unearth. I hope you find this exploration of time travel interesting, and next week we’ll get back to regular scheduling, so to speak.

First, let’s talk about time travel to the future.

It is actually quite possible, theoretically, to travel to the future. In a sense, we’re already doing that. If you can somehow slow your own bodily processes so that you don’t experience the passing of time at the normal rate, you can accomplish true time travel into the future.

You could potentially do this by freezing yourself, if only you were able to prevent the freezing process turning your cells to mush, but the theory of relativity also predicts that time travel to the future could be accomplished by travelling somewhere at a really high speed, then returning to the point where you started.

There are ferocious technical barriers to actually accomplishing this, of course, but there is no theoretical principle that actually forbids it.

The only paradox associated with time travel to the future is the twin paradox, which is well understood—even by me—and is not actually a paradox at all. If a traveller journeys a long way from the Earth at a high speed, then turns around and comes back again, relativity tells us that less time will have passed for him than for the people who stayed on the Earth. A thousand years may have gone by on the Earth, while only some weeks have passed for the traveller. He has effectively travelled to the Earth’s future.

The name “twin paradox” arises from imagining that the traveller is one of a pair of identical twins. The traveller arrives back on the Earth to find he is younger than his twin. But isn’t the situation symmetrical, and movement relative? Can’t the twin argue that, due to symmetry and the relativity of motion, he should be younger than the traveller? That is, if motion is relative, can’t we view the stay-at-home twin as being the one who travelled, while the traveller twin actually stayed in one place?

After all, the Earth is constantly moving around the sun, and the sun is constantly in motion around the galactic centre. It’s not as though Planet Earth is somehow stationary. Actually, according to relativity, there is no such thing as stationary in an absolute sense.

However, this is simply not the case, and there is no true paradox.

The resolution of the problem doesn’t have to do with the traveler rotating to head back again—which is entirely unnecessary—nor with the traveler having to accelerate and decelerate, which may be necessary in practice but is not needed to resolve the paradox.

The simple fact is that, while there is a frame of reference—that is, a point of view—in which the Earth remains stationary the whole time, there is no single point of view in which the traveller remains stationary. If we adopt the point of view that the traveller is stationary on his outward-bound journey, then from that same point of view he is not stationary on his inward-bound journey.

While travelling away from the Earth, if the traveller argues that it’s the Earth that’s moving and not himself, then what will he think of another spaceman who’s currently following the exact route the traveller will have to take to get back to the Earth? He’s certainly not going to view that fellow as stationary.

In contrast, the people on the Earth can view themselves as existing in one single stationary frame of reference the entire time.

The traveller, in a sense, really does travel, while the Earth, leaving aside its journey around the sun, does not.

A long time ago I wrote an extensive, accurate explanation of this on the Quora website, but eventually I deleted my account there out of frustration because people kept reporting my answers and Quora kept deleting them in response to the reports. I was unfailingly polite to everyone, even in the face of considerable provocation, but the climate change people didn’t like me because I argued that there is no remotely provable mechanism by which our CO2 emissions could heat the globe by more than a degree or so, and the transgender people didn’t like me because I argued that there are only two sexes, and it’s beyond the power of science to change one into the other.

So that, along with my hundreds of my other answers, is lost.

I don’t really like politics or social issues but I do think we should all be able to speak the truth as we see it. Otherwise what’s the point in speaking at all?

Anyway, in summary, time travel to the future is theoretically possible and is paradox-free; it’s just technically difficult.

Now let’s turn to the very real paradoxes associated with time travel to the past.

If you first assume that something is possible, then you uncover paradoxes associated with that thing, sometimes that’s very illuminating. The existence of a paradox might mean that the thing you’ve hypothesised is actually impossible, but it might also mean that some common underlying assumption—that is, an assumption that underlies the way we think about reality—might be incorrect.

A great example of this is the paradox Einstein uncovered when he thought about what it would be like to travel alongside a beam of light. Einstein realised that Maxwell’s equations, which brought together everything known about electric and magnetic fields, and which predicted the existence of invisible radiation, seemed to indicate that light could only travel at a certain fixed speed. A beam of light could not appear stationary, in the same way that a moving train appears stationary from the point of view of the people in a car moving alongside the train at the same speed. According to Maxwell’s equations, light depends upon movement for its very existence.

This led Einstein to hypothesise in his famous 1905 paper on electrodynamics that the speed of light always appears the same, regardless of the speed of the observer.

Apparently unbeknownst to Einstein, this strange phenomenon had already been experimentally observed by the American physicists Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, in 1887.

Nothing else behaves like this: if you run after a ball, the speed of the ball slows relative to you, otherwise you’d never be able to catch it. Hurrying after a beam of light seems to make no difference at all; it’s always rushing ahead of you by the same relative speed.

With that in mind, it may somehow be useful to consider the paradoxes of time travel, even if we currently have no workable method of actually travelling backwards in time.

The theory of relativity arguably appears to predict that backwards time travel is actually possible, but it doesn’t give us a workable, practical method for actually doing it.

The most famous example of a time travel paradox is undoubtedly the grandfather paradox. If you could travel to the past, you could kill your own grandfather before he could even reproduce with your grandmother.

Or, if killing your ancestors doesn’t appeal, you could simply travel backwards in time and prevent your grandfather from meeting your grandmother.

In either case, how can your parents ever have been born, and how were you then able to travel backwards in time, since you can’t exist?

This is the key reason as to why many physicists consider time travel to the past to be impossible.

The name of this paradox derives from a short science fiction story by Nathaniel Schachner, called Ancestral Voices, which is out of copyright in most countries. It was originally published in a magazine called Astounding Stories in 1933.

In that story, a scientist travels backwards in time to the year 452 AD and kills one of Attila’s the Hun’s fellow Huns, who turns out to be a distant direct ancestor of the scientist’s. This causes everyone descended from this particular Hun to vanish instantly, including the scientist himself.

The resolution to the story is a little too convenient—as is the case with the resolutions to many of my own stories. In reality it’s very hard to envisage what might happen if you could kill your own ancestors.

It’s not necessary to resort to imagine tangling with your ancestors in order to understand the broader nature of the problem. You could get into your time machine and then travel backwards in time and stop yourself getting into the time machine in the first place.

If you never get into your time machine, how can you have turned up in the past to stop yourself going backwards in time?

We can even dispense with the human element altogether, and this leads us to Polchinski’s Paradox, proposed by string theorist Joseph Polchinski in 1990.

A billiard ball is fired with the correct trajectory to enter a wormhole, which transports it backwards in time. The billiard ball then collides with itself in the past, before it can enter the wormhole. So, the billiard ball never enters the wormhole and never travels backwards in time.

Then there are two billiard balls, and where did the second one even come from, if the first one did not enter the wormhole?

Some argue that this simply cannot happen, and the laws of physics must somehow forbid it—even if, according to some physicists—wormholes offer a real possibility for travelling backwards in time.

Perhaps the second copy of the billiard ball can only collide with the first in such a way that the first billiard ball still enters the wormhole. Perhaps, without the collision with its future self, it would not have entered the wormhole at all.

In this view, only self-consistent events can occur in the context of time travel. Perhaps you can meet your own grandfather, but you can’t kill him—or at least not until he’s conceived your mother or father. And perhaps that’s always what happened.

For the writer this idea offers a partial resolution of time travel paradoxes; whatever happened is always what happened, with time loops included.

This idea is known as Novikov’s self-consistency principle.

The Spanish film Timecrimes from 2007 is one of the few films about time travel that adhere to Novikov’s principle, and I would say is the best film I’ve ever seen about time travel. Along with the better-known film Looper, from 2012, which does not adhere to Novikov’s principle, it portrays a relatively realistic time machine, created by people who seem like they might actually have built a time machine.

Relativity by itself does seem to allow for backwards time travel, via so-called wormholes, which involve heavily warped spacetime, if you leave the grandfather paradox aside.

It may be that time travel to the past is possible, but Novikov’s self-consistency principle forms an additional law of nature, insisting upon only forms of backwards time-travel that do not result in outright paradox.

Igor Novikov was a Russian physicist, and the principle named after him was first formally proposed in his 1989 paper, Time machine and self-consistent evolution in problems with self-interaction.

We can also look at the grandfather paradox in a slightly different way. Take, for example, the Hitler paradox. We travel backwards in time to kill Hitler, before he got started with his whole disturbing project. But then, in the future, there’s no Hitler, so why would anyone have gone backwards in time to kill him, since he no longer exists?

Killing Hitler would therefore have to be forbidden by Novikov’s principle.

Backwards time travel finds its greatest paradoxes in interactions between the time traveller and the events that led to him to travelling backwards in time.

The “Meeting Yourself” paradox broadly considers what happens when a time traveller meets his past self. The grandfather paradox is example of this, as is a form of the bootstrap paradox.

Suppose you develop instructions for building a time machine, and you travel backwards in time and take those instructions to your past self, who then builds the very time machine that you then use to travel backwards in time.

I tackle this idea in my story Letters from the Future, in which an amateur scientist sends notes back to his past self that facilitate his invention of a time machine.

The question is, where did the knowledge of how to build the time machine actually come from?

Without a time machine, the inventor cannot meet his past self nor send messages to his past self, so the time machine cannot exist.

It seems as though these letters have no ultimate cause. The whole process has no way to get started, or in other words, to bootstrap itself, where the term bootstrap arises from the impossible idea of pulling yourself upwards via straps attached to your own boots.

Even if one alters the past in the most minimal way possible, the butterfly effect comes into play. Tiny changes in the past may well result in very large changes in the future. If, for example, on the day that Hitler was conceived, Hitler’s mother had had a headache—perhaps occasioned only by something small, like one cup of coffee too many or too few—the entire Nazi regime and the second world war might never have happened.

In general, the effects of small things seem to cascade over time into large changes; this is predicted both by classical physics and by computer models of physical processes, such as the weather, as Edward Lorenz discovered in 1961.

It then seems like any alteration to the past could easily produce changes that violate Novikov’s self-consistency principle, unless Novikov’s principle is a fundamental law of nature which the universe somehow enforces.

If Novikov’s principle really is a law of nature, we would expect backwards time travel to lead to various forms of predestination paradox. These aren’t true logical paradoxes, but they seem counter intuitive.

Sticking with the Hitler example, you might go back in time to kill Hitler, only to find, following the self-consistency principle, that your actions actually lead to the rise of Hitler.

If Novikov’s principle is really a fundamental law of the universe, then whatever happened in the past was, in a way, predestined to happen; at least in the sense that you can’t change it. Any attempt to change the past must only lead to the exact same things happening that have already happened.

Causal loops in general seem problematic for time travel, although the idea of self-consistency partially resolves their paradoxical nature. When time travel is involved, a sequence of events can cause itself. A causes B which causes A, and it’s unclear how the whole thing could have got started.

But then, let’s not forget, it’s unclear how the entire universe got started.

Consider the Münchhausen trilemma. This illustrates the impossibility of ultimately proving anything using logic alone.

Logic is a process of reasoning, which must always rest on certain axioms.

If you then try to use logic to prove your axioms, you will require other axioms.

There are three ways out of his, and none of them would be considered satisfactory by a logical positivist.

Either we must commit to an infinite regress of axioms, or else we must accept axioms that prove themselves in a circle, or else we must adopt the dogmatic approach and insist that our axioms are true without any further proof being needed.

We have here three forms of argument: circular, regressive and dogmatic.

The fictional Baron Munchausen after whom the trilemma is named, pulled himself and his horse out of a bog by his own hair: a form of bootstrapping.

A solution to a problem involving infinite regress satisfies few. Perhaps the Earth is supported by four elephants sitting on a giant turtle, but what is the turtle standing on? Does anyone really want an infinite tower of animals?

Perhaps we are made of atoms which are made of neutrons and protons, which are made of quarks, but what are quarks made of? Tiny strings, perhaps, and what are they made of?

The temptation, for scientists, religious believers and frustrated parents is always to fall back on a dogmatic argument: it just is. Superstrings aren’t made of anything else, and neither is God.

The alternative is some form of circular argument, where a thing causes itself. Perhaps even time is circular, with no beginning, and the future eventually leads to the past. But then the question remains: how did the whole thing get started, and without dogmatism, it’s impossible to answer.

Given that the universe itself seems altogether impossible, and certainly should not exist, arguments against causal loops in general seem weakened.

We can never state the ultimate cause of anything at all without resorting to dogmatism.

There are other arguments against backwards time travel which, while perhaps not appealing to everyone, carry weight with those of us who haven’t adopted science as our religion, at least not in its most materialistic version.

After Einstein developed the theory of relativity, the mathematician Hermann Minkowski showed that relativity could be understood in terms of a four-dimensional geometry. This involves the three dimensions of space with which we are all familiar—which we could think of as up-down, left-right and backwards and forwards—plus the addition of time as an additional pseudo-spatial dimension.

In this scheme, either the three dimensions of space or, more conventionally, the single time dimension, must be multiplied by the square root of minus one. The purpose of this whole shenanigans is to turn relativistic physics into a question of geometry.

The idea of time as the fourth dimension led some to take the idea very literally. The universe then becomes a four-dimensional structure in which the past, present and future are all simultaneously present.

But this isn’t, in truth, predicted by the theory of relativity. It’s only an assumption made in order to work with relativity geometrically. It fails to incorporate quantum physics, which, in important respects, removes linear predictability from physics, retaining it only at the statistical level.

The human eye is capable of perceiving even a single photon under the right conditions, and the behaviour of a single photon is not deterministically predictable, according to quantum physics. Physics does not, in fact, lead to a view of the future as necessarily predetermined. That so many people think it does, is, I think, a case of wishful thinking.

Without deterministic physics, categories of causation seem to become possible that defy any strict predictability, and cannot even always be subject to statistical analysis, and this unsettles many people.

A million subatomic particles behave in aggregate in a predictable way, but a single particle may affect, ultimately, the whole world, and its behaviour cannot be predicted.

The question of whether or not modern physics can be said to “allow room”, so to speak, for free will, is a huge topic. I’ve gone over all the arguments against free will quite carefully, and I find none of them at all convincing. But that’s a topic for a different video.

Instead of getting off on a tangent, let’s ask—if free will really does exist—what does this means for time travel to the past?

Suppose a person—let’s call him George—gets into a time machine and travels a week into the past. Then he goes to meet his former self. So now, there’s two of them.

Two distinct naming conventions are possible for the two Georges, if we want to distinguish them. Looking at the situation from the point of view of the original, past version of George, the George who travels backwards in time is another George, whom we could call George 2 or George B. The original George is then George 1 or George A.

This is the naming scheme used in the Spanish film Timecrimes, where a man named Hector travels backwards in time, becoming Hector 2 in the process.

On the other hand, we could view the situation from the perspective of the George who travels backwards in time. The George he encounters in the past, who is a past version of himself, would then be George 2, while the time traveller is George 1.

I’ll go here with the first naming convention; by travelling into the past, George becomes George 2. His original self in the past is George 1.

If we apply Novikov’s principle, it seems that George 1 now must get into the time machine after a week has passed, otherwise where did George 2 even come from?

But then George 1 seems to not have free will. He cannot choose to change his mind, even if George 2 begs him not to get into the machine for some reason. For that matter, it seems George 2 cannot prevent George 1 from getting into the machine by any means. He can neither kill him nor deter him.

I explore a scenario like this in my story Time Machine: A Terrible Idea.

There seems to be a conflict here between free will and Novikov’s principle.

Some people argue that the conflict is more apparent than real, since after all, free will is not the freedom to do absolutely anything; we are all subject to the laws of physics, and here is, perhaps, simply another law of physics that we are forced to obey under relevant circumstances.

But it is hard to see exactly why George 1 would have to get into the machine, and why George 2 wouldn’t be able to stop him. What form, exactly, would the intervention of the universe take?

If Novikov’s principle does not apply, then another interesting problem arises. Suppose George 1 does not get into the time machine, after meeting George 2. Then, from the moment that George 2 appears, there are two Georges, and always will be—at least till one of them dies, and even then the matter of which they are composed will still exist, even if decomposition radically changes its form.

This raises the question of whether, if the time machine can duplicate matter, another copy of George isn’t created every single time George gets into the machine, potentially creating a vast army of Georges.

Surely there was a point in time when George really had not created the machine, and could have chosen not to bother creating the machine. At that point there was only one George. Then George decides, of his own free will, to build the time machine, and he gets into it and travels back a week in time. Now the past seems to have been changed, and we have a whole week during which there were, in fact, two Georges.

Why wouldn’t yet another George be created, and a new version of the past be created with three Georges, if George gets into the time machine again?

If Novikov’s principle is real, there is only one version of the past, and it’s the version in which George builds the time machine and uses it to travel backwards in time. The only version of the past week that ever exists is the version in which there are two Georges. George could never have not decided to build the machine, and he could never choose to not travel backwards in time after he’s built it. For that one week, there were always two Georges.

If Novikov’s principle does not apply, an alternative possibility is that every time George travels backwards in time, a new version of the past is created.

This is the possibility I envisaged in my last story, Mountain Loop. In that story, Novikov’s principle initially seems to apply—but then, to obtain a satisfactory ending, I decided to ditch it completely.

It’s brilliantly explored in the 2009 British horror film, Triangle, which also makes excellent and horrifying use of the matter duplication aspect of time travel.

In contrast, the equally-brilliant Spanish film Timecrimes from 2007 seems to envisage a form of time travel in which Novikov’s principle perhaps does apply.

Physicists have long struggled to explain the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics, which were originally devised to explain atomic spectra, but which seem as though they should apply to ordinary life at the macroscopic scale, and yet—as illustrated by the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment—seemingly don’t.

It’s a funny thing about interpretations of quantum mechanics that, while none of them are provably correct, people tend to gravitate strongly to one or the other of them.

One popular interpretation is the many worlds hypothesis, which takes various forms, none of them fully worked-out.

This hypothesises that every time a quantum observation is made, whether under conscious supervision or not, the universe branches into two or more copies. Everything that can happen, does happen, according to this theory. It’s only a question of what happens in which universe.

If this is actually true, then clearly a universe (or class of universes) could exist in which George invents a time machine, but never encounters his past self. Right up until George actually gets into the time machine, perhaps only this universe exists.

When George travels through time and becomes George 2, another universe then comes into being in which George 2 meets George 1.

The two universes simply have different pasts.

If we accept that time travel is possible—which of course, for the moment, it isn’t, as far as we know—then it seems as though we either have to commit to the idea that somehow George is always going to get into his time machine, or else we are faced with multiple different pasts somehow existing.

The grandfather paradox is resolved either by removing free will somewhat from the picture, so that you simply can’t kill your own grandfather, or else by multiple universes allowing you to travel from one universe, where your grandfather has descendants, to another universe where you can kill your grandather, who then has no descendants in that universe.

You could try to argue that the universe where you kill your grandfather and the one where you don’t are the same universe, with different pasts.

But consider the universe where you do kill your grandfather. How, in this universe, did you go on to create the time machine? You can’t, because you are never born. Instead, you appeared at a certain point in time and, for unknown reasons, killed a man.

Yet you still remember the universe in which you were actually born. Perhaps you can still go back to that universe, but only by building another time machine and this time using it to prevent yourself from killing your grandfather. Bearing in mind the butterfly effect, this seems unlike to precisely restore the universe you fondly remember, but it might restore something very close to it, if you take care to prevent the killing with a minimum of fuss.

Whether we should say that these different pasts belong to the same universe or different parallel universes is perhaps a little bit unclear. Perhaps they were once the same universe, then they diverged when you went back in time and killed your grandfather.

Were two separate copies of everyone and everything brought into being at that point?

This is exactly the kind of thing that the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics envisages, and it definitely seems extravagant and, for most of us, a little unbelievable.

There’s one final paradox that I’d like to mention.

This is sometimes called the Fermi Paradox, since the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi once asked, “Where is everybody?”

He was referring to aliens but he could as well have been referring to time travellers. If, in the future, time travel to the past is invented, then where are all the time travellers now?

If what we might call the “many worlds” theory of time travel is correct, then the answer is that they are in a parallel universe.

Stephen Hawking once joked that he had held a party for time travellers, where he sent out the invitations after the party instead of before, but no-one showed up. His point being that it doesn’t seem as though there are any time travellers from the future around us.

No-one, as far as is known, has a credible plan for building a time machine, nor anything close to one. The closest physicists seem to have got is that apparently the theory of general relativity permits wormholes to exist in which spacetime loops back on itself—but the creation of such a wormhole would require far more energy than any human being is ever likely to control and the wormhole would likely crush anything that enters it, so that doesn’t seem very useful, nor practicable.

The best argument I can come up with in favour of backwards time travel is simply to vaguely assert that surely “everything is possible if only we knew how”.

That’s not a hill I want to die on.

But it is interesting to speculate about.