"Not easily."

Auger turned from the console and looked up at Skellsgard. "What if we wait? Will things get better?"

"They might do. Then again, they might get worse. And there's no telling how long this instability will

last. Could be hours. Could be tens of hours or even days."

"We can't wait that long, not when more of those kids might show up at any moment. When you say 'not easily,' what does that mean? That there is a way?"

"There's a way," Skellsgard said. "For one of us."

"I don't follow."

"We'll need to stabilise the throat geometry at this end, and that's going to cost us more power than we

can supply in the long term."

Auger shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I don't care if the link folds once we're out of here."

Skellsgard shook her head. "Not that simple. Look, I don't want to give you a lecture on hypervacuum

theory-"

"Suits me fine."

Skellsgard smiled. "The essential point is that the local throat has to stay open until we reach the far end.

Things will get messy if it snaps shut, and they'll get really, really messy if it snaps shut violently. We'll run the risk of losing the link, for a start. And while the closure might be a relatively low-energy event as seen from the Paris end, all the energy released by the tunnel collapse will find its way to the Phobos end. It's like stretching a big elastic band between your hands and then letting go of one end-you get the picture? And even if the collapse isn't violent enough to bring down the link, we'd still be surfing a major stress wave in the transport. We'd have a soliton chasing us all the way home."

"What's a soliton?"

"Like a ruck in a carpet, only with a seriously p.i.s.sed-off att.i.tude."

"That's all I need to know. Now tell me what we can do about it. Can we stop the throat snapping shut?"

"Yes," Skellsgard said. "Once the ship's cleared the throat, the power can be ramped down to a level the

generators can sustain until the ship gets home."

"Doesn't sound too complicated to me."

"It isn't. The problem is that it isn't a procedure we ever got around to automating. It was always

a.s.sumed that we'd have a team here, or that we could hang around indefinitely until stability improved."

"I see," Auger said quietly. "Well, you'd better show me what to do."

"No way," Skellsgard said. "No disrespect, Auger, but this isn't exactly the kind of thing they teach you in history school. You're getting in the ship. I'll handle the throat."

"What about the children?"

"They didn't get in here before. I'm pretty sure I'll be safe until a rescue party gets through."

"But that will take days," Auger said.

"About sixty hours if they can do an immediate turnaround on the ship, and if stability conditions are

optimal. Longer if they're not."

"I'm not leaving you here."

"I can hold out," Skellsgard said. "You're the one with the critical information, not me."

"I lost almost all that information in the tunnel."

"But you saw it. That has to be worth something."

Auger left the console and sprinted back up the ladder to Skellsgard. "What exactly is involved in

controlling the throat?"

"It's a very technically demanding procedure."

"It can't be that technically demanding or you'd already have automated it. Talk to me, Skellsgard."

She blinked. "It's a question of waiting thirty, forty seconds after departure, then dropping power levels

to about ten per cent."

"Using those switches you've already shown me?"

"More or less."

"I think even a lowly history grunt can handle that. All right: let's start prepping the ship. You can tell

me the rest while we do it."

"That is not the way we're doing this," Skellsgard said.

"Listen to me: if you don't get medical attention for that leg, you're going to lose it."

"So they'll grow me a new one. I always fancied a ride out to one of those Polity hospitals."

"You want to take that chance? I don't think I would, especially with all h.e.l.l breaking loose back home."

"I can't let you do this," Skellsgard insisted.

Auger took out the war baby's weapon and flashed it at Skellsgard. "You want me to start pointing this at you? Because believe me, I will. Now let's prep the ship, sister."

EIGHTEEN.

At two in the afternoon, Floyd looked up as the bra.s.serie door swung open. He had already looked up several dozen times since ordering his last coffee, as patrons came and went, and there were another three empty coffee cups on his table, along with a froth-lined beer gla.s.s and the stale crumbs of a nondescript sandwich. It was still raining outside, water sluicing down across the doorframe from a broken gutter above it. The patrons got a soaking when they left or arrived, but no one seemed to complain. Even Greta, when she arrived, seemed more relieved to find him still there than annoyed at the weather.

"I thought you'd have gone already," she said, shaking her umbrella. Her clothes were dark with rain, her hair frizzy and tipped with tiny dewdrops.

"I figured it was best to keep with the original rendezvous," Floyd said. He removed his coat from the seat opposite, where he had placed it to prevent anyone else from joining him at the table. He had wanted a clear view of the window, and of the hotel opposite, in the hope that he might see Verity Auger coming or going. "I must admit, though, that I was beginning to worry I'd got the wrong bra.s.serie. What happened?"

"She left," Greta said, sitting down with visible relief. "Almost as soon as I'd put down the telephone, I saw her leaving the hotel."

"You want a drink?"

"I'd kill for one."

Floyd signalled the waiter to their table and ordered another coffee for Greta. "So tell me what happened. You followed her, obviously. Did she look like she was checking out of the hotel?"

"No-she didn't have anything with her other than a handbag. For all I knew she was going to be back in five minutes. But I couldn't take that chance."

"You were right not to. Did you keep up with her?"

"I think I've got a bit better at this tailing business since this morning. I kept my distance and tried to

change my appearance every block or so: folding up my umbrella, putting on my hat, sungla.s.ses, that sort of thing. I don't think she saw me." Greta spooned sugar into the coffee and gulped it down in almost one mouthful.

"Where did she go?"

"I followed her all the way to Cardinal Lemoine. That's where I lost her."

"Lost her how?"

"That's the funny thing," Greta said. "I was with her all the way into the Metro station. I followed her to

the platform and kept my distance. I hid behind some chocolate-vending machines. A train came in and then another. She didn't get on either of them, but they were all going in the same direction."

"Weird," Floyd said.

"Not as weird as what happened after that. Between one moment and the next she disappeared completely. She simply wasn't on the platform."

"And no other train had come and gone?"

Greta lowered her voice, as if aware of how absurd her account sounded. "I'm certain of it. I also know that there is no other exit she could have taken, not without walking right past my hiding place."

Floyd sipped at his own coffee. By the fourth cup he had ceased tasting it, the drink purely a mechanical

aid to his alertness. "She can't just have vanished into thin air."

"I never said she did. It looked that way, but there were a few other people waiting on the platform and I

decided to brazen it out and ask them if they'd seen anything. At that point I figured I didn't have a lot to lose."

"You were probably right," Floyd said. "What did you get?"