The paper explained how technology was reaching the limit of how much radio frequency energy could be used to drive particle accelerators. However, a new generation of accelerators was in development, harnessing laser power to create high-velocity gas plasma that carried particles in its wake. So far, the lasers were only operable over very short distances, but even these could generate a thousand trillion watts (a nuclear power plant, by comparison, could only generate a billion). As this distance grew, so would the power available. This technology was developing by a factor of ten every five years, and would soon deliver a new breed of accelerators 'that would make the Large Hadron Collider look like a dinosaur'.

The paper was by Lucius Steinmeyer. It was the last thing he published before dropping off the map.

Across the table in the Command Room, the esteemed physicist looks like he's clinging on by his fingernails.

'With respect,' Steinmeyer says, his tone intimating that he holds anything but, 'myths and fairy stories are not comparable to data and evidence, no matter how many thousand years old. Science isn't a body of knowledge, it's a meth-'

'A method, yes,' Havelock interrupts. 'A method by which the true scientist has to accept what the data is telling him, even if it contradicts that which he has set out to prove. You've opened up a gateway and what's come through it are some angry mother-f.u.c.kers with horns on their heads. Holy water burns their skin. They go f.u.c.king crazy if you show them a crucifix. Jesus Christ, Lucius, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck . . .'

'It's duck enough for me,' says McCormack. 'And that's why we're shutting it down, forthwith. What's locked up downstairs is just what we caught when we dipped our net into the shallows. We have no idea what might be waiting in the depths. We are not ready for this, at any level. Not scientifically, not militarily and not politically.'

Steinmeyer turns towards Tullian. 'You know, you should be on my side here,' he says, finally talking to to him and not merely about him like he's not there. 'Surely if I've opened up the gateway to h.e.l.l, you're going to see business booming in the Catholic Church like it hasn't done for about five centuries. Do you really want to close the door on a chance like that?' him and not merely about him like he's not there. 'Surely if I've opened up the gateway to h.e.l.l, you're going to see business booming in the Catholic Church like it hasn't done for about five centuries. Do you really want to close the door on a chance like that?'

Tullian can't decide whether Steinmeyer's making an utterly desperate final gambit or merely lashing out like a drunk who knows he's about to be shown the door. Nonetheless, either way, he wants to get through to him, needs to make him understand. He needs to make all of them understand.

Tullian's letter in 2002 had been merely his latest regular digest of recent scientific matters. He had thought it a little self-indulgent in its laying down of so much rather speculative thought, and thus he wasn't even sure Cardinal O'Hara would give it more than a courteous once-over. He almost, in fact, deleted his ponderings upon dark matter as perhaps being melodramatic and lacking intellectual sobriety. Upon such tiny fulcrums do pivot the greatest turns of destiny. Before the year was out, he had been appointed a cardinal himself, such rank a prerequisite of his being granted access to artefacts and information that were among the Church's most securely guarded secrets.

In the secular world, people were increasingly seduced by the idea that the Vatican historically h.o.a.rded and suppressed any evidence that cast doubt on the veracity of Catholic doctrine. Conspiracy theorists depicted shadowy and power-hungry cabals capable of the most ruthless deeds in order to protect the Church from the outside world discovering highly damaging truths. It made for exciting - if far-fetched - stories. In reality, this darkest of revelations - entrusted only to a select fellowship among the 'princes' of the Church - had been scrupulously kept hidden for centuries not for the protection of the Vatican, but for the same reason that any other state in the world would have cla.s.sified it top secret had it fallen into their hands instead.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had a remit to investigate the inspiring and miraculous, seeking traces of the hand of G.o.d. It had, however, undergone what was known in modern parlance as 'a rebranding exercise'. Prior to this, it had been charged with seeking traces of the hand of a darker power, and was known by a different name.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII had issued his epoch-making encyclical, Humani Generis Humani Generis, which shaped Catholic doctrine as it faced the world of the late twentieth century and played a large part in a.s.suring this scientifically curious young prelate that he was on the right path. However, it also included the troubling requirement that all Catholics must regard the Devil as a person, all demons as real. This had always struck Tullian as being at odds with the bull's forward-looking purpose in preparing the Church for the greater malleability and open-mindedness that it would need in order to adapt in a world of accelerating scientific progress.

On a chilly November morning in 2002, only a day after the solemnisation ceremony, Tullian was shown why he had been so hastily elevated to his new rank. In no dusty crypt but rather a spotless, high-tech and formidably impenetrable vault, he discovered what indeed existed in a shadow realm separated from our own by a barrier only an atom's width thick.

'Professor,' Tullian says, speaking softly so that he - and everyone else - will make a greater effort to listen. 'I have spent many years witnessing what undue import people can ascribe to the most trivial symbols, to happenstance and coincidence. Villages almost at war because a lightning strike has cloven a tree-branch and left a stump shaped like the Madonna and Child. It is apposite that you should have alluded to the Holy Inquisition. That most dark and b.l.o.o.d.y shadow upon the Church's history is replete with instances of mistrust, suspicion and hatred sparked by the merest suggestion of supernatural forces. All it took then was a rumour, a shape or shadow mis seen in the firelight. Now think of what is being held in those containment pods. Were the world to see, as we have done, demons made flesh, living and breathing before their eyes, I fear a tide of madness and horror that no church, no army could contain. Consider in this world of - as you called them - superst.i.tious fools: a reign of terror attended by the arrival of demons. It would itself create a self-fulfilling prophecy: people would hail it as heralding the end of the world, and in time, through the ensuing madness, it very well might be.'

'h.e.l.l on Earth,' Havelock says, his voice barely an awestruck breath. He sees it, McCormack too. Steinmeyer, however, remains blind; and not so much blinded by science as blinded to all but his curiosity, his quest. Possessed, Tullian might even say, and he chooses his words with care. According to doctrine, the Devil cannot possess a person unless he is invited, and if Satan needed an instrument here in this place, he could not have found a better candidate than a scientist who did not believe in him and was driven by the purest motives.

'This is insane,' Steinmeyer protests. 'You're pulling the plug on something that could fundamentally alter our understanding of the very fabric of the universe.'

'It's purely precautionary,' McCormack replies, sounding as placatory as he can. 'It's just safest if we mothball the project at least until we know more about what we're dealing with.'

'Mothball?' Tullian asks, suddenly feeling like a trapdoor has opened beneath his chair. 'In my view it would be negligent to do anything but dismantle it.'

'Like I said,' McCormack responds, 'we all need to take a step back for a while.'

Steinmeyer is pressing his temples like his skull might come apart. 'You don't understand,' he says. 'You can't "mothball" it, because it's not something we can necessarily resume. We don't know what caused the Dodgson anomaly, let alone what the anomaly is. We don't know whether we opened a door or merely found the bell.'

'Well, a lot of folks are very worried about who's answering,' Havelock replies.

'That's the risk we'll have to take,' McCormack says, getting up from the table and thus signalling that the discussion is over. 'Shut it down,' he tells Havelock. 'That's an order, effective immediately.'

'Sir, for safety reasons, we have to let the reactor complete its cycle, which will take approximately twenty more hours.'

'Then shut it down after that.'

Steinmeyer holds up one hand in a final, futile gesture of appeal.

'If we let this close, there is every chance it will be lost forever,' he tells them.

Amen to that, Tullian thinks, though in truth he knows it is not something anyone would want left to chance.

For who can yet believe, though after loss, That all the puissant legions, whose exile Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to reascend Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?

VI 'The problem you have, Kano, is that you think we believe in this white-bearded cliche in flowing robes, stoating about on a cloud, and you say if science can't verify the existence of this flimsy straw man, then we must be a bunch of simpletons to believe in it.'

They're all gathered in Kane's room, where he invited them to share a nightcap. Kane and Blake are each sitting on single beds, Heather and Guthrie on chairs they brought through from their respective rooms. Heather is glad it was Kane who volunteered his quarters for the venue, as had it been Blake, the interconnecting door would almost certainly have been noticed, and possibly even utilised in moving the furniture. It's bad enough she and Blake knowing about it, but the thought of the other two being aware would have her squirming.

She listens to Blake speaking and thinks back, beyond the awkward moment in her room tonight, to each of the encounters she has had with him. There is something perplexing about all of them, something not quite jarring but not quite fitting either. They all feel like deleted scenes: curios, sometimes interesting in and of themselves, but somehow unsatisfactory, failing to resolve anything, and therefore existing adrift from the greater narrative of both their lives. The question is, what does she want the greater narrative to be, if those deleted scenes are to make the final cut?

The bottle of single malt is probably the only thing distinguishing this gathering from the a.s.semblies taking place right now in all of the other bedrooms. There's an almost juvenile sense of escape about the suspension of normal rules, ranks and other formalities, an appreciative awareness of how this gathering could not be taking place under any other circ.u.mstances. Even Guthrie has started to unwind, having now managed ten minutes without visibly stiffening in response to every echo reaching them from the kids' dorms.

'Science doesn't preclude the G.o.d I have faith in,' Blake expands, 'something eternal and transcendent that isn't subject to humanly verifiable rules of existence. Whether you're talking about evolution or the Big Bang, there's nothing in science to rule out a creator, and some of us are not so arrogant as to demand that He gives us a theological handout by way of proving his existence in a manner vulgar and obvious enough for us to make sense of.'

Guthrie is nodding along sincerely, looking like he might have hope for this drink of skoosh of a chaplain yet.

Kane, though, is smiling, loving this.

'Aye,' he says, 'the religious types are lapping up the beardy G.o.d in the sky right now. "Of course we don't believe in that that, you silly atheists. We're down with the Big Bang, daddy-o." So let me throw you a bone. Let's say that the Big Bang was initiated by some kind of higher intelligence. What evidence is there that this being demands to be worshipped by its creatures? Your parents created you - do they demand to be worshipped?'

'Parents don't demand worship, and nor does G.o.d,' Blake replies. 'Parents give love, as does G.o.d, and they give guidance: they offer a way of living that will help you to live a good life. We choose to honour our parents, and we choose to honour G.o.d. You're relying on anachronistic connotations of the word "worship" here, Kano.'

'So what evidence is there that this being is good, or caring, or in any way motivated by a morality we might recognise? What evidence is there that this being has any interest in what is effectively a by-product, a trace element of the universe? What if this super-being is merely one of a race of super-beings, and is in fact the super-being equivalent of a teenager who created our universe one afternoon with his super-being chemistry set?'

'It doesn't change the fact that the existence of G.o.d is not precluded by any of the absences of evidence that you mentioned.'

'The existence of G.o.d is not precluded by anything because it's non-disprovable.'

'And doesn't that tell you something?' Guthrie wades in, like he's exasperatedly explaining himself to a particularly obtuse third year. 'It can't be disproven. It's eternal, a thing of ultimate grace, and no matter what knowledge we arrogantly presume to bring to bear upon it, the truth of G.o.d prevails.'

Heather reluctantly decides to make her own intervention at this point, to avert the rage Guthrie is liable to fly into when he hears how this eternal grace and prevailing truth can be attributed equally to whatever bizarre deity Kane subsequently invents in order to make his point.

'Non-disprovable is a scientific term, Dan,' she says politely. 'In this context it doesn't mean quite what you've inferred.'

'What: non-disprovable doesn't mean something cannot be disproven?' he asks incredulously.

'It does, but it also means it can't be proven either. For something to be provable, it must also be disprovable. It's not enough to find evidence that supports your idea: there has to be, theoretically, a piece of evidence that would support a null hypothesis. For instance, gravity is disprovable. If I drop this gla.s.s and it doesn't fall, I'd disprove gravity. There's an experiment I can carry out or an observation I can make that will prove the idea either way.'

'Okay,' Guthrie says, taking it in. 'That's fine for something obvious, like gravity, but what about something more complex? What about evolution? How is that disprovable?'

'Find a fossilised rabbit buried in a layer beneath a fossilised stegosaurus and you've disproved Darwin just like that. Kane is saying you can't do that with G.o.d.'

'Even if you could,' Kane says, 'it wouldn't make a difference. If the G.o.d hypothesis was somehow disprovable, and scientists found indisputable proof that there was no G.o.d, the Church wouldn't miss a beat. It would simply say that this emergent proof was merely a fabrication to lead man astray, thus instead proving the existence of Satan, and by extrapolation of G.o.d too.'

'And if G.o.d showed up here tomorrow,' Guthrie retorts, 'you'd be asking how we know he's not just a . . . what was it? Teenage super-being or some such drivel.'

Blake is laughing, though Guthrie wasn't trying to lighten the tone.

'Touche,' Kane says, before getting to his feet and finishing off the last trickle he's been nursing in his gla.s.s.

'It's coming up for midnight,' he says. 'I'll go and tell them lights out, for what it's worth.'

'No, no, I'll do it,' Guthrie says, also standing up.

Heather gestures to him to remain seated.

'With respect, Dan, that might be counterproductive. Play it canny,' she entreats, refilling his gla.s.s by way of further persuasion.

'Okay,' he says, though there is a restiveness about him as he sits back down.

'By the way, who do you all want in the sweep?' Kane asks, stopping at the door.

'What sweep?'

Kane opts to take the outdoor route to the dormitory blocks so that he can get some air, with the added advantage that he'll be able to arrive undetected by whoever's been appointed to 'keep the edgy'. It's a crisp, still cold that greets him: fresh enough to shake the bleary fug resultant of cosy indoor warmth, a full stomach and good single malt. You wouldn't want to be standing still in shorts and a T-shirt, but it's pleasantly refreshing on a brisk stroll such as takes him to the far end of the buildings. He steers away from the gravel, walking on gra.s.s to remain silent, an effect enhanced by his need to take it slow. It's really quite startlingly dark out here, even under a cloudless sky, until his eyes grow accustomed and the stars reveal themselves to his widening pupils like they're being faded up in an offstage control booth.

His way is further lit once he makes a turn at the north-west corner and comes in sight of the dormitory corridors' outside walls. Most of the windows are streaming light, curtains not drawn, some of the panes wide open, no doubt to vent smoke. There is one frame that stands out black, prompting Kane to check his watch in case it's later than he thought. No, not much past midnight. The dark window is therefore more suspicious than the smoking ones. There's just no way any of this shower has decided it would be sensible to turn the lights off and have an early night. He's not close enough to see very well, but it looks like the curtains are pulled back and the window open, so no, it's definitely not an outbreak of responsibility.

He makes his way quietly around to the rear fire exit and lets himself inside, allowing the door to bang at his back by way of giving everybody a heads-up to stash their booze and nip their f.a.gs. Kane then amuses himself by making a quick patrol of the boys' corridor, failing to keep a straight face as he observes the ridiculous spectacle of postured calm and order that has been rapidly a.s.sumed beyond each doorway. Marky Flynn is even pretending to read a book, for f.u.c.k's sake.

He returns to a spot roughly halfway along and addresses the whole corridor.

'Right. I'm not your mammy, lads, and I'm not here to say "lights out". You're all big boys now. Just don't kick the a.r.s.e out of it - remember we've got a long day tomorrow. Nighty-night.'

Several boys reply, 'Good night, sir,' from inside their rooms, in a variety of giggling silly voices. Kane smiles to himself, making a counting-down gesture with his fingers. Four, three, two, one: 'Good night, John-Boy,' calls out Deso.

d.a.m.n it: he had Beansy in the sweep.

He is about to walk away when he notices that one door remains closed, and his geography tells him it's likely to be the room with no lights on. Kane approaches tentatively, his hand slowly reaching out to the handle and turning it, revealing the interior to be indeed in darkness. A thin and widening wedge of light streaks across the floor. It picks out only the edge of one bed. He sticks his head through the gap, at which point a pale-coloured shape flies at speed towards him.

It strikes him in the face and he bats away what turns out to be a pillow.

'f.u.c.k's sake,' issues an irritated voice. 'Light pollution, man. Shut the b.l.o.o.d.y door.'

Stepping fully into the room, Kane sees Adnan, Radar, Matt, Ewan and Cameron gathered around a telescope, which is pointed out of the open window at the vividly starry night sky. It is at this point that Adnan spots who he's talking to.

'Oh f.u.c.k, sorry, sir. And sorry about the language too,' he adds, a smile in his voice though his face is in darkness.

'Don't rip the p.i.s.s, Adnan,' Kane replies. 'How's the seeing?'

'Different cla.s.s.'

'Aye, that's the middle of nowhere for you.'

'Take a look.'

Kane makes his way delicately to the telescope and peers into the eyepiece. He sees a bright circular disc, a hint of grey-blue around its edges.

'Venus?' he suggests.

'Good spot.'

'Looks like it's a ten-bob bus fare away, doesn't it, sir?' says Radar.

'Try thirty million miles when it pa.s.ses closest,' says Adnan. 'And that's the nearest planet. The nearest star is Proxima Centauri, four light years away.'

'I'll leave you guys to it,' Kane says. He exits and closes the door.

Adnan gives himself a moment for his eyes to readjust, then makes some alterations to the telescope's position, keying in the corresponding coordinates on the computerised alt-azimuth mount.

'This is Polaris, the North Star,' he says.

Ewan has a look.

'It's actually two stars in binary orbit, but it looks like one because it's four hundred and thirty light years away.'

'Wow. So that means what I'm seeing here is actually . . .'

'Four hundred and thirty years ago, yeah. Shakespeare was live onstage when that light started its journey.'

'How did you get into this?' Ewan asks him. 'Did you get a telescope when you were wee?'

'Yes and no,' Adnan answers. 'I got a scope when I was wee because I was already into it. It was the winter that started me off.'

'Whit? Early dark? Clear skies?'

'No. When I was a kid, I hated being cold, and when winter was coming, I used to wonder why it had to. Was there any reason, maybe, why one year it might not, and we'd get the same weather all year round? I didn't understand why there had to be seasons. Then I found out it was an astronomy question.'

'Because the Earth goes round the sun,' Cameron suggests.

'No; well, partly. It's because of the Earth's axial tilt. During half our orbit, the northern hemisphere is closer to the sun, and during the other half, it's the southern. That got me thinking about what was in the sky as solid objects rather than just lights and dots. Got my first scope when I was ten.'

'I'd just have been using it to see in la.s.sies' windaes,' Radar says.

'Only if you get turned on by looking at folk upside down,' says Matt, making one of his rare but insightful, if arcane, contributions.

'How's that?' Radar asks, but Matt doesn't answer.

'The image is inverted,' Adnan tells him, keying in a new set of coordinates. 'Doesn't make much difference when you're looking at stars. In s.p.a.ce, there's no such thing as the right way up. Now, get a load of this.'

They take it in turns to have a look.