ALICE.

A month after Verne's disappearance, Ed summoned the courage to visit Alice at her apartment in Peckham. He left his taxi in a residents-only space and climbed the metal outside steps to her front door. She answered his knocks in a dressing gown, her auburn hair ruffled and flattened on one side, her eyes raw and puffy, smudged with yesterday's eyeliner. She took him in and offered to make him a cup of coffee.

"You'll have to have it black, I'm afraid. There's no milk."

Her apartment comprised a couple of cluttered rooms on the top floor of a subdivided brick town house on a quiet street. The front room had a small kitchenette at one end and a television against one wall. The walls were covered with framed prints of photographs she'd taken. They were mostly pictures of collapsed and overgrown buildings, but there were a few pictures of the night sky, taken from various locations. An Ikea sofa separated the kitchenette from the rest of the room, and judging from the half-eaten meals and sticky wine glasses on the carpet beneath it, Ed guessed Alice had been using it as a bed for several days. A duvet had been scrunched into a heap at one end. He perched on the sofa arm beside it.

"I heard the police dropped the charges," Alice said.

Ed scratched at the week's worth of stubble on his chin. The bruises around his nose and eyes were mostly gone now, but remained fresh in his memory.

"They had better things to worry about. I got off with a fine and a slap on the wrist."

Steam came from the kettle spout. The switch clicked off.

"You're lucky you weren't shot. What did you think you were doing, jumping the barriers like that?"

"I had to stop him."

Alice poured out the hot water and stirred the coffee with an angry rattle of the teaspoon.

"I wish you had." She thrust the mug at him.

He said, "Have you seen the news?"

Alice sniffled wetly on her sleeve. She wore jogging bottoms beneath the robe, and had thick hiking socks on her feet.

"What news?"

He leaned toward her. "There are other arches now, maybe a dozen of them. Two in the States and one in Venezuela. Four in Africa. Perhaps another three in the Far East, some more in Russia."

Alice frowned. She seemed about to say something, but stopped herself, as if too worn-out to make the effort. Instead, she opened the fridge and pulled out a half-empty bottle of Shiraz.

Ed got to his feet. He'd been glued to the TV since his brother's disappearance. He'd seen the restless crowds milling on the streets around Chancery Lane and the Embankment, with their candles and petrol bombs, unsure whether to smash the arches or worship them.

"China's closed its borders," he said. "Germany's gone for martial law. Everyone's scared. I even saw some troops on the streets of Hackney yesterday, and there are police barricades and roadblocks everywhere. I got stopped and questioned twice on my way over here."

Alice pulled the cork out of the bottle with her teeth and spat it into the sink. She swilled a dirty glass under the cold tap, shook it dry, and then sloshed the remaining wine into it.

"So everything's falling apart? That's your news? That's what you came all this way to tell me?"

Ed cleared his throat.

"A guy in America found one of the arches and went through it."

"So what?"

"He came back."

Alice put the wine bottle down with a clunk.

"What?"

Ed reached for her hand. "He went through and a couple of hours later, he came back. I saw the pictures on CNN. He had frostbite and bruises, and he kept spitting up blood, but he made it back."

Alice looked pale. "W-where had he been?"

"Mars."

"You're kidding."

Ed shook his head. "They analysed the grit on his boots. He went to Mars, and somehow he stumbled back through the gate without dying of cold or suffocation."

He watched Alice rub her forehead.

"So what are you saying? Verne's dead?"

"Not necessarily." He gave her hand a squeeze. "You see, while he was there on Mars, this guy saw more arches. NASA sent through an astronaut in a spacesuit and she confirmed it. The scientists think they're part of a network."

He slipped a battered Tube map from the back pocket of his jeans and spread it out on the kitchen counter.

"Imagine each of these stations is an arch," he said, tracing the Bakerloo line with his finger. "And they're all linked. You can get from any point on the network to any other if you follow the right route, jumping from one station to the next."

Alice bit her lip. Her eyes were damp and confused. "So, if it's that easy, why hasn't Verne come back?"

Ed cupped his other hand over hers, enfolding it.

"Maybe he's trying to. Maybe he's stuck on the wrong part of the network and he's on the Central Line when he should be on the Circle."

She slipped away from him and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. She walked over to the window, and the thin winter light kissed her face. The front room window looked out over the bare trees of the Common. Leaves blew around on the grass.

She said, "You want to go after him, don't you?"

"Yes."

She shook her head. "Well, you're crazy. You don't know what's on the other side. And besides, you'll never get close enough to an arch if the police have them all blocked off."

Ed folded the map away and picked up his coffee.

"You may be right. But if they keep appearing like this, then sooner or later, if I'm quick enough, maybe I'll get to one before they can throw a cordon around it."

Alice turned.

"And then what? What happens if you appear on, say, Mars while he's on Pluto? How are you going to find him?"

Ed rubbed his eyes. Whatever she said, he knew he had to try. He couldn't stand the thought of his brother still out there alive, still angry at him, still trying to make his way home. He had to find him and bring him back. He had to make things right.

He walked over to Alice and took the wine glass from her fingers.

"This isn't doing you any good," he said.

He made her take a shower. When she came back, she looked better. Her cheeks were flushed and she wore one of her husband's old sweaters. Her legs were bare. She had her hair wrapped in a towel.

"Look," she said. "What happened between us, what we did, was wrong."

Ed's coffee had gone cold. He tipped it down the sink.

"So, it's definitely over?"

"Of course it's over. How can you even ask?"

"I wasn't asking. I thought-"

"Are you glad he's gone, is that it? What are you thinking? That I'll fall into your arms like nothing's happened?"

"No, of course not."

"Then shut up."

She curled herself onto the couch and pulled the duvet over her legs. She looked warm and tired, and ready to sleep.

"I think you'd better leave now."

Ed looked down at her. He stuck his chin out. "You know I'm going to find him, don't you?"

Alice wriggled lower, eyes shut.

"I'll believe it when I see it, Ed."

WORLD NEWS.

Latest Headlines Click here to subscribe to RSS feed --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.

US President calls for calm after night of rioting Unrest triggered by yesterday's grenade attack on Wilshire Blvd arch.

Hundreds hurt overnight in clashes with Los Angeles police and National Guard.

World's oldest man dies in Tokyo, aged 143 Relatives attribute longevity to exercise and diet of rice and raw fish.

Hurricane winds batter Miami for the fourth time in three months Thousands homeless.

Governor declares national disaster.

Vatican: 'Arches are a test of faith'

Pope urges caution.

New water war in Middle East?

Droughts spark fresh hostilities.

Refugees flee arch sites in Midwest Unconfirmed alien sightings spark widespread panic.

World Health Organisation fears arch-related pandemic WHO recommends strict quarantine procedures.

Urges governments to be vigilant for 'alien pathogens.'

CHAPTER FOUR.

SABOTAGE.

A couple of hours after her scuffle in the bar, Katherine Abdulov found herself sitting in an office on the upper floor of a two-storey bunker on the edge of Tiers Cross's main port. The windows looked out over the landing field. From where she sat, she could see the sparks of shuttles lifting from the terminal buildings at the far end of the field.

She was there at the surprise invitation of Ezra Abdulov-Paulsen, a distant cousin on her mother's side. She hadn't even known her family had a permanent office on this planet.