AT THAT MOMENT, IN the sealed and bug-proofed room in the Pentagon, there was another meeting going on. Many of the same faces were there, but there were one or two changes. Colonel Dunkelburger was absent. And the newly elected President of the USA, Mr Dan Doyle, was there at the head of the table.

The meeting had been in progress for some time and the two tapes had been played by General Snow, and then played again.

'Maybe those guys in the snowmobile just woke up a polar bear or something?' said President Doyle.

No one ventured to answer. In the light of what they had just heard, the question seemed to answer itself. After a while, the President said: 'Well, what are we supposed to think? That there's some kind of aliens up there or something?'

Again no one answered. Quite a few of those present had already come to the unpleasant conclusion that there was no other explanation.

'Hey,' the President went on, 'all kinds of things happen to guys when they're out in the snow too long. They get snow blind. They get cabin fever, that kind of thing. h.e.l.l, my great grand-uncle Zacchariah was holed up in the mountains for sixteen weeks once with nothing but a pair of wolverines for company. He was never the same again.'

General Wolfe cleared his throat. 'Er, that's quite understandable, Mr President.'

'Sure is,' said Doyle, brightly.

'But, the thing is, I guess maybe this isn't quite the same kind of situation.'

'No, I'm sure it isn't. But from what I can see, we got nothing at all to go on except a h.e.l.l of a lot of snow. These things happen sometimes, you know? Two years ago we had a drought that went on a bit too long, and suddenly everybody was saying that the end of the world was nigh. People were saying the Russians were behind it, and maybe they were. But we didn't panic. We didn't go off bang and start losing our heads about it. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I reckon that if the USA can win one Cold War, we can win another.' He slapped his knee and laughed aloud. One or two of the others tried their best to join him, but failed.

General Wolfe cleared his throat again. 'That's very good, sir,' he said, 'and there's no doubt at all that we all have to take that kind of att.i.tude to this, uh, little problem we have out here ...'

'Frankly, sir,' said General Snow, glancing disdainfully at Wolfe, 'we feel that this problem may be a bit more serious than that.'

'You think the Russians are involved?'

'No, sir. We have no reason to suspect that. In fact, from what we can make out, they're having a much worse time of it than we are. What I'd like to bring to your attention, if I may, is that these weather conditions are like nothing that's been seen on earth in recorded history. The satellites are sending us pretty uncanny pictures. Those storms are radiating outwards from the polar circle in something approaching perfect symmetry, and it's kind of hard to believe that whatever is causing that is a natural phenomenon.'

'Well, that may be,' said President Doyle, 'but I find it harder to believe that it's an unnatural one. I just can't go for these alien theories, gentlemen. I'm sorry.'

'That's OK, sir,' said General Snow. 'No one expects you to. But whatever we all of us personally suspect or believe, we need to decide on what kind of action we're going to take.'

There was a silence, while everyone followed their own thoughts, and then the President said: 'Maybe it's the FCOs.'

'FCOs, sir?' said Dunwoody.

'Yeah. You know. The gas they use in those little spray cans? Pfft. Pfft. Deodorants, that kind of thing. Maybe we should ban them. Would that help, maybe?'

'Er ... that's CFOs, sir,' said Dunwoody, 'and we already banned them.'

'With all due respect, sir,' said General Wolfe, 'I think we have to be prepared to go a little further than stamping out deodorants to get to the heart of this mess.'

'Right. OK. I see you guys mean business. I like that. That's the true American spirit. So, what do you want to do? Do you want to throw a few nukes in there to be on the safe side? It's OK by me if you do. It'd be good for public morale. Show that we're doing something. Show the rest of the world that America cares.'

'It's ... that's a very good idea, Mr President,' said General Snow, 'but I think it might be a bit risky.'

'Risky? Why? There's n.o.body up there, is there?'

'Not as far as we know. But the effects of atomic radiation can be a little unpredictable, as you know. The winds can blow it around the place and into inhabited regions. And besides that, there's the little problem that nuclear weapons aren't too popular with the public right now.'

'OK. Nukes are out, then. How about ... let's see now ... how about saturation bombing?'

General Wolfe's jaw dropped. 'Saturation bombing of the whole Polar region?'

'Too big, huh?'

'Way too big, sir.'

'Well, how about starting in the middle and work your way outwards? See what happens?'

'It's a little beyond our resources, sir,' said General Wolfe. 'And as a matter of fact, while we're on the subject of resources-'

'You looking for a raise? You got it. I like your att.i.tude to this problem.'

'Thank-you, sir,' said Wolfe. 'Would you mind making a note of that, Mr Dunwoody? But what I was coming round to saying was that General Snow and I have been having some discussions. We feel that in order to get a better understanding of the Arctic situation we're going to need to get more satellites up there. We also need to get more planes in the air to overfly the area with radar, and we need some pretty d.a.m.n fast research into anti-stealth detection equipment. We need more planes up above those storms and more planes down in the middle of them, taking pictures with radar and infra-red and every other thing we got at our disposal. We can't fight this enemy until we find out what it is, sir, and for that we need a bigger budget.'

'Ah,' said the President. 'Well, you know money is kind of tight right now. You're all aware we've got an increasing number of refug-er, visitors from Canada and Alaska staying with us for a while, and it's looking like there's going to be a bit of a crisis on the home front if this weather keeps up.'

'That's just my point, sir,' said Wolfe. 'We need funds to do whatever is necessary to avert that crisis.'

'Oh, yeah. I see. Well, I guess you guys had better produce some figures.'

General Snow nodded, and Wolfe opened his briefcase.

Lizzie was delighted to see Tess and Kevin back, though she did her best to hide it.

'Here they are again, pussums,' she said. 'You just never knows, does you. Forgot your tea, did you? Never mind, kettle's nearly boiling.' She poked it again and it swayed and spat water on to the fire where the drops fizzed and steamed.

'Find your chairs, find your chairs, they's still there, no cats back in them yet. Plenty of chairs, the cats hasn't worn them all out yet, make yourselves comfortable while I makes the tea. Come in, Oedipus, before you gets shut out.' She closed the hall door firmly behind a black tomcat and leant on it for an instant, smiling at Tess and Kevin as brightly as she could manage. Then she fell into such a frenzy of activity that it made Tess nervous just to look at her.

'Where's the milk, eh? Has you had it, Moppet? No, no, that's yesterday's milk. Where did I put it now, I wonder? Well, there's not many places it can be. Oops, kettle's boiling, let's just get these tea leaves out into the garden. Does you know that, Tessie?'

'What?'

'Tea leaves is good for the garden. Nothing better. Straight out the window on to the gra.s.s they goes and the hens scratches them in. Nothing better. I never puts no manure on that gra.s.s out there and there's no greener gra.s.s in the country.'

There was nothing Tess hated more than being called Tessie, but she bit her tongue and said nothing.

'Warm up the teapot, now,' Lizzie went on. 'Have to warm the teapot, does you know that, eh? Does you warm the teapot? Takes all the good out of the tea if the teapot isn't warm. I never gets a decent cup of tea anywhere except in my own house. All these teenagers, see? They never does anything properly. They hasn't any patience. Not yourselves, of course, yourselves is different. Yourselves has good manners. See how you sits there so quiet and not rude at all. Mind you, I's still sure they told me you was a rat. Hard to know the difference sometimes. Specially these days. Things was different when I was young. We was moving around, see, always on the go, we was. Here today, gone tomorrow. But the one thing we brought with us wherever we went was our manners.'

Kevin was looking steadfastly down at the floor between his feet.

'Not that we was gypsies, mind,' said Lizzie. 'We never had anything to do with that sort.' She paused for a moment and looked around, as though not quite sure where she was. Then her pale blue eyes brightened. 'I suppose that milk is still out in the pantry. Of course it is. It's cooling down, that's what it's doing. Don't go away now, little Switchers. I'll be back in a second.'

Tess nudged Kevin's shoulder. He looked up sternly, then dropped his guard and smiled. Lizzie came back and b.u.mbled around in cupboards for a while, collecting an a.s.sortment of chipped cups and odd saucers. At last, after what seemed an age, she handed them each a piping hot cup of tea and sat down in her chair with her own.

Tess took a sip of her tea. It was hideously sweet, but what bothered her more than that was the hair in it that stuck to her tongue. She picked it out as politely as she could. It was short and white and rather thick. Lizzie's hair was white, too, but it was long and silky and tied in a tight french knot at the back of her head. There was no way this hair belonged to her.

Kevin seemed to approve of the tea. He sat back in his chair and sipped it slowly. 'Very good,' he said to Lizzie.

'Ah!' she said. 'You speaks then? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure at all.'

It was the worst thing she could have said in the circ.u.mstances. Kevin scowled and retreated back into sullen silence.

Tess risked another sip of her tea. It tasted better now that the hair was gone, but there was still something about it that was slightly off-putting. 'I suppose we'd better get down to business,' she said.

'Business?' said Lizzie. 'What business? I can't stand business. Never has anything to do with it. All them fields out there is mine, you know, and there's a track worn to my door with business people coming to try and buy them off me. What does they want with them, says I? I never seen a farmer in a suit like they wears.' She laughed suddenly, long and loud. 'I tells them to take their business back where they came from and keep it out of my fields.'

'But they must be worth a fortune!' said Kevin. 'Why don't you sell them?'

'What does I want with a fortune?' said Lizzie. 'I has a fortune already. I has a house of my own and my cats and hens and ducks and my Nancy. I has green fields all around me and I likes it that way. I lets the farmer use the land and he brings me everything I needs from the shops. What's that if it isn't a fortune?'

'But you could live anywhere. Have anything you want.'

'I lives somewhere already, and I has everything I wants. I did enough travelling for a dozen lifetimes before I married and came here. What would I want to be taking to the roads for at this time of my life?'

For a moment all three of them were silent, and then Lizzie looked at Kevin and said: 'Now I knows you isn't a rat.'

Kevin clicked his tongue and sighed in exasperation. Tess sniffed the tea and had a nasty suspicion that she knew who Nancy was, but she decided to ignore it and think of more important things. 'I didn't really mean that kind of business,' she said. 'I meant the business of why we're here. Why you told the rats to bring us here.'

'Oh,' said Lizzie. 'That's something different altogether, isn't it? That's not business. That's a matter of altogether more urgency, that is.'

'Right,' said Tess, gently. 'Then perhaps it'd be a good idea if we talked about it.'

'Oh, not now,' said Lizzie. 'No, that would never do.'

'But you just said it was urgent,' said Kevin.

'There's some things in life,' said Lizzie, 'that just can't be talked about when the sun is shining and the birds are singing. There's some things that aren't fit to be seen, or heard, or said, or even thought in the daytime, no matter how urgent they is.' She threw Kevin a disdainful glance. 'If you was a rat, you'd know that.'

Kevin got to his feet in exasperation and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, 'Then I'm going out for a walk,' he said.

'Hold on,' said Lizzie. 'We'll all go in a few minutes, and you can meet Nancy. But let's have another cup of tea first. After all, it isn't every day I has a couple of young Switchers to visit me.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

WHEN TESS AND KEVIN had finished their second cup of tea, Lizzie brought them out to the back of the cottage to meet Nancy. She was a white goat, as Tess had suspected, and she was tethered by a long rope in a scrubby field which lay between the orchard and the ruins of what was once a large and rather grand house.

'I lived there once,' said Lizzie, 'many years ago. But it was too big for me all on my own. I prefers the cottage.'

Nancy stayed where she was as the three of them approached, and chewed her cud with weary patience as Lizzie prattled over her. Tess had something of the same distaste for goats that she had for rats. They were the poor relations of the other farmyard animals, always bony, always hungry, always eating what they shouldn't.

'There now, Nancy,' Lizzie was saying. 'Isn't you a lovely goat? You's the best little goat in the world, so you is. You's my poppet. This here is Kevin, and this one is Tessie. They's Switchers, both of them. You can believe me or not believe me, it makes no difference to me, but they is. Don't you wish you was a Switcher, Nancy? I bet you does.'

Nancy spotted a few green bramble leaves that she had missed earlier in the day and barged her way between her admirers to go and collect them. Lizzie looked a bit embarra.s.sed. 'She's very fond of me, really,' she said. 'But she's shy of strangers. Was you ever a goat?'

Kevin nodded, but Tess shook her head.

'Really, Tess?' said Kevin. 'Were you never?'

'No.'

'But why not?'

'Oh, I don't know. I never fancied it, I suppose.'

'Goats is all right,' said Lizzie, 'except that they has poor manners. Not Nancy, of course. Nancy has manners.'

But Nancy wasn't there to display them. She had disappeared around the other side of a clump of brambles and was straining as hard as she could on her tether.

'They has brains, though,' Lizzie went on. 'Goats has wonderful brains. Ten times as many as sheep has.'

'It's true, Tess,' said Kevin. 'Why don't you try it, eh? We could go for a spin.'

'You can't do that,' said Lizzie. 'That's bad manners. You's only just arrived.'

'But we wouldn't be long, would we Tess? Just a quick spin.' He turned a little further towards her so that Lizzie couldn't see his face, then he widened his eyes in a pleading way, and Tess realised that she was being very slow. He just wanted an excuse to get away from the old woman for a while.

'Oh,' she said, 'all right. I suppose it could be interesting.'

'Now I thinks about it,' said Lizzie, 'it's not such a bad idea. You two could do me a favour.'

'How?' said Kevin, slightly suspicious.

'Easy. There's a few gardens around here that could do with a bit of a trim by a pair of goats. They's an awful toffee-nosed crowd, those ones up the road. They sneers at me if I's out for a stroll. They thinks they's better than me what with all their fancy cars and posh clothes and their business and all. The way they talks! Pfoo! You can smell it.'

Kevin looked at Tess with mischief shining in his eyes. 'Come on. What are you waiting for?'

Tess hesitated, thinking of her own mother and her love for her garden, wherever she found herself. And her father had a fancy car and good suits and worked in what Lizzie scornfully referred to as 'business'. If they had bought a house here instead of near the park, it might have been her own garden they were intending to 'trim'. She looked at Kevin. He was waiting eagerly for her reply. They were living on opposite sides of the tracks, she realised. And yet, they were alike.

'You thinks about things too much, young lady,' said Lizzie.

'That's true,' said Kevin. 'She's right for once.'

'You bad-mannered little pup!' said Lizzie. 'Go on, the two of you. Get out of here and eat some shrubs while you still has the chance.'

Kevin winked at Tess and looked around. They were well hidden, there among the bushes and trees.

'Make sure you isn't white, now, whatever else you does,' said Lizzie. 'I don't want anyone coming blaming my Nancy.'

Tess was converted. While Lizzie watched, they made their change. Nancy stared around the edge of the bushes, astonished by the sudden appearance of two goats, one brown and one black.