'Still not enough wings, sir, and too many appendages of the arm variety.'

'But you have no argument with the hypothesis that it may be an alien?'

'No sir. Happy with that, sir.'

'And this is because ...?'

'Blue skin, sir,' Harker said promptly, while Saskia made a noise of impatience. 'Not a natural colour among humans, sir.'

'Of course not,' Wheeler said. She scanned another document Harker was under the belief she kept a few lying around to make you think she had notes on everything and added, 'Unless said human has been in a freezing river.'

'Werrl,' Harker said expansively, 'if we're going to look at it that way ...'

'Oh, don't be ridiculous,' Saskia exploded. 'It was clearly a human being in one of those flying machines.'

'An aeroplane?' Wheeler said.

'No sir,' Harker said. 'I think it was a glider, sir.'

'You think, Major? And what do you know on the subject of aeronautics?'

Absolutely nothing, but he'd been listening idly in the mess the other day while a couple of engineers discussed the topic eagerly. If only for want of money, they'd moaned, we could be flying in the air, and that'd show the Coalitionists who was boss! Harker had smiled and declined to comment, because personally he figured that flying in the air would just give the Coalitionists something else to aim at.

'Unfortunately, sir, it's impossible to be certain,' he said. 'Reason being, that flying apparatus is now at the bottom of the river.'

'And why is that?'

'Had to cut it off her, sir. Current had hold of it.'

'So it's a female alien then, is it?' Saskia said sourly.

'Indeed it is,' Harker said, smiling at her.

'Harker, please stop being so silly. You saw her closer than anyone else, you know she's a human being'

'Who fell out of the sky in a country where the only thing coming from the clouds is rain,' Harker said. 'Makes her a pretty foreign body in my book. Sir.'

She scowled at the 'sir'.

'An illegal alien, Harker?' Wheeler said.

'Well, I dunno if flying is exactly illegal in this country, sir,' Harker said. 'So far as I know, we ain't never arrested a bird for it, but I don't expect we allow people to go around doing it, either.'

'We do have pilots, Harker,' Saskia said reprovingly.

'Either of 'em missing, sir?'

General Wheeler gave a faint smile. 'Not to my knowledge,' she said, and Harker knew that if Wheeler didn't know something, then it wasn't knowable. 'Well, then, Major Harker. It seems clear to me that what we have is no more than an aeronaut blown off course. Naturally,' she went on, before Saskia had even opened her mouth to object, 'since we have very little in the way of an aviation industry, I expect you to investigate where she came from and why. It is entirely possible that she is a spy.'

'Yes, sir,' Saskia said eagerly. 'I can conduct the investigation'

'Colonel, you have much more important things to do,' said Wheeler. 'This is clearly a matter for the good people at St James.' She let her searchbeam gaze settle on Harker, who shifted damply and sighed. St James. Hell.

'I'll see to it in the morning, sir,' he said.

'Do,' Wheeler said, turning her attention back to her desk in that way Saskia had begin emulating. 'Do.'

Outside, someone was doing construction work. Or maybe firing a gun. Eve thought that was unlikely, but then she did live in Mitcham.

Her head throbbed. Her throat was on fire. She hurt in places she didn't know she had.

'Ow,' she croaked.

'Oh, you're awake.'

An unfamiliar voice. Eve cranked open an eyeball and was presented with an equally unfamiliar face, topping a white coat.

'Apparently,' she rasped.

'How do you feel?'

She considered. 'Like I just got slapped by a really, really big hand,' she said, and the doctor grinned, handing her a small glass of water.

'Well, I wouldn't call the river a hand, but "slapped" is probably about right.'

Eve closed her eyes. Hell, yes. The paraglider. The river. The 'What the hell happened?' she said. 'It was clear blue sky when I set off. Did a storm fly in or something? It just seemed to switch, bang, like day into night.'

The doctor shrugged. He was scribbling things on a chart by her bed. 'Don't ask me about weather,' he said. 'You were lucky the Major saw you fall.'

'Major?'

'Major Harker, miss. He swam in and pulled you out.'

'Oh,' Eve said. 'Well, I ... I guess I ought to thank him.' She made to push the covers back and get out of the high-sided bed, but as she moved her right foot her ankle gave a throb. 'Ow!'

'Yes. It's a bad sprain. Try not to move it too much.'

Eve's head felt like someone had filled it with lukewarm water, but a pertinent thought managed to swim to the surface. There was a curtain pulled partway around her bed, blocking off a lot of the room from her view, but what she could see of it looked rather ... old-fashioned. The walls and cupboards were painted a sort of jaundiced yellow. It looked like the biology lab at her old school.

Her gaze flickered back to the doctor, who looked terribly young. His lab coat was too small for his gangly frame and an inch of wrist was exposed by each sleeve. Under the coat, he appeared to be wearing khaki.

Industrial paint. Major. Khaki.

'Uh,' she said, as the doctor turned to go. 'This might sound a little trite, but where am I?'

The young doctor hesitated a moment or two. He had a wide mouth, like a child's drawing of a smile, and with his hair sticking up in a dozen different directions he looked like a cartoon character. 'Tower hospital, miss.'

'Is it ... I mean ... you said there was a major ...'

'Military hospital,' he clarified for her.

'Oh.' Something unpleasant was occurring to Eve, who wasn't entirely sure why being in a military hospital might be a bad thing exactly ... but she was also fairly sure it wasn't a good thing, either. 'Um, am I in trouble?'

He hesitated again, which Eve glumly figured probably meant yes.

'You'll have to ask the Major,' he said eventually.

'Major ... what was his name?'

'Harker.'

'Right. Major Harker. Is he in charge here?'

'Well, um ...'

Eve rolled her eyes. 'Can I go see him?'

'No. Sorry, miss. You need to rest here.'

'But, look, I can hop or something. Do you have any crutches I could use?'

The young doctor was already backing off. 'Sorry, miss.'

'Stop saying that! And don't go!'

But the door had already fallen shut behind him.

'Great,' Eve said, slumping back against the pillows, which were lumpy. 'Fantastic. That was a load of help.'

'It's the military,' came a voice from behind the curtain, making her jump. 'They're not supposed to be helpful.'

Eve froze for a long second, then reached out, balancing precariously, and tugged back the curtain. On the other side of it was a man lounging on a hospital bed, his hands behind his head, his ankles crossed. He, too, was wearing khaki, t-shirt and combats the same faded shade of sludge green. His right arm was bruised, and he looked like he hadn't shaved in about a week, or had his hair cut in about a year.

He gave Eve a nod, reached into a pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and then, to Eve's horror, lit one up.

Mistaking her expression, he offered her one.

'Er, no,' she said. 'Um. Should you be smoking in here?'

He shrugged and took a deep drag. 'Don't see no laws about it.'

'Uh,' Eve said. 'I'm pretty sure there is one. This is a hospital, right?'

'Apparently.'

'Then'

'Ah, military, see?'

She blinked away smoke. 'You can smoke in a military hospital?'

'No one's ever stopped me.'

Privately, Eve didn't consider this to be the same thing at all. 'Been in many?' she said.

'Yeah, a few.'

She ran her eyes over him. There was a long scar running from his wrist to his elbow, and his nose looked like it had been broken a few times, but there were no obviously new injuries visible.

At first glance, he didn't look like he had a soldier's discipline. But muscles flexed in his forearms and under his t-shirt, and he had a lean look about him, as if he was made of muscle and bone and nothing else. She wondered if he'd ever carried an ounce of fat in his life.

Her eyes went back to the ugly bruise on his arm. Befitting his calling it, too, was khaki.

'What happened to you?' she asked.

'Someone kicked me.'

'In the arm?'

'There, too.' He puffed contentedly. 'You?'

'I, er, I had a sort of accident.'

His eyes travelled slowly over her, and Eve became aware that the make-up she'd painstakingly applied that morning would at best have dispersed in the river, and at worst, still be sliding down her face. Her hair felt heavy, limp, dirty; her head pounded; she felt ... grey.

'I was paragliding,' she explained, limply. 'Something went wrong, and I ended up in the river.'

'Paragliding?'

'You know. With the parachute and the sort of sling ... I bloody told them I shouldn't be out alone, I'm really sure you're supposed to have training and stuff well, more than they gave me.' She made a face. 'But they said it'd make better TV that way.'

'Why were you paragliding?'

Eve winced. 'I just said. TV.'

She waited for him to make the connection. Okay, she was looking really rough right now, and generally speaking she looked pretty different from how she used to in the Grrl Power days, but that didn't seem to stop the people who waved and pointed and, most of the time, sniggered at her in public.

He shrugged, and she realised he really didn't seem to know who she was. Well, under the circumstances that was a good thing, but ...

... it was also really sad.

'Do you know a Major Harker?' she asked, trying to spot if he was wearing any insignia that might clue her in to his rank.

'I think I can bring him to mind. Why?'

'Apparently he rescued me. From the river. Which was pretty nice of him.'

'Aye, it was.'