"I never regretted knowing anything in my life."

"You'll change your mind," he said. "I guarantee it."

She allowed him his sour grapes. But a deal was a deal, and she was ready to insist upon it.

"You said you'd come with us."

"I know I did."

"You will, won't you?"

"It's useless," he said.

"Don't try and get out of it. I know what's at stake here just as much as you do."

"And what do you propose we do about it?"

"We go back to the Vance house and we try and close the schism."

"How?"

"Maybe we have to take some advice from an expert."

"There are none."

"There's Kissoon," she said. "He owes us one. In fact he owes us several. But first, we have to get out of here."

Jaffe looked at her for a long time, as though he wasn't yet certain whether to acquiesce or not.

"If you don't do this," she said, "you'll end up here in the dark where you spent how long...twenty years? The Iad will break through and you'll be here, underground, knowing the planet's been taken. Maybe they'll never find you. You don't eat, do you? You're beyond eating. You can survive, perhaps a hundred years, a thousand years. But you'll be alone. Just you and the dark and certain knowledge of what you did. Does that sound tasty enough for you? Personally, I'd prefer to die trying to stop them getting through—"

"You're not very persuasive," he said. "I can see right through you. You're a talkative bitch, but the world's full of them. Think you're clever. You're not. You don't know the first thing about what's coming. But me? I can see, I've got that fucking son of mine's eyes. He's moving towards the Metacosm, and I can feel what's up ahead. Can't see it. Don't want to. But I feel it. And let me tell you, we don't have a fucking chance."

"Is this some last-ditch effort to stay put?"

"No. I'll come. Just to watch the look on your face when you fail, I'll come."

"Then let's do it," she said. "You know a way out of here?"

"I can find one."

"Good."

"But first—"

"Yes?"

He extended his less broken hand.

"My medallion."

Before they could begin the climb she had to coax Grillo from his catatonia. He was still sitting beside the water when she emerged from her conversation with Jaffe, his eyes closed tight.

"We're getting out of here," she said to him softly. "Grillo, do you hear me? We're getting out of here."

"Dead," he said.

"No," she told him. "We're going to be all right." She put her arm through his, the pains in her side stabbing her with every movement she made. "Get up, Grillo. I'm cold and it's going to get dark soon." Pitch black, in fact; the luminescence from the decaying terata was dimming fast. "There's sun up there, Grillo. It's warm. It's light."

Her words made him open his eyes.

"Witt's dead," he said.

The waves from the cataract had pushed the corpse to the shore.

"We're not going to join him," Tesla said. "We're going to live, Grillo. So get the fuck up."

"We...can't...swim up..."he said, looking at the cataract.

"There's other ways out," Tesla said. "Easier ways. But we have to be quick."

She looked across the chamber to where Jaffe was surveying the cracks in the walls, looking, she presumed, for the best exit. He was in no better shape than the rest of them, and a strenuous climb was going to be out of the question. She saw him call Hotchkiss over, and put him to work digging out rubble. He then moved on to survey other holes. It crossed Tesla's mind that the man didn't have any more clue how to get out of here than they did, but she distracted herself from that anxiety by returning to the business of getting Grillo to his feet. It took some more coaxing, but she succeeded. He stood up, his legs almost buckling beneath him until he rubbed some life back into them.

"Good," she said. "Good. Now let's go."

She allowed herself one last glance at Witt's body, hoping that wherever he was, it was a good place. If everybody got their own Heaven she knew where Witt would be now. In a celestial Palomo Grove: a small, safe town in a small, safe valley, where the sun always shone and the realty business was good. She silently wished him well, and turned her back on his remains, wondering as she did so if perhaps he'd known all along that he was going to die today, and was happier to be part of the foundation of the Grove than wasted in smoke from a crematorium.

Hotchkiss had been called away from his rubble-cleaning at one crack to the same duties on another, fuelling Tesla's unwelcome suspicion that Jaffe didn't know his way out of here. She went to Hotchkiss's aid, bullying Grillo out of his lethargy to do the same. The air from the hole smelled stale. There was no breath of anything fresh from above. But then perhaps they were too deep for that.

The work was hard, and harder still in the gathering darkness. Never in her life had she felt so close to complete collapse. There was no sensation in her hands whatsoever: her face was numb; her body sluggish. She was sure most corpses were warmer. But an age ago, somewhere in the sun, she'd told Hotchkiss she was as able as any man, and she was determined to make that claim good. She drove herself hard, pulling at the rocks with the same gusto as he did. But it was Grillo who did the bulk of the work, his eagerness undoubtedly fuelled by desperation. He cleared the largest of the rocks with a strength she'd not have thought him capable of.

"So," she said to Jaffe. "Do we go?"

"Yes."

"This is the way out?"

"It's as good as any," he said, and took the lead.

There began a trek that was in its way more terrifying than the descent. For one, they had only a single torch between them, which Hotchkiss, who followed after Jaffe, carried. It was pitifully inadequate, its light more like a beam for Tesla and Grillo to follow than a means to illuminate the path. They stumbled, and fell, and stumbled again, the numbness welcome in a way, postponing as it did any knowledge of what harm they were doing themselves.

The first part of the route didn't even take them up, it merely wound through several small compartments, the sound of water roaring in the rock around them. They passed along one tunnel that had clearly been a recent water-course. The mud was thigh-deep; and dripped from the ceiling on to their heads, for which, a little while on, they were duly grateful, when the passage narrowed to the point where had they not been slick with the stuff they'd have been hard pressed to squeeze through. Beyond this point they began to climb, the gradient gentle at first, then steepening. Now, though the sound of water diminished, there was a new threat in the walls: the grinding of earth on earth. Nobody said anything. They were too exhausted to waste breath on the obvious, that the ground that the Grove was built upon was in revolt. The sounds got louder the higher they climbed, and several times dust fell from the tunnel roof, spattering them in the darkness.

It was Hotchkiss who felt the breeze first.

"Fresh air," he said.

"Of course," said Jaffe.

Tesla looked back towards Grillo. Her senses were so whacked out she wasn't sure of them any longer.

"You feel it?" she said to him.

"I think so," he said, his voice barely audible.

The promise speeded their advance, though it was tougher going all the time, the tunnels actually shaking at several points, such was the violence of the motion in the ground around them. But there was more than a hint of clean air to coax them on now; there was the faintest suspicion of light somewhere above them, which became more of a certainty by and by, until they could actually see the rock they were climbing up, Jaffe hauling himself one-handed, with a strange, almost floating ease, as though his body weighed next to nothing. The others scrambled after, barely able to keep up with him despite the adrenaline that had begun to pump through their weary systems. The light was strengthening, and it was that which led them on, its glare making them squint. It continued to get brighter, and brighter still. They climbed to it with fervor now, all caution in their hand and footholds forgotten.