All Victor could see outside was a solid sheet of bleak mist, tinted by a slight orange-pink fluorescence.

There were active holograms on the walls, illuminated landscapes, all of them pre-Warming. A circular table of brown smoked glass stood in the centre of the room; most of New London's furniture was glass and metal. Tourist zones could afford to import wood, the security budget didn't stretch to that. Suzi and Melvyn stood in front of the window, silhouetted against the mist, talking quietly. Greg, Rick, and Charlotte were sitting in the aluminium-framed chairs around the table; a couple of the crash squad hardliners he didn't recognize were in the chairs lined up along the wall.

Julia pulled her shipsuit cap off, letting her hair fall loose. Greg gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

"You found him all right?" Julia asked.

"Charlotte's contact, yes; his name is Sinclair. Royan is proving a little more elusive." Greg sighed. "I had hoped he'd contact me. He must know I'm here, he'll have monitor programs loaded into every 'ware core in New London by now. I know Royan."

"He'll know I'm here too," Julia said. She turned and gave Charlotte a long stare.

Charlotte dropped her gaze, looking fixedly at the olive-green carpet squares. Victor almost felt sorry for the girl, a cool Julia Evans was a daunting prospect. And of course Charlotte wouldn't have known not to access any datanets, even at secondhand through the American Express office. The oversight was as much his fault as hers, she should have been fully briefed.

"Can we get on with the problem in hand?" Victor said.

He pulled a chair out for Julia.

She turned from Charlotte and sat down, giving him a private sly grin. "Male hearts and fallen angels," she murmured in a tiny voice.

Victor could feel the warmth creeping up his face.

"Royan used a drone to hand the flower over to Sinclair," Greg said. "If we want him, he'll be somewhere in the tunnels and caves the Celestial Apostles use."

"Intuition?" Victor asked.

"Not really. Royan spent a couple of days with the Celestials, that means he'll have learnt all about their set-up, what they know about the caves, the ones they use. Once he cross-referenced that with security and police procedures he would have found himself a totally secure location for his trials, safe from anybody interrupting, just in case anything did go wrong. Presumably that's where the alien is as well."

"So what do we do?" Lloyd asked. "Conduct a mass search? I'd hate for any of my people to stumble on this alien. If you say it exists, ma'am, then I'll believe you. But you're not going to convince everybody."

"Tell you, there's no need for a search," Greg said. "Sinclair will take us into the caves and show us where the drone gave him the flower. We'll see what we can find there. Another personality package maybe. Royan has to have left some method of guiding Julia to him."

"Sinclair!" Suzi grunted. "You're going to rely on that overmicrowaved fruitcake? Jesus, Greg, he's totally brainwarped."

Amusement and annoyance chased across Greg's face.

"Sinclair's not exactly rational," he said slowly. "But neither is he insane, no way. I think he might be slightly timeloose."

"Trust you to stick up for him then," Suzi said.

"Sinclair is a precog?" Julia asked.

"He has some ability along those lines, certainly. Although the talent seems somewhat erratic. He's very aware that there's a big concentration of events and interests focusing on New London right now. It's what he's been predicting all along. Quite a formidable prescient vision, really. Given that he's been up here for seven years."

"All right," said Julia. "If you think Sinclair is reliable enough, then we'll try it."

Victor groaned inwardly. He'd known this was coming. One whiff of Royan and she'd charge off without thinking. She was so methodical and prudent about everything else in life; the man was a dangerous blind spot. "Julia." The quiet, purposeful way it came out made everyone look at him.

Julia's eyes narrowed challengingly. "Yes?"

"If you go into the caves then you wear proper protective gear, and the crash team goes with you. You don't go in otherwise."

Suzi chuckled in the dead silence that followed.

"Will Sinclair buy that?" Julia asked Greg.

"It's not up to him," Victor said.

"Victor's right, I'm afraid," Greg said apologetically. "That flower was a warning, after all. And I know the alien's here even if nobody else quite believes."

Julia raised her hands in good-humoured capitulation. "OK. The crash team it is."

Charlotte stayed with him. It made sense, her part was over, and Greg didn't want her with him in the caves where she'd be a liability. She said she didn't fancy spending the night sitting in the Governor's Residence with a hardliner. He certainly wasn't going to let her go out into the cavern again. So the security centre it was.

Besides, Victor thought, she was so bloody easy to look at.

They were in Lloyd McDonald's office, an impersonal standardized cube with two glass walls and two of rock. One of the glass walls gave him a view across the Cavern, the other showed a secretary's office on the other side. The hardline bodyguard Lloyd had assigned to him was lounging in one of the reception area chairs outside.

Charlotte had curled up on a low black leather settee, chin on her hands, looking dolefully out into Hyde Cavern. She still seemed nervous, always glancing at her watch. It had stopped raining now, allowing the mist to clear away. The lighting tube had dimmed to a sylvan glimmer, a lone moonbeam threaded between the endcap hubs. Buildings across the parkland were picked out by floodlights, a weird mix of architectural styles, the best classical representation of each era, scattered about without thought.

New London always put him in a contemplative mood.

The eye-twisting geometry and the determination with which the residents pursued life insisting on introspection.

He was sitting in front of Lloyd's desk terminal, watching the intricate jockeying of the Strategic Defence platform as it inched towards the Alenia COV-325. New London's electronic warfare satellites were blocking the spaceplane's sensors, preventing it from observing the manoeuvre. It would be within laser range in another ninety minutes.

The spaceplane pilot must know. It was the obvious tactic. They would have to pull back.

COV-325 performance perimeters streamed through Victor's processor node. He reckoned the spaceplane had another thirty-two hours' life-support capacity left before they would have to de-orbit and head back to Earth.

The Typhoons from Listoel would catch it. A spaceplane lumbering down through the atmosphere would be no match for front-line fighters.

Charlotte shifted round on the settee. It was distracting. Her legs belonged to someone at least three metres tall.

He started to enter the code for Listoel into the terminal, then the alarm went off.

"What's that?" Charlotte demanded.

"Status one security alert," he said.

Access Security Centre Command Circuit. Query Alarm. New London Strategic Defence Operations Room Violation. Five Possible Penetration Agents. Sector Isolation Procedures Activated.

"Bloody hell," Victor blurted. He made for the door, Charlotte scrambled to her feet behind him.

"Stay here," he ordered. "And you," he told the bodyguard, "stay with her."

Charlotte looked like she wanted to protest, but the strength in his voice stopped her. Her shoulders slumped.

Display Security Centre Floor Map. As the outline squirted into his mind he drew the Tokarev pistol from his shoulder holster and flipped the safety off. A rush of adrenalin buzzed in his veins when he came out into the broad central corridor. Security personnel were ignoring the moving walkways, half-running past him, grim faced. They all seemed to know what to do, where they should be going. The alarm was still blaring away.