The two of them now conferred, and Tack understood none of it. All he imagined was that they were a greater danger to him than Traveller.

‘Where are you taking me?’ he hazarded asking.

The man glared at him. ‘What is your name, primitive?’

‘Tack.’

‘Well, Tack, I am called Coptic and my partner is Meelan. Now, with those introductions over, you will remain silent until we directly address you. Any disobedience will be punished severely.’

Tack nodded, his mouth clamped shut.

As Coptic and Meelan returned to their conversation, it swiftly devolved into an argument in which Coptic apparently prevailed. A moment later, reality crept back in all around them. With warm drizzle misting all the mantisal’s surfaces, thick subtropical greenery came into view below a leaden sky, forest reared to one side, and an inky lake spread on the other. In the forest some large beast issued a deep booming bark, and this seemed to decide Coptic, who was already gazing out at the damp vista with distaste. This reality jerked away as the mantisal turned back into the between space. Then, after a second, another one folded into place.

Once again they were beside a lake, but now the sky was a clear amethyst dotted with dawn stars and the moon was ascending. There was no forest, just dense greenery covering the ground below the black skeletons of trees. This vista stretched away into shadow for as far as Tack could see, only relieved by the occasional stone outcrop. Greenery also extended across much of the lake’s surface, in the form of huge lily pads centre-nailed by blowsy yellow flowers.

‘Out,’ Coptic ordered.

Tack did not hesitate, moving to a gap in the mantisal’s structure and dropping to the ground. Immediately he found himself up to his chest in vegetation, and his skin crawled when he heard an insectile scuttling near his feet. Looking towards the lake, he saw the reflected glitter of eyes from bulky shapes resting in the water, and it occurred to him that his seeker gun might now be a million years away from him.

Coptic and Meelan disembarked together, then the mantisal floated higher like some strange and gigantic Christmas decoration, before turning itself out of that world.

‘You go there, ahead of us,’ Coptic told Tack, gesturing towards one of the rocky outcrops, then turning to pick up Meelan and following as Tack forged a path. Glancing back again at the water, with his eyes adjusting to the the dearth of light, Tack saw that the wallowing creatures resembled hornless rhino, and were grazing on the plentiful waterweed. That they plainly weren’t carnivorous was no comfort, since the deinotherium they had earlier encountered had been a herbivore. Obviously a vegetarian diet did not necessarily guarantee an even temper or a convivial nature.

‘Just watch where you’re going,’ said Coptic. ‘Moeritherium are only dangerous if you get between them and the water — they’ll not come out of there after you.’

Moeritherium?

Tack wanted to know how these two had so quickly acquired his language, to the extent that they could easily name varieties of prehistoric beast in it. And he wanted to know what they intended for him—and if he might survive it. Soon he reached the edge of the vegetation and climbed up onto an expanse of mossy stone. Coptic followed him, setting the incapacitated Meelan down on her feet again, then shed the pack he was wearing and opened it up. Tack noted that its contents were much the same as Traveller’s, and guessed they must derive from the same time.

Coptic removed a heat-sheet sleeping bag and unrolled it over a level area coated in a thick blanket of dark green moss. Without a word, Meelan climbed inside the bag. Once she was comfortable, Coptic keyed a control on the oval object attached to her throat. She sighed and instantly lost consciousness. Coptic now took a box from his pack and, with the various implements it contained, set to work on Meelan’s injuries. Squatting nearby, Tack watched the big man trim back her arm stump until he reached white bone and bleeding flesh. A pumping artery he closed with a small clip, before sealing the whole stump under some sort of spray-on dressing that set in a hard white nub. The other lesser-degree burns running from the arm up to her neck, he now revealed by cutting away her clothing, then he covered the area with another spray that set in a pink skin. Finally satisfied with his work, he rocked back on his heels and gazed at her intently.

It struck Tack that Coptic was contemptuous of him, for during this entire procedure the man had not looked round once. But judging by the man’s abilities, perhaps he had that right. Tack turned away and stared towards the imminent sunrise.

Abruptly Coptic swivelled, stood, and walked over to him. ‘Come with me.’

He led the way to a jut of crystalline stone rising a couple of metres high at the end of the outcrop and, gripping him by one shoulder, pulled Tack up beside him so they both stood before this glittering face. Coptic then reached out and pressed the flat of his hand against the surface, which immediately took on a strange translucence. Something like a tangle of tubes—some complex mechanism—came out from the depths of stone and seemed to bond to Coptic’s hand. Then slowly a face became visible behind this—a woman bearing characteristics similar to those of Traveller and both Tack’s kidnappers. She spoke, obviously angry as she berated Coptic in their staccato language.

Coptic turned to Tack. ‘Hold up your arm.’

Tack obeyed and observed the avidity in the woman’s expression when she saw the band around his wrist. Coptic’s riposte was brief and at the end of it he gestured to where Meelan lay. The woman in the rock dipped her head in acknowledgement, said something more, then faded. Back by the fire, Coptic stared into the flames for some time, then with a hint of suspicion glanced at the rock before speaking.

‘The one you name “Traveller” killed Brayak and Solenz, which is the inevitable result of a violent encounter between a heliothant of his status and low-breed umbrathant,’ he stated flatly.

Tack remained silent, having not yet been given permission to speak. He guessed who the two named were, for it hadn’t escaped his notice that four individuals had originally disembarked from the mantisal they had used to get here.

‘Such is natural law,’ Coptic added. ‘But we are high-breed Umbrathane and shall prevail. And when Cowl sweeps the Heliothane from the main line, we shall travel to him beyond the Nodus to be at one with the new kind.’

Who, Tack wondered, was this man really addressing his words to? It seemed to Tack that Coptic was speaking accepted doctrine because he thought the woman in the rock might still, somehow, be listening.

‘You may speak,’ said Coptic unexpectedly.

‘What do you want of me?’ Tack asked him.

Coptic nodded slowly. ‘We detected only the travel of a heliothant through interspace, so sought to sabotage whatever plans the Heliothane might have. But now we have you and the means of learning some things Cowl would not allow us.’ He gestured to the ring around Tack’s wrist. ‘No doubt the Heliothane themselves sought to assassinate Cowl. But they would not have succeeded—they are low-breed by comparison.’

‘So, like Traveller, it is only the tor you really want?’

‘Tors he allows us, when he brings us to him.’ Coptic stared at him. ‘From the one that is growing on your arm, and about which he knows nothing, we can learn a great deal.’

So, despite their doctrine, there was little trust between Cowl and the Umbrathane.

‘You say that you are an “Umbrathane”, and that Traveller is a “Heliothane”. Are these two warring factions in the future? What are you trying to achieve?’

‘You will now remain silent,’ said Coptic.

Tack nodded and turned away, watching the sun finally breach the horizon.