“Your double agent?”

“Possibly.” Paula was surprised how troubled she was by the notion. She stared at the map with its green dots, one of the tags seemed to glow brighter than the others: Tarlo.

***

Mellanie had taken the window seat when they got on the train at Darklake City. Now, fifty minutes later, she watched them drawing in toward Boongate’s single terminal building. Thick gray clouds rumbled through the air above the city, blocking out the sun and unleashing a constant heavy downpour that was unseasonable for late spring. It added an extra layer of drabness to the empty wasteland of the station yard.

Glancing ahead, she could see people crammed onto every square centimeter of the platform that the Oaktier train was heading for. A line of CST security officers in dark blue flexarmor suits stood along the very edge of the platform, their arms linked, keeping the crowd back from the approaching train. A barrage of shouting began as soon as the PH58 engine nosed its way under the terminal’s arching roof. Hundreds of arms waved above the security squad’s bulbous helmets. It was a peculiar greeting for an ordinary train, as if there was some huge media celebrity on board.

Dudley peered nervously over her shoulder. “What are they here for?”

“A train out,” she told him. She wanted to sound slightly more blasé about it, someone observing the foolish antics of people she’d never have to meet or mingle with, the kind of people who lived a life she’d escaped, thanks to Morton and the SI. Except she knew that in a week or so she’d be back at this station, eager for a train out, just like them. Her ticket was already booked, an open-ended first-class return. Now she was beginning to wonder if that would mean much when it actually came down to standing on the platform and wrestling her way to an open carriage door; it didn’t much look as though the security squad would take time out to help first-class passengers.

When they disembarked there was only a narrow strip of concrete left between the train and the security squad for them to walk down. The hard-pressed line of flexarmored figures jostled constantly against them. Mellanie kept stumbling as she was shoved repeatedly against the side of the train. The angry glances she threw back every time it happened weren’t even noticed.

It was only when they reached the concourse they finally had some empty space. Reactive barriers had been set up to channel the dense throng of people from the station entrance to their platforms; not that the barriers could dull the angry buzz of the crowd. Going the other way, arrivals had their narrow exit routes almost to themselves. Barely twenty people had got off the train from Oaktier. Their two pieces of luggage popped out of the gap between the last security officer and the train as if the bags were being kicked clear.

Dudley stopped. “I want to go back,” he said meekly. “I want you to come with me, darling. Please, don’t do this. Don’t go to Far Away. We’ll never get back to the Commonwealth. They’ll land there, too. They will, I know it. They’ll land and they’ll capture me again, and…”

“Dudley.” She shushed him with a finger pressed on his lips, then kissed him. “It’s all right. Nothing like that will happen.”

“You can’t know that. Don’t treat me like I’m a child. I hate that.”

She almost said: Then stop acting like a child. Instead she lowered her voice.

“The SI will give me plenty of warning.” Which it wouldn’t—she didn’t think. Who knew?

Dudley gave her a petulant look.

“Come on,” she said brightly, and hooked her arm through his. “You’re going to see a neutron star firsthand. How many astronomers can say that, even today?”

It was a poor bribe, but he did give a reluctant shrug and allow her to lead him off toward the single door leading off the concourse. There were plenty of signs for the connection service to Far Away. They followed them through a deserted cloister and finally reached an external doorway that came out on a corner of the terminal building. The noise of miserable frustrated people reverberated around them.

Outside the station, the crowd must have been ten thousand strong. They were squashed together in a great swathe from the passenger terminal all the way back to the highway exit a kilometer away. Cars and taxis that had been abandoned on the approach roads were now isolated impediments surrounded by dense clusters of bodies. They’d all been broken open and were now being used for everything from shelters to kids’ play frames to toilets. Thousands of umbrellas bobbed about, blobs of murky color deflecting the waves of rain sluicing down out of the insipid sky. Kids dressed in waterproofs moaned and wailed as they were dragged along and buffeted on all sides. Men and women shouted futile insults and complaints, growing louder as they neared the terminal entrance.

Police and CST security had them all penned in between two lines of officers and patrolbots. Helicopters drifted overhead, producing cyclonic down-swirls of rain to complete the wretchedness of everyone on the ground.

Mellanie’s virtual hands brushed several icons and she began scanning the scene with her eyes, retinal inserts on maximum resolution, sending the image back directly to the Michelangelo studio in Hollywood. She murmured a few accompanying, patronizing comments about desperation and the flotsam of war. Disdain came easy now; proximity to Alessandra had seen to that.

A text message popped up in her virtual vision. GOOD STUFF. ALREADY! KNEW I WAS RIGHT ABOUT YOU. REMEMBER, TAKE CARE WHEN YOU GET THERE. LOVE MA.

Michelangelo had been surprised when she pitched the Far Away trip to him during their private interview. He thought she was trying to prove something. Normally, interns would just have to go to bed with him to earn their probation contract; in that respect he had an even greater appetite than Alessandra. Mellanie had suggested the assignment after they’d finished fucking and she’d already got the job. It’d thrown him slightly, but he smiled and said he liked her style.

He had quite a lot of style of his own. Thanks to Dudley, who was a triumph of quantity over quality, she’d almost forgotten what truly hot sex could be like. He could also be funny. She’d laughed out loud a couple of times at the stories he told. When she did that she realized laughter was something that never happened when she was with Dudley—nor ever would, she thought. Most of the subsequent train journey back to Oaktier had been spent fantasizing what else she’d have to do in that large bed of his to earn a permanent contract.

“Is that the office?” Dudley asked.

“Huh.” Mellanie shook off the reverie that the text message had kindled. Dudley was pointing to a small clump of boxlike prefab buildings adjoining the terminal, each of which had tour company signs above their doors.

“Yeah. We want Grand Triad Adventures. They said someone would be waiting for us.” Her semiorganic coat had birthed a hood that she pulled over her hair to protect it from the rain. The boots she wore were practical rather than stylish, probably the kind of thing a Randtown local would possess. To match that, she’d chosen a pair of olive-green jeans from her own collection, and a black sweatshirt of semiorganic fur fiber that was wonderfully soft against her skin. Dudley had just put on his usual nonlabel pants and a cheap shirt and jacket. She’d given up trying to dress him properly.

They splashed their way through the puddles to the rank of tour operators. Grand Triad Adventures was easy enough to find. It was the only office with a light on.

The deputy assistant manager of tour bookings, Niall Swalt, was sitting behind the reception desk, absorbed by some bizarre game show on the portal. Rock music thundered out across the deserted office as female figures dived in and out of vats filled with oily fluid. When the door opened, he lunged to his feet, the bright figures and the music shrinking away.