The air whistled round the lift like a distant scream.

Geis glanced at the depth display. “Should start braking now,” he said. The elevator shook slightly, the screaming noise altered in pitch, and weight gradually returned.

“What was this anyway?” Sharrow asked.

“Old gold mine,” Geis said as the lift slowed further and they felt their weight increase. The scream died to a moan.

“Feels like we’re almost through the crust,” Sharrow said, flexing her legs.

“Hardly,” Geis said. “But we are very deep; deep enough to need refrigeration to keep the tunnels comfortable.” The lift came smoothly to a stop and the doors opened.

“Where the hell is he?” Sharrow looked up at where the first hint of the slow dawn was turning the membrane sky a faint, streaky blue.

They had quit The Broken Neck almost as fast as they had The Pulled Nail. They returned to the stable on the other side of town where they’d sold the jemers they’d ridden in on. There hadn’t been any need to hammer at the door to get the proprietors up; like most people in Pharpech town, they had been awake all night, first celebrating the King’s miraculous escape, then mourning his tragic demise. Cenuij was supposed to meet them there, but they’d already waited two hours.

The stable had gone quiet behind them, the owner and his family finally gone to bed. They waited on the road outside. Zefla lay curled up asleep amongst their baggage, her head resting against a shallow bark crate full of empty beer jugs the stable had left out for collection by the local brewery. Dloan sat near her, looking down the road the way Cenuij ought to come, while Miz paced up and down and Sharrow alternated standing with her arms folded, foot tapping, and also pacing up and down. Their five mounts and two pack jemers snored and snorted fitfully, lying sleeping at the side of the road.

“Let me call him,” Miz said to Sharrow, coming up to her and waving the transceiver.

She shook her head. “He’ll call us as soon as he can.”

“Well let me go in and find out what’s happening!” Miz pleaded, pointing to the low, dark lump that was the town, barely outlined against the lighter darkness behind it.

“No, Miz,” she said.

Miz held his hands up in a gesture of desperation. “So what do we do? Wait here forever? Leave without him?”

“Wait till he comes. We can’t leave him here for the Huhsz. Anyway,” she said, “he’s probably the only one who remembers the route back to the railway…” Her voice trailed off as the transceiver in Miz’s hand buzzed.

Miz glanced at the dark, windowless wall of the stable behind him, turned away from it, then clicked the communicator on. “Yes?” he said quietly.

“Miz.” It was Cenuij’s voice. “You have the animals?”

“Yeah; we gave you the ugly one. What’s keeping you?”

“Desecrations. Listen; meet me behind the cathedral as soon as you can.”

“What?” Miz said, glancing at Sharrow.

“Behind the cathedral. Ride in. Bring my mount. And something the same size as the book.”

“The same-?” Miz began.

Sharrow took hold of his hand, talking into the transceiver. “Cenuij, what about the Huhsz?”

“Taken care of. I have to go now-”

“Cenuij!” Sharrow said. “Reassure me.”

“Eh?” They could hear the note of impatience in his voice. “Oh… It’s all a Huhsz trick; flee for your lives. Happy?”

“No,” she said. “Get out of there.”

“Absolutely not. Behind the cathedral; bring a book. Out.”

The transceiver chimed once and went silent.

“Call him back,” Sharrow said.

Miz tried. “Switched off.” He shrugged.

Sharrow glared at the transceiver. “Bastard,” she said.

Miz put it back in his pocket and held his arms out. “Now what?”

The tunnel revealed beyond the elevator doors was four metres across and gently lit. The air in the tunnel was as warm as the evening breeze had been on the terrace of the villa five kilometres above on the shoulder of one of the Blue Hills of Piphram, where the New Year party was still in full swing. Geis showed her into a small electric buggy. He took a small bottle from his jacket and filled both their glasses with the echirn spirit. They clinked glasses solemnly, then he took the buggy’s controls and the vehicle jerked into motion, spilling a little of her drink on the yolk of her dress.

“Eek,” she said, and burped decorously.

“Whoops.” Geis grinned and handed her a handkerchief. “Sorry,” he said.

“That’s quite all right,” she told him, dabbing at her dress. The lights of the corridor moved smoothly past as they drove towards a set of steel-blue doors filling the tunnel ahead. She looked back towards the lift. “Hope they’re not missing you at the party.”

“Let them,” Geis said. He took a pack of cheroots from his jacket. “Smoke?” he asked as he slowed down for the doors.

“Shoan, right?”

“How’d you guess?”

“I’m a genius.”

Geis just grinned as the buggy halted; he jumped out, went to the tall doors, pressed his hand to a panel and stepped back. The metre-thick doors swung outwards slowly and silently, revealing a short stretch of narrower tunnel beyond and then a similar set of doors.

“Geis,” Sharrow said, hiccuping once as she drew on the cheroot, lighting it. “You’re collecting doors. Your art collection consists of several sets of nuke-proof doors.”

Geis swung back into the buggy and started it moving.

“Come to think of it,” he said, “they are antiques. I hadn’t thought of that.”

She stuck the cheroot between her lips and put her hand out towards him as they slowed for the second set of doors. “I demand my Finder’s Fee,” she said.

He took her hand and kissed it. “Later,” he said. He jumped out of the buggy and went to the doors ahead.

She frowned, looking at her hand, then turned to look back at the first set of doors; they had closed.

“Hey, Zef?”

“Mmm?”

“Up, girl; we need your pillow.”

“What?”

The gallery was a long cavern alcoved with short tunnels, each fitted with its own blast door; the gallery’s grey ceiling was half-hidden by cable runs, pipes and ducting. Geis turned all the lights on and had the alcove doors swing open. Each alcove held a few paintings, statues, full bookcases, or a piece of ancient technology.

She drank from her glass and smoked the shoan cheroot, walking with him from alcove to alcove, surveying the collected treasures, some belonging to Geis’s branch of the family, some the property of the Dascen house itself and not claimed by the World Court, and some the investments of Geis’s family’s companies.

She made a show of looking round. “You didn’t rescue old Gorko’s tomb when they removed it from Tzant, did you?” she asked, smiling at him.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t. It’s still under Court jurisdiction.” If Geis connected the tomb with his enjoyment of Breyguhn that afternoon of the funeral, it didn’t show on his face. “Ended up in a warehouse in Vembyr,” he told her, “if I remember correctly. I’ll bid for it, of course, if and when it…” He paused, looking puzzled. “Why are you grinning like that?”

“Nothing,” she said, looking away. “You don’t really think any of this stuff’s going to be at risk, do you?” she asked, drawing her light wrap over her bare shoulders as they moved beneath the chill down-draught of a ventilation grille.

“Oh, it’s just a precaution,” Geis said, glancing at her. “Are you cold?” he asked. “Here, have my jacket.”

“Don’t be silly,” she told him, pushing his offered jacket away.

He slung his jacket over his shoulder. “I don’t think there will be a war. Even if there is it’ll probably be over quickly, and probably just be a space war; but you can’t be sure. I thought it best to get this stuff to safety while there was a threat. It might look like overreaction, but these things are priceless; irreplaceable. And they are my responsibility.” He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t expect a student to understand, though. You lot all support the anti-Tax side anyway, don’t you?”