Only the smoke rising from the east of the city served as a reminder that all was not well, here.

It took him two hours to reach the Lothian and Borders police authority headquarters.

The desk officer stopped him, of course, and Henry resorted to a mix of persuasion, string-pulling, ranting and bluster to penetrate the layers of bureaucracy which, inevitably, surrounded the decision makers here. He even produced his passport. But ultimately it was his physical state, the filth and blood, that bore testimony that here was a man who had just walked out of the heart of it all, that lent him the authority to bamboozle these low-ranking cops.

Actually it wasn’t the first time he had had to bully his way through obstructive organizations: a career at NASA had trained him in that.

Even so, he was kept waiting on a hard-backed plastic chair, cradling a polystyrene cup of what might have been tea, for more than an hour. Then, at last, he was ushered into the big incident room that was, he was told, serving as the command centre for the response to the emergency.

The control room was chaos, on first appearance.

Police officers and civilians moved from area to area, desk to desk, shouting and gesturing. Mobile phones and pagers sounded continually. The walls were coated with white boards, on which were listed cryptic notes, contact numbers, lists of areas and actions. There was an immense map of the east of the city, cluttered with colour-coded stickers: bright primary colours, red and green and yellow and blue. There were yellow emergency jackets and hard hats, some scorched, hanging on pegs and draped over the chairs. The desks were covered with yellowed Home Office procedure manuals.

On one desk he saw a document marked “Evacuation Plans 2 and 3’. It was dated 1938 It was the plan for evacuating the city that had been used during the Second World War.

Holy shit, he thought.

At last he was brought to the Chief Constable.

“Yes. I’m Romano. Who the hell are you?”

The Chief Constable was a woman, fifty-ish, with strong Italian-extract features, hair that was thick and black though streaked with grey. She stood before the big area map, hands empty, an island of stillness amid the bustle of the pot-bellied male cops around her.

“Henry Meacher. I’m from NASA.”

Romano laughed. “NASA. That’s all we bloody need.”

“Yes, you do,” Henry said seriously. “Are you the decision maker here?”

“For now.”

“Then I need to understand what you’re planning.”

Romano eyed him. Henry thought he could read the calculation there, the mind of a senior officer accustomed to using her time efficiently. This guy is different. He might have something. Or he might not. He has thirty seconds before I throw him out.

Romano said, “We’re evacuating the area in the vicinity of the disaster.” On the wall map a rough chinagraph-pencil circle, diverting to follow the lines of the streets, enclosed Arthur’s Seat and the Moonseed surge area, to a radius of about a mile. “We’re setting up assembly points and Rest Centres here and here.” Points on the roads leading out of the marked area, and outside. She raised an eyebrow at Henry. “Does that meet with NASA’s approval?”

“Hell, no,” Henry said. He looked around, at the circle of officers around Romano, watching him. “Don’t you guys get it? It’s not going to stop here. You need to evacuate on a much bigger scale, or you’re facing major losses.”

Romano rubbed the bridge of her nose; for an instant she looked immensely tired, but when she straightened up her command was returned. “Do you know what you’re asking? Do you know the difficulty and cost of mounting such an evacuation? We have to consider the elderly, the ill; we have to think about the needs of businesses. We have to think about where all those people will go. Sanitation. Shelter. Food.”

“I know,” Henry said gently. “It’s just that I don’t think there’s a choice.” Talking rapidly, he summarized his researches.

“Exponential growth starts slowly. One, two, four. But then it breaks out, eight, sixteen, thirty-two—”

Romano laughed. “So Edinburgh is being destroyed by a rock-eating bug from the Moon. I’ve never heard such rubbish in all my puff. If we were to order an evacuation because of that, the public would laugh in our faces.”

Henry shrugged. “Then tell them something else. That’s your problem. There really isn’t a choice.”

Romano stared at him for long seconds. Then she turned to one of the civilians near her, a tall, upright, silver-haired man who looked as if he might have once been a soldier. “Archie… Dr Meacher, this is Archie Ferguson, the Emergency Planning Officer.”

Henry nodded.

“I don’t have the authority to evacuate the city, do I?” Romano asked.

“No,” Ferguson said. His accent was soft, almost anglicized. “That’s a lot bigger than us. We’d need to establish a REC.”

“A what?”

“A regional emergency committee. The old civil defence arrangements would come into play. Regional government, involving the military, police, health, transport, environment. And the utilities — electricity, telecoms, water. Whoever. We’d need the power to requisition and raise funding—”

“Christ,” said Romano wearily. “You’re talking about the Emergency Powers Act.”

“Yes. We’d have to get it through Parliament.”

Romano shook her head. “Which Parliament? Westminster, or our talking shop here?”

Ferguson looked unhappy. “It’s not clear since devolution. Both, probably. It would take two or three days anyhow.”

Henry exploded. “Two or three days? What bullshit is this? Why the hell don’t you guys call in FEMA — the federal emergency guys — whatever your equivalent is here?”

“We don’t have a FEMA,” Ferguson said coldly. “We don’t work that way. On the scale of the disasters Britain generally faces, it’s not necessary, or appropriate. We have a system of flexible response, where the most appropriate agency—”

“Jesus.” Henry took a couple of paces in a tight circle, trying to stay cool. “So nobody’s in control.”

Ferguson said, “This isn’t Hollywood, Dr Meacher.”

“It sure isn’t. Call in our FEMA.”

More laughter, shaking heads, the crazy Yank. Romano said, “Dr Meacher, I’m not sure if a parachute drop of Hershey bars is quite what we need right now.”

“It’s not even clear how we’d handle a major evacuation,” Ferguson was saying ruefully. “We were geared up for major disturbances — particularly nuclear strikes — during the Cold War. But that’s all gone now. We sold off most of the regional bunkers. The military hospitals have closed. The Army is a lot smaller, a hundred thousand professionals, and most of them are tied up in Ireland or the peacekeeping zones.” He looked at Henry, almost apologetically. “We just weren’t expecting this.”

“No,” said Henry, more restrained. Take it easy, Henry. These people are trying to do their jobs, as best they can, and they’re listening to you. “Nobody was expecting it.”

“And we have to think about litigation,” Ferguson was saying unhappily.

“What?”

Ferguson said, “It’s happened in America. We have powers to act during an emergency, such as an evacuation. But does that imply a duty of care? We’re in a cleft stick. We’ll be liable if we don’t attempt to evacuate, but also liable if we do and we cause unnecessary suffering.”

Henry shook his head. “Believe me. The lawyers are going to be the least of your worries.”

Romano said, “Well, I can’t make the decision alone. I have to consult. The senior fire officer, who I bet will back an evacuation. The local authorities, who probably won’t.” She eyed Henry. “You know not everybody agrees with you. The geologists assigned by the Department of Environment, for instance. They’re putting out briefings. They say this is liquefaction. Just an earthquake. Localized. A couple of days it will all be over.”