“What about resources?” Ted asked now.

“We have the social services and the volunteer agencies—”

“You never have enough blankets and warm clothing,” he said sharply. “Start an appeal. The local people. The ambulance service, the RAF… How about food?”

“Well, we have a canteen in the theatre. And I’ve been on to the school meals adviser for the town.”

“Good. What about cutlery? Paper plates? What about special needs? Vegetarians. People with medical requirements. Ethnic diets. Whatever.”

She said nothing.

“You know you have some unattached kids here, don’t you?” he said. “They may be orphans, I suppose. Even they don’t know yet…”

She was looking at him, her eyes wide.

He said gently, “I think you ought to get your senior staff in here, don’t you?”

17

Sweating in his heat-resistant space suit in the late spring sunshine, laden with cameras and seismometers and thermocouples, Blue Ishiguro climbed the east flank of Arthur’s Seat.

Here, the uneven spread of the Moonseed had not yet turned the rock to flour, and the ancient basalt plug persisted. But the grass and heather were dying back, he saw, poisoned by emissions of gas. The ground underfoot was distinctly warm, even through the thick soles of his boots. From small depressions in the ground, gas and steam seeped.

Blue bent to collect samples in glass bottles, which he tucked into pockets in his suit. He steadily described what he saw into a throat mike; his words would be captured by a miniature tape recorder inside the suit and transmitted to his colleagues, safely removed from the area.

Sweat pooled under his eyes, and he wished he could reach inside the suit. He was sandwiched, he thought, trapped between the hot May sun and this burning ground. And if I don’t get out soon, I will fry like a chunk of fish in a tempura grill.

Of course, it might already be too late. There was no reason to suppose normal volcanological wisdom would apply here.

But that wisdom was all any of them had to go on.

And besides, the fact that this was a new phenomenon increased its attraction for Blue. The chance to study something new — to collect data from a genuinely new phenomenon, to push out the boundaries of understanding…

To atone, he thought. Because I could not, in the end, do anything to save Kobe.

Was that his motivation, as Henry Meacher believed? Perhaps. It scarcely mattered; for now the job was the thing, the only objective reality.

Blue moved on, cautiously, taking his samples and readings, towards the heart of the disturbance, the primary Moonseed pool itself.

He felt a tremor, a deep shifting in the ground. The catfish is stirring, he thought, deep in the mud.

…Wish I was a Spaceman / The Fastest Guy Alive…

Singing, coming from over the crest of the Seat. There were people, still here.

He increased his pace.

Over the summit and there they were: the cultists, the followers of the Scottish lunatic Bran, gathered on the agglomerate. None of them wore protective gear of any kind, not so much as a handkerchief over the nose, and Blue could see how they coughed and wiped their streaming eyes. There seemed to be fewer of them now — evidently the resolve of Bran’s followers had been tested to the limit — but still, many remained, perhaps a dozen, all of them in their ludicrous purple pyjamas. They sat in a circle around Bran, oddly asexual, and they sang their absurd sci-fi songs to each other.

And they were smiling.

The Seat appeared to be otherwise deserted. Just this single ring of cultists before the unearthly steel-grey glimmer of the Moonseed puddle, the smoking ruin of the Edinburgh suburbs beyond. But a single policeman had stayed with the cultists, standing patiently with his hands behind his back, showing no sign of fear.

Remarkable, thought Blue. He knew the British police had no powers to evacuate people forcibly. This young man must know his own life was forfeit, and yet he stayed to do his duty, giving himself up to defend a foolish law.

Mike Dundas was here, among the cultists. His head was shaven, and he had somehow acquired the cultists” oddly asexual look. Perhaps it was the pyjamas.

Blue walked up to the cultists. He waved to the policeman, miming that he would stay here only two minutes.

He reached Mike. He took a deep breath, and pulled off his hood It was difficult to grasp the dusty material with his heavily gloved hands.

The air was heavy with sulphur, and his eyes stung immediately.

Mike’s eyes, he saw, were glowing like jewels.

Blue squatted beside him. “You must come with me.”

“I’m staying here. I’m in no danger.”

Blue shook his head. “The signs are unmistakeable. You understand this. The Moonseed has been eating down into this basaltic plug. Working its way to the old magmatic chamber that powered this volcano in the first place. We’re expecting a major event. The deformation has increased, in some places, by two yards since yesterday. Kid, when you see a turtle on a fence post, you know it didn’t get there by accident.”

Mike looked up at him, puzzled. “I understand what’s happening.”

“Then you are a fool, Mike Dundas.”

“No.” Mike’s expression was peaceful, despite his streaming eyes. “I’ve made my choice.”

And, Blue thought, maybe it was a rational choice after all. Mike would find peace, he supposed, whether his space aliens came to beam him up or not.

“I do not know what has driven you here,” he said gently. “I do not know what you’re trying to escape.”

“No,” said Mike. “You don’t. Anyhow, there is no escape. For any of us. But we don’t need it. We have to put aside our fear, and accept.” He smiled. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Blue looked at the landscape, the scar of metal-grey Moonseed that was pushing aside the green blanket of Scotland.

“No,” he said. “I do not think it is beautiful at all. I will remember you to your family.”

“Just tell them I love them. And I’m sorry.”

Sorry? For what?

Blue said, “I will tell them.”

The ground shuddered again, a stirring beast.

Blue pulled on his hood, and walked back the way he had come.

Morag Decker walked steadily along George Street, knocking on doors.

This was the heart of Edinburgh New Town, lined with banks and shops and churches. Today, the day after the first Moonseed surge, twelve hours after the evacuation was ordered, the street was empty save for a couple of abandoned cars, an old newspaper blowing down the centre of the road. The emptiness was eerie in the middle of the day, the sun bright overhead, the light splashing from the buildings.

The smoke clouds were still rising from Abbeyhill.

There was no reply to her knocking. The evacuation of the city was all but complete, as far as anybody could tell; this was the final sweep.

The evacuation, though fast, had been a mess. She’d been surprised how difficult it had turned out to be to get people to move.

There had been broadcast warnings in the media — national and local TV and radio, even the Internet — with details of evacuation procedures, assembly points, Rest Centres. But the messages had been confusing, and mixed up with a lot of lurid misreporting. People were fragmented; there was no one channel that everybody listened to, no one time when everyone tuned in. And besides, nobody sensible believed what they heard on the radio anyhow.

So the police had resorted to more old-fashioned methods. There was a mail-shot campaign, aimed at households and businesses affected, thousands of them. That had worked, even if it hadn’t made people move immediately; Morag had seen many people clutching the flyers, carrying the information with them.

And at last, in the small hours, there had come the blunt approach: police cars with loudhailers patrolling the streets, one-way road blocks, coppers going from door to door telling you to get packed up and get out now. It had been that, it seemed, the sight of police on the doorstep giving direct commands, that finally forced compliance.