Frau Pflügers has locked me out.

Thanks to the Glühwein, Gavriela wasn’t thinking clearly. That was clear. Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe the world had grown fuzzy while she wasn’t looking, because you never knew what happened out of your—

‘My dear girl.’ Frau Pflügers, old-fashioned oil lamp in hand, was standing there. ‘I thought you were in bed, or I’d never have locked up.’

‘I met some people.’

‘Come in, come in. So, were there young gentlemen present?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Did it sound as if I was criticizing?’ Frau Pflügers slid the bolts home. ‘Never mind. Were you making new friends?’

‘Actually, I think I was.’

Inge, Elke and Petra. They were excellent company; but they lived life in a way Gavriela could not afford to keep up with.

‘Then we’ll celebrate with some nice hot chocolate in the kitchen, before you go to bed.’

‘I couldn’t ask you to—’

‘The range is still hot, and I’d appreciate the company.’

‘In that case, thank you.’

Out back, Gavriela stood and watched as Frau Pflügers heated a saucepan of milk. Gavriela found herself fascinated with the looping currents inside the liquid, the columns of steam that rose then broke apart: a gentle form of turbulence. Then she realized Frau Pflügers was watching her, smiling.

‘You look fascinated, Fräulein Wolf, like a two-year old. Oh, I’m saying it badly, because that sounds like an insult, but’ - Frau Pflügers paused to stir the milk with a wooden spoon - ‘it’s a grown-up innocence, if that makes sense.’

‘It does to me. There’s so much to see everywhere, if people only look.’

‘Hmm. You know, there were women students when I was a girl; but I didn’t know it then.’

‘Oh. Would you have liked to go to the ETH, Frau Pflügers?’

‘It was the Polytechnik in those days.’

‘People still call it the Poly. If you’d gone, what would you have studied?’

‘I don’t know, dear.’ Frau Pflügers stared up to her right. ‘I can’t see myself as a scientist, more an arts type.’

‘Paintings or books?’

‘Do you have to choose between them?’

‘I don’t see why.’

The milk was coming to the boil. From a saucer, Frau Pflügers scraped dark flakes of chocolate into the saucepan, and stirred.

‘We all do the best we can,’ she said. ‘I’d like to believe that. Even Faust, in the end . . . Do you read Goethe?’

‘Of course, Frau Pflügers. And he was quite the scientist, too. Not a sufficient mathematician, or he would not have opposed Newton’s optics’ - Gavriela saw Frau Pflügers’ gaze shift, and realized she was assuming specialist knowledge - ‘but he foreshadowed Darwin’s work. He studied everything.’

‘Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’ Frau Pflügers poured two cups, then handed one over. ‘You know what Napoleon said about Goethe, after they met at Erfurt?’

‘Oh, yes.’

The two women clinked their cups of hot chocolate together.

‘Voilà un homme,’ they said in time.

Gavriela lay back on the clean-smelling pillow, staring at grey shadows, while the room seemed over and over to rotate by degrees, reset to normal, then rotate once more. She felt pleasantly dizzy lying there, supported by a soft, enveloping mattress.

But when she closed her eyes, she tumbled back to a memory of earlier that evening, before her meeting with Inge and Elke and Petra, back to the confusing, awful fight she had seen in the Altstadt, two groups of young men brawling, and the twisting of blackness-within-darkness, accompanied by grating discordant music unheard at the time: da, da-dum, da-da-da-dum, da-da.

Youths scrapping at night meant little; but something lay behind their actions, something awful.

The enemy.

It seemed a weird thought to generate.

The Darkness.

She slid away from horror, into sleep.

When she awoke it was inside a dream, but the contradiction seemed natural. Looking down, she saw her body formed of crystal - intricately organic and pliable, a bluish transparency - draped in a transparent garment, and felt no panic.

She was standing in a high hall, before a long glass table around which nine empty throne-like chairs were placed. Was anybody here?

—Hello?

How strange to speak without expelling air. Not needing to breathe, she attempted inhalation anyway, feeling her diaphragm move with no inrush of any atmosphere.

Perhaps the strangest thing of all was her acceptance.

Shields hung on the wall, some ancient-looking, others new. Carved into the leather were dull angular runes. They caught her attention oddly, then seemed to slip away.

Another crystalline woman entered.

She was tall and slender, haughtiness and wisdom combined; or perhaps that was an illusion caused by her transparency. Her clear eyes, like finest glass, focused on Gavriela.

—I bid you warm welcome, Gavriela Wolf.

So the regal woman knew her name. It seemed all of a piece with this place, so exotic and yet so natural. Here was the strangest dislocation in Gavriela’s life; yet it also felt like coming home.

—How did I get here?

—Truly, you are not here. Not yet.

The explanation was inconsistent; still she embraced it as reasonable.

—Then why am I here, or seem to be?

—To prepare. We all need to prepare.

She looked around the glass-and-sapphire hall. It was archaic, modern and futuristic, all at once.

—So there are others?

—I am Kenna.

The regal stare was intense, glistening and filled with power.

—And you’re the leader.

She realized that she hadn’t asked a question, but stated it as fact.

—Yes, Gavriela.

—And the others?

The woman, Kenna, raised her transparent hand, inside which clear sinews and blood vessels (carrying transparent blood) were visible.

—You’re the first.

Then Kenna’s fingertips descended, causing Gavriela’s eyes to close; and even though her eyelids were clear, soft darkness closed in. Then the dream folded up inside her, wrapped itself in warm amnesia, to hide snugly in her mind.

Waiting for the time when it could creep back to awareness.

NINE

FULGOR, 2603 AD

Carl left the conference centre on foot. As he walked, his smartfabric suit reconfigured to extend a cloak from his shoulders. Others, dressed as formally, were crossing the blue plaza, entering or leaving via one of the glowing ellipses set among the flagstones.

To his left, three men rose out of an ellipse and walked off. Carl’s tu-ring signalled that the shaft was vacant, so he stepped on to the glowing surface in their place.

His downward motion through flowgel felt slow; but that was only his impatience. Then he was in a great vault, descending on a thread of viscous gel to the floor. A spiderweb of narrow black tracks littered the ground in all directions; on the web, one- and five-person speedcapsules were in motion.

Beckoning the nearest vehicle, he waited for it to approach, then - while its shell was still opening - jumped inside. It sealed up, then moved along the route he selected, flicking among the other capsules before shooting into a tunnel that ran beneath Quiller Park and continued all the way to Lithrana Province.

I shouldn’t do this.

Miranda wasn’t expecting him home soon. What he’d implied was a meeting with the predatory Treena; the truth was somewhat different, and far more compelling.

If only I could keep away.

At the far end of Quiller, the tunnel veered north. Soon he was amid the active volcanoes of Pyrol Landing, where the capsule’s motion had to slow, as the tunnel twisted to avoid the magma chambers. That was where the shadow-code took over, hiding the details of the capsule’s deceleration, broadcasting false data that failed to show its opening shell or the way its solitary passenger tumbled out.