Pop.

Tunch went on: 'One of the side effects as the drug wears off will be a period of, uh, greater sensitivity. Someone needs to be with you.'

Pop. 'You know my address in Air. Will you be recording that, too?' Pop. 'And sell the information to the foreigners? Or have they already paid for anything you might find out?'

'It depends,' murmured Tunch, 'on the information.'

'Ling,' said Mae, 'he may try to kill you. Too many people have seen you, boy. And you are not supposed to exist. Do you understand me, boy?'

'Yes,' said the unreadable mechanical voice. Mae buried her face against his furry cheek, and the bare, shaved forehead.

'I'm sorry. I didn't understand. I should have left you in the compound. Watch him, Ling. He has masters, too, like you do. He has to be loyal to them or he does not eat. You and he are the same.

'I understand,' said Ling.

'Good boy, Ling,' said Tunch. 'Just be a good boy.'

'I always am,' said Ling.

Mae said, 'You will turn Karzistan into the garbage pail of the world.'

'Karzistan has to make a living,' he said.

The car drove on, grasses blurring by. What was close was lost in speed.

'You do not understand me, Mae,' said Tunch. I am slightly relying on the drug to help you accept what I will say. What I am about to say, is said using very carefully chosen words, used in a very precise way.'

'I'm ready,' said Mae.

'I am a hero,' said Tunch.

Ling's nose was pushed out of the window. 'This world smells different,' he said.

Mae was unimpressed. 'I am waiting for the precise meaning of the word,' said Mae.

'A hero mediates,' said Tunch. 'He brings together good and evil. He uses the tools of evil, may even be evil, to do something constructive. People need heroes. They yearn for them. That is because people who are not heroes think that heroes are good. And evil is done by people who think they are good. Good people do harm by being gentle and not stopping things. Good people fight wars out of love. They need heroes to break that cycle. To defend them, to build things.'

Black shadows danced inside Mae's eyes, and Mrs Tung tried to gather her thoughts.

'It is terrible, but it is the only way forward. Heroes are not like in stories, where they wear a mask of nobility. All heroes do evil, terrible things. Robin Hood was a thief and murderer. John Kennedy ordered invasions and wars. So did Lawrence, who fought like a wolf for the Arabs. Ataturk destroyed the mosques and killed the clergy. Wonderful, terrible people are both good and evil.'

The drug made it difficult for anyone to gather their thoughts. 'You are trying to tell me why you will never do me harm,' she said, 'now that you have learned from the harm you have already done me.'

'Exactly. You are too valuable. I want you home in your village. You know why?'

'Yes,' Mae said meekly. 'You think I am a hero, too.'

Tunch simply gave a thin, satisfied grin.

'How did you tear the fence?' he asked.

Mae told him. 'Air is real and we are not.'

Wisdom nodded once, something confirmed.

Mae told herself what she did not tell him. What they have done is make an artificial soul. You and your Format want to sell our souls back to us. You are about to find out that we have always had them.

They drove on, into the night.

Ling rode with his head out of the window.

Halfway up the hill the dog asked, 'Why are there stars? They don't smell.'

Tunch replied, 'They smell of heat, so fierce it burns away the ability to smell.'

'Are we getting closer to them?' said Ling, looking around.

'Not yet. Not for a good few many years,' said Tunch.

Mae suddenly understood that Tunch intended to stand on the stars, however many centuries it took.

Tunch asked the dog, 'Do you want to know how the universe began?'

'Oh. That would be good to know,' said the dog, looking around.

'Dreadful pride,' said Mae.

Tunch was very pleased with that, and grinned.

'When there is nothingness,' he said, 'gravity does not attract. It becomes repulsive. Ask what those words mean.'

Obediently the dog consulted Air, sweat dripping off his panting tongue. After a moment Ling said, 'Gravity pulls everything together. It makes us heavy so we stay on the ground. Otherwise we would float off to the stars.'

'Good,' said Tunch.

'So, my nose won't burn out.'

'No.'

The dog seemed to grin, panting.

Tunch continued: 'Before anything existed, gravity had nothing to do – except pull apart. It pulled, and nothingness stretched, like a rubber band, until it broke. When it broke there was a burst of light and heat. So energy was created, and out of energy, things were made.'

'So far so good,' said the dog.

'So with something there instead of nothing, gravity then became an attractive force. It pulled together. As the universe exploded, it also pulled and twisted things into shapes. Clouds of gas, then balls of gas, then stars.'

'Is gravity a hero, too?' asked the dog.

'Yes,' said Tunch, pleased.

'How?' asked Mae.

'We know that, mathematically, there must be eleven dimensions. Like height and width, except these other dimensions were not affected by the explosion at the beginning. They are still the same size, coiled at the heart of the universe. Where nothing really changes. Think of the point right at the centre of a wheel. The wheel turns, but the point does not.'

'What's a wheel?' asked Ling.

'We're riding on wheels. Access the mathematical definition of a point.'

'Okay, boss.'

'In those coiled dimensions, we know that the same equations that describe electromagnetism, describe gravity. In the timeless realms outside our universe, they are one. Now, ask again, what is thought?'

Ling had the answer ready. 'An electromagnetic phenomenon. Differences in charges produced by chemical reactions.'

'Gravity is like thought. It has power over everything in this universe, but it is not in this universe. There is no gravity wave, no gravity particle. It exists outside time. It makes things. It loves things. It tears things apart.'

He let the car speak for a while, the roaring of its wheels on the rough surface, the hum of the engine.

'You know what we're going to do, people like you and me, Mae?' Again the disembodied grin, adrift from the sunglasses, lit from underneath now by the dash panel lights. 'We're going to prove God exists. We'll send it messages.'

Mae thought:

I am trapped in a car with a madman who happens to tell the truth. I am trapped in a car with someone driven so crazy by a big opinion of himself that he thinks he will live forever. He thinks he will shake God's hand by machines. The truly awful thing is that he might just do it.

Mae saw clearly that his system was so greedy it would eat anything. Anything she did or said – kick Mr Pakan, befriend Ling, argue with Tunch, or agree – would be wound into his Bronze madness, feed it.

The only thing she could do that would not help him would be to stay silent. Staying silent would prevent him from wanting to know anything more about her. If he felt there was more Info to be derived, he would imprison her again until he had it.

Mae pretended to go to sleep.

The car crackled to a halt over loose gravel.

Mae blinked around her. 'This is it,' she said. She petted Ling. 'Treat him well,' she told Mr Tunch. 'He has been promised steak.'

Ling looked up into her eyes. 'I want this box taken off my head,' he said. 'I want this voice taken out.'

Mae looked at Tunch. Would he?

'We can do that,' Mr Tunch said, and gave Ling's head a casual scratch.

Mae said curtly, 'Thank you for driving me.'