‘They were behind us,’ said the other of the men who had just arrived—a short, squat individual with a gruff voice—holding a bag which he set down at his feet. He shook his head slowly.

‘Damn!’ shouted the captain.

Ollie looked at him. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Colby,’ said the man.

‘Captain, aren’t you?’

The man nodded.

‘Get a hold of yourself. There’ll be time enough to get angry later, if you don’t let it kill you now. You understand?’

Colby nodded, but his eyes were blazing.

‘And Marcus isn’t back, either,’ said June. She looked strained, her face even paler than usual, and twisted with worry. ‘I hope he didn’t run into the bots.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Ollie easily. ‘Him I wouldn’t worry about just yet. Devilish difficult to kill is our Marcus. Ask me. I should know!’

He gave a short hoot of laughter, which he throttled almost as soon as it appeared.

‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ demanded one of the men, gesturing towards one of the tunnels on the left. ‘Thataway! Through the east tunnel! Let’s get outta here!’

Ollie held up a large hand, clucking disapprovingly. ‘Rush, rush, rush! Take a moment out and use your head, lad. Those larries’ll be here any minute. It wouldn’t do to be leading them all the way home for a cuppa, now would it? We need to slow ’em down first.’

‘Slow ’em down?’ repeated the man, looking incredulous. ‘Didn’t you see ’em? We can’t slow ’em down! How you want us to slow ’em down? You gonna tell ’em one o’ yer stories?’

Ollie waggled a plump finger at him playfully. ‘Now, now. No call to get nasty here.’

‘So how you planning on slowing ’em down?’

Ollie looked down at the bag at the short man’s feet. ‘What’s in that?’

‘Gear,’ said the man.

Ollie beamed. ‘Oh, really?’ He dropped to one knee, fiddling with the straps of the bag. ‘So let’s see if you boys are carrying any useful candy around in this sack of yours.’

He pulled it open and peered in, and his moon-face lit up. ‘Bingo!’ he cried happily, pulling something out of the bag. ‘Blaster! Just what the doctor ordered!’ This time, Albert could see clearly that it indeed was a gun.

Ollie wasn’t done yet, though. ‘And what’s this? Blast charges too!’

With that he pulled out four small, circular discs, each with a bright pink covering of what looked like gum. Carefully, he put them down beside the bag.

‘Careful with those things,’ said Colby nervously. ‘You could bring this whole place down.’

‘Good reason to watch your step now, wouldn’t you say? But we’re not done yet! Voila! Rations and some water. This might come in handy. In case—Wait! What’s that?’