“Arrange some insurance.” He stepped over the remains of the back doors.

She shouted at his back: “Sam, one day you’re going to have to tell me what you’re doing before you do it.”

“Yeah. We haven’t got time for a democracy.” He started down the back lane between the faculties. The high walls refracted the sounds from the city: the grinding, the roaring, the howling. The machines of the Jihad were still carving their songlines without distraction. No time for voting, perhaps, but enough for a last will and testament.

He felt his way up the stairs in the pitch black, closing his eyes and counting the landings until he’d reached his floor. There was the door, and there the corridor. He ran his hand down the wall, chanting the names of the occupants of each room until he got to his.

There was a faintest glimmer of light seeping from under the door.

“Pif? That you?” he whispered as he opened it a crack.

“Hey, Sam,” said Pif. She was surrounded by ornamental tea lights, her pen nib scratching over the page she was working on. “Almost done.”

She kept writing. Petrovitch borrowed one of the candles and carried it over to his desk. He started pulling out his drawers one by one and sorting through them. He found the night-vision goggles he’d taken from the Paradise militiaman, and his second-best pair of glasses.

The ones on his face had become part of him; the scab that covered the top of his ear also contained the spectacle arm. There was nothing for it but to break it free. It left him more breathless than he was already.

Pif put down her pen and sorted her papers out into two piles, each of which she folded in half and slid inside identical envelopes.

“That’s that,” she said, and finally looked up. “Sam. What have they done to you?”

“Yeah. You should see the other guy.” He eased on his spare glasses. He could see properly again. “We need to talk.”

“Yes,” she said, holding up one of the plain brown envelopes. “You need to take this with you.”

“Sure.” He nodded.

“It’s a mostly complete solution to the theory of everything. I’ve done as much as I can on it, but I have a feeling if I wait any longer, I won’t have time to make a copy. Now, I have some undergrads scavenging parts for a short-wave transmitter, but otherwise it’s up to you to get it out of the city.”

“Me? Pif, you don’t know…”

She held up her hand, and her palm shone in the candlelight. “We’re going to try and hold the university for as long as we can. The gangs we should be able to fight off. But those… things. We can’t stand up to them.”

“About those,” started Petrovitch, but she cut him off.