The second growth had been discovered near Vladivostok, quickly followed by two more off the coasts of New Guinea and Malaysia, respectively. Saul happened to see some wobbly footage of the Vladivostok growth pushing out of an austere-looking landscape at what was clearly a phenomenal rate. A camera crew panned up the growth’s already considerable height, showing its upper parts rising out of a haze of debris that permanently clouded its base. He watched with a kind of numb dread that he felt deep inside his chest.

The route to the Array, dense with traffic at the best of times, soon became more crowded than Saul remembered ever seeing it. The cars moved along in tight columns, almost bumper-to-bumper, with tailbacks that stretched for several kilometres.

Saul figured, if it was going to take as long as he suspected to get to the Array, he might as well eat something first. He pulled in at a roadside steakhouse, and left his car to graze on compacted biomass. Being part of a popular chain that made a point of using live staff, the steakhouse was packed to the gills.

He managed to find himself a window seat and soon placed his order with a florid-faced waitress with a decidedly harried expression.

‘I’m guessing it isn’t usually this busy?’ he remarked.

‘Hell, no,’ she laughed. ‘This is the busiest it’s been since we opened the place, and that was fifteen years ago.’

Saul glanced around, noticing that many of the other customer’s faces were tight with worry.

‘Looks like they’re all headed for the Array,’ he observed.

The waitress shrugged. ‘Looks like,’ she agreed. ‘Bunch of idiots all running scared from something they saw on those damn news fds.’

‘You don’t think it’s anything to worry about?’

She gave him a scornful glance. ‘Hell, no, I don’t believe a word of it. Some damn fools made it all up, and now they’re rolling about on their asses, laughing at us. I stopped believing anything I saw on the news a long time ago.’

Saul forced a smile as the waitress left him, and he looked around the diner a second time. Instead of the usual tourists or migrants, on their way to new lives under new suns, everyone he saw here looked like a refugee – like the family of seven huddled together around one small table, their heavy suitcases piled all around them. It wasn’t hard to guess what everybody was running away from, and he imagined what would happen once they all showed up, demanding passage, at the Array at the same time. The sense of despair was palpable.

By the time his food arrived, his appetite had vanished. He left most of it untouched and returned to his car, soon rejoining the thousands of other vehicles on the highway.