In one corner, wedged between the video quiz game and the wall, in a black felt hat, nursing half a pint of Guinness, was mad old Mrs Tachyon.

Mad is a word used about people who’ve either got no senses or several more than most other people.

Mrs Tachyon was the only one who noticed the drop in temperature. She looked up, and grinned a one-toothed grin.

The patch of chilly air drifted across the crowded room until it came up against the jukebox. Frost steamed off it for a second.

The tune changed.

‘“Roses are Blooming in Piccardy”,’ said Mrs Tachyon happily. ‘Yes!’

She watched carefully as people clustered around the machine and started to thump it. Then they pulled the plug, which made no difference.

The barmaid screamed and dropped a tray of drinks when the games machine exploded and caught fire.

Then the lights fused.

A minute or two later, Mrs Tachyon was left in the dark, listening to the barman cursing somewhere in a back room as fuses kept blowing.

It was quite pleasant, sitting in the warm glow of the melted machinery.

From the wreckage on the floor, the ghosts of two pints of beer detached themselves and floated across to the table.

‘Cheers!’ said Mrs Tachyon.

The chairman of the Council looked over her glasses.

‘Questions at the end, please.’

Johnny wavered. But if he sat down, the words would close over his head again.

‘When is the end, please?’ he said.

Johnny felt everyone looking at him.

The chairman glanced at the other speakers. She had a habit, Johnny noticed, of closing her eyes when she started a sentence and opening them suddenly at the end, so that they’d leap out and surprise you.

‘When [close] we’ve fully. Discussed. The situation. And then I will call for [open!] questions.’

Johnny decided to swim for the shore.

‘But I’ll have to leave before the end,’ he said. ‘I have to be in bed by ten.’

There was a general murmur of approval from the audience. It was clear that most of them approved of the idea of anyone under thirty being in bed by ten. It was almost true, anyway. He was generally in his room around ten, although there was no telling when the lights actually went off.

‘Let the lad ask his question,’ said a voice from near the front.

‘He’s doing a project,’ said another voice. Johnny recognized Mr Atterbury, sitting bolt upright.

‘Oh . . . very well. What was it, young man?’

‘Um.’ Johnny felt them all looking at him. ‘Well, the thing is . . . the thing I want to know is . . . is there anything that anyone can say here, tonight, that’s going to make any difference?’

‘That [close] hardly seems an appropriate sort of [open!] question,’ said the chairman severely.

‘Seems damned good to me,’ said Mr Atterbury. ‘Why doesn’t the man from United Amalagamated Consolidated Holdings answer the boy? Just a simple answer would do.’