They considered taking her car, but the roads were impossible. The career types had gone to work, but now the survivalists in their laden 4WDs were mixed up now with the school run.

But still, Venus had set, and the light was a little more normal.

They walked, to Arthur’s Seat.

She studied him. She said, “Aren’t you freaked out too?”

“Sort of. This is spooky stuff. But the bigger part of me is—”

“Excited.”

“Yes.”

“By what? Nano-machines from the Moon? String theory? The end of the world?”

“Not really. Just about figuring stuff out. You were right. That’s the thrill.” He smiled. “Especially right now, when I have the excuse to skip the detail.”

She felt the urge to punch his smug face.

“How do you know where Mike will be?”

“I don’t. But I have a hunch.” He turned to her, evidently gauging her reaction. “You know, he’s kind of changed over the last few days.”

“I know,” she said. And I know why, she thought. Mike’s figured it out too.

They climbed the Seat. Henry stopped a couple of times to inspect the grass, which had turned, in places, brown and wiry: dead, poisoned somehow.

They reached the dust pools, a ragged garden of them a thousand yards across. The police had given up trying to tape off the perimeter, but there were many of them here, in their fluorescent emergency-yellow ponchos, patrolling. Jane saw how the officers, many of them very young, kept a wary eye over their shoulders on the advance of the quicksand.

Outside the ring of police officers she spotted a group of scientists working close to the quicksand perimeter, with handheld probes and white-box lab equipment and flickering laptop screens. They were wiring the Seat, in Blue’s term. A couple of them were preparing a small, turtle-shaped robot which looked as if it was going to be sent into the quicksand itself.

And there were TV and radio crews, with big fold-up antennae pointing at the sky. The tone of the broadcasts had abruptly changed, Jane thought; now that people had died, it seemed a great city was gathering itself in fear, and the earnest tones and body language of the reporters conveyed that, cartoon-style.

Around the broadcasters and scientists there was a broader ring of sight-seers, mostly teenagers and young adults. Some were studying the quicksand, or watching what the scientists were doing, or listening soberly to the news people. Others were just, it seemed to Jane, enjoying a novelty in the sunshine.

It was, in fact, crowded here. There was a lively mood. Like a Bank Holiday crowd.