Following the pad rats” mimed instructions, he turned and sat down on the lip of the hatch. The pad rats pulled a protective cover off his helmet, and hauled outer boots off his feet.

The last pad rat, a heavy-set older man, looked him in the eyes. “Ni pukha, ni pera.”

“Huh?”

“May nothing be left of you, neither down nor feather.” He grinned. “I am wishing you luck. Now you must tell me to go to hell.”

When in Rome… “Go to hell.”

The pad rat took his hand, and receded slowly, over the metal platform; Henry, unexpectedly, found himself clinging to this last human contact, his last hold on Earth.

The fatherly pad rat let go.

Henry swung his legs inside. He had to climb through the faring to get to the spacecraft, which was completely enclosed inside its protective cover.

And so he entered the Soyuz.

He was in the orbital module. It was a cramped cabin, like a small box-room, its walls lined with storage compartments and handholds. It was just about big enough for one person to stretch out. The hatch behind him was a circle of bright daylight. Another hatch, open, was set in the floor, leading to another compartment called the descent module.

He lowered his feet through the floor hatch and twisted down into the space below. It was cramped in here, with three upturned frame seats in a fan shape, side by side. The inner walls were lined with yellow insulation blankets, and there were bundles of equipment: a life raft, parachutes, survival clothes.

Geena was already in the left-hand seat, working through a checklist. Stiff in his suit, Henry wriggled until he had lowered himself into the right-most seat.

And so here he was, lying on his back, tucked up inside an antique Russian spacecraft that had been assembled by guys who probably hadn’t even been paid for half a year…

22

As Henry had predicted, the Moonseed dug through the continental crust beneath the Midland Valley of Scotland, the primary infection site, and things rapidly got worse.

Jane picked up what she could, from the news broadcasts and her limited contact with Henry.

It sounded as if the ancient volcanic plugs all over Scotland were breaking open. There was some kind of event at the Binn of Burntisland, across the Forth from Edinburgh. That cut off the northern escape routes, then. To the west, closer to Glasgow, more vents were going up in strings, from Fintry to Dumbarton and along the Campsie Hills.

In the open air, she could hear it, feel it. Explosions, floating on the air. Shudders transmitted through the ground. As if the Earth itself was waking.

Time to leave.