We drove back to the LiteraTecs' office in silence, and as soon as we got in I called Landen. My wedding ring, which had been appearing and disappearing all morning, had been solid for a good twenty minutes.

'Yo, Thursday!' he said enthusiastically. 'What happened to you yesterday? We were talking and you just went quiet.'

'Something came up.'

'Why don't you come round for lunch? I've got fish fingers, beans and peas - with mashed banana and cream for pudding.'

'Have you been discussing the menu with Friday?'

'Whatever made you think that?'

'I'd love to, Land. But you're still a bit existentially unstable at the moment, so I'd only end up embarrassing myself in front of your parents again - and I've got to go and meet someone to talk about Shakespeares.'

'Anyone I know?'

'Bartholomew Stiggins.'

'The Neanderthal?'

'Yes.'

'Hope you like beetles. Call me when I exist next. I lo—'

The line went dead. My wedding ring had gone again too.

I listened to the dial tone for a moment, tapping the receiver thoughtfully on my forehead.

'I love you too, Land,' I said softly.

'Your Welsh contact?' asked Bowden, walking up with a fax from the Karen Blixen Appreciation Society.

'Not exactly.'

'New players for the Superhoop, then?'

'If only. Goliath and Kaine have frightened every player in the country except Penelope Hrah, who'll play for food and doesn't care what anyone says, thinks or does.'

'Didn't she have a leg torn off during the Newport Strikers versus Dartmoor Wanderers semi-final a few years back?'

'I'm in no position to be choosy, Bowd. If I put her on back-hoop defence she can just growl at anyone who comes close. Ready for lunch?'

The Neanderthal population of Swindon numbered about three hundred and they all lived in a small village to the west known as 'The Nation'. Because of their tool-using prowess, they were just given six acres of land, water and sewage points and told to get on with it, as if they needed to be asked, which they didn't.

The Neanderthals were not human nor descendants of ours, but cousins. They had evolved at the same time as us, then been forced into extinction when they failed to compete successfully with the more aggressive human. Brought back to life by Goliath Bioengineering in the late thirties and early forties, they were as much a part of modern life as dodos or mammoths. And since they had been sequenced by Goliath, each individual was actually owned by the corporation. A less than generous 'buy-back' scheme to be able to purchase oneself hadn't been well received.

We parked a little way down from the Nation and got out of the car.

'Can't we just park inside?' asked Bowden.

'They don't like cars,' I explained. 'They don't see the point in travelling any distance. To Neanderthal logic, anywhere that couldn't be reached in a day's walk isn't worth visiting. Our Neanderthal gardener used to walk the four miles to our house every Tuesday, and then walk back again, resisting all offers of a lift. Walking was, he maintained, "the only decent way to travel — if you drive you miss the conversations in the hedgerows".'