With exacting gentleness, the monstrous arthropod came to rest against the side of the tower, curling itself slightly so that the listing building leant into its floating bulk, which supported the crumbling edifice’s weight without difficulty.

“Tell me that’s not our ride,” he managed, but his consent was not required.

An articulated forest of limbs reached out, each one hooked and barbed, each pincering towards a target. He saw Alison’s lips move, and then she stepped forwards like a somnambulist. He yelled and tried to drag her back, but a whiplike appendage jostled him and he ended up clinging to Alison, caught in a cage of interlaced spines. He could see refugee rodents, the two girls and Dr. Khan—all of them being gathered up. In a couple of minutes, the flurrying limbs had cleared the roof with hungry efficiency.

IV

Lucas expected Rove to be furious, but in this moment of crisis the man was eerily calm. All part of the plan, apparently, despite the fact that their vessel was self-destructing beneath their feet. The structure thrummed like a guitar string, and every so often a piece of wall or ceiling would simply disappear, an unwanted window onto another world entirely, or onto no world. There were rat-creatures rushing everywhere too, great, panicked mobs of them.

“Morons,” Rove stated briskly. He had been packing a briefcase with swift economy, a black leather article monogrammed with his initials. “They could have just set up some insertion portals, done this gradually. But they’re obsessed with taking all their toys with them.”

“Sir?” Lucas asked neutrally. He had his pistol out, and in the back of his mind was the thought that, if worst came to worst, he could make shooting his boss his final act in this or any world. Not an urge he would act on, but it scratched at his thoughts nonetheless.

“Why do you think they’re so keen for information about Earth?” Rove said, straightening up with briefcase in hand. Another convulsion racked the ship. “They want it for living space, and they only think in terms of invasion via overwhelming military force. They could do it, too. Taken globally, their army is almost as large as our entire population. They’re an aggressive pack of vermin, Lucas. But they rush in like this, and now their flagship’s being pulled apart between two worlds.”

“Sir, we should really—”

“Come with me.”

Rove marched past him. He almost managed it with his veneer of upper-class calm intact, but Lucas knew him well now. He reckoned many CEOs had left the office with that slightly hurried tread, the day before everyone discovered the pension fund had been cleaned out.