“Just another valued employee,” Rove explained. “One with her finger on the pulse of all this multidimensional business. She’s something of a favourite of another major player here—virtually its high priestess, in her own mind. Don’t worry, she’s not your replacement. Her services are of a different nature.” Rove’s plastic smile drifted almost fondly onto his face. “How flexible are you feeling, Lucas, morally?”

“You know me.” This was the safest answer for now. Lucas was wary of examining just what he would or wouldn’t do in the course of his further employment.

Rove seemed to hear the answer he’d wanted. “We’re going to have to think on our feet, I fear. Until they take us to the heart of this business, we’re not going to know where we can stand or how big our lever is. But if the opportunity arises for us to sort this mess out, we’ll need a firm hand—you understand that? We are, after all, looking to preserve something of value for future use, but our conspecifics here may lack the required ruthlessness. You understand me?”

Lucas considered their fellow passengers: the rat, the two annoying girls, the bloody security man and his girlfriend or whatever, and Dr. Khan. Plus the two cavemen who were shacking up with them, the one with the U.S. education and the thug who’d already killed several of Rove’s minions. He’d shoot some of them less readily than others. However, if it came down to his future or theirs, he was unhappily certain the trigger was going to get pulled.

Rove saw as much in his face, because he nodded pleasantly. “Good fellow,” he said, with that just-add-water instant chumminess the cameras had always loved. “For now, though, feel free to mingle. Just don’t get attached.”

III

There was some initial jockeying and verbal fencing—especially with Mallory, who was more pugnacious than Julian would have liked, given he was sharing an internal organ with her. Afterwards, he and Alison sloped off to what he tenuously thought of as the “front” compartment, where Kay Amal Khan was. As, regrettably, was their transportation’s ghastly humanoid avatar, still dangling from the ceiling like the nastiest marionette in this or any world.

Khan gave them both a quick grin when they ducked in. She’d been up here for most of the night, Julian guessed, and seemed positively energized.

“What’s up with you, Jules?” She waggled her eyebrows, looking from him to Alison, but he chose to ignore her.

“I still don’t feel happy with the Plu—with our hosts, the Cousins,” he confessed. “Too much like hostile foreign agents. And the two girls don’t like us. Or don’t like me, anyway.”