We listened to their grievances after that, which were long and tedious—mostly about a little-understood phenomenon called dilation lag that caused cell phones and other transmission signals to be unable to mesh.

“If we want to watch TV,” grumbled one, “we have to go to Oaksey. The only radio stations we can pick up are those on AM, and the pitch of that is noticeably high.”

“Yes,” said another, “I know for a fact that they’re thinking of moving the Stroud-Swindon rail line six miles to the east. I understand that the train is now always three minutes late—it has to slow down when traveling past here to stay on schedule.”

“And house prices are tumbling,” said another. “If I wanted to sell, I’d have to accept half of what I paid for it.”

“And what did you pay for it?” I asked. “Just out of interest.”

“A hundred pounds. They’re dirt cheap because no one wants to live here.”

“We get occasional Backflashes, too,” said the fourth.

“And what did you pay for it?” I asked. “Just out of interest.”

“A hundred pounds. They’re dirt cheap because no one wants to live here.”

“We get occasional Backflashes, too,” said the fourth, “but we only know that from external observers. Ooh, look,” he added, pointing to a woman standing two hundred yards away who was waving a red flag. “Lori says we’ve just had one.”

Most of their problems could be solved simply by moving away. None of the protesters were the original residents, who had all been compensated generously and wisely moved out or taken up agritemporal farming. We listened to them for just long enough to get their respect, but not so long that our ears started bleeding.

“Does anyone know who posted these?” asked Friday, holding up the fifteen envelopes when there was a lull in the conversation.

“Let me see,” said the one who seemed to be in charge. He examined the postmarks and passed them to a second man, who looked at them, nodded, then passed them back.

“That would have been the Manchild,” he said, nodding toward the disused facility. “He made a rare appearance to post them.”

“Do you know why?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“George!” said the first. “You can’t encourage people to go . . . in there.”

There followed an argument in which the more moderate members of the group thought it insane that anyone would go any closer than the thousand yards we were at present and some other members who thought we should do as we wanted, then a third part of the group who didn’t know what they wanted but just liked to argue.

“Hang on,” said another, who had just noticed that Lori two hundred yards away was now frantically waving a yellow flag. “Gravity wave coming our way.”