Chapter One

Survivors

The latest batch of iron is looking very good, and Ben's expression is bright, "I'll check some of the bloom when it's cool enough to handle, Max - hopefully this will convert to steel really well."

"That'd be good." Yseult agrees, "I've never been able to get a really decent amount of steel before. The most I was able to do was a few blades from that tamahagane I managed to get a few years ago. Until we can produce it reliably, we'll be struggling to keep ourselves ahead of the rust for years to come."

"You need to get those scientists to work on formulating paint mixtures." He grins, then looks up to see Pete approaching, "He doesn't look too chuffed."

Yseult follows his gaze and notices that Pete is not wearing his habitual cheerful expression - far from it. Instead, he looks worried, "Max, can I have a word?"

Bemused, she nods, "Can I leave you with this, Ben?"

"Sure. We can't do much until I've buffed some of the bloom anyway. If I need you I'll give you a shout."

Following Pete into the office, Yseult puts the kettle on, "What's the problem?"

"If you don't hear it today from them, you'll hear the rumours. Word on the ground is that the Agricultural department's going to demand the right to form a union."

"What?" she stares, shocked, "I mean - I don't have an issue with people wanting to form unions - but what's the point of doing it here? The whole point of this place is to not repeat the mistakes of the past - that's why we have lines of reporting, so that people can make their feelings known."

"You might think that, Max," Pete says, heavily, "but there are a lot of people who don't: not now that we're on our own. Taylor's being revised from a father-figure into a dictator removed from the people he's governing. There are people who say possession is nine-tenths of the law, but I've always reckoned that perception is nine-tenths of the view. It doesn't matter what it is - it's what it looks like to other people that counts more often than not. The fact that Taylor hasn't changed is immaterial. If enough people can be convinced that it was never about paternalistic leadership from the front, then the whole 'we're slaves under the yoke of martial law' thing can start getting traction. And it is."

Yseult sits as well. Regardless of his ethos - Commander Taylor remains the soldier he's always been, and the number of soldiers under his command always gives that impression of military government. No one's ever questioned it before - things have been going well, so why should they? Yes, Malcolm is known for his griping about the lack of democracy and accountability, and in some ways he's right to do it; but with a community as small as this, the Taylor approach has been the most suitable. Perhaps that might not be the case anymore - but the worst possible way to do it is through some form of popular uprising. From what she's seen, the talk may be about representation of the masses - but the intention that's hiding behind it is entirely less benign.

"Is there any way we can get Taylor back to the Colony?" Pete asks, "He needs to be here to counter this."

She shakes her head, "No - they went out of comm range over a day ago. Their comm units right now are only able to reach each other - they can't get back to us here."

"Hell. This is the worst possible time for him to be OTG."

"Chances are that this is why they're doing it, Pete. The Commander's presence is usually the thing that keeps a lid on trouble - no one feels they can challenge him."

"And that's a problem in its own right, Max." Pete reminds her, "Taylor's many things - but he's not immortal. What're we going to do when the time comes and he dies? Fight amongst ourselves to find a new leader? If we're not careful, we might find that there's nothing left for the Commander to lead when he gets back - even a population this small can do a lot of damage to itself if we have a civil war."

"I know." Yseult sighs, "The worst thing is that, even though he has the authority to do it, Jim isn't going to risk igniting the powder keg by deploying the population of the barracks. He may not be the most politically astute person in the Colony, but he's full to the brim with good, old-fashioned common sense."

"Which is just as well - because doing that would be the one thing that really would send us all to hell. If the security teams start getting antsy in Taylor's absence, he's going to have to keep them under control as much as the agri-teams."

"Guzman won't let that happen - he's as committed to the safe future of this colony as the Commander is. Besides, if he thinks it might be something we'd have to do, he'd take it to Jim first. If nothing else, he respects the chain of command."

"Glad someone does." Pete grumps.

"I've got a lunch date with Maddy, Pete." Yseult assures him, "We're going to mope in Boylan's for an hour over how much we miss our husbands, so I'll manufacture a reason to speak to Jim while I'm there. He needs to know about this - and if I can do it without alerting people that we know, then it won't look like we're trying to oppress the freedom of the masses."

"God - I never thought I'd hear something like that here. So much for new starts."

"No accounting for human nature, Pete." She smiles, "The ethos may be new, but the mindsets trying to fit into it aren't. Even the most egalitarian of systems ends up devolving into 'us and them' sooner or later. The trick is recognising that and making sure that you've built that expectation into the system so that people don't find a reason to think like that. I don't think anyone's ever managed to get it right yet; not while people are content to leave the hard work of running a colony to someone else. When that happens, we need to make sure the 'someone else' is the right someone for the job. At the moment, it's the Commander."

"Maybe so - but he's been in charge, and unchallenged, from the off. Some people don't take well to that - it's hardly a democratic approach." Pete sighs, a little melodramatically, "Bloody politics."

"It needed to happen sooner or later, Pete. Like you said, we're going to have to establish some succession arrangements to keep this Colony going in a post-Taylor era. Based on what we've been hearing, and what Chris thinks about the people behind it, the word 'union' is just being used as a euphemism for 'takeover'. They're not interested in representing the interests of the colonists - they just want to be in charge of them. If we could redirect that energy into an actual democratic process, then we'd have those arrangements all ready and waiting."

"And presented to Taylor as a fait accompli?" Pete asks, a little cynically, "Unless Taylor accepts it, it's just a lot of pissing in the wind."

And there's the rub. So far the Commander has proved to be remarkably resistant to allowing anyone else to set up a desk in the Command Centre - but sooner or later he's going to have to. The number of colonists now outnumbers the number of soldiers quite considerably - so the concept of a military chain of command is losing its relevance. Soldiers may be trained to accept authority, but civilians are rarely so accommodating. Add to that his illness, and the chances of him agreeing are receding ever further. No matter what else she can confide to Pete, however, that problem is one that needs to stay firmly under wraps. Things are tense enough as it is.

The sooner Jim is aware of it, the better.

To most people in the bar, the presence of Jim with his daughter and his friend's wife appears perfectly innocuous. As he's taken care to sit with his back to other people, no one can see the expression on his face as he listens to Yseult's report. She has every reason to look unhappy - as her husband's gone out to the Badlands - but Jim doesn't want people to see him looking worried. Hares tend to start running if they do.

"Any suggestions on how they're going to do it?" He asks, "It's all very well claiming they're going to start a union, but who are they going to tell? It's not much good having some representative body if people don't know about it."

"That's something that wasn't picked up." Yseult sighs, "I can only assume that you'll have someone in your office at some point today. Or Chris will come up and tell you."

"Sounds wonderful."

"Pete's worried, Jim. That's not like him. Not like him at all. If he's worried, then we definitely should be. Everything we've seen so far suggests that we're not looking at people who're keen to represent the interests of their colleagues - they just want to run the Colony. The whole 'union' thing is just an excuse to get a foothold."

"Or it might not be."

"From what Chris has been saying, if it was anyone other than the person that it is, he'd agree with you. But given who it is, I don't think that it's likely. It's a complete bastardisation of what a union is meant to stand for."

"Until they come to me, Max - there's not a lot I can do. Despite appearances, we're not a police state. Without evidence that someone's broken any of the colony's rules, my hands are tied."

"I know. I'm not asking you to act pre-emptively - but we need be prepared. If this turns out to be a perfectly innocent intention to set up a representative body, then all to the good. But if it doesn't?"

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it." Jim sighs, "I'll drop by to see Chris later. In the meantime, I'll let you two get on with your lunch."

He's not at all surprised at what Yseult has told him - they've been expecting this for a while; or, at least, Chris has. The real frustration is the secrecy about it all; Jim is not given to such behaviour, unless it's something like a surprise party or an unexpected present, of course. Being regularly in Taylor's company, he's used to having the Commander's ear, and is equally assured that his concerns will be heard. That Taylor even goes out of his way to be available to the Colonists on a regular basis serves to add to that assurance that everyone can air their opinions. Maybe he's always just assumed that - and, in fact, for most of the people living here, there's a degree of separation that he's never noticed.

Hell, why won't these people just talk to him? If they don't feel able to take their concerns to the Commander in person, then why not talk to Chris at least? Is it because Chris reports to Malcolm and not to Taylor? It's not as though Malcolm would have a hissy fit if they changed that - but Chris hasn't ever seen a need for it, so he hasn't asked. Maybe they should…

Oh, what's the point? The more he hears, the less he believes that such a gesture would be effective. If they don't do it, then it's a curtailment of colonists' rights - but if they do then it's just a token gesture. Despite his lack of political acumen, it's not like he's never dealt with people who only see what they want to see before.

Oddly, for the first time since she returned to the Colony, he misses Mira's presence. Normally, he would be offloading this in her direction, and getting her input and opinion. But she's out in the Badlands, and so he has to make do with speculating on his own - which, while not entirely ineffective, is not his preferred method. He's always liked to bounce ideas off someone else; it helps to focus his mind.

His comm unit chirps, and he fetches it out, "Shannon."

"Deputy - we have a problem. It's Chris here - I've just been shut out of one of the barns. Bob Parker's holding a meeting, and I'm apparently not welcome. It looks like he's making his move."

Oh, great.

"Give me ten minutes - I'll get over there. If it's just me and you, that might persuade them that we're not going to break it up and stuff them in the brig."

"I'm outside shed 10. I can't hear much - but it sounds like he's launched into a litany of grievances. The sooner you get here, the better. We need to find out what he's complaining about so that we can answer him."

"On my way."

Cursing under his breath, Jim heads out. Part of him wants to have a detachment of security - but he's learned from experience that sometimes to do that makes things worse. There are occasions when it's better to negotiate than fight - and if they can show that they're the ones being reasonable, perhaps that might close this down before it gets nasty. Not that he holds out much hope of that.

By the time he gets to the sheds, however, he's wishing that he had. There's a lot of shouting going on in there.

"Hell, that sounds bad." He says, as he joins Chris at the door.

"I don't know what he's been saying - I can't hear most of it through the doors - but it's fired them right up. I imagine its a long screed of complaints that we haven't dealt with. Probably because he's never raised them with us."

"That's usually how it is."

Jim sighs, inwardly: not only has he got to try and get into a locked barn, but he's got to talk down a crowd of people who're being told that he's in with some shadowy 'elite' that wants to oppress them.

And he hasn't got a clue where to start.

Chris is hovering anxiously outside the large storage barn with a large number ten painted on the doors. As he promised, the voices within are not the friendliest Jim has ever heard; rumbling with dissent that rises and falls in waves of discontent at the promptings of strident exhortations that aren't quite loud enough to be intelligible.

"Hell, that's not what I was expecting." He admits.

Chris looks agitated, "I don't think we're on the verge of outright revolution - more like Bob laying the ground for some sort of cobbled-together show of hands."

"Should we speak them?" Jim looks worried, "I get the feeling that, if I go in there now, I'm just going to make things worse. They don't sound like they're going to want to listen to any arguments that they don't agree with. Which is probably most of them."

They are far from any assistance on the part of Guzman or his security teams; but to go in with a military escort is guaranteed to exacerbate the situation, while to go in without them seems lunacy. He's used to raging criminals attempting to escape a raid - but these are just pissed fruit pickers with a sense of grievance. He's never had to police discontented citizens before - that was usually done by the military by the time he became a cop. Not that that was the most effective strategy - most protests usually ended up with the soldiers opening fire. No matter how difficult Bob Parker is going to get - there's no way that Jim would commit such an atrocity. That wasn't why they all came here.

"He's not going to listen to reason, Jim," Chris sighs, "and arresting him would just play into his hands. It wouldn't surprise me if he tries to get himself arrested - just so that he can raise himself up as a martyr to his cause."

"No chance." Jim says, "Martyrs have to die for their cause - not only am I not going to kill him, I'm not going to play his game. We keep the lines of communication open, and make it clear that we want to know if things are off. I know it's a pointless gesture," he assures Chris, who opens his mouth to protest, "but at least they can't accuse us of not trying."

"I know," Chris sighs, "I just wish we could do something that isn't going to send it all to hell."

"I'll leave the ball in their court for now." Jim says, tiredly, "The mood in there is too explosive to risk me going in and being the detonator. I guess I've got no choice but to wait for him to come to me."

Chris nods, "I get the feeling you're not going to have to wait for much longer."

Regardless of the bright arc lamps that surround the camp, the presence of a bonfire is cheery and welcome, and everyone is congregating around it almost instinctively. If only the ration packs contained marshmallows - then everything would be just about perfect. Now that the sun has set, the temperature is dropping precipitately, and everyone's starting to wrap up to keep out the growing chill.

Dunham is sitting over his plex, absorbed in watch rosters; regardless of the stockade, he doesn't want them to be caught out if those bambiraptors are still keen on crashing the party. The Commander is currently on watch, seated for comfort in his rover, looking back the way they came, while Carter and Wicks are making circuits of the fence line.

Satisfied, he saves the file and approaches the Commander's rover, where he can hear Taylor laughing at something, "Sir. Sorry - here's the watch roster you asked for." He says.

Still looking remarkably cheerful, Taylor turns to him and takes the plex, "Thanks, Lieutenant. I'll look after this - you go and get some downtime by the bonfire."

"Thank you, Sir." He doesn't object - he's been on duty since first light, and would never even consider resting from his duties unless authorised to do so. Now that he has, his concerns can be set aside - Taylor's back in charge for tonight - and he happily turns and makes his way back to the bonfire.

"Do you want me to look over it?" Washington asks, still smirking from the joke they were laughing at before Dunham arrived.

"No need - you know the score, Wash. I'll leave it to you."

"Of course. Why don't you hit the sack? I can take it from here."

He yawns, widely, "Sounds good to me, Wash. See you in the morning."

As he makes his way back to his tent, someone's got some music playing, and everyone's chatting. Malcolm is engrossed in trying to read that book he found, while Bram and Charlie lean over his shoulder and try to help him. From their collectively baffled expressions, it looks like they're not having much luck. Grinning, Taylor chuckles to himself again, and clambers into his tent.

"God, this is nearly impenetrable. How the hell did they read it back then?" Bram asks, frowning at the close-packed copperplate text.

"I think it's starting to make a bit more sense." Malcolm says, "Now that I've been reading it for a while. Give me a moment - this looks like a dedication." He traces his finger along the spidery text on a small square of paper pasted onto the inside cover.

Herein, being the ship's log of the Barque Polly Constance, so named for Miss Polly Constance Hadley, beloved daughter of Charles and Hilda. Martyred by the consumption, and taken from this life into the love of God on 12 April 1769. Requiescat in Pace.

"Presumably 'Rest in Peace'?" Charlie asks.

Malcolm nods, "Looks like the daughter died of tuberculosis. That's rather sad."

"Almost inevitable back then, though. Surviving it was pretty rare - if they weren't mega-rich and able to send her somewhere hot."

"Judging by the dates here, this log covers the last two voyages - it's not big enough to have the entire lifetime of the ship, and it's not full." Malcolm flips through pages, finding them blank from just after the middle of the book. "Don't expect me to start at the end, Bram. I'm not someone who goes to the last pages of a detective story to find out who the murderer was. I'd rather see if there's a reported position so that we know where they were when they were caught up in the portal. That's the only thing that could've happened based on what little witness information we have."

There's an air of reluctance in that comment. Seated nearby, Mira is quite convinced that he wants to do that not because he's keen to have a geographical position for the portal in the future - but because he's too afraid to read anything that might have been set down if there were survivors. After all, their prospects of surviving in this environment would've been nil - and their demise would've been horrible. Given his own experiences, that's the last thing that Malcolm would want to read. Whether Bram would see it that way, she can't be sure - but she's not got where she is by being oblivious to the emotions of others. Instead, she sits quietly, and waits for Malcolm to find the relevant entry. He won't understand the terminology, so it'll be down to her to calculate the position from the readings set down in the log.

After a while, he stops flipping pages, and sighs, "Here it is."

"What?" Mira asks, shifting to look at him, "The wormhole?"

Malcolm nods, "I've got a set of coordinates here - the last that were taken before it happened. According to the log, they took a westerly course to avoid bad weather - they'd had a report shouted across to them from an incoming merchantman that'd lost the top of one of its masts."

Intrigued, she comes to sit beside him, and notes the latitude and longitude, "It won't take me a moment. Have you got a map on your plex?"

Malcolm nods, and hands it over. It doesn't take her long, "Here - about halfway between Puerto Rico and Bermuda. They knew their weather - if they were facing a hurricane, they were going the right way about avoiding it. Unfortunately, it put them in the path of a wormhole instead."

He takes the plex back and looks at the mark she's made. It's slap bang in the middle of nowhere - there's nothing to indicate that the opening is anything but random. Their capture in it was sheer mischance, it seems. They wouldn't have seen it coming, wouldn't have expected it…nothing.

His expression rather shaken, Malcolm hands the book over to Mira, who sits and pores over the page, slowly deciphering the text.

All things reported normal until at the third quarter past the hour of six, there appeared a great light before us. With insufficient time to amend our course to avoid it, we sailed forth in hopes of passing through it and leaving it behind us. I noticed a strange sense of crackling-ness all about me, as though we were sailing through a storm, and the lightning danced about the tops of our masts - and a smell of equal strangeness. And then, in a mere instant, there was no sea, but instead a great ocean of sand, and all about me fell to starboard as the ship heeled over, for there was no water; only ground.

"Smell?" she asks, rather sobered by the description.

"Ozone, I think - it's a pretty pungent odour, and smells rather like chlorine." Bram says, "The crackling's probably static electricity - something akin to St Elmo's fire if the description of lightning around he masts is anything to go by. I'd expect to see that around a wormhole portal." Even he sounds rather subdued.

"How many people survived?" Charlie asks, quietly.

Mira scans the text again, "About twenty men out of a complement of sixty. It looks like most were killed by the cargo falling on them below decks, and one or two fell out of the rigging. Three were never found, so it's likely that they were lost overboard and remained behind in the ocean. If they didn't drown, then sharks would probably have got them."

"So it looks like the journey through the portal is survivable, then." Bram says, "If you're prepared for it and you know what to expect so you can protect yourself."

"The only problem is," Malcolm adds, "What happens to you when you get here if there's no one to meet you?"

Mira looks down at the book again, "I imagine this will tell us."

"I'm not sure I want to know."

"Okay, this is really weird." She says, reading on, "The ship owner survived as well, but he insisted that when they moved on in search of a settlement that they drag the figurehead with them. It's like he was so attached to it as the only remaining evidence of his daughter that he couldn't leave it behind."

They exchange glances; that must be how it got as far away from the portal as it did. It also shows just how much power Hadley must've had if he forced them to do something so utterly contrary to the rules of survival.

"They had no idea." Malcolm says, after a while, "They thought they could find a settlement. If he'd known there were no humans on the planet at all, perhaps he would've left it behind."

"As far as I can make out," Mira adds, "the Captain got them to break some of the ship down to make a sled of sorts, and they used that to drag the water kegs with them. Hadley wasn't thinking straight, but the Captain was."

Her voice is heavy with sarcasm; but only Malcolm picks up on her second meaning, as he sags a little. It feels horribly similar - he and Mira are a combination of the Captain - and Taylor is becoming Hadley.

Hopefully that doesn't mean that he'll lead them to their deaths, too.

The bonfire has burned down somewhat, but still gives off welcome warmth as the temperatures continue to drop. While its light isn't much help for those who are sitting around the logbook, the arc lamp above their heads solves that problem.

Of all those present, Mira seems to have the least trouble deciphering the astonishingly ornate cursive script, and so she is reading it aloud to everyone who wants to listen. A rather bizarre bedtime story that grows ever more macabre as she makes her way through the last days of the crew of the Polly Constance.

So far, they have made remarkable progress through hostile landscapes that offer no prospect of good hunting, or of water. The men are not, of course, habituated to desert environments, so they haven't the first idea where to look for that most vital survival element - relying instead upon the contents of the water kegs. None of them know that their efforts to find civilisation are 85 million years too early to be successful.

All they have left to eat is hard-tack, as their preserved supplies have inevitably spoiled in the brutal heat of the Badlands. That, and sun-warmed water are all that they have now. That and their as-yet unbroken hope of rescue.

The eagerness of the Captain to abandon the figurehead could not be clearer - but he's up against the owner of the ship, a man used to luxury and ease who has no idea how to survive in lean times. He assiduously records their arguments - presumably to present to Lloyds when they find a settlement and can arrange to make their way home.

"There's no mention of dinosaurs yet." Bram notes, intrigued.

"That doesn't surprise me." Mira advises, "There's no reason for Bambis in particular to come out this far - the lack of water and available prey tends to keep them near the waterholes and scrubland. They might come this far if there was a good reason to do it - like prey that justifies the expenditure of energy."

"Besides," Malcolm adds, "We're talking about people who lived at the end of the eighteenth century. Dinosaurs hadn't been discovered at that time - it was only in the nineteenth that people began to recognise fossils for what they were. They wouldn't know a dinosaur if it came up an introduced itself."

Mira resumes. Thanks to their water reserves, the party manage to continue for another six days, until - in the dark of the night - one of the crewmen is attacked by something they fail to see, and is dragged off out of sight. Everyone exchanges nervous glances at this; it seems that a bambiraptor has found them after all. Needless to say the Captain has not identified this mysterious predator - how could he, after all - and assumes it to be a leopard. On that basis, he assumes - erroneously - that he is in Africa.

By this point, a lot of people seem less keen to continue listening, and the group has shrunk considerably. In some ways Mira is convinced that the only people remaining are here in case the log mentions something that might help their quest. Not because there's a ghoulish voyeurism in hearing of that lost party's inevitably gruesome demise.

"It's definitely a bambi." She says, after a short pause to decipher a particularly illegible passage, "He describes it after two more days - 'a lizard that walked upon two legs, with a long tail - the size of a pony, or small horse. It watches and follows us, never closer than a half mile, but always there.' According to this, he still thinks they're in Africa - he's never been there so perhaps he thinks it's an undiscovered species of lizard."

After another day, there are two more: all following the beleaguered group, and it isn't long before another man is lost, then another. With only their crude sled, and the water kegs, they can't build fences and they can't build fires, so they have no protection from their hunters. Needless to say, morale drops to nothing, and everyone is afraid - though the Bosun proves to be a remarkably level-headed individual who reasons that the creatures can't jump or climb easily - and they take to making camp on rock platforms wherever they can. His guess is right - and thus they go for another four days without a death.

"It can't continue, can it?" Bram asks, sadly.

Mira shakes her head, "the writing's getting harder to read now; I think the water must be getting critical. Yes - they're down to two kegs, no sign of an oasis, no appreciation that they can find standing water in amongst the rocks. Ah."

"Ah?" Malcolm asks.

"The figurehead - the tension's come to a head. The captain and Hadley have had a roaring argument about abandoning it, and Hadley pulled a gun."

"Seriously?" Bram leans in, "Hell, he must've gone nuts or something."

"You won't like this, I think." Mira continues, "When Hadley attempted to shoot the Captain, the gun misfired and blew up in his hand. It blew off his hand and blinded him."

Everyone stares at her, open mouthed, but she resumes, "It gets worse, I'm afraid. That, on top of everything else, turns the whole thing into a complete mess. The rest of this entry is just a ramble - about how God is punishing them, and they have to appease him, so he decides to abandon the figurehead entirely, take what's left of the water and leave Hadley with his wooden daughter. But judging by this, I don't think it quite panned out like that. There's another hand here, and the writing's very different. I think one of the crewmen must've mutinied, or something - from what this says, they clubbed the Captain to death and tethered three crewmen who tried to defend him to the figurehead as well. And that's where it stops. I suppose the locked it up and abandoned it when they took off and left Hadley and the crewmen to die."

She looks up - everyone is staring at her, shocked.

"The ropes would be long gone by now - and it's a given that the bambis picked them off, or fed off their corpses when they died of thirst: which would explain the lack of bones here. But this is where we found that figurehead, so that last moment played out more or less where we are now."

She is not surprised to see that Malcolm looks particularly disturbed. The disintegration of that exploratory party is not that far removed from the collapse of the Phoenix encampment. Depletion of resources, collapse of discipline, madness, and death.

"They had no idea." he says, eventually, his voice low and very sad, "None. They assumed they'd find help - but there wasn't any to find."

Her expression equally sober, Mira closes the book, "There was; but that help was us - and we hadn't arrived yet."

A log shifts in the embers, sending a cascade of sparks skywards and rousing them all from their sombre contemplations. Somehow, the thought that their target can wreak such horrors upon innocent people makes it less of a natural phenomenon, and more of a capricious malevolence - lurking silently until it strikes, wrenching people from their lives into this place of misery and death. It's nonsense, of course; but it still feels that way. No-one says anything as they quietly disperse to their respective tents for the night.

Rolled up in his sleeping bag, Malcolm struggles to shut the horrible imaginings out of his mind. Having come close to dying of thirst himself, the thought of the sufferings of that lost group of men who had done nothing more than divert their course to avoid a storm is horribly close to the bone, and he can't stop thinking about it. He's very tired - but the speed of those thoughts turning over and over just won't let him sleep. Cross with himself, he turns over again, and punches his pillow - as though that's going to help - and tries to settle.

Only to be yanked violently back to awareness by the blast of a sonic pistol, followed by a horrible, agonised scream.