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The guard thought he knew the passenger's face. Surely he had seen the man on television, or his pictures in the newspaper. 'Your ticket, sir,' he repeated.

'Oh, yes.' The passenger fumbled for his ticket and produced it.

His face was flushed, and he didn't seem at all well.

As the guard clipped the ticket he asked, 'Feeling all right, sir?'

'A bit tired,' said the man. 'Why is the train going so slowly?'

'No idea,' said the guard. Then he heard the familiar sound of the train's wheels bumping over points. He crossed to the compartment window, and looked out. 'They're putting us into a siding, sir,' he said, bewildered by this. The train again lurched to a stop.

The passenger also looked out of the window. 'Where are we?'

'Somewhere near Peterborough, I think,' said the guard.

'I must get to London immediately!' The passenger suddenly stood up and reached for his brief-case. 'Let me get by.'

'We're going to London,' said the guard.

'No, we're not,' said the passenger. 'You just said it yourself, they've put us into a siding. Let me get by.'

The passenger pushed by the guard to get to the corridor.

'You can't leave the train, sir,' called the guard. 'It's against the regulations. Only at recognised stations.'

But the passenger was already halfway down the corridor and was opening one of the doors. 'I have an important meeting to attend.

I must get to London by some other means.'

The guard wanted to follow the passenger, to stop him from getting down on to the line. But somehow he felt terribly tired. He felt his forehead and decided he was running a temperature. It was strictly against regulations, but he turned and went back into the compartment and slumped down into one of the comfortable first-class seats. His ticket-clippers slipped from his fingers on to the floor. Then he blacked out.

Morka sat on what had been Okdel's special chair in the inner room. K'to entered.

'You summoned me,' said K'to.

'I have just inspected the caves,' said Morka. 'There are humans present, with weapons. Why are they not all dead?'

'Not all were killed instantly,' said K'to, 'even in our time.'

'Do not say "our time"!' thundered Morka. 'This is our time.'

'It is possible,' said K'to, with all the respect due to the new leader, 'that the virus may take longer with these new apes.'

'Or have they developed an antidote?'

'That is beyond their intelligence,' said K'to, more to please Morka than because he believed it himself. 'We need a human specimen in order to observe the effects of the virus. If necessary I might be able to develop a more virulent strain.'

'Then I shall return to the caves,' said Morka, 'and capture one of these humans with weapons.'

'There is another possibility,' said K'to. 'Could we not capture the creature that took the virus from Okdel?'

'How?'

'We know they have this special place,' said K'to, 'deep in the ground and close to our shelter. The shortest distance between one place and another is a straight line.'

Morka was pleased with this idea. 'The rock melts easily,' he said. 'We made the tunnel to bring in air without difficulty.' He rose from the chair. 'We shall start now.'

Jock Tangye had never driven his hire-car to London before in all his years in business. Ile was just sitting down to a knife-and-fork tea with his wife when there was a banging on his front door. A man stood on his white-washed doorstep, very well dressed but wild-eyed, and said, 'Do you run a taxi?'

'Yes,' said Jock, 'but I'm having my tea.'

'I'll give you ten pounds to drive me to London immediately,'

said the man. 'Or twenty if you want.'

Jock didn't even bother to drink his cup of tea. Normally he drove villagers to go shopping in Peterborough, and charged them fifty pence each. Twenty pounds was his average weekly income.

'Don't I know your face?' he asked his passenger as they set off.

'Probably,' said the man, then seemed to doze off in the back seat.

Jock made his way to the Al and headed south. Ninety minutes later he was hemmed in by fast-moving traffic going over the Brent