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‘Fleshwhat?’

‘The Annarene are skinny orange things with knobbly exoskeletons – like big, mobile Twiglets. Those two are wearing fleshsuits.’ He came to an abrupt halt and turned to face her, smiling grimly at his own joke: ‘Wolves in sheep’s clothing, you might say.’ He started walking again, hearing the footsteps of the Annarene close behind, as they reached the foot of Graystairs’

stone steps. ‘The missing sheep, Ace,’ he explained as he saw her puzzlement. ‘Their regenerator must be malfunctioning, and they need a lot of replacement biomatter to keep their fleshsuits in good condition.’ He muttered something else, but Ace was too busy remembering the stench of decay and the coffin device in the Orcadian tweedies’ cottage. She felt sick.

‘So they’re wearing costumes made up of dead animals?’

‘Frogs and snails and puppydogs’ tails. Not to mention cats and sheep. And anything else organic that they can find.’

Anything else organic. And she’d left John and Alexander all alone.

It was unfair. Unfair and cruel. Joyce watched her sleeping mother and tried not to let herself cry again. Despite all Doctor Menzies’ kind words about how Mum was responding to the treatment, her earlier outburst somehow seemed to erase all that, plunging Joyce back into a despair that she thought she’d left behind. But what she knew she could never leave behind were the things she’d said to her mum. Harsh words can never be taken back her gran used to say. It didn’t matter that Mum had been having ‘one of her funny fits’, that she probably wouldn’t remember what her daughter had said. The words were said, the genie out of the bottle.

She watched her mother breathing slowly, occasionally, muttering in her sleep. Her eyes flickered around under her lids, but Joyce didn’t want to know what dreams – or nightmares –

were being acted out in her head. Her own were more than enough.

She wished she could summon up some joy, some gratitude for this new lease of life that her mother seemed on the point of taking up. But she felt like a spiteful, ungenerous child: here Mum was, responding well to a treatment that might rid her of the Alzheimer’s, and all she could think about was how she’d wished the heart attack had killed her.

The cellar kitchen in Graystairs seemed an unlikely location for the gathering that Sooal was currently presiding over. He stood, patiently, whilst the Tuiks trooped in, led by the confident figure that, for the last three years, had gone by the name of Eddie.

Some walked erect and proud, cruel, smug smiles on their faces as they revelled quietly in their restored memories. One or two still seemed slightly confused, as they sifted the memories of the last few years, shunting them aside – sometimes almost reluctantly – in favour of their original memories, their real memories. And Sooal could still read disappointment in one or two faces – disappointment that they’d been awoken from a dreamless sleep to find that their bodies had aged and shrunk, that their empire had been swept away, and that they were stranded on an insignificant world with only Sooal’s promises to give them hope for the future.

But Sooal had no pity for them. They’d already lived lives over twice as long as he could expect to live. And it was their genetic science, their interference, that meant he’d be dead in less than five years. Without their unwitting help, of course. If any of them saw the sneer that he tried to hide, they didn’t react.

He looked around them, gathered in an uncomfortable circle, leaning against the worktops, one or two perched on the benches.

‘It is an honour to have served you,’ he began, lowering his head deferentially. As he raised it, he caught sight of a couple of contemptuous looks. He knew that some there regarded him as dirt, an insect that had dragged itself above its station. He had to fight the temptation to remind them that, without him, they’d still be drooling in their beds, shouting at the staff and crying themselves to sleep in the middle of the night.

‘Where