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Grandfather snorted. 'I am not from a flying saucer! What would be the point of that? You'll be seeing flying teacups and creeping pepperpots next, and a whole animated dinner service. The human race's capacity for believing silly things is one of its least appealing traits.'

'You lost me miles back,' said Zack. 'Flying saucers?'

'Grandfather,' I said, 'you must help these people.'

'Of course, Susan. Just wait until I've sorted things out for the Cold and I'll give it some thought.'

'They'll be dead ... extinct!'

'Yes, quite possibly. Not my fault, though. Not our business, Susan. You know that as well as I do. We're not to meddle, remember. Time must take its course.'

I felt in Grandfather's mind. His fog-patches were bigger than mine.

Things were missing. And imperatives burned, stronger with age. He might have been a habitual rule-breaker, but he was set in his ways.

I was angry. This was not his character. This had been done to him.

'It's not fair.' I said. 'What did these people do to deserve extinction?'

Grandfather considered my friends as specimens.

'These individuals? Nothing at all, so far as I know. As for this human race, well ... consider the record. When the Cold was sole tenant, this was a peaceful planet, devoted to abstract thought, to learning and expression. Since the rise of mammal bipeds, there's been a lot of squabbling and blood-letting and general brouhaha. Best thing for the universe if our chilly friend takes up where he left off and got on with his business. The Cold built living ice cathedrals, and could sculpt on the level of an individual snowflake. Have you ever seen anything as perfect as a snowflake?'

'Yes,' I said, pointing at Malcolm.

Grandfather considered the little boy. Malcolm tried a smile. He had no front teeth.

'Very nice, I'm sure.'

He got back to the dials and switches.

'Now, be off with you all,' he said, 'and let me get on with my work.'

A fissure in my mind cracked open, leaking memories and pain. The primary rule of non-interference had been impressed upon me, as it had been impressed upon Grandfather. It was instinct and implant and tradition. Our heritage is of awesome power, the ability to master time and space, but our cultural imperative is not to use that power in any but the most trivial ways. To think anything different is to risk madness and mindwipe.

Grandfather and I had run away, had broken all of the rules. Except one.

We did not meddle. We observed.

Nothing we did affected anything.

I held my head and doubled over, leaning against the Box.

'What's wrong with Suze?' asked Zack.

'She gets these headaches,' said Gillian. 'She goes away sometimes, into the Twilight Zone.'

'She's from the Twilight Zone,' said John. 'Haven't you been paying attention? Her and this old man. They're not from here. They're not like us. They're not human. It's why the ice let her through, why it hasn't hurt her. The Cold Knights are after us, human beings. She isn't one. It has nothing against her.'

My head hurt so much I couldn't speak.

Gillian stood and thought, mulling over what John had said, over what she was seeing and hearing. Of them all, she was the sharpest, quickest to grasp what was happening.

I gritted my teeth and fought the pain.

'Sir,' said Gillian, addressing Grandfather as if he were a teacher she wanted to get around. 'May I ask a question?'

'Ask away. I shan't promise to give you an answer you can comprehend, though.'

'Could you stop the Cold Knights if you wanted to? Make them go away?'

'It's an it, not a them. Singular, not plural. I thought I'd made that entirely clear.'

'But could you?'

Grandfather pondered a moment. 'Oh yes, I think so. Quite a simple problem. This gadget turned the other way could siphon much of the cold force. Exacerbate the unintended effect of my time-space machine and drain off almost all of the Cold's energies. Make it draw in its horns, as it were. The animus could be localised, perhaps even confined to a single snowflake. An ice crystal