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Grandfather gave Malcolm what seemed like a pair of metal skippingrope handles attached to cables that wound into the machine.

'Now, Malcolm ... make a wish.'

Malcolm closed his eyes.

There was a quiet moment, when the storm outside seemed to fade.

'Motive power has to come from somewhere,' Grandfather lectured. 'In this instance, our young friend Malcolm. I shouldn't be surprised if he were born with a caul. He has a capacity most of you people lose as you grow up. With these spectacles, I can see the last of it vaguely shimmering around John, Gillian and Zack. But it's a shining bubble around Malcolm. Its focus isn't his brain, but his heart. Susan, there are advantages to having only one heart. A reason we are discouraged from having feelings is that the ancients were correct to locate the emotion in the heart. You have already found out how troublesome it can be to have two or more feelings jostling for attention inside your ribcage. Energy is dissipated. What we are attempting here is a feat of concentration.'

A great chord tooted out of the organ-pipes.

Malcolm opened his eyes and put the handles down. 'Is it done?' he asked.

Grandfather patted his head and looked to us for approval.

Then the cataclysm started.

All the ice in Foreman's Yard exploded into diamond-shards and flew at us. I covered my head with my arms.

'Keep wishing,' Grandfather ordered, thrusting the handles back at Malcolm.

The murderous hail vanished, reconstituted as ice. Then the explosion came again. And was taken back, and came again.

As Grandfather had said, the Cold was trapped inside seconds. A timesnatch playing over and over. On the fifth or sixth replay, hail-claws scratched me.

The Cold was resisting Grandfather's enspherement.

'You three, human children, come here,' ordered Grandfather. 'Who knows how to play the organ?'

John and Gillian looked aghast at each other.

All the ice in Foreman's Yard exploded into diamond-shards and flew at us. I covered my head with my arms.

'I was in a skiffle band once,' said Zack.

'Capital, capital. Take the higher registers. That's this keyboard here. Set up a roundelay effect, something like Ravel's "Bolero" ... '

'Don't know that number.'

'Maurice Ravel was a French composer,' put in John, annoyed. 'The "Bolero" is his most famous work.'

'Can you play it on the joanna?'

John shook his head.

'Then the set-list is up to me, Mars-man.'

All the ice in Foreman's Yard exploded into diamond-shards and flew at us.

I felt the beginnings of a fatal flaying, but they were taken back.

'Stop bickering,' said Grandfather. 'Anything simple and repetitive will do, Zack.'

Zack edged Malcolm to one side, and began to lay down a bass line.

'Now, you two, let's see what you can do.'

Grandfather took John and Gillian's hands and wrapped them around Malcolm's knotted little fists.

'Think of warm summer days,' he told them. 'Tropical beaches, heatstrokes, burning buildings, the surface of Mercury, the heart of the sun. Don't just think, imagine! You've not lost your shining yet, though it's in a sorry state.'

All the ice in Foreman's Yard exploded into diamond-shards and flew at us.

It was as if I'd been shot through with cold shrapnel. Then, it wasn't.

I could see what the spectacles helped Grandfather see in Malcolm, a kind of golden glow inside his chest, pulsing out through his whole body, lighting up the inside of his skin, pouring through his eyes, nostrils and mouth. John and Gillian, to a lesser extent, were the same.

The machine was shaking and tooting through its steam-whistle.

Zack, transported by his simple bass line, began to throw in improvised flourishes.

'Susan, I want you to do something very important,' said Grandfather. He was tugging at switches and levers. 'Both my hands are busy.'

'Yes, Grandfather.'

'Put some tea on would you, my dear.'

All the ice in Foreman's Yard exploded ...

And folded in on itself, funnelling into a glittering spiral, like a huge seashell, then coiled and dwindled, sucking