David Clarke

The Second Nexus

Chapters 8-11

Chapter Eight

I don't think I would want to join a monastery under any circumstances. We spent quite a while in and around the monastery whose parent house was the great Monastery of Ste-Odile in Oberehnheim, and the first word to spring to my mind if asked to describe our stay would be 'boring', closely followed by 'dull', 'tedious', repetitive' and so on. Perhaps if we had attended all the services – seven or eight every day, with extra ones on Sundays and saints' days – I'd feel different, but then again perhaps I wouldn't. The monks gave the impression of being content with their life here, though, so clearly it must have had something going for it.

Still, I really can't complain: the monks provided us with food and shelter, and we ourselves supplied the tank, which at least allowed us a place to escape and relax and do anything else that seemed appropriate every couple of days. We played cards a lot; I played chess with Marc; everyone who could read English borrowed the two Köninger books at one time or another; and a couple of times we went down into Schlettstadt, though as we had no Imperial money we couldn't do anything in the shops there but look.

At the end of February the abbot came to visit, and we were all on our very best behaviour for the two days that he was there: we stayed away from the tank and Alain kept his cards out of sight. But in fact he turned out to be a lot less of an ogre than I had been expecting, and he even stayed in the lounge with us for long enough to give Marc and me a game of chess, which the abbot won comfortably.

The monks had built a large mound of earth where the portal to the Grey world had stood in order to prevent it from forming, at least for the next six months or so. At the end of that period Brother Paul told me that they would clear the mound and allow the portal to form again so that they could measure the levels of radiation, and after that they would have to decide whether to allow the portal to remain accessible in future or not.

Just after the abbot's visit Stefan had his fourteenth birthday. I didn't have the ingredients for a cake this time, and nor could I buy them, so I had to settle for promising him the best cake I have ever baked once we got home, or otherwise found ourselves in a country where I could buy ingredients and do some baking. I couldn't give him a proper present, either, though I did make sure that he chose exactly what we were going to do during our session in the tank that afternoon. Not that he wanted to do anything I didn't want as well…

There were more birthdays on the horizon, too: Oli, Radu and Nicolas all had birthdays coming up in April. All three would be turning thirteen, even though Oli still looked much younger than that. And I found myself wondering if we would still be stuck here when my own fourteenth birthday came round in June – life seemed to be passing us by while we were stuck in this limbo.

But ten days after Stefan's birthday Brother Paul told me that there was a new portal starting to form. He wasn't sure which one it was, because both the machine world one and the one to the green world generally appeared in roughly the same place, though it would become apparent which one it was once it had finished forming, because the green world one was slightly nearer the monastery but faced away from it, while the machine world one was slightly further away but faced towards the monastery.

While the new portal was still forming we ran to our rooms and packed our bags. We thought that this time we might as well take all the vehicles – Brother Paul had no advice for us either way – and so we got them all started. Both the tank and the jeep started straight away, even though neither engine had been started since our first arrival, which was a tribute to the efficiency of Grey batteries. We drove a short way up the valley and stopped, confident that we would be ready to move as soon as the portal was fully formed: since we didn't know how long this one would last we didn't want to waste time once it was ready to be used.

Eventually the portal stabilised. Two of the brothers went into it – and it was facing the monastery, and so was presumably the one to the machine world – and had a quick look round before returning to tell us that there didn't seem to be any obvious problems on the other side: all their monitoring devices showed that it was safe to go through.

I said "Thank you" once again to Brother Paul, and he wished us luck, telling us again that we would be welcome to return if we couldn't find another portal, but warning us that nobody knew when the portal might reappear: sometimes in the past it had made appearances only days apart, and sometimes months went by without it materialising. But I wasn't going to be dissuaded now, not after we'd been waiting for so long, and so I drove the jeep forward into the mist, the other two vehicles following close behind me.

There were no buildings in view as we came out of the mist, so I drove on, swung wide to avoid going back through the portal and drove down the valley until I reached the point where our normal route towards Orschwiller swung off to the left to follow the contours of the hill, and here I stopped.

"I think we should scout forwards a bit," I said. "We want to know what sort of a world this is before we charge blindly into it. So I want you all to wait here while Stefan and I check out what's in front of us. Alain, you're in charge: if we don't come back you'd probably better head back to the monastery before the portal disappears."

"Yeah, right. Obviously we'll just leave you two to get shot or locked up or eaten by things with lots of teeth."

"I'm serious, Alain. If this world is dangerous there's no reason for it to get all of us, is there?"

"Of course not," he said, though the way he said it made me suspect that if anything happened to us he'd be coming after us, rather than retreating. But I didn't think any of the others, except maybe the Greys, would be likely to act differently, and so I let it drop.

I drove off along the side of the hill. There wasn't a proper track here, but the trees were fairly widely spaced and so I was able to weave around them without too much trouble. However, as we approached the last section before the road – if there was going to be a road in this world – the trees became more numerous and grew closer together, and it became difficult to find a way through.

"We'll never get the truck through here," I said. "Or the tank. We'll have to leave them where they are and walk, unless we can find another way through."

In the end we abandoned the jeep and went forward on foot, and we found that in this world the road was no more than a barely-discernable path – in fact I might have been imagining that there was a path there at all. We tried casting up and down, looking for a place where we could get the jeep through, but it seemed to be impossible, and in the end we gave up and used the bearings in Stefan's notebook to strike out for Orschwiller on foot. In fact there was no Orschwiller in this world, but when we emerged from the trees and had a view out over the plain we understood why the monks had christened this place 'the machine world'.

Against the foot of the mountains were vineyards, just as there were in the Empire and some of the other worlds we had seen, but beyond them was a town – Machine Sélestat, presumably – and between the vineyards and the town was a broad thoroughfare with vehicles rushing along it in both directions. Beyond the motorway was a railway line, on which we could see a sleek train running, and in the air there were flying machines – helicopters of some sort, to judge from their comparative lack of speed.

Stefan focused his binoculars on the town and told me that there were people there, and he thought they were humans rather than Greys. There didn't seem to be any particular reason for us not to proceed: as far as we could see there were no soldiers or war machines, and life appeared to be going on normally. So we made our way back to where we had abandoned the jeep, turned it round (eventually) and drove back to where we had left the others.

"Everything looks okay," I reported. "But we can't take the vehicles, because further on the trees are too close together, so we're going to leave them here."

"I think we should try to camouflage them a bit," suggested Stefan. "Park them under the trees, hide them with branches, that sort of thing. They have flying machines in this world, and it might be sensible to hide the fact that we've been here until we know more about this place."

So we did that, parking the three vehicles close to trees and using fallen branches to break up their outline. And then Stefan paused once more.

"Do you think it would be safer to ask the Greys to stay here?" he asked. "We've been lucky the last couple of times: the monks were used to Grey visitors, and Vogesia was very relaxed… but can you imagine what Master Farmer would have said if we'd turned up at his door with a bunch of 'demons' in tow? We'd probably all have been lynched. I can guess what sort of reception they'd have got in my world, too, and they wouldn't have enjoyed it. So I think we ought to go and check things out and then come back for them if it looks okay. What do you think?"

"I think you're talking sense as usual," I said, and I went and suggested to Torth that it might be best if they waited here while we went and found out what sort of a reception they might get.

"Well, okay," agreed Torth. "We've still got plenty of tinned meat, so we won't starve, and it's not too cold here. Don't be too long, though."

"I should think we'll be able to come and find you later today, or tomorrow at the latest, if everything looks okay. If we're not back by tomorrow evening, it probably means the people here wouldn't react well to you, and if that's the case you can either wait for us here or go back and wait at the monastery. But you could have a look round for other portals before going back if you like. Leave me a note in the jeep if you decide not to wait here – I can read your language if you keep it simple."

The rest of us packed our bags with a change of clothing and a few other essentials, leaving the rest of our kit in the truck, and then set off once more, taking the same route that Stefan and I had done in the jeep, except that when we reached the edge of the trees we just kept going, down through the vineyards and on across the plain towards Machine Sélestat. It was about seven or eight kilometres [4½-5 miles] from the edge of the trees to the town, but it was flat most of the way, and we reached the outskirts of the town in about an hour and a half.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of cars in the street. There were some small electric (or otherwise almost silent) mopeds, but otherwise the only vehicles were trams and trolley-buses. And I couldn't read the names of the shops we passed, because they were written in an alphabet I'd never seen before: I could tell that it wasn't Greek or Russian, and it wasn't Hebrew, Kerpian or Roman either.

The pedestrians we passed – and there weren't many – were mostly men, and they were all soberly dressed in dark colours, wearing what appeared to be old-fashioned raincoats that looked strange to my eyes because they had a high collar but no lapels. Some of them were also wearing hats that resembled trilbies. And several of the passers-by stared at us as they went by, probably because the clothes we were wearing looked so different from theirs.

As we were approaching the town centre we were stopped by a man in a grey and black uniform. He was wearing a red armband that had a device of two black swords, parallel to each other and pointing upwards, on it, and I suppose he was a policeman, though I couldn't understand a word of what he said to us.

"Sorry," I said in English. "I can't understand. Do you speak English?"

Clearly he didn't. He tried another language instead, and this one sounded like a distant relation of Kerpian, so I replied in that language and got another blank look. Next he tried something that, though clearly a different language, was still completely incomprehensible to me. His fourth attempt was Russian, and his fifth was German, and at that point we had a communication medium, though not by any means a perfect one because the policeman's German was very sketchy. I left the talking on our side to Stefan, whose German was far superior to mine, though I was able to understand a little of the conversation.

The policeman wanted to know who we were and where we came from, so Stefan gave him our names and said that we had been walking and had got lost in the hills. The policeman then told him to hold out his left arm, and when he did so the man pulled a short metal rod from his belt and ran it over Stefan's arm, before looking up and asking why he had no ID. And Stefan could only shrug, because it was obvious that the sort of ID the policeman was looking for wasn't written on a piece of paper.

And things went sharply downhill from that point. I suppose I'd been lucky so far: although I'd been through ten or eleven worlds by now, the only one that seemed to be hot on ID before this had been Stefan's world, and I hadn't come into contact with the authorities there. Here it was a big issue, and within a few minutes the cop had whistled up a police van and we had been bundled inside and taken off to a police station in the town centre.

It was quickly established that none of us had an ID chip in his left forearm, as was apparently the norm here, and that led to a preliminary interrogation, in the course of which Stefan was obliged to admit that we had come from another world. However, he maintained that he didn't know how it had happened, and gave the impression that the crossover had taken place rather further north than was actually the case: he didn't want the apparently unfriendly local authorities to find the Greys, because he was sure, judging from his knowledge of his own world, that they wouldn't be treated at all well if their presence in this world was discovered.

And at that point we were parked in a large cell and left for a couple of hours while the cops tried to work out what to do with us.

"What are we going to do?" asked Alain in Kerpian: we'd already established that none of the policemen understood that language.

"We'll have to stick with the story Stefan gave them," I said. "We're friends and we were out walking in the mountains north of here…"

Stefan pulled out the local map he'd managed to obtain from Brother Paul, and we studied it for a few moments.

"Okay," I said. "We were walking from Oberehnheim to Breitenbach, but we got lost somewhere around Der Hochwald, and when we came out of the mist we decided that it would be best just to head east to get out of the mountains; and when we came out on the plain we just made for the nearest town – this one. Last night we stayed at the monastery in Oberehnheim – we can describe Father Abbot to them if they're in any doubt, and if we keep them looking in that direction they won't stumble into Torth and the others."

I gave Marc and Nicolas the same story in English, which again seemed to be a language nobody here spoke. I thought that a bit surprising: it was hard to imagine a world in which the USA wasn't a significant power, even if Britain was less important here. And then there was nothing to do except wait.

After a couple of hours Stefan was called out on his own, and the rest of us sat around talking quietly, playing cards and re-reading one of the Köninger books until it began to get dark outside. Shortly after that we were each given what appeared to be a microwaved meal of some sort (none of us could read the label) and a plastic spoon to eat it with, and when I mimed drinking they gave us a couple of large jugs of water and some thin plastic cups. After another couple of hours we were taken out of the large cell and put into some much smaller ones, two to a cell. I'd hoped to save the second mattress in my cell for Stefan, who still hadn't come back, but instead Nicolas was pushed in with me and the door was slammed behind him.

"I bet you're wishing you'd stayed in Vogesia now," I commented.

"Not really. I'm sure this won't last too long, and it's a bit of an adventure, isn't it?"

"I've had a few too many adventures," I replied. "All I want is a portal that'll take me back to Elsass or Kerpia – I won't mind at all if I don't have to visit any other places on the way. Last time something like this happened to me I ended up as a slave labourer stoking a furnace all day long, and I really don't want to go through that again."

"Really? What happened?"

Telling Nicolas the story of my earlier travels passed the time, and even hearing about my time in the mine or being shot at by Grey soldiers didn't seem to put him off the idea of staying with us.

"Okay, I guess it was dangerous," he said when I finished, "but all I've done since my father died is go to school and gut fish. I was happy to take the risk when I hid in your truck, and I'll put up with whatever happens here, because pretty much anything is going to be better than the fish factory."

We took off our shoes and lay down next to each other. The mattresses were thin and covered with thick plastic, and so they weren't very comfortable, and neither were the equally hard pillows. But we had a blanket each, and by huddling together and putting them both over both of us we managed to get warm enough to fall asleep in the end.

I woke up next morning to find that I had an erection, and that there was a boy cuddled up close against me. I'd snuggled up even closer to him before I remembered where I was and that the boy wasn't Stefan, but even when this dawned on me my erection showed no sign of repenting of this betrayal: it stayed hard and went on twitching. After all, Nicolas was quite a good-looking boy, and now that the smell of fish had more or less disappeared…

And then I felt ashamed of myself. I loved Stefan, and allowing myself to get aroused like this by someone else was inexcusable. I disentangled myself from Nicolas's arms and drew back, and in the process I woke him up. He peered at me blearily and smiled.

"Morning, Jake," he said, sleepily. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Yes, thanks," I said, hoping the tent in my jeans wasn't too obvious.

"Looks like the smell has finally worn off, then, because you wouldn't have been able to sleep right next to me like that a couple of weeks back. I never got any invitations from the other boys to sleep over, and none of them wanted to come stay in my shack, either. And I can't say I blame them. I'm glad to hear that I'm socially acceptable again."

He rolled onto his back and slid a hand down inside his jeans.

"These clothes are definitely warmer than my robe was," he said, "but it's a bit uncomfortable getting a stiffy in them. I see it's happened to you, too – I'm glad I'm not the only one."

He got himself more comfortable and rolled over to face me again. "That happens to me most mornings," he said. "I don't know why – I can't remember any particularly sexy dreams. What about you? Do you have nice dreams?"

"Sometimes," I admitted. "But it seems to get hard every day, whatever I dream about. I suppose it's just because I'm going through puberty."

"Me, too. So what would you like to dream about?"

That was a bit personal, coming from someone I didn't really know very well. He knew that Stefan and I were good friends, of course: he'd been around our camp in Vogesia long enough for that to be obvious. But we hadn't done anything in public to indicate that we were anything more than that – we'd kept that for when we were alone in our tent.

"This and that. What about you?" I said, hoping to deflect him.

"Oh, no – I asked first!"

"Sorry. I get embarrassed easily."

"Oh. Well… see… look, Jake, when I stowed away in your truck… see, it wasn't just that I was fed up of the fish factory and wanted something more… well, I was fed up of it, that and being treated like a joke at school… but… well, it was more than that. See, you were always nice to me when I came round to your camp, and that last night you and Stefan even let me share your tent, even though I still stank of fish guts. And you never even mentioned it… so… well… I really like you, Jake. I think you're kind and decent, and… and good-looking, too…"

He broke off, looking at the floor.

"You really think I'm good-looking?" I said. "Aren't you thinking of Stefan there? He's the perfect one – I'm just a nerdy kid in glasses."

"No, you're not! Okay, I suppose Stefan does look good if you like blond, blue-eyed surfer types, but I think personality is really important, too, and yours is really nice. And actually I think you are good-looking: you've got nice hair, and when you smile you look… well, special, somehow…"

He looked away again. By now I think I'd got the message, but I still found it unbelievable that anyone could think me good-looking – I still half-believed that Stefan was pretending when he said so – and so I thought I had to make sure Nicolas was saying what I thought he was.

"Are you saying you dream about me?" I asked, finding it hard to keep the disbelief out of my voice.

"Yes," he said, still looking at the floor. "Sometimes. And I'd like to more often. I'd really like us to be friends."

"Well, we are friends, aren't we?"

"No, I mean… of course we're friends, but… well, I'd like to be more than friends…"

"Oh." I tried to think of a nice way to turn him down, but I'd never been in that situation before: whatever Nicolas and Stefan might say, I'm simply not the sort of boy that has to beat suitors off. Quite the reverse. "Well, look…"

"It's okay," he said, quietly. "I know I'm nothing special: if it hadn't been for the fishy smell, I don't think anyone at school would have even known who I was. I'm just boring and ordinary. And I know I'm younger than you, too. I understand."

"No, you don't. To start with I don't think you're boring at all – in fact, I think you're pretty unusual, not only managing to fend for yourself back in Vogesia, but in having the courage to come with us even though you had no idea what was beyond the portal. And you've got beautiful eyes, too: our friend Hansi back in Elsass has eyes that same shade of green, but yours look even better because you've got nice long lashes, too."

"Do you really think so? I don't like them – I think they're a sort of grungy green."

"Trust me, they're not. But… well, I can't… you know, be friends with you like that, because… well, I'm sort of spoken for."

"Oh! You mean, you and Stefan…?"

"That's right. We've been together for a long time now…"

"I see. But that doesn't mean you can't do… you know… with anyone else, does it? A lot of people have more than one partner where I come from."

"It's sort of like that in some of the other places I've been, too. But in my world – and in Stefan's – it's normal for you to only have one partner at a time."

"Well, maybe here it isn't like that. And I'd really like it if… I mean, we wouldn't have to do anything too… you know…"

I looked at him: the 'grungy green' eyes were now puppy dog eyes, too, and I thought this might turn out to be a problem, not just because I thought Stefan might smack him one if he came sniffing around too blatantly, but because he really was good-looking, and if I was left in the same room as him for too long… well, let's just say that thirteen-year-old boys like me are permanently horny, and I didn't know how long I would be able to resist. Or even if I should resist – after all, he was right when he said that exclusive relationships were not the norm in several of the worlds I had visited…

I dragged my eyes away and gave myself an imaginary slap around the face.

"Look, Nicolas…"

"Call me Nicky!"

"Okay, Nicky… I like you a lot, okay? It's just that I don't want to do anything… you know, sexual, with you right now…"

"So you might want to later?"

"No! I mean, probably not… I mean, no, not while Stefan and I… hell, Nicky, you know what I mean. I'm a one-boy boy, and Stefan's that boy, okay?"

"Okay. But we don't have to do anything sexy – I mean, it would be okay if we sort of hug, wouldn't it? I've seen you do that with some of the others."

"Well, yes, I suppose so, but…"

"Good." And before I could do anything he threw his arms around me and hugged me, and it was impossible for me not to hug him back. He held me for a few seconds and then gave me a quick peck on the cheek and stepped away, smiling at me. And he looked so nice like that that I simply couldn't be angry with him.

"If we can do that sometimes I suppose it'll do for now," he said.

"You'd better not do that when Stefan's around," I warned him.

"Don't worry, I won't."

I thought that would be the end of it, but a couple of minutes later he undid his trousers, sticking his hand back inside his underwear.

"I still can't get comfortable," he said. "I'm just not used to wearing underwear, or trousers, come to that. I had an old pair of football shorts at home, but they didn't squash it the way these trousers do. I suppose it's just too big when it gets hard."

He slipped his trousers and pants down to his knees.

"It is quite big, considering that I won't be thirteen until next month, isn't it, Jake?" he said, showing it to me. "And I've got some proper hairs, too, look. I'm bigger than Eddie, and I've got more hair than Bobby, and it's three times the size of Jeff's. What do you think?"

I thought it looked good: it wasn't a lot smaller than mine, and he did indeed have some proper little hairs. And it was really hard, too. However…

"Get dressed, Nicky," I said. "Yes, it's big, and hard, and it looks good, but if you don't get dressed I'm going to bang on the door and demand to be taken to a different cell, okay?"

"Okay," he said, pulling his pants up. "But I'll have to adjust it if it gets uncomfortable again."

He finished doing his trousers up and came and sat next to me on the mattresses, which I had piled on top of each other to give us a bit more of a cushion.

"I'm sorry for teasing you like that," he said. "I won't really do it again, I promise. I don't want to annoy you, or you might stop liking me."

The fact that his display had given me another erection made it impossible for me to pretend I hadn't enjoyed the show, so I just said nothing. And fortunately a minute or so later the door opened and one of the policemen came in carrying a tray that held two plastic cups of coffee and two plastic bowls of what proved to be a particularly bland and lumpy porridge. I was hungry, and so I ate it, and by the time I had finished eating my penis was behaving itself again.

"What do you think is going to happen to us?" Nicolas asked. "Will they just let us go?"

"If we're lucky. If not they'll hang onto us while they try to find the portal, though I should think there's a good chance it will have disappeared by now. I'd sooner they didn't find the Greys, though, because that would complicate things."

An hour or so later the door opened again and we were beckoned out into the corridor and taken back to the large cell we had been in the previous afternoon, and here I found a hollow-eyed Stefan waiting for me.

"I was up most of the night," he told me. "They've got translation programs on their computers like the ones in Elsass, and they had me translating stuff into Kerpian for hours. I decided to go with Kerpian because six of us speak it fluently, where only you and Nicolas are really completely fluent in English."

"There's not much wrong with yours, or Marc's."

"Thanks, but we both know it's a long way from perfect, and Alain and Radu in particular hardly understand it at all. So they've prepared a translation program from their language to Kerpian, and you or I can do a translation into English for Marc and Nicolas."

So we sat and waited, and after a few minutes three policemen came into the cell, one of whom was pushing a trolley with a computer on it. He set it up and got it running, and then one of his colleagues sat down in front of it and stuck a headset with a microphone on his head.

I was struck by the fact that all three cops had red hair, and wondered idly what the odds were against that. And then the one with the headset started to speak, and the computer speakers obediently reproduced a Kerpian translation for us. It wasn't perfect: I'd have been astonished if it had been, after only one night's work – but it was good enough for us to understand the basics of what the officer was saying.

"Can you understand me?" was the first thing he said, and I replied in Kerpian that I could. The computer presumably translated that back, and the officer nodded.

"You have a problem," he told us. "You have entered our territory without permission, you failed to use a recognised port of entry, and you're not carrying any form of identification chip. And the paper documents your friend showed us are meaningless. You don't speak any of the languages of our Confederation, and the only recognisable language any of you can speak is one from a country with whom our relations are at best strained. We may not be at war with the German Empire at the moment, but there are strict limits on the movement of German nationals on our soil, the more so since the Kaiser concluded his recent treaty with the Tsar."

"We're not German," I said. Well, I suppose Stefan was, even though his place of birth was within France in my world… and maybe the Kerpians came from somewhere that might be inside the German Empire – all this world-hopping was very confusing at times.

"That is irrelevant," the officer said. "We don't know who you are or where you came from. Your story about coming from another world entirely seems highly unlikely, and while you're below the normal age for espionage agents we're not prepared to take any chances. Your arrival here has been reported to higher authority, and I'm sure that a decision will be taken on what to do with you in due course. In the meantime you'll have to stay…"

At that point another officer entered the room, and it was immediately obvious that he was senior to the ones already there, not only because his uniform carried more silver braid, but also from the way in which the three policemen jumped to attention the moment he appeared. And this one had fair hair, which basically seemed to prove that you didn't have to have red hair to become a policeman. Actually he looked disconcertingly like Kenneth Branagh playing Reinhard Heydrich in the TV film Conspiracy, about the Wannsee Conference: the fair hair was brushed back, the uniform was spotless, and he had an air of command that was almost tangible.

He spoke to the man wearing the headset, and as it was still turned on the computer translated the conversation for us, and to my surprise nobody bothered to turn it off.

"What do we know?" asked the senior man.

"These eight boys appeared in town yesterday afternoon. They don't speak any of the major languages, though one of them understands German. We don't know any more than that. They say they come from a different world altogether, which is obviously nonsense, but we've only just got the translation program running, so we haven't had time to ask any more questions."

"Is there a…"

The computer didn't translate the next word, suggesting that there was no equivalent in Kerpian. In the officer's own language it sounded like 'Conyessi'.

"…based here?"

"No. If we need one, we call provincial headquarters in Lottantaale and they send one. We don't need to do that very often, of course: most criminals just confess, because they know we'll find out the truth if we have to."

"Naturally. Well, send for one now."

"Can they manage if there isn't a mutual language?"

"I've no idea, but I'd imagine that they could work perfectly well through a translation machine. Except… before we do that I'd like to talk to them myself. Hold back on the call to Lottantaale for now, and clear everyone out of here except… which of you boys would like to be the spokesman?"

Everyone looked at me, and so reluctantly I raised my hand.

"Thank you," said the officer. "Right, get everyone else out. Once we've had our little chat I'll decide what we're going to do with them."

The three policemen ushered my friends out of the room, leaving me alone with the Branagh-Heydrich look-alike. He moved the computer trolley a little closer to where I was sitting and put the headset on, and I looked at him nervously.

"Right," he began. "I'm High Captain Aarnist. Who are you?"

"I'm Jake Stone."

"And where do you come from, Jake?"

This was Lothar Fischer all over again, I thought. "Well, I live in a town called Milhüsa, or it's sometimes called Mulhouse or Mülhausen. I was walking with my friends in the mountains…"

I went on to give him the story we had agreed on. I even got him to send for the map in Stefan's bag, which I used to show him our supposed route from Oberehnheim towards Breitenbach… but that turned out to be a bit of a mistake.

"Why is this map written in German?" he asked. "These places aren't in Germany… did you buy the map in Germany?"

"No… well, not exactly… someone gave it to us."

"A German?"

"Well, sort of…"

"You'd better explain, I think."

"Well, where we came from all this area is part of Germany, except it's called the Holy Roman Empire. There's an Emperor in… Vienna, I think. Anyway, they speak German there, and that's why the map has all the German names on."

"But if you live in this place, how is it that you can't speak German?"

"Well, I've only lived there for a couple of months. Before that I lived in England."

"Where is England?"

"Do you have a map of Europe?"

He called one of the policemen back in and in due course was given a map of Europe. I duly pointed at the British Isles.

"In this world everyone there would understand my language," he said. "It's been part of our Confederation for nearly four hundred and fifty years. And they would understand the speech of the other officers here, too, because their ancestors started trading with those islands around eight hundred years ago. So, either you're lying to me and pretending not to understand, or your story is true, however unlikely it might sound. Of course, I can find out easily enough: all I have to do is to call in a Conyessi and we'll know straight away whether you're telling the truth or not. And if it turns out that you're lying you'll find yourself in even deeper trouble than you're in at the moment."

"What's a Conyessi?" I asked.

"If you genuinely don't know, you really do come from another world. The Conyessiem are a completely separate race from the rest of us: their brains are more developed, and they have abilities that go beyond what the rest of us can do. And one of the things they can do is to tell when someone is lying. I don't know whether they can simply read all the little signals people give out when they are lying, or if they can actually get inside the person's head and see the truth for themselves – and we know they are able to get inside people's heads, so that's not at all improbable. Anyway, if I send for one, he'll be able to tell me straight away whether or not you're lying to me."

I didn't like the sound of that. The last thing I wanted was some mind-reader digging away inside my head: there was far too much stuff I wanted to keep under wraps. The existence of the Greys, for a start.

"I'm not lying," I said. "We really do come from another world. Most of us are carrying ID cards – we don't use chips, like you do here – so you can see we're telling the truth."

"The fact that you don't have chips certainly supports that theory, because here they are implanted in the first week after birth and then updated every six and a half months. And if you'd tried to remove it you would have scars, and my colleagues tell me that the blond boy at least has no scar on his arm. Would you mind showing me your left arm?"

I took off my jacket and pullover and rolled my shirtsleeve up above my elbow, displaying an unblemished left forearm.

"Thank you," he said. "And you said you had an Identity Card – could I see it, please?"

I got it out of my wallet. "Can you read this alphabet?" I asked, handing it over.

"Of course. Several of the countries in the Confederation use the Roman alphabet – your own island, for one. So, let's see: it says here that you're Jacob Stone, that you live at a place called the Résidence Alfred Werner in Milhüsa, and that you're… I'm sorry, we don't seem to use the same calendar as you. How old are you?"

"I'm thirteen. I'll be fourteen in June – that's in three months' time."

"Right. You're going to have to adapt to our calendar, though I suppose it will depend where you end up as to which version of the months' names you learn to use."

I really didn't like the sound of that – I'd hoped we could be out of here long before we had to worry about such details of local life.

"What's going to happen to us, then?" I asked.

"Well, like I said, even if you're not spies – and I'm inclined to believe that you're not – you're still in trouble. You're in the Confederation illegally, and we can't send you back to where you came from because you don't know how you got here."

"We'd be happy to go back into the hills and try to find the way back to our own world," I assured him.

"I'm sorry, but we're not about to let you go roaming off all over the country on your own. And we can't spare anyone to come with you. I'm fully prepared to try to locate this portal of yours for you, and if we find it I'd be prepared to consider letting you go back through – in fact we'd probably want to send an expedition through with you: I can see substantial advantages to being able to move into another world and back."

"I don't think the portals stay open for very long," I said, hoping to scotch this idea. "Your expedition might find itself stranded."

"Then we'd have to research the portal and find a way to keep it open. Anyway, that's beside the point: the point is that you're not going to be allowed to go off looking for something that might not even exist. Like I said, we'll have a look for you, but we'll be keeping you here, or somewhere similar, while we do it."

"And what's going to happen if you don't find it?"

"Then I'm afraid you're going to be stuck here with us. And since you are here illegally and have nobody to take responsibility for you, you're outside the law, and that means you belong to the state."

"Do you mean we'll have to go to an orphanage?"

"An orphanage? God, no! We're not a charity! No, when I say you belong to the state, I mean it literally. To put it in terms that you can understand more easily, I mean that you'll be slaves."

"But… this is the twenty-first century! Isn't slavery illegal?"

"Actually it's the sixty-seventh century, but that's irrelevant. And slavery is certainly not illegal: in fact it's central to our economy. Of course, there are limits to what boys of your age can be expected to do, but those limits aren't always observed – it depends who ends up buying you. You might end up owned by a company or business, and in that case there are certain guidelines laid down as to what constitutes acceptable practice; or you could be sold to an individual, in which case pretty much anything he says goes. So you'd better hope we find your portal, hadn't you? Now: where exactly do you want us to start looking?"

Looks like Jake and his friends are in trouble again – after all, he didn't enjoy the slavery thing the first time around, and this sounds even worse… so what will he do? Find out next week!

Chapter Nine

This gave me a serious dilemma: did I tell him where we had actually come through, or not? If I did, I'd be delivering the Greys up to him, and also risking problems for the monks and their world, which seemed to be stable and peaceful and which would surely not benefit from a visit – or more likely, an invasion – from a modern, mechanised culture whose morality was apparently atrophied to the point of believing that slavery was a necessity for economic success. But if I sent them the wrong way I'd be condemning all of us to slavery, and having experienced that once I had no wish to go there again.

Of course, I thought, he might have been lying about slavery in an attempt to force me to open up to him… and when I thought about it some more I was sure that this was the case. After all, in all the worlds we had visited only the Greys had used slavery, and even there it was simply an expediency to man their mine, rather than a widespread and general practice: I'd seen no sign that slavery was practised in the Grey world itself. No other culture that we had seen used slaves at all. And this was an advanced, modern culture. So it followed that Aarnist must be lying about it…

"Well," I said, opening Stefan's map once more, "obviously I can't tell you exactly where it happened, because I don't know. But somewhere up around here," (and I pointed to the area on the map labelled 'Der Hochwald') "we found ourselves in a place with lots of mist, and when we finally came out of it we were lost. And we think it must have been while we were in the mist that we crossed over, because I'm sure we'd have noticed if things had changed once we were back in the sun."

"Thank you, Jacob. I'll get a couple of aircraft over that way straight away, and I'll arrange to get some men on the ground as soon as I can. If we find it I'll let you know. Of course, it might not be possible for you to go back through straight away, but as soon as we're sure it's safe we'll consider sending you back.

"Of course, we'll only be able to spend a day or so looking, especially if you think the portal is likely to disappear… why do you think that, by the way?"

"Oh! Well… I mean, if it was there all the time, surely people would know about it? Back in the world we come from there are foresters up in the woods quite a lot, cutting timber and stuff, and walkers too – and I suppose it's the same here. If it was there all the time someone would have been sure to find it."

"Not on this side. We don't use the mountains much, other than a little forestry around the edges from time to time. But you're probably right. Anyway, we'll have a good look over the next twenty-four hours or so, and if we find it, well and good. But if we don't… well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?" And he grinned at me and then called one of his colleagues through to take me back to my cell.

"So what did he say?" Nicolas asked me. "What's going to happen to us?"

"He didn't say, exactly. He's going to go and look for the portal, but since he's going to be looking in the wrong place I don't suppose he'll find it."

"And then he'll let us go, right?"

"Well… maybe not. He gave me a lot of stuff that was supposed to frighten me, I think, but I don't know what's really going to happen to us. We'll just have to wait and find out."

The operative word turned out to be 'wait' – we spent almost the entire day in the cell. At midday and again as it was starting to get dark outside we were given another offering from the station's microwave, and we were kept supplied with water. As there was a toilet in the corner of the cell we didn't have to leave it at all, except for a period of about forty-five minutes in mid-afternoon when we were all taken out to a yard at the back of the station so that we could get some exercise and fresh air. This at least gave me a chance to speak to Stefan, who was sharing a cell with Tommi. Neither of us knew what was going to happen to us, of course, but just being together was enough to cheer me up a bit.

"I was watching you and Stefan," said Nicolas when we returned to the cell. "And now I know that you're…. you know, together… it seems really obvious to me now. I suppose I wasn't taking much notice before. Anyway, I don't want to interfere with it, so I'll stay away from you in future if you want."

I looked at him, trying to decide if he really meant it or if this was an attempt to manipulate me. But if it was, it worked.

"Don't be stupid, Nicky," I said. "Of course I don't want you to stay away from me. We're friends, aren't we? I'd just prefer if we don't do anything… you know…"

"Sure!" he said, sitting down right next to me and putting an arm round my shoulders. "I don't mind, as long as we're still friends."

Somehow I got through the rest of the afternoon and evening without succumbing to his charms, though when we settled down for the night it was obvious that things were going to be more difficult: the heating had been on in the cell for most of the day, and now it was warm enough for Nicolas to declare that he would be much more comfortable if he didn't try to sleep with all his clothes on. And he promptly stripped to his underwear.

Of course he was right: it would almost certainly be more comfortable sleeping without my jeans on, and in the end I decided to take the risk, removing everything except my boxers and tee-shirt. And of course as soon as we lay down he snuggled up close, smiling at me, and my body promptly reacted in an unmistakable way. But at least he didn't actually try doing anything more, and eventually I was able to fall asleep.

Next morning, however, he was at it again.

"I must have had another nice dream last night," he told me as soon as I opened my eyes, "because it's happened again, look!"

And he pushed his briefs down, revealing that he had a very solid erection.

"See?" he continued. "Do you want to feel how hard it is?"

I thought about it. After all, it wouldn't be the first time I'd done something with someone else: I'd played sex games with Haless and Issin; I'd allowed Tommi to handle me virtually every night at the mine; I'd even sucked Alain, though I'd done that mainly so that I would be able to do a good job for Stefan later on. And yet somehow this seemed different: Stefan was close by, and I expected us to be together again within a day or so. On the other hand, Nicolas did look nice like that… but still…

"Look, Nicky…" I began, feebly.

"Come on," he said. "I can see that yours is stiff, too…"

"I really don't want…"

"Yes, you do. I can tell."

Somehow I managed to tear my eyes away, and after that it was easier to roll over, stand up and start to put the rest of my clothes on. Part of me felt stupid: here I was, clinging to the morality of a world I didn't live in any longer instead of enjoying the less restrictive way things were in Nicky's world. But the rest of me was convinced I was doing the right thing by remaining faithful to Stefan – at least unless Stefan told me in so many words that it would be okay for me to play around with anyone else, and I didn't really think that was likely.

Nicolas looked disappointed, but at least he didn't push it any further: instead he pulled his briefs up again, stood up and got dressed.

"I'm sorry," he said, once we were both fully dressed and sitting on the mattresses once more. "I promised I wouldn't do that again, didn't I? It's just… well, I'd really like it if we could… Look, Jake, I'm being unfair to you, expecting you to behave differently from how you were brought up. I know that, and I'm sorry. But…"

"But nothing," I said. "Nicky, you know I like you, and you know I think you're good-looking, too, especially when you're undressed. And it would be really easy for me to give in, and… you know. But afterwards I'd feel bad about it, and then probably I'd stop liking you. So please don't keep trying to make me do stuff I don't want to. Okay?"

"Okay," he agreed, and I didn't believe him for a moment.

After breakfast (more tasteless porridge – even the monks had produced a tastier porridge than this) I was called out of the cell and taken to an office I hadn't seen before. And here I found High Captain Aarnist sitting at a desk, and standing beside him was another man in a strange costume: he was wearing a full-length white robe with a black sash around the waist, and he had shoulder-length very dark brown hair that was kept in place by a white headband. He looked more like a Japanese nobleman than a police officer, although his features were Caucasian rather than Oriental.

"Good morning, Jacob," said Aarnist into his headset microphone (the computer was on its trolley next to the desk). "Did you sleep well?"

"Not too badly, thanks."

"Good. Well, the bad news is that we didn't find anything up in the mountains. And it wasn't for lack of trying: we had two platoons covering the whole area you indicated to me, and a couple of hoverers looking for anything unusual from the air. But it looks as if you were right in thinking that your portal wouldn't last long. Oh, by the way, this is Irfan ved Meluan of the Clan of the East. He's a Conyessi."

So that's what a Conyessi looks like, I thought. I was surprised: apart from the unusual clothing this man looked perfectly normal. After all that stuff about them being a completely different race and having big brains I'd expected something alien-looking – I had a sort of mental image of the aliens in Mars Attacks!, or maybe Dan Dare's old enemy the Mekon (I'd inherited a pile of old Eagle annuals from my dad). And at that point the man in the robe started laughing.

"You have some strange ideas, young man," he said, once he got his breath back. "I don't know what High Captain Aarnist has been saying about us, but we're certainly not aliens, and nor do we have outsize heads. Oh, and you're not hearing the name of our race properly: it's 'Konjässi'," and he spelled it out for me.

Well, that indicated pretty clearly that these people were capable of at least a certain amount of mind-reading. And that made me nervous.

"There's no need to worry," the man went on (and the fact that he could tell I was worried made me even more nervous). "All I want you to do is to tell me what you told the High Captain, about coming from a different world."

"Well… okay, it's like I said," I said, hoping that he wouldn't want details, and hoping that he couldn't tell that I was hoping he wouldn't want… I realised that if I went on thinking that way I'd end up paralysed with fear. I pulled myself together.

"We don't come from this world," I said, in as firm a voice as I could manage. "We came through a portal up in the mountains. In the world we came from this whole area is part of the Holy Roman Empire, which makes it part of Germany, more or less, and that's why the map my friend was carrying is all in German and shows German place names for all the towns round here. This place where we are now is called Schlettstadt there."

"Well?" Aarnist asked the robed man, once the computer had finished translating this.

"That was all true," the man reported. "I think there's probably quite a lot more that he isn't telling us, but the central fact is true: he and his friends come from another world."

"Can you be sure? Doesn't the fact that he can't speak our language make it hard for you to see his thoughts?"

"Not really. I don't actually need words to see his state of mind. He's nervous, yes, but then who isn't when one of us starts asking them questions? But what he's saying is truthful, or he'd be a lot more disturbed in his thinking. How many of them are there again?"

"Eight," Aarnist told him.

"And they all came through this portal with you?" he asked me.

"That's right, Sir – we were all travelling together."

"Excellent. Have you decided what to do with them yet, High Captain?"

"Perhaps we should discuss it outside?"

"If you like. But you've already told him what's likely to happen, haven't you? Yes, I see that you have. Well, if they're going on the market, I want them."

"All of them?"

"I think so. They'll make excellent practice subjects, and the language barrier will work in our favour: our kids will have to work twice as hard with them. So unless you have other plans I'll be happy to put in a bid. I'll just need to make a call to the Chancellor's office in Laztaale to find out how high I can go…"

"You mean, you want to take them all the way back home?"

"Well, why not? It's not every day we get an opportunity like this, so why waste them by giving them to some provincial centre when we can use them in our primary establishment?"

"Okay, but I want to know all there is to know about this portal before they get their brains scrambled by your trainees. Make sure you run a full scan of them while they're still sane."

"You've got the wrong idea about our training, High Captain… anyway, you're right: we should discuss this in private. Have him taken back to his cell and we'll talk some more."

So the High Captain called in one of the red-haired policemen and he escorted me back to my cell. And you can imagine that I wasn't feeling remotely happy: that last bit, about getting my brain scrambled and ending up insane, hadn't exactly reassured me that our future was rosy.

"Did he tell you anything useful?" Nicolas asked me. "When are they going to let us go?"

"They're not going to let us go. It looks like the mind-readers are going to use us as a sort of teaching aid or something."

"Mind-readers? What are you talking about?"

"Apparently there are people in this world who can read minds, or something. The police use them to find out if people are lying to them."

"Oh. But what do you mean about using us as a teaching aid?"

So I relayed what I'd heard, though I didn't mention Aarnist's comments about getting our brains scrambled: there seemed no point in scaring him more than he probably was already. And in fact his reaction was better than I had been expecting.

"Oh. Well, I don't think I have too many bad secrets," he said, "so I suppose it won't matter if my mind gets read. I'd like to be there when they read yours, though: I'd get them to ask you whether you'd like to play sex games with me, because I bet the answer would be 'yes'."

"You never give up, do you?" I said. "I'll obviously have to make sure they keep us apart while they're asking us questions."

"Aha! That proves I'm right!" he said, triumphantly.

"Even if it does, it still isn't going to happen, okay? And if you don't shut up about it I'll get Stefan to talk to you about it, and you probably wouldn't like that."

And that threat did seem to subdue him, at least in the short term.

An hour or so later the door opened again and we were taken back to the large cell, where we found High Captain Aarnist waiting for us, the translation computer at his side.

"I'm sorry, boys," he told us. "I sent another hoverer up into the mountains this morning, just in case, but even though it covered a much bigger area than yesterday it still didn't find anything. So it looks as if your portal has disappeared, and that means you have no way of getting back to where you came from.

"As I told Jacob yesterday, that means that you have a problem: you're on our territory illegally, and we can't send you back. This morning there's going to be a short court appearance to confirm your status, and after that you will become the property of the state. Normally that would mean you'd be sent to the slave market, but in view of your unusual circumstances Irfan ved Meluan has expressed a wish to purchase you on behalf of the Konjässiem. That's good for you because it means that you'll be able to stay together, and I don't imagine it'll mean a lot of hard physical labour, either.

"Now, just wait here for a few minutes, and then we'll take you through to the court."

He turned off the machine and went out, and of course I was promptly besieged by questions, mostly wanting to know who Irfan was and what the Konjässiem, whoever they were, wanted us for. So I did my best to explain, though once again I kept the bit about going insane to myself.

"Does that mean those people can see what we're thinking?" asked Alain.

"Sort of, as far as I can tell," I said. "Which means you're in trouble, Alain: all the bad stuff you've done with Oli is going to come out."

"That's the one part of my life where I've got nothing to worry about. But before that… well, let's just say that I didn't take a lot of notice about what the law said. I don't really want some total stranger rooting about in my past."

"I don't think they're going to worry too much about what happened back in Columbarier – and in any case you were just trying to keep yourself and your friends alive, weren't you?"

"Well… mostly," he said, in a mumble.

"I shouldn't worry about it, anyway," I said. "From what I could make out they want us for school-kids to practise on, and I bet kids aren't any good at that sort of stuff yet – so your deep, dark secrets can stay deep and dark."

"Are we going to try making a run for it?" asked Oli.

"I don't think we'll be able to just yet. You can be sure they'll keep a close eye on us until they hand us over to the mind-readers, and after that it will depend on where we are and what sort of a place it is. If it's like a normal school we should be able to walk out, so if they move us away from here – and Irfan was saying something about another town – we'll have to make sure we can find our way back. But remember that we'll be with mind-readers: even if the kids aren't much good at it there are bound to be teachers who are, and that means you mustn't keep thinking about escape, or they'll know. That's why if I do find a way I won't tell you in advance. You just have to be ready to move if an opportunity comes up."

"What about the Greys?" asked Stefan. "What do you think they'll do? I mean, if they come looking for us…"

"I'm pretty sure they won't. Greys only think of themselves, remember, so even if they knew we were in trouble they'd probably just shrug. If Torth's got any sense he'll hang around waiting for us for a couple of days and then go back through the portal as soon as it reappears, or now if it's still there. By the time we get back they'll probably have taken themselves back to Vogesia, where they can lie on the beach and eat corned beef for a few weeks. Anyway, they're not our problem at the moment. Let's just hope they send us somewhere close by where there isn't any security."

Half an hour or so later a couple of the policemen came back and handcuffed us together in pairs. This time I made sure I got paired off with Stefan, which left Nicolas with Tommi, who I thought would have no objection to playing sex games if Nicolas suggested it. We were then led along a corridor, down some stairs and through a tunnel that came out in the courthouse. We were kept in the basement area for five minutes or so and then led up into what I suppose was a dock. Facing us was an ordinary-looking man in a suit, though behind him on the wall was a large red flag with the two swords on it, the same as on the police officers' armbands, and also another banner depicting a middle-aged man who I guessed was the ruler of the country.

High Captain Aarnist was sitting in front of the dock with Irfan beside him, and I saw that the translation computer had been wheeled to the front of the court just below the magistrate's desk. And that meant that at least we could understand the proceedings, though since this was just a formality I suppose it didn't matter that much. The High Captain explained that we had no ID, that we had apparently strayed here from another world (that caused a bit of a discussion between him, Irfan and the magistrate, though again we weren't asked to contribute), and that consequently the police were applying for us to be declared the property of the state.

To be fair, we were asked if we had anything to say, so I declared that we were all citizens of the State of Elsass, as stated on our identity papers, and that we demanded the right to return to our own country as soon as the portal reappeared. A further discussion confirmed that the portal was no longer there and that nobody could say when, or even if, it would reappear (I couldn't argue against the 'if' without disrupting our story, and with Irfan in the courtroom I couldn't do that without endangering the Greys). And once that discussion ended the magistrate stated that he was granting the police application, and that accordingly the eight of us were now officially the property of the state.

A further discussion resulted in the magistrate handing possession of us to Irfan, subject to payment of the market price. And that was it: we were taken back to the police station and parked in the large cell once more. Here we were given another microwave meal – this one was a sort of chicken stew with rice – and then left on our own for ten minutes or so. And then something happened that made it clear to us that our status had changed: two policemen came in, one of whom was carrying a number of canvas bags. The other was pushing the computer, and once he had plugged it in he sat down, put on his headset and addressed us.

"Line up in front of my colleague," he said. "When you get to the front of the line you are to empty your pockets and then remove all clothing, timepieces, jewellery and anything else that you might be carrying or wearing. We'll make a list which you'll sign for. Generally a slave's possessions pass to his new owner, though some owners allow slaves to retain some items. In your case the Konjässi will decide when you reach your destination. Later we'll bring you in something to wear for the journey. You," (he pointed to Alain, who was nearest him) "you can go first. The rest of you, stand in a line behind him and don't move. If I think anyone is trying to hide anything you'll all get a full body search, and believe me, you don't want that."

So one by one we stepped forward, emptied our pockets, stripped and removed our jewellery and watches. I'd been wearing Stefan's swastika for a long time now and didn't like losing it, but it had to go, along with all of our watches, Radu's and Marc's ear-studs and the matching identity bracelets that Alain and Oli wore. Each boy's valuables were put into a side-pocket of the bag his clothes went into and sealed with a plastic seal, and each of us was asked to sign a piece of paper listing what we had handed over. Of course we couldn't read these, but there did seem to be a line for each item, and if you can't trust the police not to steal from you, who can you trust? Though I thought the fact that our stuff was going to Irfan was more likely to keep the police from temptation: after all, stealing from a mind-reader is a mug's game.

After that we were left alone for a while. It's one thing to run naked on a semi-tropical beach; it's another thing entirely to do it in a police waiting room, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt uncomfortable. Even Nicolas looked embarrassed. But eventually the two cops came back with some clothing for us.

"We need to classify you," the first one said. "You're to stand against the scale on that wall one at a time, then step to your right to be weighed, then wait in that corner."

The height and weight meant nothing to me: this country apparently used yet another system. After that we were photographed, which could have been extremely embarrassing, but it turned out that they only wanted a head and shoulders shot for our ownership papers. But then came the part that was embarrassing: we had to be segregated into pre- and post-puberty, as apparently different regulations were in force for each group. A quick look at our genitals was all it took for them to send me, Stefan and Nicolas in one direction and Tommi, Oli and Marc in the other, but poor Alain and Radu had to undergo rather closer scrutiny to ascertain if they actually had pubic hair or not. In the end both were sent to the pre-puberty group, which I thought Alain might find rather embarrassing, given that he was now nearly sixteen and a half. Still, at least it meant that he and Oli got to stay together.

Then finally we were given something to wear: white briefs, a black tee-shirt with a yellow stripe down the front and back, black trousers with a yellow band above each knee, black socks and plain black slip-on shoes. We were also given a black cloak each with a yellow stripe down the back. The five who qualified as 'pre-puberty' were given shorts instead of long trousers, which struck me as amusing (the look on Alain's face was priceless), but otherwise the clothing was the same as ours.

Once we were dressed we were handcuffed in pairs once more, taken out to a van, locked in the back of it and driven out of town, heading north: Stefan no longer had his compass, of course, but we could see the Vosges close by on our left. After about half an hour we came into another large town which Stefan thought had to be Strasbourg, or whatever it was called here. The van drove to a railway station and waited for about fifteen minutes, after which we were led to a train and installed in a compartment in the rear carriage. The police hadn't been able to bring the computer with them, but the one who spoke German told Stefan that we'd be in the train for quite a long time, so we should relax. If we needed the toilet we were to press the button on the intercom by the door: the police escort would be in the next compartment and would come to take us to the toilet at the end of the corridor. Then our handcuffs were removed and the compartment door was locked.

First we tried the window, but of course it was welded shut. Next Radu had a look at the door, but there was no access to the lock from this side, which made it impossible for him to pick it, even if had been able to keep his tools. And finally we checked out the roof and the floor, but quickly decided that we'd need an axe or something to get through either.

"Looks like we're stuck," I said. "So we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. It could always be worse."

"How?" asked Alain, who obviously wasn't enjoying being dressed as a child, and it's easy to understand why: he was a couple of centimetres taller than me, which made him taller than anyone else except Stefan and well over twenty centimetres [8 inch] taller than Oli and Tommi. Even Radu was shorter than him by eleven or twelve centimetres [c. 4½ inch].

"This could be a cattle truck, not a passenger train," I told him. "And it could be going to an extermination camp, not a job in a school. By the standards of some of my grandfather's friends in the Nineteen-Forties, we're well off here. Look on the bright side, Alain: this time we're all together, and we're not going to have to shovel coal for a living."

"I suppose so. But it's embarrassing, being dressed like this."

"Don't worry, Al – I think you look good," said Oli. "You've got really nice legs, and now we can all see them."

Alain gave a grunt and put his cloak over his legs, but Oli mischievously pulled it away again and then slid a hand up the leg of Alain's shorts. Of course by now we were all used to the two of them playing sex games with each other in front of us, but this was the first time it had been Oli taking the first step. I wasn't sure how Alain would react, but in fact he just grinned, grabbed Oli, pulled him onto his lap facing him and hugged him. And Oli promptly took advantage of his new position to burrow a hand down the front of Alain's shorts instead, and this time Alain let him get on with it.

The train pulled out of the station, and once it was clear of the town it built up to a serious speed: the countryside flew by, and we went through small towns so quickly that we wouldn't have been able to read the names on the stations even if they had been written in an alphabet we could understand.

"Any idea which way we're going?" I asked Stefan.

"Into France, I think. If we'd been going into Germany we'd have crossed the Rhine soon after leaving Strasbourg. But it was pretty obvious we'd be going that way, considering the tension between this place and Germany."

After about half an hour we ran into a large town, where the train stopped for a couple of minutes. Another hour brought us to another large town and another brief stop, and then a little under an hour brought us to the suburbs of a substantially larger place.

"I think this is Paris," I said. "If it is I expect we'll be getting off here – the Gare de l'Est, or whatever it's called in this world, is a terminus."

Sure enough, the train ran slowly into a very large station and stopped, and we waited for the policemen to come and let us out. But nothing happened. At first I thought the delay was because they had to go and get a van to move us in, but after ten minutes there was still no sign of life in the corridor.

"Do you think they've forgotten about us?" asked Marc.

"I'm sure we couldn't be that lucky," I replied. But after another five minutes the train started moving again, back the way it had come, and at that point I really was starting to wonder if the policemen had slipped up somehow.

"We're going a different way," commented Stefan, looking out of the window. "That factory with the three chimneys was on the other side as we came in. Looks like Paris might not be the terminus for this train after all. Shall we find out?"

He pressed the intercom button and asked in German if he could go to the toilet, and a few seconds later one of the cops appeared and opened the door. Stefan went out and the door was locked again. Three or four minutes later he was let in again.

"Well, they haven't forgotten about us," he said. "We're not even halfway through the journey yet: apparently we're going to somewhere called – if I got this right – Paazi-Beretokheeme. I've no idea where that is, and the cops don't seem to know any other name for it. Oh, and this isn't called Paris – it's called Luutetiaame."

"Lutetia," I said. "It's the old Roman name for Paris. I wonder if this is some sort of modern day Roman Empire? Except the language is nothing like Latin… oh, well, I suppose there's no point in worrying about it."

The train ran on through the suburbs of Paris. In my world I had relatives living on the west side of Paris, not far from Versailles, and for the first time in ages I felt a stab of homesickness for my own world. My aim all along had been to get back to Elsass, but now I found myself wishing I could find a way back to England, and even to the deadly dull village in Oxfordshire where I had lived until the previous summer. And my parents… I wouldn't even care if they were still fighting if I could only see them again…

And before I knew it I was crying. Stefan had moved to the window to try to work out which way we were going and the others had moved up to make room for him, and so I found myself sitting next to Marc instead. And once he noticed I was crying he put his arm round me, hugged me and asked me what was wrong.

As soon as the others realised I was unhappy they crowded round, taking my hands, hugging me and offering their support. I found it hard to believe that someone like me, who back in England had had practically no friends, could have assembled such a collection of loyal friends whose only thought, regardless of their own precarious situation, seemed to be to make me feel better.

"Don't cry, Jake," said Marc. "We know none of this is your fault – and we'll be all right. You'll see."

"And even if we aren't, it's still a good adventure," added Nicolas. "I haven't changed my mind yet: I'm still glad I'm here and not back in Vogesia."

One by one the others came and hugged me. Tommi and Oli both kissed me, too, and Nicolas didn't, which was equally significant: for once he wasn't trying to flirt with me but was trying to be supportive. And afterwards I was still crying a little, but now it was tears of gratitude for having such good friends.

By the time the train came out of a long tunnel into open country I had recovered enough to be able to go and join Stefan at the window and ask which way he thought we were heading.

"We're still going west, I think," he said. "The sun's more or less ahead of us."

We didn't know what the time was, of course, but I thought by now it must be late afternoon, and so the sun would be heading towards the western horizon.

"Then we can't have too much further to go," I said. "If we were heading south I'd think maybe we were going to Spain, but this way we'll run out of land in another three hours or so at the most. So it looks as if we'll be staying in France. Okay, it's the wrong side of the country, but at least we won't have to worry about crossing borders if we manage to escape."

About an hour and a half after leaving Paris the train stopped in another large town, though of course we couldn't read the name on the station boards, and when Marc, who could at least communicate a little in German, went out to the toilet just afterwards he came back to say that, according to the policeman who spoke German, the place was called Kondaate Riidone, which meant absolutely nothing to any of us.

"But when I asked how much longer we'd be on the train he reckoned about an hour and a half," Marc added.

I thought about it. At the speed this train had been travelling that would surely take us all the way to the western coast. That would put us some eight hundred kilometres [500 miles] from the Vosges, and that would present us with a real challenge: eight hundred kilometres in hostile territory, with no transport and no money. And before that we'd have to escape from the school…

Still, I supposed that it would be possible to steal money, and if we could find a vehicle… it was a real pity that Markus wasn't with us, because I didn't think anyone else would be able to hotwire a car for us. We'd just have to carjack one or something, even if that meant they'd be chasing us almost straight away.

The train stopped again, and now we could see that we were on the coast: there was a river estuary off to our right, and a glimpse of open sea, though after that the sea disappeared and the train continued to run through open green country, with just a couple of smaller towns at which the train didn't stop. And then, finally, it stopped once more, and when I looked out of the window my heart sank: we were in a shipping port.

"Oh, God," said Stefan, looking at the ship berthed a hundred metres or so from the train. "You don't think…?"

"I hope not, but I'm afraid it might be."

We were left for fifteen minutes or so, and then the policemen came back and handcuffed us in pairs once more. And when we got out into the corridor we saw that they had been reinforced, so there was clearly no chance of making a run for it.

We got off the train and left the station, and we were boxed in by men in uniform all the way across the yard to another building, which I suppose was a customs point, though since obviously none of us had anything to declare we walked straight through and out the other side. And there in front of us was a gangway leading onto the ship.

"Where are we going?" asked Radu.

"No idea," I said. "Maybe the school is on an island off the coast, but this seems a hell of a big boat to go island-hopping." In fact it was the biggest one I had ever been on, considerably larger than the ferries that still crossed the English Channel between England and France.

"Cool!" exclaimed Oli, with his usual enthusiasm. "I've never been on the water before. Is it fun?"

"Depends on the weather," I said. "It doesn't look too bad at the moment, so we should be all right."

"Wow," said Oli, looking off ahead of the ship, "the water goes on for ages, doesn't it? In Vogesia you could see the other side, but you can't here, can you?"

"The other side is about three thousand miles away, or call it five thousand kilometres, and I really hope we're not going that far, or we'll never get back," I told him. I didn't think we could really be going to America, though: surely we would have flown if we'd been going that far. And if it was America we were going to, why couldn't anyone speak English? I simply couldn't believe that this was a world where everyone in America only spoke Sioux or Cheyenne or something – though that would explain why I couldn't understand a single word of the language the policemen spoke…

We were taken below decks and installed in two small four-berth cabins: Alain, Oli, Stefan and I in the first one and the others next door.

"I know you haven't eaten," the German-speaking cop said. "Don't worry, they'll bring something round as soon as the ship sails. Have a good trip."

"Aren't you coming?" asked Stefan.

"No, we're going back. But don't worry – there'll be plenty of other officers on board to keep an eye on you!" And he closed the door, and we heard a key turn.

I had a look around the cabin. Apart from the four bunks there was a little cupboard, a table and two chairs, and a porthole that was far too small to squeeze through, even for Oli. In the corner was a door leading to a small washroom and toilet (I vaguely remembered that you're supposed to call it a 'head' on a ship, for some reason), so there would be no reason for us to be let out of the cabin until we reached our destination.

"Do you have any idea where we're going?" asked Alain.

"No. The ocean is about three thousand miles across, so if we're going all the way and the ship can do…"

Actually I had no idea how fast a ship could travel. I knew the channel ferries were pretty slow, taking well over an hour to cover twenty-two miles, but I thought ocean liners could probably go faster. I remembered reading that the great battleships of World War Two could do about thirty knots…

"Let's say thirty knots," I continued "In that case it'll take us a hundred hours, or four days. We're going to be sick of this cabin if we're stuck here for that long."

"Yes, and the bastards took my cards, too," said Alain. "What are we going to do for four days?"

"I can think of some things we could do," said Oli, grinning at him and sliding his hand up the leg of Alain's shorts again.

"That's true," said Alain, looking happier. "As long as Jake and Stefan promise to look the other way."

"Oh, I expect we'll be busy ourselves," said Stefan. "We won't have time to spy on you."

"I don't think it matters," said Oli. "I'm not ashamed of anything we do together, and I bet you're not, either. And we're proper friends, aren't we, us four? I don't think we need to keep secrets from our best friends."

"Just as long as there aren't any cameras in here," said Stefan, checking the ceiling over. But there was no sign of a camera, and nowhere that one could be hidden, either.

"We'd better wait until after we've eaten, though," I said. "I don't want them walking in on us at an awkward moment."

"I suppose so," said Oli, slipping his hand out again. Alain gave a stifled groan of disappointment.

"Of course, it doesn't have to be America," I mused. "It could be Spain, though I'd have thought we'd go to Spain by rail. Or – how about this? It could be Ireland. There are an awful lot of red-haired people about – not just the cops, but some of the other people we saw getting onto the ship. Celts often have red hair, so perhaps Ireland is a sort of superpower in this world."

"Ireland?" said Stefan incredulously, and I knew what he meant: in my world Ireland was a pleasant, inoffensive sort of place that guarded its neutrality closely, and it seemed no more likely to try for world domination than Estonia or the Seychelles would. But of course we knew nothing at all about the history of this world, and I supposed that the concept of militaristic, power-hungry Celts was not completely off the wall.

"Well, it could be," I said, defensively. "We'll just have to wait and find out, won't we?"

It was quite dark outside by the time the ship started to move out of port, and so we couldn't tell which way we were heading. Once the lights of the port fell away behind us it was hard to gauge our direction, although for a while after we left the port we saw the odd group of lights off to the right of the ship, the side our porthole was on. But eventually we passed a lighthouse, and after that there was nothing but empty ocean.

Just before we reached the lighthouse the door opened and a cop we hadn't seen before, and whose uniform was a different shade from those of our escort, came in carrying a tray. The plates were plastic and so was the cutlery, but the food wasn't bad at all: there was a fish pie served with peas and some disc-shaped fried potatoes, and for dessert a bowl containing apple crumble and cream. I think the cream was synthetic, but it tasted okay. A second cop came in with a large jug of water and four plastic cups. Neither of them spoke – I suppose they'd been told we couldn't speak the local language.

"See?" I said, when they'd gone out, locking the door behind them. "Those two had red hair, too. I bet it's Ireland."

"I bet it isn't,' replied Stefan at once. "Loser has to suck, not just the winner, but Alain and Oli, too."

I stared at him: I'd never imagined that Stefan would want to involve anyone else in our personal practices.

"Well, it's like Oli said," explained Stefan, seeing the look on my face. "The four of us are special friends: we've been together almost since the start. I know you feel the same way about them as I do, and it wouldn't worry me if I had to suck them. But I won't have to, because you're going to lose."

"Okay, then, you're on," I said. "Loser sucks everyone else. Except it won't be me, because it has to be Ireland: if these redheads were American they'd be speaking English, because there's no way that Native Americans could have evolved into people with pale skin and red hair. What they're speaking has to be Irish Gaelic – you'll see."

Once we'd finished eating we rinsed the plates and cutlery in the washroom, just in case we had to use the same things for the next meal, and piled them up on the table. And after that we thought we might as well try to get some sleep: although the sea was fairly calm there was still a bit of movement in the cabin, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to sleep like that. Unfortunately the bunks were too narrow to sleep two people – at least, not unless one of them wanted to fall out onto the floor every few minutes – and so I grabbed one of the top ones, stripped to my pants and tee shirt, wrapped my cloak around myself as an extra blanket, and went to sleep.

We woke up very early next morning, not because of the ship rolling and pitching, but because the ship was entering a harbour and the ship's tannoy was announcing the fact in several languages, including German.

"He says this place is called Osthafen," Stefan told us. "That would be 'Eastharbour' in English. It's obviously a translation of the real name, though, because as far as I could make out he called it something different in each language. And it must be in a different time zone to where we started, because he said the local time is three-fifteen in the morning."

"I suppose that would be about the time needed to sail to Ireland," I said, smugly. "Shall we get dressed, or should we wait until they come and wake us up officially?"

"Might as well wait," said Stefan. "After all, Alain's still asleep, and we don't need to disturb him until we have to."

"Alain could sleep through anything," said Oli. "I have to pull the bedclothes off and drag him onto the floor if I want him to get up earlier than usual."

So we decided to wait. But when we'd been waiting for about half an hour the ship started moving again, and the lights of the port faded away.

"We're probably just sailing up the coast," I said. "That was probably Cork or somewhere and now we're sailing on to Dublin."

And I rolled over and went back to sleep. And when I woke up again I was convinced I was right, because the ship was just coming into another harbour, and it was light outside. And the ship was still drawing up to the quay when one of the cops stuck his head around the door and indicated that we should get up and get dressed.

"Told you," I said. "I bet this is Dun Laoghaire, or maybe Dublin City port. We're in Ireland, and that means that you lose, Stefi – hah!"

"Let's wait until we get ashore," said Stefan. "For all you know we could be anywhere."

"I'm telling you, it's Ireland," I repeated.

But it turned out that I was way off the mark.

Chapter Ten

While we were getting dressed we heard the tannoy announcing our arrival, though this time Stefan said the name of the place we were in stayed the same in every language, including German. He couldn't make out exactly what it was called, because it seemed to have another of those multi-syllabic names everywhere in this world was apparently saddled with.

Once we were dressed we sat and waited to be collected, and in due course the policemen came in with the handcuffs and then escorted us off the ship, through another empty customs hall and on into another railway station. I kept looking for a map, because I was still convinced we were in or near Dublin, but I couldn't see one.

We were parked in a waiting room for half an hour or so, and then the door opened once more – and there were High Captain Aarnist and Irfan the Konjässi.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," said Aarnist – he was carrying what had to be a portable computer, which was why we could understand him. "In a minute you'll be getting on another train to take you to the capital, which will be your destination. Irfan will look after you after that, but I'll be travelling with you because I need to talk to my superiors in the capital about your portal. You can probably expect a visit from some of my colleagues after that, because we need to find out all we can about them."

I didn't like the sound of that.

"I expect we can do that for you," offered Irfan, and I liked that even less: at least I could lie to ordinary policemen if I had to.

"Well, we'll talk about it on the way," said Aarnist. "Now, you'll be on the train for about three and a half hours and you won't be able to leave your compartment, so if any of you needs the toilet you'd better say so now."

Nobody did: apparently we'd all made use of the ones in our cabins before leaving the ship.

"Good. Then I'll leave you to it. Have a safe journey."

"Just one thing," I asked. "Where are we, exactly?"

"You're in the port of Maasjioleeme."

"And are we in Ireland?"

"I've never heard of 'Ireland'," he said. And he walked away with Irfan at his side.

This time we hadn't had our handcuffs removed, so when the officers came to collect us all they had to do was to open the door and march us onto the appropriate platform. This train was a sleek-looking affair in red and black, and when I glanced down at the tracks – the train was parked a short distance along the platform – I saw that it was a monorail system.

Once again we were installed in a compartment at the back of the train and locked in.

"Admit it, Jake," said Stefan. "This isn't Ireland."

"How do you know?"

"Because he said we were going to the capital, and that it was three hours away. If we were where you said we were we'd be in Dublin already, or very nearly."

"Well, perhaps Dublin isn't the capital in this world."

"Crap. You're just trying to get out of admitting you were wrong."

"Let's just wait and see."

The train pulled out almost silently and, like the one we'd travelled from Strasbourg in, quickly built up to a good speed. It stopped only three times before it reached the capital, and it was a very smooth ride. And this time we were taken off the train as soon as it stopped moving, to find a van parked on the platform and another man in Japanese garb waiting for us, together with a couple of men who were presumably police, even though their uniform was different from our escorts'. And these two had fair hair, rather than red.

Irfan appeared and consulted briefly with them, and then we were put onto the van and driven into the city. And I have to admit that this place looked absolutely nothing like my idea of Dublin – and, furthermore, almost every pedestrian we saw seemed to have fair hair.

"It's almost like home," commented Stefan. "Our instructors would love this place: everyone's a perfect Aryan."

There were red and black sword-banners hanging every fifty yards or so, and those also reinforced the similarity to Nazi Germany (or Greater Bavaria, which was as near as I had been to the real thing), though the other banners carrying portraits of the ruler wouldn't have fitted in there because the ruler of this place didn't look remotely like Hitler.

After a drive of about twenty minutes the van drove into a courtyard surrounded by a high wall and a pair of tall gates swung closed behind us. So much for just being able to walk out, I thought. We were helped out of the van and led into the large stone building at the far side of the courtyard – architecturally it resembled something from nineteenth-century Paris, elegant but solid in construction – and up to a waiting room on the second floor, where our cuffs were removed. And here we waited for quite a long time. The window overlooked the courtyard, and we were high enough up to be able to see the wire running along the top of the wall, which suggested that getting over it would need more than just a couple of long ladders.

I tried opening the window, but it wouldn't budge.

"Do you need some air?" asked a disembodied voice in Kerpian, and the window slid up ten centimetres [4 inch], apparently of its own accord. I looked around wildly and saw the camera in the opposite corner of the room.

"Guess it was too much to hope they'd leave us unsupervised," I said in English – apparently they'd been given the Kerpian translation program, so if we wanted to talk privately it would have to be English from now on.

A few minutes later the door opened and Irfan came in carrying a laptop.

"Come through," he invited us, the computer doing the work of translating as before. "I'll introduce you to our senior instructor – he'll be able to tell you where you go from here."

He led us into a large office. Seated behind a desk was an older man with a neat grey beard, dressed exactly like Irfan, right down to the long hair and the white headband. Irfan put the computer on the desk and handed the headset to the older man.

"My name is Athelan ved Osman of the Clan of the East," he said. "This is the central training academy for the Konjässiem of the Middle Continent – you have to be very bright to get in here, and that's why my colleague here thought it would be good to send you to us: you have no native knowledge of any of our languages, which is something that is unique – all our other slaves were born here. And that means it will be much harder for our students to manage you, which will make them work harder, and there's nothing like a challenge to bring out the best in someone.

"Your main duty will be to work with our students and to help them with their work. You'll each be assigned to a student shortly – we'll probably just make a random selection for that – and you'll do whatever they tell you to. You probably won't work exclusively with that student: there are likely to be occasions when other students need an extra subject, so you'll go where you're needed.

"In a lot of ways this is a normal school, and I expect you've all been to one like it. In the mornings our students study the usual range of subjects – languages, numbers, the sciences, history, that sort of thing – and during that part of the day you'll work around the school with the other slaves, cleaning, running errands, doing whatever is needed. Do any of you have any particular skills that might be useful?"

I raised my hand. "Alain and I can cook," I said. "I'm quite good, according to the school I worked in last year."

Okay, so I only actually cooked one meal at Haless's school, but he and his friends had approved. And I figured that if we were working in the kitchen we ought to be able to nibble and taste and so on and so wouldn't go hungry even if slave rations weren't very good. And Nicolas obviously had the same thought.

"I could work in the kitchen too," he offered (I'd been translating into English for him as we went along). "I'm expert at gutting and cleaning fish – I did it for a living until recently."

"Good. Anyone else?"

"I know a bit about medicine," offered Marc (through Stefan). "I don't know if you have a place here for pupils who are ill, but I can probably help out there if you have."

"We haven't, but if there's an accident it would be useful to know there's someone else who can help. Thank you."

He waited, but nobody else spoke. I suppose Radu realised that trapping and snaring wild animals wasn't likely to be a skill in great demand in a city, and Stefan didn't want to advertise his military training or Oli his skill with a catapult.

"Right, then. Before you start work your students will probably want to give you some basic knowledge of our language, enough for you to be able to understand simple commands and so on. That might mean you attending classes with the younger students, because not every student here comes from this country and some don't know the language spoken here either. Once your students are happy that you have sufficient understanding you'll move onto the normal schedule I've already told you about: manual work in the mornings, work with the students in the afternoons.

"There are dormitories for the slaves on the top floor and you'll be taken there shortly, but before you go I want you to take your cloaks off and pile them up on the little table by the door: you won't be going outside the school in the near future, and so you won't need them. Once you've been allocated a bed you'll be taken to the slaves' dining room for something to eat, and then after the meal you'll be allocated to your students. Any questions? No? Good."

So we removed our cloaks and followed Irfan, who picked up the laptop and led us up the stairs to a room at the top of the building. This looked not unlike the dormitories at the Hub, with a line of beds against each wall and a washing area and toilet at the far end. There was a small cupboard beside each bed and a little table at the foot of it but no other furniture. There were around twenty beds in the room, at least half of which seemed to be in use – at least, half of them were made up. The other half had a pile of bedding on the table at its foot.

"This is where some of you will be sleeping," Irfan told us. "This is one of the senior dorms. After the evening meal the other slaves will be here and they can confirm which beds are free, and they'll also arrange for the juniors to be taken to whichever of their dormitories has beds free at the moment. Now if you'd like to come with me I'll take you to the dining room."

"Do you teach here, Sir?" I asked.

"Me? No, I've never been here before."

"Then how do you know where everything is?"

He grinned at me and tapped his temple and then led us down to the ground floor. Did that mean he had read the senior instructor's mind? And then I realised that it was far more likely that the senior instructor had told him where everything was before we were called into the room. Obviously all this mind-reading stuff was stopping me from thinking logically.

When we reached the dining area we found that there were quite a lot of boys already there, all dressed exactly as we were. After the peculiar concentration of blonds on the city streets and of red-heads on the boat it was a relief to see a complete cross-section of society here… well, not quite: there were no Orientals and no Afro-Caribbeans, but there were red-heads and blonds and boys with mousy brown hair like Oli's, boys with pale skin and tanned skin, a couple that looked like North Africans and one who had the flat face and copper-toned skin of a Native American. And as one man they all turned and stared at us as we came in.

Irfan said something to them that I couldn't understand, but which provoked a buzz of conversation, so I guess he'd told them that we were foreigners or something similar. And then he turned the microphone on again and told us to take a seat, adding that we'd be called when the servers were ready for us. And then he left us to it.

The meal wasn't bad: I'd say it was about the standard of the mine on Ertdays, which made it better than I had expected, and there was plenty of it, too. And the roll was actually quite soft, which was again an improvement on the Kerpian version. A couple of the other slaves came and tried to talk to us, but without the computer to hand we had no mutually understandable language, and so we could only smile and shrug at them.

After we had finished eating Irfan reappeared and took us to what was clearly a classroom, with a screen at the front and rows of desks facing it. He lined us up alphabetically by first name and gave each of us a small card with a symbol on it, and then he told us to go and sit in the first row of desks, in any order other than alphabetical, putting the card face down on the desk in front of us so that the students couldn't read it. I found myself clutching a card with two horizontal lines on it, which was apparently the local numeral for 'Two' (only Alain was ahead of me alphabetically).

Then Irfan went out, returning a couple of minutes later with eight boys of around my age dressed in the same Japanese nobleman style as him. He told the first one to think of a number between one and eight, and the boy seemed to shrug and say 'Six' without making any attempt to think about it. He got Radu. The next one called 'Four' and got Nicolas. But the third boy simply stood at the front of the room and stared at us, and after a few seconds he pointed at me, turned to Irfan and said, "I'll have him. He's number two."

After that each of the others tried to do the same thing, attempting to probe our minds to see which card we were holding. The fourth one successfully selected Alain as number one, but the fifth one called 'seven' while pointing at Oli.

"Wrong," said Irfan, and sent the real number seven, Stefan, to him.

Oli was the last to be chosen, and the final student didn't seem happy to take him. "I can't see anything," he complained to Irfan.

"Then you'll just have to practise. Right, that's it: I'm done here. You slaves, do as you're told and you'll be treated well: don't, and you won't."

I remembered the manager at the mine saying exactly the same thing, and I could only hope we would walk away from here as easily as we had there.

"I'm giving your students the translation program, but only as a temporary measure," Irfan went on. "Eventually they shouldn't need language to communicate with you at all, and before that you'll be expected to learn enough of the local language to get by."

He handed each of the students something that looked no larger than a phone sim card and then simply walked away. The student who had picked me beckoned to me, and I followed him out of the room, up to the first floor and along a corridor to a room at the far end. He motioned me inside and closed the door behind us.

He turned on the computer on his desk, slid the chip he had been given into a slot, pressed a couple of keys and then spoke into the machine.

"Hello, can you understand me?" emerged from the speakers a couple of seconds later.

"Perfectly," I replied, and the speakers emitted a word that seemed to consist largely of modified vowels.

"Good," he said. "So at least we can talk to each other. What's your name?"

"Jake Stone," I said. "Why did you pick me?"

"Because you looked interesting, and because you're the leader of your group."

"How do you know that?"

"Because all the others kept looking at you, especially the two who were picked before you. They seem to look up to you. And that makes you a challenge."

"Wouldn't you prefer someone who is less of a challenge – I mean, wouldn't that be easier for you?"

"I'm not looking for something easy. I want to get better, and I won't get better if I look for the easy way."

"Then I'll try not to be easy. What do I call you?"

"You can call me 'Sir' if you want, though I'd prefer you not to. Okay, you're a slave but, unlike some of my colleagues, I prefer to think of you as an assistant. My name is Harlan ved Istian of the Clan of the Founder, but just 'Harlan' will do fine."

I looked at him. He was a little shorter than me, and he looked younger than me as well (I'd have guessed that he was no more than twelve), but he seemed very self-confident – not arrogant, because he was speaking to me in quite a friendly way, but sure of himself all the same. He seemed to have a different accent from both Irfan and the senior instructor, whose name I had already forgotten… and at that point he stared at me and told me to take off my shirt.

Well, I was a slave now, so I didn't bother asking why. I pulled the shirt over my head and at once he came and peered at my chest, and at my shoulders. He seemed particularly interested in the vaccination scar at the top of my left arm.

"Where did you get that mark?" he asked.

"It was an injection against tuberculosis. All the kids in my country get it. Why?"

"It's just that for a moment… well, look."

He undid his robe and took off the short-sleeved shirt underneath it, and I saw that there was a small purple mark in the centre of his chest, and what looked like a horizontal burn mark at the top of his left arm.

"All of us have the birthmark," he explained, pulling his shirt on again. "And the shoulder-mark is burned onto us on our fourth birthdays. I'll get one on the other shoulder when I'm fifteen if I pass the tests, which I will."

"So why were you looking for them on me?"

"Because there was a moment there when I thought you were one of us – or at least that you had Konjässi blood in you. You were sort of assessing me, weren't you? I didn't get all of it, but you thought I was younger than you, and was there something about speaking funny?"

"I thought you had a different accent from the teacher. And, yes, I was thinking you look about eleven or twelve."

"I'm twelve. And I have got an accent because I'm not from this country: I'm from the Republic. But I shouldn't be getting that sort of detail from you yet, especially given that you're not thinking in the same language as me… oh, well, I suppose I was wrong. But working with you is definitely going to be interesting. Are you any good at learning languages?"

"Not bad."

"Good, then I'm going to make you work yourself silly, not only on the stupid, illogical tongue they speak here, but also on the one that civilised people speak."

"In the Republic?"

"Exactly. Once we understand each other properly we'll get a lot more done. We'll start today: I'll get a program on my computer for my language, and a beginner's one for Arvelan – that's what they speak here – and you can jump straight in. I can help by keeping you from getting too tired too soon… I'm going to want you here with me full-time, too, not sliding off back to the dormitory whenever you feel like it. We'll get a couple of blankets so you can sleep here on the floor. I'll fix it so you eat with me – you'll get better food that way anyway…"

"Can you do that?" I asked. "I thought we had to eat in our own room and sleep in a dormitory?"

"They'll do what I want. My father's rather important. Oh, and one other thing – if you work hard and help me, I'll look after you. But don't forget that you're still a slave, and if you don't work hard I have the right to punish you however I want, okay? Good. Now go to the store at the end of the corridor and get another chair."

So I went, thinking that this job was probably going to be hard work…

***

Over the next four weeks I spent every spare moment in front of the computer, working away at the two languages. I like languages, but I have to say I shared Harlan's scorn for Arvelan: it was a ridiculously over-inflected language whose noun had nine cases, whose verbs made Latin look simple, and that didn't even have a word for 'No' – instead there was a verb meaning 'Not I, not you,' and so on, which meant that the word 'no' changed depending who was involved.

His own language was a lot easier: the noun had only four cases, the verb had only two forms (singular and plural) for each tense, and it didn't have lots of huge words containing great strings of double vowels. As soon as he realised how much easier I was finding his language he concentrated on it, refusing to use the translation program in the computer and addressing me exclusively in his own language. And if I didn't understand him I got punished (okay, it was only a clip round the ear, but still…) A couple of the other slaves came from the Republic, and Harlan got them in and held conversations with them, forcing me to join in, and steadily my understanding grew.

I hardly saw the others, which meant that I missed Oli's and Nicolas's birthdays completely. I was a bit worried about them, though if they were being treated as well as I was I supposed there was no real cause for concern. And I missed sleeping with Stefan, but Harlan was working me so hard that I slept without difficulty on the floor of his room and barely had time to think about anyone else.

By mid-April I was able to understand most of what Harlan said to me, as long as he kept it simple, and although I didn't yet have an adequate active vocabulary to be able to say very much without a dictionary in front of me he was still pleased with the progress I was making.

"You're doing really well," he told me. "I was definitely right to pick you. We'll be able to start on the real work soon. I want you to go on practising the language whenever you can, and I suppose you'll have to come to my Arvelan classes too, in case someone else wants to tell you what to do, but apart from that you'll be free to help me develop my powers. I think it's going to be good!"

"What powers are you talking about, exactly?" I asked. "I thought you just read minds."

"No, that's only part of it… Okay, I suppose I should give you the history – where we came from, how we developed, what our job is – and then you'll understand better. After supper tonight I'll tell you all about it."

He took me to the students' dining hall again, as he'd done several times before. None of the other students brought their slaves with them, and some of the others taunted Harlan, suggesting that he fancied me or that I was being rewarded for services in bed with good food (actually there hadn't been the remotest hint of misbehaviour: I slept with my clothes on, and he changed into a nightshirt in the shower-room attached to his bedroom. I wouldn't have minded too much if he had wanted me to do that sort of thing with him – after all, as a slave I would have had to comply! – because he was quite good-looking, and the long hair was particularly attractive: I've often wished I'd lived in the Seventies, when apparently most boys had longer hair than girls), but they didn't push it too hard – I got the impression that some of the others were scared of him for some reason. Anyway, the food was good there, so I didn't mind him taking me with him at all.

After we had eaten we went back to his room and he told me to sit on the bed beside him.

"This is a very old country," he began. "So: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…"

"And the earth was without form, and void," I broke in. "I know that bit: our holy book starts like that."

"I know. The Bible exists here, too. Well, anyway, let's skip forwards a bit: the gods, being an impatient lot, got tired of waiting for man to evolve into something interesting, and so they gave him a bit of a boost. This is all legend, you understand: these days there's an argument that says the 'gods' were off-world visitors… but, anyway, they shoved the development of the human race forward a bit by some sort of genetic tinkering, and in this part of the world alone the human race zoomed forwards past fire, past the wheel, past all the other slow steps – the gods showed us all of those things – and began to build houses, and cities, and civilisations. And then, because humans are like that, they discovered how to go to war with each other, too.

"See, originally there were seven races of men here, and each race kept rigidly to itself – there was no intermarriage or anything like that, because the gods didn't want that. Even now this is the only place in the world where the races are kept apart by self-regulation, which is why almost all the Arvelans are blond, the people of the two northern countries have red hair, and so on. Looking back it's easy to see that this isolationism contributed to war, but at the time it just seemed natural.

"Anyway, the gods tried fixing it themselves, but the more time they spent with men, the more like men they got, and they didn't like that. So they withdrew and tried another trick: they made us."

"What, out of nothing?" I asked.

"More like out of collected genetic material. Anyway, the legend says that the gods made a new race, an advanced and enlightened one with great intelligence, whose role it was to guide the rulers of the various countries into more peaceful paths. They were placed into positions close to the various kings and emperors so that they could persuade them not to fight all the time, and when that wasn't enough they cheated and used their powers to plant ideas into the kings' heads, or even to coerce them into doing the right thing. And for a time that worked pretty well: every monarch had one of us at his right hand talking sense to him or using their extra brain-power to squash bad ideas and slip good ones into the heads of the king and his advisers.

"But of course, in the long run that didn't work, either: every now and again one of us would go rogue and use his powers in the wrong way. The number of times this place was on the brink of complete destruction down the years would terrify the people who live here, if only they knew. We've been on the verge of destruction by all-out war – including fighting against the gods themselves and whatever extra-terrestrial weapons they might have had – by artificial earthquakes, by thermonuclear war and cold fusion accidents, by attack from orbiting weapons platforms, by rupturing the earth's crust; we've had experiments with temporal displacement that destroyed a large chunk of the western coast by sending it back in time ten million years – the inventor was lucky the power failed, or he might have send the entire planet back. And only twenty years ago there was nearly a spectacular accident: some scientists in the southern mountains of my own country were trying to create anti-matter… well, you get the idea. The fact that we're here at all is something of a freak: a few years back someone calculated that our part of the world has been at risk of total annihilation one way or another at least a hundred and fifty times in the last four or five thousand years or so."

"That's something I keep meaning to ask," I said. "Where are we, exactly?"

"Exactly, you're in the central training academy, in King Juuniss XIV Street, in the north-east of the city of Vovor… well, this lot call it Laztaale, but who cares? …In Arvel."

"Yes, but… have you got a map?"

"No, but there's one on the computer. Come on."

He went to the computer, found whatever this world's version of Google Maps was called, and typed in the address of the school. A map duly appeared, and he hit a key that caused it to zoom out slowly. Gradually the whole of the city appeared, and then the countryside around it, until finally the whole country was on the screen – on the right-hand side I could see the port of Maasjioleeme, where we had landed. And one thing was abundantly clear: this was definitely not Ireland, which meant that I owed Stefan, Oli and Alain a good suck, if we ever found ourselves alone together again. In fact I had no idea where we were, because the country outline was one I had never seen before.

"Can you zoom out some more?" I asked.

"Sure."

Harlan hit the key again and more was revealed: there was a large island off the coast to the north-east, and again I had never seen an island that shape before. And to the west of Arvel the land went on, and on, and on…

"That's where I come from," said Harlan, pointing to a little dot labelled 'Sanöve', well to the west of Arvel.

The map went on zooming out. To the south of Arvel was a very large lake, and south of it yet more land… until finally the zoom stopped once more, and there was water all around the edge of the map.

"That's it," Harlan said. "That's the entire continent."

"Zoom some more," I said.

"Why? That's all there is."

"Because I want to see where it is."

"Well, it's… okay, if that's what you want."

So he zoomed further and further out, until land began to appear around the edges again and I had confirmation of what, in despite of all common sense, I had started to believe: the Middle Continent filled most of the Atlantic Ocean.

"Oh, come on!" I exclaimed. "There's no way this is real… you mean, we're sitting in the middle of Atlantis?"

"Where?"

"Atlantis! It's a legendary place that the Ancient Greeks believed was somewhere out beyond the Pillars of Hercules – but it's a myth! There's absolutely no evidence for it, and the ocean is far too deep for there to have ever been even an island there, never mind a bloody great land mass like this!"

"Yes, you really believe that, don't you? Well, sorry, but here we are, though I'm pretty sure it's never been called 'Atlantis'. So in your world there's nothing here – is that what you're saying?"

"Harlan, this place doesn't exist in any other world, and I've seen a few. In my world there's nothing between Europe and America except a few tiny islands."

"Sorry, Europe and where?"

"America! There!" And I stabbed at the left-hand side of the map.

"Arconia, you mean?"

"Arconia?"

"Sure. It's named after one of our greatest emperors. It was part of our empire for hundreds of years until we granted it independence about a hundred and twenty years ago."

"So what language do they speak there?"

"My language, of course."

Which explained why nobody I'd met in this world could understand English, I supposed: if it wasn't spoken in America, it would be far less important.

"So I suppose that in your world one of the disasters I spoke about actually happened," he mused. "Wow, that's a strange feeling… it's hard to imagine a world where my entire continent doesn't exist."

"Believe me, it's a damned sight harder to imagine a world where it does. Anyway, I interrupted your story – you were saying that putting your people next to the kings didn't stop the fighting. So what happened next?"

"Well, eventually one of my people went spectacularly rogue and more or less declared war on the gods. He even managed to kill a couple of them. And the legend says that after that the surviving gods thought about destroying the whole continent – yet another near-apocalypse – but instead they just threw in the towel and flew off back to wherever they came from, leaving us to get by as best we could.

"That was way back, of course, over five thousand years ago. And since then we've just muddled our way through. There have been wars, both on the continent and later, after the Romans arrived, in Europe, but somehow we always resolved them before anyone pressed the Big Red Button. And so here we are. As for my people, we still do what we were designed to do: we advise the rulers, though we don't mess with their heads any more. And because of what we can do we help out various other agencies, too."

"Just what can you do? I was told you read minds and stuff like that."

"Well… okay, I'll tell you the truth, since we're going to be together for a long time. Originally all we could do was to read people's emotions. That's mostly observation, rather than anything else: probably you could do it too if you trained yourself. You're looking for trembling, sweating, little tics, the way the eyes move, and that sort of thing. We could tell when someone was sad, or angry, or happy, and we could always tell when he was lying, which made us very useful. And adult Konjässiem, with a lot of training, could actually manage a sort of low-level telepathy with each other, provided they were fairly close together.

"But the various mavericks down the years proved that we can do a lot more than that: we can develop proper telepathy, we can see what ordinary people are thinking, and we can force people to do what we want – at least, we can if we train ourselves for a long time: normally only adults can do that. The main use for that sort of thing is with the police and justice departments, because we can tell if a suspect is lying, and we can force him to tell the truth and show us where the evidence is hidden, if there is any. We're not supposed to do more than that, but you can understand how the idea of being able to make people obey you is sort of attractive.

"In the old days my people were very religious, and swore oaths to the Highest, who was the chief god, never to misuse our powers. These days hardly anyone believes in the gods – at least, we don't believe they're still around – so there isn't any religious belief to hold us back. Once we take office with the justice department we do swear an oath to the king or president, depending which country we're in, but before that there's nothing to stop us – except the teachers, but we can generally get around them. So before too long I'm going to be trying to make you do things you don't want to, and you're going to have to resist. It'll be a really good laugh."

I wasn't sure about that, and I wondered what sort of things he'd be trying to make me do: I had a nasty vision of being made to stab myself, or to hold my hand in a flame or something.

"And there's something else I want to try," he went on. "I found an old book that claimed that the Konjässi who fought the gods could actually use mental power to move physical objects. It's called psychokinesis. I don't know if that's actually possible or not, but I'm going to try to find out.

"Anyway, that's enough about me; now it's your turn. When you got here they told us that you came from another world, and that you had apparently fallen through a portal from one world to another. Well, okay, I'm quite ready to believe that, especially since you genuinely had no idea that the Middle Continent exists. It sounds weird, but I guess it's possible. But a little while back you said you'd been in a few other worlds, not just one. What did you mean by that?"

I realised I'd dropped a serious clanger here: if it got back to Irfan and Aarnist that I'd been through more than one portal they'd be sure to realise we'd lied about our origins, and about how we'd arrived in this country. All I can say in my defence is that I was so astounded to find out I was in Atlantis – even if it wasn't called by that name – that I'd temporarily lost control of my tongue. And, I suppose, my brain.

"I'd rather not say," I said. "Sorry, Harlan."

"Great! That can be our first test together, then: you're going to try not to tell me, and I'm going to try to find out all about your history. Sorry, Jake, but I know I can do that, so you're going to end up telling me everything. But I want you to hold out for as long as you can… I know: if you tell me before we go to bed tomorrow you get punished. How's that?"

"What sort of punishment?"

"I don't know, something embarrassing – like I'll make you run across the courtyard naked, or something like that. Or… no, this is better: if you tell me what I want to know you'll have to stand under a cold shower for five minutes. That'll give you a good reason to try to hold out."

"And if I do hold out, do you get the cold shower?"

He burst out laughing. "Jake, you're a slave, and I'm a free boy. Free boys don't get punished."

"Chicken!" I said. "Just because you know I'm going to beat you."

He looked at me, and then laughed again.

"You've got a hell of a nerve, for a slave," he said. "But… all right, I accept. If I don't get the information out of you by this time tomorrow, I'll take a five minute cold shower. But if I do, you're getting ten minutes!"

We settled down to sleep. I was fairly sure that Harlan was going to win his bet: he was far too confident for someone who wasn't sure of his abilities. And that meant I'd have to try to persuade him to keep our secret, rather than blabbing to the senior instructor about it. And I had no idea how I was going to do that…

I still couldn't get over the idea of a real Atlantis, though. Okay, maybe in our world it had been destroyed by some unimaginable catastrophe, but surely there would be some evidence? Unless… I suppose if we went back far enough it was possible that the Continental Drift away from Pangaea had gone differently in this world, or, even further back, that there had been more dry land and less ocean when Pangaea formed in the first place. After all, if there were worlds that were peopled by intelligent reptiles rather than by intelligent mammals, there was no reason why there shouldn't be worlds where the geography was significantly different as well. In any event, the bottom line was that I was here, at least a thousand miles away from the only portal I knew about and with no way to get back to it. And that was a far more important issue to worry about than the probability of the existence of an extra continent.

When I woke up next morning I was feeling a lot more relaxed about things, though – apparently a good night's sleep makes a difference to one's thinking. Take Harlan, for instance: he was a nice kid, he'd been decent to me, and even if I did tell him about the portals, surely it wouldn't do any harm? I mean, I could trust him, couldn't I?

I sat up and saw him lying on his bed looking down at me.

"Morning, Harlan," I said.

"Morning, Jake. How do you feel this morning?"

"Pretty good. In fact, about what we were talking about last night… I've been thinking, and I suppose I might as well tell you about…"

I stopped. Hang on, I thought…

"What have you done to me?" I asked.

"Who, me?" he replied, the very picture of innocence.

I paused again, realising I was being ridiculous: he hadn't had time to do anything to me, and surely I'd have felt it if he had? Besides, he was too decent to do something like that…

"You should have stopped after telling me I was being ridiculous," I said. "You had me there. But that bit about being too decent – that was just a bit too much."

"Wow, you really are good!" he said, grinning at me. "Are you sure there's no Konjässi blood in you? Still, you're right: that last bit was clumsy. I was trying too hard. So let's forget it and go and get some breakfast, okay?"

"Fine," I said, tidying my blankets away while he went to the bathroom to wash and get dressed. When he was done I nipped in to splash some water on my face and to clean my teeth – he insisted on that because we were in close proximity to each other for most of the day – and then we went downstairs for breakfast. And after breakfast he went to his normal classes while I went back to his room, tidying up and making the bed before sitting down at the computer to work on my languages.

He reappeared at the end of morning school and took me to lunch, and he didn't mention the portals once or (as far as I could tell) try to manipulate my thinking, right through the meal. And after lunch he said we should just forget about studying for a bit and go out for a walk instead.

"I haven't got a cloak," I said.

"Don't worry, I'll get you one. Wait downstairs by the main door."

And in due course he reappeared with a slave cloak for me and a grey one for himself, and he also had a gate pass that allowed me to leave the premises. We went out into the street, walked to the end of the road and got on a trolleybus, and he paid for both of us by holding his left arm in front of a chip-reader. We rode to the city centre and got off outside the East Station, the one where the train from the coast had brought me.

For a couple of hours we strolled through the streets, browsing around a couple of department stores and visiting a clothes shop where he bought himself a couple of items. Later he went into a sweet shop and came out with a bag of assorted sweets for himself and one for me, which I thought was kind – and still he didn't seem to do anything about our bet.

We caught another trolleybus back to the school and went back to his room.

"I haven't been out into town like that for ages," he said. "I'd forgotten how good it feels to be able to get away for a bit. We'll have to do that again. So – let's try a bit of thought-reading."

He took a pack of cards from a drawer. "I'm going to look at a card, and you're going to sit over there on the bed and tell me which card I'm looking at," he said.

"But… I can't read your mind!"

"No, but I can send it to you mentally. This probably won't work, but it'd be interesting to find out."

So we tried that for a while, first with him trying to send a picture of the card to me, then with me staring at a card while he tried to look into my head to see what it was. It worked better that way round: with him holding the card it was pure guesswork, but with me holding it he managed to identify red or black most times, and the actual rank quite a lot. And a few times he got the exact card.

"You know, we really shouldn't be able to do this," he commented. "You're not one of us, and even if you were we're not old enough yet for detailed transfer. Either you really are part-Konjässi, or I'm a lot better at this than I should be. Anyway, that's enough work: what else can we do with a pack of cards?"

A thought flashed into my head and he obviously caught it, because he started laughing.

"You want to play a strip game?" he said. "Why? No, don't tell me, let me see… no, that can't be right… it is, though. You think I'm good-looking and you want to see me naked… crumbs, I don't think anyone's ever said that to me before, or thought it – at least, if they have I didn't catch it. I suppose I should be flattered – actually, I am flattered. Thanks, Jake. Of course, if I lose our bet you'll get to see me naked anyway while I'm in the shower, but obviously that isn't going to happen."

"Are you sure?" I said, looking at the clock on his wall. "It's already gone five – there isn't that much of the day left."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure. In fact, let's just get it out of the way now, shall we? Tell me about the portals."

I can't describe what it felt like, other than to say that for a while I had no control of what I was doing or saying, and in that time I heard myself explaining that I'd seen several different portals, some that were artificially created and controlled by Man, and some that were naturally occurring, though the natural ones tended not to last very long. Each portal linked two different worlds, and it was possible to pass through them in both directions.

And then suddenly I was myself again. I fell down as my legs collapsed under me and then vomited uncontrollably.

"Sorry," said Harlan, and I felt a wave of warmth and concern sweep over me. "I didn't control that very well. Are you okay?"

I nodded, wiping my mouth and getting slowly to my feet. "I think so. Sorry about the floor – I'll get it cleaned up."

"Okay. Are you sure you can walk?"

I made it to the door, my legs quivering but still supporting me. "Looks like it," I said. "I won't be a minute."

I went to the store cupboard and found some cleaning materials, and by the time I got back to his room I was feeling more or less back to normal, though shaken by what had happened: he had simply taken me over. It was a terrifying feeling.

I cleaned up the mess and put the cleaning stuff away, and it was obvious that he was concerned for me.

"Normally I have to work like hell to get someone to obey me, but for some reason it was much easier with you," he said. "I went in expecting it to be really difficult, which is why I was using so much force. I'm sorry, Jake. Next time I'll know I don't need to be quite so rough. It proves we're on the same wavelength, anyway – I think I'm going to able to achieve some amazing results with you. So – would you like your shower now, or would you prefer to wait until after supper? You might feel a bit stronger then."

"I think I'd prefer to wait," I said.

"Okay. Then why don't we play that card game you wanted to try? If you lose you can have the shower once you're naked, and if you win you can leave it until just before we go to bed."

"Hold on," I said. "It's hardly going to be fair if you can see what cards I've got, is it?"

"I suppose not." He hesitated, but then got up, went to his cupboard and came back with what looked like an oval metal band.

"Put this on your head," he said. "See, we have a big problem with metal: it disrupts our control. I was going to tell you later anyway because I want to try to overcome it, but at the moment if you're wearing this I won't be able to do a thing to you."

"You swear?"

"I swear. I'm serious, Jake: it's something I really want to work on with you, because it's a big problem for us: as far as I know, no Konjässi has ever been able to work on a subject who is protected by metal on his head. In fact, metal anywhere against the wearer's skin gives us problems, but on the head it's supposed to be impossible to penetrate. I want to be the first. So – which game would you like to play?"

"How about pontoon?" I said.

"How do you play that?"

So I explained – it didn't take long – and then I put the metal band on my head and we started to play. And I did feel different: normally when I was with Harlan it was like there was a faint hum in the air, like walking underneath high-tension electric power lines, but with the band on my head it had disappeared completely.

I dealt the first hand, which I won, and Harlan removed one of his shoes without complaint. And as the game went on I found myself winning, although he still seemed to be enjoying the game, joking with me as he took more and more things off until he was only wearing his briefs. And then he lost again.

"Do I have to?" he asked.

"If you're playing the game properly, you have to."

"Make me!"

So I grabbed him and pulled him on to the floor while he laughed and squealed and tried to escape – though he made no attempt to knock the band off my head, which was probably all he needed to do to control me again. Instead he clung to the waistband of his pants until I pried his hands away, and when I finally got them down he curled into a ball so that I couldn't see anything.

I flung his underwear onto the bed with his other clothes and dragged him to his feet, and at last he stopped resisting and let me look at him – and he had an erection, which clearly indicated that he wasn't just pretending to enjoy this. It looked good: it was very straight, sticking up at about forty-five degrees above the horizontal, pale, uncircumcised and, I guessed, about ten centimetres [4 inch] long, which isn't bad for a pre-pubescent twelve-year-old. There was no trace of hair, though the balls were developing nicely.

"What do you think?" he asked, quietly.

I took the band off so that he could see I was telling the truth.

"It's nice, Harlan," I said. "You look really good."

"Do you mean that?"

"I've taken the band off, so you can see for yourself."

"Wow, you do mean it… thanks, Jake. So, are you going to strip too?"

"Would you like me to?"

"Yes, please – in fact if you strip now you can have a warm shower instead of a cold one."

"Well, in that case…"

I removed the remainder of my clothes. Of course by now I was stiff too, and Harlan looked at me with interest.

"Ah," he said. "When you said yesterday about the Bible being your holy book – does that mean you're Jewish?"

"It's a bit of a give-away, isn't it?"

"Well, yes. See, there aren't any Jews here, apart from the odd visitor, and if I hadn't studied the Bible I wouldn't know about them being cut. On this continent it's extremely rare: the only people who do it, as far as I know, are some of the nomadic tribes who live out to the west of my own country, and they only use it to mark the few boys who fail their manhood tests, so you'd better be prepared to be laughed at if any kids from that part of the world – and we do have one slave here from there – see you naked.

"Anyway, it looks interesting, and it's big, too… and I like the hair. I probably won't get any for a while. So, shall we go and have that shower?"

"What, both of us?"

"Why not? It's a big shower."

I suppose I should have been feeling guilty about this, but this was a different situation from what had happened – or not happened – with Nicolas: Harlan was my master, and it was my duty to do what he wanted. And I had no idea when I'd get a chance to be on my own with Stefan again. So I went quite happily into the shower with him, and we washed each other and shampooed each other's hair, and afterwards we dried each other, and at his instigation we went back to the bedroom and lay down on his bed side by side.

And then he took hold of my erection and began to stroke it, and then rub it, and at the same time he was doing something in my head, because the feelings of warmth and excitement were incredible. When I finally reached my climax it was the strongest, and longest-lasting, orgasm I had ever experienced, and I must have spurted six or seven times.

"Was that okay?" he asked, finally letting go.

"That was amazing. What did you do to me?"

"Oh, I just sort of enhanced what you were feeling, and let you share how I was feeling about it at the same time."

"Well, it was bloody incredible – thanks, Harlan!"

"Consider that my apology for hurting you and making you puke earlier. Now, please would you do it for me?"

So I did, and he seemed to enjoy it – in fact, somehow I could feel that he was enjoying it – even though I couldn't play with his sensations the way he could with mine. And although he only managed a couple of little colourless spurts he still seemed to appreciate it enormously.

"If we practise," he said, wiping us both down with a tissue from a box on his bedside table, "I can probably make you spurt without even touching you, just by manipulating your thoughts. That would be interesting."

I thought he was right about that – in fact I was starting to think that being Harlan's slave might turn out to be a lot of fun.

But I was forgetting something important: I'd told him about the portals.

So now Jake is somewhere he hadn't expected, in a situation that – at first glance at least – could be worse. But there is more going on here than he is yet aware of…

Chapter Eleven

After supper we went back to his room and sat down on his bed again, though this time we kept our clothes on.

"I thought you said only adult Konjässiem could actually make people do what they want?" I asked.

"No, what I said was 'normally only adults can do that'," he reminded me. "If you're talented and work hard at it you can do it long before you become an adult. Me and some of my friends have been working on it for a long time now, and we can all do it, though some are better than others. Of course we have had to work out the practicalities for ourselves, because the teachers only give us the theory: they don't actually demonstrate by forcing us to do things. You slaves are here for us to practise with, though the instructors don't expect us to be completely competent at it until about a year before our Manhood Ceremony, which happens on our fifteenth birthday, like I said earlier.

"But me and my friends have found out that you don't have to wait that long if you practise seriously. We can all control slaves now; the next stage is trying to control each other, and that's a lot harder. Then it's controlling more than one person at a time, which is really tricky. I can manage three, but it's hard work."

"Bloody hell – you mean you can make three other people do what you made me do at the same time? That's amazing!"

"It is, isn't it?" he agreed, looking pleased with himself. "I reckon by the time I reach my fifteenth birthday I should be able to manage a lot more – I'm aiming for ten. And you're going to help me, so you'll be part of it. And maybe, if you go on like you've been doing so far, I'll let you stay with me after I leave school – you'd be my personal slave. Would you like that?"

Well, I'd much prefer to have left this world long before that, but if I really was stuck here I thought I could do worse. On the other hand, what would happen when Harlan reached puberty? If he turned into a typical moody teenager it could be dangerous to be too close to him – what if he had a temper tantrum and I was closest?

"You're not sure, are you?" he said. "Why not?"

"I was just thinking that right now I like you a lot, but that… well, a lot of boys, when they get a bit older… you know, they start to change. You might lose your temper with me, and to be honest I'm scared of what would happen if you did."

"Right, so you're scared of me." That thought seemed to please him, too. "Well, I understand that, but you don't need to be. I like you, Jake, and I wouldn't hurt you unless you deserved it… well, except if we were doing an experiment, or something. Anyway, you won't have to worry about that for a long time: we generally develop physically a bit more slowly than normal boys, so I won't get hormone problems until I'm at least fourteen. And that's well over a year away.

"Now, before supper you told me you'd been in quite a few different worlds. I'd like to know more about that. Tell me about the first time you found one of these portals."

I braced myself for another psychic invasion, but it didn't come, and after a moment Harlan laughed.

"Not like that, stupid," he said. "I mean just tell me. I'm not going to force it out of you this time."

"Oh, right. Thanks. Well, last summer I went on a school exchange to France…"

I told him about getting lost in the Vosges, and about finding the hut and the Nexus Room beneath it, even though I hadn't known what it was at the time.

"And after I went outside again I met Stefan – he's the one with blond hair…"

"Number Seven," he said. "I remember. Go on."

"Well, we found out he and I came from different worlds. I showed him the Nexus Room and we found ourselves in a third world, and we went to explore it… and we've stayed together ever since."

"You really like him, don't you? Even saying his name makes your mind go all warm. Does he feel the same way about you, though?"

"Yes, he does. We're really close."

"And you do some sex stuff together too, don't you? But… you haven't had full sex yet. Why not?"

"We were going to, but we got sort of interrupted by things. We kept putting it off until we got back home, but I suppose we'll never get back home now, and so probably we'll never get a chance to do it."

"I don't see why not. I'm sure I could arrange something. Of course, you'd have to let me watch, but I could help, too: I could help you to feel what each other was feeling. Anyway, go on – tell me about the worlds the two of you saw."

By now I knew there was no point in refusing, because he could force the information out of me if he wanted to, but I still wasn't very happy about it.

"Harlan, I know I have no right to ask this – I mean, I'm only a slave. But… please can you not tell anyone else about this?"

"The teachers, you mean. Well… I've heard that the senior instructor is going to make a recording of everything you know about the portals on behalf of a copper from the east. He's just waiting until all of you are a little more proficient at Arvelan, because it's far easier to interpret a mind-recording if there's a proper channel of communication. Also, as far as I can tell, he's not all that interested himself, so he's not going to put himself out setting it up. Our senior instructor is only interested in the workings of the mind, not the physical world. But eventually he's going to find out, even if I don't tell him."

"Oh. Well, it's still sort of private. I don't really mind you knowing because we're together all the time, and I know that eventually I'll have no secrets from you at all, but I'd prefer it if it was just between us, at least for now."

"Okay. I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

"Well, it's quite a long story. Perhaps I could tell you a bit at a time, a bit like a bedtime story? You know, 'Chapter One: the world where I was born', and so on."

"Yes, all right. It might be sort of fun to do it like that. Nobody has told me a bedtime story since I was really small. Well, in that case let's do something else first: we'll spend a while working on your languages, and then we'll try a little more mind-reading."

Apparently sitting around watching sport on TV and eating pizza wasn't high on Harlan's list of ways to spend an evening. Still, the mind-reading was interesting: this time I started to receive information he was sending me, although it was a long way from being consistently successful.

Eventually it was time for bed. Harlan went into the shower-room to change into his nightshirt, and I got the blankets out and settled down on the rug beside his bed.

"Let's try something different," he said. "Put those blankets away and get undressed, and then you can come and share the bed with me."

I didn't mind that idea at all: even though I was used to sleeping on the rug by now, the idea of sleeping in a proper bed again was very attractive. So I did as he said and climbed into bed with him naked, and he pulled the covers over us and turned out the light.

"Now tell me about your own world," he said. "Where you were born, where you lived, and what you did before you found that first portal."

"Well, I was born in 1996," I started. "I think that's something like 6679 in your calendar. I was born in Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, which is a suburb of London, the capital of England, though I don't suppose that means anything to you. I'll show you on the map tomorrow and you can see what the names are in this world. Anyway, we lived in a place called Edgware when I was little, and then we moved into the country…"

I told him everything: why my father wanted to move us out of London, and how my parents later started arguing and fighting. I told him what my school was like and which subjects I was best at (languages, mostly), and I admitted I was the sort of quiet kid that nobody notices. And I told him I was gay, and that this was a problem in my society.

"These days everyone's supposed to be equal, and the law is supposed to treat us the same, but in practice gay boys get bullied really badly if anyone finds out about it, and so I made sure nobody ever did. Stefan was the first person I admitted it to."

"In my country it isn't a big issue," he said. "Most boys experiment with each other, and the few who stay interested in men when they grow up are treated the same as anyone else. Here in Arvel they pretend it doesn't happen, because this place has a long macho military tradition, and they like to think that no Arvelan male is anything other than a red-blooded womaniser. The two northern countries couldn't care less about it. In Rövissia, south of my country, people think it's the same as wanting to have sex with sheep, so I wouldn't admit it there, whereas in Bisvel, south of here, they think it perfectly normal. I suppose it's like that in your world, too – perhaps if you had been born somewhere else it would have been easier for you."

"Perhaps. What about your people? You said you used to be very religious, so I suppose it's illegal for you."

"That was centuries ago. These days hardly anyone follows the old religion, though two men living together are still frowned upon. But for boys it's different, because we're kept completely segregated from girls until a year after our adulthood ceremonies. There's an academy for girls in Sanöve, but ours isn't even in the same country. And that means that in our community boys learn about girls theoretically but get no chance to practise until they're at least sixteen. So we practise stuff with each other, or with slaves. Of course some of us prefer it like that… I enjoy doing stuff with colleagues, and I think I'm going to enjoy it with you, too."

"Have you done stuff with other slaves before me?"

"Well, obviously, but it was better with you. You're more intelligent, for a start, and I can connect with you better to experience what you're feeling. And you actually wanted to do it, which makes a massive difference.

"Anyway, let's get some sleep, and tomorrow you can tell me about meeting Stefan and what his world was like."

And he settled down, and so I did too.

When he woke me up the following morning I found that the usual thing had happened and that Harlan already knew about it, because he was holding it.

"Does this happen to you every morning?" he asked.

"Usually. Why?"

"Because it does to me, too. It's strange, Jake: a few months ago I wasn't at all interested in sex, but now I think about it a lot. Weird, huh?"

"Not really. I think all teenage boys think about sex a lot."

"Well, I'm not a teenager yet – not quite, anyway. But I do find it really interesting, and I love doing stuff – you know, like we did. What I really like best is doing stuff with someone of my own race, because sex with another Konjässi is the best: you get to share your feelings mentally as well as physically. What I really want, though, is not just sex – okay, I've played about with a couple of my colleagues, but what I'm talking about is like the relationship you have with Stefan, where you're really close to each other emotionally. Apparently that's what a proper Konjässi marriage is like, except I want to find out if it's possible to feel as good as that with another boy…

"Anyway, sex games are fun, too, and I'm sure we can play plenty of those together. I'll even play fair with you and let you wear the metal band while we're playing – though one day I'm going to beat that thing… still, it means we'll be playing equally. Do you like me holding you like this, by the way?"

I nodded. "It feels nice," I said. "Would you like me to do it to you, too?"

"Not yet. Just relax."

A feeling of warmth and comfort swept over me, and then a sort of gentle sexual arousal: I was aware that a beautiful boy was holding me, and that he liked me. I felt my whole body tingling with pleasure, especially my penis, which felt hot and hard, and I was aware of his hand holding it, filling me with a gradually building pleasure… and then I couldn't hold it back any more and I spurted onto my chest.

"Wow, that was a good one!" he exclaimed as I finally stopped twitching. "You threw me out of your head there at the end: you got so out of control that I couldn't hold on. Did it feel good to you?"

"It was brilliant," I admitted.

"And I didn't even rub it. Next time we'll try without me touching it at all. Grab a tissue and clean yourself up, and then we'll let you recover a bit before you do it for me."

I wiped myself down and then he snuggled against me to wait for me to get my breath back.

"Of course, if you annoy me I could use sex to punish you," he said. "I could keep you excited but not quite excited enough, and I could convince you it felt too sore to touch. And then you'd have to walk around with it stiff all the time, and if it felt sore enough you wouldn't be able to wear any clothes. Imagine having to go everywhere naked with it sticking out – that would be so embarrassing!"

"You wouldn't really do that to me, would you?"

"I could if I wanted to. And I wouldn't ever let you get excited enough to spurt, so you'd feel really frustrated, too. But I don't think I'd really do that to you, because I don't think you'll annoy me that much. Actually it's going to be a bit of a problem if I start to like you too much, because some of the experiments I need to do involve changing the way you think, both short-term and permanently."

"Oh." I didn't like the thought of that at all. "Do you have to do that? I mean, I wouldn't be really me if you messed about with my thinking, and… you're not going to make me into something nasty, are you?"

"Of course not. And maybe I won't do anything permanent to you after all – I can use another slave for that. It's just easier to monitor if you use a slave you see and work with every day."

"Can you really do that without having to keep topping it up or something?"

"Yes, I can, and I already have. But I'll tell you about that another time. Do you feel up to making me feel nice yet?"

"Of course. Do you want to take your nightshirt off?"

So he did, and I gave him a nice, slow stroking that eventually made him experience something really good. I know, because I actually caught some of it: he was broadcasting his feelings strongly enough for me to feel it myself.

"You're really good at that," he said afterwards. "I'm really glad I chose you… so, what are we going to do today?"

"Don't you have classes?"

"You've lost track of the days again, haven't you? It's Saturday – at least, that's what you'd call it – so we're free. What would you like to do?"

"Well… could I see my friends, do you think? I haven't had a chance to speak to them for ages."

"Depends what they're doing – you know Saturdays aren't free for most of the slaves. But we can go and find out after breakfast if you like."

"That'd be great. Thanks, Harlan."

"Good. Now you'd better come and help me wash my hair."

Harlan had quickly recognised how much I liked his long hair, and letting me wash it for him was something we both enjoyed. And once we'd finished in the shower and got dressed it was time for breakfast, which as usual I ate with him in the students' dining room. And then we went to look for my friends, some of whom I hadn't even seen since Harlan had chosen me.

We found Alain and Oli working in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. I was glad to see that they had managed to stay together, though I wasn't quite sure how: Oli had no relevant experience. Still, how much experience do you need to peel potatoes?

The kitchen was run by adult servants, which meant that Harlan was able to pull rank and demand to speak to the two slaves for a few minutes. We took the two of them outside into the back yard so that I could talk to them in peace.

"Are you both okay?" I asked, speaking French because I knew nobody on the staff would understand that language.

"Fine," said Alain. "The boy who's using me hasn't done anything nasty to me or anything, and the work here isn't too bad. Where have you been, though? We've been worried because we haven't seen you. What's happening?"

"Harlan here has me with him all the time. He's nice, actually, though I wouldn't want to annoy him. What about you, Oli – how is your guy treating you?"

"He isn't," said Oli, grinning. "He couldn't do anything with me, and neither can anyone else. They all think I'm immune – apparently once in a blue moon someone comes along whose mind they can't read at all. So they gave up on me and sent me here, because the kitchen operates morning and afternoon. Alain only works here in the mornings, but at least we get to see each other every day."

"So you're immune? That could be really useful… let's test it. I reckon if anyone can get through to you, Harlan can."

I turned to Harlan and told him what Oli had told me, and Harlan looked hard at Oli for a few seconds.

"He's right," he told me. "I can't get through properly. But you can believe I'm going to want to try: I want the use of this slave. What's his name?"

So I told him Oli's name, and Harlan said he'd fix it with the senior instructor.

"Do you know where our other friends are?" I asked Alain.

"Sorry. I don't even see them in the dormitory, because there's a separate one for the kitchen workers: we get up earlier than anyone else to get breakfast ready, so we have our own small dormitory on the second floor. So we haven't had a chance to talk recently. I'm not sure where they work in the mornings. I think Stefan's working in the garage, and Tommi told me he's running errands for the instructors. I don't know about the others, though. Look, Jake… are we going to be able to get out of here? I don't like Oli getting shouted at, and I really don't like getting out of bed so early…"

"I can't see how we can, but I promise you that I'm thinking about it. And I swear that if I do think of a way out, then you two will definitely be coming with me."

"I know that, Jake," said Alain, quietly. "We both know we can rely on you."

I said goodbye, hoping that I wasn't going to let them down again, and Harlan took me out to the vehicle workshops. But we found them closed up: apparently the civilian staff that ran them didn't work on Saturdays. We eventually found Stefan up in his dormitory on the top floor, relaxing on his bed, and when he saw me he jumped to his feet, ran to meet me and threw his arms around me.

"Where have you been?" he asked. "God, I've been tearing my hair out because nobody has seen you – I was afraid you'd messed up somehow and were being punished or something…"

"No mess-up. I've been with Harlan here all the time."

"And are you okay?"

"Perfectly. What about you?"

"I got an easy number working on the vehicles. It's mostly cleaning them, but because I'm interested the mechanics have started teaching me a bit about maintenance, too. And my Konjässi is okay, too – at least, he hasn't done anything except try to read my mind so far. And he isn't all that good at it, either."

"Mine is," I said. "Stefan, this is Harlan."

"You two really do love each other, don't you?" commented Harlan in Arvelan. "When you hugged each other it was like a tidal wave. And you were right, Jake: he does feel the same way as you do. You're really lucky."

"Have you been telling him about us?" asked Stefan.

"Well, I didn't exactly have a choice, did I? Besides, he's nice – he likes boys too, and he sympathises with us."

"And is he looking after you?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Don't worry about me, Stefi. Anyhow, I've seen Alain and Oli – do you know where the others are?"

"Nicky's cleaning windows on the ground floor, I think. Tommi will be in the instructors' office, probably – he run errands for them. I don't know about Radu and Marc – I haven't seen them for about three weeks. They're in another dormitory, and they don't seem to eat at the same times as I do."

"We'll see if we can find them, then. I'll try to get Harlan to let me come and see you more often from now on. I think he'll let me."

"Good. But we're okay, Jake – you don't need to worry about us."

We headed off to check out the junior slaves' dormitories. The first one was empty, and when we reached the second one we thought to start with that there was nobody there either, but then we heard a noise from through a door off to the side. We crossed the room and stepped through the door and found ourselves in a small side room with three beds in. There were four fully-dressed slave boys standing around the bed furthest from the door, and a fifth boy, naked, tied to it face down. And one of the others was beating him with a leather strap. And as we moved a little further into the room I saw that the naked boy was Marc.

I opened my mouth to protest – and suddenly it was as if a clamp had been slapped over my tongue: I couldn't utter a single syllable, and I couldn't move, either. I watched the strap come down on Marc's bottom and heard his yell, and there wasn't a single thing I could do or say to stop it.

"What's he being punished for?" asked Harlan, and the four slaves spun to face us. Marc, I was happy to see, didn't – I would have hated him to think I was doing nothing to help him.

"Laziness, inefficiency, not doing his work properly," said the slave with the strap, a short, mousy-haired kid of about Marc's own age.

"Fine," said Harlan. "Carry on."

Quite unwillingly I found myself walking back out into the main dormitory, still unable to speak. Harlan closed the door to the side room behind us, closed his eyes for a moment, and then headed for the toilets and washrooms at the far end of the dormitory, with me, still unable to speak or even move of my own volition, following him. And here we found Radu, also naked, scrubbing the toilets.

Harlan released me from his control and stepped back, and as Radu stood up I was able to hug him.

"What's happening?" I asked. "Why haven't you got any clothes on – and why is Marc being beaten?"

"One of the other slaves says we're not proper boys because we've had our skin cut off," Radu told me. "He says that makes us slaves to the slaves, and so we have to do whatever they tell us. We do all the cleaning, and they make us do other stuff, too… you know, sex stuff. And if we don't do exactly what they tell us we get beaten. And because we're not proper boys we aren't allowed to wear clothes… please, Jake, can't you do something to help us?"

I turned to Harlan and translated this into his own language, adding a plea for him to intervene.

"Which slave told them this?" Harlan asked.

"Rusta," Radu told me, when I translated the question. "He said having the skin cut off is something that only happens to failures."

"Rusta is the tribesman I told you about," Harlan told me. "So, according to his own customs, he's right: this is pretty much what happens to boys who fail the manhood tests."

"Can't you do something?" I asked.

"No. This is a matter for the slaves to sort out. I'm not sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong, and nor are you. Come along."

"But…" And that was as far as I got before the mental clamp descended again, and I found myself being forced to walk away. I fought it as hard as I could, but I couldn't utter a sound, and although I got the impression that Harlan was having to work to keep me moving, there was nothing I could do to stop myself, not even when Radu called my name: I was forced to walk out of the dormitory and all the way back to Harlan's room.

Once we were back inside he finally released me, and I collapsed to the floor: my leg muscles were temporarily unable to support me. But my vocal system was working perfectly.

"You bastard!" I exclaimed. "Why wouldn't you help? Or you could have at least let me try to do something about it…"

"It's slave business, nothing to do with me. And if you'd tried to intervene you'd just have been hurt, and I need you in working order."

"But couldn't you at least let me explain that to my friend?"

"Why should I?"

"Because… because I thought you liked me."

"I do like you. But right now you don't like me, do you? In fact you're furious with me, and you'd really like to attack me, wouldn't you? Yes, I can see that you would… You know, that was a really good test: I was able to control you even when you had a truly good reason to try to resist – and even though you're thoroughly mad at me. Here, let me help you," and he offered me his hand. Of course I refused, instead levering myself onto my feet using the bed to support me.

Slowly my leg muscles recovered… and then I found myself sitting on the bed, my mind a complete blank as to what the time was or what I had been doing before.

"Sorry, Harlan," I said. "I sort of blacked out for a moment. What did you say you wanted us to do this morning?"

"You said you wanted us to go and find your friends, to see how they're doing," he reminded me. "We could do that if you like."

"Could we? Thanks, Harlan!" And I stood up… and then sat down again sharply as the memory of the morning's events flooded back again.

"You see?" he said. "I could have made you forget the whole thing, or I could make you forget that your friends even exist. If I did that there would be nothing to distract you from me."

"So why didn't you?"

"Because I like you. And because earlier you begged me not to do anything to change the way you are, and interfering with your permanent memories would be changing you. So would making you forget your friends, because the way you care about your friends is one of the most important things about you. Though, to be completely honest, it's very hard to enforce a permanent memory change: things start leaking through eventually. Not for quite a long time, if I do the job properly, and even then you wouldn't be sure if it was a real memory or just something you'd imagined. But in the end it would at least partly come back. I did some experiments on one of the other slaves about six months before you arrived, and his memories are starting to seep back now. It's apparently very confusing for him, and I wouldn't want to mess you about like that."

"Well, thanks. But I'm still mad at you."

"Not as much as you were. Look, Jake, you have to face facts: you're a slave, and that means you can't be responsible for anyone else any more. Your friends will have to look after themselves."

"You could do something to help them."

"Yes, I probably could, but you can't expect me to put their interests ahead of my own. This school works because everyone knows his place in it, and my place is not interfering in the running of the slave dormitories. If you think about it you'll see that I'm right. Now, I need to go and talk to one of my colleagues. I'll be back in ten minutes or so – just wait for me here." And he left the room.

To say that I wasn't happy would be an understatement, and the worst of it was that I knew Harlan was right: I couldn't take responsibility for my friends while I was a slave. But I didn't have to like it, and I wondered how I could get Harlan to change his mind, because I hated feeling so helpless: my friends were in trouble and I couldn't help them. I had to do something.

Harlan came back about fifteen minutes later, and he found me wearing the metal band, which I had taken from his cupboard.

"Ah," he said. "Okay, but now what? How is that going to help your friends – or do you just want to hurt me for not helping?"

To be honest, I hadn't really thought things through: when I put the band on I'd had some idea of forcing Harlan to come back to the dormitory with me and making him order the other boys to leave my friends alone. But now I realised that I'd never get him there without being challenged – after all, I couldn't stop him yelling for help to the first person we met. Maybe I can bluff him, I thought, and I advanced on him, trying to look threatening.

"You're not going to hurt me, Jake," he said, making no attempt to back away or do anything to protect himself.

"How do you know?"

"Because you're too decent to do that – and because you know you'd get punished really badly if you did."

"You think I care what happens to me?" I said, raising a fist.

"Hmmm. I suppose maybe you're angry enough not to."

And now I could feel something tickling inside my head: he was trying to get past the metal and take control again, but it wasn't working. But of course he didn't need to: I couldn't actually hit him because I knew it wouldn't help my friends, and because deep down I knew it wasn't his fault anyway. So I removed the band from my head and handed it to him.

"You're right," I said. "Sorry. It's just that I hate feeling like this."

"I know," he said, putting the band back in its cupboard. "I hope you realise I'm going to have to punish you for using this without permission?".

"I suppose so. By the way, I actually felt you back there – it wasn't getting through, but I could tell you were trying."

"Really? That's great – we'll have to work with the band some more, then. Sooner or later I'm going to beat it. Look, let's go and have something to eat first, and then we can have a proper go this afternoon."

"I'm not hungry," I told him.

"Yes, you are. Being angry and unhappy and frustrated doesn't stop you from being hungry."

I really wasn't very hungry, but I went to the dining hall with him anyway. And in the course of the meal I noticed him talking quietly with a couple of his colleagues, one of whom I recognised as the one who had picked Radu to work with on our first day here.

"I asked them both to keep an eye on their students, and to find something to occupy them in the mornings if possible," Harlan told me on our way back to his room. "If your friends are working with my colleagues they'll be out of the reach of the other slaves. It won't help them at night, but at least they'll be a bit safer during the day."

"Thanks, Harlan," I said, and I meant it. It might not have been a complete solution, but it was a lot better than nothing.

***

Another couple of weeks went by. Our work together now regularly included sessions where I would wear the metal band and he would try to defeat its inhibiting effects, but although I occasionally felt that tickle in my head he still couldn't break through. Nor could he do anything with Oli, who had come to work with us a few times. By now I had worked out that Oli was protected, not by any natural immunity, but by the metal rod that was still holding the bone of his right upper arm together. Harlan had said it was only metal on the head that formed a complete block, but I thought that a fairly large piece of metal actually inside the body might well have a similar effect. I didn't mention this to Harlan, and he never caught me thinking about it – after all, I didn't want them to try surgically removing the rod, just in case the bone had not yet fully recovered. Of course Harlan had made Oli strip naked to make sure he wasn't wearing anything metal, but naturally that hadn't made any difference.

Harlan liked Oli, who was still his naturally happy and optimistic self, even though he was doing boring work like washing vegetables and cleaning pots and pans. Sometimes Harlan would have wrestling matches with Oli, with whom he could fight as an equal: when he and I wrestled I had to wear the band to stop him cheating and using his powers on me. And Oli liked Harlan, too, who he said was fun to be with, and a lot nicer than the miserable kid who had initially been chosen to use him.

Harlan had also arranged for me and Stefan to get together a couple of times in his room. He'd even left us alone for a while, in exchange for being allowed to sit in the rest of the time and examine our mental response to each other. On both occasions he congratulated me afterwards on the strength of our attachment to each other, but the second time he also told me that Stefan was worried about me.

"He's afraid I'm messing with your head," he said. "As you know, there is some of that goes on, and he's afraid that, because we're together all the time, I must be doing something nasty with you. You'll have to tell him that I'm innocent."

"I'm not sure that 'innocent' is the word I'd use."

"Perhaps not." He grinned at me. "I want to try something new with you this week – I think we're bonded enough by now. See, we have a sort of training club – not all of us, just me, some friends and their friends – where we do stuff that isn't on the school timetable. We have sort of mental fights with each other. And I want you to come with me because… well, you'll see."

"When you say 'stuff that isn't on the school timetable' – do you mean that the teachers don't know about it?"

"That's right."

"Well… how can you be sure? I mean, they're mind-readers, aren't they?"

He laughed. "The first thing my father ever taught me was how to shield my mind from others of my race," he said. "In politics you don't want the other side's Konjässi picking information out of your Konjässi's head. And when you're a kid you want to have secrets from other kids. Part of our club is trying to break through each other's shields, and sometimes it works, but if someone did get past my shield I'm pretty sure I'd be aware of it. Anyway, we shield ourselves from the staff, especially when we're thinking about doing something we're not supposed to. And we wipe the memories of any slaves we use at the club – okay, it doesn't do a perfect job, but the teachers never bother trying to read the slaves' minds anyway. And you needn't worry, because I won't let anyone mess about with your memories."

So that evening, an hour or two after supper, he took me with him to a large room in the basement, where there were a dozen other Konjässi and fifteen or so slaves, though none of my friends was there.

"There are two sorts of fight," Harlan told me. "One using slaves that we control and one directly between ourselves. You'll see both tonight."

First came the fighting by proxy, using slaves: two Konjässiem stepped forward and selected a slave each. The slaves stood facing each other, having first stripped to their briefs.

"We have to do make them strip like that," Harlan explained to me, "because otherwise some sneaky bastard would kit his slave out with a metal belt under his shirt. See, the idea is that the slaves fight, and you try to hold the other guy's slave back – you know, make him stand still so your own slave can knock him out. The Konjässi with the best control will render the other one's slave defenceless."

It was a fascinating spectacle, although I felt bad for the two slaves, who were obviously getting hurt in the process, though at least the one with the less competent Konjässi got knocked down fairly quickly. There were two more bouts like that, and then the direct fights started – except that there was no fighting as such. Instead two Konjässiem lined up facing each other and then proceeded to stand still and, so far as I could tell, do nothing, until suddenly one dropped to his knees. His opponent acknowledged the cheers of the crowd while I looked confused.

"It's a compulsion fight," Harlan explained. "You try to force the other boy to his knees while he does the same thing to you. The boy with the strongest shield wins. I'll be doing one a bit like that later, and you're going to be helping me."

"I am? How?"

"Never mind. All you have to do is be there holding me upright – after all, I've hurt my knee, remember?"

"Huh? When did that happen?"

He just grinned at me and tapped his nose, and so I shrugged and watched the next fight. Of course, there wasn't much to see, just two boys staring at each other – all the actual fighting was taking place in their heads.

The fight after that was between two of the younger boys, and they announced that they were going to attempt to make each other strip, which went down well with the audience: this time the loser would suffer rather more humiliation that just being made to kneel. And once one of them had succumbed he was further made to walk around the room naked and with his hands on his head, exhibiting himself to everyone, including the slaves, who clearly enjoyed being able to see one of their masters exposed like this.

"Right, we're on," said Harlan, in a whisper. "Just keep hold of me for as long as you can without fainting, okay? You'll feel weak and tired, but you must absolutely not faint. If you think you're going to and can't hold out any longer, let go of me, but not until the last possible moment. Got that?"

"Sure. But why…?"

"Because I'm going to be using some of your mental energy. Now keep quiet."

He put his arm round my shoulders and I supported him while he limped to the mark on the floor where one of the fighters had to stand, and there he issued a challenge. A rather older boy stepped forward.

"Have you lost it, Harlan?" he asked. "You know I can have you on your knees inside ten seconds."

"I don't think so. And I'm not challenging you to kneel: I'm challenging you to strip."

"Don't be so ridiculous! Only the juniors do undignified stuff like that!"

"What's the matter? Scared we're all going to see you've got even less than him?" And Harlan pointed at the loser of the previous fight, whose conqueror was keeping him naked in front of the slaves. And since that boy looked about ten, and the boy Harlan had challenged looked nearer fifteen, this was quite an insult.

"All right, you arrogant son of a bitch, you're on – and when you lose I'll make you blow your slave in front of all of us!"

Harlan grinned at him. "Counting your chickens a bit, aren't you?" he said.

"No, I'm not. What's with the slave, by the way?"

"I've hurt my knee," Harlan told him. "I don't want to have to worry about falling over."

I felt a touch in my head, which I supposed was the other boy just checking to see that I really was a slave and not a disguised Konjässi, and then he stepped forward onto the other fighter's mark. One of the others gave the two contestants a three-two-one countdown and the fight presumably started, though I wasn't aware of anything happening. I kept my arms around Harlan, standing just behind him with one hand inside his shirt and so in contact with his bare skin as he had instructed me, and he ignored me completely, as far as I could tell.

The stalemate lasted two or three minutes, and Harlan's opponent looked, first surprised, then worried, and then he started to sweat. Then his hand twitched, and at the same time I began to feel a little tired.

Harlan's opponent gave a strangled gasp and, hands trembling, undid his sash, allowing his robe to fall open, and a murmur of surprise ran round the room. And slowly the other boy removed his clothes. By now I felt I needed to sit down – it felt as if I had been standing there for hours on end – but I stuck to my post and kept watching as the other boy stripped right down to his briefs. And there he stopped, presumably digging into his reserves to avoid taking the final step, while Harlan stood impassively, staring at him – though I could see that Harlan was sweating, and starting to tremble a little: clearly this was costing him a considerable effort.

Another wave of exhaustion swept over me, and I felt myself sway a little, but still I held on. I was starting to see dots before my eyes… and then the other boy seemed to break, and he wrenched his briefs down and threw them across the room, and a burst of cheering broke out. But Harlan hadn't finished yet. To cement his victory he forced his opponent to face the slaves and fondle his own genitals, which were a lot bigger – not to say hairier – than the younger loser's, until he got at least a semi-erection. And then finally Harlan released him and sagged back against me, and how I didn't collapse I really don't know. But somehow we managed to get back to our seats without falling over.

"Well done, Jake," breathed Harlan. "Are you still okay?"

"Just about," I replied.

"Good. We'll go back to my room as soon as we've got our breath back."

Another fight started, but before it finished we got up and left. Once back in Harlan's room we took our clothes off and got into bed, and tonight Harlan didn't even bother putting his nightshirt on.

"I didn't know for certain that would work," he admitted. "Maybe you didn't realise before how exhausting doing this sort of stuff can be – just because I'm not running about using up physical energy it doesn't mean it's easy. I don't know if they play chess in your world, but at the top level chess players find it extremely tiring and demanding, even just sitting in a chair for a couple of hours, and it's the same for us. But I've got so used to working with you that I thought I'd be able to use some of your energy as well as my own – and it worked. We make a brilliant team, Jake!"

"Yes, but isn't it cheating?"

"Well, technically. But it was only me doing the work – you were just sort of like an extra fuel tank. And now I've won that fight my status will definitely have gone up. That boy's only about three months away from his manhood ceremony, so he's nearly two years older than me. After those comments about him making me blow you in front of everyone I really wanted to make him play with himself until he came, but I was too tired. Still, I think I did enough. People will really take notice of me from now on."

"I wouldn't have minded too much if you had blown me," I said, grinning.

"Sorry, Jake, but that isn't going to happen. Well, not in public, anyway…"

I thought that sounded promising. And as for him getting a higher profile, I thought that if it was true it wouldn't do me any harm, either – if Harlan came to rely on me, maybe I could use that to make sure my friends were well-treated. I hadn't seen them in the last couple of weeks, but I hoped that Radu and Marc had at least got their clothes back. It was entirely possible that they hadn't: every now and again I'd see naked slaves about the place, who were presumably either being punished or forced to do it as an experiment in control by their masters. I certainly intended trying to persuade Harlan to let me see them again, anyway.

Next morning we were both feeling a lot better, and as we were naked it seemed entirely sensible to start the day by rubbing each other. I still felt a slight twinge of guilt about it, but I told myself that a happy Harlan would be more likely to allow me and Stefan some more time together, so I put my guilt away and concentrated on making my master happy. And apparently I succeeded in that.

I had intended mentioning Stefan's name that afternoon, but before I got a chance to do so – we were barely back from lunch – there was a knock at the door and the senior instructor himself came in.

"Harlan, we need to borrow your slave for the afternoon," he said.

"Certainly. May I know why?"

"I've had yet another reminder from that policeman, and I've decided to get it over and done with. I think all of your slave's party speak our language well enough by now, so if you'd like to come with me, Jake, we're going to take a full memory recording from you. You're going to tell us everything you know about that portal you came through, and any others you might know about."

This is likely to cause all sorts of problems in the future – though it's also going to give Jake a chance to sort out some of the problems his friends are having.

NEXT PART