David Clarke

The Nexus

Chapters 5-8

Chapter Five

So which of our heroes is going to have the honour of dying to ensure a good harvest? Read on to find out…

We followed Master Clerk to the house and into the same room where we had first met Master Farmer, and he was there again now, sitting at the same table. Master Clerk went and sat next to him; the two labourers turned and left the room, closing the door behind them.

"Big Raoul tells us that he saw you talking to Olivier by the stone altar," began Master Farmer. "So… I imagine that you know about the Quarter Day."

I'd been thinking what to say on the way over, and I'd decided that attack would be the best defence.

"I do," I said. "Master Farmer, you have not been fair with us: we were happy to stay and work here, and we would have been happy to stay and take our chance in the drawing of lots if you had told us about it from the start. But instead it seems you simply intended to fix the drawing of the lots to ensure that one of us went to the stone. And that is unjust."

"We would have done no such thing!" protested Master Farmer, but I wasn't looking at him: I was looking at Master Clerk, and it was clear from his face that fixing the lots would have been exactly what he would have arranged.

"Sir, that is hard to believe," I said. "The reaction around the room when you introduced us to the commune workers showed clearly that they knew none of their own children would face the stone this year. Shut up, Stefi," I added in English, because obviously poor Stefan had no idea what we were talking about and was trying to ask for an explanation.

"They were happy because your presence among us improved their odds, nothing more," Master Farmer protested.

"Hmmm… Well, if you say that no fix would have happened I will, of course, accept your word on that," I said. "But it's a good thing that we found out about it, because otherwise the gods would have been angry. Neither of us would be an acceptable offering."

"Why not?" demanded Master Clerk, looking worried all of a sudden.

"Because we are damaged. Am I right in thinking that Phiphi the Hunchback would never have been offered to the gods?"

"Of course. The offering has to be unblemished."

"Well, we are not. I, in fact, am incomplete: something was done to me in my infancy to bind me to my god," and I lifted the front of my tunic and showed them my penis. "As you can see, a small part of me was cut off when I was a baby. But there is a further reason: your sacrifice has to be 'a pure child', is that not so?"

"That's true," agreed Master Clerk.

"Well, we are not pure, either. See, in our country, when a boy begins to mature – that is, when his body hair first appears – there is a ceremony at the temple, and the boy dedicates his first ever experience of women to our gods by joining with one of the priestesses. I did it just before we left home, and Stefan, who is more mature than me, did it some weeks before I did. So neither of us is pure: we both have experience of women."

They looked at each other in consternation – obviously if I was telling the truth then they had been very close to insulting their gods with a substandard sacrifice. The fact that I was making it up as I went along and lying through my teeth was beside the point, of course.

"What is going on?" muttered Stefan in my ear.

"I'll tell you later," I replied. "But if anyone asks, you're not a virgin: you slept with a sacred priestess before we left home, okay?"

"But why should they ask that?"

"It doesn't matter. Just remember to say it's true and we'll be fine."

"Well… in that case I should thank you for telling us," said Master Farmer. "And I am sorry that we didn't speak of it before – to start with we assumed you would have a similar custom in your own country, and later… well, perhaps we should have spoken."

"We do have a similar custom, but we sacrifice a lamb or a calf," I said. "Our gods seem satisfied with that."

"I see. So… I suppose you wish to leave us now?"

"Well, not really, no. We like it here, and we'd be happy to wait a bit longer – at least until the Quarter Day, I should think."

I was watching them closely, and I could almost see the calculations going on in Master Clerk's head: were we telling the truth or not? And even if we were, could he get away with claiming to the gods that he'd honestly thought we were pure? And I was fairly sure that the answers he came to were 'Yes' and 'No', though I couldn't be sure.

"Good," said Master Farmer. "I understand that you are good workers – you especially, Stefan: not many boys have achieved what you did in the far field. So you would be welcome if you want to stay."

"Good. In that case, could we have our stuff back, please?"

Again, it looked as if Master Farmer wasn't aware that our belongings had gone missing: it was Master Clerk who said that they would be returned to us next day. And then we were told that we could go back to the dormitory, though I hung around outside long enough to hear raised voices, which pleased me – at least, if it meant that Master Clerk was on the receiving end, it did.

On the way back I explained to Stefan what had happened, and he was shocked to discover that one of us had been earmarked for human sacrifice.

"I said that this was a primitive world, did I not?" he said. "I think we should leave at once."

"Not yet," I said. "If I'm right in thinking that it's Master Clerk who is pulling the strings I think he's going to be pretty angry about us finding out about it – and I'm ready to bet that it'll be Oli who gets the call-up next, to pay him back for talking to me about it. If that is what happens we'll know it's fixed, and in that case I want to take Oli with us. I'm not leaving him here to be butchered."

"Well… if that is what you think, of course we will do it," said Stefan.

"Thanks. Oh, by the way, we might have another kid coming with us, too – or even more than one. Possibly as many as six." And I explained what had happened in town that morning.

"But… what will we do with six or seven boys from this world? They cannot read or write – how will they live in your world or mine?"

I hadn't really thought about that. And a further problem would be that they would have no papers, either, which I knew would be a problem in my world and I was pretty certain would cause them difficulties in Stefan's world, too.

"Well, we'll just have to find another world for them," I said. "Preferably a nice one, somewhere where not being able to read and write won't matter."

"That will give us a good excuse to explore more tunnels… except that perhaps we should not stay for so long in every world. If we do not return to our own worlds for too long it will be thought that we are dead."

That was a fair point. But I was determined to stay in this one long enough to find out who was going to keep the gods happy come Quarter Day, and if it turned out to be Oli, as I suspected, I'd make sure he left when we did.

We went back to the dormitory. Oli asked me if everything was all right, and I smiled and said that it was, and that I was confident that Stefan and I would not be set up as this year's sacrifice.

But next morning I was assigned to work with Stefan instead of with Oli, and that made me think that maybe they didn't want Oli and me spending too much time together: perhaps it was innocent, but perhaps Master Clerk thought that keeping us apart would prevent a bond forming that might mean us objecting when Oli's name came out of the hat. But the bond was already there, and so when Oli's name did indeed come out of the hat a week before the ceremony I already had a plan.

In theory it was an honour to be chosen, and those to be sacrificed were told that they would go straight to some version of Paradise to be with the gods. This meant that the more credulous victims didn't try running. I assumed that in any event the chosen one would be watched closely in the days leading up to the ceremony, just in case, but I thought we could get them to lower their guard a little.

So as soon as Oli told me he had been chosen I told him to act as if he accepted it and was happy at the thought of a future with the gods.

"Yes, but I'm not," he said. "I don't even think I believe in the gods – it seems silly, somehow. I mean, why would a god want to muck about being responsible for every chicken in the world, or every cow? If I was a god I'd want to do something far less boring."

"Right, but if you pretend you're happy about it they won't lock you away to stop you from running. Because you are going to run: like I said to Alain back in town, I'm not leaving you behind when we go. So act like you accept it and go on behaving normally, and then in two or three days' time when they think we're all okay about it, we'll sneak off in the night."

"But… won't they chase us and bring us back?"

"Not where we're going, they won't. Trust me."

The day after Oli found out he was going to be sacrificed Alain arrived at the farm. I was lucky in that I was feeding the pigs next to the house when he arrived, and so I got a chance to speak to him before he presented himself to Master Farmer.

"You don't know me," I impressed upon him, "or Olivier, either, so if you see him when there's anyone else around, just ignore him. We can talk properly later. For now just say you're on your way to visit your uncle in a town away to the north…"

"Which town? I don't know the country this far from Columbarier."

I presumed that Columbarier was the town where we had met him. I thought for a moment.

"Say 'The fort on the crossroads' I suggested, which seemed a reasonable version of 'Strasbourg' for this world. "And make sure they know that your relatives are expecting you – I'll explain why later. Now go before anyone sees us talking."

So he went and knocked at the farmhouse door and I got back to looking after the pigs. Good thing I'm not of the Orthodox persuasion…

After supper that evening we got a chance to talk, so Alain, Oli, Stefan and I went for a stroll round behind the dormitory. I was interested by Oli's reaction to the arrival of Alain – he actually seemed happy to see the town boy here. Perhaps it was just knowing that there was another older boy to help him escape, but I got the impression that there was more to it than that. For his part, Alain was quick to tease Oli, calling him 'My little yokel' from the start.

"Right," I said, "here's what we're going to do. For the next two days we carry on as usual. They'll think that if we are going to run we'll either go straight away or leave it until the night before the ceremony, so we'll do neither: we'll go in two days' time. Alain, I want you to leave straight after breakfast – tell them you're continuing with your journey. About two thousand paces along the road – heading north…"

"Which way is that?"

"Oh. Well, keep going the way you were, away from your own town. And two thousand… hang on: can you count that far?"

Alain shook his head.

"Don't worry," Oli told him, "I can't, either."

"Well," I said, "just keep going until you come to a small stone bridge. Leave the road and follow the stream that runs under the bridge up into the mountains until you reach the first trees…"

"I'm not going into no mountains!" Alain interrupted. "There are demons up there!"

"No, there aren't – at least, not close to the edge. You'd have to go right up high to meet the demons."

Stefan stared at me, but I'd decided it would be easier not to go against something that had apparently been drummed into everyone on this world from an early age: agreeing that there were demons, just not in our part of the mountains, seemed likely to meet with less argument than an outright denial.

"When you reach the first trees, stop and find somewhere to hide," I said. "We'll come and find you there as soon as everyone at the farm settles down for the night. And from up there you'll be able to see if there's anyone following us, so don't go to sleep!"

So for the next two days we all got on with our normal routine. Alain left after breakfast on the second day, having completely ignored the rest of us until then, and after supper we settled down as usual and pretended to go to sleep for an hour or so. Then, once we were sure the other orphans were asleep, we collected our things (our sacks had been returned to us as Master Clerk had promised, though I was fairly sure he'd had a good look through everything first) and went to the door…

It wouldn't open: the locking bar had been dropped into place.

"Shit!" I said. "Obviously the bastard still doesn't trust us. Now what? Can you get your knife through the door and lift the bar from this side?"

Stefan tried that, but the bar was too heavy and he couldn't lift it.

"Now I think we are in trouble," he said. "If we try to run during the day I am certain they will watch for it."

"You're right. Damn, I should have thought of this – if I had we could have got Alain to sneak back after dark and lift the bar for us. Now he won't know what has happened to us… what are we going to do, Stefi?"

We looked around, hoping there might be something in the room we could use to prise the par up with, but there was nothing. There were two windows in the dormitory, but they were high up in the walls and (more to the point) they were barred. And then Stefan looked up, and five seconds later he was scampering up the ladder into the loft.

"Come!" he hissed down to us, and so we climbed up after him – and found him cutting a hole through the roof thatching. It took a little while, but his knife was sharp and eventually he made a hole big enough for us to climb through.

I suppose it wasn't all that far to jump, but even three to four metres [10-13 ft] can look quite a long way when you're about to leap into space. But Stefan didn't seem daunted.

"I will go first. Then you throw me our bags," he said to me, "and then Olivier can jump: I will try to catch him. And then you can come last."

And two seconds later he was gone.

"Throw the bags!" he hissed up from the ground, so I did that, and then Oli lined up.

"Ready?" I called down, in a soft voice, and Stefan called back that he was, and Oli jumped – and gave a sharp cry as he landed. I was afraid that someone might have heard that, so quickly I jumped myself, stumbling and falling over as I landed. And there was Oli, sitting on the ground and holding his ankle.

"We have to go," I said, getting up and grabbing my bag. "Someone might have heard."

Oli stood up, took a couple of steps and fell over again, holding his ankle.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't walk. You'd better leave me."

"How many times do I have to tell you, we're not leaving you. Stefi, can you carry him first? You're stronger than me."

"Of course I am," agreed Stefi, hoisting Oli onto his back. "I am a strong warrior, and you are a feeble subhuman."

"And you're going to get beaten up when we get home," I threatened, making him utter a splutter of suppressed laughter.

To start with we headed towards the river. This was both because I didn't want to risk walking right past the house – it was still daylight, after all – and because if they tried following our trail next morning I wanted them going the wrong way. And we kept heading for the river until we reached the track that ran between the maize field and the sheep meadow, and there – having laid the beginnings of a false trail onward towards the river – we turned off, following the track and keeping to the hard bare earth part of it until it petered out close to the edge of the farm lands.

We climbed through the fence and followed it back to the road, and then we headed north as fast as we could, because I wanted to meet Alain before it got too dark: after that finding the hut again would be a lot harder.

I carried Oli myself for a short distance, but Stefan was right about me being feeble, and after less than ten minutes I had to hand him back again.

By the time we reached the bridge it was getting distinctly gloomy, but we followed the stream upwards until it reached the tree-line, and there Alain was waiting for us.

"I thought you weren't coming," he said. "I was getting a bit nervous, to be honest: I didn't want to sleep up here on my own, even if you do think the demons don't come down this far. What's the matter with Oli? Hey, little yokel, are you too lazy to walk, or what?"

"He's hurt his foot," I said. "We've had to carry him all the way."

"Clumsy little peasant," said Alain. "You'd better let me carry him for a bit, then – I've been resting for ages. Come on, little one – these two need to show us where to go next."

He hoisted Oli onto his back and looked at us expectantly.

The problem was that we hadn't marked the point where we joined the road. We knew it was not too far from the bridge, but we couldn't be absolutely certain how far, and if you're following a bearing and you start from the wrong place, you're going to finish in the wrong place, too. And now that it was almost dark we wouldn't recognise any landmarks, either.

"We're going to have to go back to the road," Stefan decided. "It's important that we find the right place to start from… look, you should all stay here, and I'll scout about and see if I can find it."

He was gone for a while, but I was afraid that he wouldn't be able to find us again if we moved from the stream, and so we stayed where we were, and eventually he returned.

"It is four hundred and thirty-seven paces from the bridge," he reported. "There is a fallen branch that I remember. But it will be dangerous to try the slope now – I think we must wait here until daylight."

I wasn't keen on that, because I thought there would be search parties after us at daybreak, and since we'd come from the north they would be expecting us to go back the same way. But in the end I decided that Stefan was right: we could cope with one member of the party who couldn't walk, but two would make the journey next to impossible. So we moved a little further into the trees and settled down for the night, wishing we had brought a tent and some sleeping bags instead of leaving them all at home.

Stefan and I settled down in one place while Alain put Oli carefully down on a fairly flat piece of ground and then snuggled up to him.

"Don't worry, little yokel,' he said. "If any demons come, I'll make sure they eat you and not me!"

"They wouldn't like you, anyway," said Oli. "You're too dirty."

"You're not exactly fresh, either – so maybe they'll leave us both alone and eat Jake and his friend instead. See, it's sensible not to be too clean!"

"Demons like dirt," I responded, and that shut them both up.

I woke up three times in the night, but the weather stayed dry and fairly warm and nothing came to trouble us. And when I woke up for the fourth time I found Stefan already on his feet. He had changed into his Orschwiller kit of shorts, tee-shirt and walking shoes, but I thought that might be tempting fate and so I kept my tunic on, though I did put my shoes back on – I thought the ground up around the hut would be very difficult in bare feet. I did up my belt and then we walked carefully to the edge of the trees and looked out, using the binoculars. At first we didn't see anything, but then I noticed three men on horses heading north along the road.

"I think that's our hunters," I said, handing the binoculars to Stefan and putting my glasses back on – and it was good to be able to wear them again, even if I had been able to get by without them. "Have we got time to get down to the road, along to the fallen tree and back up into the trees before they get here?"

"No," said Stefan. "They would certainly see us. I think it would be safer to wait until they have passed and hope that they do not turn back too quickly."

I wasn't keen on that. "Look," I said, "why don't we stay up here in the trees and move along the tree-line parallel to the road until we find the path?"

"Well… there was no path," he pointed out. "We were just on a bearing, and we could miss the point easily. But perhaps we could move along up here as you say for around four hundred paces, and then I will go down to the road, find the exact point and return on the bearing. Then I should be on the road for only a very short time."

That sounded like a good plan, and so I went to wake the other two and found them curled up together, still asleep.

"We have to go," I said as they stirred. "They're looking for us."

Alain got up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and helped Oli to his feet. Oli's ankle was better – it didn't seem to have been as badly damaged as Stefan's had been – but he could still only walk with a pronounced limp.

"Don't worry, country boy," said Alain. "I'll carry you. And if a demon appears I'll throw you at it and run away while it eats you. But first I need a piss."

He stepped a couple of paces away and peed into a bush, and then he supported Oli while he did the same thing. I passed them both my water-bottle, which they stared at.

"It's got water in," I said. "Drink."

Probably the Evian in the bottle tasted a bit different from the well water they were used to, but neither complained.

"Lie down and keep quiet," called Stefan softly from the edge of the trees. "They're coming."

So we did that, and in fact our dirty brown tunics were far better camouflage than my white tee-shirt would have been. I thought Stefan's red one would have been pretty conspicuous, too, but when he came back to say the horsemen had gone I saw that he had taken it off and smeared dirt onto his face and chest to camouflage himself.

"Let us go," he said, quietly. "You three try to walk where you are and keep level with the road, and I shall count the paces from the edge of the trees."

Alain and Oli had now stopped staring at my bottle and started staring at Stefan's shorts, but I didn't give them time to ask questions.

"Come on," I said. "Don't talk and try not to step on any twigs."

So the three of us stayed about twenty metres [65 ft.] above the tree-line while Stefan counted his paces closer to the edge of the trees and kept an eye out for the horsemen.

"Stop!" he called, when he had covered four hundred paces. "I am going down. Wait here."

He took off his bag, put his shirt into it and came and handed it to me, and then lay down on his stomach and slithered his way down towards the road, using a tiny ridge in the ground as cover. I watched him admiringly, knowing that I could never have move that unobtrusively – clearly there was something to be said for military training.

He reached the road and wriggled through the long grass beside it, but eventually he was forced to stand up to locate the fallen branch he was looking for, although even then he did it very slowly and cautiously. As it wasn't immediately in view he jogged up the road until he found it, and as soon as he was beside it he dropped down again and started to crawl back up towards the tree-line. He was moving very slowly so as not to attract the attention of anyone who might be looking his way, but I wondered if he might have done better just to get up and sprint, because it was taking him so long to reach the trees that I was sure the horsemen would be on their way back before he got there. And indeed he was still twenty metres [65 ft.] short of proper cover when we heard movement on the road below. Stefan froze, and so did I: I had moved a little closer to the edge of the trees to monitor his progress.

But it was only a farm wagon heading north along the road, and it wasn't the one from our farm, either: this was larger and older, and the man driving was someone I had never seen before. He did seem to look our way, but he didn't stop, and soon he was safely past us. And at that point Stefan did get up and run – obviously he'd decided that a quick dash would be safer than a slow wriggle.

The three of us moved through the trees to where he was waiting, and then he checked the compass to make sure we were still on the same bearing and moved on up through the trees: at least here we should be safe, I thought.

The next problem was that Stefan wasn't completely sure of where we had to move onto the new bearing: in our world there was a path, but not here, and while he knew how far it was from the hut to the point where the bearing changed, he hadn't thought to count the distance from that point to the road. And that meant we had to guess, which is a really good way to get lost when you're in a featureless forest.

We followed the new bearing for the correct distance, but it failed to take us to the hut. Stefan wasn't too worried: he said that all we had to do now was cast up and down on the original bearing, and eventually we would be sure to find the hut.

First we headed back in a more or less easterly direction until Stefan said he was sure the hut couldn't be this close to the edge of the forest, so then we turned west. We passed the point where we had started on this bearing – Stefan had marked a tree – and kept going straight ahead. We seemed to go quite a long way and I was starting to get worried that we might be completely lost up here, but Stefan remained confident in his compass – and eventually I caught sight of some whiteness ahead of us through the trees.

"I think we've found it, Stefi," I said. "Let's… shhh!"

I'd heard something behind us, and as we stood still I realised that it was voices.

"Get down!" I hissed, dropping into the undergrowth and trying to keep completely still as the voices drew closer.

"We shouldn't be up here," one of them was saying. "It's not safe – if those stupid kids did come this way the demons will get them, and I don't want them getting me for second course."

"Well, that farmer said he thought he saw something, and you know that if we don't make a proper effort to find them Master Clerk will be very unhappy. We don't have to stay up here for long, just long enough to have a proper look round – and if we hear a demon coming I'd back the horses to outrun them."

They rode past about thirty metres [100 ft.] away on our right. There were only two of them, so probably the third one was waiting back on the road… At least, I hoped he was: I liked it better when I knew where my enemies were.

We waited until we were fairly sure they had gone and then stood up and started to run towards the mist. We couldn't go too fast because Alain was still carrying Oli, but we kept up a steady jog, and soon the mist was only a short distance ahead of us… and then there was a shout, and the two riders appeared off to our right, heading towards us. We were right at the edge of the mist when they reached us, reining in about five metres [15 ft.] away.

"You're lucky we found you," said one of them. "If you hang around up here the demons will get you. We only want Olivier, but if the rest of you are sensible you'll come with us, unless you're planning on being a demon's snack."

"Olivier's not coming, yokels," declared Alain, lowering Oli to the ground and drawing his knife from under his tunic. "Columbarier for ever!"

"Blut und Ehre," proclaimed Stefan, drawing his own knife, which had that motto – 'Blood and Honour' – inscribed on the blade.

I only had a Swiss army knife, and I didn't think even its biggest blade – which was maybe three inches [8 cm] long – would be a lot of use against a man on a horse. I could have joined in with the slogans, maybe offering something like 'Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George!', but since my grandparents had all been Polish or French I thought maybe that would be a little over the top. I got the knife out of my bag anyway, but it seemed futile – even the larger knives that Stefan and Alain had wouldn't be a lot of use against cavalry. We're doomed, I thought…

…and then Oli pulled his catapult out from under his tunic and I changed my mind completely, because I'd seen him in action with it. He took a stone from the pouch on his belt and took aim.

"Go away," he said. "You know I can use this. I'd sooner not, but I'm not going back to be sacrificed just because Master Clerk is angry with me. Just go back and tell him you couldn't find us."

"Look, Olivier, it's not safe up here," said one of the men. "And in any case you were chosen by lot – you can't just turn your back on that. The gods will be angry."

"I wasn't chosen by lot, I was chosen because Master Clerk fixed it that way to get me back for telling Jake it was going to be him or his friend who got sacrificed."

"He's right," I said. "Master Farmer didn't know about it, but Master Clerk was going to make sure it was either me or Stefan who got chosen this year – he virtually admitted it. And when he found out we weren't suitable he picked Oli instead, because he was the one who had warned me."

The two men looked at each other.

"Well," said the first one, eventually, "even if that's true you can't stay up here. It isn't safe."

"It's safer than I would be back on the farm," said Oli. "Look, it's our choice this way. If the demons get us, we'll know the gods are angry with us, and if they don't, we'll know we were right to run away. So just go, tell them you couldn't find us and let the gods decide what happens to us. That would be fair, don't you think?"

The men looked at each other once more, and whether it was Oli's argument or his catapult that convinced them I don't know. But something did, because they turned their horses round.

"As you say," said the one who had done all the talking, "we didn't find you – and I hope the demons don't, either. Good luck!"

And they rode away.

"Shit, that was brave, little yokel," said Alain, putting his knife away and hoisting Oli onto his back once more. "If I'd been where you are I'd have been running and hoping the rest of us could hold them off."

"Don't underestimate what he can do with a catapult," I warned him. "If those men have seen him shooting birds out of the sky I don't blame them for backing down. He's lethal."

"Come on," said Stefan, turning and heading into the mist. "Let us find the cabin."

In fact we found one of the ropes first, simply by walking right into it. We followed it to the left and found the tree it was tied to, so we untied it and followed it to the other end, where it was tied to the shed at the back of the hut. Stefan untied that end and coiled it up and then we moved round to the front and went inside.

"I will get the other rope," said Stefan. "Get ready to block the door with the bunk – I do not think they will come back, but it would be good to be prepared."

He disappeared into the mist, following the other rope, and Alain and I moved the bunk so that we could use it to block the door if necessary. Like the other huts I had been in, this one had no ordinary windows: instead it had a skylight in the roof, and while it might be possible for someone to get up there and break through it, I thought it unlikely, especially in the short amount of time we would need to get down the ladder and away.

Stefan returned, coiling the rope as he came, and we closed the door and pushed the bunk in front of it, and then I opened the trapdoor and went down the ladder, the others following me. The light in the small room surprised them, and the mopeds surprised them even more.

"What are those?" demanded Alain.

"A sort of mechanical horse," I said.

We pushed them into the corridor and I got on mine and started the engine, and Oli and Alain both gasped at the noise. This moped at least had a seat that was big enough for two, although the other one didn't, so I persuaded Oli to sit behind me and hold on (and that took a bit of doing).

"Keep your feet off the ground," I told him, "and hang on tight." And I twisted the grip and off we went.

Oli's first shout was one of fear, but then he relaxed a little, and by the time we reached the room of doors he seemed to be enjoying it.

"What makes it go?" he asked as we dismounted to open the door.

"It's called petrol – it's a sort of magic juice." Well, that was a lot easier than trying to explain the workings of the internal combustion engine, which I didn't think I could have done, anyway.

Stefan, whose moped only had a small, one-person saddle, arrived just after us with Alain jogging along behind him, and we wheeled our way into the room of doors.

"Where do all those doors go, then?" Alain asked.

"We don't know," I told him. "That one goes to Stefan's world, one – though I don't know which one – goes to mine, and this one goes to the world we share, and that's where we're going right now. As for the others, I have no idea."

So we made our way back to our hut, once again leaving the mopeds in the small room at the foot of the ladder.

"Can you find your way home without me?" Stefan asked me.

"Yes, I think so." After all, I simply had to stick close to the bearing and follow the marks that Stefan had cut into the trees.

"Then take Olivier with you so that he does not have to walk and then bring the Citroën to where the track ends," he said. "Alain and I will meet you there."

And as we only had the one moped still above ground level here, that seemed to be the best thing to do. This time Oli was a lot less reticent about getting on the bike and he enjoyed the ride down to Orschwiller immensely, whooping in my ear every time I went over a bump and urging me to go faster.

And he liked the car even more, though his eyes almost popped out of his head when I opened the door and got in.

"Is this more magic?" he asked.

"Well, it's the same sort – it's the magic juice again. Get in."

And he did, and by the time we reached the end of the track he said he liked this magic world a lot.

Alain was a little more sceptical and wanted to sit on top of the car instead of inside, but in the end we persuaded him that it would be very dangerous to do that, and that it would be much safer inside, though I still think we would have lost the argument if he hadn't seen that Oli was quite happily ensconced inside the car. But he didn't want to be shown up by the younger boy and so eventually he got in, looking thoroughly nervous.

I drove us back to Orschwiller and parked – fairly tidily – outside the house.

"This is where Stefan and I are staying at the moment," I said. "There's nobody else in this world as far as we can tell – all the people are dead or gone – and so this is our place now. So come and see what you think."

Obviously neither of them had seen anything like the carpets and wallpaper, and the furniture only distantly resembled the things they were used to.

"Okay, first things first," I said. "I think we all need a bath. I'll go and start heating some water."

I went into the kitchen and found the two biggest saucepans in the house and turned on two of the rings on the cooker: I was sure the water would have gone off by now. And yet I absent-mindedly stuck one of the saucepans under the tap to fill it anyway, and when the water ran normally it took me a few seconds to work out that I wouldn't need to heat water after all: either the generators at the water works were still running, or the water works was far enough away from Sélestat to be on a different power grid. So I turned the cooker off again and ran upstairs, and when I turned on the hot tap in the bathroom water appeared straight away.

I filled a bath and went downstairs.

"I'm not sure how much hot water the tank holds, so we'd better do this two at a time," I said. "Stefi, if you and I go first we can then let these two soak for as long as they want." Or need, I didn't add, though Stefan and I weren't exactly fresh, either.

So we told the other two to sit back and rest for a bit while Stefan and I went up to our room and got undressed. I was still wearing my tunic and rope belt, so it didn't take me long to undress, but he was only wearing his shorts and briefs, so it didn't take him long, either – and then we kicked off our shoes and jumped into the bath. We took it in turns to wash each other down, and when Stefan was washing me I quickly got an erection as usual. Obviously he teased me about that, so equally obviously when it was my turn to wash him I spent long enough soaping his genitals to make good and sure that he was stiff, too.

"I think we were going to have another contest, were we not?" he said, grinning at me.

"I think we were, but let's wait until Alain and Oli are safely in the bath. That way they won't burst in on us."

"That is a good idea. So, let us wash quickly and get them in here."

I was really happy to see how keen he was, so we washed each other's hair quickly, got out, dried ourselves, drained the bath – the water was pretty dirty, though probably most of that came from running about a farm in bare feet all the time – and went back to the bedroom, where we put on a clean piece of underwear each. Then I went downstairs and brought the others up to the bathroom, making them take their clothes off outside.

They both stared open-mouthed around the room – everything here was, of course, completely new to them. They loved the idea of a flush toilet and both insisted on trying it out at the same time, jostling each other until I told them that anyone who pissed on the floor would have to clean it up. And then I ran them a nice hot bath, got Oli to climb in and sit down, and began to wash him with soap and a flannel.

"Okay, Alain, you take over," I said, handing him the soap. "Make sure he's really clean all over. Use the stuff in that bottle to wash his hair… no, I'd better show you that," and I applied shampoo to Oli's very dirty hair and used the spray attachment to wash it out. "Do that at least twice more, and don't forget to turn the tap off when you've finished or you'll flood the place. When he's clean, swap places – you might find the water's too dirty to use again, though, so maybe you'd better call me when you're done. Okay, have fun, and I'll see you in a little while." And I left them to it and went back to the bedroom, where I found Stefan stark naked on the bed, idly toying with himself and grinning at me.

"Hey, that's not fair," I said, whipping my boxers off. "You've got a start on me."

"You had better catch up, then," he said.

So I plonked myself on my back right next to him and started to get myself hard.

"I didn't tell you, did I?" I said. "When Alain and his mates grabbed me and Oli in town they all wanted to feel me, and it made me shoot, even though none of them actually rubbed it properly. So I'm obviously more mature than you think."

"Is that true?" he said. "Then perhaps I should try to make that happen." And before I could react he took hold of my erection and started to caress it gently – and it felt absolutely incredible.

"Oh, shit, Stefi, that feels really amazing," I gasped.

"I knew that you would like it," he said, tickling my balls. "I could tell that you are one of those boys who wants to do this."

That brought me down to earth, and I rolled over to stare at him, but before I could start stammering out denials he said, "It is all right, Jake: I do not care if you are warm. We are friends, are we not?"

"What do you mean, warm?" I asked. "I'm nice and cool, actually."

"No, I mean… that you are a boy who likes other boys. That is true, is it not?"

"Well… yes, I suppose so," I mumbled. "In English the word is 'gay', though."

"How strange – I thought that this word meant 'happy', but… well, it does not matter. So – we are told that for boys to do sex acts together is a bad thing, and I understand that they want us to do sex only with girls so that the Reich obtains more children. But I do not understand why we cannot do both. I am still too young to go with a girl, and in fact I do not wish it, though I know that some of my comrades do, and I think that I may come to wish it when I am older. But to me it seems good for friends to explore sex together, so that when we begin to go with girls we are not completely inexperienced.

"So I would like very much to explore sex with you, Jake. I do not know if I will be warm… I mean, gay, when I am grown, and for now it is not important. You are my friend, I trust you, and I like very much to be with you… and I very much like your penis, also. It feels different than mine. So, may I make it stand up once more?"

I'd lost my erection because I'd been terrified he was going to react badly to finding out I was gay, but now I felt… well, happy and relieved and excited and…

"Of course you can, Stefi," I said. "You can make it stand up any time you want."

"Good. Then now would be a good time to start." And he took hold of me and stroked me some more, and then he began to rub it properly, and in no time at all I could feel the orgasm rushing towards me…

And this time I spurted three times, which was a new personal best, and it felt ten times better than doing it myself.

"So, today your sperm arrived before mine," he said. "Perhaps you could help me to catch up?"

"Oh, God, yes," I replied, and I took hold of him – it was already really hard, which pleased me, because it proved that he had enjoyed handling me – and I stroked it slowly all over for some time.

"Please will you rub it now?" he begged.

"Well, since you said 'please'… okay," I said, and I began to masturbate him slowly. He was bigger than any of the boys I had wanked in Columbarier, and so it was much easier to get hold of him properly, and soon I was in a nice steady rhythm – and then he put his arm round me and pulled me close to him, and that felt really nice. I smiled at him and he smiled back.

"That feels so good, Jake. Please could you stop for a moment? If you do, this will last longer, and I would very much like that."

So I did that, and he pulled me closer still and hugged me, and I felt so happy that I wanted to stay here for ever, lying in this beautiful boy's arms…

And then we were interrupted by a call from the bathroom.

"Oh, bugger," I said, with feeling. "Stay right there, Stefi – I'll be back in a moment."

I pulled my boxers on, grabbed my specs and ran through to the bathroom and found Oli standing beside the bath while Alain was drying his back. And I guessed that he'd been drying his front, too, because Oli had a very solid little erection.

"Hey, Jake," said Alain, "Don't you think my little yokel looks different now? Now that all that muck has come off him he looks quite pretty, don't you think?"

I looked in the bath, where the water looked more like liquid mud, so I pulled the plug and watched it drain away. While it was draining I checked Oli over, and I found that Alain had done a really good job and all the mud had gone, even from the soles of Oli's feet.

I nipped back to the bedroom, found my comb and took it back to the bathroom.

"How shall we arrange his hair?" I mused, comb poised.

"He hasn't got any yet," said Alain, grinning and stroking the base of Oli's little penis.

"Well, nor have you," I pointed out.

"Yes, but I'll get some before he does."

"Obviously – you're three years older. Now, shall we try a side parting, like Stefan's?" I started combing Oli's hair and found that it, too, was nice and clean (in fact it was now several shades lighter than I had thought it was – it was now a light brown shade), though there were still a few tangles to sort out. But eventually I had his hair arranged in a parting like Stefan's.

"I'm not sure," said Alain. "I mean, we can change it later, can't we?"

"Of course," I said, turning on the spray attachment and using it to rinse the remaining mud out of the bath. Then I put the plug back in and turned on the tap, hoping that there would be enough hot water left. I stayed until the bath was ready, just to make sure it didn't start running cold, and then told Alain to get in.

"Now make sure he's as clean as you are when he gets out," I said to Oli, handing him the soap.

I ran back to the bedroom and found that Stefan was now in the bed and apparently asleep. Somehow I didn't believe that, so I removed my boxers, put my glasses back on the bedside table and got in next to him, and he wriggled close and put his arm round me.

"I think you were doing something before, were you not?" he said.

"I think you're right," I said, sliding my hand down his body and taking hold once more. "But you'd better warn me when it's going to happen so I can get the bedding out of the way – otherwise you'll be sleeping on the wet side tonight."

I started to rub him gently and he made a sort of purring noise and wriggled a bit closer, suggesting to me that he'd decided that if it was okay to experiment with other boys he was going to experiment properly. And I didn't mind that at all.

It wasn't long before he began to wriggle about.

"Do you want me to stop again?" I asked.

"Well… I would say 'yes', but I think we should start to make a meal for our guests soon," he said. "So perhaps we should finish now."

He threw the quilt back so that he was now fully exposed and I went on rubbing until he gasped, jerked hard against me and then spurted onto his chest and stomach. I held on tight until he finished and then let go, found another handkerchief in a drawer and handed it to him to clean himself up.

"That felt wonderfine. Thank you, Jake," he said, sitting up and reaching for a clean pair of briefs. "It was much better as to do it to myself."

"Better than," I corrected. "The same as, but better than."

"English is a stupid language. So, it was better than to do it to myself."

I didn't bother with any further corrections. "I'm glad you liked it," I said. "And you're really sure you don't mind doing things like that with me?"

"I am certain. I will want us to do that again many times, if you want it also."

"Oh, I do," I assured him. "Right: you go and sort us out some food; I'll go and make sure Oli hasn't drowned Alain yet."

I pulled the boxers on again and went back to the bathroom, where I found Oli washing Alain's hair. I checked the result and suggested that another go would be a good idea, and Oli went at it happily, and when he had finished I got Alain to stand up while I rinsed him down with the spray attachment, since once again the bathwater was an impenetrable brown colour and I thought it would be better if it all stayed in the bath.

Alain got out and Oli started to dry him while I drained the bath and rinsed it out. This time I had brought the comb with me, and at Alain's suggestion I tried combing his hair back, which worked while his hair was wet but which I thought would need some gel later. And as there was none in the house I thought he might have to change his style fairly soon. (Alain's hair colour had not changed a lot – it was still a very dark brown, darker than mine. Obviously that was its natural colour, and not the result of a long period between washes).

Oli's attentions with the towel had left Alain good and stiff, just as Oli was himself – I was getting the impression it might be fun to watch the way these two behaved with each other in future. I led them back through to the bedroom to find them some clothes, and quickly came to the conclusion that Alain could use the stuff I had 'bought' for myself, but that Oli was too small.

Alain pulled on a tee shirt and a pair of shorts – he even accepted a pair of boxers when I explained that it was normal to wear something underneath the shorts. He wasn't interested in socks, though, and as we weren't going anywhere for a bit I thought bare feet would be fine – in fact I didn't bother putting anything else on myself except the same pair of shorts I had worn as far as the farm at Irtengarde.

But Oli was a problem: we didn't have anything small enough.

"It doesn't matter," said Alain. "Oli can run bare – can't you, little yokel? You haven't got anything worth looking at, anyway."

"Shut up!" responded Oli. "How would you like it if Jake and Stefan made you go naked? After all, it's their clothes you're wearing."

"I wouldn't mind, to be honest. I've got nothing to be ashamed of."

I went to the wardrobe, just in case there was something we could cut down, and there I found a plain white tee shirt. From the size of it the late householder would have been quite skinny by adult standards, but on Oli it was very baggy. And a garment that would have reached an adult's waist, just about, came to just above Oli's knees.

"That'll do for now," I said. "We'll find you something better later – probably there were quite a few kids in the village before, so if we go and look in some of the other houses we'll probably find some stuff you can use. Now, you need a belt…"

I found a belt in the wardrobe and borrowed Alain's knife to cut it short and to make a new buckle-hole to fit Oli's waist. And once that was on the garment wasn't so very different from Oli's tunic. He seemed to like it, anyway.

Next I took them into the spare bedroom.

"Do you two mind sharing a room?" I asked. "To sleep in, I mean."

"No, I'd like that," said Oli.

"So would I," agreed Alain. "Although if it turns out that country boys snore I'll kick him out into the street."

"Right. Well, you'll have to share the bed for now. There's probably a spare quilt somewhere – I'll look after supper. If you don't want to share we've got some sleeping bags…"

"No, we'll share," said Alain, straight away, and Oli nodded enthusiastically. I thought it would be fun to be a fly on the wall in their room once it got dark, but then I realised that I wouldn't want anyone spying on me and Stefan, and so perhaps I should leave the two of them in peace.

"Okay, shall we go and see if Stefan's got us something to eat?" I said.

"In a minute. See, I remember you promising me something," Alain reminded me. "You said if I came back to your place and cleaned myself up you were going to do something for me. Can you remember what it was?"

"Oh, come on, Alain," complained Oli. "You can't make him do that, not after they rescued us and shared their stuff with us and everything."

"He swore," said Alain. "Didn't you, Jake?"

"Yes, I did," I admitted. "But… well… I mean, I've never done that before, and I don't know how, or anything, so I might not be very good at it."

"I can tell you what to do… well, probably… all right, look, I've never had it done, either. But I want to try because this boy I used to know said a girl did it for him once and it was really good. So even if neither of us really knows how, can we try?"

"Well… I suppose…"

"No!" interrupted Oli, firmly. "It wouldn't be fair after all he's done for us. But… I'll have a try if you want, Alain. I don't know anything about it, either, but if you don't mind me messing it up I'll have a go."

"Okay," agreed Alain. "See, Jake? Even a little country boy has the guts to try."

Rather like being fucked, this was something else I'd thought about doing some time, and now I had the added incentive that I'd really like to be able to do it for Stefan. So…

"I promised I'd do it, and I still will if you want," I said. "If you two want to practise and work out how to do it, afterwards you can teach me and I'll do it for you as well. Is that okay, Alain?"

"Yes, of course. And I was teasing before: I knew you'd keep your word. I reckon you and Stefan are good friends to have, too: you could easily have run off and left us when those riders found us, but you didn't: you stuck with us, even though it wasn't your fight, or even your country."

"It wasn't your fight, either," Oli pointed out. "But you were the first one to stand in front of me to protect me. So I think all three of you are real friends."

"Look, I'm hungry," I said. "Let's go and eat. You two can practice… you know, this evening, and show me tomorrow. Come on – let's see what Stefan's got for us."

Tonight it was a choice between rabbit with rice and vegetables or ravioli. Alain and Oli had no idea what ravioli was, so they chose the rabbit, which left me and Stefan eating pasta. To be honest I've tasted a lot better, but it was hot and filled a hole. Oli and Alain thought the rabbit tasted okay but that there wasn't really enough meat, and they found the rice a bit tasteless – obviously they'd never eaten it before.

"Okay," I said, "tomorrow I'll cook us a corned beef hash. If I can find anything to go in it except for corned beef, that is – maybe there are some potatoes in the village shop that haven't started sprouting yet. So, what are we going to do tomorrow? I think a day to rest up might be a good idea: Oli ought to rest his ankle, and it'll give us a chance to find him some clothes…"

"It's all right," said Oli. "I like this."

"Well, we're going to need another couple of toothbrushes, at least. I don't think the village shop will have some, but I'll look, anyway – I don't want to have to go back to Sélestat."

We went to the main room and sat down, me and Stefan on the sofa and Alain, with Oli on his lap, in the armchair opposite us. Stefan had taken a piece of A4 paper from the printer in the office and was drawing a diagram of the room of doors, marking the ones we knew and leaving gaps for the rest. Actually I was finding it hard to concentrate on what he was doing, because opposite me Alain had his hand up underneath Oli's shirt and Oli was giggling a lot.

"So," said Stefan, "we will rest tomorrow: which door should we try the day after? Olivier, you are the youngest, so you decide. Come here and point at a door."

"But I don't know where any of them go."

"Nor do we. It is a lucky guess that we need."

"All right." Oli jumped off Alain's lap, came over to the table, closed his eyes, wiggled his finger about and then stabbed it at random at the diagram. Then he went back to the chair and got back onto Alain's lap, this time sitting sideways on so that he could put an arm round Alain's shoulders. And Alain pushed the tee-shirt up and tucked it into the belt so that Oli's genitals were completely exposed and started to tickle them, and Oli just sat there giggling, not caring that we could see.

"That is number twelve," said Stefan. "Next time I am there I will paint the numbers on each door. So we have a new place to explore. Let us hope that Olivier has found us a good world to visit…"

So in the next chapter our growing collection of explorers will be heading back for the tunnels… but there's going to be a diversion before they get to Oli's lucky door.

Chapter Six

In this chapter Oli and Alain continue to discover the delights of technology, and Jake and Stefan start to learn about what the Nexus Room is and what its origins are.

That night Stefan and I didn't misbehave, but he did let me snuggle up close to him, and I actually fell asleep with my head on his shoulder. And next morning I was woken up by sounds of laughter from across the landing.

"Our guests are awake," I commented.

"Go and tell them to be silent. It is too early," said Stefan, sleepily.

So I rolled out of bed, pulled on my boxers and my glasses and went to the spare bedroom, where I found Oli and Alain wrestling naked on the floor. Alain had Oli pinned down and was tickling him enthusiastically.

"You're supposed to be resting today," I pointed out. "And we're still trying to sleep."

"Why?" asked Alain. "The sun's up, so the day's started. If you were back on the farm you'd be eating breakfast with the other peasants, not lounging about on your bed."

"Yes, but we're not on the farm, and it's only about six o'clock," I said.

"What's 'six o'clock' supposed to mean?"

"Oh, never mind," I said. "Just try to keep it down for half an hour or so… that's about… look, just keep quiet for a bit, okay?" And I went back to our room, closing the door behind me.

I got back into bed and snuggled up to Stefan, but no more than ten minutes later the door burst open and Alain came in, dragging me out of bed.

"Come on, get up," he insisted. "It's a nice day and we should enjoy it, not waste it lying about!"

After that there was no point in trying to sleep, so I got up, dressed (just boxers, shorts and tee-shirt) and went downstairs to sort out some breakfast. Alain and Oli both took to breakfast cereal straight away – it was a lot better than porridge, they said – and they liked the orange juice, too. They had no idea what an orange was, so I just explained that it was a fruit that grew a long way away in the south.

"I think you're really lucky, living in a magic world like this!" said Oli enthusiastically, refilling his glass with juice. "Can we really stay here with you for ever?"

"Well… no," I replied. "None of us will be able to stay here very long, because now that the people have gone everything will stop working: the gas will run out, the water will stop running, and in the winter the heating won't work, unless we move to a house with a wood-burning stove."

"Well, we could do that," said Oli. "And we could grow food to eat, and get some cows and sheep… we could have a proper farm of our own, and we could turn Alain into a country yokel to work on it for us."

"No, thanks," said Alain. "You yokels do the work; I just get to eat the food."

I thought about it, and I supposed that there would be nothing to stop us from moving down onto the plain, finding a farm and moving into it. And maybe some of the domestic animals might have survived the way the village cat had done… but I knew nothing about turning wheat into bread, or turning sheep into mutton, and I thought it would be hard work, especially with only four of us.

"I don't think we could," I said. "This world is a dead end – there aren't any women here, for a start, so we couldn't have kids, and that would mean that when we get too old to work we'll just starve."

"I don't want kids anyway," said Alain. "But maybe you're right. So what are we going to do, then?"

"We'll carry on as we have been doing: we use this place as our base and keep exploring the tunnels until we find a good world for you two to stay in. And once we've found one where you'll be safe, Stefi and I can go back to our own worlds – assuming I find mine, that is – and we'll carry on with our lives.

"So today I'm going to the shop to see what they have here, and maybe we could try a few of the other houses to see if we can find some clothes for Oli. How's the ankle, by the way?"

"Much better," said Oli. "I think I can walk properly again now. I'll go for a walk after breakfast and find out. Perhaps Alain and I could go and look for clothes while you go to the shop. And then… can you show me how to work the magic carriage?"

It took me a moment to work out what he meant. "You want to learn to drive the car? Okay, then. What about you, Alain?"

"No, thanks. Magic makes me nervous."

So we spent the day exploring the village. In the store at the back of the shop I found a bag of potatoes that were only just starting to sprout, so I grabbed enough to make a decent hash that evening. As I had expected, there weren't any toothbrushes, but later on we found some unopened ones in a couple of houses and in due course had fun showing Oli and Alain how to use them. We also found some gel for Alain, who had decided he liked his hair brushed back and wanted to keep it that way. And later I taught Oli how to drive the Citroën, and he took to it surprisingly quickly.

"Next you must teach me to ride the magic horse," he demanded. But that defeated him, at least for today: he had never ridden a bicycle, of course, and so balancing was a major problem. He was determined, and I thought that if he kept working at it he would probably manage it in the end, but since he had bare feet and bare knees I thought it would be too risky to do a lot of practice unless we could find a nice flat field to practise in.

Stefan, meanwhile, had scoured the village for mopeds, because we really needed another one that had a big enough seat for two. Eventually he found one like that, but he also found a proper motorbike, and he was determined to have a go at riding it. He knew the principle of it and quickly worked out how to change gear, but having a footbrake for the rear wheels instead of a handbrake took a bit of getting used to, and after he fell off for the second time he agreed that we should postpone any further experiments with two wheels until we found somewhere softer to practise.

After a quick lunch we all got into the Citroen – with Oli driving – and went down the road to Kintzheim, and there Stefan and I investigated the shops while Alain and Oli went clothes-hunting for both of them. And when eventually they reappeared Alain had found a pair of jeans that fitted fairly well, and Oli had found… a rather fetching little sleeveless dress in a nice shade of pale blue.

"Do you like it?" he asked, giving us a twirl. The dress was barely long enough to be decent even when he was standing still, so you can imagine what twirling round in it did.

"Well… I mean…" I began, but Stefan was a bit less reticent.

"That is what girls wear," he said, bluntly.

"Oh. Well… I don't care. I like it. I won't wear it when we go back exploring if you don't want me to – I found some of those little things earlier, like you're wearing…"

"They're called shorts," I put in.

"Well, those. And I'll wear those when we go back to the place under the earth. But Alain likes me in this, and so do I, so I'm going to wear it while we're here, all right?"

"I don't mind," I said, "as long as you're happy. So, shall we go back home? I want to get cooking."

So Oli drove us back to Orschwiller, and even though he left the car parked in the middle of the road I thought he was already an adequate driver.

The hash was pretty good, though I say it myself: the potatoes were still okay, and I'd found a couple of decent onions, too, and so the only thing missing from my mother's usual recipe was a bit of cheese to put on the top, and it still tasted fine without any. And the others all liked it, too – at least, they said it was a big improvement on the previous evening's packet meals.

We went upstairs when it started to get dark, and while Stefan was in the bathroom Alain called me into his room. He was just in the process of helping Oli to take his dress off, and as a result I found myself confronted with a completely naked boy almost as soon as I entered the room.

Alain draped the dress over the back of a chair and came to stand behind Oli, putting his arms round him.

"I thought I ought to tell you," he said, "I changed my mind last night. I've decided that I like my little yokel too much to make him do dirty stuff with me, and so… well, you don't have to suck me, either. I mean, it'd be fun to find out what it feels like, but… well… if Oli and I are going to be proper friends I wouldn't feel right about him having to do that to me. And I want us to be proper friends."

"So do I, but I still don't mind trying to do that for you," said Oli.

"Nor do I," I added. "Seriously, Alain, I reckon it could be fun."

"Well, it's not happening just yet," said Alain, firmly. "I never made my mates back in Columbarier do it, and I'm not making you two do it, either. Alright, maybe when Oli and I have known each other a bit longer – a month or so, perhaps – I'll let him do it if he's still sure that he wants to, but I don't want anything to spoil us being friends, so I'm not risking it until then. And the same goes for you, Jake: Oli was right last night about you rescuing us, and we owe you – and so I won't let you do it, either. Unless you get down on your knees, swear to be my slave and beg me to put it in your mouth, of course."

"That's not going to happen," I said, although I have to admit I was a bit disappointed: I'd been sort of looking forward to learning how to do it.

"I thought not. So that's the end of the argument, all right?"

And he scooped Oli up, carried him to the bed and put him down on it, and then quickly removed his own clothes and lay down next to him, pulling the quilt over them both. And he wasn't even stiff, which suggested that his feelings for Oli had definitely moved beyond simple sex.

I said goodnight to them and went out, closing the door behind me and reflecting that if I was going to do it for Stefan at some point I was going to have to work out for myself how to do it.

I went to the bathroom and found Stefan cleaning his teeth, so I had a quick pee and then waited for him to finish using the basin, and ten minutes later we were snuggled up in bed once more. And although we talked quietly for a while before settling down for the night we didn't do anything naughty. Alas.

Next morning we headed back for the hut as soon as we had had breakfast, and today we were all fully dressed in shorts, shirts and shoes – even Oli, although he complained that he found his dress a lot more comfortable than the shorts he had found in Kintzheim, and that the trainers he was wearing felt strange. Alain was used to wearing shoes, though, and he found his trainers far more comfortable than the rough shoes he had worn back from his own world.

Now that we had two mopeds with large enough seats we were able to ride up to the hut. Oli rode with me again and loved it; Alain had to be coaxed onto the back of Stefan's bike and looked as if he would have preferred to go ten rounds with a gang of demons, though eventually Oli more or less shamed him into getting aboard.

We reached the hut without incident and parked the mopeds behind it as usual. Now we had two above ground and two below, and Stefan wondered if we ought to exchange the single-seater down below for one of the two-seaters, but Alain said firmly that he would prefer to run alongside than to sit on one of the mechanical horses for any longer than was necessary, and so in the end we kept things the way they were.

We pushed the mopeds into the tunnel once more, and then Stefan stopped.

"I have been thinking," he said. "What happens if we go that way?" And he pointed off to the right.

"I've no idea," I replied. "I've never been that way."

"Then let us find out," said Stefan, turning his moped round to point in the other direction. "There might be another room of doors, or something else that would be interesting."

"What about my door?" asked Oli.

"Well, let's just have a look down here," I said, my curiosity now aroused. "If we do find another room of doors we'll just number the doors, but we won't go through any of them until we've had a look through yours, okay?"

"That's fair enough," agreed Oli, and he climbed up behind me once more.

We headed off down the tunnel, not too fast so that Alain could keep up. At first the tunnel just kept curving gently in the same direction, but after a bit it made a sharper turn and seemed to go uphill for a while. And then we came to a point where the air seemed to be shimmering and there was a steady hum in the air.

Stefan stopped his moped and looked with uncertainty at the distorted air, and then he took his water-bottle from his belt and lobbed it gently towards the point where the distortion started – and the bottle hit an invisible barrier and bounced back onto the floor.

"It's a good thing we didn't just ride into that at full speed," I said.

"Perhaps it is just metal that it does not like," suggested Stefan, and he advanced to the edge of the distortion and slowly put his hand towards it.

"Wait!" I cried, convinced I was going to see him get a massive electric shock, or something. "It might be dangerous!"

"Yes, it might. But it just stopped the bottle: it did not damage it, and there were no sparks. I think I should try."

And he put his hand against the unseen barrier… and found out that there was no barrier – or at least, not one that stopped him.

He pulled his hand back and looked at it and found it unmarked and undamaged.

"I think we can pass," he said. "Come on."

He stepped forward and promptly stopped dead: he couldn't get past the barrier after all.

"You're carrying your knife," I pointed out. "Let's try getting rid of everything metal."

So we emptied our pockets of keys and coins, removed our necklaces and took off our watches – and we still couldn't get past the barrier.

"The zips in our shorts," I said, and I pulled my shorts off and tried again. And I still couldn't pass, although my arms could: I could wiggle my fingers beyond the barrier, but I couldn't get past it myself.

"I think I understand this," said Stefan, and he removed his tee shirt – and now he could get his head and shoulders through, but not his lower half.

"It does not like anything that is not alive," he said. "We can pass, but we cannot take anything with us." And to prove it he removed the remainder of his clothing and stepped up to the barrier once more – and this time he was able to move past it. He moved into the shimmering air, and although I could still see him as he moved away I was still scared for a few seconds that he would never come back. But then he returned through the barrier, looking none the worse.

"The barrier is perhaps five metres [15 ft.] thick," he reported. "Then the tunnel continues for a short way, and then there is a door. I did not open it – it would be better if we go together."

I wasn't very keen on having to continue our exploration stark naked, but Oli immediately exclaimed, "Oh, good, I can get rid of these silly short things," and threw all of his clothes off. And then Alain stripped off as well, and since I didn't want to be the only one left behind I sighed, got undressed and stepped up to the barrier after them – and found that I still couldn't get through. It took me a moment to realise that I was still wearing my glasses – like a lot of people who wear glasses, I tend to forget I'm wearing them a lot of the time. But it was only when I took them off and put them down with my clothes that the barrier would let me pass.

It was a weird feeling, sort of like having a million tiny little insects flying just past your skin without quite touching it, and I was happy to reach the other end apparently undamaged. By now Stefan was examining the door, but he couldn't see anything unusual, and when he pulled it opened easily. We followed him through and found ourselves in a corridor, though this one looked more like a normal one of the type you might see inside an office building. Off to our right the corridor ended against a solid wall and the wall facing us was also blank, but to our left it ran off for about twenty metres [65 ft.], leading to the top of a flight of stairs. There was another door about halfway between the one we had come through and the stairs, and when we opened it we saw another tunnel like the one we had come through, with another of the shimmering barriers about five metres [15 ft.] along.

We backed out into the corridor again. The floor was very dusty, which meant we were leaving a trail, but just to be sure Stefan went back to 'our' door and drew a large arrow in the dust pointing at it.

We went down the stairs and through an arch on the right at the bottom, and now we found ourselves in a large open area that measured maybe fifty metres by twenty [165x65 ft.]. There were three more doors along the right-hand wall (these were underneath the corridor and presumably led to similar tunnels and barriers), a wider arch on the left-hand wall, and another arch on the shorter wall at the far end.

"What do you think?" I asked Stefan. "Off to the left, or straight ahead?"

"Let us try straight ahead," he replied and headed for the far arch, and we followed him, still leaving our trail on the dusty floor.

"Doesn't look as if anyone's done any vacuuming for a while," I commented.

"No, but the lights are on, so there may be people here," replied Stefan. And that was true: we'd had the usual dim lighting all down the tunnel, but up in the corridor and down here in the hall the lights were brighter.

We went through the arch and immediately found ourselves in another barrier, though this one seemed a little stronger: it was as if every molecule in the air had become heavy enough to notice as it bounced off our bodies. It was a strange feeling, and again I was glad when I reached the far end of it.

"Whoever lives here seems determined to make sure visitors arrive naked and unarmed," I commented.

Alain burst out laughing. "Naked, yes," he said. "Unarmed, no – looks like my Oli is armed and dangerous!"

Oli had emerged from the barrier with an erection. He didn't seem too embarrassed about it, though.

"I have to try that," declared Alain, and he stood right at the edge of the barrier and thrust his hips forward, and a minute or so later he stepped back with an erection of his own. Oli laughed and slapped it playfully, and Alain tried to retaliate.

"Hey, come on, you two," I remonstrated. "We're supposed to be doing some serious exploring here! Tell them, Stefi, it's…"

I broke off when I noticed Stefi standing at the edge of the barrier himself.

"This is a most interesting feeling," he said. "I can feel the air stimulating me… come, Jake, try it!"

Well, if even the normally sensible and practical Stefan thought the experiment worth trying, who was I to argue? So I stood next to him, pushing my hips forward so that my genitals were inside the barrier… and he was right: I could feel things happening. It was sort of like one of those hot air machines for drying your hands in public toilets, except that the air wasn't hot. But it was definitely stimulating.

Stefan stepped back, visibly stimulated.

"Wow, Oli," exclaimed Alain, "look at Stefan! That's big, isn't it?"

"It is, too," agreed Oli. "Let's see!"

The two French boys crowded round Stefan and Alain reached out to stroke it, and I wasn't having that.

"Hands off, you two!" I said, putting my arms round Stefan and pulling him away. "He's mine!"

Then I realised that this was a bit of a give-away… but nobody seemed to care.

"I'm only teasing," said Alain. "I know you two are friends – and there's no way I'd want to share Oli with you, either. But he has got a nice one, hasn't he?"

"He certainly has," I agreed, hugging Stefan from behind. "But maybe we should stop fooling around like this and go and see where we are."

"I suppose so," said Alain, giving Oli's hard little penis a last squeeze.

We walked forward to the end of the short corridor and found ourselves in a small hallway. To our right was a staircase going both up and down; to our left was what looked like a lift; and straight ahead was a short flight of stairs going down to a set of metal doors.

"Shall we start at the top or the bottom?" I asked.

"Let us go down," replied Stefan, heading off down the stairs.

It went down quite a long way, and at the bottom it led to a large room, most of which was taken up by a massive dome-shaped chunk of metal. Thick cables led away from it, rising up into the ceiling and off into the walls, and there was a steady humming sound. I had no idea how it worked or where the energy came from, but I thought this had to be a power generator of some sort.

There wasn't a lot more to see down here, so we climbed the stairs again and then went down the short staircase and through the double doors that were opposite the barrier. And in total contrast to the futuristic power generator, this led to a fairly basic office not unlike the ones in the huts: there was a desk that was smaller than the ones in the huts, a chair that was more modern than the ones in the huts (this one had castors) and a bunk – which, unlike the ones in the huts, had a body on it.

"Oh, shit," gasped Alain, stepping back smartly.

"Do not worry," said Stefan. "He has been dead for a long time – the body is… I do not know the word. Like the old kings in Ägypten?"

"Mummified," I supplied.

"Just so. The air here is warm and dry, and so the body has dried and not rotted. But he must have been dead for many months, perhaps years."

I looked around the room. It was rather larger than the huts, but there was less furniture, just the desk, the chair, the bunk and a couple of small empty bookcases. One entire wall was devoid of furniture. I crossed the room and found a kitchen alcove like the ones in the huts, though this one had a small sink, a ceramic hob, a closet in one corner that contained cleaning materials and a smaller cupboard containing some pans, plates and cutlery. And… yes, there was a switch on the wall next to the cupboard, so I flicked it and went expectantly back to the desk – and, as I had hoped, there was a small panel and a switch.

Since we already knew that the power generator was underneath this room I thought that maybe this time the trapdoor might simply be an access point to the cabling, or something like that. But I pressed the switch anyway.

Instead of a small trapdoor, this time the entire blank wall slid aside, revealing a larger room with banks of machinery around the walls, and in the centre of the wall opposite the entrance was a large desk with a computer screen on it.

"Right," I said, approaching the desk. There was another wheeled chair in front of it, and I pulled it out and sat down – and as I touched the desk a panel slid away and a keyboard appeared, though I didn't think I'd be able to use it because every single key on it was blank.

I couldn't see an 'on' switch – in fact I couldn't see the equivalent of a computer CPU at all – so I hit the key at the bottom right, hoping it would be a Return key. And the screen lit up, and so did the keys on the keyboard, although I was no better off, because instead of recognisable letters I was looking at rows of strange symbols. And the document on the screen was covered in the same symbols, making it total gibberish to me. Even if I had been wearing my glasses I didn't think I'd have been able to read any of this stuff.

"Try that," suggested Stefan, leaning over my shoulder and pointing to a small icon at the right hand end of the menu bar. The icon depicted a flag. But there was no mouse and no obvious cursor, either.

"How?" I asked.

"Like this, of course." Stefan hit what would have been the Escape key on a standard keyboard twice and then the equivalent of the F1 key, and the left hand icon on the top row of the menu bar began to flash. Stefan then hit the F4 key and the flashing moved along the top row of the icons until it reached the little flag, and a further tap on F1 produced a drop-down menu.

"How did you know how to do that?" I asked.

"Do you not have computers in your world?" he asked.

"Yes, obviously. Actually, I wasn't sure that your world would have them. But how did you know what keys to press?"

"It was a German who invented the computer, so clearly we have them in my world. And that is the standard key system to activate the icons."

"Not where I come from, it isn't. We have a mouse."

"A mouse? A small rodent?"

"No, it's a device that moves a pointer around the screen. I suppose German computers don't have them."

He shook his head. "And nor do computers here, it seems. So, now we have a language menu… but I do not know any of these languages."

Indeed, the words on the menu were all composed of strange symbols, and furthermore they all seemed to read from right to left – as, in fact, did the document on the page, to judge from the layout.

"How do we scroll down?" I asked.

"This is the down button," he replied, indicating the F3 key.

So I hit that and kept it down, and the menu seemed to scroll upwards – and then I saw something that looked suspiciously like Arabic. I kept going, and… yes, that was definitely Hebrew, though I didn't feel up to trying to work in it. So I kept going, and after a bit the menu switched to the left hand margin and, a few entries further down, to the Roman alphabet. 'Afrikaans' was the first one I recognised, so I scrolled on until I reached the letter D. Dansk, Deutsch… English. Since Alain and Oli couldn't read any language and I couldn't read German, English seemed the obvious choice, and so I hit the F1 key.

The keyboard went dark for a moment and then lit up again, this time with the same QWERTY layout as on my machine at home. And the document on the screen changed as well, and I found myself looking at the last couple of entries of what seemed to be a journal.

"There must be an enormous memory disc on this machine," commented Stefan. "To translate everything accurately into so many languages would take much power."

"This must be one hell of a keyboard, too," I added. "And I wonder why it wasn't passworded? You'd have thought there would be some sort of security."

"The machine was not turned off," Stefan pointed out. "It was in standby mode. Perhaps the dead man out there did not turn it off – perhaps he was sick and thought he would recover and return to work further, but then could not."

"That makes sense," I agreed. "And… you're right, look: he was keeping a diary."

The final entry on the screen read, 41 Serts: (which I guessed was a date of some sort)

There is still nothing. Although the power drain has become worse all systems are still operating, including the Capsule, and yet nobody has come to relieve me. And although the communication link is still active there is nothing: Hub One is not responding. I am sure the Greys could not have penetrated the Hub, and even if the war were going badly I feel certain that someone would at least manage to contact me.

When Regulus Janiq took the reserve cohort to investigate two months ago he only agreed to me remaining behind because of my injury. Of course the system is self-regulating and can generally be left unattended, but now that a malfunction has occurred it requires intervention by trained engineers. As yet the power drain has not compromised the system, but if Janiq does not return soon I will have to try to reach the sub-basement and run a full diagnostic of the boreholes, pumps and turbines – though even if I identify the problem I shall be unable to repair it alone.

My headaches are becoming substantially worse, and I am having to use the medication at well beyond the recommended dosage in order to continue to function. I do not know how much longer I can continue without medical assistance.

I am going to rest. Perhaps my relief will arrive tomorrow.

"Looks like the relief never arrived at all," I said. "I suppose the war he talks about went worse than he thought. Look, Stefi, we need to have a really good look at this computer: if we read from the beginning of the diary we might find out more about what this place is – and if we're really lucky there might be some sort of record showing which tunnel goes where. That would save us from going to a world where there are real demons, or where there's been some sort of disaster, like that first place we went where there was nothing but rock, remember? Only it'll probably take some time to investigate properly, so perhaps we should have a quick look round the rest of this place first – or even come back tomorrow. What do you think?"

"I think you are right to want to look at this machine. Alain, why do you and Olivier not go and see what there is upstairs? Be careful, and do not touch any machinery. While you are gone, Jake and I will see what this machine holds."

I wasn't sure about the other two going off on their own, but I supposed Stefan was right – after all, we knew the poor guy on the bunk had been alone when he died, and if anyone had come back since they would probably have moved the body. So I went and got the other chair from the outer office so that we could both sit and look at the computer, and Alain and Oli headed off towards the staircase.

Since the system was one that he understood I let Stefan work the keyboard. First he scrolled back to the start of the diary, though that wasn't as far as I hoped: it looked as if our dead friend had only started keeping the journal about two weeks after Janiq had left with the rest of his colleagues, and he hadn't made an entry every day, either. Flipping through the entries we learned very little: he never explained exactly what his injury was or how it had been caused, and nor did we learn any more about the war he had mentioned, just that he was worried it might be going badly.

About four weeks before the final entry he had mentioned a power drain for the first time. He hadn't been able to identify what was causing it, thought he speculated that the problem might have been at Hub One (wherever that was), because he had been unable to contact anyone there to find out what was happening. And over the next four weeks the problem had grown a little worse, until in the entry before the final one he had mentioned seeing the first flashing magenta light on the control board. As we didn't know where the control board was that didn't enlighten us much.

Once we had gleaned all we could from the diary Stefan switched the interface language to German and typed away for a minute or so, and then switched back to English.

"This is the primary menu," he explained. "We should be able to discover much about the tunnels here."

And at that point Alain and Oli came in, and it was understandable that we got a bit distracted because they were dripping wet.

"You've got to come and see this," said Oli, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the door. "There's a big dormitory upstairs, and other rooms, like an eating hall and a kitchen – and behind the dormitory is a big room with lots of those magic pumps, like at your house, and when you work them it starts to rain. And the rain is warm! It's amazing!"

Magic pumps and warm rain – sounded like a shower-room to me. And so it was – as Oli had said, there was a big dormitory with around fifty bunks, each with a pile of neatly-folded bedding at one end, and beyond the dormitory was a washing area, with a row of wash-basins and a large shower-room. Oli dragged me into the shower-room and turned the wheel on one of the showers, and warm water cascaded onto us. So whatever else might be suffering from a power drain, it certainly didn't seem to be the water heating system.

"It's called a shower," I explained. "You use some of those things we've got in our bathroom, the soap and the shampoo, and you wash under the warm water. It's a bit quicker than taking a bath."

"Well, whatever it's called, I like it," declared Oli. "It feels really nice."

It did, too, but after a bit I managed to drag us both out, turning the shower off as we left. I grabbed a blanket from one of the bunks and used it as a towel, chucking another one at Oli, and when we were dry Stefan and I let the French boys show us what they had found. This included a toilet area adjoining the wash-room; two more dormitories with attendant washing facilities; a dining hall with a spotlessly-gleaming kitchen beyond it; a room that might have been a small cinema, or a briefing room, or both; a number of smaller bedrooms that were presumably for officers; and a few storerooms. Most of the fittings were recognisable but subtly different from the ones I was used to, suggesting that the toilets, basins and so forth had been made in some foreign country.

In complete contrast to the large hall and the corridor above it everything was clean and free from dust, so I supposed there was some sort of automatic system in use here.

"This place is well-equipped," Stefan commented. "Jake, do you not think we could move our base here while we examine the computer? It would be faster as… faster than to go home every evening."

"Well, maybe," I said. "But… it's not that I mind going naked all the time: actually it's sort of fun. But we won't be able to bring anything with us – no food, no water, no washing kit… and I'm not sure about drinking the water here just yet."

"I like going bare!" declared Oli. "It means I don't mess up my clothes, and if I get dirty I can go in the magic rain room."

"True, but I still think we need to think about food and water," I said. "And I don't like not having my specs: I could manage okay in daylight on the farm, but indoors and in artificial light my eyesight isn't very good. If I spend a lot of time squinting at the computer I'm going to get a nasty headache."

"There must be a way to pass the barrier," said Stefan. "The man in the office is wearing clothes, and I do not believe that Janiq and his soldiers marched off to war dressed like on a summer beach and carrying no weapon."

That was true. "Okay," I said, "let's see if we can find a way past the barrier."

So we went back to the lobby between the staircase and the entrance to the office. The barrier was still clearly there (we could see through it into the hall beyond, but the way the air shimmered showed that the barrier was still operating) but we couldn't find a switch. I checked inside the outer office – by now I was used to the concept of switches being hidden beyond other switches – but I couldn't find anything. Stefan, meanwhile, was going over the short stretch of corridor between the lobby and the start of the barrier, trying to find out if you had to tread on a particular tile, or something like that. And, of course, Alain and Oli weren't looking very hard at all: instead they were in the lobby itself, trying to tickle one another.

And so naturally it was Alain who found the switch, and it was entirely by accident: Oli dug him in the ribs and Alain squealed and tried to back away, but he tripped over his own feet and bumped into the wall just to the left of the corridor. And a panel in the wall swung open.

The panel was at shoulder height and was about twenty-five centimetres [10 in.] square. In the centre was an outline of a hand with the fingers spread, and just above it were three small glass domes.

"It's a palm-reader," I said. "You put your hand on the outline and it reads your palm-print, and if you're on the database it'll work the barrier. Of course, we're not on the database, so it won't."

"How can you be certain?" asked Stefan. "Let me try it – perhaps it will work."

"And perhaps it's booby-trapped to electrocute people who aren't on the list, or something!" I warned him.

"I do not think so. Probably many soldiers stayed here in the past, and not every one can be on a database. I may not be able to open the barrier, but I think there is no danger."

He put his left hand on the panel – the design would only take a left hand – and at once the three glass domes lit up and a beam of light was directed into Stefan's face and off to each side of him, catching all of us in the process. I flinched, expecting a death ray or something similar, but all that happened was that there was a brief humming sound and then the barrier disappeared.

"Okay, it doesn't read palms," I admitted. "It seems a bit insecure having a system that anyone can open, though."

"Yes, but you can only open it from inside," said Stefan, and he was right: there was no trace of a switch on the other side of the barrier. "And I do not think that many attacking soldiers would think to remove their clothing to pass the barrier – and if they did they would find the defenders waiting, and the attackers would be naked and without weapons. I think it is an adequate system. And… I think we should leave the barrier running. Wait here – I will go back and close the panel to the inner office, and then I will turn on the barrier once again."

"How? There wasn't a switch that I could see."

"No, it is probably an on-off system where the same touch simply changes the current situation."

So he did that (and found he was right about the switch being a simple toggle) and then we went back up the stairs to the entrance to the tunnel we had used to get here, and now that we knew what we were looking for we found the panel to the left of the door that led to the tunnel. Of course we didn't need to turn it off because we weren't wearing any clothes or carrying anything, but now that we knew where it was it would be easy to turn it off when we came back with all our kit.

Everything was as we had left it, so we got dressed and rode back to the ladder room. But Stefan said that since he had the paint in his bag he might just as well go and paint the numbers on the doors in the circular room – it would save having to bring the paint next time. So the rest of us waited in the hut, and fifteen minutes later he returned. He put the paint away in the storage shed at the back of the hut, and then we closed the trapdoor and rode the two 'above ground' mopeds back to Orschwiller.

For supper that evening I mashed up the remaining potatoes and served it with tinned luncheon meat and baked beans, and again Alain and Oli seemed quite impressed. I skipped the luncheon meat in favour of some more corned beef – I mean, I don't eat kosher at home, but somehow the idea of eating pork when there was a suitable alternative to hand seemed like an unnecessary way to provoke a god who, if he was up there somewhere, had kept me more or less out of trouble so far.

After supper we sorted out what we would need to take with us and what could be safely left behind, and then we packed as much as would fit into the two large rucksacks, fitting the remainder into the two smaller bags and a couple of supermarket carrier bags we found in the kitchen. And once we had done that we decided to go to bed, since this would be our last opportunity to sleep in a proper bed (as opposed to a basic military bunk) for a while.

We took it in turns to use the bathroom (I sent Oli and Alain in first so that we could make sure the taps were turned off afterwards) and then Stefan and I went back to our room, closed the door, took our clothes off and got into bed.

"You know, Jake," said Stefan, a minute or so after we had got into bed, "I am really not very tired yet. I think perhaps we should take a little exercise before we go to sleep. Can you think of anything we could do?"

"Well, one or two things do spring to mind."

"Good. Let us try those, then."

"Okay… so, would you like to rub mine for me again? Because I really liked it when you did that – and this time we don't have to worry about Alain coming to interrupt us, or anything."

"I would like that a lot. And I would like for you to do it for me also."

So we did that, making it last for a good hour – in fact we had to stop to light one of the camping lamps so that we could see each other, and somehow the limited illumination made it even better. When I finally succumbed and spurted onto myself Stefan gently cleaned me up with a tissue from a box we had found in the village shop, and quite a bit later when he eventually spurted I did the same thing for him. And then he reached across me to turn out the lamp and somehow didn't move all the way back afterwards, which meant that we finally fell asleep with his arm around me.

Next morning we woke up peacefully – by which I mean that it was simply the sunlight, not a lot of noise from the other bedroom, that woke us up. I needed a pee, so we got up and went to the bathroom together, and on the way we looked in on the other two and found them still fast asleep. Oli was sleeping with his head on Alain's shoulder, and they looked really peaceful.

We washed quietly and then went back to the bedroom and got back into bed, because it was still only a little after six o'clock.

"Would you like to do some more stuff before we get up?" Stefan asked me.

"Well, yes, obviously… except… could we just…"

"What?"

"Could we just sort of cuddle for a bit?"

"Cuddle? What is that?"

"Well, you lie on your back, like you are now, and then I come and lie sort of on top of you… like this… and then you put your arms round me and we sort of hold each other."

"Like this, you mean?"

"Exactly like this."

"Right." There was a pause as we settled against each other. "Oh."

"Oh what?" I asked.

"Oh, this is nice. I have never held another person so, and it feels… special, somehow."

"Good, because I like it, too. And now we just relax and feel close to each other for a while."

It was strange, but although we were naked I didn't go hard, perhaps because this somehow wasn't about sex at all: this was about being friends, but more than just friends… I put my cheek gently against his, and he made a little noise of surprise but made no effort to push me away – in fact he moved a hand to the back of my head and stroked my hair, at the same time making sure that I didn't move away from him.

We lay like that for some time without speaking, and I'd have been happy to keep lying there for ever.

"Do we have to go?" I asked, quietly. "Couldn't we just stay here, Stefi?"

"I do not think we can," he said. "Yes, I like this house, and I like to share this bed with you a lot, but… you know that we cannot stay. The gas will run out, the water will stop, and finally there will be no more food we can eat – and I do not think that for us to try to run a farm would be sensible."

"Yes, but can't we just stay a few more days?"

"I think it would not be sensible. We know now that there is a problem with the power supply to the tunnels, and we have already seen one tunnel disappear. If we stay here too long the tunnel from this world may collapse, too, and then we would have no means to return to our own worlds – and even though I would be happy to be with you in this world, it would be difficult to live here. So I think we must return to the tunnels today."

"You're right," I said. "I mean, I know you're right. I just wish you weren't."

We decided to get up but we met with one problem: we had put our gold neck chains back on, and somehow his swastika had got caught up in my Star of David. In the end we had to remove the chains and then separate them. I suppose you could read some deep meaning into those two symbols getting tangled up together, but to us it was just funny, as if the 'guardian gods' Master Farmer had spoken about wanted to keep us locked together.

Stefan finally managed to wiggle the swastika out of the star. He made to put the star back around my neck, but then hesitated.

"You know that I was taught to see this symbol as something bad, the sign of a bad race that had damaged my country," he said. "But you have shown me that some Jews are nothing like how I had been told. So… will you let me wear your star for a while, to show that my closest friend is now a Jew?"

Wow, I thought – closest friend? "Of course you can," I said. "And my people regard your swastika with… well, let's just say that they don't like it. So for a Jew to wear a swastika would be an indication of a very special friendship indeed. And I'd like to show you just how special you are." And I took the swastika from him and put it round my own neck, and he did it up for me while I put the Star of David round his neck and closed the clip.

We gave each other a quick hug and then got dressed in clean clothes – boxers (or briefs, for Stefan), shorts, socks and tee shirts. Then Stefan went downstairs to sort out breakfast while I put my glasses on and went to wake the other two up. I don't know what they had been doing the previous evening, but they were still flat out now, and I had to shake them gently to wake them up.

"Can't we just stay in bed?" asked Oli, sleepily. "Alain makes a really nice pillow."

"No, you can't," I said. "Get up and get washed, and if you're not downstairs soon you'll find there isn't any breakfast left." And I left them to it and went downstairs, and less than thirty seconds later they arrived in the dining room, still both completely naked.

"Oh, you're coming back to the tunnels naked, are you?" I asked.

"I wouldn't mind," said Oli. "I like being naked."

"You won't if we end up in some really cold world," I pointed out.

"Well, if that happens I'll come back into the hut and put some clothes on. I'll bring some with me just in case, obviously. But someone is going to have to be naked when we get back to the army place so that he can go through the barrier and turn it off for the rest of you, so I might as well stay like this until then." And he grabbed the packet of Frosties and filled his bowl.

In the end we persuaded him to wear his clothes because we wanted to use his bag – we'd given him one of the small ones to carry – to bring other stuff up to the hut, and there wouldn't be room for much if his clothes were in the bag instead of on his person.

After breakfast we had a quick scurry round to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything important. I checked that we'd packed all the washing kit we could need, and most of the spare clothes, and Stefan had fitted most of the camping equipment into one or other of the large rucksacks. I'd also packed a lot of food and had filled the large white jerry-can with water (I'd simply emptied most of our litre and two-litre bottles of Evian into it), and I hadn't forgotten to pack some crockery and cutlery, either.

I stopped in the bedrooms long enough to make the beds – I've been brought up to do that sort of thing – and before we left I had a tidy up in the main room, too. And then I helped load up the car.

Because of all the kit we were taking it wouldn't have been possible to get all four of us and our equipment up to the hut on two mopeds, and so we had decided to take one of the cars as far up the track as it would go and then run a shuttle service from there. And so once everything was loaded Stefan and I got on the mopeds while Oli drove the car, with a reluctant Alain, who still didn't like mechanical transport, sitting beside him.

We drove out of the village in a convoy – because Oli wouldn't know where to go otherwise we took the mopeds by road via Kintzheim rather than on the path through the forest – and as we were leaving the village I spotted the cat lying outside one of the last houses, sunning itself. Obviously it was still managing to forage for food fairly successfully, because it looked perfectly healthy. It raised its head as I rode past and I waved and called 'goodbye' to it. And it was a good thing that I said goodbye while I had the chance, because we never came back to the village again.

Expect the unexpected, then…

Chapter Seven

In this chapter we learn more about the history of the Nexus Room. And Jake and his friends also find time for a little physical activity…

It took us a while to ferry everything up to the hut, but we got there in the end. And then we had to move it all down the tunnel to the barrier, and that took a while as well: Stefan had decided to move almost everything, including the tents and sleeping bags. I couldn't understand why, since we had bunks and a dormitory to sleep in, but he simply said that we couldn't foresee what might be waiting for us through the next door, and I suppose there was some truth in that.

Eventually we got everything piled up outside the barrier, and then Oli started to get undressed so that he could go through and open it up for us. And Alain stripped off as well, saying that he wasn't going to let his little yokel go inside on his own, just in case there was any danger. But there didn't seem to be, because only half a minute after the two of them disappeared into the barrier there was a humming sound and it disappeared. They came back to where we were waiting and Alain got dressed again, though we weren't too surprised to see that Oli didn't bother.

"Well," he said, "I'd only have to undress again to go through the barrier downstairs, so it doesn't seem worth it."

Eventually we got everything stowed away, either in the office or upstairs in the dormitory area. Finally we went back to the corridor, where we turned the mopeds round to face back towards home, topped up the tanks with fuel from the black jerry-can and then put the can down in the corridor, leaving the mopeds in the tunnel beyond the barrier. Stefan reactivated the barrier and we headed back to the office, and once we were safely inside we reactivated the second barrier too.

We went to the kitchen to see what sort of equipment they might have and discovered a big walk-in freezer containing several large joints of meat and a number of racks of frozen vegetables, so at least it seemed unlikely that we would starve. Then we picked out somewhere to sleep. The officers' rooms only had one bunk in, but we got around that problem by carrying in a second bunk and setting them up next to each other. It didn't leave a lot of room for anything else, but that didn't worry us too much.

Alain and Oli did the same thing with a room on the opposite side of the dormitory, and as soon as their room was ready Oli grabbed Alain's arm and pulled him towards the shower room.

"Come on, Alain – let's go and play in the magic rain!" he cried.

"All right, but let me get undressed first!" demanded Alain, pulling his arm free and throwing his clothes off. Oli, of course, still wasn't wearing any.

"You know, that's not a bad idea after lugging all that stuff about," I said. "What do you reckon, Stefi – fancy a shower?"

"Why not?" he said, and we trotted back to our room, stripped off, grabbed some shampoo, soap and a towel each and headed for the shower room.

I'd never shared a shower before… well, obviously I'd been in a shower at the same time as other boys on Games Days at school, but somehow this wasn't quite the same. For a start, in the showers at school none of the other boys decided to wash me all over while I stood still under the showerhead. But that's what Stefan did now, soaping me all over (and I do mean all over) and then shampooing my hair for me. It was an astoundingly sensuous experience, and when he thought my penis needed washing yet again, just to make absolutely sure it was clean, I don't know how I managed not to spurt. Of course, then I got to do it to him, and his control wasn't quite as good as mine, because he did spurt, although once that had happened he took hold of mine again, and this time he didn't stop until I'd lost control, too.

After that we just stood quietly, with Stefan standing behind me and holding me gently while we allowed the water to course down our bodies. We watched Alain and Oli, who were wrestling all over the floor, chasing each other and apparently trying to pull each other's genitals off. Finally I told them that they probably ought to have a proper wash and then get out before the hot water ran out, although if (as I suspected) the power system here was some sort of geothermal set-up, then probably the hot water wouldn't run out at all.

Stefan and I got out and dried each other and then went to our room to make sure that the mattresses weren't too uncomfortable, and although the double bunk was a fair bit smaller than the bed in Orschwiller, and a bit harder, too, I thought we'd be able to sleep on it fairly comfortably. Or not sleep, if we thought of anything else to do instead.

Just to practice that for a bit we had another cuddle (after all, we were probably a bit too spent to do anything overtly sexual for a while), and we found that we were able to do that without any problem. And it felt nice just relaxing in each other's arms, so much so that neither of us felt like doing anything else for quite a long time. In fact it wasn't until Alain and Oli came looking for us that we bothered getting off the bed at all.

They were both dressed, though Oli was only wearing his little blue dress again, so 'dressed' is a relative term. Still, having the pair of them actually wearing clothes and looking at me and Stefan, who were wearing nothing except our necklaces, felt a bit strange – though I realised that in fact I didn't really mind, because, after all, the four of us were becoming something close to a family by now.

"Are we going to eat soon?" asked Alain. "I mean, we're growing boys and we need feeding regularly."

"In that case I'm obviously going to have to teach you how to cook," I said, getting up and pulling on my boxers, shorts and shirt. I didn't think I needed any footwear – neither Alain nor Oli was wearing anything on his feet.

I led them to the kitchen and examined the cooking equipment. The cookers appeared to be large but otherwise fairly normal ones with a separate ceramic hob (in fact there were three of these), but the controls didn't seem to be calibrated in either centigrade or Fahrenheit – instead the dial simply had ten equally spaced marks on it. Oh, well, I thought, most of our ready meals carry gas mark as well as centigrade, so I'll use the gas mark and adjust up a bit and we'll see what happens…

I suppose I should say that I like cooking. I know that's unusual for a boy of my age, but I've been helping my mother in the kitchen since I was very young, and so I know quite a lot about it. Not that I'd ever expected to find myself cooking for four boys in an abandoned military base, but I supposed that if I could cook in my mother's kitchen I could cook here, too, even if the controls were a bit strange.

In addition to the freezer, there were also storage cupboards here that held plenty of dried food, including enough rice to keep us going for years. But for now I simply settled for some more of our ready meals, heated up on one of the hobs, and while it wasn't quite the same as home-made it was good enough to keep Alain quiet.

Once we had eaten we went back to the office and started checking through the computer's primary menu. We thought we'd found what we were looking for fairly quickly, as there was a description of what the computer called the Nexus Room, together with an explanation of where some of the doors went. But fairly soon we realised that it wasn't the room of doors that we knew about, because there seemed to be only fifteen doors listed, and in the end it dawned on us that all the references in the piece to 'The Hub' were talking about what our dead friend called Hub One. And as that wasn't this one, obviously the Nexus Room wasn't our room of doors, either.

There didn't seem to be a lot of point in reading about a lot of worlds reached from a completely different room, and so we flipped back and tried looking elsewhere, only to get bogged down in a lot of technical language about the mechanics of moving from world to world. We couldn't understand any of it, and so we tried somewhere else… and so on, for most of the afternoon.

But then we found a sub-menu headed 'Timeline', which we thought might at least tell us a bit about how long the tunnels had been here, and so we opened that – and now finally we learned something about how the tunnels had come to be built in the first place.

It wasn't quite as straightforward as it might have been because the calendar used bore little resemblance to ours: for a start the first year mentioned was 2694, and we thought that nothing we'd seen so far could possibly date from seven hundred years into the future – at least, not unless every science fiction book, film and TV programme we had ever seen was hopelessly off-beam. Which meant that this had to be a different method of counting years.

Similarly the months were weird: they had a lot more than thirty days, for a start, and the names bore no resemblance to the months we use. We had just about worked out from Dead Guy's diary that some months had around forty-five days, though whether this was true of every month we had no idea. And of course that left five or six days unaccounted for – assuming, that is, that every tunnel led to a version of Earth with a year of 365 and a bit days…

Okay, so we were guessing. But we were still able to get a broad picture…

Roughly eighty years ago someone had accidentally discovered a place where it was possible to move from one version of reality, or one version of history if you prefer, to another. In fact he probably wasn't the first, but any poor sods who had stumbled through the open portal before him hadn't managed to find their way back again. It had happened while he was walking in the Black Forest, which was not that far away on the other side of the River Rhine, and we weren't too surprised to learn that he'd walked into a thick bank of mist, and when he walked out the other side he found himself in a place where everyone spoke a version of Greek – apparently in that world the Roman Empire had never existed and Greece had been the dominant Mediterranean power throughout the Classical era..

Fortunately this man was a seasoned walker and so had plenty of equipment with him, including a decent compass and good quality detailed maps, and that meant that he was able to pinpoint the place where he had crossed over. And he was a scientist, too, so when he got back he started a proper investigation. The timeline didn't give us a lot of detail, but apparently he was able to identify certain factors that contributed to the phenomenon, including magnetic fields, temperature conditions and some sort of particle in the air, and so although the original portal was unstable and vanished after a couple of days, he had managed to gather enough information to start a series of experiments to recreate the portal artificially.

It eventually became clear that it was not possible to do this in the laboratory: it could only be done in the same geographical location. Later still the scientists came to the conclusion that the portals couldn't be opened just anywhere: it had to be in a place where the basic geography was the same in both worlds. You couldn't open a portal in mid-air, for example. So they went back to the slopes of the Feldberg in the Black Forest, where the original portal had been found, and they built a laboratory near to the exact spot and began experimenting.

There were a few links here that led to a lot of technical stuff that neither of us could understand, so we stuck to the main narrative and learned that eventually an artificial portal had been established. Later still the scientists had developed a device for locating possible weak points between dimensions where a portal might be established, and had soon discovered four or five such points in the same general area: they came to the conclusion that this part of the Black Forest was on the dimensional equivalent of a fault line between two tectonic plates, except that here it was different worlds that were very close together instead of different chunks of the earth.

We skipped forward a bit and found that the artificial portals were easily disrupted by strong winds or other severe weather, and so the scientists hit on the idea of establishing the Nexus Room underground and initially having the actual outlets flat on the surface – so originally it was the trapdoor into each hut that was the point at which the dimension changed. Once the portal was established, the small ladder room was dug out in the new dimension and the portal was re-established at the door from it into the tunnel, and from that point on the portal was completely underground and so protected from the elements.

The whole underground complex, apart from the ladder rooms, existed only in the original world, the one whose scientists had discovered about the portals in the first place. The huts had been added to protect the portals, and each hut had a defence mechanism of a mist generator, which was supposed to prevent the hut being found at all by anyone who didn't know it was there (and they also sited other mist generators here and there in the mountains, so that a single patch of mist would not look too unusual), an electronic lock, and a concealed switch to open the trapdoor, which was itself supposed to be more or less undetectable.

I presumed that the same defences were in use around our Nexus Room, but the mist generators were obviously not all working properly, the lock system had failed completely, and not all the trapdoors were as undetectable as all that. After all, I'd found one when I wasn't even looking for it.

Apparently after a while the motivation for finding new portals switched from pure exploration to a search for minerals. There was never any intention to conquer the new worlds by military means, even though this would doubtless have been easy in the case of worlds such as Alain and Oli's: instead small parties were sent through to explore and to try to find out about natural resources. These parties tried to blend in with the local population: advance scouts found out about clothing, language and customs, and then the explorers did their best to remain unobtrusive wherever possible.

I was interested by the language issue: we knew the database held a vast number of languages, and I wondered how this had been built up. I knew that in my own world explorers discovering hitherto unknown tribes in places like the upper reaches of the Amazon had been able to use computers to help them build up a model of the local language, but I was under the impression that this was a long and difficult operation. Presumably this world had found a much faster method, which meant that the explorers would have been able to learn to communicate in the local languages.

Some thirty years after the original discovery the first Nexus room controlled the entrance to eleven other worlds, and it was at that point that the researchers, who had been casting up and down the dimensional fault line for four or five years, discovered a second weak spot up here in the Vosges, and work had begun on building a second Nexus room and an associated military post – for although the creators of the Hub had no intention of invading any new world, it was always possible that they might stumble into a world whose own inhabitants might instead want to invade theirs….

And at that point, with the story of the building of the place we were now sitting in, we broke off for the night. Of course I have given only the bare bones of the story here: we'd spent a long time following links into related areas, and there had also been quite a lot about the politics of the Hub World that we had read but which didn't seem really relevant to the main story. So now it was about ten in the evening and we'd have been thinking about going to bed even if Alain hadn't come to find us at that point.

"Have you been sitting here ever since we ate?" he asked. "Gods, that must be boring, just looking at a load of little squiggles. Me and Oli have been exploring a bit and we've found a new room with some big machines in – come and have a look!"

So we followed him up to the dormitory, and this time he took us through the third dormitory and down a flight of stairs at the far end of it, and here we found what had to be a laundry, with a long row of industrial-sized washing machines, something that I assumed was a press of some sort and one other machine whose purpose eluded me. Next to the laundry was a clothing store-room containing, so far as we could tell, mainly military uniforms in a dark green colour, although a search in a far corner also revealed a supply of underwear and a rack of sheets, pillow-cases and towels.

"What sort of magic to these things do, then?" asked Oli, once we had returned to the laundry.

"They clean your clothes," I said. "You put your dirty clothes into one of the machines and press a button, and some time later they come out clean."

"Wow, that's a really sensible bit of magic!" cried Oli, pulling his dress off. "I was afraid I was going to have to spend ages bashing this about in a trough, like we did on the farm – except we didn't do it very often there, because it took a lot of effort and most of us didn't have anything else to wear while it was drying. Show me how it works, then!" And he thrust the dress into my hands.

I examined the nearest machine. On the one at home there's an on-off switch, a selector dial to choose which washing cycle you want, another little button to indicate whether it's a full load or a half load, and there's a little drawer divided into compartments where you put the washing powder, the softener and other stuff like bleach. This machine had none of these except the on-off switch and a second switch that had two settings, a small white circle and a second circle of cyan, magenta and yellow. There were tubes running into the machine from a central hopper overhead, and I guessed this would contain washing powder and so on.

Okay, this looks simple enough, I thought. I opened the lid and dropped Oli's dress into the machine, closed the lid, moved the switch to point at the coloured circle and pressed the on switch. And the machine began to make normal washing-machine-type noises.

While we were waiting we went and had a search through the store-room to see if there was anything that would fit us, but we were not too surprised to find that it was adult sizes only. Still, at least we would be able to change the sheets on our bunks every day if we wanted to.

Stefan found a cupboard containing caps, like a sort of military baseball cap but with a much smaller visor, and we found that several of these were small enough to fit. Stefan said he had a uniform cap that was a bit like this back at his school, though this one had a yellow and black roundel on instead of a German eagle. Alain found one that fitted Oli, who of course was wearing nothing else at the moment, and somehow Oli in an army cap and nothing else looked even more alluring than Oli wearing nothing at all.

"He looks good, doesn't he?" commented Alain, echoing my thoughts. "Don't you think our little Oli is really beautiful?"

Of course, the word 'beau' is generally translated as 'handsome' when applied to males, but I was pretty sure that Alain actually meant 'beautiful', because he was right. Not in the same way as Stefan, who was truly handsome in an unmistakably masculine way, but Oli was undeniably cute, all the same.

Oli posed for a moment, then made a rude noise and ran off with Alain in pursuit.

"I am glad we brought them with us," commented Stefan. "It is clear that they like each other very much. I would not have liked to think of such a beautiful boy sacrificed for the harvest."

"Hey, you're not supposed to look at other boys," I protested, hypocritically. "You're only supposed to look at me."

"Do not be stupid. You are my friend, and I would not exchange you for anyone. And I have said before that you are handsome, even though you do not believe it of yourself. But Olivier is good to look at – and I know that you think this, because I have seen you looking at him."

"Okay, you're right," I admitted. "Actually, I don't think Alain is bad-looking, either – but I still think you're the best-looking of all of us."

"Then I will forgive you for looking at Olivier. So… perhaps we should go to bed and cuddle some more?"

"I think that's a brilliant idea. We'd better wait and make sure Oli's dress comes out okay, though."

The machine seemed a lot faster than the one at home, where even a half-load can take three-quarters of an hour. When we got back to the machine we found that eight of the little row of ten lights below the on-off switch were already lit, and the whole cycle took less than half an hour – and when the dress emerged it was not only clean, but dry, too.

"Hey, Oli!" I yelled, and a few seconds later Alain came back down the stairs – apparently they had been up in the third dormitory – carrying Oli on his shoulders.

"Wow, it's warm!" commented Oli, taking his dress from me. "Help me do it up, Alain!"

He removed the army cap, pulled the dress over his head and allowed Alain to finish doing up the zip at the back. I knew Oli was capable of doing it up and undoing it himself, but it was obvious that he liked letting Alain help him, too. Then he put the cap back on, twirled and grinned at us.

"How do I look?" he asked, coquettishly.

"Well, it would be better if the hat was the same colour as the dress," commented Stefan.

"I don't think it matters," said Alain. "He looks good whatever he wears."

"That's true," I agreed. "Anyway – I think we ought to go to bed. It's late."

So we headed back to the first dormitory and then we all went to the washroom to clean our teeth – it was a habit we were trying to get Oli and Alain into – and then Oli asked if we could go to his room to say goodnight to him. We hadn't done that before, but I saw no reason not to, so Stefan and I went to Oli's room. He and Alain got undressed, and then Oli sat on the side of the bed.

"I just wanted to say how much fun it is being with you," he said. "Since we left the farm it's been the best time of my life: I've seen all these magic machines and stuff, and I've done things I would never have done at home if I'd lived to be fifty – like driving a magic carriage and playing in the warm rain… and I've got a big brother now, and I suppose you two are like cousins, or something. So even if something went wrong and I ended up getting sacrificed after all, I wouldn't mind half as much now, because I've had a chance to do loads of amazing stuff first."

"Nobody's going to sacrifice you ever, little yokel," declared Alain, sitting up next to him and hugging him hard. "Nobody hurts my little brother unless they want me to beat them to death."

"So I wanted to say thank you for letting me come with you," Oli went on. "And to show you how happy I am about it." And he stood up, and before I realised what he was going to do he threw his arms round me and kissed me on the cheek. And then he did the same thing to Stefan.

"All right, you can go now," said Alain. "The only person he's going to kiss from now on is me."

"Right. Goodnight, then," said Stefan, who had recovered faster than me. "Come on, Jake."

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the room, and I recovered enough to call 'Goodnight!' over my shoulder just before Stefan closed their door for them.

"You know," he said as we crossed the dormitory to our room, "that is the first time that anyone except for my mother has ever kissed me."

"Me, too," I said, touching my cheek. "I liked it, though."

"I thought that you would. So, perhaps we should try it together?"

I hadn't expected that at all – I mean, sex was one thing, but kissing was something else entirely, suggesting an emotional relationship rather than a mere physical one.

"Okay, if you like," I said, trying to sound nonchalant and probably failing miserably.

As soon as we were back in our room I threw my clothes off and got into bed, and Stefan closed the door, undressed a little more slowly, turned the light off and then got in next to me. And for a long time we cuddled and practised kissing, first on the cheek and then on the lips, and it felt wonderful – in fact I felt the same way as Oli did: if I had to die next day at least I'd do so having experienced the best evening of my life first.

"I have been thinking," Stefan said as we settled down to sleep, "I should return home soon… but I do not wish to. This is a great adventure, and you are a friend such as I have never had before. And so I will stay here with you for as long a time as you wish – even if we do not return home for many weeks."

I'd been thinking about that, too, and feeling more than a little guilty about it: probably Jean-Marie's school would be in trouble for losing one of its visitors, and my parents would be really worried… maybe they'd even stop fighting for a while to worry about me instead. But to be honest I felt much the way Stefan did: if I went home now I'd be going back to recriminations for getting lost, to staying with a blatantly straight French boy who had already made it clear that he'd much sooner spend time with his girlfriend, to a school in England where nobody really noticed that I existed at all, and to parents on the brink of divorce. And given the choice between that and spending time with a beautiful boy with whom I was rapidly falling in love and with two other boys who not only knew that I existed but who obviously liked me, and having a really exciting adventure, too… well, there was only ever going to be one outcome.

"I feel the same," I said. "And I'm not going to rush away and leave all this until we've found out more about it and explored some more worlds – at least, not if you're going to be with me, I'm not."

"Good," he said. "Then it is decided that we stay here." And he kissed me once more and rolled over to go to sleep.

***

I would have been quite happy to stay in bed the next morning – in fact the prospect of an entire day just cuddling with Stefan would have been completely acceptable, had it not been for the fact that I was hungry. So I slipped out of bed, being careful not to wake Stefan up, and after a quick visit to the washroom I went to the kitchen. I was wary of using anything that wasn't frozen: I didn't know how long Dead Guy had actually been dead, but we knew that he had been the last person alive in the place, and so it was a safe bet that anything not frozen or tinned would be long past its sell-by date.

However, I'd managed to pack a couple of boxes of cereal and some long-life milk and orange juice, so at least I was able to eat a decent breakfast without searching through the freezer. Once I'd eaten I did have a quick look (I didn't want to stay in the freezer for very long because I was only wearing my boxers) and found some sausages, some bacon and a number of frozen loaves of bread, so once the cereal ran out we would have an alternative breakfast available – provided I wasn't going to let my religion raise too many objections, that is.

I laid out three more places with bowls, spoons and glasses and went to wake the others up. Stefan was already stirring, but the other two were still fast asleep in each other's arms, and they looked so cute that I didn't have the heart to wake them. Stefan went and washed and then ate breakfast, and afterwards he went back to our room and emerged fully dressed, including shoes and socks.

"You, too," he instructed me. "And from now on we carry a flashlight with us at all times. We know there is a power problem here, and if the lights go out we do not want to be searching in the dark for our shoes: we need to be ready to go to the tunnel without delay. We have been lazy until now, and that is not how I was taught."

I supposed that made sense, and so I went and got dressed, too, and once I was ready Stefan and I went back down to the office, where Stefan put one of our flashlights into his bag and set a battery-powered camping lamp on the desk beside the computer keyboard.

"Now if the power fails we will be ready," he said. "So – shall we continue to read?"

So we continued following the timeline from the point we had reached the previous evening. The building of our Nexus Room and Hub had begun between forty and forty-five years ago, and once the Nexus Room was complete, with the first five portals established, exploration had begun in earnest. And, just as had happened with the original Nexus Room, the explorers found a wide range of different worlds, including one in which there were no people at all because, as far as the explorers could tell, Man had never evolved. This world was of course perfect from the point of view of mineral extraction, and quite a lot of time and energy went into that project. Other worlds were more advanced, and in the case of the most advanced ones no attempt was made to investigate too deeply, since it was felt that it would not be wise to give a more advanced culture any hint that the Nexus existed.

So exploration from both Nexus points continued slowly, with long delays caused by the need to divert resources into mining on the primitive world and also by the fact that getting the co-ordinates to a new world was still a very slow process: years went by between the opening of one gateway and the next.

And at that point we were interrupted by the arrival of Alain and Oli.

"We thought you'd be being boring down here again," said Alain. "We're going to do some more exploring!"

"Wait a moment," said Stefan. "We know there are problems with the power supply here, so if you are going anywhere I want you to be properly equipped. So you should put some shoes on – yes, you too, Olivier – and you should carry a bag with a flashlight in."

He handed Alain my small bag, first showing him how to turn the torch on and off.

"Cool! Another magic toy!" declared Oli.

"This one's not a toy," I said. "The magic doesn't last for very long, so you mustn't use it unless you have to. Don't turn it on unless the lights go out."

"If that does happen, come to meet us here," added Stefan. "We will wait for you here, and then we can all leave together. I do not want to lose you."

They went back upstairs and returned five minutes later: Alain had put on a shirt, and both boys were wearing shoes, though Oli's very boyish trainers looked a bit odd with his blue dress. Alain had my bag on his back.

"Good. If you find anything interesting, come and tell us," said Stefan. "And if you go through the barrier, you must turn it back on once you are outside it. I am certain that Olivier will not object to remove his clothes to do this…"

"Don't touch any buttons or anything," I added. "And be careful!"

They left us to our reading, and we got back to the narrative. The one thing that was lacking from our point of view was any indication of which door went to which world. I was sure that this information would be on the computer somewhere, but none of the links we followed helped us.

Eventually the Vosges Hub was completed and the Nexus Room was fully built, with twenty tunnels provided, even though at this stage not all of them had been opened at the surface end. Gradually more and more portals were opened and exploration continued… and then, a little over a year ago (though we were guessing a bit here, since we still didn't know what 'this' year was in the local calendar), everything went wrong.

The disaster occurred at the Black Forest Nexus when the fifteenth portal was opened, first because it led into a world controlled by a hostile people, and worse, because the native people quickly found out about the portal and seized it. And after that exploration at the other portals was stopped to concentrate on trying to regain the portal and defend the first Nexus Room.

The building of the barriers started during this period, first at the original Hub, in order to prevent the enemy from taking the computers and research facilities, and second at Hub Two, in order to ensure that if the worst happened at least the second half of the operation could survive.

And that was as far as the official timeline went. We knew from Dead Guy's diary that things had apparently gone badly since, though it would appear that the enemy hadn't reached this place, and that – at least at the time of the last diary entry – there was no evidence they had actually penetrated Hub One, either.

There was a link that told us a bit more about the enemy, though. Dead Guy had called them 'Greys' and we'd assumed that this referred to the colour of their uniforms, but it turned out we were wrong: it referred to the colour of their skin. Theirs was a world with a completely different history and even pre-history, because the explorers believed that the dominant species in that world had evolved from reptiles instead of mammals.

Next we spent a while searching elsewhere, still hoping to find a proper record of which door led where. But after a further hour or so we were no wiser, and at that point I thought we deserved a break.

"Come on," I said, "let's leave this for a bit and go and do something more fun."

"What would you have us do?"

"I don't know. Let's go back upstairs and see if we can think of something."

I wondered if we should leave a note for Alain and Oli, but since neither of them could read that seemed a bit pointless – and no doubt when they found we weren't in the office they would come upstairs to look for us.

"Do you have any playing cards?" Stefan asked, once we were back in our room.

"Sorry."

"That is unfortunate. When I went to my first Jungvolk camp a comrade showed me a card game that was fun to play. The person who lost each round had to remove an item of clothing until someone was naked."

"And did you lose?"

"Naturally not. I am a good player of card games."

"Then perhaps it's a good thing I haven't got any cards. But… if you like we could play a strip game. It would be a game of skill, though, so probably you would not want to risk it."

"I do not think I could be beaten at any game of skill."

"We'll find out. See, there's a stop-watch on my watch. I'll start it and then try to stop it at exactly five seconds, and then you start it again and try to stop it at exactly ten seconds, and we'll see whose reactions are best. If I get closer to the exact time than you, you have to take something off."

"And you think your reactions are better than are mine? Do not forget that I am a superman."

"And I'm a subhuman – yes, I know. And that's going to make you look even sillier when you lose. Okay, ready? Then I'll start."

I'd practised this a few times in the past – it was a good way of sharpening my reactions. On the other hand, I'd never played a strip version against another person, though I saw no reason why that should cause me any problem. I stopped the watch at 4.96 seconds and handed it to Stefan, whose first attempt was, as I had expected, not too good: he stopped the watch at 10.34.

"Hah!" I jeered. So who's the superman now? Take something off, Stefi."

I won the first three rounds, but then he got the hang of it, and the remaining games were a lot closer – too close, in fact, because I lost the next four goes. Then I won again, and after that we stayed neck and neck – but I still lost the vital round.

"Come, Jake, remove that underwear," demanded Stefan, grinning at me. "And, no, you cannot count your glasses as clothing. Now – when I played this game at Jungvolk camp we continued to play another ten rounds, and each time the naked boy lost he was given a penalty to perform. Perhaps ten rounds is too many as we are just two – shall we say five more rounds?"

Somehow the idea of Stefan giving me forfeits struck me as really interesting, so immediately I had another go – and for some reason my co-ordination completely disappeared: I lost the next four rounds, although I did manage to win the final round, just to demonstrate that I wasn't completely hopeless.

"Four penalties," said Stefan, grinning at me. "I wonder what I can think of to give you to do?"

So did I, and I was hoping he'd think of something interesting. To prod him along a bit I said, "I don't care what you give me – you won't be able to think of anything so bad I can't do it, anyway."

"Well, the first penalty is easy," he said. "You lost four times after you were naked, so your first penalty is that you have to stay naked for four hours. So you will still be naked when Alain and Oli return, so they will be able to laugh at you for losing. I will keep your clothes, in case there is a power problem, but you may wear nothing except the neck chain you are wearing now."

We'd agreed not to count the necklaces, so all I was wearing now, apart from my specs, was Stefan's swastika.

"That's easy," I said. "I have nothing to be ashamed of, so I don't care if you lot see me naked. What else?"

"Get into bed. You have to cuddle with me for half an hour."

"That's not a penalty," I said. "That's a reward."

"Then we shall not count it as a penalty. I will try to think of three more penalties while we cuddle."

That suited me just fine, so we got into bed and snuggled up close, and it felt as wonderful as it usually did.

"It is hard to think of any penalty, because you like doing everything the same as I do," commented Stefan.

"That's okay, you can just keep them until you do think of something," I offered.

After a bit we started fondling each other, and then we started rubbing each other, and once we had thrown the bedding out of the way we kept at it until I made Stefan spurt onto himself. It took him a bit longer to make me do it too, but not much.

"I have thought of a penalty," he said. "You have to taste my sperm."

I was slightly unsure about that, but I supposed that if I ever got around to sucking him I'd have to find out what it tasted like then, and so I scooped a little up on my forefinger and put it in my mouth. And it was fine – it didn't really taste of anything much.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

I shrugged. "It's okay," I said.

"Now try your own."

There wasn't much, but I tried a little of mine and found that it was definitely tasteless.

"And now find a tissue to clean us with."

I did that, and then we went to the shower room and had a leisurely shower, washing each other down. And after that I said I thought I'd go and sort us out something to eat.

"Do you wish me to help you?" he asked.

"No, it's okay. I want to teach Alain to cook a bit later, so he and Oli can look after the meals while we're working on the computer, but I'll be fine for now. Go and have a rest – I'll call you when it's ready."

I went to the kitchen and pulled some bits and pieces out of the freezer so that I could cook a decent meal the following day, and then I went through the remaining ready meals and selected a couple of alleged curries – I say 'alleged' because my experience of French curries suggests that they bear no resemblance to a decent British supermarket curry, and even less to one served in a proper Indian restaurant. I heated them through and then called Stefan to come and join me, and we were just finishing off when Alain and Oli returned.

"Why hasn't Jake got any clothes on?" was Oli's first question.

"Because we played a stripping game and he lost," Stefan told him. "And he is not allowed any clothes for another three hours, either."

"How long is that?"

"Long enough," I said.

"Good – I like looking at him undressed," said Oli. "But… what's a stripping game?"

"Oh, we used to play those back home," said Alain. "Cards, mostly. And whoever lost had to wank the rest of the gang off before he was allowed to get dressed again. It was a really good laugh."

"Oh. Well… can we all play next time?" asked Oli.

"Yes, that'd be fun," agreed Alain.

"I wouldn't mind," I said. "Sit down, you two, and I'll find you something to eat. Where have you been, anyway?"

"We've found out where the other doors go," said Alain. "We followed a couple of them, and they both went back to the room with all the doors in. The one next to our door upstairs goes to the door with these squiggles on the door," and he drew a one and a four with his finger on the table, "and the middle one downstairs comes out at the door with this sign on," and here he drew us a one and a zero. "So we think the other two doors probably go back there, too. And we followed one other corridor from the room with the doors just to see what happens if you follow it past the door that leads to the ladder – and it just ends in a wall."

"That is useful to know," said Stefan. "It means that if there was any problem with our door we know that the others go back to the Nexus Room too."

I heated them up a couple of ready meals and they ate them enthusiastically – it might not have been much of a curry to my taste, but it was new to them and they liked it. Afterwards I asked Alain to stay for a bit so that I could start to explain how the cooker worked. Oli said he'd go and have a rest – they had walked quite a long way during the morning, after all – and Stefan said he'd go and get back to work on the computer. Once they had gone I explained the basics, although since Alain would not be able to read the instructions on the packets I quickly realised that he wouldn't be able to do a lot of cooking until we moved on to using raw ingredients. Nonetheless, I was able to give him a quick tour of the storerooms so that he could go and fetch anything I asked for once I started cooking in earnest.

"You're lucky it's not me in charge of your penalties," he commented as we finished the tour.

"Really? What would you make me do, then?"

"Probably what I was going to make you do back in Columbarier: I'd just order you to bend over and then give you one. Or maybe I'd make you suck after all."

"No, you wouldn't. You've already said you're not going to make me do that, even if I wouldn't mind too much if you did."

"Ah, but… see, Oli still wants to do it for me, and I've decided that if I do decide to let him I'm going to do it for him first. And I've never done it, either, so I don't know how. So I was thinking that maybe if you did it to me, perhaps we could work out the best way to do it, and then I'll be able to make sure Oli really enjoys it when I do it for him. I mean, you know I won't ask you to do it if you really don't want to, but you did say you wouldn't mind trying…"

"I wouldn't mind, not really – so it's a pity you're not in charge of my penalties, isn't it?" And I grinned at him.

"Then… could we play a game – just you and me?"

"If you want. But if you lose, maybe I'll make you bend over instead."

He looked uncertain at that. Obviously I wouldn't have actually fucked him – I mean, I'm not sure I'll ever want to do that. Being fucked, perhaps; fucking… well, I'm not sure. But it made him hesitate briefly.

But then he said, "I don't care – you won't beat me, anyway. So what are we going to play?"

I didn't think it would be fair to try playing the stop-watch game with him, so I shrugged. "Have you got any cards?" I asked.

"No. We only had one pack and I left it with the boys when I left. But there is something else we could try. Have you got a coin?"

I hadn't even realised that coins existed in Alain's world, but apparently they did, because he opened his pouch (even though he was now wearing a pair of shorts with pockets, he had still tied his pouch to his belt) and took out a copper disc about two centimetres [1 in.] across. The nearest I had to it in size was a one-Euro piece, and he looked it over, nodded approvingly and took me back about five metres [15 ft.] from the kitchen wall.

"Now we throw our coins towards the wall," he said, "and the closest one to the wall wins. It's very simple."

I soon found out that it was a lot less simple if you'd never tried this before: we had five 'practice' throws and Alain won them all. And I didn't do a lot better when it came to the real competition, either, though at least I won one throw before Alain completed the five victories he needed.

"So now you have to do what I say, all right?" he said.

"Okay. So what do I have to do?" I asked.

"Well, the first thing you have to do is to come with me."

He led me through to the third dormitory and into one of the officers' rooms on the far side, and once we were inside he closed the door.

"And now… now you have to swear to tell me the truth."

I hadn't been expecting that – after all, if he asked the right questions I could incriminate myself quite seriously here. But I'd promised to obey him, and so I swore I'd answer all his questions truthfully.

"Good. First question, then: if I ask you to suck it for me, will you really not hate me for it afterwards?"

"Of course I won't! We're friends, aren't we? And I agreed to play the game with you, too."

"And do you really and honestly not mind trying?"

"I really don't mind, I promise."

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why are you prepared to do something like that for me?"

"Well… I mean, we're friends, and I like you…"

"The truth, remember?"

"That is the truth… and… well… "

"Well what? I order you to tell me."

"Well… look, you swear not to say anything?"

"Of course."

"Well… it's just… well, I want to know how to do it so that I can do it for Stefan, okay?"

"Ah. Yes, that makes sense. You really like him, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

"That's all right, because he likes you, too."

"How do you know?"

"I can tell. Look, Jake, I've been around a bit – don't forget I'm nearly sixteen. I can tell what people think about each other, and Stefan likes you a lot. So you wouldn't have to do that to make him like you."

"I know that. That's not why I want to do it: I want to do it because I like him a lot and want to make him feel good."

"Oh. That's fine, then. So… how are we going to do this?"

"You haven't actually told me what you want me to do yet," I pointed out.

"You know perfectly well… all right, if you want to do it properly: Jake, I order you to suck my prick."

"Okay. I mean, I don't know what to do exactly, but if you sit on the edge of the bunk I'll try."

He got undressed – completely, including his shoes and socks – and sat on the edge of the bunk with his legs spread, and it was already getting hard even before I knelt in front of him (and as soon as I knelt down I stood up again and put a folded blanket on the floor to kneel on – that floor was hard), and by the time I was ready to start it was as hard as it could get. Yes, I thought, we're about the same size… well, okay, maybe he is a centimetre or so longer, but then he is about two and a half years older than I am… and he's still got absolutely no hair, either.

And this time it didn't smell at all: since we'd got here Alain had been showering once or twice a day, so there was nothing to put me off. I leaned forward, closed my lips around it about halfway down the shaft, and started to suck.

"That's sort of interesting, but I don't think it's going to get me there," he said, after thirty seconds or so. "Try licking it at the same time."

So I did that, and he liked it, but he still didn't think it would make him come.

"Let me put the whole thing in your mouth," he said. "You're only using about half of it at the moment."

So I lowered my head some more, and then the end of his penis hit the back of my throat and I thought I was going to puke. I slid it out quickly.

"Yes, I think that might do it," he said, not realising why I had jerked away from him. "Slide your lips up and down it, like you would do with your fingers if you were wanking me."

So I slipped it into my mouth again, this time sliding it in slowly and making sure I stopped before it hit the back of my throat again. Then I slipped it equally slowly out.

"That's nice," he said. "Can you squeeze your lips a bit more? Yes… hey, keep your teeth out of the way! That's better… and lick as well, like you were doing before… yes, that's really good. And can you go a little bit faster?"

We experimented with speed and pressure and the use of the tongue for a while until he thought it was as good as it could get, and then he just told me to keep going like that.

I have to admit that I didn't mind doing this at all: it was interesting, and I liked making him wriggle about and thrust against me. I would probably have been a bit worried about actually making him spurt in my mouth, even though I knew that he had hardly any, but now that I'd tasted Stefan's and my own I knew that the taste was nothing to worry about.

"I'm nearly there," he reported, eventually. "Keep going… squeeze harder, Jake… yes… yes! Oh, fuck, yes!"

I slowed down a little and then stopped, though I kept it in my mouth until he told me I could take it out.

"That mate of mine was right," he said, once he had got his breath back. "It really does feel good. Thanks, Jake. I hope it wasn't too bad for you."

"It wasn't bad at all," I said. "In fact I liked doing it. It was fun."

"Oh, yes, so you did," he said as I moved away: now he could see that I had an erection. "I suppose it really can't have been bad, then. Good – I guess that means you won't mind doing it again?"

"What, now?"

"Obviously not. Perhaps this evening – after all, we need to practice at least once more before we do it with Oli and Stefan, don't we?"

"Okay, then," I agreed.

"Good. Now lie on the bed and I'll wank you off."

I hadn't been expecting that, but he insisted I had earned a reward and so I did as he told me. And he was good at it, too. Of course, he'd told us he'd done this with his friends back in Columbarier, so he was rather more experienced than Stefan had been the first time he did it to me, and he used that experience to draw it out for a while before finally allowing me to spurt.

"Not bad, Jake," he said, looking at the little splashes on my stomach. "Maybe I'll be able to do it like that soon."

He used a corner of the blanket I'd been kneeling on to wipe me down, and then he got dressed. And of course I still couldn't, and now that I'd just spurted I felt a bit weird and I'd have liked to be able to dress, but Stefan still had my clothes.

"I know what you mean," said Alain, when I explained how I felt. "It feels strange just afterwards, doesn't it? If you want to wrap the blanket round yourself for a bit I won't say anything to Stefan."

"No, I think that would be cheating. And if I was really a slave I'd never be allowed to cover myself, would I? I mean, when you and your mates caught me in Columbarier – if I'd just been an ordinary country boy, you could have kept me as a slave for as long as you wanted, couldn't you? Supposing I was an orphan – which I am, sort of, at least as far as your world is concerned – and nobody would have bothered looking for me, you could have kept me chained up in your cellar for ages, making me suck, fucking me whenever you wanted, making me clean the place up, and only feeding me if I was completely obedient and worked hard. Is that what would have happened if I'd been on my own, or would you have done that to me and Oli both?"

"No, I don't think so. I mean, it is sort of exciting, thinking about having a helpless slave we could fuck whenever we wanted. But we wouldn't have done that to you. We were all orphans, me and the boys, and we knew what it was like to be on your own. We couldn't have ever treated another kid like that. We would have had a bit of fun and then let you go."

"See, that's why I don't mind doing this with you," I said. "You're okay, Alain. Anyway… I think I'll go and see if I can persuade Stefan to let me have my clothes back."

Stefan was in front of the computer, though he hadn't found anything useful, and he was glad to have an excuse to leave it and do something else, such as teasing me some more. But he did give me my clothes back as soon as the four hours were up, though he also immediately challenged me to another round of the stop-watch game.

"Not today, I don't think," I said. "Maybe tomorrow."

"That is because you know that you shall lose," he said.

"No, it's because I don't want to see Alain and Oli laughing at you after I thrash you."

"You wish that you could. But if you wish we will not play again until tomorrow. Perhaps next time you lose I will make you stay naked for eight hours."

After supper I asked Alain to stay and help me sort out the next day's food, because we were running short of milk and I thought it would be sensible to switch to cooked breakfasts instead of cereal (I was hopeful that God would forgive this shameful descent into the eating or pork products!), and after we had decided what to use next day we slipped back to the third dormitory and I sucked him again. This time he got me to use my hands as well, stroking him all over and caressing his balls as I sucked him, and he said that this felt even better than the first time.

"Thank you, Jake," he said, afterwards. "I think maybe now I am ready to offer to do that for Oli. And if he likes it, perhaps I'll let him do it for me, too."

And I felt good; too: as I headed back to the room I shared with Stefan I was thinking that I was ready to do it for him. Maybe next time I lost the stop-watch game, which would probably be next day, I would offer it as an alternative to being kept naked for eight hours. I was sure that if Stefan enjoyed it as much as Alain had done he would want me to go on doing it for him even after my penalties had finished, and I didn't think I'd mind that in the slightest. And maybe he would even want to try doing it for me…

Unfortunately, things didn't work out like that at all.

Somehow they never do: just when the immediate future looks straightforward, that's when something goes wrong. As will become clear in the next chapter.

Chapter Eight

In this chapter Stefan learns a bit about the history of his own world, Oli sticks his hand on the wrong panel, and our heroes find themselves somewhere they didn't want to visit. And then things take a sharp turn for the worse…

When I woke up next morning I told Stefan that I would be cooking breakfast today and that he might as well stay in bed for a while until it was ready. Then I walked across the dormitory and collected Alain, telling Oli the same thing. Alain and I went and had a good wash first and then went to the kitchen.

There were no eggs, of course, and if this world knew about baked beans they didn't have any in the store-room, but there was plenty of bacon and lots of sausages, so we were able to prepare a cooked breakfast of sorts. I'd left about half a loaf out to thaw overnight, and now I set about toasting it under one of the grills. I got Alain to start cooking some of the bacon and sausages under another grill. I'd have liked to fry it, but I hadn't been able to find any oil, though I was sure there must be some somewhere in a kitchen this size, even if it might have been a bit past its sell-by date. But grilling worked equally well.

"And did you and Oli… you know?" I asked.

"No, not yet. Maybe tonight. What about you and Stefan?"

"Same for us, though maybe we might get around to it later today. I'm not quite sure how to raise the subject, to be honest – I mean, I don't want him thinking I'm just a pervert."

"I'm sure he knows that already – it's all right, I'm joking! Actually I don't think it matters: like I said yesterday, he likes you a lot, and I don't think you could do or say anything to change his mind in a hurry."

"That's easy for you to say. Still… I think I've got a way." And I told him about my idea of playing another forfeit game and offering it as a possible penalty if I lost.

"Well, that might work, I suppose. And, talking of penalties: I don't remember there being a time limit on the game we played yesterday, which means you still have to do what I tell you today."

"Oh, come on! That's not fair!"

"It is if we didn't agree a time limit, and we didn't. So you're my slave until I decide to let you off – a bit like you were saying I could have done with you the day we first met."

"And you said you wouldn't have done that. You said you'd have let me go."

"Well, I've been thinking about it since yesterday, and I think it would be fun to have a slave. So get undressed, Jake."

I wasn't sure if he was serious or not, but I supposed it was true that we hadn't agreed a time limit, and so I stripped off. That didn't take long: I was only wearing my shorts, boxers and a tee-shirt. I even took my specs off.

"Good slave," he said. "Come here."

I pulled the bread I was toasting from under the grille and went to him, and he grinned at me.

"Kneel down," he ordered, and I did that, too.

"Okay, that's enough," he said. "You'd better get on with preparing the bread. But that proves what a really good friend you are, and how honourable, too: obviously it wouldn't be fair to keep the game going from yesterday, but you've just proved that you were prepared to keep your word even if I wasn't playing fair. That's one of the reasons we all like you, Jake: we know we can trust you. Oh, you can get dressed, by the way."

To be honest I was in two minds here: part of me (it's not difficult to guess which part) would have been quite happy to have Alain ordering me about for a lot longer, especially if it meant… But then again, the rest of me wanted to keep that sort of stuff for just me and Stefan from now on, and so on balance I was glad he had decided to let me off.

Once the cooking was nearly done I went and called for Stefan and Oli to wash their hands and then come to breakfast, and they reached the dining hall just as I was serving. And they all liked it, even though with no butter for the toast and no eggs or beans it was definitely lacking something.

"I like it even better than the flaky things," Oli said. We still hadn't got him and Alain to use forks yet, but they were managing quite well just picking things up in their fingers. "Can we have this every day, please, Jake?"

"There seems to be plenty of bacon and sausages in the freezer, so I don't see why not. And now Alain knows how to cook it, perhaps he can get breakfast tomorrow and let me have a lie in."

"I wouldn't mind," agreed Alain. "You've done almost all the cooking so far, so it would be fair."

After breakfast I showed him how the dishwasher worked (this was simple: stick everything inside and press the 'on' switch, because, like the washing machines, there was an automatic hopper arrangement for the detergent) and then, on Stefan's insistence, we all went and got properly dressed once more. Alain was given my bag with the flashlight in, and Stefan checked that his own bag was properly equipped with a flashlight and a few other bits and pieces. And then Alain and Oli went exploring once more while Stefan and I went back to the office.

We said 'Good morning' to Dead Guy as usual. We hadn't wanted to risk trying to move him in case his body disintegrated when we picked it up, so we had left him where he was and just put a blanket over him. We hoped that he still had some colleagues out there somewhere who would give him a proper funeral when they returned.

Stefan sat down at the computer and I sat beside him and we began another search, clicking on things more or less at random. And fairly soon we found out something useful: it was an entry on a sub-menu marked 'additional defences', and it told us a bit more about the barriers: apparently they didn't just block anything inanimate from passing, but they also prevented the passage of any living creature that was not warm-blooded. And that made perfect sense, because if the Greys were descended from reptiles they would probably be cold-blooded.

And we also found out something else: after the Greys had taken the Hub One Nexus Room every tunnel leading from the Hub Two Nexus Room had been extensively mined, with explosives buried under the floor and behind the walls. These were each on a separate electrical circuit so that they could be triggered individually if a particular tunnel fell into enemy hands – obviously they didn't want to destroy all the tunnels at once if they didn't have to. But there was also a fail-safe device: there was a constant electrical circuit running through the system, and any attempt to cut the power – which an enemy might do to try to disarm the explosives – would instead start a countdown that would eventually set the explosives off, using batteries to power the detonators. Explosives had also been set around each portal, and the detonation of the explosives in the tunnel would also destroy the portal itself.

"Well," I said, "I suppose it would explain what happened to the tunnel behind Door Fifteen."

"That is true. We must ensure that we are not in a tunnel when the power is cut if that would be the result."

Now that was a scary thought: either you get blown to pieces, or you get buried alive. On the other hand… "But there's nobody here to trigger the explosives," I said.

"And there was nobody here when the tunnel you saw collapsed, either. By then Dead Guy had already been dead for a very long time. Perhaps something else triggered it, or perhaps it was a simple power failure: we know the power supply is damaged. Maybe the power to that tunnel failed and triggered the fail-safe system."

"True. In that case we'll have to be careful. Actually, it isn't completely instantaneous: I saw the tunnel's lights flashing and mist filling it before it collapsed. I suppose that happens to warn people that the countdown has started. I don't know how long the countdown lasts, of course, but at least we'll get a warning if the tunnel we're in is about to be blown up. If there's mist in a tunnel, we shouldn't use it."

"Maybe the destruction of that tunnel was triggered by the power failure Dead Guy wrote of," said Stefan. "We have seen no other sign of failure, after all."

"If so it took a long time to fail completely," I pointed out. "There might be a lot of other things wrong that we haven't seen. I think it would be a lot safer to assume that any warning light is a sign that we should get out of here straight away. Of course, since we don't know where the warning lights are displayed that doesn't help us much."

"I am sure that the computer must hold this information," said Stefan. "Let us search for it once more."

So we started hunting through the system once more – and eventually Stefan found what we were looking for.

"This should display the control board," said Stefan, clicking on the item he had found. And the screen cleared, and the words 'Collating information' appeared, along with a little rotating triangle that was presumably there to indicate that the computer hadn't actually stopped working but was performing a task.

And that's when Alain and Oli appeared at the entrance to the office.

"You've definitely got to come and see this," said Alain. "It's really strange. We think it's another machine of some sort. Come on!"

Stefan and I looked at each other.

"We might as well," I said. "The computer could be a while yet."

Stefan nodded, picked up his bag and slipped it on.

"Just in case," he said, when he saw me staring.

I shrugged. "Okay, Alain – where are we going?" I asked.

"We thought we'd have a look through the arch on the other side of the hall," he said. "And we found… well, we'll show you."

They took us through to the hall and headed for the arch, but Stefan called them back.

"If we are all leaving the area we should reactivate the barrier," he said. "The barrier is there for a good reason."

"Yes, but if we're only just outside…"

"We must be safe, Jake. Olivier, would you go and activate the barrier, please? And perhaps we should seal the inner office also: on the small desk opposite Dead Guy, at the back, there is a switch. Press it and the inner office will close."

Oli stripped off his clothes – trainers, socks, the blue dress and his army hat – and went back into the office. A minute or so later he emerged, reactivated the barrier and walked through it to join us.

"I won't bother getting dressed just yet," he said. "There's another barrier at the arch, and I bet you want that one closed too, don't you?"

Stefan nodded.

Alain led us to the arch and the three of us walked through it, Alain carrying Oli's clothes. Oli activated the barrier and walked through it to join us, and while he was getting dressed I looked around.

We were in another room, perhaps ten metres across by twenty-five [30 x 80 ft.] long. At the far end, directly ahead of us, was another entrance that seemed to lead to a narrow tunnel, and to our left was a door that led, so Alain told us, to an empty storage cupboard. But it was the entrance to our right that had caught their attention. It was a small arch leading to a short ramp that sloped downwards. There was a barrier control at the side of the arch, and Alain deactivated the barrier and led us down the ramp, though this time Oli just came with us without stopping to reactivate the barrier, and when we reached the bottom of the ramp I saw that he didn't need to activate this barrier from outside because there was another control panel just inside the room at the bottom of the ramp. And when Oli put his hand on it the barrier reappeared and a door slid closed at the same time.

At first glance it looked a bit like a long, narrow cinema: there were rows of seats with a screen at the front of the room, and my first thought was that it was another briefing room. But it was the low, curved roof that suggested something else, and when Oli led us through a little door beside the screen I realised that my second thought was correct: this was actually a train. The little door led to a driver's cab, though there was no sign of any controls. Through the screen at the front of the cab we could see a tunnel stretching away, lit only by occasional dim lights set widely apart.

Oli sat in the driver's chair, and as he did so a panel slid away in front of the chair, though there was nothing beneath it except for a line of ten little cyan lights and a barrier control hand outline. I assumed that this must be an automatic system, a bit like the Docklands Light Railway in London, which runs without drivers. But it seemed a bit unnecessary to have yet another barrier between the cab and the rest of the carriage – why bother protecting the driver when he wasn't actually driving? And I was still pondering that when Oli reached out and put his hand on the control panel.

And that's when we found out that the outline of a hand on this panel didn't actually control a barrier at all: instead it controlled the train, which started to move forwards.

"Move your hand, Oli," I cried. "We don't want to go anywhere!"

"Why not?" asked Oli, taking his hand away all the same. "It might be interesting to see where this goes."

"I'm pretty sure it goes to Hub One," I told him. "This is what Dead Guy called the Capsule, I think. And Hub One isn't somewhere we want to be, especially if the Greys have found their way into it."

But moving his hand hadn't stopped the train moving – in fact it was still accelerating. And touching the panel again did nothing at all, so it looked as if once the train was in motion it would keep running until it reached its destination. I didn't know how long it would take: Stefan said he thought it was only about eighty kilometres [50 miles] to the Feldberg, but the train would have to go some way down at our end and then climb a fair bit at the other, and so it would be likely to take a while. So I went into the main compartment and sat down, and Stefan came to join me, though Alain stayed with Oli in the cab.

"My grandfather wouldn't approve of me making this journey," I said. "He always told me I shouldn't ever go to Germany."

"Why would he say that?" asked Stefan.

"Oh, it's just old memories, from when he was a kid before the war. He was born near Gdańsk – you'd call it Danzig – when it was part of Poland, although of course it became German after 1939."

"It should always have been German. It was part of Germany for many years before the First War, and returning it to the Fatherland was one of the reasons for reacting as we did when the Poles attacked our frontier posts. So, what did your grandfather say, exactly?"

"Well, he said he could never trust the Germans. He said that one day everything would be fine, and you'd be thought of as an ordinary German citizen, and a week later you'd be on your way to the gas chambers."

"Gas chambers? What did he mean by that?"

I stared at him. Could it have been different in his reality? I didn't think so, somehow. So perhaps he really didn't know what had happened to the Jews, in which case… I was starting to wish I'd never mentioned grandfather at all, but I supposed that I had to follow it through now.

"Well, in our world the Jews weren't sent to Siberia or Madagascar," I said. "The Nazis did put those stories about, but what really happened is that they were sent to special camps – in Poland, mostly – and in the camps they were gassed."

"That cannot be true! I cannot believe that your world was so different from ours. This must be a story put about to discredit our government."

"I'm afraid not. See, in my world Germany lost the war, and as the German army retreated it left behind a lot of evidence of what had happened, including some of the concentration camps where the killing took place – Auschwitz and Treblinka and Majdanek, and a lot of others. And there were survivors, too, and the gas chambers were still there, and so were the crematoriums where they burned the bodies afterwards. It really happened, Stefi – around six million Jews died in those camps. And a lot of other people, too: gypsies and communists and… and homosexuals, too."

He stared at me. "And… and do you believe that this happened in my world also?"

"Well… probably. I mean, people wouldn't know about it – at least, not many people would – because your government would have had time to finish the job and then dismantle the camps. In my world they ran out of time because the Russians were advancing too quickly, but in yours there would have been no time pressure. So they could have killed all the Jews and spread the story about them being resettled in Siberia and Madagascar, and nobody would have any reason to disbelieve it – except for people living in Siberia and Madagascar, I suppose, because they would never have seen a Jew at all. But it was always Hitler's intention to dispose of the Jews, and I'm sure that would have been the same in your world."

He was silent for several seconds. "It is true that I had never seen a Jew before I met you," he said, slowly. "But we were told… No! No, I cannot believe that so many… Six million? Truly?"

"More, in your world," I said. "Ten or eleven, maybe."

He looked at me. "I do not think you could lie to me, Jake. I think that I know you well enough now. But… if you truly believe this to be true, then how can you bear to be near me?"

"What sort of question is that? Stefi, all this happened before either of us was born. You didn't have anything to do with it. You're my friend, and that's all that matters to me."

"Yes, but… But it was my government that did this, and I am a loyal German. I remember that you said how your people do not like the swastika emblem, and now I understand why…"

"Yes, and the fact that I'm wearing one round my neck now shows you how much you mean to me. It's just an accident that I am a Jew and you are a German. What is important is that we are friends, and that I… I mean, you're my best friend, and I don't want that to change. In my world Jews have done some bad things, too, things that I don't agree with. But it doesn't matter what other Jews have done, or what other Germans have done, either: you and me, that's what matters, Stefi. We're just boys who are friends. It doesn't matter what other people have done: I just care what you have done, and you've been my friend since we met. Please don't let any of this ancient history change that."

"Well… are you certain that you still want to be friends with me?"

"Absolutely," I said, and I hugged him hard. And after a moment he responded, and we sat holding each other until Oli called for us to come to the cab.

"What is it, Oli?" I asked, sticking my head through the door. "Are we at the other Hub?"

"No, not yet. I was just wondering about the little lights: they seem to be going out."

I looked, and now only four of the little cyan lights were still lit.

"I think it's an indicator of how far we have to go," I said. "Or maybe how much power we've got left. Perhaps that's more likely."

"Oh. I was wondering, because when I went back to close the inner office, like you said, I saw there was a picture of some lights on that magic window you and Stefan spend so much time looking at. But those were a different colour: some were yellow and some were a sort of purple colour, and some of them were flashing on and off. There were only a couple that were the same bluey-greeney colour as these ones are."

I didn't like the sound of that at all: we'd asked the computer to show us the control board, and if was full of yellow and magenta lights the power situation must have been a lot worse than we had thought it was.

"Can you remember exactly what the picture looked like?" I asked.

"Yes, I think so. If you can find me a slate and some chalk I'll draw it for you. Of course, I couldn't read any of the little squiggles, so I probably won't get those right, but I can show you where the little lights were."

"Stefi, you'd better come and listen to this," I said: Stefan was still sitting looking pensive, which I guess was understandable in view of what I'd just told him. "And have you got your little notebook and a pencil or pen?"

Of course he had: Stefan was nothing if not organised. He pulled his little notebook out of a pocket on his bag and handed it, together with a pencil, to Oli, who of course thought that pencils were an excellent invention. He turned to a blank page and started to draw the control board from memory.

I have to admit I was surprised at his ability to reproduce something as complicated as that board, but I suppose the ability to read is not essential in order to be able to paint or draw. The problem was that the lights were divided into several blocks, and he couldn't reproduce the heading for each box accurately: a lot of the headings were just squiggles instead of actual letters. But some sections of the box were clearly decipherable, and he had accurately remembered the letters that spelled out 'HUB 1' (which covered the top half of the page) and 'HUB 2', which was the bottom half. And we could tell which line of lights indicated the condition of the tunnels, because there was a line of twenty lights on the lower half of the page and a corresponding line of fifteen lights on the upper half.

Hub One looked really bad: there were steady magenta lights almost across the board, except for a block of ten on one side of the board, where two were flashing yellow and one was steady yellow (Oli explained what colour the lights were, of course, and had drawn a circle round the flashing ones). Hub Two looked better, in that there were only four steady magenta lights, but there were another seven flashing magentas and a whole lot of yellows. And the scary part was that three of the steady magentas were in the row of tunnel lights, and six of the others were flashing magenta.

"We've got to get out of here," I said. "It looks as if three of the tunnels have closed already, and a lot of the others are heading that way. We've got to get back before we lose the ones that'll take us home."

"How?" asked Alain. "We can't stop this metal pipe thing, and even if we could it's a long way back now."

"Well, we'll just have to turn straight round when we arrive and come back straight away," I said.

"Do you think we will be able to do so?" asked Stefan, pointing to the one little box that lay squarely between Hub One and Hub Two on the board. And in fact Oli had got the first two letters 'CA' right, though the rest were less accurate. The three lights in the box that covered the capsule system were apparently all a steady yellow.

"I bloody well hope so, or we're in real trouble," I said, and I meant it: it was obvious that Hub One was almost out of power, and we might even arrive to find the Greys already in possession. Of course, it might be possible to persuade them that we were just innocent travellers, but it might be hard to explain what we were doing using the Capsule if we weren't actually a part of Dead Guy's world. But perhaps we would be lucky and find that they still hadn't found their way into the Hub – though that would still give us a major problem if the Capsule wasn't able to take us back. I thought that if the worst came to the worst we would have to abandon the Capsule, find our way out to the surface and then travel overland through Dead Guy's world until we got back to the Vosges, where there had to be another way into Hub Two. But that would obviously take quite a long time, and the idea that the tunnels back to my world, and to Stefan's, might disappear in the meantime was really frightening.

The train ran on. It was virtually silent, and I found myself wondering how it was powered: I thought maybe it might be some sort of magnetic levitation system. I'd read a bit about those, and apparently if the maglev train ran through a specially designed tunnel it was possible for it to go extremely fast, mainly because the air could be pumped out of the tunnel, leaving it a vacuum. This would eliminate air resistance, but if anything went wrong we would really be in trouble, because there would be no air outside the train and so we would be unable to leave it.

But it looked as though we were going to be spared that particular problem, because shortly after that the train followed a right hand curve that then became a prolonged left hand curve, and then it slowed down and finally came to a stop. And as it did so the last cyan light on the dashboard went out.

We waited, and about a minute later the same light began to flash yellow. I hoped that this meant it was recharging, and so we waited some more. But fifteen long minutes later it was still flashing, and the other nine lights were all extinguished, and touching the control panel had no effect at all.

"Well, if it's recharging, it's doing it damned slowly," I said. "I don't think there's any point in just sitting here, so let's go and see what's happening outside. But carefully: if we hear anything when we open the door we'd better close it again straight away."

I put my hand on the control by the door and it slid open. I couldn't hear anything at all, and so cautiously we advanced up the ramp and found ourselves in a mirror image of the room we had left in Hub Two: storage cupboard straight opposite the train, small door off to the left, large arch into the Hub proper to our right. We closed the barrier behind us – it still seemed to be working – and walked to the arch. And that barrier was working, too, which suggested that they would be the last things to fail.

We sent Oli through to deactivate it for us, and once we were all inside we closed it again – and for once Oli dressed again as quickly as he could, because it was immediately clear that this place was not like the one we had left. For a start, the lighting was very low – I guessed that it would be emergency lighting only. Ahead of us we could see three doors which, assuming this Hub was arranged the same as Hub Two, would have led to the Nexus Room. But these doors were welded shut and heavily barricaded, and the wall around one of them was blackened and the door itself was warped. But at least it looked as if none of them had been breached.

The arch leading to the office and living quarters was also still protected by a barrier, so again we sent Oli through to turn it off. And once it was off and we were all inside he again pulled his clothes on quickly. We closed the barrier again and looked at the office: the outer office was deserted, and the inner office was dead – the machines around the walls were all dark and silent, and the computer was clearly off and couldn't be turned on. And there was only one dim light in the room, too.

We went upstairs and found empty dormitories, though here the water supply also seemed to be off and neither the showers nor the washbasins were usable. The kitchen was also dead and the freezer had apparently been without power for a while, to judge from the nasty smell that emerged when I opened the door briefly.

Finally we went down to the basement and found the generator dark and silent. It seemed that the only things still working were the barriers, and I guessed that because these were so vital to the safety of the Hub they would be able to draw power from Hub Two in the event of a catastrophic power failure locally. Of course, once the power at Hub Two failed as well…

"There's nothing here," I said. "Let's go and look at the other doors to the Nexus Room – if it's the same as in our Hub, there'll be some more upstairs."

We left the office area and went back to the main hall, and this time I volunteered to strip off and reactivate the barrier behind us, because it was obvious that Oli wasn't enjoying stripping off in this place the way he usually did back at Hub Two. Once I was dressed again we went up the stairs at the far end of the hall and looked into the corridor, and we saw that, just as in our Hub, there were two doors here, both of which were welded and barricaded shut.

"So where is everyone?" I wondered aloud. "These barricades were all done from inside, and so nobody left through these doors, or the ones downstairs. If they'd left using the Capsule I'm sure they would have dealt with Dead Guy, not just left him lying in the office. So what happened? Do you think they've got a Star Trek-type transporter?"

And of course I had to explain that, because Star Trek had never appeared on German TV in Stefan's world, if in fact it had ever been made at all.

"I do not think this is possible," said Stefan. "I agree that the portals are also impossible, but there are very great problems in teleportation. German scientists have concluded that it may never be possible. And so the people here are either hiding, or in a room we have not yet found, or they left by a route we have also not yet found."

This made perfect sense, and so we decided to carry out a proper search. Stefan and I went back to the living accommodation, while Alain and Oli, who of course had done a lot of exploring around Hub Two, said they would start in the main hall and try to find a concealed exit there.

As we were looking for a way out to the surface Stefan and I started in the dormitories, and for a good hour we felt our way around the walls trying to find a hidden door, or even just a hidden panel. We checked over every officer's room, the shower rooms, and even the toilets, but without success.

Next we went down to the main office, but although there was a point in one corner of the room where I was convinced there was something – it sounded hollow when I rapped my knuckles on it – I couldn't find any way to actually make either a door or a panel appear. And there was nothing in the outer office, either.

It didn't seem likely that they would have sited a route to the surface in the basement, but I supposed that it had to be investigated, and so we headed for the stairs. But before we got there Oli appeared.

"We think we've found it," he reported. "Come and see!"

So we followed him out into the main hall. This time Stefan threw his clothes off long enough to activate the barrier into the living quarters, and as soon as he was dressed again Oli led us back to the staircase that led up to the corridor we had already visited. Alain was waiting for us at the top of the stairs.

"We looked everywhere else – well, we didn't bother going back to the pipe thing, but we checked everywhere else inside the hall. And we wondered why the corridor goes on past the two doors that go to the room with all the doors… perhaps it was easier to build it like that, but then we noticed that there seem to be footmarks going past the second door – and that would be silly if there is nothing beyond it except a wall, wouldn't it? And we think perhaps there's a door there, because it sounds different to the walls at the sides when you hit it."

And I thought he was right, and so we examined the wall closely. And it was Stefan who found the panel, which was higher up than usual and to the right of the end wall instead of to the left, as seemed to be the usual arrangement. The panel slid open, revealing the usual hand outline and glass domes.

Stefan put his hand on the outline and for a moment nothing happened, and I was thinking that perhaps the power to this system had failed. But then the entire end of the corridor slid upwards, revealing a tunnel beyond, and a couple of metres into the tunnel we could see the swirling air of a barrier. The control for this was to the left as usual, and we found that activating it both removed the barrier and closed the door behind us. We declared that this time it was Alain's turn to undress and reactivate the barrier, and so he stripped off, handing his clothes to Oli and waiting until we were all beyond the barrier (there was a mark on the wall that indicated where the barrier ended).

Alain put his hand on the mark again and the barrier was reactivated, and the door opened at the same time. That was a complication: it looked as if we would have to leave the door open. But I couldn't see any way around it, and so I called to Alain to leave it and come through, and ten seconds after he emerged from the barrier at our end the door slid closed once more, so presumably there was either some sort of sensor on it, or it closed automatically after a certain time period.

We waited for Alain to get dressed and then walked along the tunnel for about twenty metres [65 ft.], at which point it made a ninety degree turn to the right and stopped at the foot of a staircase.

"I think that perhaps this is the escape route," said Stefan. "Let us go and find out where this leads."

We climbed the staircase, which was quite long and which took another right-angled turn every twenty steps or so. Finally we reached the top, at which point we were confronted with a perfectly ordinary-looking little door, which opened straight away when Stefan pulled it: obviously there was no panel to operate this one – or if there had been, the power had apparently failed, leaving the door unlocked.

At first we thought our watches were wrong, or that days in this world were a different length, because it was dark as we emerged from the doorway. But then I realised that we were at the back of a cave, and that the entrance, which was about five metres [15 ft.] away, was heavily overgrown, making the interior of the cave very dark. We closed the door and moved to the mouth of the cave, where we found that the greenery, though quite thick, was at least not of the thorny variety, and so we were able to push our way through it. We emerged to find ourselves on the side of a hill, with a forest off in the valley immediately ahead of us and open land to our right and left.

Stefan got his compass out, but there were no obvious landmarks, and so he suggested that we scramble up to the top of the ridge on which the cave entrance lay. It wasn't too far, and from the top we had a truly excellent view. Stefan pointed off to the west

"We are almost on top of the mountain," he told us. "The highest point is over there – you can see that the people of this world have put a tower there, the same as in my world, and in that direction," (he pointed south-east) "in my world there is another tower and a memorial to the German chancellor Bismarck. And all of this part of the mountain should be covered in grass, not just be partly bare rock, as it is here. Perhaps the grass was destroyed when the Hub was excavated… Anyway, our part of the Vogesen is north-west of here. In my world if we walk that way we would come eventually to the town of Freiburg, which is around thirty kilometres [20 miles] from here. Past Freiburg there is a crossing of the Rhine at Breisach, and then we can pass north of Colmar and so return to the mountains. But it is at least eighty kilometres [50 miles], and it might be a hundred [60 miles], so it will take us about a week unless we can find transport."

"I think Colmar is what Stefan and I call Columbarier," I added. "Perhaps you'll get a chance to see what your home town looks like in another world, Alain."

"That might be interesting, but I bet it won't look like home. Still, I don't mind stopping for a look when we get there."

"If we get there," I corrected. "We don't know much about Dead Guy's world, after all. We know it has an army, for a start."

"Yes, but we know also that the people here did not seek to attack other worlds through their Nexus Room," Stefan pointed out. "The timeline says they went only peacefully into other worlds, seeking minerals. And the army at the Hub was only there to defend against aggressive people such as the Greys. I think this is likely to be a peaceful world, and so we should not encounter any great problems."

"You're probably right," I said. "So I suppose the first thing to do is going to be to get off the mountain and try to find some people. If we can find a village, perhaps we can find a car or something."

"There are train lines around the mountain," Stefan said. "Or there are in my world, and so there might be here, also. I have been here before, and I believe that a railway lies north or north-east from here, perhaps eight or ten kilometres [5-6 miles]. And it will be downhill all the way, so we should reach it in less than two hours. There we can take a train to Freiburg, where we can certainly find transport."

"If the railway exists in this world," I said, "and if there's a town where Freiburg ought to be. But I think that's definitely as good a plan as any."

So we went back down to the entrance of the cave and set off in a northerly direction, with Stefan once again keeping a careful record of our bearing and distance, and as we reached the edge of the trees we found a path heading in roughly the correct direction. Stefan used his knife to mark the trees at the point where we had joined the path, wrote the distance we had travelled to reach it in his notebook and then led us off along the path.

Actually it was a nice day for a walk in the Black Forest: the sun was shining, but it wasn't too hot, and now we were under the trees we had plenty of shade anyway. The path wandered along for half a kilometre [1600 ft.] or so and then forked, with one path heading off to the west and the other veering in a north-easterly direction. There was a signpost, but it was written in the squiggles of Dead Guy's language and so we couldn't read it. But it was obvious that we didn't want to head west, and so we followed the other fork further into the trees.

About half a kilometre [1600 ft.] further on the trees thinned a bit and we could see three or four houses around the path, but when we got there we found them empty and closed up. For a moment I was afraid we'd found another dead world, but Stefan said that there were a few of these logging places up in the Black Forest in his world, and they were only used occasionally, when tree felling was actually taking place.

Beyond the houses the path became a track, suitable for four-wheeled drive vehicles, which were no doubt what the loggers used to reach the houses. We followed the track onwards, now heading steadily downhill.

About half an hour later we saw the trees starting to thin ahead of us once more, and this time we could see smoke rising above the trees: finally we had found civilisation.

"I hope they've got some food here," commented Alain. "We haven't eaten since breakfast, and I'm a growing boy."

"You might be lucky," I said. "This looks like a proper village – there are definitely more houses than there were back up there. Maybe they'll have a shop."

We walked onwards, and soon the track emerged into the open, though now that we could see properly it didn't appear to be a proper village after all, just a collection of houses dotted about. There were a couple of lorries parked at one side of the road outside one of the larger houses (in fact this one looked big enough to be a hotel) and while they looked different from anything I had seen before – they were a lot more streamlined than any European trucks I had seen, for a start – they were still clearly lorries.

"If we can find a lorry driver, perhaps we can cadge a lift down to the railway," I said optimistically.

And a minute or so later a couple of people came out of the large house and walked towards us. My first thought was that they were soldiers, even if their uniform was a sort of red-brown colour, rather than the dark green of Oli's army cap. My second thought was that they were carrying weapons, which seemed a little unnecessary in the middle of a peaceful forest. And my third thought was that we were in deep, deep trouble, because their faces were a weird shape, with an elongated, protruding jaw. And because their skin was grey.

This is a nasty surprise. Can Jake talk his way out of this? The next chapter will answer that question…

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