It was almost midnight when Randall, Jane and Loach arrived back at the docks.

As expected, the priests had arrived there before them, but the docks were three miles long and the priests were separated by hundreds of yards as they spread out to cover the whole area. They had enlisted the help of the city's police, though, and the hibernators saw dozens of the brightly uniformed men standing by the piers and jetties, carefully examining the sailors who were busily preparing their ships to sail with the tide.

"I say we just walk boldly out there," said Loach in a low voice. "If we look confident and natural, if we avoid looking guilty, they might pay us no attention. They're looking for fugitives. They'll be looking for people acting like fugitives."

"And what do we do if they stop and question us?" asked Randall.

"Bluff it out," replied Loach. "Just demand that they stand aside and not interfere with our lawful business. You'll be surprised how often that works."

Randall gave a heavy sigh. "Well, I don't see that we've got any choice," he said. "I also think we should split up, though. Just for the moment. They're looking for two men and a woman. If they see a married couple and a solitary man some distance away, they may not make the connection."

Loach nodded. "I was about to suggest the same thing. So, which ship should we head for?"

Suddenly a bell started ringing somewhere near the city centre. A church bell, but clearly ringing an alarm instead of part of a church service. The three hibernators looked up in alarm. It seemed that the priests wanted to rouse the whole city to search for them.

"This changes nothing," said Loach reassuringly. "In fact it's good for us. If we act calm and confident the police will think it can't possibly be to do with us. They'll be looking for people panicked and running. All we've got to do is keep our heads about us."

"Are you sure of that?" asked Randall.

"Yes," replied the mob boss, but his eyes were wide and he was struggling to keep his breathing slow and steady. "Besides, as you said, what choice do we have?"

Randall nodded. "Okay," he said. "You okay having the girl with you?"

"Doesn't the girl have a say?" asked Jane testily

Loach ignored her. "You should have her, I think," he said. "You look more like a family man than I do. She doesn't look like the kind of woman I'd choose as a wife."

"What the hell does that mean?" demanded Jane indignantly. "You only go out with supermodels or something?"

"She has a point," said Randall. "Neither of us look like men of power at the moment. Neither of us look like the type to have a trophy wife."

"Fine," said Loach. "I'll take her, then." He looked out at the closest ships, then looked left and right at the priests and policemen standing along the docks. "That ship there, I think," he said. "The one with the red stripe. Is that red? It's hard to see in this light."

"Doesn't matter, I see the ship you mean. I'll go first. I'll make for that policeman there, ask him what all the commotion is. He'll never suspect me of being a fugitive if I deliberately bring myself to his attention."

"Isn't that a tired old cliché?" said Jane, though. "Won't he suspect?"

"It was a tired old cliché back in our day," replied Randall, "when it was used over and over again in every cheap novel and TV series, but that's all gone now. Forgotten. All the tired old clichés are new again." He gave Jane a reassuring smile, but she still looked doubtful.

"That's the theory, anyway," continued Randall. "Let's go see if it's true. Give me a few minutes before following." He then stepped out from hiding and walked smartly and confidently towards the policeman.

The policeman came alert as Randall approached and drew his cudgel, but he made no other move. To either side, Randall saw other policemen take notice of him, but since he was already heading straight towards one of their number they made no move. Even a priest, a hundred yards away along the dock road, glanced in his direction, but he also remained where he was although Randall noticed that he kept his gaze upon him, not even blinking as he watched the businessman's progress across the wide, paved loading area.

Randall tried to remember how the farmers had spoken. "Whet's going on?" he demanded as he came close to the policeman. "Whet's ell the clamour?"

His accent wasn't even close to how the locals had spoken, but since this was a port city that wasn't the problem it might have been elsewhere. The policeman just assumed he'd come on a boat from some distant country. He just shrugged, therefore. "Dunno," he said. "We wes jest told ter keep fellas frem getting ter the boats. Escaped criminals, mest be. Trying ter get outta the city."

"Oh," said Randall, forcing himself to give an outward appearance of calm. "Well, good luck. I hope ye gets him." He then brushed past the policeman as if there was never any possibility that he might try to stop him. He refused to even acknowledge the possibility. The very idea was ridiculous. Randall was clearly a member of the ship's crew, hurrying to get back aboard before it set sail. His strange accent was all the proof the policeman needed.

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He saw the policeman turn towards him, though, as if he might have been about to try to detain him, but by then Randall was past him and striding confidently towards the ship. The policeman stared after him, clearly torn between his duty and his absolute certainty that this man couldn't possibly be the man they were looking for. Would he have walked rignt up to him, bold as brass, if he was a desperate criminal? He'd only be making himself look foolish if he tried to detain him. Back in the twenty first century Randall's plan wouldn't have had a chance of working, but this policeman had never read a novel, had never watched an episode of a TV series in which the hero had tried this exact trick. If he was lucky he might have gone to the theatre once or twice to watch the local equivalent to a Shakespeare play. Randall's words to Jane were correct. Here, this far in a post apocalyptic future, it was no longer a tired old cliché and the policeman never suspected a thing.

The policeman put Randall out of his mind, therefore, and returned his attention to the streets into the city, searching for people running and hiding the way fugitives did. The criminals were still in there somewhere, and it would be a real feather in his cap if he was the one to catch them.

Randall very carefully kept himself from looking to see if any of the other policemen were watching him. Only the guilty feared pursuit. He was an innocent man going about his lawful business. In fact, the nearest priest was watching him, but he'd seen him talking to the policeman and had seen the policeman let him go. He must have given a good reason for wanting to go to the ship. The priest also put Randall out of his mind, therefore, and returned his attention to the streets leading into the city.

Randall reached the boarding plank leading up to the ship but paused by the edge of the loading area to stare up at the ship, as if examining it. He stared at the black, glistening wet and barnacle covered wooden planks of the hull and he looked higher where a ladder of ropes stretched all the way up from the railing to the tops of the masts. The sight made him dizzy with vertigo and he had to look away rather sooner than he'd intended. A passing sailor looked curiously down at him. Randall ignored him and after a moment the sailor walked on.

Randall then looked down at the water in the narrow gap between the dock and the ship where black waves with small bits of seaweed floating in it were lapping lazily against every vertical surface with quiet plopping sounds that he found strangely relaxing. Then he returned his gaze to the ship, hoping that he looked as if he knew what he was looking at, as if he was expertly noticing details that others might have missed, because what he was really doing was waiting for Jane and Loach to join him.

He risked a glance back behind him to see that his two companions had wisely tried to approach the ship from a different direction, so that they'd been stopped by a different policeman than the one he'd spoken to. They seemed to be having some difficulty getting away from him, so Randall left the ship and went to see if he could help. The idea of travelling this strange, alien world alone scared him. He wanted people with him who would help him feel less alone, make him feel protected. Jane and Loach weren't the people he would have chosen for this, but they were all he had.

"Is there a problem?" he demanded as he approached the policeman. "We have to catch the tide and I can't have you delaying my crew."

"Your crew?" said the policeman suspiciously, eyeing Jane who was looking guilty and afraid. She looked up at Randall with desperate hope.

"Aye, my crew," replied Randall. He realised too late that he'd forgotten to imitate the accent of the local farmers and had instead lapsed into a Long John Silver voice. He silently cursed himself, but it was too late to do anything about it now. "Are ye done or are ye intending to keep em here all night while the ship sets sail without them?"

"They're your people, then?" said the policeman.

"Aye, there're my people, so if you're quite finished questioning them..."

"Yes, I'm finished." He turned back to Loach. "You can be on your way," he said.

"Thank you," said the former crime boss. He and Jane fell in beside Randall as they headed back to the ship.

They were just in time. A crewman was just about to pull in the gangplank as Randall walked up it, trying not to look down at the long drop into the water below. The crewman stared at them in surprise. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"You know very well who I am," bluffed Randall. "Get out of my way!"

Once again the tired old cliché, which was no longer a tired old old cliché, worked and the man tugged his forelock at them before standing aside. He would ask everyone he met who their passengers were, of course, but hopefully the ship would be well on its way out of the harbour before word got to any of the ship's senior crew. It wouldn't matter if the Captain put them ashore at the very next port they came to. All they needed was to get out of the city.

The three hibernators hurried to a part of the deck that was relatively free of crewmen. A short distance away crewmen were throwing ropes to three rowing boats that had pulled up alongside. Soon, Randall guessed, they would be towing the ship towards the harbour entrance. Once they were through the narrow gap in the sea wall the ship would be able to hoist its sails and make its own way, but inside the harbour, which was crowded with a hundred other ships, big and small, it was much too cramped for the big ship to manoeuvre on its own.

Seeing that they were unobserved for the moment, therefore, Randall hurried over to the largest of the upturned lifeboats that were standing in the centre of the deck. The prow and stern of the lifeboat were curved upwards, meaning that there was a gap between the middle of the small boat and the ship's deck. A gap large enough for the three of them to squirm their way in. Looking around to make sure that all the crewmen in sight were too busy to take notice of them, therefore, and giving thanks for the covering darkness, Randall dropped to the slippery, slimy deck and slithered in.

Jane followed him in, and then came Loach, the man's coat making an alarmingly loud noise as a fold of fabric caught on a rowlock and tore. Loach froze, but nothing happened. No crewmen came hurrying over to take them into custody. Loach pulled his coat free and squirmed the rest of the way in and out of sight.

There was a sheet of tarpaulin draped over the lifeboat. Loach reached up, grabbed hold of the end and pulled it lower so that it hid the gap he'd crawled tnrough. The three of them then huddled together, trying to keep still and make no noise, fearing that someone had seen them and that they would be put ashore while they were still alongside the docks. Nothing happened, though, and they began to relax, and a few moments later they felt the ship began to move as the three rowboats began to pull it away from the quayside.