Tettlehall was a coastal city, and the smell of salt and fish came out to meet them as the four hibernators approached the gates.

There was a steady procession of carts and wagons passing between the heavy, iron strapped wooden gates, as well as people on foot, most of them carrying a parcel of belongings wrapped in a blanket balanced on their heads. The hibernators joined them and the guards gave them only a cursory glance as they passed them by. Then they were in a short tunnel passing under the thick, stone wall. There was a second pair of gates at the other end of the tunnel, almost as thick and strong as the first. They passed through them and then they were in the city.

It was packed and crowded with people jostling shoulder to shoulder in the narrow streets. Wooden, tudor style buildings rose three or four storeys tall on either side, leaning so close towards each other near the top that people in their third storeys could almost have leaned out and shaken hands across the gap. At their bases, gutters ran with dirty, foul looking water. The air stank of sweat, urine, sewage and rotting vegetables and the hibernators screwed up their noses as they tried not to breathe it in. Young children with filthy faces and ragged clothes sat in doorways, staring up at them as they passed by, and beggars waved bowls at the richer looking of the pedestrians. Everyone was crushed against the walls by the wagons passing by and gulls waddled carefully around their feet on the lookout for scraps.

"Why is it so crowded?" shouted Jane above the din of hundreds of people talking at once.

"The smaller the wall is, the easier it is to defend," replied Loach. "I would imagine we'll find the remains of older walls in here somewhere, built when the city was smaller. All human habitations tend to grow, except in times of crisis. They probably build another wall around the city every so often, then allow the city to grow to fill it."

"So they live in a state of perpetual seige," said Jane, staring around in wonder. "Outside they feel vulnerable, like Ronald. In here they feel safe, but have to live in these awful conditions."

"It probably feels perfectly normal to them," said Emily. "Besides, it's not really that different from our own cities. The three of you wouldn't know, you all lived in pampered luxury, but I saw the reality of life for most of the human race. The slums, the ghettos, the shanty houses... Children starving in the streets, dying from treatable diseases. Plus, they had to breathe the poisonous, polluted air..."

"Yeah, I get it!" said Loach irritably. "Mankind is a plague and you were the cure. I suppose you prefer this world to the one we knew."

"Look at these urchins," said Emily, pointing down to a child sitting in the gutter at her feet. "He's filthy, but he looks healthy and well fed. Compare him to a similar child in one of our own cities. Half starved, coughing from tuberculosis and microparticles in the lungs..."

"Yeah, mankind has really come a long way. Makes you proud."

Emily glared at the mob boss but said nothing more.

Jane spotted a woman down on her hands and knees scrubbing an already clean door step with a thick bristled brush and paused to ask her where the priest lived. The woman gestured vaguely further along the street, then dipped her brush into a wooden bucket of filthy water before returning to her scrubbing. The hibernators glanced at each other in vague amusement and pushed their way onwards. They asked two other people further on. One pointed down a side turning while the other, a few minutes later, pointed to a grand looking building by the side of the road they were following. It had a gold painted star at the top of the spire.

"I guess the star represents VIX," said Loach. "Which in turn represents God."

"Let's go then," said Jane urgently. "Let's go get healed."

"There'll be several churches in a city this size," said the crime boss, though, looking up at the sun. "Looks like we've still got about an hour of daylight left. Let's see where all the rich people live."

"Thinking of pulling a heist?" said Emily with an amused smile.

Loach just gave her a sideways look before continuing on down the street.

Jane took a step towards the church, her eyes begging the others to follow her, but Randall and Emily were following Loach deeper into the city. Jane almost went to the church anyway, but then she felt a surge of fear at the thought of being all alone in a strange city. She hadn't known the others long, but they were literally the only people she knew in the whole of this strange, new world. She gave a sigh of resignation therefore and followed after them.

They followed the main road until they came to the city centre where the municipal buildings stood. They were larger and grander than the other buildings of the city with balconies on the upper storeys and banners flying from poles on the tiled roofs. Some of them even had gardens, they saw, surrounded by brick walls too high for them to see over, although they could see the topmost branches of trees and, here and there, the dangling tendrils of climbing plants spilling over the top. The streets were wider here and paved with grey stone in which generations of wagon wheels had worn deep impressions that reminded Randall of tram lines.

"I'm guessing that's the court house," said Emily as they passed an imposing edifice of grey granite. The others looked and saw the reason for her deduction. There was a row of stocks in front of it, one of which was occupied by a miserable looking red headed lad of around fourteen. His face and hands were bruised, bloody and stained with juice where he'd been pelted by fruit and vegetables earlier in the day. A pair of young boys had pulled his trousers down and were laughing as they poked his bare buttocks with a stick. The lad endured it with eyes closed in embarrassment and shame. A splendidly uniformed magistrate appeared and chsed the boys away, but they didn't go far and returned to their sport as soon as the magistrate had gone.

The redhead's fate was to be preferred to that of the dead man hanging by the neck a few metres away, though. He'd been there long enough for his body to become badly decomposed, and crows were flapping and scrabbling all over him as they tore strips of flesh from his bones. There was a sign hung around his neck on which the word 'Agitator' had been written in red paint.

"Not a good place to enter a life of crime," said Emily to Loach with a grin.

"Only if you're caught," the crime boss replied.

The largest, grandest building of all, which they guessed was the City Hall, had a large, open square in front of it. Today was apparently market day because the square was crowded with wagons and barrows piled high with goods and vegetables between which people dressed in expensive looking clothes threading their way, picking things up and squinting suspiciously at them before putting them back. One street trader was arguing loudly with an aristocratic looking woman, both of them gesticulating wildly, their hands and their faces red with passion. Randall guessed the argument was about the price of something but the hibernators didn't go near enough to find out.

There were policemen in smart, black uniforms standing in pairs here and there keeping a watchful eye over the crowd, and Randall saw one of them giving them a disapproving look. He guessed that the homeless and other undesirables were unwelcome in this district. We're lowering the tone, he thought with grim amusement. If we hung about in this area, we would probably be urged, none too gently, to leave. Fortunately they were clearly just passing through and the guard did nothing but watch them warily until they'd passed by and returned to the narrow streets of the city's less opulent areas.

The smell of the sea grew stronger as they went, and they began to see the masts of tall sailing ships rising above the rooftops of the buildings ahead of them. The buildings themselves changed character as well, with homes giving way to places of business with stark, featureless walls of brick and small, grimy windows. They were separated by narrow alleys filled with filth. It was growing darker as evening approached and the hibernators began to feel nervous as the atmosphere of the place grew more threatening. They could feel unfriendly eyes on them with every step, and Randall suspected that the only thing keeping them safe was the very obvious fact that they had nothing worth stealing.

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"Where are we going to spend the night?" asked Jane, who was suddenly very grateful that her baggy, potato sack clothing hid her feminine figure.

"Let's find a church first," said Emily. "Maybe the priest will let us stay there. Churches are supposed to be places of refuge, after all."

"I don't think that means opening the doors to any old tramp that wants to squat in the place," said Loach. "Every church I've ever known, the homeless are very quickly sent on their way. They don't want smelly old tramps lowering the tone of the place."

"They would if they genuinely wanted to spread the true Christian message," said Jane.

"Yeah," agreed the crime boss, "but how many churches really want to do that? By the way, you might want to prepare yourself for the possibility that Christianity might have changed considerably over the past ten or so centuries."

"Changed?"

"There might have been another reformation, like the rise of protestantism. Your version of Christianity might have vanished by now."

"I suppose," the young woman conceded, "but back in our time catholics and Jews were still respected and cherished."

"It wasn't always so, though, was it? How well do you know your history? What if practitioners of your version of Christianity are put to death like catholics used to be? Or put in death camps like Jews once were?"

"He's right," said Emily. "Might be a good idea not to say too much about your religious beliefs until we know more about what these people believe. Pay attention to what the priest says and agree with everything. For all we know, having different beliefs might get you burned at the stake here."

"Christianity is a religion of peace," insisted Jane angrily. "I can't believe they could have drifted very far from the central message of Christ."

Loach laughed. "You really need to read a history book." Jane glared at him but said nothing more.

The business of the city was beginning to close down for the night as it gradually grew darker. Doors were closing and flickering yellow lights were starting to appear in windows. They came upon an old woman shuffling along the street and asked her for directions to the temple. She stared up at them through watery, cataract ridden eyes and pointed further along the street before continuing on her way.

The continued on, therefore, until the street came to its end where it met the road that ran along the curving outline of a natural harbour. The dock road was at least fifty yards wide and edged on one side by a sheer drop several feet down to the water. Tall ships were berthed against the jetties that reached out across the harbour, and across the water they saw another ship being slowly towed in by rowing boats between the lights burning on either side of the gap in the harbour entrance.

The other side of the dock road was lined by warehouses; large, featureless brick buildings with huge double doors and no windows. Some of the doors were still open, with dock workers busy carrying barrels or herding sheep inside while there was still enough light to see by. Most of them were closed, though, the large loading areas in front of them empty and deserted, giving the docks an eerie, haunted atmosphere. The air was still, carrying the powerful smell of dead fish as well as the lonely cries of seagulls and the sound of waves lapping gently against the jetties.

They heard voices and turned to see a group of sailors laughing with each other as they strolled along the dock road in their direction. They were dark skinned with African faces and were dressed in what would probably have been bright colours in full daylight. One of them spoke to one of the others in a strange language. Randall told his head phone to record it and try to translate it, but it wasn't able to identify the language. Probably sailors from one of the docked ships, he thought. They glanced at the hibernators as they passed them by, then put them out of their minds as they continued on their way.

"I was in Portsmouth a few years back," said Loach. "I think that's where we are now. Portsmouth harbour. The outline of the harbour looks rather familiar." He indicated the view out across the water with a nod of his head. "I was here to negotiate a ceasefire with a rival organisation. We..."

Suddenly he fell silent, staring off into the distance. The others watched him for a while, waiting for him to continue what he was saying. "Mister Loach?" said Jane, staring in concern. "What is it?"

"Someone's transmitting data," said the former crime boss. "I'm picking up a radio source from somewhere nearby."

"A cellphone tower?" said the young woman, suddenly excited. "Have you found a network?"

"I've still got no network," said Emily. She glanced at Randall, who shook his head.

"Not a cellphone network," said Loach. "I don't know what it is. Military, perhaps. About thirty gigahertz."

"How the hell are you picking up a thirty gigahertz signal?" demanded Emily.

"I'm a criminal," Loach reminded her. "I had to keep one step ahead of the law, so I had a few special features added to my head phone. I can pick up police and military signals. Saved my ass a few times, back in the day."

"Can you read the signal?" asked Randall.

"No, but I can tell that it's close. A hundred metres, maybe closer."

"Which way?"

"That way." Loach pointed up ahead. "The temple, it has to be. The priest is talking to his friends up in space." Then he frowned. "It seems to be a continuous flow of data. He's not just making a phone call. It's more like telemetry from a space probe."

"And it's coming from the temple?" asked Randall. "Not towards?"

"So far as I can tell."

"Can you detect any other radio sources? Maybe you didn't notice them before because they're weak. Hard to distinguish from background noise."

"Just a second, I'll do a scan." He stared off into the distance again while he gave mental commands to the delicate tracery of micro-electronics wrapped around his brain. "There is something," he said eventually. "Something up in the sky. In space, I'm guessing, unless it's a high altitude drone. Another flow of data, moving slowly across the sky. There are other radio sources, but much weaker. Dozens of them. This one stands out from the others, though. Like it's beaming down to the ground, aimed at somewhere nearby."

"The temple?" asked Jane. "Maybe it's the priest and his friends up in the sky, exchanging data."

"Maybe," replied the crime boss. "Why don't we go ask him?" He strode off towards the mysterious radio source, and the others hurried to keep up with him.

"There!" said Jane a moment later, pointing to a gold star on top of a spire, visible above the lower buildings that stood in between. "There's one!"

"That star looks bigger and higher than the other one we saw," said Emily thoughtfully. "Must be a bigger church. A more important one."

"Let's go look," said Loach.

They found a churchyard about fifty yards further on, identical in appearance to those that had existed about a hundred years before their own time. Most of the gravestones were old looking; moss covered and leaning at odd angles, but those in the far corner were newer looking and Randall went over to see the dates written on them. His hopes that they would be years of the Gregorian calendar, telling him exactly how far in the future they were, were dashed, though, and all he learned was that the most recent occupant had been a man called Abraham Leakey, who had died in the seventh year of the reign of King David the Third.

The temple was located at the other corner of the churchyard, looking as if it had been plucked straight out of the eighteenth century. Angled buttresses reached out from the walls and there was a tall spire at the south end, opposite the large, oaken doors of the main entrance. The large windows depicted what they assumed were biblical scenes in stained glass, although Jane frowned as she failed to identify the passages from the bible they depicted.

"There's a light on," said Jane hopefully. "Looks like the priest's in."

She moved toward the door, but Loach reached out a hand to grasp her by the arm. "Before we go see him," he said, "I'd like to ask a small personal favour from each of you. Please don't use my real name. Smith will do. John Smith."

"You think they're still out to get you?" said Jane with a smile. "After a thousand years?"

"Some of the things I did have no statute of limitations," the former crime boss replied. "So if there is, indeed, a thriving civilisation out there, in the solar system, and they have records from our time, then yes, I do think they may still be out to get me. The rest of you have no reason to want to protect me, of course..."

"Of course we'll protect you," replied Emily. "We're all in the same boat. We're all criminals, wanted by the law. Except Snow White, of course." She gave Jane a mocking smile. "She might sell the rest of us out just because she thinks it's her civic duty to do so."

"I'd never do that!" protested Jane in sudden fear. "You're my friends! We've come this far together. I'd never give you away!"

Loach looked at her, and Randall could see the calculations going on in his head. Should he kill her, just to be safe? If he did that, though, how would Emily and Randall react? Maybe he should kill all three of them. It should be easy enough in their current condition. Dying from incurable conditions and weakened still further by the two days they'd spent travelling overland, exposed to the elements.

Randall saw the other man looking at him, taking note of the tremble in his limbs and the ashen grey colour of his skin. Randall knew he must look almost like a walking corpse, and Emily wasn't much better. Randall saw Loach's hand move fractionally towards the knife hanging from his waist. Despite his own illness, Loach was still as strong and healthy looking as he'd ever been. Randall knew that the crime boss could murder all three of them with three quick thrusts and barely feel the effort. Randall tensed up for a desperate and hopeless attempt to defend himself...

Then there were more people walking by in the street, though. More of the black skinned, African sailors. Loach quickly snatched his hand back from the knife and Randall ducked past him, pushing open the door of the temple and escaping inside. Jane and Emily ran in after him, following Randall through the entry foyer to the apse; the main, central chamber with its rows of pews facing the altar where the priest delivered his services.

The priest was there, a tall man dressed in white, and he looked up in surprise as the three hibernators appeared before him. Behind them came Loach, who could only stand helplessly in the entrance as he waited to see whether the others would betray him.