"Do you have relatives living outside the city?" asked Randall. "In other cities, or some small town somewhere."

     He and Dolly were lying in bed together, their bodies still slick with sweat from their lovemaking. Dolly was lying on her side facing him, studying his face and reaching out to stroke his arm playfully. Randall was lying on his back, though, his head suddenly full of troubling thoughts.

     "Why do you ask that?" asked Dolly, smiling with puzzlement. "Why does your mind wander while I'm lying right here next to you, with all my VIX given charms exposed for you to see? Is the sight of me not enough to seize all of your attention?"

     "You are the most utterly beautiful woman I've ever seen," replied Randall. It was a lie. Some of the woman he'd paid to sleep with back in his old life had looked like goddesses in comparison. Dolly was attractive enough by any normal standards, but she was no supermodel.

     There was something about her, though, that was more important than mere physical beauty. She made him happy. He might be bothered by something, the stupidity of the barons for instance, or the demands of the common folk who seemed to think that he was now a King who could solve their problems simply by uttering a decree, and then Dolly would enter the room and smile at him and suddenly he would feel better. The problems would suddenly seem less important. The room would seem brighter, as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds, and every colour would seem more vivid. The only time he'd felt anything similar had been experimenting with recreational drugs in his teenage years, but there was a depth and a genuineness about what he was feeling now that he'd never had from any drug.

     He couldn't say any of this to Dolly, though. He wouldn't be able to find the right words. The complexities of how he felt about her escaped his ability to describe them. He was afraid that she'd only hear his comparison with the beauty of other women and everything else would be washed away in a tidal wave of outrage, so he just told her she was beautiful. It was far safer, and was probably the only thing woman wanted to hear anyway, he thought.

     She smiled in reply, although there might have been the very faintest trace of a frown on her face as if she could somehow sense the insincerity of his words. It was enough to encourage Randall to repeat the question, though. "So, do you? Have relatives living outside the city?"

     "Well, there's my brother Brandyn and his wife, living in Occlestone. He's a cobbler living with his uncle. Him and his wife took him in when his parents were killed by orcs back in twenty eight and now all six of them, including his two children, live in that house together. Brandyn talks about getting a place of his own, but it's a big house and there's not really any need. I reckon he's going to live there all his life now and inherit the place when Oswald dies."

     "Is it a big house?" asked Randall. "Is there room for another couple of people in it? Would they be willing to take you and Maisey in for a few days if necessary?"

     "Why would that be necessary?" asked Dolly, now frowning in concern. She gathered up the bedclothes and pulled them over her body as if her bare skin had suddenly become chilled.

     Randall had considered for several days what he would say to persuade them to leave the city. Tomorrow, he and a small army of workmen would be going out to Elmhardy Farm to begin the excavation of what was left of the Gorsty Common facility. He had no idea how long that would take, but if things went well he might be able to re-activate the place in just a day or two. Once that's happened, though, things would happen fast. If he was lucky he would be able to take control of all the machines in the solar system in one fell swoop, but he'd made a lifetime's habit of preparing fallback positions in case things didn't go to plan.

     If he failed to take control of the machines, he would have given himself away and the machines would inevitably retaliate with a force and fury not seen since the nuclear war. Gorsty Common would be destroyed, and then the entire city of Elmton in case Loach and Jane were still there and in case any of them had shared their knowledge of twenty first century technology with the inhabitants. Randall thought it possible that the machines would make a clean sweep of every town and city within fifty miles. Dolly and Maisey mignt be no safer in Occlestone than right here in Elmton, but they'd at least have a chance and he found that he couldn't bear the thought of anything bad happening to either of them.

     He couldn't say any of that to Dolly, though. He needed some other excuse to get them out of the city. "You know that I talk to the aristocrats now," he said. She nodded blankly at him. "Duke Latimer warned me that some of the Barons might try something against me. They deeply resent being made to stand the wall like the common folk and they hate me for forcing them to do it. He thinks I might be visited by an assassin some time soon."

     "And you think Maisey and me might be in danger too," said Dolly, her eyes widening.

     "It might be nothing. A couple of Barons talking big without having the guts to actually do anything. It might all blow over, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable if you were out of harms way for a few days."

     "Maisey won't want to go. Her father lives here, and that young lad she's seeing. She won't be afraid of an assassin. Anyone tries to kill her, she'll fight, hard. Some drunk tried to rape her a while back. He talks with a rather higher tone of voice these days."

     Randall smiled at the thought, but then felt an unexpectedly strong surge of anger towards the man who'd attacked her. He wondered if he could find out who it was and have one of Loach's men pay him a visit.

     "Could you persuade her to go with you?" he asked. "Say nothing about there being any danger. Just say you want to take her on holiday with you, to meet your brother and his folks."

      "She'll wonder why I only want to take her. Why not her dad and her uncle and aunt? The last time we spent a few days away, the five of us went together."

     "Could you think of something? Maybe say your brother's house only has room for two guests, something like that, or maybe take her somewhere else where it wouldn't be strange for just you and her to go."

     "Is anyone else in danger? Her dad? Young Eddie?"

     Randall shook his head. "I don't think so. People know that I've formed an attachment to you and Maisey. If someone wants to get to me by hurting someone close to me, it'll be one of you two and I couldn't bear it if something happened to either of you because of me."

     "Is this gold you're looking for really worth this much risk?" asked Dolly doubtfully. "You're an important man in this city now. There are safer ways to make money."

     "Not this much money," replied Randall. "My hold on this city is tenuous. It depends on the people of the city supporting me, but people can be fickle. I can keep trying to do what's right and they might still turn against me. It would only take one Baron to start spreading lies about me and my popularity could evaporate overnight. With what's buried down in the ground out there, though, we'll have real power. Power that can't be taken away by lies and falsehoods. Gold has a truth all its own. Gold doesn't care if the man who owns it is a sinner or a Saint, and with that much power we can be the undisputed rulers of this city. Rule it fairly and justly. Turn it into a place where honest men and women can make good lives for themselves."

     "That all sounds wonderful," said Dolly with a frown. "I just wish you didn't have to go messing around in a place made by The Old Ones. They were evil and their machines were evil. Will there be machines down there, where the gold is?"

     There had better be, thought Randall, or everything I've done will have been for nothing.

     He wondered how Dolly would react when she found out the truth. If he succeeded in taking control of all the machines in the solar system, what then? Up until now, he'd envisioned himself living in a palace with robot servants to serve his every whim while the priests, now nothing more than mindless robots, tought science and technology to a new generation of eager young human students. Mankind rebuilding the civilisation it had once had with cars speeding along roads, aircraft flying through the sky, televisions in every home and space being explored by brave human astronauts. All with him as absolute ruler, reigning over the entire human race like a benevolent god. All of a sudden, though, he kept seeing Dolly and Maisey living in that palace with him. The idea of reigning over mankind alone, without this woman by his side, suddenly felt empty and pointless, but it meant that, at some point, he was going to have to tell her the truth; that not only were there working machines down there (he hoped) but that he intended to use them. How would she take that when she'd been brought up all her life to believe that machines were evil?

     She'll understand, he told himself. It might take time, but she'll come to understand. When the time came he would break it to her gently, slowly, taking it one careful step at a time. Make her understand that machines were only tools, that even the most powerful computer was no different than a hammer; neither good nor evil. It was only the use to which machines were put that were good or evil. She would understand. He'd make sure of it.

     In his imagination, though, he saw her eyes widening in horror, saw her backing away from him in fear. He saw her running to the priests to denounce him to them, then joining a huge lynch mob to hang him in front of the court house, tears streaming from her eyes at the magnitude of his betrayal even as she screamed her fury at him as he danced at the end of a rope...

     "Are you alright?" asked Dolly, looking concerned as she turned back towards him. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

     "I'm fine," said Randall, forcing a smile.

     "And your little fellow here has shrunk right up..."

     Randall gathered the bedsheets around himself hurriedly. "I said I'm fine!" The nightmare images were still with him, though. This woman that he'd come to... That he'd formed an attachment with, hurt and horrified by the discovery of who he really was. Dammit, why did this have to happen? Everything was going so well! He and Loach pretty much ruled the city. They'd located a transmitter and had a plan to get it operational again, and then this happened!

    I could just dump her, he thought. I mean, what is she to me? Just some pleasant exercise and a way to keep his bed warm at night. The world was full of beautiful women, and with the power he would soon have he would be able to take his pick. Dolly was nothing to him. He could just dump her. Then he'd be free to focus all his attention on Gorsty Common.

     "Watt, what is it?" asked Dolly, now starting to look seriously worried. "What's vexing you? Whatever it is, you'll feel better if you get it off your chest."

     Maybe if I sound her out, thought Randall. Maybe she's not as rabidly against machines as everyone else. Maybe she'll be able to come to terms with it, with what I want to do. Maybe if I give her just a small hint, the slightest suggestions of using a machine... Something I can deny, say she misunderstood, if she doesn't like it. Just to see how she takes it.

     "You're right," he said therefore. "There is something bothering me." He sat up on the bed and patted the duck feather mattress beside him for her to sit. She did so and he turned to face her, taking one of her hands in his. She stared into his face expectantly.

     "The gold we want to get," he said. "It won't just be lying around. It'll be in a big vault. Like a safe. Like the safe Alfred keeps his coin in, but bigger. And it won't be the kind of vault where you just put in the combination and the door opens."

     "I assumed you'd just be breaking it open," said Dolly thoughtfully.

     "This'll be a safe of the Old Ones, made of some substance so strong that no tool or weapon we possess will be able to open it by force." Durasteel, it was called back in the twenty first century. Half steel, half diamond. No medieval instrument could even scratch it, and no medieval furnace could heat it enough to melt it.

     "The only way to open it will be by using the devices of the Old Ones," Randall continued. He avoided looking at her face as he spoke, afraid that there would only be horror and denial in her expression. "The door will open if we use the machines of the Old Ones to do it."

     "Then you can't do it," said Dolly, and her flat tone of voice was enough to confirm Randall's worst fears. She pulled her hand out of his grasp. "The word of VIX is quite clear. Machines are evil. Anyone who uses a machine will be damned for eternity."

     "But we'll only be using the machine to open a door. Once we've done that we can smash the machines as much as you like. Destroy them so thoroughly and completely that VIX will smile upon us and the priests will bless our names."

     He reached out to take her hand again. She tried to pull it back but he held on tightly, squeezing her fingers in a way that must have been bordering on painful. She relented, though, and left her hand in his grasp.

     "We're just opening a door," he repeated, staring into her eyes. "That's all. Just opening a door. Just opening a door can't be bad, can it?"

     The look of unhappiness on her face deepened. Randall gave her hand a friendly squeeze. "Can it?" he repeated.

     "I suppose," Dolly conceded reluctantly.

     "We'll just be using the machines to open a door, and we'll be doing it to secure the means by which we can being greater liberty and justice to the city. It's a good thing we'll be doing, and afterwards you can watch as we smash the machines to pieces. You can even join in if you want. I reckon you can wield a pickaxe handle as well as any man, and I'd pay good money to see you grunting and sweating as you flattened a machine like a street pounder."

     He was encouraged to see the ghost of a smile appear on her face. "You would as well, wouldn't you? I try my best to be a proper lady and all you want is to see me sweating and straining like a common labourer."

     "We'll just be opening a door," Randall repeated. "Just opening a door can't be bad, can it?"

     "Nay, I suppose you're right," said Dolly, now smiling with genuine relief. "But afterwards you smash the machines. Right?"

     "Right," agreed Randall. "And now we'd better get dressed or folks'll start wondering what we're up to."

     "They know what we're up to, don't you worry about that," said Dolly as she reached for her clothes. "We've become the talk of the whole neighbourhood. There's nothing folks like better than some juicy gossip."

     "So you'll take Maisey out of the city for a few days?" pressed Randall. "Like you said you would?"

     "Yay, I will. I'll take her to the hot baths in Hepton Well. Just us two ladies getting massaged and pampered and spoiled rotten. It'll be a treat for her and she'll never know the real reason. I don't want to scare her."

     "Good idea," said Randall. "I'm pretty sure it won't be necessary. I really don't think you'd be in any real danger here in the city, but it would make my mind rest easier in any case. Thanks, Dolly."

     "No worries. It'll take a couple of days to organise. I can't just disappear without warning, and John'll need to find someone to replace us in the Weasel 'till we get back. Will Tuesday be soon enough?"

     "It'll have to be, I suppose. So long as you're away for a week at least. Can you do that?"

     "Aye, I can do that. No sense going so far only to turn around and come right back again. We'll be gone a week, be sure of that."

     They finished getting dressed in silence, Randall feeling far happier and optimistic than he'd been just a few moments before. Dolly had agreed to his using the machines, even if just for a single, very simple task. It was the thin end of the wedge. He could use it to force further concessions from her, little by little, one small step at a time, until she would eventually have no objection to his using machines as much as he wanted. She and Maisey would end up sharing that palace with him, surrounded by dozens of machines, all with no other purpose than to obey them and make their lives easier. The Lord and Lady of the solar system. Ruling together.

     He hummed a tune to himself as he pulled his tunic over his head. Everything was going to be all right.