As Jane watched with increasing wonder and fascination, the pigeon drew a long, straight line in the damp soil with the middle claw of its left talon. It made the line curve at the end, making it look a little like a capital letter J. The bird then moved a little to the right and began to draw another line at an angle to the first. Extraordinary, thought Jane, leaning forward to see better. She'd had no idea that pigeons could be tought tricks like this. Some birds were marvellously intelligent, of course. She remembered seeing a wildlife documentary back in her old life about all the amazing things that crows could do. Was it possible that the machines had tinkered with the DNA of these pigeons to give them crow intelligence? She smiled in amusement at her own foolishness. Why would they do such a thing?

     The pigeon had drawn a connected group of three lines that together looked like a capital A. It was trying to spell her name, Jane thought. She almost laughed aloud at the thought. A bird trying to communicate with her by writing her name on the ground? It was a clever trick the pigeon had been tougnt to do, writing random letters of the alphabet which in this case just happened to be the first two letters of her name, but she really had to keep her brain from constructing such flights of fantasy. Nevertheless she kept a close eye on the bird as she waited to see what it would do next.

     When the next group of lines formed an unmistakable capital N, though, Jane began to seriously question her sanity. Had she fallen asleep and was dreaming this? Could this possibly be real? The pigeon carried on writing, and Jane felt her heart hammering in her chest as it drew a perfect capital letter E in line with the other three letters. Then it stepped back, its head bobbing as it went. It turned and it looked up at her, first with one eye, then turning its head to look at her with the other.

     Jane stared down at ner name, spelled out in the damp soil by a pigeon that looked no different from any of the other birds that were walking around a short distance away. She looked at the pigeon and the pigeon stared back at her, as if waiting expectantly. Jane searched her mind for any clue that she might be in some kind of altered state of consciousness. Maybe she'd eaten something. She remembered reading that wheat in medieval times had sometimes been contaminated with the ergot fungus that could cause hallucinations. Was that what was happening? She felt fine, though, and when she looked around at the park and at the buildings surrounding it everything else looked normal. Also, she felt fine. She'd never tried drugs herself but she remembered college friends telling her that they felt different when high. They could feel it in their heads. Jane felt nothing. As far as she could tell her brain was working exactly the way it was supposed to.

     Which left only one other possibility, which was that a pigeon had written her name on the ground. A pigeon somehow had human level intelligence and was trying to communicate with her. How was that possible? Never mind that for now, she thought. Just assume that it's true and see where it goes.

     There was a tree nearby. Some twigs and branches had fallen from it that the gardener hadn't yet cleared away. She stood, went over to them and picked one up. The wood was dead and half rotten but she thought it should be strong enough for what she wanted. She returned to the bench, sat again and used the stick to scratch a Y and an N on the ground. "Y for yes," she told the pigeon. "N for no. Understand?" She felt virtually no surprise when the pigeon walked across to the Y and stood beside it. Perhaps she was just numb from shock.

     "Are you trying to communicate with me?"

     The bird turned, took a couple of steps away, turned again and returned to the Y.

     "Why? Who are you?"

     The pigeon stared af her, then walked to a bare patch of earth where it began to scratch letters with its feet.

     "Never mind," said Jane. "Here, I'll help you." She used the stick to scratch the whole alphabet on the ground. The patch of bare earth wasn't big, the letters had to be small and close together, but she thought it should be good enough.

     No sooner had she finished than the bird was there, stepping up to one letter after another, spelling out the word EMILY. Then it stood and stared at her again. "Emily?" gasped Jane as the truth gradually began to dawn on her. "Emily Turner? The Emily who was in the hibernaculum with us?"

     The bird walked back to the Y.

     "This is some kind of robot bird, right? Like the priests, living flesh over a robot skeleton, but a bird not a person, and you're controlling it?"

     Again the bird signalled yes.

     "So, you've found me. I suppose you're going to send the priests to capture us. You didn't want us to stop the machines in case we rebuilt civilisation and polluted the world again. How long have we got? Are they on their way already? What will they do to us when they..."

     She stopped when she saw that the pigeon had run over to the N and was hopping up and down next to it. "What?" said Jane, confused. "You haven't told the priests about us?"

     The bird pecked the ground next to the N again as if to emphasise the point, then walked over to the alphabet where it walked from letter to letter to spell out a message. WNT TU HLP U.

     Jane stared at the bird suspiciously. "Why would you want to help us? The machines are the only thing keeping us from ruining the world again, right? Isn't that what you believe?"

     The pigeon spelled out a new message. MCHINS WRSE

     "Worse how? I thought the machines were the best thing that could happen to the world. They restored the ecosystem, cleaned up the mess from the nuclear war. How could they be worse?"

     The pigeon was fluttering its wings impatiently, though, as it tried to spell out another message. MCHINS WORSE I HLP U RNDL LCH HERE Q

     It took Jane a moment or two to interpret the message. The machines are worse. I want to help you. Are Randall and Loach here?

     Jane hesitated. Maybe this was all a trick. Emily had found her but she wasn't sure if the other hibernators were in the same city so she was trying to trick her into telling her. Only then would the priests move in, to capture all three of them at once. "They're not here," she said therefore. "They've got some kind of plan they didn't tell me about,. They don't trust me. They're afraid I'll accidentally give them away so they left the city without telling me. They left me behind and now I'm trapped, to be killed by the orcs."

     She hoped that sounded plausible, but she was pretty sure the machines wouldn't have made just one pigeon. There were probably hundreds, maybe thousands, in cities all over the country and sooner or later one of them would see one of the others. She had to warn them, tell them to stay out of sight of pigeons. She felt a sudden urgent need to run back to The Halls of Valhalla to tell Loach, but if she ran off Emily would guess why and Jane would indeed have betrayed the others. She had to play it cool, she told herself. Make Emily believe that she was prepared to sit on this park bench all day if necessary while at the same time finding a way to cut this conversation short.

     A new thougnt came to her. The pigeon could watch her wherever she went in the city. If she went back to The Halls of Valhalla or The Interesring Weasel she would have led Emily there and she would have betrayed the others just as much as if she told Emily directly where they were. She would have to write a letter, she realised. The pigeon wouldn't be able to follow her inside a building. Once she was back in the Running Queen she could simply write letters to Randall and Loach warning them to stay indoors, where they couldn't be seen by pigeons, or any other animals that might be robots in disguise.

     First, though, she had to get away from the pigeon without arousing Emily's suspicion. She would talk to it, she decided. Give every appearance of having not a care in the world, except for the orcs. If she did that, maybe she could make Emily believe that the others really had left the city days before. The realisation made her smile despite the precarious situation they were all in. To protect the others, she had to sit on a park bench and talk to a pigeon.

     She sat there for another hour, therefore, talking to the bird while Emily replied by means of Jane's hastily drawn alphabet. Slowly and painfully, Emily explained what the machines had in mind for the Earth, something that made Jane shiver with fear as she realised the power they had at their disposal. The power to literally rearrange the solar system and build structures so huge that even planets were dwarfed in comparison. There was more than fear making her shuffle and fidget on the park bench, though, as she suddenly found herself filled with a new energy that refused to be contained. She felt excitement as well. A vast, thrilling, joyful excitement as more of God's vast and beautiful plan became clear to her.

     Randall and Loach wanted to take control of the machines, to take control of their power, but all they wanted to do with that power was create empires for themselves in the mortal world. A pitifully trivial ambition. If Jane could recruit Emily as an ally, though, she might be able to do something that she hadn't dared to imagine otherwise; take control of that power for herself, and if she could do that then there would be nothing to stop her from bringing the truth of God back to mankind. She had a copy of the bible in her head phone. She could have armies of scribes write it down as she dictated it and then have thousands of copies written out to be distributed across the whole world. Christianity would be tought in every church, every school, every college and university, and anyone who clung to the worship of VIX would be punished. There was no need for unbelievers to wait for the fires of Hell when she had an army of priests to hunt them down in this life. Before her earthly life came to an end she might live to hear praise for the one true God issuing from every throat on Earth, and when she died and went to heaven The Lord Himself would be there to welcome her and seat her at his right side for evermore...

     The pigeon had stopped spelling out words and was staring at her, and Jane realised that her jubilation must have showed on her face. She brought herself back under control and put on a carefully neutral expression. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" she asked. "We could have taken control of the machines back in Tettlehall if you hadn't stopped us. You don't want the machines to destroy the Earth, I get that, but without the machines there's nothing to stop mankind from rebuilding civilisation and ruining the world again. You don't want that, right?" The bird just looked at her. "So what you really want," continued Jane, "is to take control of the machines for yourself so you can keep on doing what the machines are doing now, right? Keep mankind under your heel. Keep us grubbing in the dirt, denied any form of technology. Right?"

     The pigeon hesitated for a moment, then walked back to the letters drawn in the soil. LIKE NOW YES BUT MAN WRSHPS GOD INSTD OF VIX U AND I RULE TGTHR

     Jane stared thoughtfully. Would that work? Help Emily take control of the machines. Emily would then keep mankind in a medieval existence with priests to keep people healthy and orcs to limit the population. The occasional destroyed city if someone began to rediscover technology. And if she, Jane, helped Emily to do this, Emily would reward her by telling the priests to preach the Christian God instead of VIX. They would both get what they wanted. After all, what did Jane care about science and technology? Faith was what mattered, and faith always grew best in primitive cultures.

     Jane felt the excitement growing inside her again. It was the perfect solution, at least as far as she and Emily were concerned. The men would be a problem, of course. They needed Randall for the time being, because he was the only one with the codes to control his secret spy base, but once that was done he and Loach could be done away with. She would probably leave that to Emily. She was the one with the experience in killing. Could she trust her, though? How did she know that Emily wouldn't kill her the moment she didn't need her any more?

     Jane nodded to herself. Emily would have to die as well. It was simple self defence. Kill her before she was killed by her. God would understand. The Bible was full of holy men and women who had murdered thousands with the blessing of God. A suitable Bible verse popped into her head even as she was thinking this. 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

     "Okay," she said to the pigeon. "I agree. We take control of the machines. Mankind remains in the dark ages and the priests preach the truth of God. Agreed?" The pigeon walked to the Y and tapped it with its foot enthusiastically.

     "Randall and Loach are here, in this city," continued Jane. "They have a plan to seize political power, to take control of the city, then use its manpower to uncover a secret facility they think is around here somewhere. They'll use it to upload yama666 to the machines in space. Once that's done, you kill them and we control the machines together in the name of God and the natural world. Agreed?" Again, the bird tapped the letter Y.

     "First, though, there's the orcs to deal with. Do the priests trust you? Can you find a way to make them take the orcs away?"

     The pigeon stood there for a moment as if deep in thought, and then it began wandering away. Jane tried to talk to it again but it ignored her and when she stood to approach it the bird took fright and flew away. Jane understood. Emily had stopped controlling it and the bird had reverted to its normal behaviour. No doubt she would make contact again, but for the time being the conversation was over.

     Filled with religious fervour, there was a skip in her step as she walked back to The Halls of Valhalla. As she went, she began humming the tune of one of her favourite hymns.