“Congratulations,” said Hester, and pressed her face into the soft hollow beneath his jaw so that she could not see the lights. They were beautiful all right, but it was a huge, inhuman beauty, and she could not help thinking that they would soon become her funeral lanterns. Soon the weight of ice accumulating on the Jenny ’s envelope and rigging would force her down, and there in the dark and the whispering cold Hester and Tom would sink into a sleep from which there would be no awakening.

She did not feel particularly frightened. It was nice, dozing there in Tom’s sleepy embrace, feeling the warmth seep out of her. And everybody knew that lovers who died in one another’s arms went down together to the Sunless Country, favourites of the Goddess of Death.

The only problem was, she needed to pee. The more she tried to ignore it and compose herself and wait calmly for the dark goddess’s touch, the more urgent grew the pressure on her bladder. She didn’t want to die distracted, but she didn’t want to simply go in her breeches either: it wouldn’t be nearly so romantic to go into the afterlife all soggy.

Grumbling and cursing, she wriggled out from under the covers and crept forward, slithering on the ice which had formed on the deck. The chemical toilet behind the flight deck had been smashed to pieces by one of the rocket blasts, but there was a handy hole in the floor where it had been. She crouched over it and did her business as quickly as she could, gasping at the fierce cold.

She wanted to go straight back to Tom, and later she would wish that she had, but something prompted her to go forward on to the silent flight deck instead. It was pretty up there now, with the dim glow of the instrument panels glittering through layers of frost. She knelt in front of the little shrine where the statues of the Sky Goddess and the God of Aviators stood.