The buckles seemed to be free but he wasn't able to drop out of the cockpit and I squeezed my body higher, making a decision of my own that was as critical as his because I was too far inside the thing now to get clear if the tail came out of the mud. It wasn't possible to work out what would happen if six tons of metal came down on us but I didn't think there'd be enough room to stay alive.

The wind buffeted, screaming faintly through the reeds outside. I could feel the movement very distinctly as the aircraft yawed to the gusts, and my hands slowed, taking their time, because in a shut-ended situation the organism must resist panic if it wants to survive. The harness was indeed free but his legs were twisted awkwardly and hs feet had got trapped by some sort of equipment that had come unshipped on impact: the whole thing had taken somewhere in the region of fifty or sixty g's and it was now clear that he'd decided to jump and hadn't been able to.

My leg was against the padded edge of the cockpit and I could feel it lift and fall every time the tail unit flexed, lifting a little less, falling a little more, till the point was reached when I had to ask whether London wanted one live agent or two dead ones because if the thing came down on me now I was going to get crushed and so was Zarkovic. But I'd started something and I wanted to finish it, so I decided to give it sixty seconds more and then get out.

Bloody stuff was oozing down from the cockpit floor, some of it running into my eyes before I could shut them and wipe it away. Some kind of instrument ticking steadily in the quietness, the chronometer or a timed alert system; with one eye I could see the ghostly phosphorescence of the instrument dials. Still couldn't free him because his flying-boots had been wrenched around as his body had twisted, and I thought that if I ever got him out of here he might not walk again, 'Zarkovic.'

Nothing.

Zarkovic, my friend, will you ever walk again?