There were more policemen waiting for them when they emerged into the reception hall. Andrew's stomach tensed up with fear, thinking they'd come to arrest him for the death of Kartoshka, but they were there for the other rover, the one that had brought Reginald Fox in. The second rover parked alongside the first and the three policemen emerged a few moments later pushing the gurney on which the historian was lying. They'd cuffed his wrist to one of the poles of the gurney, Andrew saw, but he thought the historian was currently doing everything be could just to stay alive.

Cheval and Windsor went over to talk to the other policemen, leaving Andrew alone to make his way to the elevators down to the city proper. Before he could get there, though, two of the elevators opened. His family, dressed in thick, warm clothes, emerged from one of them, shouting happily to see him, while a small crowd of reporters emerged from the other.

"Mister Birch!" said the first of them, running over to thrust a microphone into his face. Another was pointing a camera at him. "What do you think of your failure to..."

"Leave him alone!" demanded Susan, stepping in front of him and pushing the microphone away. "He's been through enough. Seen people die, seen what happened to the old world. He needs to rest."

"The people need to know, Mrs Birch" the reporter insisted. "Your husband's failure to recover the dysprosium has repercussions for the entire human race."

"Nobody could have done more," Susan declared, standing between Andrew and the reporter like a lioness protecting her cub. The children gathered round as well, glaring up at him. James's hands were clenched into fists and Andrew stepped forward to defuse the situation.

"Obviously I feel bad that it was impossible to stop the rover," he said. He gathered his thick coat around himself as if he could hide inside it. "Mister Fox had sabotaged the controls and there wasn't time to repair the damage."

"You could have closed the airlock door," another reporter said. "If the lava couldn't get in, the rover would have floated. Lava's not hot enough to melt steel. You could have attached a cable and pulled the rover back out."

"You've had all this time to figure out what I should have done," Andrew pointed out. "I only had seconds. Yes, I could have done that if I'd thought of it, but I didn't think of it."

"You had plenty of time to consider a range of contingency plans while you were chasing Fox's rover..."

"That's enough!" said Susan forcefully. "That's the man responsible over there." She pointed to where the policemen were gathered around Fox's gurney. "Go ask him why he did what he did."

She grabbed Andrew forcefully by the arm and dragged him towards the elevators. A couple of the reporters followed them, still asking questions, but they fell away when it was apparent the Andrew family wasn't going to say any more. They'd gotten their quote, something to put on the news report. They weren't going to waste time flogging a dead horse when Fox himself might say something interesting.

"Thanks for rescuing me," said Andrew as the door closed behind them. There was a lurch and the elevator car began to descend.

"I thought you were awesome, Dad!" said David, grinning up at him. "You were awesome!"

"Pretty impressive," agreed James, also grinning. "I don't care what everyone else says. You're a hero."

"What everyone else says, eh?" said Andrew ruefully. "All the other kids at school?"

"They're idiots," said Jasmine, her face grim and serious. "You're the best dad ever."

"The best ever!" agreed David. James nodded his head and the three children closed in to give him a group hug.

Andrew hugged them back. "And you're the best children ever. I'm so lucky to have you."

"And we're lucky to have you," said Susan, moving in to join the hug. She tilted her face up to his and he gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. She put her hand to the back of his head, though, and kept his face pulled down to make it a longer kiss. The three children pulled back to give them space, grinning happily at each other.

The elevator descended for a mile before it reached the highest of the city's inhabited levels. The Birch family stayed inside as it stopped several times to let people get on and off, only getting off themselves when they came to level eleven, named Croydon to give it a more homey feel. The forecourt they stepped out into was a wide, open area lined with shops and filled with people and the echoing sound of conversation. Every wall was textured and coloured to imitate bricks, to resemble above ground buildings from before The Freeze, and depressions in the ground were filled with soil in which trees, shrubs and grass grew. Once, pigeons had walked between the feet of pedestrians, searching the ground for dropped scraps of food, but an outbreak of bird flu had killed them all a hundred years before.

The ceiling was bright and tinged with blue but most of the light came from a number of sun lamps spaced around the circumference of the circular open space. Fans hidden behind the ventilation grills in the walls moved the air enough for them to feel it on their hands and faces and this, along with the deliberate coldness of the air, gave the place an outdoor feel that made people want to get back to the comfortable warmth of their homes.

"Wish I'd brought a thicker coat," said Andrew as Susan and the children turned up their collars and did up buttons. "I'd forgotten it was winter now." The temperature was adjusted to create seasonal variations, occasionally being forced low enough for ice to form.

"Let's get home quick," said Susan. "We'll get the kettle on and have a nice cup of tea to celebrate."

"Sounds good to me."

Several corridors led away from the forecourt. They hurried to the one that led north, Andrew wrapping his arms around his body. Flights of stairs led to the next levels up and down and the heads of passers-by turned as they were recognised. "Look, mummy!" said a little girl, pointing directly at Andrew. "It's the man on the telly!"

"Shush dear," said her mother, smiling apologetically as she took her by the arm and led her away.

The Birch family stood to the side to allow a delivery truck to pass with an electric hum, carrying food from one of the algae processing farms at the end of the street to one of the shops in the forecourt. Then they began the long walk to their own apartment. There were doors spaced every dozen or so metres on either side of the wide corridor. The first were the entrances to services. Hairdressers, restaurants, pubs and clubs, some with overlarge windows to show what went on onside and entice people in, but they soon came to private apartments with house numbers on their doors and tubs under the windows in which shrubs were growing. A cat blinked at them from the base of a large viburnum bush, then stood, turning its back on them and walking away with stately dignity.

Their apartment was five hundred metres further on. "I wish it wasn't so far to walk," complained Susan as they finally drew close.

"They wanted the city as spread out as possible," said Andrew. "For psychological effect. That's also the reason we're not allowed private vehicles. If we have to walk long distances it makes the city seem bigger. Helps combat the claustrophobia of being underground."

"Also helps keep you fit," said David, who was skipping ahead. "You wouldn't want to get fat and lazy... Hey! Look at that!"

He had stopped in front of their front door and was staring at it with shock and anger. The others hurried to catch up and saw that someone had written the word 'Failure' across the plastered front wall in red spray paint. All five spun around to stare at the three youngsters who were lounging against the wall a short distance further on. "Harold Hare!" said Jasmine, advancing furiously towards the nearest of them. "Did you do this?"

"Easy, Jas," said Andrew, chasing after her and grabbing her elbow to stop her. "It'll wash off, and we're only staying here until the rover gets fixed. If they think that this is some kind of great achievement then we can only pity them for their pathetic lack of ambition."

Jasmine ignored him. "It's because I wouldn't sleep with you, isn't it?" she yelled at the teenager.

"What?" demanded Andrew. He let go of Jasmine and strode towards the three young men, who ran off laughing. "Don't, Andy," begged Susan, running forward to join him. "Just let it go."

"I'll have words to say to their parents," said Andrew, allowing himself to be led back to their apartment. "And the police. Last I heard, vandalism is still a crime in this city."

Jasmine was looking miserable. Andrew went to her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "And you, young lady..." She looked up at him fearfully. "Congratulations on your excellent taste in men."

She grinned in relief. "If he thinks he ever had a chance with me, he's even more deluded than I thought he was."

With an effort, Andrew held himself back from asking follow up questions regarding his daughter's choice in men. He noticed James looking a little uncomfortable and held himself back from pursuing the same topic with him. If there was anything he wanted to tell him, he would when he thought the time was right. Until then...

"Well, let's get inside and have a nice cup of tea," he said, going to the door and trying not to see the graffiti scrawled across it. "I assume the code's the same?" He tapped the number into the keypad under the doorhandle and the light turned green. He turned the handle and the door opened.

"They had changed the number when we moved out," said Susan as they went in. "First thing we did was turn it back again."

Warmth hit them as they closed the door. They took off their coats, hung them on hooks and left their shoes on the floor under them. David ran straight for the television to turn it on and a face appeared. "Now that the temperature at the surface has stabilised," a man said to an interviewer, "we'll be growing the city by expanding sideways rather than down." David changed the channel, looking for a movie to watch.

"The place looks so bare without all the plants," said Andrew, looking around.

"How long will we have to stay here?" asked Susan, moving to the kitchen area.

"I'll have to talk to the fitters," said Andrew, following her. "Get an estimate on how long the repairs will take. Shouldn't be too long, actually. Despite appearances the damage is quite superficial. Replace the broken leg and the cracked window. Replace the wheel cleats. The longest job will probably be the underside of the hull. If they decide that the entire underside needs to be replaced we might be stuck here for a couple of weeks."

"And the city will be paying for all this?"

"And the rent for this apartment. I have personal assurances from Bill Tembo. The rover was damaged on city business, so the city will re-imburse us."

"Let's hope so, because if not it's going to pretty much empty our bank account. Might even leave us in debt."

"That's not going to happen, I promise you."

She didn't look convinced, though. "Maybe it would have been better if the city owned everything," she said. "Assigned rovers and apartments to people as necessary. No-one would ever be in debt. No-one would ever have to worry about having to rely on welfare."

"Because everyone would be on permanent welfare," replied Andrew. "The acquisition of personal wealth and property kept people sane while we were trapped underground. It gave people goals to aim for. Saving up enough to own their own apartment. Their own business. Without it, we might all have gone insane a hundred years ago."

"Well, right now the goal I'm aiming for is a nice hot cup of tea." She filled a kettle with water while Andrew took some cups from an overhead cupboard.