Gustave greeted Damona. ‘Good news, Eldest!’

‘Casualties, Gustave.’ Damona stood aside. Her fellow raiders dragged themselves up the ramp that led to the river. At the top of the ramp was the tunnel that took them home. It was good to see it. All were weary, but chaffed Gustave. That bluff heartiness that had been missing for years. Laughter. Jokes. The stories growing already.

She was pleased. Not just because she’d ended the threat from the Immortals. Combat bound people together. Useful soon, maybe. She took Gustave by the arm, explained. ‘Holger has a broken arm. Others have bad slashes. Have to get treatment for them.’ She rubbed her forehead. The night had been long. ‘Is Ragnar still practising medicine?’

‘Medicine?’ Gustave grimaced, then his eyes went wide. Two happy raiders toted the pair of bound prisoners. ‘Invaders?’

‘Useful prisoners.’ Would Dr Ward respond best if he saw the boy? Or should she threaten the boy separately? He might be able to convince his father, as long as he had an incentive.

She yawned. Not now. She needed rest and a clear mind. ‘We need some attention. Stitches, bone setting, nothing serious.’

‘You’ve been raiding?’ Gustave said. ‘I thought you were off looking for material for the project.’

Damona had done her best to keep the raid a secret. A failure would have been a disaster. Now, though, battle success on top of their engineering success? Times were good. ‘We were. In a way. Don’t concern yourself with it.’ Damona laced her hands in the small of her back. ‘What’s this good news?’

‘We’ve improved the extraction process already,’ he said. ‘Hilda had an idea about compression and dimensional pressure. Output is up by at least twenty per cent.’ He beamed.

‘Twenty per cent? Congratulations. Let me see this advance.’

‘You’d rather see it than your time machine, ready for testing?’

‘What? Already?’

‘I have enough volunteers for us to work in shifts.’

‘Together? Cooperating?’

‘It’s a miracle.’

The workshop. Clangour. The screech of metalwork. The smell of hot oil. Vibrations underfoot. More True People were working in one place at one time than Damona had ever seen before. Heads down. Passing tools to each other. Advising, listening, sharing.

The project had already grown far beyond Damona’s expectations.

The large space was now divided into bays. Each bay was abuzz with industry. Workers were happy to explain their tasks. Small machines to make larger machines. Devices which would be components. Fabricators. Plotters. Lamination mills. The workshop was a machine itself. Interlocking parts each depending on the other.

A serious youngster with a squint told her that the time machine was in a workshop of its own next door. Then he told her of their progress with reworking water distribution throughout the complex. Smiling.

Damona clapped him on the back. He returned to working on the filtration unit. Looked disappointed that he couldn’t spend more time explaining it to her.

Damona was thoughtful as she left him. Such diligence. Such concerted effort. Had she made a mistake in pursuing her dream alone for so many years?

Gustave caught her attention. ‘Eldest! Over here! Our new phlogiston extractor!’ The whine of cutting tools. Sparks from a grinder.

Damona made sure she didn’t limp. Gustave gestured proudly. Her eyebrows rose.

Right against the rock wall. The machine was long and only waist high. It bristled with large bore input pipes connected to the floor. Three extremely careful youngsters were polishing brass curlicues where none seemed necessary. One of the technicians crawled alongside on hands and knees. He was painting thin, parallel lines on the flanks of the machine. His work made the machine look as if it were speeding along while it was standing still.

It was beautiful. A song of brass and mahogany. Fine materials. From someone’s hoard? Damona hadn’t seen any wood like it for years.

Behind the machine, on the rock wall: racks of metal canisters. The wall itself was smooth and painted a deep cream colour. A gridwork of wires and struts surrounded the canisters. An open metal lattice. Brass pipes along the top of each row opened directly over the canisters.

Damona was impressed and curious. This machine was nothing like anything in her plans.

Gustave grinned. ‘Watch!’ He pointed at the output pipe.

The machine quivered. A glowing vial the size of her thumb flew from the mouth of the output conduit. It dropped into a metal basket. The basket ran along a wire. When it came to the far end the basket hinged open. The vial dropped into a canister. The basket then buzzed to the lattice tower at the far end. It stopped. Settled. Waiting for the next vial, Damona guessed.

Gustave held up a finger. ‘Wait!’

The vial that had just been deposited shot straight up. Sucked into the hole in the brass pipe directly above it.

Damona was so impressed she applauded. Gustave beamed, pointed at the ceiling. ‘Pneumatic delivery system!’ he shouted. ‘Everything in here is now phlogiston powered!’

Damona gazed up. A maze of pipes. Phlogiston extraction must have increased greatly to warrant such a system. But driving machines directly via phlogiston would provide an enormous boost in power.

‘Damona!’ Gustave touched her shoulder. ‘Hilda has news!’

Hilda was standing next to Gustave. She was short, even for the True People. Her coppery hair was tied in a braid that reached to the middle of her back. She wore dark goggles. Damona hadn’t seen her approach. Hilda pushed back her goggles, remembered to wipe her hands on her white coat before she offered one. ‘Eldest!’

‘Phlogiston extraction! How long?’

Hilda understood the abbreviated question. ‘We have enough for a test, maybe two.’

‘The phlogiston is piped to the time machine?’

Gustave answered. ‘Of course, Eldest. It is our first priority.’

Damona squeezed Hilda’s shoulder. She paid her the ultimate compliment of the True People: ‘You do good work.’