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‘Item Three. My underlings have been working on a little project.
    You might want to think of it as a secret weapon.’
    ‘A gun?’ Grumm was of the Cordite sect and revered firepower.
    ‘Of course not!’ Beliath said. ‘Lord Prong is a good Ignian. It’ll be a special flamethrower for  divinely roasting unbelievers.’
    ‘Good tries, gentlemen,’ Prong replied, ‘But wrong. The Department of Forbidden Science has  been looking into non-Euclidian geometry. I refer, of course, to inter-dimensional travel.’
    ‘Blasphemy!’ So far in the meeting, the Exalted Coelacanth, most venerable of the elders, had  been silent, his head lowered in prayer or slumber. Now he struggled to his feet and shook his small, hard fist. ‘This is a gross insult to Edenites everywhere. We must hunt out the dimensional travellers and kill them all!’
    Prong sighed. ‘No, it’s us who’d be travelling. Sit down, damn it!’
    ‘Oh, okay.’ The Coelacanth sat down again and settled back in his chair.
    ‘Now then,’ Prong said, smiling down the length of the table. ‘Seventy-two hours ago, we  successfully tested a prototype. In only a few days our allies will be sending deputations to view the weapon in action. High ranking delegates from the Ghast Empire will be among them. We’ll see who  looks unimportant when we reveal a dimension-shifting spacecraft to them.’ He peered down the table.
    ‘So wash your robes, alright?’
    *
    The airlock swung open and Smith found himself looking into the French quarter of Tannhauser Gate.  Flags hung from the ceiling of the space station; accordion music drifted through the air. A poster  showed a girl in armour, the stars of Europe forming a halo over her bowl-cut hair. There was even  scrollwork on the ornamental lamposts, although it looked rather flimsy compared to that back home.  Still, Smith thought as he stepped in, Europe didn’t smell of cheese and nobody had demanded to see  their papers yet.
    In fact, nobody seemed to have noticed them at all. Two ancient men sat under a sign that read  café . As Smith approached they looked away.
    ‘It’s a caff!’ Carveth said. ‘Who wants a sandwich de bacon , then?’
    Smith put out his arm to bar her way. “Careful, Carveth. They like strange food here,” he added,  lowering his voice to a sinister whisper. “Even their national anthem is about mayonnaise.”
    Like gunslingers arriving in a suspiciously deserted town, they walked warily down the street.
    Smith wondered what all the strange signs meant. A poster advertised something called Le Chat Noir – a public convenience, presumably. The smell of bread floated out of a shop called Le Maison de Pain . Maison meant house , Smith recalled. Presumably it was a dentist’s, or some rum kind of knocking-shop.
    Rhianna took her smoking tin from her bag. ‘Are we in Amsterdam yet?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Smith replied. She looked disappointed. ‘If I remember rightly, the Europeans  divide their territory into quarters, depending on which mini-country they’re from. At least. . where are we?’ Taking a deep breath, and mustering all the European he could remember from Form 3B, he  approached the two old men outside the café.
    ‘You there,’ he declared. One of the old men moved one of his eyes. ‘Can you direct me to the  Rue Charles de Gaulle, my good man?’
    The other old man said, ‘Eh,’ and shrugged. Clearly he was searching his memory for the answer.
    After a little while, Smith realised that the man had not understood him.
    ‘No,’ Smith replied, raising his voice and speaking more slowly as if addressing a relative both  senile and half-deaf, ‘I… am… British. I… am… looking ’ – he mimed a sailor surveying the horizon – ‘the Rue Charles de Gaulle.’ Unsure of how to mime this, he pointed to his moustache. ‘Erm.. do you speak  Latin? Omnes Gal ia divisa est in partes tres , perhaps?’
    ‘ Bof ,’ said the other old