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reaction.
    Yuichi stepped towards the truck and had a quick word with its driver, who had just disembarked and was in the process of lighting up a cigarette next to the open door of its front cabin. The
man shrugged and stepped away, and Yuichi turned to look at me and Nadia, gesturing to us to join him.
    Seconds later the three of us had crammed into the three seats in the truck’s front cabin, with myself in the middle and Yuichi behind the wheel. He guided the vehicle back up the ramp and
onto the platform.
    A creeping, icy sensation formed in the pit of my belly at the thought of whatever might be coming next. I had to fight the urge to climb over Nadia and get the hell out of the truck again;
their friendly manner be damned.
    ‘Please,’ I said finally, although it took an effort to unlock my jaw and get the words out. ‘Just tell me what’s going on.’
    ‘The important thing,’ said Nadia, ‘is to remember that seeing is believing. Like the moon, yes?’
    I leaned forward, glancing up through the windscreen at the pylons overhead. The air twisted around us, and the hangar became a smear of light.
    ‘No,’ I said, suddenly losing my nerve and leaning over Nadia to try and reach the door handle. ‘I don’t know what you’re—’
    I gasped as the ground opened beneath us and we plummeted – or so it felt. For a very brief instant, I caught sight of a grey void all around the truck, and suddenly we were somewhere
else.
    I stared out at a frozen wasteland. I gasped convulsively and rapidly, my heart hammering with such ferocity I feared I might be on the verge of a heart attack.
    Yuichi and Nadia both climbed out, letting in blasts of freezing air. Nadia held the door open for me, an expectant look on her face. It took me a few moments to finally unlock my limbs and join
them outside.
    The hangar – the island – were gone. The cold bit at me, sucking every last dreg of warmth from my bones and flesh.
    I could see that the truck was parked within a circle of half a dozen metal bollard-like objects. A single-storey flat-roofed building stood close by. I looked up to see a sky draped with
impenetrably heavy clouds. At first I thought it must be late evening, but then I made out the faintest outline of the sun, almost directly overhead. Undulating dark hills reached out to a gloomy,
barely visible horizon, their slopes studded with the corpses of trees.
    ‘In there,’ said Yuichi, guiding me towards the building. I needed no further prompting, my teeth were chattering so hard. The three of us pushed through the door and inside, and I
bathed in the delicious heat within.
    A short, cheerful-looking man got up from an easy chair as we entered, a book in one hand. He nodded in greeting to Nadia and Yuichi as the three of us gathered before a roaring log-fire.
    His smile faltered, his eyes widening when he saw me. ‘You’re . . .’
    ‘This is Jerry Beche,’ said Nadia, ‘our
new Pathfinder
.’ She said this with what struck me as exaggerated emphasis, although she did not explain what a
Pathfinder actually was. ‘Jerry,’ she continued, looking back at me, ‘this is Tony Nuyakpuk. He helps run things around here.’
    ‘Hi,’ I said, nodding. Tony mirrored my gesture, still staring at me in a way that made me uncomfortable.
    ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone,’ said Tony. His eyes narrowed. ‘Is this on the record?’
    ‘Sure,’ said Nadia. ‘We’re just taking Jerry here on a whistle-stop tour.’ She said this in a matter-of-fact way, but from the way she held his gaze, and the uneasy
look on Tony’s face, it was clear there was some subtext of which I was not aware.
    ‘Nuyakpuk,’ I said, wanting to break the awkward atmosphere. ‘That’s an Inuit name, right?’
    ‘Sure is,’ said Tony. ‘Anything I can do for you people while I’m here?’
    ‘It’s just a stop-over, but we need cold-weather gear,’ said Yuichi. ‘We’re going for a little drive, and in the meantime we