The Purple Cloud

Mrs Hume closes the book.

Time for a nap, says Mrs Hume.

Nooooo! says Lavender. You can't stop now!  It's too scary! What if Leda gets killed?

She will, says Baby Pierre. Adam will kill her.

He won't says Lavender. He loves her.

That's why, says Baby Pierre. He's the last man on earth. And he doesn't want to be a daddy. Don't you know anything, Lavender?

I know there'll be a happy ending, says Lavender. The Purple Cloud will come over....

It's come over already, says Mrs Hume. That's why everyone's dead.

Lavender wasn't listening at the beginning, says Baby Pierre.

It was boring, in the Arctic, says Lavender. And when he burned London. It was only nice when he got to Turkey, in the boat full of dead people, and built a palace of amber and gold. And then he found Leda down a hole. See, Baby Pierre, I WAS listening.

He will kill her, says Baby Pierre. And there will be no more generations.

I suspect you are right, says Katherine Hume. No more generations. Perhaps that is the happy ending. A world full of plants and fish.

And stones, says Baby Pierre.

And stones, says Katherine. Anyway, we will find out later. Go to sleep now and when you wake up we'll be in Dubai. Then it's a four and a half hour flight to Istanbul. We'll have to say goodbye to the Twitcher. He's staying on in Dubai.

Poor Twitcher, says Lavender. No more generations.

Nonsense, says Katherine. He will mate there.

No he won't, says Ageless, poking his head out from under the seat, where he has been lurking.

I thought cuttlefish were lascivious, says Katherine. Gaius, is that not so?

Most certainly, says Gaius. Of that there is little doubt. They are lascivious.

He is my brother, says Ageless. We have shared many intimate moments. I tell you the Twitcher will pine if he cannot hook up with his sweetheart, in Kas.

The die is cast for the Twitcher, says Gaius. He is out of our hands.

Ageless says nothing. He rasps his large claw up and down the ladder in his knitted red hat, dreaming up hare-brained escape plans for his hapless brother.

But he need not bother.

Bunny has been listening too.