Tim Powers

First published in the United States of America in 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

The young captain’s hands were sticky with blood on the steering wheel as he cautiously backed the jeep in a tight turn off the rutted mud track onto a patch of level snow that shone in the intermittent moonlight on the edge of the gorge, and then his left hand seemed to freeze onto the gear-shift knob after he reached down to clank the lever up into first gear.

But his face was stiff with dried tears, and he wasn’t sure if he were still sane himself—and unlike his men, he had been somewhat prepared for what had awaited them; to his aching shame now, he had at least known how to evade it.

and he knew the doors and fenders were riddled with similar holes

The wobbling fuel gauge needle showed half a tank of petrol, so at least the tank had not been punctured.

even if these survivors were British, he might need it.

nd he wished he dared to pray.

my Base Metal may be filed a Key,

That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

—Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát,

Edward J. FitzGerald translation

Play-acting into a dead telephone now, he thought; you’re scoring idiot-goals all round.