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They're pumping it into the ground – later the soil will be excavated and the concrete will go in wrapped in a fibreglass shield – hundreds of tons of it. When the ground thaws out again, they'll have given us a foundation. But that's later. Right now they're working in sixty degrees below freezing. You're watching the coldest men in the world.'
    It could not have lasted. Anyway, the voice reciting facts and figures brought it to an end. The significance of his mood was gone like the meaning of a dream that is sensed but lost in the margin between night and day. He was surprised to find himself at the front of the group with Chalmers and Kujavia on either side. Chalmers shook his head. He was smiling as if he understood. 'I shouldn't go any further,' he said.
    When Kujavia took him by the arm just above the elbow, the grip was enormously strong, but it was the remnant of the mood which made him walk forward unresistingly . After only a few steps, the outcry of voices behind sounded very far away. He heard it as a distant confusion shot through with glittering points of noise like ice crystals. The group working around the trench had stopped to watch. Gloved, helmeted, turning the white blankness of faces, in its stillness it seemed to be composed of sculptures rather than men.
    They came to a place where the air around them changed. At that invisible boundary, the cold stopped being something outside them . It moved inside, encasing every organ of the body. Malcolm felt his heart like a bird struggling to escape. Clothed as they were, it was impossible to go any further.
    The man who had been crouched over the wheel came towards them. He spread his arms as he approached in the natural gesture of a boy herding geese out of a garden. Under the yellow helmet, the face was made of angles and tight pulled skin. He drew off his right glove using the pit of the other arm to drag it clear. As they watched, he tilted back his helmet and broke off a piece of his hair . The brittle strands snapped between his fingers.
    'It's cold here . ' White breath puffed from his lips. 'You shouldn't be here.'
    'I am sixty years,' Kujavia said. 'More old than sixty, but I am a lion.'
    The air came into the lungs like knives. But when they returned, Kujavia stood apart seemingly ignored as the men eddied in a slow unease.
    'I don't know,' Chalmers muttered. 'I don't know. I never saw him before.'
    On the other side, Heathers did not interfere but watched with no expression Malcolm could read. He felt the weight of the older man's gaze .
    Going back, there was no hint of daylight until, as if a corner were turned although the tunnel appeared undeviatingly straight, they were at the entrance. Moments later they were seated and being run into the dazzling light of the sun.
    'You'd have missed an experience if you hadn't come,' Heathers said . On the bench seat his fat thigh pressed hard against Malcolm. 'I was surprised that you hadn't wanted to come.'
    'I don't understand why my brother phoned you. He had no right to do that.'
    He waited for Heathers to respond but met the same blank gaze as if what he had been saying did not make sense. The hot pressure of the thigh next to his made him uncomfortable. His ribs ached where the policeman had punched him on Saturday night. He wanted to be rich and safe, so safe nothing like that could ever happen to him again .
    'I haven't even seen my brother in a week,' he said. 'Maybe he tried to get in touch last night. My wife and I were out late. But even so .. .It doesn't make sense.'
    'I was told you phoned to say you wouldn't come,' Heathers said.
    When the vehicle stopped outside the site office, there was an odd hesitation before people moved to get out. Since the incident in the tunnel, most of the men had been watchfully silent. Now they got out in the same subdued fashion. Malcolm saw that Kujavia alone remained seated, lolling back, eyes closed like a cat in the sun.
    'Merchant phoned to say he couldn't