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'Stark, what were they?'

I didn't answer, because the woman came over to the table and set down plates in front of each of us. From nowhere had appeared a massive mixed grill affair; sausages, thick rashers of bacon, eggs, fried bread and potatoes. Alkland stared at it.

'My,' I said to him. 'You were hungry, weren't you.'

The woman laughed and went back to the stove, still singing. Alkland dragged his eyes away from the food to watch her for a moment, and then leant across to whisper to me.

'I know that song' he said. 'I don't know where from, but I know it.'

I nodded, setting about the huge pile of food in front of me.

'You would' I said. 'Just like this is your idea of a feast.'

'What?'

Now, this is probably going to come as no surprise to you, especially if you're one of the smart-arses who worked out there was no gang ahead of time and all that, but Alkland was obviously still well behind the pace, so I had to make it clear.

'Where we are, Alkland, is Jeamland.'

He stopped chewing and stared at me.

'Come again?'

This is Jeamland.'

'Are you saying dreamland?'

'No. Jeamland. When you walk along that plain, if you can find it, sooner or later you come to a gate, and when you go through it you come into here.'

'And it's like a dream, you mean?'

'No. It is a dream. This is where you come to dream, where everyone comes to dream.'

'You mean we're asleep.'

'No. We're not. You remember that woman in the forest?'

'The glowing one.'

'Yes. She was asleep. Somewhere in the world, she was lying in bed, or sprawled on a sofa, asleep. When she wakes up, if she remembers her dream, she'll remember a forest, a deep dark forest with thick trunks, and she'll remember walking along that path, and whatever happened to her after that.'

'The canal.'

'Not necessarily. It doesn't work like that. It depends what track she was on, what she was dreaming for.'

'Do we look like that to other people?'

'No. Because we're not asleep. We're awake.'

Alkland finished his plate of food just in time to have another placed in front of him. On it was a thick sandwich, a hunk of steaming home-cooked ham between two wedges of fresh bread. Alkland's mouth dropped open.

'I know what that's from,' he said, pointing at his plate.

'What?'

'When I was young,' he said, 'I used to read books by a woman called Meg Finda. They were really old, belonged to my grandmother when she was a girl.' He stopped, struck by a sudden revelation, and looked at the woman, who was busy again over at the stove. 'That's where the tune's from too. My grandmother used to sing that tune. Bloody hell.'

'Go on.'

These books, which had been passed down the family for generations, were all about these children who used to have adventures.' He smiled, sheepishly. 'I don't think my parents were very keen on them, actually. Not required reading for Centre children, as I'm sure you can imagine.'

'Not Janet and John Push Back the Frontiers of Management Accounting.'

'Exactly. Anyway, in these books, whenever there was a hiatus in the story they'd somehow come upon an aunt or something who'd take them back to her cottage for high tea.' He smiled, his eyes miles away. 'Scones, tea, jam, thick creamy milk. Stuff I'd never tasted.'

'More tea?' The woman stood next to us, red-faced and smiling from her work over at the stove, proffering a huge old iron teapot. We nodded gratefully and she topped up her cups, and plonked a jug of thick, creamy milk on the table for us to help ourselves to. Alkland looked at it as he continued.

'And one I particularly remember. A farmer's wife took them in and gave them ham sandwiches. Exactly like this one.' He indicated the fast-disappearing remains of his. 'Exactly like this.' He said nothing for a while, and then smiled painfully. 'I used to love those books.'

'Lots of people did' I said. That's why it's like this. This is a rest break, a pause. It's the Jeamland equivalent of Stuckeys: a stop along the way. They're dotted all over, mainly in areas like this. You turn up, you're welcomed and fed, and then you go on your way ready for your journey. In fact, if you want you can come in, be fed, go out, knock at the door again and come in and be fed again. The second time will be exactly like the first: they won't recognise you, won't know you've been here before. If we came back in again the old man would be sitting in that chair, and he'd stand up just the way he did, and everything would happen exactly again.'

'He's been a long time, actually.'

'He won't be coming back,' I said. 'He's not necessary. He isn't part of what's going on. He was just a detail.'

Alkland shook his head, mopping up the last of his sandwich.

'What you find depends on what you need: that's why I asked if you were hungry,' I added. 'If we'd been tired, it would have been a quick snack and then we'd have been shown to a pair of high old brass beds with thick mattresses and feather quilts.'

'Stark, how do you know these things?'

'I've been here before,' I shrugged.

He looked at me intently.

'A lot, I suspect.'

'Yeah.'

'Why is it called "Jeamland", and not "Dreamland", which would appear at least to have some sense behind it?'

'It's a long story.'

Alkland considered for a moment.

'So,' he said, finally. I'm dreaming, and you're here with me.'

'Hello?' I said, exasperated. 'Is there anybody in there? We are not dreaming. We are awake. That's the whole fucking point.'

'Language!' scolded the woman genially, as she slapped some scones and jam down in front of Alkland and topped up our tea.

'Sorry. That's the whole point of the plain, Alkland. For those who can find it, it's the way into here when you're awake. If I'd wanted us to dream I would just have let you fall asleep. But I couldn't, could I? Because when you sleep, and when you dream, bad things happen to you, don't they?'

Alkland looked at me, eyes wide.

'Yes,' he said quietly. They do.'

'And do you know why?'

He shook his head. I told him.

'Because something's coming to get you.'

When Alkland was full to bursting point we took our leave of the woman. She showed us to the front door, chattering all the way. As we stood outside she pressed a small bundle on the Actioneer, and he thanked her with a shy graciousness that made her blush.

That's the best food I've ever had in my life,' he said, with patent honesty.

'Oh hush, now,' she said, obviously pleased. 'You two take care, you hear? There's monsters out there tonight.'

'I know' I said.

'Well, just take care,' she repeated, slowly closing the door. 'Lovely shirt, by the way.'

The valley we found ourselves in was different to the one we'd left. The same sort of thing, but different. We followed the path down the slope until we reached the bottom, and then walked beneath the towering sides. It was still night, and dark.

'Something is coming to get you,' I said, picking up where we'd left off. 'We have to find out what, and stop it.'

'Why?'

'Because otherwise you'll die,' I said simply.

Alkland stopped walking.

'What are you talking about?'

'The first time I saw you, in the hotel room in Stable, you were having a nightmare. On the roof, when you dozed off for a few moments, you had a nightmare. In my apartment, you had a nightmare.'

'People get nightmares.' He knew what I was talking about, but was too scared to admit it.

'Not like that, not like the ones you're getting. And your skin, Alkland, like Villig said: you can see it in your skin. You're getting ill. You can't see it, but you're looking even worse now. So far it's just cosmetic, but it won't stop at that. Something's getting at you from within, and if it reaches you, you will die.'

'Is this something to do with the Centre?'

'No. This is a thing the Centre knows nothing about. It just happens sometimes. It's like a bug, a glitch.' That was being economical with the truth in a big way, but this was neither the time nor the place for a history lesson. If I had my way, it would never be the time.

'So why did you bring us here?'

'Because if this isn't sorted out, then you've got nowhere to go. There's no point me protecting you from the Centre if something's screwing you up from the inside in the meantime, is there?'

'No, I suppose not.'

'How long have you been having nightmares? Not just the usual, this kind.'

Alkland considered.

'A couple of weeks.'

About the same time he found out about Dilli-genz II, in fact, which was possibly but not necessarily interesting. Emotional trauma could have got the ball rolling, I supposed, but it didn't make much difference either way. One of the frustrating aspects of dealing with this kind of thing is that there are very few rules. Sometimes things mean something, sometimes they don't. It doesn't make much difference in the end.

'So what can we do?' Alkland prompted.

'I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.'

'Wait and see. You should have that tattooed on your forehead.'

'Alkland, that's the way it works. I was hired to find you and take you back to the Centre. Simple, straightforward. And yet now here I am dicking around in here trying to help you stay alive. The life of someone very important to me is at risk because of you. If you include mine, the lives of two. Things happen, the job changes. Life's like that: it's linear and it twists and turns and you just have to follow it and see what happens. There are no cross-cuts, no helpful hints, no subtextual clues. Things just happen, and all you can do is try to get the hell out of their way.'

'Yes, I know. Life is one great Plan B. Wonderful.' He turned away.

'Alkland. Don't piss me off. So far I'm on your side in this.'

'And a lot of help that's been. I've been shot at, almost blown up and now I'm running from shadows in a place that doesn't even exist.'

'Without me you're fucked,' I said, staring at him, and left it there. He stared back at me, his anger fading, because it hadn't really been anger in the first place, but fear.

'I know' he said eventually. 'I hate that.'

We started moving again, and after a while he apologised. I told him that he was a dream compared to a lot of the people I've had to deal with, and provided a few examples that in the end even made him laugh. It was the fact that the lady I'd carried through the swamp had soon after burnt down our hiding place by not properly stubbing out the cigarette I'd told her not to light in the first place that did it. The air cleared between us, and things were all right again.

I didn't mind, wasn't at all surprised that he'd had to blow off eventually. They always do. People always find it so frustrating that there's no structure they can see, that they just have to follow the river downstream and see what they find. They want to know the plot so they can guess the end, because they're afraid of what it might be. I can understand that, even though I know it's not the way things work. I never know what the hell's going to happen next, but I can live with that.

'So,' he said after a while, 'where are we going now?'

'We're trying to find a jungle,' I said.

'Oh.' He appeared to realise the significance of that. 'Like the one I dreamed?'

'Yes. Somewhere around there will be your, stream, and around there will be where the action is.'

'My stream?'

'Everybody has a stream in Jeamland. It's where their dreams come from.'

'Did you ever spend a long time, say six or seven years, taking drugs twenty-four hours a day?' he asked, yawning massively. The colours were back in his face, and he looked very tired. I made a decision.

'Look' I said. This valley looks like it's going to go on for ever. We've hit a set pattern, I think.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning it's going to stay this way however long we carry on walking. The best thing for us to do is try to get some sleep.' I waited for him to say something tiresome like 'But we're asleep already', but he appeared to have got a grip on the situation.

'Is it safe?'

'I think so.'

'Wait and see, eh?' he said, and smiled.

There are monsters.

There really are.

I woke up to an odd mixture of noises. On the one hand there was the rhythmic creak of insects and the cawing of birds, and on the other the unmistakable sound of someone being sick. As I opened my eyes I noticed that it was daytime, and also that it was alarmingly hot.

Sitting up, I saw that all of my observations except one could be grouped under an umbrella observation. We were in a jungle, of a rather odd kind. The remaining observation proved simply to be correct. About five yards away, discreetly tucked behind a large frondy plant of some kind, Alkland was having a bad time. I stayed where I was and waited for him. No one likes to be the centre of attention while they're throwing up.

A couple of minutes later he made his way over and sat a few feet away. His entire face was now green, apart from the patches of purple around the eyes and mouth. His eyes were bloodshot as he turned to me and smiled wanly.

'I don't suppose you can magic up a pot of coffee or anything, can you?'

I shook my head. You can't do that kind of thing. God knows I've tried.

'Did you sleep?'

'Oh yes,' he said, 'I slept perfectly well. Then about half an hour ago I woke up knowing I was within seconds of exploding, and I've been pretty busy since then, as you probably heard.'

'How do you feel now?'

'Terrible. Stark, there's a pool of water over there. I used some of the water to wash my face at half time. I saw my reflection.'

I nodded.

'Yeah. Good jungle camouflage.'

'What's happening to me?'

'You're getting sick.'

'No, really? Come on, Stark, give out the information in slightly larger parcels for once.' His voice was steady, but he was scared.

'Stand up,' I said. He stood, and I rose to look more closely at his face. Underneath the discoloration the skin was actually holding up reasonably well, largely because I'd managed to get him into here before it got too far advanced. It was still getting worse, but at a much lower rate. There were a couple of tiny patches where the skin felt a little infirm, but that was all. Alkland wriggled uncomfortably.