“People often make the mistake of assuming that monsters lurk in the darkness. This is not true. No, the real monsters are out there in the light for all to see, not lurking but walking proudly, triumphantly, among the people. They enact their deeds for all to see, and what’s more they get away with it, because for some inexplicable reason people are far more forgiving of a monster in the light than they are of the creatures in the dark.”

“Oh, shut up, Brian,” said Clive. “Bloody Hell, do you have to be so preachy all the time?”

“It’s true,” replied Brian. “We live in a corrupted world. People eating society from the inside out to suit their own ends. Corporations lyi—”

“Will you put a sock in it, please? For just two minutes? I’m trying to get a signal on the radio, and I’d have a much better go of it if you weren’t yammering in my ear like Che Guevara’s parrot.”

But he wouldn’t hear anything. He never did. They were alone on a desolate planet, and had been for decades. Plus the radio wasn’t plugged in.