TEXT: ‘To lose one set of memories may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two smacks
  of carelessness.’
  The Terran colony world of Espero seems the unlikely source of a
  sophisticated distress call. And the Doctor, Fitz and Trix are not the only
  ones responding to it.
  While Fitz consorts with royalty, the Doctor’s on the run with a
  16-year-old girl, and Trix meets a small boy with a dark secret.
  In a race for the minds and souls of an entire planet, the Doctor and Trix
  are offered temptations that may change them forever.
  At least one of them will be unable to resist.
  This is another in the series of adventures for the Eighth Doctor.
  
  HALFLIFE
  Mark Michalowski
  
  Contents
  1
  ‘It’s an alien, Joshua.’
  4
  2
  ‘D’you think you could keep your monkey under control?’
  13
  3
  ‘Sticks, Trix?’
  20
  4
  ‘I bet you even put knickers on her.’
  28
  5
  ‘How can we know where we’re going, when we don’t know
  where we’ve come from?’
  37
  6
  ‘What do you know about our mystery woman?’
  45
  7
  ‘To lose one set of memories may be regarded as a misfortune.’
  49
  8
  ‘With a zed.’
  65
  9
  ‘Bugger its body language – look at the size of it.’
  72
  10 ‘Should you be out on your own at this time of night?’
  83
  11 ‘You’re not planning on killing me too, are you?’
  88
  12 ‘Space yacht? Intelligent rocks?’
  98
  13 ‘Not that you don’t have a very nice bottom, but... you know.’
  104
  14 ‘A spaceship powered by technobabble.’
  123
  15 ‘The foot-stomping Tantrum Fairy was back.’
  132
  16 ‘Not die exactly. Not really.’
  139
  1
  
  2
  17 ‘I don’t suppose you have access to a thermic lance, do you?’
  148
  18 ‘You wanted to see my toys, did you?’
  156
  19 ‘Think of a number.’
  165
  20 ‘A simple “Come in, have a cup of tea” would have been more
  than adequate.’
  174
  21 ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
  183
  22 ‘Imagine having your whole life to live over again.’
  192
  23 ‘Sorry I’m late.’
  201
  24 ‘There are always choices!’
  207
  25 ‘You can’t just repair people, you know.’
  213
  26 ‘Memories.’
  220
  27 ‘Now you’re just showing off.’
  223
  28 ‘We used to be happy with a walnut and a tangerine.’
  228
  29 ‘The past is never gonna catch up with me.’
  235
  Acknowledgments
  239
  About the author
  240
  
  For my mother,
  Margaret Iris Michalowski,
  who bought me my ﬁrst typewriter
  and got me started on this whole writing thing.
  
  Chapter 1
  ‘It’s an alien, Joshua.’
  Joshua lay silently in bed and listened to his parents arguing outside. His
  mother didn’t like him leaving the window open in the heat of summer,
  even though his sheets were damp and clingy with sweat: the sweet potato
  harvest had been poor last year, money was tight, and they couldn’t afford
  to get the ﬂy screens ﬁxed. And Espero’s insects could ﬁnd their way
  through the smallest gap.
  He heard the tones in his parents’ voices, even if he couldn’t make out
  their words, and he knew what they were arguing about. Ma, ﬁerce and
  angry, was doing most of the shouting; Pa, by nature a quiet and awkward
  man, was doing all of the listening. Every now and again he’d hear Pa
  start to interject, but Ma would verbally slap him down again, thundering
  on. Joshua wanted to run to the window and shout down for her to leave
  him alone. But he knew this was adult stuff, and he didn’t want to get
  involved. It would only upset Ma more to think that he could overhear.
  He heard most of their ﬁghts: in a house this small and this far away
  from the noise of Saiarossa city, even a cough became thunder. Some-
  times he ran to the old stables, crumbling and disused since the last of the
  horses had died, climbed up into the rafters where the ﬂies didn’t go, and
  held himself tight, praying to Our Lady for Ma and Pa to stop shouting.
  But Joshua reckoned Our Lady had more important people to listen to,
  because she never answered his prayers. Maybe it was because he was
  doing the praying outside of church. Father Mateus said that church was
  God’s house, so Our Lady had to live there too, didn’t she? Or maybe,
  once upon a time, God and Our Lady had shouted at each other and Our
  Lady had left. Wherever she’d gone, Joshua didn’t see much sign of her
  around here.
  Ma’s voice had settled into a pattern, a steady thump thump thump
  beating in Joshua’s head and in his heart. Only the odd swearword stood
  4
  
  CHAPTER 1. ’IT’S AN ALIEN, JOSHUA.’
  5
  out, and he knew Ma must have been really angry with Pa to have used
  some of those words. He ﬂapped the sheets around him, trying to cool
  down a little, but they stuck to his chest and his belly and thighs like Aunt
  Maia’s plump, sweaty hands.
  With a sigh, he peeled back the sheets and swung his feet on to the rug.
  He watched the curtain, twitching weakly in the half hearted breeze from
  the window, and padded to the door. Ma’s voice faded as he went out on
  to the landing.
  He wanted to look at it again, the thing that he knew Ma and Pa were
  arguing about, although Joshua suspected that she was more angry about
  how Pa had got it, than what it was. It had been stupid of Pa to even show
  it to her, Joshua thought.
  But then what had happened last night didn’t make any sense either,
  did it?
  Cautiously, he crossed to his parents’ bedroom. The door was open, the
  light out. It was at the back of the house where Ma and Pa wouldn’t be able
  to see, but he didn’t want to risk it. He left the light off, and paused for a
  moment, letting his eyes become accustomed to the amber gloom, spilling
  over his shoulder and around his feet from the landing. The dresser sat
  in front of the window, fat and ugly, laminate peeling from its corners.
  Pa had said that it had been one of the ﬁrst things to be made on Espero,
  when the colonists arrived, but Joshua didn’t believe him. Plastic didn’t
  last 270 years. That was just stupid. Nothing lasted that long.
  He crossed to it and pulled at the bottom drawer. It slid open reluc-
  tantly, catching at one side so that it jammed, askew. Joshua swore a bad
  swearword and instinctively crossed himself, reﬂexively looking upwards
  as he did so. He didn’t know why he bothered if Our Lady wasn’t around.
  Maybe Baby Jesus was on listening duties tonight. He liked Baby Jesus,
  reckoned he was probably a bit more easy-going than Our Lady. He was a
  kid, Our Lady was a grown-up. It made sense. Besides, Baby Jesus proba-
  bly didn’t know what swearwords were, anyway.
  Joshua quickly rooted in the drawer, and pulled back his hand as he
  found it, nestled in Pa’s socks. This is bad, thought Joshua,suddenly over-
  come with guilt. He clenched his hands into tight little ﬁsts and ground
  his knuckles together, like his Pa did when he was puzzled or angry. It
  seemed to work, because suddenly Joshua didn’t feel so bad about the
  thing in the drawer. He tried to tell himself that it was the thing that had
  brought him into his parents’ room, talking to him, but deep down he
  knew it wasn’t true. Taking a step forwards, he peered into the drawer,
  pushing Pa’s socks aside. The thing lay there, looking up at him. Joshua
  reached out and touched it... and remembered last night.
  
  CHAPTER 1. ’IT’S AN ALIEN, JOSHUA.’
  6
  ‘Where you going?’ asked Ma, in the tone of voice she usually reserved
  for ‘where you been?’ when Pa staggered in late after a night with the
  boys. She always knew full well where he’d been, but Joshua knew that
  she liked to keep him on his toes. He’d heard Ma and Aunt Maia laughing
  in the kitchen one day when he’d come back from school. Ma was saying,
  ‘If you don’t keep a man down, he’ll always be up,’ and Maia had shrieked
  and hooted, but Joshua didn’t quite understand why they were laughing.
  Joshua glanced up from his homework to see Pa tugging on his boots
  at the back door. By rights Joshua should have done his homework hours
  ago, but Ma had wanted a hand packing savas, so she’d let him stay up late
  so’s he wouldn’t get into trouble at school the next day. The holidays were
  drawing near, and Joshua knew that both Ma and Pa were looking forward
  to his being able to help them around the house and on the laughable bit of
  scrubland they called a farm. Joshua didn’t mind; he hated school, hated
  all the stuff that the rich kids kept going on about - the vidfeeds from
  other colony worlds that their mas and pas had bought for them, trips to
  Advent (it sounded a dump, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to go)
  and Semane - and couldn’t wait until he was old enough to leave.
  ‘Get back to your homework, Joshua,’ warned his mother, pushing up
  non-existent sleeves and getting to her feet. Joshua watched her stride
  over to where Pa was unlocking the gun cabinet.
  ‘Something’s come down,’ Pa said quietly, checking the riﬂe and ﬁlling
  his pockets with shells. Ma grabbed at the barrel of the gun, but he swung
  it away from her and ﬁxed her with a stare. Joshua knew that stare: Pa
  didn’t use it often, but when he did, Ma usually backed down. One of
  those unspoken grown-up things.
  ‘Where? What’s come down?’ Ma asked.
  Pa whispered, but Joshua pretended not to be listening, and Pa spoke a
  bit louder than he ought to have done. He was meeting his brother, Uncle
  Ake. ‘Ake saw it come down near Wendacre’s Fields.’
  ‘So why d’you need that, then?’ asked Ma. Joshua guessed that she
  meant the gun.
  ‘Hell, woman, you want me to go out there bare-handed? We don’t
  know what it is. And there might be more of those night beast things out
  there.’
  ‘All the more reason to call the city police, then,’ said Ma. Pa must have
  shaken his head. ‘Why not?’ asked Ma. ‘What d’you think you’re gonna
  ﬁnd there? What good’s it gonna do us?’
  ‘There might be a reward or something. Maybe it’s landed off course.
  What’s it doing out here instead of at the port, then?’ Pa paused and
  Joshua heard the sound of the door being unlocked. ‘Ake reckons it’s an
  
  CHAPTER 1. ’IT’S AN ALIEN, JOSHUA.’
  7
  invasion!’ Pa said mock-menacingly, and he heard Ma tut loudly. There
  was a long pause, Ma muttered something bad about Uncle Ake, and then
  there was another pause. Joshua stared unseeing at the words on his comp
  screen, trying hard to make out what Ma and Pa were whispering.
  Eventually, she said softly: ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Keef,’ her voice
  suddenly gentle, like it used to be. Pa said something and was gone, and
  Ma locked the door behind him.
  Moments later, Joshua ﬁnished his homework and closed down his
  comp. Ma was instantly suspicious, but was none too good at using comps
  so she gave him one of her looks and said he ought to be off to bed then.
  Joshua gave her a big, tight hug and ran off upstairs. In his room, he
  made all the right noises: he clattered about, went to the bathroom, peed,
  ﬂushed, came back, clattered about some more and got into bed. Of course,
  he still had all his clothes on. He’d need them if he was going to follow Pa.
  Joshua turned out his light - after stufﬁng some clothes under his sheets
  in case Ma peeked in - and pushed back the ﬂy screen on the window.
  As quietly as he could, he clambered out, on to the ﬂat roof of the utility
  room, slid it back, and jumped down into the fragrant night. A thick clot of
  midges danced madly around the outside lamp, breaking up as he passed.
  With a glance back at the house, Joshua raced into the night, following the
  dim light of Pa’s light.
  Joshua hung back: if Pa saw him too soon, he’d send him back home with
  a sore ear. He heard a tuneless whistle from up ahead, and knew that Pa
  must still be a bit drunk from his evening ‘social’ with Uncle Ake. Sa-
  iarossa city was a good three-quarter-hour’s walk, but Pa still managed to
  get over there for a few pints every couple of nights. Wendacre’s Fields
  were a good hour’s walk from the farm, and Joshua wondered whether
  Pa was meeting Uncle Ake there, or whether he’d be picking him up in his
  truck. He hoped not - that would mean that they’d get there well before
  he would, and he might miss out on the fun. He remembered what Pa
  had said about the night beasts, and about what he’d heard on the news.
  There hadn’t been any sightings for a week or so, and they’d only been
  seen in the city. But they had to come from somewhere, Joshua had rea-
  soned. Still, Pa had his gun, didn’t he? And Uncle Ake’d probably have
  his too. As long as he stayed close, he’d be ﬁne.
  Joshua’s thighs were aching by the time Pa started to slow down, and he
  was grateful to be able to pause for a few moments, catching his breath
  in big, damp lungfuls. In the inky silence, he could hear the trilling of
  insects, felt a few of them brush casually against him and move on. The
  
  CHAPTER 1. ’IT’S AN ALIEN, JOSHUA.’
  8
  Esperon wildlife - apart from burrowbears - didn’t much like the taste
  of humans, but it never stopped them nipping. Joshua looked around:
  the farm was so far behind him that it was invisible in the dark. In all
  directions, everything was shades of black: the black of the sky, scattered
  with a few stars, and the blacker black of the ground and everything up to
  the vast horizon. Joshua tipped his head back and stared up at the stars,
  feeling momentarily dizzy. Which ones had other worlds around them, he
  wondered. Which ones had other human colonies? Where were Bliss, and
  Heritage and Availon? He wondered if Earth’s sun could be seen from
  here, but he didn’t think so. As he looked around for Pa, he heard the
  distant grumble of Uncle Ake’s truck, and saw a tiny spot of light from
  its only working headlamp, coming towards him. Well, towards Pa. He
  squatted down in the dark, even though he knew he’d never be seen, and
  watched as the light grew brighter - and then stopped. The sound of the
  truck door slamming closed rumbled across the open countryside like a
  gunshot, and Joshua supposed that maybe Pa had climbed in.
  ‘Pa!’ he shouted, jumping to his feet and running towards the light.
  ‘Pa! It’s me! Don’t go!’
  Pufﬁng and panting, Joshua arrived at the battered truck to ﬁnd Pa
  and Uncle Ake leaning on the bonnet, illuminated creepily by the single
  headlamp. For a moment, he wondered if Pa was going to be really really
  mad.
  ‘Josh!’ exclaimed Uncle Ake, stepping in front of the truck and peering
  at him. He turned to Pa, who was shaking his head. ‘What’s Josh doing
  here?’
  ‘Josh,’ said Pa in a low voice. ‘Go home. This is men’s work’
  ‘I can’t go back, Pa,’ said Josh, trying his best to sound scared and up-
  set. Which wasn’t too difﬁcult. ‘I’ll get lost. I was following you here - I
  don’t know which way’s back.’
  ‘Joshua,’ he said ﬁrmly. ‘Just turn around and go back. Now.’
  He’d called him Joshua in that tone of voice, which was a sure sign.
  Joshua let his shoulders droop and turned, miserably.
  ‘Aw, come on Keef,’ he heard Uncle Ake say. ‘You can’t just let him
  walk back.’
  ‘He walked here, didn’t he?’ replied Pa, unrelenting.
  ‘Like he said, he followed you. Who’s he got to follow back?’ Uncle
  Ake paused and Joshua heard the sound of his father’s defeat, escaping
  in a long, weary sigh. ‘Besides,’ added Uncle Ake. ‘What if it’s true what
  they say about the night beasts? Wouldn’t want him -’
  ‘OK, OK,’ said Pa, sounding beaten. ‘But you stay in the truck, you
  hear?’ He squatted down beside Joshua and turned him round. Pa was
  
  CHAPTER 1. ’IT’S AN ALIEN, JOSHUA.’
  9
  in silhouette against the truck’s headlamp, but Joshua didn’t need light to
  be able to see the look on his face. ‘And if you ever do anything like this
  again...’ His voice tailed off, letting the threat go unspoken.
  ‘Sorry, Pa,’ said Joshua meekly.
  With another sigh, Pa stood up and put his hand on Joshua’s shoulder.
  Together they climbed into the truck alongside Uncle Ake and set off into
  the night.
  ***
  The cab of the truck was ﬁlled with an odd, sour silence. Even Uncle Ake,
  normally chatty and affable, had fallen quiet. Joshua saw his uncle’s own
  riﬂe on the dashboard, and began to wish he’d stayed at home. He wanted
  to ask what this thing was that had ‘come down’, but Pa’s silence infected
  him. They rode without a word passing between them for ten minutes
  or so, bumping through the darkness, until suddenly Uncle Ake raised
  an arm and pointed ahead. Joshua sat up in his seat and struggled to see
  what it was. Away ahead of them, nestled in the dark, was a tiny patch of
  pale light, huddled down against the ground. He felt Pa move at his side,
  gripping the stock of his riﬂe.
  ‘You stay in the truck, Josh,’ he said as the vehicle came to a halt and
  Uncle Ake cut the engine. If these were offworlders, why hadn’t they
  landed at the port? Why had they chosen to land in the middle of nowhere
  in the dark? Maybe they’d crashed. Maybe, like Pa had told Ma earlier,
  it was an invasion. Visitors to Espero were few and far between - the
  last ship he remembered coming here had been about three months ago, a
  shipment of stuff for the Palace, for the Imperator’s birthday celebrations.
  He knew a couple of kids at school who’d got new edprogs and comps,
  smuggled in on the ship. But why were Pa and Uncle Ake going out to
  meet it in the middle of the night with guns? He knew Pa wasn’t keen on
  offworlders - he still called them ‘aliens’, which always made Joshua and
  his mother wince - but coming out to meet them with guns seemed to be
  going a bit far.
  He sat quietly as the two men climbed out of the truck, riﬂes in hands,
  and set off towards the light. Joshua gave them a minute, then quietly
  opened the door and slipped out. If they were going to meet offworlders,
  Joshua wasn’t going to be left out.
  He stayed well back, knowing that if Pa saw him this time he’d get
  a good hiding. But he needn’t have worried: the men seemed too intent
  on what lay ahead of them. The patch of light grew and grew, gradu-
  ally resolving itself into a large, luminous, blobby shape, squatting on the
  
  CHAPTER 1. ’IT’S AN ALIEN, JOSHUA.’
  10
  ground. He squinted: was it a spaceship? It was nothing like the space-
  ships he’d seen on his comp or at the port. This one looked like a half-ﬁlled
  sack of savas, spread out on the ground. As Joshua drew closer, he could
  make out more details: wrinkles and folds in the thing, knobby protuber-
  ances. He could see that the soft, bluish light wasn’t coming uniformly
  from the surface of the thing, but from dozens - maybe hundreds - of ir-
  regular mushrooms, scattered at random, over its surface. The sides of it
  sloped up to a peak, and Joshua smiled to himself, realising that it looked
  like a mound of radioactive mashed potato. Maybe it wasn’t a spaceship,
  but the debris from one. The two grown-ups had stopped and, haloed in
  blue ﬁre, they split up, going around opposite sides of the thing. It wasn’t
  as big as Joshua would have expected, but in the dark he had difﬁculty
  judging its distance and size. It didn’t look like it was much bigger than
  the farmhouse. As the pale glow pushed out spindly shadows along the
  grass behind Pa and Uncle Ake, Joshua was sure he saw something move,
  away on the other side of the ship. But it moved too quickly and was too
  distant for him to register anything other than a brief ﬂicker. Pa and Uncle
  Ake clearly saw it too. Uncle Ake gestured left.
  Joshua’s eyes were caught by the ﬂicker of movement again, but this
  time it was on the spaceship, up near the top. Something looked as if it
  were coming out of the peak, but perhaps it had climbed up the back of
  the ship. It looked, illuminated weirdly from below, a little like a man with
  a ram’s head: a long, narrow snout, pale and dead-looking, swept back up
  to a broad forehead that continued on to form two huge crests, curving
  back over the head like bony eyebrows above the black eyes. He froze,
  and watched as the creature continued to rise until it stood at the top of
  the spaceship, and he could see that it had the lower half of a horse. Well,
  thought Joshua, a bit like a horse. The creature’s upper body was like that
  of a thin man, grafted on to the four-legged lower body. But unlike the
  legs of a horse, this creature’s legs splayed slightly outwards, like those of
  a spider, giving it a comically bandy-legged look. He couldn’t see whether
  it had a horse’s tail as well.
  Joshua jumped as he heard the clicking of the two men setting their
  riﬂes. He couldn’t believe that they were just going to shoot the horse-
  man-thing. Maybe it was good, and not invading. An odd noise drifted
  through the dark - a combination of electronic-sounding hums and clicks
  - and Joshua squinted, seeing the creature’s small, circular mouth moving.
  It was talking. It stopped after a few moments and tipped its head on one
  side as if waiting for a reply.
  ‘What d’you want?’ bellowed Pa boldly, but Joshua could hear the
  tremor in his voice. He saw him hefting the riﬂe in his hands. This felt
  
  CHAPTER 1. ’IT’S AN ALIEN, JOSHUA.’
  11
  bad.
  The creature repeated its noises, but this time the sounds were accom-
  panied by something very odd. The creature’s body, in the bluish light
  from the ship, had looked white - or as pale as made no difference. But
  now it was changing: a series of ﬂickering dark bands, like the stripes of
  a zebra, were scrolling along it, from the top of the sheep’s head, down
  over the man’s chest, and right to the horse’s back end. They ﬂickered as
  they went, changing thickness, stuttering on and off. After a few seconds,
  the patterns froze in place, before being replaced by a hypnotic pattern of
  black and white dots, expanding all over its skin, like monochrome ﬁre-
  works. Joshua was entranced. This was like nothing he’d ever seen before.
  The creature was beautiful. He heard one of the adults say something, but
  was too enthralled by the creature’s display to catch it.
  For the ﬁrst time, because it was the only part of the creature that
  hadn’t shown the ﬂickering patterns, Joshua saw that there was something
  on its chest, hanging round its neck perhaps. A Y-shaped thing about the
  size of his father’s hand.
  Then suddenly, moving amazingly quickly, the offworlder galloped
  down the slope of the ship. Joshua heard Uncle Ake swear, and although
  the creature stopped sharply on the grass, it made no difference. The next
  thing Joshua heard was the sound of his Pa’s riﬂe, exploding in the si-
  lence. He gasped and his throat choked up, as the beautiful creature jerked
  sharply, one of its slender hands moving to its side. It looked down, as if
  amazed at being shot, and lifted up its palm to examine it. Joshua could
  see a smudge of darkness, and knew that it was blood. He heard Pa say
  something to Uncle Ake, and called out, ‘No, Pa! Don’t shoot it!’
  Pa turned quickly in the dark and swore at Joshua, telling him to get
  back to the truck. Uncle Ake shouted a warning to Pa, and Joshua saw that
  the creature was moving towards them, staggering and weaving about. Its
  head was tipped back, its mouth moving slowly, and Joshua could hear a
  low, guttural moan coming from it.
  A second shot rang out, this one from Uncle Ake’s gun, and the crea-
  ture spun on the spot, one of its front legs collapsing beneath it. Away
  in the distance, in the dark, he heard a rising, groaning noise, shuddering
  across the countryside - and then realised that it was just elephines, dis-
  turbed by the gunshots. Joshua ﬂinched as, with a wail, the horse-man fell
  to its knees and slumped on to its side. The two adults began to walk to-
  wards it, guns pointing straight at its head. Joshua wanted to cry. This was
  just so wrong. Without thinking, he crossed himself, wondering whether,
  if he shouted loudly enough, Our Lady would hear him and come and
  save the horse-man.
  
  CHAPTER 1. ’IT’S AN ALIEN, JOSHUA.’
  12
  ‘Please, Pa!’ he cried out, running to him and grabbing his leg, desper-
  ately trying to pull him back. ‘Leave it. It hasn’t done any harm.’
  ‘It’s an alien, Joshua,’ intoned his father, as if it were something he’d
  learned by rote, a mantra that brooked no argument, no discussion. ‘Now
  go. Back. To. The. Truck.’ He didn’t try to shake Joshua off, just carried on
  walking, dragging the boy with him as he cocked his riﬂe again. Joshua
  wanted it to stop, wanted his Pa to leave the horse-man alone, wanted to
  go back to the farm and pretend that the offworlder had never come. He
  buried his face in Pa’s side so that no one would hear him crying.
  So now Joshua stood by the chest of drawers and tried to forget the fear
  he’d seen on his father’s face when he’d ﬁnally looked up. He tried to
  forget the horrible smell of burning as Pa and Uncle Ake had fetched the
  spare petrol cans from the truck and set ﬁre to the spaceship. Joshua didn’t
  know quite what they’d done with the body of the horse-man, but he
  assumed that it had been destroyed too. In a mutual, shameful silence,
  the three of them had watched the ship burn, sending a luminous pall of
  smoke spiralling up into the night sky. It cracked and ﬁzzed like melt-
  ing plastic, and every so often, Joshua thought he could hear a tiny, feeble
  scream. Maybe there were others, other horse-men, still inside. Burning.
  After a while, as the ﬂames had begun to die down, Pa and Uncle Ake
  took him back to the truck, and back home. Pa had something in a plastic
  rucksack that he kept in the car, but he wouldn’t show Joshua what it was,
  and wouldn’t talk about what they’d done. And when, eventually, he’d
  heard his parents come to bed - after more muttering and shouting and
  clattering of pots - Joshua had sneaked downstairs to see what Pa had in
  the rucksack.
  His hands had trembled as he’d pulled it open: inside, gleaming softly,
  was the Y-shaped thing that the horse-man had worn around his neck. A
  souvenir, thought Joshua. No - a trophy. He wanted to touch it, but it held
  too much shame, too much guilt, and Joshua didn’t want to be infected by
  it.
  But its silent call had been too much to resist, and now here he was,
  gazing down into the drawer where it had been hidden by Pa. He reached
  out and took hold of it.
  
  Chapter 2
  ‘D’you think you could keep your
  monkey under control?’
  Calamee squinted into the sun as the Saturday afternoon crowds began
  muttering and murmuring, their heads turning towards the vast, sandy
  bulk of the Palace and the satanic iron gates that, depending on your point
  of view, either kept the public away from the Imperial Family, or the Im-
  perial Family away from the public.
  Curious, she pushed her way towards the source of the crowd’s atten-
  tion, ignoring the irritated grunts of her fellow Esperons as she elbowed
  her way through. Nessus clung to her shoulder, his little toes digging
  into her through her summer frock, slender ﬁngers entwined in her close-
  cropped hair. She could feel him swaying his head from side to side excit-
  edly.
  And then, as if an almighty hand had reached down and split the
  throng, the crowd opened up before her and a ﬁgure cannoned into her,
  knocking her on to her backside.
  ‘Ow!’ she yelped, struggling to get up, ready to deliver a hefty slap to
  her assailant. But before she could, her ﬁngers were grasped by a cool
  hand and she was heaved effortlessly to her feet, to be faced with the
  widest, wildest eyes, the palest face and the most unkempt hair she’d ever
  seen. Nessus squeaked on her back as he locked his arms around her neck.
  She could feel him shivering.
  ‘Sorry about that,’ the man said breathlessly, glancing over his shoul-
  der. ‘It’s just that I appear to be being chased by an armed retinue of your
  Palace Guard, and I’d really rather avoid being impaled by their staves.’
  He looked back at her. ‘If at all possible.’
  And with another look behind him, he was off, sprinting through the
  bemused crowd. Before she knew what was happening, Calamee felt Nes-
  13
  
  CHAPTER 2. ’D’YOU THINK YOU COULD...’
  14
  sus spring from her head and bound away after the offworlder, darting
  through the legs of the Esperons with an agility she hadn’t realised he
  possessed.
  ‘Nessus!’ called Calamee. ‘Come back!’
  And before she could think about what she was doing, she hared after
  the little creature. And the stranger. As she raced to catch up with the
  two of them, Calamee could see that his status as an offworlder endowed
  him with all the charisma of a sewage worker just off his shift: the mass of
  people packed into the Palace square moved aside to let him through as
  though the mere touch of him might soil them permanently. Offworlders
  were a rarity on Espero, and many people had never seen one in the ﬂesh -
  never mind a white one. It was almost funny, seeing them draw back as he
  darted this way and that, Nessus cantering along a few paces behind him.
  Of course, Calamee was travelling in their wake, and made better going, so
  it didn’t actually take her long to catch up with them. Nessus was already
  clambering up the man’s trouser leg and making steady progress towards
  his shoulder. The man threw an irritated look down at him.
  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked casually as she caught up, managing
  to prise Nessus off the man’s arm and persuade him to grab on to her own.
  Nessus gave an irritated little squeal of protest but stayed with her all the
  same. The man turned and did a double take, evidently surprised at her
  presence.
  ‘This way looks quite nice,’ he said, gesturing vaguely in front of him.
  ‘Unless that’s a bad idea...?’
  Calamee looked up ahead: he was heading for the south side of the
  square, so unless he thought that buying an expensive new frock from one
  of Mother’s favourite outﬁtters might throw off his pursuers, she reckoned
  he needed a bit of help.
  ‘That way might be better,’ she suggested, pointing off to the left.
  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said the stranger. ‘As you might have gath-
  ered, I’m rather new around here.’
  He glanced back over his shoulder, looking for the Palace Guard. Cala-
  mee scanned the crowd: in the distance, she could see the spikes of the
  Guard’s staves, waving through the crowds like stalks of burnt corn. She
  could see people turning, pointing towards them. Although the Palace
  Guard were not greatly loved, they were certainly respected, and Calamee
  knew that most of the people would be more than happy to help catch an
  offworlder - particularly an offworlder that was running away from the
  Crystal Palace. For a moment, she wondered what exactly he’d done, and
  whether she should be quite so keen on following him. Nessus squeaked
  and clambered nimbly up on to her shoulder. He raised himself up on his
  
  CHAPTER 2. ’D’YOU THINK YOU COULD...’
  15
  long hind legs and, to Calamee’s amusement, appeared to be scanning the
  crowd as well. What was wrong with him today? He could be amusing,
  he could be irritating; today, the only word to describe his behaviour was
  determined. He leapt gracefully on to the offworlder’s back and tangled his
  ﬁngers in the man’s hair.
  ‘D’you think you could keep your monkey under control?’ he said,
  trying to prise Nessus’s hands away from his eyes.
  ‘He’s a mokey,’ Calamee corrected him, pushing the man ahead of her.
  ‘And he seems to have taken quite a shine to you. Take it as a compliment
  and keep moving if you don’t want them to catch up with you.’
  The man grumbled and the crowds parted before them as they headed
  for the corner of the square. The streets branching out from the south-east
  corner were smaller, more labyrinthine, and Calamee reckoned that they
  had a better chance of hiding from the Guard there. Of course it would
  be just her luck to run into Mother and Father: she’d left them browsing
  furniture an hour ago, and by now they might even have noticed that she
  wasn’t with them any more. Just in front of the Palace, workmen were
  occupied with fencing off an area for some sort of tournament, part of the
  Imperator’s birthday bash, and she saw half a dozen nervous horses being
  led through the crowds. People were stepping aside nervously clearly
  scared of being kicked by the animals. It gave Calamee a narrow avenue
  to slip through, dragging the stranger in her wake. A group of nuns in full
  habit stopped to stare judgementally at them, and Calamee smiled and
  crossed herself without thinking.
  The throng around them began to thin out as they reached the edge of
  the square and she breathed a sigh of relief that at least no one had stopped
  them to ask the stranger where he was from. Yet.
  ‘This way,’ she hissed, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him
  down a narrow, cool street, buildings high on either side of them. The
  smell of spices and cooking meat ﬁlled the air and the stranger paused
  and irritably fanned away a haze of midges from his face, grimacing. He
  caught Calamee’s eye.
  ‘It’d be too much to hope they don’t bite, wouldn’t it?’
  ‘Sorry,’ Calamee said. ‘Yes, it would. But you’ll get used to it.’
  He raised his shoulders ruefully and glanced up, looking as though
  he were trying to focus on the midges. Comically, Nessus’s head made the
  same movements, and he reached out for one of the midges - before nearly
  losing his grip and tumbling from the stranger’s shoulder. She sighed and
  pushed the two of them down the alleyway, past the bemused and curious
  faces of a couple of Esperon kids who had stopped to stare at them.
  ‘Do visitors to your world always attract this much attention?’ the of-
  
  CHAPTER 2. ’D’YOU THINK YOU COULD...’
  16
  fworlder asked as they reached a junction and Calamee tried to work out
  which way to go.
  ‘Only when they look like you.’
  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ the man said. He seemed harmless
  enough - slightly bemused and dazed, Calamee thought, but then if she’d
  been a prisoner in the Crystal Palace, she might be feeling a bit bemused
  and dazed, too.
  ‘Makes a change, though,’ the man said. ‘I normally manage to blend
  in perfectly. Are we actually going somewhere...? Sorry, I don’t think I
  caught your name. I’m the Doctor, by the way.’
  With surprising speed, he reached out to grab Calamee’s hand and
  pumped it up and down madly for a moment before dropping it abruptly.
  ‘Calamee,’ she said. ‘And yes, we are going somewhere. I just haven’t
  decided where yet.’ She looked back down the narrow street they’d just
  visited: no sign of the Guard yet, but she found it hard to believe that
  they’d given up on him this quickly. They normally stayed inside the
  Palace, more ornamental than functional: the city police would no doubt
  have been notiﬁed about the Doctor’s escape by now, and they wouldn’t
  be quite so easy to shake off. What the hell was she doing? she thought.
  Helping a criminal to escape? Of course, now that she had Nessus back,
  there was no real reason to stay with this Doctor. Particularly since she
  didn’t know what the penalty was for aiding and abetting the escape of an
  offworlder (although she was pretty sure it wouldn’t just be a stiff telling-
  off and a ‘go to your room for a week’). But Calamee’s life was usually
  so terminally dull that it seemed such a shame to just say goodbye and
  meekly head back to normality. When would she ever get a chance to be
  this close to an offworlder again? Who knew what technologies and ex-
  otic things he had access to, what things he could show her? The leaden
  heat of the Esperon summer was settling in, the schools would be closing
  in a few days, and a month of tedium stretched ahead of her. Maybe this
  Doctor could put a little bit of zing into it. Even if it was only till he was
  caught again.
  ‘How did you get here?’ she asked. ‘Have you got a ship at the port?’
  ‘A ship at the port?’ The Doctor looked ﬂustered. ‘I expect so.’
  ‘You expect so? Don’t you know? How did you get here?’
  He sighed and Calamee saw his shoulders slump.
  ‘That’s the whole point,’ he said tiredly. ‘I can’t remember.’
  Trix sat up sharply, her bottom slipping on the ﬂoor of the bath, feeling
  momentarily disorientated. At times like these, when the TARDIS wasn’t
  in ﬂight and she was the only one aboard, it was easy to remember what it
  
  CHAPTER 2. ’D’YOU THINK YOU COULD...’
  17
  had been like before: when she’d lived like a mouse in the skirting board,
  the Doctor, Fitz and Anji knowing nothing of her existence aboard the
  ship. But Anji had been gone a while, and sometimes it seemed like noth-
  ing had changed. When he wasn’t ﬁnding a use for her, sending her off
  to the distant past or the far future on errands for him, or telling her that
  as soon as they arrived in the right place and time she’d have to go, the
  Doctor made a studied pretence of ignoring her. Fitz, on the other hand,
  seemed to have quite taken to her - in an annoying, puppyish sort of way.
  He was OK, she supposed. And it was useful to have a friend aboard. If
  nothing else, she could rely on Fitz to prevent the Doctor from taking off
  and leaving her behind.
  She cleaned the bubbles from her ears and wondered where her trav-
  elling companions had got to.
  ‘We’re just popping out for a few minutes,’ Fitz had said.
  ‘Going to pinpoint the source of the distress call,’ the Doctor had said.
  That was the ﬁrst she’d heard of any distress call.
  ‘You have a nice bath,’ Fitz had added.
  ‘We’ll be back before it’s cold,’ the Doctor had ﬁnished.
  And they were gone, some sort of device in the Doctor’s hand bleeping
  and burbling.
  ‘Fine,’ she’d said airily to the closing door. ‘You boys go and play with
  your toys. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be ﬁne here. Got any washing you
  want doing? Socks need darning? Shall I have dinner on the table when
  you get back? Phft!’
  Not that she really fancied a dreary plod round some backwater of a
  planet looking for a crashed spaceship or stranded alien astronaut. If it
  turned out to be more than a ﬁfteen-minute job to ﬁx it, no doubt Fitz
  would be back to tell her. But since she’d been an ofﬁcial TARDIS occu-
  pant, she’d had hardly a moment to herself, and the thought of a half-hour
  soak, all on her own, was too enticing.
  Trix stood up, foamy, and reached for a pink-and-white candy-striped
  towel, wondering if they’d come back yet and were already in the console
  room, congratulating themselves. They could be so annoying at times.
  She felt a bit bad for begrudging the Doctor his happiness - particularly
  after what had happened to Miranda - but his current outburst of boyish
  enthusiasm seemed to have ignited Fitz’s immaturity, and the two of them
  were just getting each other going. She wondered if Anji had felt like this
  around them, and whether the Doctor was doing it on purpose, trying to
  make her feel like a gooseberry so that she’d be more than willing to jump
  ship when she got the opportunity.
  Huh! she thought. Fat chance, Doctor.
  
  CHAPTER 2. ’D’YOU THINK YOU COULD...’
  18
  She checked the Mickey Mouse alarm clock on her bedside table - one
  of the knick-knacks that Anji had left behind - and realised that she’d been
  soaking for over an hour.
  A few minutes later, she strolled into the console room, running her
  ﬁngers through the tangles in her hair, shaking it out. There was no sign
  of them - just a big, empty Fitz-and-the-Doctor-shaped hole where, some-
  how, they ought to have been. Well, as long as they weren’t having An
  Exciting Adventure With Some Space Hunks, that was ﬁne by her.
  It was only as the second hour began to roll around that Trix began to
  get worried.
  Trix saw instantly that Fitz was lying in what looked to be an awfully un-
  comfortable position, his left leg bent at an implausible angle, face down
  on the grass just ﬁfty yards from the TARDIS.
  ‘Fitz!’ she called as she ran to him. He lay in a patch of dappled sun-
  light, unmoving, his black leather jacket crumpled up around his torso.
  ‘What happened?’ She knelt beside him and tried to remember the
  intensive ﬁrst-aid course she’d once taken in preparation for the role of
  ‘nurse’ to a rather wealthy elderly gentleman. But that seemed like a life-
  time ago, and she realised that she wasn’t quite sure what to check. His
  pulse. Yes, that would do. She didn’t want to move him or roll him over
  or anything like that: that, she knew, was The Wrong Thing To Do. She
  felt around his neck until she found his pulse. She didn’t know whether it
  was a good pulse or a bad pulse, but at least he had one.
  Something rustled and she sat up sharply, glancing around: the TARDIS
  had landed at the edge of a patch of rather pretty woodland. The ground
  sloped gently downwards towards a little copse of trees and bushes in a
  hollow. The air smelled rich and aromatic, herby. She could quite eas-
  ily have been on Earth - a summer’s evening, somewhere in the Mediter-
  ranean, thought Trix as she glanced around, wondering if the Doctor had
  made the noise.
  ‘Doctor?’ she called, and then realised that if Fitz and the Doctor had
  been attacked, the noise could just as easily have been their attacker.
  ‘Fitz!’ she hissed, leaning in close to him as she realised that there was
  a limit to the resuscitative powers of pulse-checking. ‘Wake up, Fitz!’
  There was a disgruntled groan from him and he turned his head exper-
  imentally.
  ‘Don’t move,’ Trix said. ‘Can you move?’
  ‘Uh,’ came Fitz’s decisive answer.
  ‘Good,’ said Trix, squinting into the shade of the bushes. ‘Can you get
  up?’
  
  CHAPTER 2. ’D’YOU THINK YOU COULD...’
  19
  ‘Uh,’ Fitz said ﬁrmly.
  ‘Well, get up then. Fitz - I think there’s something in the bushes! And
  don’t just say “Uh” again. Come on!’ She tugged at his collar, hoping that
  he’d take her hint.
  ‘Wha...?’
  ‘We’ve got to ﬁnd the Doctor, Fitz - or get back to the TARDIS.’
  Fitz muttered something through a mouthful of grass and painfully
  levered himself into a kneeling position. The side of his face was im-
  printed with a pattern from the ground and Trix noticed that a patch of
  hair the size of a matchbox was missing from Fitz’s temple. But there was
  no blood there - just a smooth, raw-looking patch of skin like you’d get af-
  ter recovering from a burn. It make Trix feel a bit creeped out. She’d never
  been good with disﬁgurements and bodily injuries - although since she’d
  been with the Doctor and Fitz, her tolerance levels had risen considerably.
  ‘Fitz, your head - what happened?’
  He ﬁxed his gaze on her as well as he could, with eyes that seemed as
  determined as possible to go their own ways, and frowned.
  She nodded. ‘I know. “Uh.” Can you stand?’
  Fitz gave her an ‘Of course I can stand’ look, wobbled to his feet and
  promptly fell over backwards with a deep moan.
  ‘We don’t have time for slapstick - there’s something in those bushes.
  Is it the Doctor?’
  ‘Eh?’
  She sighed. ‘Forget it - let’s get you back. Does the Doctor keep a ﬁrst-
  aid kit or a spacey medical robot or magical heal-all pills or anything?
  Something like that ointment he gave to Guy?’
  Fitz shook his head slowly, like someone coming out of a dream, and
  ﬁxed her with a deep and puzzled frown.
  ‘That’s a no, then, is it?’ she sighed.
  He coughed noisily, his hand ﬂying to his chest as he doubled up.
  ‘C’mon, up you get,’ Trix said, realising that the ﬂoor was nowhere
  for an injured man to be sitting. Particularly if he was badly injured. She
  slipped her hands under his armpits in an attempt to lift him up, but he
  pushed her away as his coughing ﬁt abated.
  ‘Where am I?’ he demanded unsteadily, staring at her. ‘And who the
  Dickens are you?’
  Behind them, unheard, the air ﬁzzed and crackled, like the sound of a
  billion champagne bubbles.
  
  Chapter 3
  ‘Sticks, Trix?’
  Imperatrix Alinti watched critically, as a bevy of butlers and servants
  swarmed across the Grand Hall, their arms laden with bolts of silver and
  gold fabric, banners and poles. She’d grown tired of arguing with her
  husband about the archaic way in which he’d insisted on decorating the
  Palace for his birthday celebrations, and had grumpily agreed to ‘maintain
  a sense of tradition’ about the whole affair.
  If she’d had her way she’d have had the whole Palace decked out with
  optical projectors, lasers and tridee imagers. This insistence of Tannalis’s
  on tatty fabric ribbons draped all over the place was tacky, she felt, and
  sent out the wrong image of the Imperial Family to the country - never
  mind to the rest of Espero. She knew for a fact that the Prime Administra-
  tor in Anjon had spent a small fortune on offworld technology to mark his
  third inauguration - including an obscenely expensive short-range matter
  transmitter to have his whole parliament transported instantly to the cele-
  brations. Now that was class, Alinti thought. That was style - particularly
  since the use of matter transmitters went speciﬁcally against High Catholic
  doctrine, since Pope Constanza had decreed that it was impossible to tele-
  port a human soul.
  The only concessions she’d been able to wheedle out of Tannalis so
  far were ﬁve battered old levicars purchased from Marselle (which he’d
  agreed to far too readily, thinking about it), and a commitment to having
  the diamond monolayer coating of the corner towers resurfaced. As she’d
  explained patiently to him, they could hardly go on calling it the ‘Crystal
  Palace’ in its current state. She blamed the government’s appropriation
  committees for skimping on it the ﬁrst time round: a decent coating job
  should last for centuries, not just a decade. When she was in charge, she’d
  make sure the imperial budgets were brought up to appropriate levels.
  She gave a sigh as a girl tripped and a roll of shimmering fabric bounced
  20
  
  CHAPTER 3. ’STICKS, TRIX?’
  21
  across the ﬂagstones down below, unrolling itself like a half-hearted wave
  washing up on the shores of the Imperial Family’s reputation.
  ‘Pick it up!’ she shrieked, leaning out over the balcony from where,
  her blood pressure increasing with every moment, she was attempting to
  oversee them all and make the best of a bad job. ‘Do you know how much
  that costs?’
  Of course, it didn’t actually cost very much: she’d struck a deal with
  some old people’s home in Eastlane where they’d set up a whole barnful of
  looms as ‘occupational therapy’. Less than four solaris a roll. She watched
  through narrowed eyes as the girl blundered about, trying to re-roll the
  fabric without stepping on it.
  ‘If it’s damaged, it’s coming out of your wages!’ Alinti called.
  The girl looked up and gave a pained little curtsy, her arms full of acres
  of glittering fabric. If Tannalis hadn’t insisted on this ridiculous, anti-
  quated charade, Alinti thought, turning away, she wouldn’t have to put
  herself through all of this. Selﬁsh, he was. Just plain selﬁsh.
  As Alinti strode down the corridor towards the stairs, Javill appeared
  out of the shadows and made her jump.
  ‘Sorry, Mother,’ he apologised, taking her hand in his own and giving
  it a little squeeze.
  ‘I do wish you wouldn’t do that, dear,’ she said, trying not to show how
  much he’d startled her. But she couldn’t be mad at him for long: he was
  her special son, after all, and she knew how much he loved his mother. He
  was a handsome boy - ﬂawless skin, rich, deep eyes and a strong, square
  jaw. He pulled an apologetic face.
  ‘I heard you shouting at the staff,’ he said. ‘Can’t we get some better
  ones?’
  Alinti gave a brittle laugh.
  ‘Blame your father - he insists on overseeing all dismissals.
  D’you
  know that he reinstated that chef that I sacked last week? Gave him his
  job back - just like that!’ She made a little popping gesture with her hands
  that rapidly turned into a sharp clasping motion, red talons spearing in-
  wards. ‘He really is becoming unbearable. He thinks I don’t know about
  his secret meetings with Minister Djelardine or that offworld stranger he’s
  installed in the Palace. When I question him about them, he just fobs me
  off, tells me that it’s nothing I need to worry about’ Alinti glanced away
  and shook her head. ‘I don’t know how much more of him I can stand,
  Javill. I really don’t.’ Her voice tailed away pitiably.
  ‘I know, Mother,’ said Javill, taking her hand again. ‘I know. But this
  may be the last birthday he sees.’ He paused and looked into his mother’s
  eyes. ‘We should make it a good one. Who knows how much time he has
  
  CHAPTER 3. ’STICKS, TRIX?’
  22
  left?’
  Alinti gave a gentle nod. ‘His health isn’t what it was,’ she agreed. ‘His
  doctors seem to think he might last another ﬁve or ten years, but I can’t
  believe it.’
  Javill gave a contemptuous snort. ‘No doubt trying to curry favour
  with him. I agree with you, Mother: he’s looking iller by the day. I may
  not be a medical man, but I think I know my own father.’
  ‘So sad,’ said Alinti, taking a deep breath. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, my
  dear, I have to go and discipline that stupid girl.’ She paused, her ﬁngers
  clutching the brass hand rail. ‘If I can remember which one she was.’
  Javill waved his hand contemptuously. ‘Then just discipline them all,
  Mother.’
  Alinti smiled indulgently: this was why she loved Javill so much. He
  always knew what to say. Sometimes she wondered whether he was really
  Tannalis’s son. God knows, there’d been enough other men. She gave
  Javill a kiss on the cheek, smiling at the memories that the thought brought
  to mind.
  ‘Go and ﬁnd out what your sister’s doing, darling,’ she said, squeezing
  his hands. ‘And make sure she’s doing it properly.’
  She watched Javill trot down the stairs: such a ﬁne young man. He’d
  make someone a wonderful husband one day.
  Alinti turned and headed for her husband’s rooms (it had been many
  years since they’d shared a bed - something for which Alinti was eternally
  grateful) and entered without knocking. He was sitting in his chair at the
  window, staring out on the noise and bustle of the afternoon market in the
  square. A couple of tents, their awnings and pennants ﬂashing red and
  gold in the later afternoon sun, were being erected at one end of a fenced-
  off area, in preparation for some sort of tedious jousting tournament. Al-
  inti felt herself tighten up as she approached the old man, who was swad-
  dled in a cream blanket. From behind, he looked even older: hunched and
  thin, his white hair contrasting with his dark skin in the summer sunshine.
  ‘What?’ he snapped without even turning. Alinti felt her jaw clench.
  ‘Tannalis,’ she began in her most reasonable tone. ‘It’s about the staff.’
  ‘You complaining again?’ he grunted, turning to look at her. ‘Haven’t
  you got enough to be doing without wasting your time trying to turn my
  birthday into some sort of pantomime?’
  He ﬁxed her with a stare and then turned back to the view as if she’d
  suddenly stopped mattering. Alinti hated it when he did that - as if she
  were no more than a member of the Palace staff.
  ‘It’s all right for you,’ she said. ‘All you have to do is sit here and wait
  for the rest of us to get everything done. Life’s easy for you, isn’t it? I’ve
  
  CHAPTER 3. ’STICKS, TRIX?’
  23
  been running myself ragged -’
  ‘Horse-cack,’ said Tannalis. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on you, woman:
  it’s Sensimi and the rest of my staff that have been doing the work. You’ve
  just been swanning around getting on everyone’s nerves and in everyone’s
  way. You’re not Imperatrix proper yet, and don’t you forget it.’
  Alinti took a deep, pointed breath, but before she got a word out, her
  husband turned in his chair.
  ‘This is my birthday, and I’ll celebrate it my way. Right?’
  ‘Darling,’ said Alinti with as much feeling as she could, holding out
  her hands to him, but he shooed them away.
  ‘Don’t “darling” me, woman. Don’t think I don’t know what’s going
  on in that shrivelled little head of yours. You never thought I’d live to be
  a hundred and twenty, did you? You and that feckless son of yours have
  been hanging around like vultures for the past decade, waiting for me to
  drop so you could pick at my corpse. Eh? Well, I’ve made it. I’ve made it
  this far and I’m not about to give up yet.’
  Alinti tried to smile compassionately, but he just snorted.
  ‘Everyone wants you to live to be a hundred and ﬁfty,’ she said. ‘Noth-
  ing would make me and Javill happier. Even the doctors say -’
  ‘Huh! What do they know, eh? Those quacks you brought in from
  Eden were as much use as Javill. I’m glad I sent them packing and got
  some of my own in.’ He grinned at Alinti’s expression. ‘At least they
  won’t accidentally poison me.’
  ‘Poison you?’ Alinti put on her most horriﬁed voice and clasped her
  hands to her breast in what she hoped was a gesture of astonishment. He
  waved her away.
  ‘Don’t start all that business,’ he said. ‘You can’t lie as convincingly
  with your hands as you can with your mouth. Stick to what you’re good
  at. Now leave me alone. It was a beautiful day until you dragged your
  raddled old carcass in here. Go on - go and harass someone. I’ve got
  thinking to do.’
  Alinti smiled again, but she knew she wasn’t fooling him. Poison?
  Could he have guessed? And what thinking could he possibly be doing?
  Alinti didn’t like this: Tannalis was normally quiet and unassuming. She
  didn’t like this at all. Could it be connected with the offworlder that Tan-
  nalis seemed to have befriended?
  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Tannalis grunted, turning his back on her
  and leaning forward to peer out of the window.
  ‘Nothing, my dear,’ said Alinti as she headed purposefully for the door.
  ‘I’m not waiting for anything.’
  
  CHAPTER 3. ’STICKS, TRIX?’
  24
  The Doctor didn’t know where Calamee was taking him. Once they’d left
  the crowds in the square behind, she’d taken him on a seemingly random
  tour of tiny, shadowed streets, the evening sun slanting across the tops
  of them as it picked out the tatty, stuccoed walls and the terracotta-tiled
  roofs. Gleaming cruciﬁxes, their gold-leaf pristine amid the general decay
  of the city, sat atop many of the buildings, hugging the squat bell towers
  and spires; crude but strangely powerful religious iconography decorated
  crumbling walls: tableaux of the Last Supper, the Cruciﬁxion, the raising
  of Lazarus. The air was warm and muggy, and clots of insects danced in
  the few shafts of light that struggled to ﬁnd their way to ground level.
  Nessus sleepily acknowledged them, squeaking half-heartedly.
  The Doctor had explained, as best he could, how he couldn’t remember
  anything before waking up in the woods outside the city. He’d stumbled
  around for a while, aching and confused, before wandering into the city.
  He’d told a stunned-looking young man that he was new here, and asked
  for suggestions about where he ought to go. The man had suggested the
  Palace and given him directions.
  ‘And then he ran off,’ ﬁnished the Doctor. ‘I think I must have scared
  him somehow.’
  ‘Being an offworlder is enough to scare most people around here. And,
  not to put too ﬁne a point on it, the fact that you’re white doesn’t help.’
  ‘Really?’ The Doctor was astonished. That possibility had never crossed
  his mind, although, now that Calamee mentioned it, it did seem rather ob-
  vious.
  ‘As you might have noticed, white faces around here are rather few
  and far between. What happened when you got to the Palace?’
  ‘They let me in’
  ‘Just like that?’ Calamee seemed amazed.
  ‘I got the feeling they’d been expecting me. Nothing they said, just a
  vague sense that I wasn’t a complete surprise to them. I was shown to a
  room and told to wait; that someone would be along to question me later.’
  The Doctor rubbed his neck, feeling the smooth, tingling patch of raw
  skin that he’d discovered on his way into the city. He had a couple on his
  arms and one on his leg, and he could feel a large one wrapping around
  his ribcage. They itched slightly.
  ‘And did they? Did you meet the Imperial Family?’
  The Doctor shook his head.
  ‘There was something in the way they said “question me later” that
  sounded like a euphemism for “beat me with sticks” so I decided to leg
  it. The Imperial Guard started chasing me, and the next thing I knew, you
  were throwing yourself in my way.’
  
  CHAPTER 3. ’STICKS, TRIX?’
  25
  ‘Excuse me - I think you’ll ﬁnd it was the other way around’
  ‘Was it?’ The Doctor looked vague. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’
  ‘And you don’t remember anything at all about how you came to be
  outside the city? What you’re doing on Espero?’
  ‘Espero? Is that what this planet’s called?’ He gave a thoughtful frown.
  ‘Espero... “hope” in Esperanto. Or are we talking Spanish here?’ He
  looked around, as if seeing the city for the ﬁrst time. ‘Deﬁnite Moorish
  inﬂuences, don’t you think? An Earth colony...’ He looked to her for help
  with raised eyebrows. ‘Sometime in the future?’
  ‘The future? That bang on your head must have been a pretty big one.’
  ‘No no no,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a bang on my head’ He paused. ‘Maybe
  it was. But why am I thinking that this is all happening in the future?
  What’s all that about, then?’
  He ran his hand though his hair and shook his head.
  ‘I can’t shake the feeling that I’m here for a reason, you know.’
  ‘Are you speaking spiritually or literally?’
  ‘Literally. I think.’ The Doctor looked around, and saw a couple of
  children standing in a doorway, watching him with dark, suspicious eyes.
  ‘Maybe it’ll all come back to me if I can ﬁnd something familiar, some-
  thing...’ He waved his hands, grasping for a way to ﬁnish the sentence.
  ‘You need a doctor,’ Calamee said.
  ‘I am a doctor.’
  ‘No, a proper doctor. Someone who can take a look at you, examine
  you. Maybe get your memory back.’
  The Doctor hmmed, unconvinced.
  Somehow, he suspected that a
  ‘proper doctor’ wouldn’t be of much use. It was frustrating and tanta-
  lising at the same time, like the cloud of ﬂies dancing out of reach around
  his head. He looked up and saw a particularly fat one, wobbling around
  above him.
  ‘What you looking at?’ he said grimly to it, before looking back at
  Calamee.
  She looked at him dubiously.
  ‘I get the impression,’ she said, ‘that you’re not a medical doctor your-
  self, are you?’
  He shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
  ‘Well, let’s work on the basis that you aren’t? Calamee looked thought-
  ful. ‘If they’re still after you, we can’t take you to a hospital or anything
  obvious like that.’ She fell silent for a moment, and the Doctor wondered
  whether he should really be trusting himself to a girl who couldn’t be
  more than sixteen, even though she acted more like she was twenty-six.
  Calamee, the Doctor imagined, was probably very pretty - slim with a
  
  CHAPTER 3. ’STICKS, TRIX?’
  26
  delicate oval face, cropped brown hair with just a dusting of gold. The
  shape of her eyes and her lips spoke of a mixed heritage: African, per-
  haps, with a hint of Indonesian or Chinese. He wished he could tell her
  more about himself. It was frustrating enough remembering little other
  than his own name - assuming that ‘Doctor’ was his own name, which,
  the more he thought about it, seemed rather unlikely. Maybe he’d made
  a mistake in escaping from the Palace: maybe he’d have learned more by
  hanging around. Calamee let out a triumphant noise and grabbed his arm.
  ‘It’s obvious!’ she grinned. ‘You want sanctuary, don’t you?’
  ‘I’d rather have my memory back.’
  ‘First things ﬁrst. We can worry about that later. We need to get you
  somewhere safe, somewhere the Palace Guard and the police won’t be able
  to get at you. Come on!’
  She tugged at him, and Nessus - who’d fallen asleep on her shoulder,
  while watching her conversation with the Doctor - nearly fell off.
  ‘Wherever we’re going,’ the Doctor said, following along in her wake
  and pulling a face at the mokey, ‘I hope they do food. I’m starving.’
  ‘Are you sure this is wise?’ asked Trix as she and Fitz stepped from the
  TARDIS. The evening air was cool, the sky a dark orangey pink, like a
  huge peach hanging above them, and the wood seemed remarkably still
  and quiet.
  ‘Wise is as wise does,’ said Fitz cryptically - and, Trix imagined, quite
  meaninglessly, ‘but if the Doctor’s out here somewhere we have to ﬁnd
  him.’
  She remembered the rustling she’d heard in the bushes, and had ghastly
  visions of their poking around and ﬁnding the Doctor’s body. Fitz still
  hadn’t remembered what had happened to him and the Doctor - and still
  had no explanation for the bare, pink patch on his head (and, it transpired,
  the numerous other patches of tender skin all over his body) - but at least
  he now recalled who Trix was. After pushing her away inside the en-
  trance to the TARDIS, he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to get to his feet, and
  after two attempts had reluctantly accepted her offer of help. She’d taken
  him through to her bathroom and told him to strip off and get in. And
  to her amazement (and probably to Fitz’s eventual embarrassment) he’d
  peeled off his clothes there and then and clambered in. It was then that
  she’d noticed the raw skin in ragged, mismatched patches all over his
  body. It didn’t seem tender, though - Fitz had made no complaints, un-
  less she’d misinterpreted the occasional soft moan, as he’d slid under the
  water. Trix had considered making him a cup of coffee, but hadn’t relished
  the thought of coming back to ﬁnd that he’d passed out and drowned. So
  
  CHAPTER 3. ’STICKS, TRIX?’
  27
  she sat in irritated silence as Fitz soaked and scrubbed.
  After about ten minutes, he’d suddenly turned to her, his hair all foamy
  and stuck up, and declared that she must be Trix.
  ‘Who did you think I was?’
  He’d just shaken his head vaguely and winced.
  ‘I knew who you were,’ he’d insisted, ‘I just couldn’t remember your
  name.’
  Trix had doubted that, but pointing out the fact that he’d shoved her
  away from him didn’t seem a very constructive step on the road to getting
  him well again, so she’d said nothing. When she’d been convinced that
  he wasn’t going to faint and drown himself, she’d padded off to make a
  cuppa, and had come back to ﬁnd him climbing back into his blood- and
  grass-stained clothes.
  ‘You could put something clean on,’ she’d said, guardedly, as she han-
  ded him his coffee.
  ‘No time,’ Fitz had said briskly, ﬂufﬁng around with his hair. ‘We’ve
  got a Doctor to ﬁnd.’
  Despite the fact that Fitz still didn’t quite seem himself, she’d been
  pleased that he had at least remembered who the third member of the
  TARDIS team was. And now they were outside, and in the still evening
  air, Trix wondered how, exactly, they were going to ﬁnd that third member.
  ‘We should get sticks,’ said Trix.
  ‘Sticks, Trix?’ He smiled.
  ‘If we’re going to be beating off monsters,’ she said grimly, ‘I’d prefer
  not to be using my bare hands.’
  Fitz raised an eyebrow ‘Monsters?’
  ‘Well you didn’t get yourself in that state, did you?’
  He frowned, dearly still trying to remember how exactly he had got
  himself in that state.
  Trix found a sizeable piece of wood and held it up for him. ‘Here you
  go.’
  ‘You keep it,’ said Fitz. ‘I prefer to use my wits.’
  ‘Then I imagine’, she said drily, ‘that we’re both doomed. Come on -
  it’s going to be night soon.’
  Trix waggled the stick in her hand, checking for balance, before setting
  off after him. Overhead, the ﬁrst stars were beginning to peek through the
  bruised sky.
  
  Chapter 4
  ‘I bet you even put knickers on
  her.’
  A church, thought the Doctor, seemed an unlikely place for Calamee to
  have brought him. Not that he’d already formed any opinion about her
  religious tendencies. But - from what he could remember of them - his ex-
  periences had tended to demonstrate that brash, opinionated youth gen-
  erally held little truck with organised religion. But if she was looking for
  sanctuary for him, it made sense, he supposed.
  He shook his head: his amnesia was clearly not total. How would he
  have known that churches equalled sanctuary if it had been? As they’d
  walked, he’d managed to bring up dozens of fascinating - if useless - bits
  of information: he’d run through the periodic table, listed two dozen dif-
  ferent planets that he felt sure he’d been to, named all eleven Lassie ﬁlms,
  and found it impossible to recall quite what Salvador Dali’s Autumn Can-
  nibalism had looked like, although he couldn’t, for the life of him, work out
  why it was irking him so much. Personal details - other than his name -
  simply weren’t there. He couldn’t remember where he’d come from, how
  he’d arrived, anything about his parents or his family. Nothing before
  he’d awoken in the woods. It had crossed his mind that, perhaps, there
  was nothing before that: that, somehow, he’d been created there and then
  under a bush. But if that was the case, why had whoever or whatever had
  created him deigned to ﬁll his head with such bizarre trivia as the dates of
  all Frank Sinatra’s comeback tours? He felt he ought to be more annoyed
  than he was about all of this, more frustrated. That, in itself, was starting
  to get him worked up.
  It had taken them less than half an hour, winding their way through
  what the Doctor imagined were the less salubrious areas of the city. Even
  Calamee had seemed nervous, sticking close by the Doctor in a rather
  28
  
  CHAPTER 4. ’I BET YOU EVEN...’
  29
  sweet way. Nessus, as was his wont, had settled down around the back
  of Calamee’s neck, like some huge, occasionally wriggling, fur collar. He
  seemed to have lost interest in the Doctor. The Doctor couldn’t blame him
  - an amnesiac, he mused to himself, is hardly the most stimulating of trav-
  elling companions.
  Calamee had explained that the city would he settling into its siesta be-
  fore the imperator’s birthday carnival round about now, which explained
  the relatively deserted streets. Soon there was almost no one around –
  just a few elderly women, laden down with rafﬁa baskets of shopping, or
  people closing up their premises. A few stringy dogs sniffed their way
  around the shop doorways, or curled up tiredly in the shade. This deep
  into the city, the streets were narrow and uneven - deep, cool canyons in
  the heat of the day’s end. But it would soon liven up, Calamee had ex-
  plained when they’d seen a stack of vast, papier-mach puppets in a small
  square. Children were fussing around them, laughing and squealing -
  and the Doctor could see how truly tatty the city was. It had evidently
  been built with either an eye on economy, or with a less-than-expert labour
  force. Walls of buildings, plastered in white and cream and taupe, bulged
  disturbingly, or else leaned out so far into the narrow streets that the oc-
  cupants of the upper storeys would have had no problem shaking hands
  with their neighbours on the other sides. Washing, strung out between bal-
  conies, ﬂapped listlessly, barely touched by the weak breeze that trickled
  through the streets. Away in the distance, the Doctor could hear church
  bells, clumsy and tuneless.
  Saiarossa seemed like a city desperately struggling not to collapse. Like
  an elderly woman plastering herself with make-up in an attempt to hold
  back the indignities of age, it looked sad and rather pathetic.
  Murals
  of people he didn’t recognise, surrounded by angels and wearing halos,
  adorned crumbling walls; metal spars and girders jutted skeletally from
  cracked walls. It reminded him of Venice, a city sliding graciously towards
  its ﬁnal end. More skinny dogs roamed the streets, and haunted, tired eyes
  stared hack at him from cracked and dirty windows. The ground beneath
  him was a mess: broken and uneven, sprouting weeds and even a fully
  grown tree bearing small, pallid fruits like deformed oranges - it looked as
  if it had been laid in one, long seamless ribbon, perhaps by machine when
  the city had been built. But the years had taken their toll, and it was now
  full of potholes and wide, grit-ﬁlled cracks.
  ‘We’re here,’ said Calamee, glancing up and down the street as if they
  were about to enter an opium den. They were in front of a blue door,
  its paint ﬂaking and chipped. In a niche at the side of it was mounted a
  painted wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, her face and hands black, as
  
  CHAPTER 4. ’I BET YOU EVEN...’
  30
  was the raised heart, carved on to the centre of her chest. It had evidently
  been there some years, judging by its condition, and the Doctor couldn’t
  help but notice the tired look in its eyes. Or maybe that was just him, pro-
  jecting his own weariness. At the other side of the door was a wooden
  plaque, hand-painted in blue and white, proclaiming that they were out-
  side ‘The Church of the Forgotten Saints’.
  How appropriate. He looked up at the tiny building: it didn’t look
  much like a church to him (but, as he kept reminding himself, what did he
  know?).
  Calamee tried the door, but it was locked. She pressed a small button
  at the side.
  ‘I’m surprised,’ said the Doctor. ‘You don’t strike me as the church-
  going type.’ He pulled away from Nessus as the mokey woke up and
  reached out for his shoulder.
  ‘I’m not, but this is where Mother and Father used to come before they
  moved to Santa Anghelis and found a posher one.’ She glanced up at the
  buildings towering over them. ‘I was born not far from here, believe it or
  not. I was conﬁrmed here.’
  The door opened a few inches, and the face of an elderly man peered
  out. He eyed Calamee dubiously, but when he saw the Doctor, there was
  an audible inhalation of breath.
  ‘Father Roberto?’ said Calamee. ‘My name’s Calamee Fischer. You
  remember me?’
  Father Roberto opened the door wider and leaned out a little
  ‘Child, you’ve grown!’ he said, almost disapprovingly. He was short
  and quite pudgy; a halo of fuzzy grey hair wrapped itself around the sides
  and back of his head, and he looked as though he hadn’t shaved for a few
  days. He looked the Doctor up and down.
  ‘And who’s this?’
  ‘They call me the Doctor,’ said the Doctor, holding out his hand - which
  went ignored.
  ‘Do they indeed? And what would St Thomas have made of that, I
  wonder?’ Roberto’s voice was full of suspicion - and, thought the Doctor,
  perhaps with good reason: if even he didn’t know quite what he was doing
  here, he could hardly blame the Esperons for wondering too.
  ‘Can we come in?’ asked Calamee, when it seemed that an invitation
  was not to be forthcoming.
  ‘I suppose,’ Roberto said grudgingly, after giving the Doctor the once-
  over again. He stepped back and opened the door wide. Calamee stepped
  inside and the Doctor followed.
  
  CHAPTER 4. ’I BET YOU EVEN...’
  31
  They were in a deliciously cool hallway, illuminated only by light
  spilling from an open door at the end of a short corridor. The air was
  rich with the smells of leather and camphor, tobacco and incense, and a
  heavy scent of ﬂowers. Father Roberto padded away down the corridor,
  leaving Calamee and the Doctor to follow him.
  ‘You’re sure he remembers you?’ the Doctor whispered.
  ‘Well, he’s let us in, hasn’t he?’
  They stepped out into a stunningly beautiful little courtyard. The walls
  were high and painted white, the ground beneath them paved with huge,
  cream-coloured ﬂagstones. All around them were vast pots and basins and
  tubs, gushing forth a giddying variety of ﬂowers. Some crawled across
  the ﬂags beneath them; others struggled up wires and makeshift trellises,
  fastened to the walls. Some just burst from their pots, like living ﬁbre-optic
  lamps. The scent was dizzying. Up above them, high, high above, was a
  small square of vivid indigo sky, like a lid on this magical world.
  ‘This is quite, quite beautiful,’ said the Doctor, almost breathlessly, real-
  ising that Father Roberto was waiting patiently, hands clasped behind his
  back. For a moment, the sternness of his expression melted, and he gave
  a little nod. He was wearing an old pair of brown leather trousers and a
  matching waistcoat, under which he had on a dark green shirt, rolled up
  at the sleeves. He looked, thought the Doctor, more like a down-at-heel
  country gentleman than a priest.
  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ Roberto asked, and they both
  gratefully accepted a cup of tea. Father Roberto slipped away while the
  Doctor and Calamee found a small, cast-iron bench to sit on.
  Nessus
  peered around curiously, snifﬁng the air, following the weaving of insects
  with his big, expressive eyes.
  ‘Wow,’ Calamee said, lifting him down and setting him on her knee.
  ‘This is something, isn’t it?’
  ‘A keen gardener,’ said the Doctor. ‘How long ago did you last see
  Father Roberto?’
  Calamee gave a shrug, reaching up to sniff a huge clot of velvety purple
  ﬂowers dangling from a basket on the wall above her. ‘Probably about ﬁve
  or six years ago.’
  ‘He must have made quite an impression on you, if this was where you
  thought to bring me.’
  ‘I s’pose.
  He always seemed a decent sort - and anyway, our new
  church is miles away. If the Guard are still after you, it doesn’t make much
  sense to stay out in the open any longer than we have to.’
  The Doctor looked at her.
  ‘You’re rather enjoying this, aren’t you?’
  
  CHAPTER 4. ’I BET YOU EVEN...’
  32
  ‘What?’
  ‘All this - the running around, the hiding, the escaping. All this tedious
  stuff.’
  Calamee snorted and smiled. ‘Tedious? This is the most fun I’ve had in
  years.’ She obviously realised what she was saying and pulled an apolo-
  getic face. ‘Sorry - I know this is important. I’ll try to take it seriously.
  Honest’
  The Doctor hmmed good-naturedly ‘So what’s your plan?’
  ‘Plan?’
  ‘Well, you’ve brought me here. What do I do now?’
  ‘Um... I hadn’t thought that far ahead.’ She gave an awkward smile.
  ‘But Father Roberto will know what to do.’
  ‘Father Roberto will know what to do about what, child?’
  came
  Roberto’s voice from the corridor as he returned with a wicker tray of
  tea things. He set them down on a tiny table that the two of them hadn’t
  noticed, hidden away under sprays of creamy yellow blossoms.
  ‘About me, Father,’ said the Doctor.
  ‘And how, exactly, do you think I can help?’ The Doctor noticed that
  Roberto seemed to be addressing Calamee, and ignoring him, as he poured
  the tea into tiny bone china cups and handed it to them, indicating the
  sugar bowl. The Doctor shook his head.
  ‘I feel light-headed enough in this beautiful garden already,’ he said
  with what he hoped was his most winning smile. ‘I don’t think I could
  cope with the sugar rush.’
  Roberto didn’t seem to warm to the Doctor’s attempt at humour, and
  pulled up a little stool from opposite them. The Doctor noticed he wasn’t
  drinking himself. He sipped at the mint tea as Roberto pulled out a lit-
  tle leather pouch of tobacco, and set about rolling himself a match-thin
  cigarette.
  ‘The Doctor’s an offworlder,’ began Calamee, all of a sudden. ‘And he
  needs help.’
  ‘You don’t say?’ replied Roberto archly, looking at the Doctor directly
  for almost the ﬁrst time since he’d let them in. ‘An offworlder? I’d never
  have guessed. And what kind of help would an offworlder be looking for
  from an Esperon?’
  Calamee looked at the Doctor expectantly, like the parent of misbehav-
  ing child being called to account in a headmaster’s study.
  ‘As far as I can recall,’ he said obligingly, ‘I came here recently -possibly
  just a few hours ago, probably not more than a day or so -and something
  happened to me that... well, that I can’t remember.’
  
  CHAPTER 4. ’I BET YOU EVEN...’
  33
  Roberto regarded him silently - and clearly suspiciously. He lit his
  cigarette with a tiny silver lighter and drew thoughtfully on it for a few
  moments, pufﬁng out clouds of surprisingly pleasant smoke. The Doctor
  took a deep breath, and felt an odd longing to have a drag on the cigarette
  himself.
  ‘And how do you think I might be able to help him?’ Roberto ad-
  dressed his question to Calamee, even though he continued to stare at the
  Doctor.
  ‘Calamee was kind enough to rescue me from the Imperial Guard,’ the
  Doctor said. ‘I’ve just spent half an hour locked in the Palace - well, not so
  much locked as left in a room with an open door. Which is often the same
  thing, isn’t it?’
  ‘No,’ said Roberto. ‘I don’t think it is.’
  ‘Well, it is if all you can do is sit there and stare at the open door, won-
  dering why it’s open. It might as well be locked. You’re a prisoner in any
  case.’
  ‘I don’t imagine you’ve come here to debate philosophy, have you?’
  ‘No, no. Anyway, as it happens I didn’t just sit and stare at the open
  door - I decided to leg it. The Imperial Guard started chasing me, and
  Calamee very kindly brought me here.’
  ‘And why would that be, Calamee?’
  ‘We were hoping - I was hoping - that you’d give him sanctuary,’ said
  Calamee hopefully.
  Roberto grinned from ear to ear. ‘Sanctuary? Sanctuary, girl? D’you
  think we’re living in the middle ages?’ He shook his head as he chuckled
  and took another drag from the cigarette.
  ‘Don’t you do that any more?’ She seemed genuinely surprised.
  Roberto ﬁnished laughing. ‘I’m not sure we ever did, did we?’
  ‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Once upon a time it was rather a thing.’
  ‘An expert on human history, are you? So your memory hasn’t gone
  completely then?’ He gave a wry smile, but the Doctor wasn’t sure whether
  it was in disbelief at the Doctor’s story or not. ‘Well, well. That’s one thing
  I wouldn’t have taken you for. There aren’t many of us left, you know?’
  ‘Experts in human history?’
  Roberto nodded, and suddenly the Doctor realised that the priest
  seemed much warmer towards him. There was still suspicion and distrust
  in his eyes, but he was deﬁnitely thawing.
  ‘Something of a black art,’ Roberto said. ‘If you’ll pardon the expres-
  sion. D’you know Espero’s history?’
  ‘I don’t even know my own. But go on - is there some sort of morato-
  rium on it, then?’
  
  CHAPTER 4. ’I BET YOU EVEN...’
  34
  ‘We made a big mistake,’ Roberto said, his eyes drifting over the swathes
  of blooms that hovered around them, like clouds of brightly coloured ink
  in water. ‘We thought we knew better than history.’
  ‘ “We”?’
  ‘Espero’s founders - the cardinals, bishops and businessmen that funded
  the colony. They elevated the idea of ignorance as bliss to a whole new
  level.’
  The Doctor leaned forward.
  ‘Tell me more,’ he said.
  ***
  ‘Looloo!’ snapped Sensimi. ‘Stop that!’
  The little creature looked up at the princess with a mixture of fear and
  surprise in her eyes, her tiny paw clotted with cream from the bowl on the
  kitchen table. Slowly and guiltily, she sneaked it towards her mouth, her
  eyes never leaving Sensimi’s.
  ‘Disgusting creature,’ muttered Javill as he swept in from the hallway.
  ‘It shouldn’t be allowed near food.’
  ‘It’s a she, Javill, and wherever I go, Looloo goes.’
  Sensimi’s brother paused as the kitchen staff rapidly found excuses to
  be elsewhere and he sneered at the mokey, as it sat on the edge of the
  granite-topped table.
  ‘And why do you have to dress her up like that? Just look at her - it’s
  not natural, putting a dirty, hairy little thing like her in a dress and a tiara.’
  Looloo was now intent on cleaning the cream from between her ﬁngers.
  He dipped his head slightly to the side as he tried to peek up her dress. ‘I
  bet you even put knickers on her.’
  ‘She’s perfectly housetrained. And she looks adorable like that, don’t
  you, baby?’ Sensimi crossed the kitchen and swept the confused little crea-
  ture up in her arms, squeezing her so tight that Looloo’s eyes bulged, and
  a thin trickle of creamy drool ran out of her mouth and down the back of
  Sensimi’s blouse. Javill tried not to laugh.
  ‘Mother’ll have her put down if she catches her in here.’
  ‘She will not,’ insisted Sensimi, whirling round, still gripping on to her
  precious baby. ‘I’ll tell Father. He’ll have you put down.’
  ‘Just wait, Sensimi,’ Javill warned. ‘Just you wait. As soon as...’ He
  stopped. ‘When Mother’s in charge, things’ll be different around here.’
  Sensimi’s eyes ﬂared deﬁantly. ‘I know what you were going to say.
  “As soon as Father’s dead.” That was it, wasn’t it?’
  
  CHAPTER 4. ’I BET YOU EVEN...’
  35
  Javill gave an uncaring shrug. ‘We both know he’s old, Sensimi. He’s
  not going to live forever. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll
  stop being such a pain. You know the title will pass to Mother and then to
  me. It’d be awful if you pissed off everyone above you, wouldn’t it?’
  ‘He’s not... he’s not gone yet,’ she said, heading for the door. Looloo
  squeaked and reached out over Sensimi’s shoulder for the rapidly reced-
  ing bowl of cream. ‘And while he’s still here, you better be very careful.’
  ‘Ooooh!’ mocked Javill. ‘I’m so scared, little sister. Whatcha gonna do?
  Set the mokey princess on me? Get her to dribble me to death?’
  Sensimi felt her face redden as she paused in the doorway, a cutting
  riposte almost on her lips.
  ‘Pig!’ , unfortunately, was all she managed to come out with. ‘Bloody
  pig!’
  It wasn’t until Looloo started squealing in earnest, halfway up the main
  staircase, that Sensimi realised how tightly she’d been squeezing her. As
  soon as she released the pressure, Looloo scrabbled to get free and climbed
  up on to Sensimi’s shoulder where she pointedly ﬁnished cleaning her
  paw.
  ‘Don’t worry, baby,’ Sensimi cooed. ‘We’ll make sure that nasty brother
  and that nasty mother get what they deserve, won’t we, eh?’ She reached
  up and stroked her mokey’s neck, and Looloo responded with a little
  throaty grumble, already forgetting about almost being hugged to death.
  ‘Daddy’s going to outlive them all, isn’t he? Yes he is.’ And with Looloo
  grabbing on to her hair for dear life, she headed up the stairs to the bed-
  rooms.
  She passed a couple of the Palace staff, ignoring them as they bobbed
  and curtsyed, and deposited Looloo on her bed.
  ‘Be good for Mummy,’ she said, before slipping back out into the cor-
  ridor. Through the open windows that let out on to the courtyard at the
  centre of the Palace, she could hear the clanging and drilling and shouting
  of the work on the stage from where her father would make his birthday
  address tomorrow. Running through the details of her plan, she headed
  down one of the sets of back stairs to the main kitchens, away from the
  family kitchen where she expected Javill would still be. A few of the staff
  were still bustling about, most of them so tied up with making sure every-
  thing was in order for tomorrow that they hardly noticed her. Those that
  did tried their hardest to pretend they hadn’t seen her and quickly found
  reasons to be somewhere else. So it was relatively easy for Sensimi to take
  a big pan into the meat store and to begin to help herself.
  
  CHAPTER 4. ’I BET YOU EVEN...’
  36
  ***
  Imperator Tannalis shufﬂed along the corridor that ran around the court-
  yard. He’d been advised to use a walking stick (having already turned
  down the idea of cybernetic callipers) but was having none of it. He was
  the Imperator, and if he couldn’t celebrate his 120th birthday on his own
  pins, then he wouldn’t celebrate it at all.
  Alinti’s visit had raised his hackles, and he wanted to check that she
  hadn’t tried to sneak something tacky into the celebrations. He paused
  and slipped on to one of the numerous balconies that looked down on to
  where his stage was being noisily bolted together. There was something
  simultaneously sad and exciting about all the people below him, running
  around, shifting chairs, hanging up ﬂags and banners. He recognised the
  crests and logos of many of the other states and nations on Espero, ﬂap-
  ping apathetically in the warm breeze, but frowned at the couple he didn’t.
  A TV crew was conducting an interview with Minister Djelardine just in
  front of the stage: trust him to be stealing some of the glory. Tannalis
  sighed with a smile. What did it matter? He’d made his decision, little
  did that harpy Alinti know. That was why he’d summoned Djelardine, to
  ﬁnalise the arrangements.
  ‘Can I get you anything,Your Highness?’
  He turned suddenly at the voice. It was Farine, one of Sensimi’s maids.
  She hovered solicitously behind him. Tannalis grinned wolﬁshly at her -
  and then realised that it probably just made him look like some sort of old
  pervert. Nice rump on her, though, Tannalis thought wistfully. A bit of
  something to get hold of. The contrast between the shy, amply bosomed
  girl and his shrivelled old crow of a wife made him smile. His philan-
  dering days were behind him now, but it would still be nice... just once
  more...
  He waved her away with a regretful shake of the head. King David
  managed to get away with it, with Abishag, but he doubted that he any
  longer carried the weight of such a ﬁgure.
  ‘I’m ﬁne, girl. That woman of mine running you all ragged, is she?’
  Farine dipped her head, not answering, but Tannalis could see it in her
  eyes.
  ‘Don’t you worry about her,’ he said. ‘She thinks she rules the hen-
  house, but this old rooster’s still got a bit of life in him.’
  Farine bobbed and scurried off. If he’d been up to it, he’d have teased
  her a bit more about what she and Sensimi were up to. He might have
  been old, but he wasn’t stupid. There were more than just his own plans
  afoot in the Palace.
  
  Chapter 5
  ‘How can we know where we’re
  going, when we don’t know
  where we’ve come from?’
  ‘Espero was meant to be a fresh start for humanity,’ said Roberto. ‘The
  Ecumenical Council decided that all we needed to make Espero thrive was
  a faith in God and the goodwill of the colonists. Obviously, we brought
  some technology with us, but we were naive and trusted in the promises
  of HomeWorld - the corporation that sold us the planet - that Espero was a
  paradise, rich in resources, a ripe fruit just waiting to be plucked. We were
  gullible, desperate to leave Earth, to get away from the hegemony of the
  West, of North America and the Eurozone.’ At this, he raised an eyebrow
  almost imperceptibly at the Doctor. ‘We were blinded by the opportunities
  that we saw out here - the chance to make our universe, in our own image.
  History, we were told, would start anew.’
  ‘So you were sold a pup? Espero, I mean.’
  Roberto nodded.
  ‘HomeWorld told us that Espero had everything we needed.
  They
  showed us mineralogical surveys and climatological reports. It looked like
  a paradise. And you can imagine how desperate the Ecumenical Council
  was to ﬁnd a new paradise. Humanity had screwed up the last one we
  were given, and this was another chance. Perhaps our last.’ He smiled,
  but it was a cold, dry smile. ‘God was giving us another chance at Eden,
  so we grabbed at it with both hands.’
  ‘But there was a serpent?’
  Roberto gave a shrug. ‘If you believe in original sin, then yes - there
  was a serpent. Our own stupidity, brought with us, packed into every bag
  and box and suitcase, wrapped in every fold of cloth and every wrinkle of
  37
  
  CHAPTER 5. ’HOW CAN WE KNOW...?’
  38
  every man, woman and child that made the journey. The Council told us
  that, in order to start afresh properly, we had to throw away millennia of
  human history. No looking back, no living in the shadows of the past.’
  ‘You wouldn’t be the ﬁrst colony to set out with that ethos. But if you
  don’t mind my saying so, isn’t it a rather strange attitude for a religious
  organisation?’
  Roberto nodded ruefully.
  ‘Our faith,’ he said, ‘was one of the few
  things that we were going to take with us. At the time, so I understand,
  it all seemed to make perfect sense. God would lead us into the new
  Promised Land - we needed nothing but faith and the Holy Church. So
  the only records we brought with us were sacred writings and a few tech-
  nical manuals. Nowadays, people suspect that there was more politics
  than belief behind the decision, rumours that some of Earth’s major pow-
  ers secretly put up the money, just to get us offworld.’
  Roberto gave a sigh, and his gaze drifted around the courtyard, around
  the little paradise he’d created for himself here. The Doctor wondered
  whether many people used his church for worship any more, or whether
  this oasis was all that kept Roberto going. ‘It was hell. The colonists ar-
  rived in their new Eden to discover that the resources HomeWorld had
  promised were buried too deep for the minimal equipment that we’d
  brought. The climate was hotter than we’d expected, there were insects
  everywhere. Fresh water was hard to ﬁnd. The ﬁrst ﬁfty years almost saw
  Espero wither and die.’
  ‘But didn’t you get help from other Earth colonies, or other alien civil-
  isations out here?’
  The Doctor caught the expression on Roberto’s face as he said the word
  ‘alien’.
  ‘It’s the word “alien”,’ explained Calamee. ‘It has a lot of bad connota-
  tions. We use the word “offworlders”.’
  Roberto continued. ‘The other colonies had their own problems - they
  were too wrapped up in setting themselves up, ﬁghting for their own sur-
  vival. Oh, we told ourselves that soon they’d be visiting us, trading with
  us. The Council promised us that we’d be at the centre of a revival of faith
  in this sector. They opened visitor centres and embassies, expecting an
  inﬂux of fascinated offworld cultures, eager to learn about us, eager to be
  embraced by Mother Church.’
  He fell silent.
  ‘It never happened?’ said the Doctor gently. Roberto looked at him
  and shook his head. He dropped the butt of his cigarette on to the ﬂoor
  and ground it out with his toe.
  ‘We were fooling ourselves,’ he said sadly. ‘We had nothing that any-
  
  CHAPTER 5. ’HOW CAN WE KNOW...?’
  39
  one wanted. Oh, we had offworld visitors during the ﬁrst century - they
  came to say hello, to see what we had to offer. But when they saw how
  little we had, how utterly, utterly mundane we were, they left. And never
  came back. The embassies went unused, the visitor centres were closed
  down. And Espero retreated into itself.’
  ‘But what about your faith? Surely that must have kept you going?’
  ‘Oh it did. It was the only thing that did. For a while. But for many
  people, faith exists to provide an explanation of those things that science
  hasn’t yet revealed to us. And as science explains more and more of the
  universe around us, so faith ﬁnds itself struggling. When the ﬁrst offworld
  non-humans came, we made efforts to explain God to them, to introduce
  them to His glory. In our naivety, we hadn’t counted on them having their
  own gods, their own beliefs. Beliefs as strong as ours. They smiled at us,
  thanked us - some of them even tried to convert us to their religions - and
  went away.
  ‘Espero started out with a strong Catholic ethic. The Ecumenical Coun-
  cil had faith that, unlike on Earth, we could restore the life and practice of
  the Holy Apostolic Church, and so reﬂect God’s glory. Within half a cen-
  tury, there were disputes; schismatic sects began to form, to set up their
  own states and cities. Some,’ he shook his head sadly, ‘lost their faith al-
  together. And then, maybe inevitably, there was the Almost War between
  three of Espero’s nations, halted at the last moment.’
  Roberto gave another sigh, and the Doctor realised how very, very old
  he suddenly looked. He wondered how long it had been since the priest
  had talked about all this to anyone.
  ‘I can understand your wariness about me,’ he said.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking the Doctor in the eye. ‘ “Judge not, lest ye
  be judged.” But it’s very hard. We feel we were let down and betrayed
  by offworlders, left to our own devices when we needed help the most.’
  He looked the Doctor in the eye. ‘And the fact that you’re white - if you’ll
  excuse my bluntness - doesn’t help. We came here to escape the preju-
  dice and the cultural dominance of the West,’ said Roberto. ‘To create a
  Paradise free from oppression. It rankles with many that, yet again, we’ve
  drawn the short straw. When white offworlders visit and never come back,
  it reminds us of our past, back on Earth.’
  ‘I noticed the statue,’ said the Doctor. ‘Outside. I take it they’re all like
  that.’
  Roberto nodded. ‘You’ve no idea how much damage the myth that the
  Holy Family were white has done to us, to our self-esteem, Doctor. For
  centuries, brown people - black, I believe they called themselves then -
  lived in the shadow of a white God. No matter how much they prayed,
  
  CHAPTER 5. ’HOW CAN WE KNOW...?’
  40
  how penitent or good they were, being white was something they could
  never be. That kind of patronage does damage.’ He clenched his ﬁst and
  pressed it against his chest. ‘Here. I hope things are different out there
  now.’
  ‘The more things change,’ said the Doctor, ‘the more they stay the same.
  Humanity may be one of my favourite species, but I’m not blind to the
  havoc they can wreak, the injustices they visit on themselves. And on oth-
  ers. They’re one of the most adaptable, versatile, adventurous species in
  the galaxy, but they’ve never lost their inability to learn from their mis-
  takes.’
  Roberto grunted. ‘How can we know where we’re going, when we
  don’t know where we’ve come from?’ he murmured.
  The Doctor felt a cool breeze spiral down from the purple sky, pricking
  his skin. ‘But we all need a fresh start, sometimes,’ he said distantly. ‘We
  can’t live in the past forever.’
  ‘It would be nice,’ Roberto said, ‘if we could just start living in the
  present.’
  The courtyard was a confusing, noisy mass of people, equipment and ma-
  chinery. Spotlights were coming on around the square as night fell. Two
  men on a long-arm crane hung banners bearing the Imperial crest from the
  top of the girders above the stage, while a woman, down below, waved
  them into position. Shouting would have got her nowhere. A group of
  dancers were practising in a corner, prancing around each other, trying
  not to trip over the poles and stacks of chairs that littered the place. Javill
  found it all incredibly tedious.
  At the very least, he thought as he watched from a balcony above, Fa-
  ther should have taken this opportunity to announce that he was standing
  down. One hundred and twenty years old, and still he insisted on cling-
  ing on to the Imperatorship, as though he didn’t trust Mother to do the job
  properly. The fact that he insisted on celebrating his birthday in such an
  outdated way spoke volumes - a sad old man, clinging to the past instead
  of embracing the future. Javill was under no illusion that the Imperial
  Family had any real inﬂuence. Even parliament hardly consulted Father
  any more. Legislation slipped by without even receiving the Imperial ap-
  proval. Novelty mugs and commemorative plates. That’s all they were.
  And this farrago of a birthday would do nothing to change that. Mother
  was right: Saiarossa needed a breath of fresh air, an injection of new blood
  to revive the Imperatorship. The Imperatrixship.
  ‘History in the making,’ said a deep voice behind him and he jumped.
  ‘Apologies, Your Highness.’
  
  CHAPTER 5. ’HOW CAN WE KNOW...?’
  41
  It was the offworlder - the one who called himself Mr Trove; the one
  who, in less than two days, had managed to ingratiate himself with Father
  and who had barely spoken two words to Mother. Javill drew himself up.
  Trove was tall and distinguished, alabaster-pale skin with a quiff of blond
  hair, immaculately coiffured. He wore a sharp and plain suit of dark green,
  fashionable and asymmetrically cut. Javill had disliked him the moment
  he’d seen him - partly because he was an offworlder, partly because he ex-
  uded a quiet conﬁdence that Javill found unsettling, but mainly because,
  like most of the Saiarossans, he seemed to be labouring under the misap-
  prehension that it was Father who wielded the power around here.
  Javill nodded curtly, and turned back to the scene in the courtyard. The
  men with the crane were adjusting the lighting over the stage.
  ‘Your father is a man of tradition and history, isn’t he?’ mused Trove.
  Javill grunted, but didn’t turn around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw
  Trove move alongside him to lean on the balcony.
  ‘We have no history here,’ Javill said ﬂatly. ‘Or didn’t your research tell
  you that?’
  ‘Everyone has history, Your Highness. Just because it doesn’t go back
  to the dawn of time doesn’t invalidate it. Your father is very... brave...’
  Javill turned.
  ‘Brave?’
  ‘When the leaders of Espero’s other nations make such a play of look-
  ing to the future, the Imperator must be applauded for his determination
  to celebrate the past, wouldn’t you say?’
  Trove was staring at him, one eyebrow raised fractionally, a hint of a
  smile on his full lips. What was he saying?
  ‘Father has always had a thing about the past. There are many Sa-
  iarossans who think that it’s unhealthy. The whole of Esperon culture, the
  origins of the colony, were based on making a new start - building a new
  future out here among the stars, not repeating the mistakes of the past.
  Some would say that he’s foolish, not brave.’
  ‘And what would you say,Your Highness?’ Trove gestured towards
  the pantomime in the courtyard. ‘Do you venerate the past? Or do you see
  Espero’s destiny, as you put it, out among the stars?’
  This stranger was sailing very close to the wind, Javill thought, his
  interest piqued. He’d hardly been here two minutes, and already he was
  questioning Father’s beliefs.
  ‘Espero is the poor cousin,’ he answered. ‘We have been abandoned by
  the other colonies, left to our own devices. Every month brings news of
  the advance of other worlds - new technologies, new beliefs, new alliances
  formed. The Catholic heritage on which we were founded has become a
  
  CHAPTER 5. ’HOW CAN WE KNOW...?’
  42
  liability.’ Javill paused and looked Trove in the eye. ‘Father will not live
  forever. And his successor, believe me, will have very different ideas.’
  Trove nodded thoughtfully.
  ‘I’m pleased that Your Highness thinks as I do,’ he said, reaching into
  his pocket. He pulled out a tiny, glittering sphere, the size of a tangerine,
  and carelessly tossed it over the balcony. Javill’s gaze darted to follow it:
  it fell a few yards and then exploded in brilliant, polychromatic light, like
  a burst rainbow. Hovering above the heads of the people below, it shot
  out shafts of light of all hues, and the crowd fell silent, their eyes raised
  heavenwards in amazement. For a minute, the sphere rotated, and the
  people in the courtyard began oohing and ahhing at the spectacle. Even
  Javill was impressed.
  And then Trove clicked his ﬁngers and the sphere fell dark and re-
  turned to his hand and thence to his pocket.
  ‘Very impressive,’ Javill said.
  ‘A toy,’ replied Trove dismissively. ‘It is nothing that you couldn’t have
  access to, Your Highness.’
  Did Trove mean the Esperons, or him personally? As far as Trove was
  concerned, it probably was nothing more than a toy. And as a demonstra-
  tion of offworld technology, it was hardly cutting-edge. But Javill couldn’t
  deny that it had him hooked.
  ‘And at what price?’
  Trove smiled and straightened up.
  ‘Things are only worth what people will pay for them,’ he answered
  cryptically. ‘Maybe we’ll speak about it later. If you’ll excuse me, Your
  Highness, I have a few things to attend to.’
  Trove started to walk away, but Javill stopped him gently.
  ‘Why are you here, Mr Trove?’
  ‘A treasure hunt, Your Highness.’ He moved to go, and then paused
  and removed the rainbow device from his pocket. He pressed it into Jav-
  ill’s hand. ‘And believe me - I intend to be the winner.’
  Javill watched him leave, turning the sphere over and over in his ﬁn-
  gers.
  The oasis, as Trix thought of it - despite the fact that it was little more
  than a copse of trees and bushes set in a shallow hollow in the wood-
  land - was eerily quiet. The ﬁrst stars were glimmering and twinkling
  as they watched her and Fitz blundering about. They’d brought torches
  from the TARDIS, but Trix couldn’t help but think they were being dan-
  gerously naive to think that they could ﬁnd the Doctor in the dark without
  coming across whatever it was that had attacked Fitz. She stopped as she
  
  CHAPTER 5. ’HOW CAN WE KNOW...?’
  43
  felt something hard crunch and crack under her foot. It was the Doctor’s
  tracking device. She raised it to her ear and gave it a shake. It rattled,
  pointedly.
  ‘Well, at least we know he was here. Can’t you remember anything?’
  she hissed, tossing the tracker aside as she bumped arms with Fitz. Their
  torch beams crissed and crossed over each other as they danced around the
  undergrowth. She poked experimentally at a bush with her stick, tensing
  herself in case she disturbed something.
  ‘I remember leaving the TARDIS with the Doctor,’ Fitz said wearily,
  ‘and I remember following him. And then...’ His voice tailed off. ‘The
  next thing was you poking at me and telling me to wake up.’
  ‘So no idea what it was that attacked you? I mean, it would be useful
  to have some idea of what might be waiting for us, Fitz.’
  Fitz didn’t answer - as a low grumble, like a tiger purring, rumbled
  around them.
  ‘Something like that, perhaps?’ he said.
  If she could have done it without looking like a coward she’d have very
  ﬁrmly suggested that they go back to the TARDIS and wait. But Fitz’s ‘ac-
  cident’ seemed to have inspired a bravado in him that she hadn’t noticed
  before, and she didn’t fancy the idea of being reminded, for ever more,
  that she had been the one to bottle out.
  ‘Doctor?’ called Fitz experimentally.
  ‘You there?’ Trix added.
  But there was just silence, and the ﬂitting pools of light from their
  torches.
  ‘This is stupid,’ she said eventually. ‘He could be lying a few feet away
  and we’d never ﬁnd him.’
  ‘You’re probably -’ Fitz stopped sharply, and Trix swung the beam of
  her torch up to his face. He was frowning, listening intently to something.
  He ignored the light shining in his eyes. ‘Can you hear that?’
  Over the gentle rustling of the bushes and trees in the breeze, Trix re-
  alised that there was something else: a ﬁzzing, hissing sound, and she
  was reminded of the sound of the foam in her bath back in the TARDIS,
  popping in her ears.
  Trix swung the torch around, pushing out long, spindly shadows from
  the branches around her.
  ‘Trix!’ hissed Fitz, drawing her attention to where he was shining his
  own torch - down towards the ground in the direction of the copse.
  A wide swathe of vegetation was undergoing a weird and horrible
  transformation: a metre’s width of the ground, stretching left and right
  out of view, was covered with a seething, bubbling grey goo. The stumps
  
  CHAPTER 5. ’HOW CAN WE KNOW...?’
  44
  of twigs and plants poking through it seemed to be softening, melting into
  the muck that covered the grass. Trix pulled a face and peered closer, but
  Fitz grabbed her elbow and pulled her back.
  ‘What is it?’ she asked, squinting at it.
  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fitz, ‘but it’s moving. Look.’
  Fitz was right - the edge of the gooey band was creeping towards them
  slowly, almost imperceptibly. As it crawled, the vegetation it encompassed
  began to break down, submerged in the slime. Tiny bubbles popped and
  ﬁzzed, and the air was ﬁlled with an almost electric crackle.
  ‘What if the Doctor’s in there?’ Trix suddenly said, gesturing at the
  bushes. Fitz shook his head slowly, thoughtfully.
  Suddenly, there was a thunderous crashing in the bushes, a few yards
  away, and before she knew it, Trix was running for her life, staggering
  backwards as she felt Fitz grab her hand, dragging her away. She dropped
  the stick as his ﬁngers slipped into hers, and only just managed to keep a
  hold on the torch. And as a deep roaring started up behind them, drown-
  ing out the gentle hiss of the grey goo rolling across the countryside, the
  two of them ran and ran and ran.
  
  Chapter 6
  ‘What do you know about our
  mystery woman?’
  ‘So no one studies history?’ asked the Doctor, as Calamee poured them
  more tea. She poured some into a saucer for Nessus, but he sniffed it
  disdainfully and went snufﬂing under the ﬂowers. ‘Earth history, I mean?’
  Roberto gave a shrug. ‘We go through trends: one minute it’s fashion-
  able, the next it isn’t. It never lasts. There are only a few of us interested
  in trying to keep the old stuff alive. And sometimes, I’m not even sure
  that I’m doing the right thing. Maybe the founders were right. Maybe
  we should let sleeping dogs lie, learn to make our own mistakes, all over
  again.’ He gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘God knows, we’ve had enough
  experience of it.’
  He reached out and traced the outline of a trumpet-shaped carmine
  ﬂower.
  ‘You see this?’ he said. ‘It’s native.’ He touched another - a bougainvil-
  lea. ‘And this is from Earth, an expensive import that I bought a few years
  ago. They live happily side by side, new and old.’ He looked back at the
  Doctor, his eyes sad. ‘If I had one dream for the future of Espero, that
  would be it: new and old, past, present and future, all side by side.’
  ‘It’s a nice dream,’ agreed the Doctor.
  Roberto fell silent; the Doctor didn’t know what to say. He caught
  Calamee’s eye. She looked awkward and uncomfortable, a sixteen-year-
  old girl caught up in the middle of an adults’ conversation about religion
  and politics.
  ‘So why are you on the run, then?’ Roberto said suddenly, breaking
  out of his reverie. ‘What have you done to offend the Imperial Family?’
  ‘I wish I knew, Father. I really wish I knew. I can only assume it’s
  something to do with why I came here, or with whatever I did when I ﬁrst
  45
  
  CHAPTER 6. ’WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT...?’
  46
  arrived. Or perhaps they just didn’t like my face.’
  ‘And - forgive my bluntness - how will hiding out here in a backstreet
  church help you ﬁnd out the truth? If you only take one thing away from
  here, shouldn’t it be that hiding your head in the sand doesn’t get you
  anywhere?’
  The Doctor considered, turning his teacup around and around in his
  hands. He had a vague, itching sense of time running away with itself,
  as if a clock had been set ticking. He hadn’t a clue what it all meant, but
  Roberto was right: he might be safe enough from the Palace Guard here,
  at least for a while. But sooner or later he had to go and ﬁnd out what he’d
  done, and why he was here.
  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know where to start. Other than at
  the Palace, and you’ll understand my reluctance to go back there until I’ve
  remembered a little more about what I’m doing on Espero.’
  Roberto nodded, and something suddenly seemed to occur to him. He
  told them to wait there and he scurried away - and came back a few min-
  utes later with a puzzled look on his face.
  ‘I’ve just checked with the city police to see if there’s any sort of alert
  out for you. And there isn’t. Strange, eh? The Palace Guard rarely come
  outside the Palace, apart from for ceremonial events. If the Imperator re-
  ally was after you, the police would be the ones to continue the search. It
  might just be that the Palace are being particularly slow in reporting you,
  but it still seems rather odd.’ He raised a hand. ‘And I’ve just thought of
  someone that might be able to help you with your memory.’
  ‘Really?’
  Roberto nodded. ‘We don’t have many offworlders here - certainly not
  on a permanent basis. But there’s one, here in Saiarossa, that might be able
  to help. Her name’s Madame Xing - well, that’s what everyone calls her.
  I’ve heard that her real name is unpronounceable. No one really knows
  why she’s here - but she keeps herself to herself. I suspect that there are
  people in the government who’d rather she wasn’t here, but they don’t
  like to ask her to leave: they’re not sure what the repercussions would be.
  She’s... erm, a little weird, if you take my meaning.’
  ‘Wonderful!’ said the Doctor, leaping to his feet. At last! They were
  getting somewhere. ‘I love weird. How do I ﬁnd her?’
  ‘That’s the problem. I haven’t a clue. I’m sure there are people who
  know more about where she lives than me. She may not even still be on
  Espero.’
  The Doctor sighed. Easy come...
  ‘I’ll make a few calls,’ Roberto said. ‘Come back in an hour or two. I
  might have more to tell you then.’
  
  CHAPTER 6. ’WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT...?’
  47
  ‘Thank you, Father,’ said the Doctor and held out his hand to the priest.
  This time it was accepted, and they shook. ‘Maybe this is the break I need.’
  As they’d made their way from the church through the city, the Doctor
  thoughtful but possessed of a determination that she hadn’t seen in him
  before, Calamee had told him about Saiarossa: about how its name al-
  legedly derived from ‘red sea’ in some ancient Earth tongue, despite there
  being no sea for two hundred miles. She told him of Hispania and its failed
  efforts to cultivate cutting-edge technologies, and about the isolationist
  policies of New Roma and of Pope Constanza’s mad and paranoid Vati-
  can Police. He listened and nodded, and Calamee thought herself quite
  the most interesting person on the planet.
  In turn, as they strode down Rue de la Passion, almost - but not quite
  - oblivious to the turning heads, the Doctor wanted to know about every-
  thing: from what the Saiarossans ate to why they had such an obsession
  with washing (and through his eyes, Calamee suddenly saw what she’d
  taken for granted all her life - the ﬂuttering streamers and ﬂags of shirts
  and sheets and trousers that adorned every balcony, every railing) - and
  all she could think of to say was ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’.
  He drank it all in without comment, without judgement, like a child,
  and the thought occurred to her that maybe he’d been here before, and her
  guided tour was just reacquainting him with a world lying buried in the
  bottom drawer of his memory.
  She showed him roofs adorned with glistening moisture-traps, and she
  showed him dry, dusty fountains and pools. And, ﬁnally, when it seemed
  that he’d soaked up enough, he’d declared that he was famished and that
  he ‘could eat a horse’. Only once they’d sat down at the best horse-meat
  restaurant that Calamee knew had his face fallen, and he’d explained that
  it was just a ﬁgure of speech. He’d settled for lamb stew and a huge
  mound of salad and had stuffed it into his face like he hadn’t eaten for
  a week, eating it with a relish that Calamee’s parents would have found
  crude. Calamee, however, just found it exciting. She’d watched him as
  he’d cleared his plate and then ordered pudding.
  The restaurant, like many in Saiarossa, doubled as a bar, and as the
  evening had drawn on, the place had begun to ﬁll up with revellers prepar-
  ing for a night of celebrations. The Imperator’s ofﬁcial birthday wasn’t
  until tomorrow, but the Saiarossans were making an early start. Anything
  to liven up the mundanity of living on Espero. People were watching the
  two of them, muttering to themselves. But rather than feel threatened,
  Calamee felt a silly little thrill of excitement and pride that she was the
  one eating with this offworlder. She hoped that they were just a bit jeal-
  
  CHAPTER 6. ’WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT...?’
  48
  ous, although most of them were probably just puzzled and suspicious.
  The Doctor had seemed quite ﬁred up at the prospect of ﬁnding this
  Madame Xing - and Calamee wondered, slightly glumly, whether it wasn’t
  as much at the prospect of meeting another offworlder as it was at getting
  his memory back. Perhaps she was destined to lose him almost as soon
  as she’d found him. It felt a bit grubby and childish to be so possessive of
  him, but didn’t she deserve a bit of fun, a bit of happiness? She watched
  him eating and wondered how she could ever go back to being an ordinary
  schoolgirl after all of this. Half of her, guiltily, hoped that Father Roberto
  wouldn’t have any luck in ﬁnding Madame Xing.
  ‘So,’ he said, as if he’d read her mind, wiping his mouth with the back
  of his hand. ‘What do you know about our mystery woman?’
  ‘Not much. From what I know, she’s been on Espero for a month or
  two. Few people have seen her - although lots of people make out that
  they have. I’ve heard it said that she’s a viropractor, whatever one of those
  is.’
  ‘Viropractor...? Hmm... someone who works with viruses, I imagine.’
  ‘I think I’d worked that out. Apart from that, nothing really.’
  ‘Oh well - maybe Father Roberto has had more - oh, hello?’
  Calamee realised that the Doctor’s comment was addressed to a man,
  standing solicitously by their table. He was relatively pale-skinned for
  an Esperon - nowhere near the sickly looking whiteness of the Doctor, of
  course - and probably in his twenties. He was dressed rather formally in a
  dark suit with a high collar, his hands clasped in front of him. Calamee felt
  sure she saw an odd, metallic glint in his eye as he looked down at them.
  ‘I understand that you are looking for Madame —xing?’ The word that
  came from his mouth surely couldn’t have been produced by a human
  throat, thought Calamee. It sounded like a drawerful of musical cutlery
  being tipped on to a tiled ﬂoor, ending with a pinging noise that only
  vaguely resembled ‘Xing’.
  ‘That was quick,’ the Doctor said.
  ‘Madame —xing has been expecting you for a while,’ said the man.
  ‘Has she now?’ The Doctor peered behind the man, as if Madame Xing
  might be hiding there. From nowhere, the man produced a softly glowing
  sphere, the size of a small egg, and placed it delicately on the table in front
  of them. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
  ‘That’s Madame Xing?’
  ‘No, Doctor. I am Madame —xing.’
  Calamee looked up from the light and saw that someone else was sit-
  ting at their table. The really disturbing thing, the thing that took a few
  moments to register, was that their table was no longer in the bar.
  
  Chapter 7
  ‘To lose one set of memories may
  be regarded as a misfortune.’
  Where, previously, there had been a slightly tatty restaurant, there was
  now a small... parlour, the Doctor supposed would have been the right
  word to describe it. Or perhaps library.
  They were still sitting at a little table - Calamee included - but the ta-
  ble was now covered by a black-and-white checkerboard-patterned cloth.
  Overhead, a cluster of brilliant white spheres, the size of marbles, orbited
  around each other at dizzying speeds, like the one that the man - who
  appeared to have disappeared - had placed on the table. It was like an
  illuminated model of a classical atom. But despite the movements of the
  spheres, the light that they cast stayed curiously constant.
  The rest of the room was, the Doctor thought, rather fetching: shelves
  of books lined all six walls, stretching up into the darkness. It reminded
  him of something, some other library he’d been in. He could smell the
  must and the knowledge, and took a deep, deep breath, a memory tickling
  the edge of his thoughts.
  ‘Wow,’ murmured Calamee at his side, who’d clearly only just reg-
  istered what had happened. Her eyes were wide as she stared around.
  ‘Have we just...?’
  ‘I expect so,’ said the Doctor blithely. ‘Nice trick, Madame Xing. Is this
  all real?’
  ‘It is as real as anything,’ Madame Xing answered. The ﬁgure now
  seated at their table was completely swathed in black: a deep hood hid
  whatever face lay within, and black gloves covered her ﬁngers. Her voice
  was distinctly feminine, although there was an odd, mechanical edge to it,
  as though augmented by machinery.
  ‘Very Zen.’ The Doctor paused and frowned, still unable to make out
  49
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  50
  what lay beneath the cowl. ‘Have we met before?’
  ‘Not yet,’ Madame Xing answered. ‘When you remember me, then we
  will have met.’
  ‘Right. OK. Ask a silly question. I take it that Father Roberto managed
  to contact you, then?’
  ‘He will do, yes’
  The Doctor noticed that one of the spheres of light had detached itself
  from the cluster above their heads, and was orbiting him, curiously. It
  paused every now and then near his face, and then darted away sharply,
  before returning.
  ‘What’s it doing?’ asked Calamee in an awed whisper.
  ‘Payment for my services. Recording,’ answered Madame Xing.
  ‘Recording? Me?’ The Doctor felt suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Why?’
  ‘You mentioned Zen,’ she said. ‘If a tree falls in a forest and there is no
  one around to hear it, does it make a sound?’
  ‘Hmph,’ snorted Calamee. ‘Of course it does!’
  ‘How do you know?’ asked the woman.
  ‘Because it has to, doesn’t it?’
  ‘But how do you know?’
  ‘Laws of physics. It can’t not make a sound, can it?’
  ‘How do you know?’
  ‘I think,’ cut in the Doctor, realising that this could go on forever, ‘that
  Madame Xing means that there’s a theory that nothing can be said to deﬁ-
  nitely exist without being observed. Quantum physics: the act of observa-
  tion collapses the wave function of an object to make it real,’ He frowned.
  ‘So you’re recording me... why exactly? To make sure I exist?’ He pulled
  a puzzled face.
  ‘Your memory...’ she said, ignoring his question.
  He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
  ‘Tell me what has happened.’
  The Doctor gave her all the details he could remember about waking
  up in the forest and making his way into the city. As he spoke, he saw
  Nessus, sitting on Calamee’s lap, peer over the edge of the table at the
  dancing lights.
  ‘And there you have it,’ he said, concluding his tale. Madame Xing
  said nothing - and then another of the lights separated from the cluster
  and drifted down, coming to a halt a few inches from the tip of his nose.
  ‘I’m a viropractor,’ said Madame Xing. ‘I specialise in the use of viroids
  to alter and enhance cognitive development and memory. I will try to help
  you.’
  ‘Thank you. Do I have to do anything?’
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  51
  Madame Xing said nothing - but the light before his face darted to-
  wards him and he felt a sudden warmth spreading through his body.
  Through the glow, he heard the viropractor speaking, her words smeared
  out oddly.
  ‘Are you aware that your memory has been interfered with on thirty-
  seven separate occasions - eight of them still outstanding?’
  ‘Outstanding?’
  ‘Uncorrected.’
  ‘Really?’
  He suddenly felt awkward, uncomfortable - although he couldn’t work
  out why. Here he was, possibly on the point of having all the memory
  deﬁcits that Madame Xing had apparently found set right. And yet some-
  thing nagged at him, something edgy and grating.
  ‘Do you wish me to attempt to correct them?’
  He wasn’t sure what to say. Of course he wanted them corrected. What
  a silly thing to say. How could he not want them corrected?
  ‘My most recent loss,’ he answered cautiously, after a pause. ‘Can you
  correct that ﬁrst?’
  ‘I can try’
  Something tingled in the front of his head, like delicate ﬁngers parting
  the fabric of his brain. He had the strangest image of Madame Xing phys-
  ically looming over him, peering into his skull, rooting around like an old
  lady at a jumble sale, looking for bargains.
  Suddenly, the presence he felt in his head was gone, withdrawn with
  an abruptness that made him feel oddly alone and abandoned. He saw
  the light dart away from his face and hover again, a few inches in front of
  his eyes.
  ‘This is very strange,’ said Madame Xing slowly. ‘Some of your recent
  memories have been excised, removed. Not repressed. They are not there
  to restore.’
  A huge sense of disappointment washed over him. Madame Xing had
  been his last - his only - chance to ﬁnd out what he was doing here.
  ‘You said “some of my memories”. Does that mean that there are some
  that you can restore?’
  ‘Yes. Do you wish me to continue?’
  The Doctor glanced up at the other light, the one that Madame Xing
  had said was ‘recording’ him.
  ‘Well, seeing as I seem to be paying for my consultation anyway, I sup-
  pose so.’ Maybe she was wrong, and that the restoration of those mem-
  ories that she could bring back would trigger the return of the ones she
  couldn’t.
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  52
  ‘It will take a few moments to manufacture an appropriate viral agent,’
  she said, although she didn’t seem to be actually doing anything. Sud-
  denly, the light in front of his face dropped to the back of his hand, out-
  stretched on the table, and he felt a tiny spot of coldness, like a snowﬂake
  falling on his skin - ushering in a blizzard.
  And around him, so sudden and so bright it made him gasp out loud,
  was a vast, whirling projection. Images blossomed in the air, smeared
  on to empty space, juddering like old homemade ﬁlms. The Doctor was
  stunned, and it took him a few moments before he could start to take it
  in. It revolved around him, overlapping scenes of countryside and trees,
  with a disconnected soundtrack of voices and howls and deep, thundering
  roars. He felt sick and dosed his eyes, but the onslaught continued, as if
  projected straight on to the cortex of his brain. He felt dizzy and gripped
  the edge of the table, his breath coming in ragged bursts. He could feel his
  hearts stampeding in his chest like frightened animals and tried to steady
  them. He ran through the ﬁrst ﬁve hundred prime numbers, calming him-
  self, until, at last, he felt his body relax. He opened his eyes again, and
  watched it all spin around him.
  ‘Fascinating,’ he breathed, ﬁnally able to take it all in. This is... what,
  exactly?’ He glanced at Madame Xing, dimly visible through the whirl of
  images.
  ‘These are the memories around the lacuna,’ Madame Xing whispered.
  ‘Someone or something has deleted your memories of a speciﬁc event.
  I would surmise that they were working quickly and not as expertly as
  I would have done. There are traces of...’ She paused. ‘Of your own
  interference in the process?’
  ‘I was aware of what was happening?’
  ‘It would seem so.’
  It was like discovering an old diary, thought the Doctor, opening the
  pages and ﬁnding all those things that you’d forgotten you’d ever remem-
  bered. He saw a wobbly view - presumably his own - stepping through
  the doors of the TARDIS (the TARDIS!) on to soft grass. In his hand, as
  he looked down, was the detector he’d been using to trace the distress call
  that they’d picked up. The viewpoint swung giddily, and he was looking
  back over his shoulder at Fitz who was following behind and grumbling
  about Trix (Fitz and Trix - how could he have forgotten them?!) never
  wanting to do anything interesting. Then he was facing forwards again,
  pushing through bushes, catching his feet and hearing Fitz chuckle.
  And then he heard Fitz shout, and something huge and dark blotted
  everything out. He blinked and he was back in the dim library, looking at
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  53
  Calamee.
  ‘What?’ she said, staring at him.
  ‘What?’
  ‘I said it ﬁrst. What happened? You looked liked you’d tripped out for
  a few seconds.’
  ‘Some trip, believe me. Well, at least I have some idea of what hap-
  pened before I...’
  He paused and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Oh bugger,’ he said
  softly.
  ‘What?’
  With the remembrance of Fitz, Trix and the TARDIS came something
  else.
  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
  ‘What?’
  He saw Calamee look at Madame Xing - although whether she was
  looking back at her was impossible to tell.
  ‘What’s he talking about?’
  ‘To lose one set of memories may be regarded as a misfortune,’ said
  Madame Xing quietly, her voice still tinged with those humming, syn-
  thetic undertones. ‘To lose two smacks of carelessness. Now - the other
  interferences.’
  He took a breath. ‘Well...’
  ‘I may be able to correct most of them now for you if -’
  ‘No!’ he answered sharply, more sharply than he’d intended. ‘No, no
  thank you.’ He softened his tone.
  ‘Why?’ whispered Calamee. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’
  ‘Yes, yes...’ He shook his head, suddenly not sure quite what he wanted.
  ‘No, not like this.’
  ‘You would prefer to remain incomplete?’ It was Madame Xing, sound-
  ing vaguely confused.
  ‘I’m not incomplete, thank you very much.’
  ‘Without half your memories?’ Calamee sounded sceptical. ‘How many
  times did she say you’d been interfered with? That can’t be normal, can
  it? And you don’t want to get it sorted. Come on! How many people get
  a chance like this?’
  ‘Calamee, I know you mean well, but memories aren’t something you
  just, well, go messing about with.’
  Calamee looked at Madame Xing. ‘Maybe I’m a bit slow, but isn’t that
  what Madame Xing’s just done?’ She turned back to him and frowned. She
  didn’t understand, he realised. She couldn’t understand. There were times
  when he didn’t understand.
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  54
  ‘Is there any risk involved?’
  Calamee asked Madame Xing.
  ‘With
  putting him right?’
  ‘There is always risk’
  ‘See!’ said the Doctor. ‘There’s always risk. Like I said, you can’t just go
  messing about, wading in there and reconnecting neurons and what-have-
  you. Who knows what kind of a mess I might end up with? The brain is
  a very delicate thing, Calamee. It’ll sort itself out before long, believe you
  me.’
  ‘That’s not what you said ten minutes ago.’
  ‘Trust me, Calamee. I know what I’m doing.’ He felt himself struggling
  not to snap at her.
  ‘But do you? You don’t even seem to know your name: has that come
  back to you now? Or is it one of the things that you still can’t remember?’
  Calamee sounded really worried for him, and he felt guilty. He shouldn’t
  have to do this to her. ‘Is that all stuff from your other amnesias, then? Let
  Madame Xing try to bring it back.’
  ‘No,’ said the Doctor ﬁrmly, ﬁxing Calamee with his best Paddington
  Bear stare.
  ‘Madame Xing,’ pleaded Calamee, turning to the woman, ‘Tell him -
  tell him it’s safe. Tell him what an idiot he is.’
  Madame Xing seemed to consider Calamee’s words for a moment.
  ‘The Doctor must make his own choices. He has reasons. Not neces-
  sarily the right ones, but the right now ones. We may not agree with them,
  but they are his to make.’
  ‘Calamee gave an exasperated sigh.
  ‘And what’s that supposed to
  mean?’
  ‘You live in the present,’ she said. ‘What is right for you today may
  not be right tomorrow or yesterday. Who you are will not be the same
  tomorrow or yesterday.’
  ‘But without his memories, he’ll never be the same as he was yesterday,
  or a week ago or whenever.’
  ‘None of us is the same as we were yesterday. We recreate ourselves
  daily, reinvent, reimagine. Memory is not the ﬁxed constant you imagine
  it to be.’
  ‘Is this more of that Zen stuff, whatever that is?’ Calamee sounded
  annoyed.
  ‘You remember the last time you saw your parents,’ said Madame Xing
  - as the light drifted back up from the Doctor’s hand to join its fellows
  above their heads. ‘And when you do, you restructure that memory. It is
  never the same twice.’
  ‘Of course it is,’ said Calamee scornfully.
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  55
  ‘It is not,’ stated Madame Xing. ‘But you are not aware of the changes
  because you have integrated them into the new memory. The act of re-
  membering changes the memory itself.’
  ‘But it doesn’t change reality, does it?’
  There was a gaping silence that the Doctor found profoundly disturb-
  ing. He really shouldn’t have got on to the subject of his memories and
  his amnesia. Not now. Not here. But of course there was no way he could
  have known that, was there?
  - Miranda, falling to her knees at his feet, her whole life racing across her
  features as the Time Winds tore through her.
  ‘We have to go,’ he said suddenly, gripping the edge of the table as if
  about to stand up. ‘Things to do, people to ﬁnd, frying pans and ﬁres.’ He
  looked at Calamee and tried to smile. ‘Cabbages and kings,’ he ﬁnished
  lamely.
  ‘Are you scared? Is that it?’ Calamee wouldn’t let it go. ‘Scared of what
  you’ll ﬁnd out about yourself?’
  - ‘I love you too, Father.’ Hugging her lifeless body to him, her hair pure white,
  a drift of virgin snow.
  The Doctor looked across at Madame Xing.
  ‘Thank you,’ he said grimly. He glanced up at the ball of light, swaying
  above him. ‘What are you going to do with your recording?’
  ‘Keep it safely,’ said Madame Xing.
  ‘I Hope so,’ the Doctor said darkly. ‘I’d hate to think that it might fall
  into the wrong hands.’
  ‘It will not.’
  He nodded thoughtfully.
  ‘It’s been very... interesting... meeting you, Madame.’
  Madame Xing reached out across the table, her hand clenched into a
  ﬁst, and opened it. Lying in her palm was a tiny light, a miniature version
  of the ones spinning around above the Doctor’s head. He frowned.
  ‘In case you change your mind,’ she said.
  ‘I won’t.’
  - It felt, for a moment, like half of him had died there with her, sucked away
  into the Miranda-shaped void that her death had left to the world.
  ‘Then you will not need to use it.’
  Reluctantly, he took it from her, holding the tiny sphere up to examine
  it.
  ‘Twenty-four hours,’ Madame Xing said. ‘That is how long you have.’
  He nodded, ﬁghting back the urge to tell her that, twenty-four hours
  or twenty-four centuries, he wouldn’t use it.
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  56
  - And then he’d mourned, locked himself away at the heart of the TARDIS for
  so long that Fitz had come looking for him, banging on the door. And when he’d
  ﬁnally summoned up the strength to face them, he’d found eleven trays outside
  the door. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, all laid out, with little handwritten notes
  - hoping he was OK, telling him that Trix had vanished, asking him to just write
  a message to let them know he was all right, saying that he’d found Trix in the
  TARDIS’s library, worrying that the milk smelled off and that Trix had untied the
  cow and it had wandered off and did the TARDIS have a cow?
  ‘Ready, Calamee?’ He glanced at her, his eyes stinging, and she threw
  him a look, half puzzlement, half disgust. He sighed and gave a sniff. He
  could see her spoiling for an argument, but he had neither the time nor
  the inclination right now. He had to ﬁnd Fitz and Trix - particularly Fitz:
  they’d been together when whatever had happened had happened. He
  turned back to Madame Xing to ask her something that had suddenly oc-
  curred to him - but she wasn’t there. The library wasn’t there. Without any
  warning, they were back in the restaurant, and the young man was lifting
  the white sphere from the table. He gave a polite bow to the speechless
  pair, and left.
  ‘If you think I’m just going to forget all that,’ said Calamee daddy, ruf-
  ﬂing the fur on Nessus’s neck, ‘you’ve got another think coming.’
  The Doctor’s shoulders sagged. ‘Some things,’ he said, getting to his
  feet, ‘should never be forgotten.’
  Ake had come back here twice since he and Keef had killed the alien and
  torched its ship. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe, some-
  how, he would feel better about what he’d done if he could understand it
  all.
  Why had the alien come here, if not to invade? If it had been here for
  a genuine reason, why would it have landed in the middle of nowhere,
  secretly, unannounced? Part of Ake knew that he was trying to convince
  himself that they’d done the right thing. He had no love of aliens - they’d
  done nothing for Espero. Humanity had come out here to start again,
  and the aliens had snubbed them, waving their superior technologies in
  humanity’s face, sneering at humanity’s failure. But part of him knew that
  what they’d done had been wrong.
  Over and over again, Ake replayed that night: the alien climbing out
  of its ship and racing towards them. It had to have been attacking, hadn’t
  it? They’d shot it in self-defence. It had been the alien or them. And with
  Joshua there, they couldn’t take any chances.
  Ake had gone home and buried his head in his pillow, trying to drown
  out the sound of the alien’s weird cries. The noises from its ship, as it had
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  57
  burned, had made Ake wonder if there had been others aboard.
  Now he was back here again, watching the last traces of smoke rise
  from it in the dim glow of his lantern. He wandered around the blackened
  wreck, now nothing more than a melted blob. The horse-man’s skeleton
  had crumbled, and Ake, trying hard not to look at what he was doing,
  smashed it to powder with the back of his spade. It would be days - if not
  weeks - before anyone found it. No one came out here. But the thought of
  the bones, mutely accusing him, lying there, was too much to bear.
  Sweat slicked his dark skin and his shirt clung to his back as he ﬁnished
  battering the creature’s remains to dust. He stepped back and leaned on
  the spade, trying not to breathe through his nose. The stench of burning
  wrapped itself around him, thick and oily and cloying. Every time he
  thought about it, he felt sick rise in his throat.
  But now, in the sudden silence, he thought he heard something else:
  a quiet, hissing noise. Like a gas leak. Ake picked up his lantern and
  swung it around, trying to locate the source of it. But the gentle breeze
  smeared it out, making it sound as though it were coming from every-
  where. He started to walk around the smoking remains of the alien’s ship
  - and stopped abruptly.
  Looking down at where his feet were sticking to the grass, Ake felt his
  stomach wrench.
  A swathe of the ground, over a metre wide and stretching away in a
  long arc out of sight to each side, had turned to a greyish green slime. It
  bubbled and ﬁzzed as though it was alive, blades of grass being subsumed
  at frightening speed into it, dissolving into the muck. Ake took a step
  back, hearing and feeling the sucking as he pulled his feet out of it. His
  skin crawled, and he instinctively brushed at his bare arms. Espero was
  cursed with insects, particularly at night, but this was nothing like he’d
  experienced before. It was as though every inch of his body was being
  infested with tiger ants, nipping and nibbling at him. He raised the lamp
  to see what was on his skin - and dropped it with a strangled cry: his
  skin was soft and grey and swollen, like rotten ﬂesh. As he watched, and
  his stomach convulsed, the surface of his distended hand ﬁzzed like the
  ground beneath him. He tried to take a step back, but slipped in the slime.
  The last thing he remembered was the sound of the stuff beneath his head,
  whispering to him. Talking.
  Imperator Tannalis lay in his vast, white bed, propped up on a hill of cush-
  ions, and watched the blurry ﬁgure approach. He patted the covers at his
  side, searching for his glasses, wishing - not for the ﬁrst time - that he
  trusted Espero’s doctors with eye transplants.
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  58
  The fuzzy shape in front of him moved suddenly, and he hooked the
  spectacles over his ears. Everything resolved itself before him and he gave
  a snort.
  ‘Oh,’ he said, faintly disappointed (he’d hoped it might be Sensimi).
  ‘It’s you, Trove.’
  The blond offworlder towered over him, looking down at him with a
  faint air of disapprobation.
  ‘You should be sleeping, Imperator,’ he said softly. ‘You know what
  your doctors have said.’
  ‘I don’t need you to remind me!’ Tannalis snapped. ‘I might be half
  dead, but I’m not half deaf. Not yet.’
  Trove glanced around the room before leaning in closer.
  ‘Remember our deal, Imperator,’ he whispered. ‘You wouldn’t want to
  exert yourself too much and end up dying before I ﬁnd what I came here
  for, would you?’
  Tannalis tipped his head back, narrowed his eyes and stared at Mr
  Trove. He knew that Trove’s offer had been made purely to secure the
  Imperator’s support in his ‘recovery mission’. There wasn’t an ounce of
  genuine compassion in Trove’s watery, green eyes. At the back of the Im-
  perator’s mind was the growing suspicion that, even if Trove found what
  he’d come here for, he wouldn’t honour his deal, but the Imperator wasn’t
  quite as addled as he imagined that Trove thought he was. He’d already
  had Trove’s ship located and kept under surveillance: instructions had
  been issued that, if anything happened to Tannalis, Trove was to be denied
  access to it. He wasn’t completely convinced that such measures would
  work, but it was all he felt he could do. The preparations for his birthday
  - and the attendant bickering with Alinti and Javill - had taken it out of
  him, and at the moment, Trove’s offer to him was all that was keeping him
  going. How ironic it would be if he were to die before Trove found his
  precious ‘artefact’.
  ‘If I die, Trove,’ Tannalis said, ‘I can at least go to my grave knowing
  that I’ve led a full and happy life. Can you say the same?’
  Trove smiled coldly and stood up. ‘Just get some rest, Imperator. I have
  a feeling that it won’t be too long now.’
  ‘What? Before I die, or before you ﬁnd whatever it is you came looking
  for?’
  ‘Let’s just say that I think some unexpected help has arrived. You re-
  member the offworlder that came to the Palace earlier? He calls himself
  “the Doctor”. His arrival here at the same time as mine can’t be coinci-
  dental. It may be that we are in competition. He gives the impression of
  knowing nothing - or perhaps he is just a very good actor. Whichever, he
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  59
  won’t be a problem, and may well be an asset - particularly if he does know
  something. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to check a few things out. Im-
  perator...’ Trove gave a little bow and left Tannalis’s room. The Imperator
  lay there, feeling the thin blood struggling around his pathetic body. It
  was only after Trove had gone - that Tannalis wondered what he’d come
  in for.
  Perhaps, he thought tiredly, Trove had just wanted to check whether
  he’d died yet.
  Trove’s room looked as if it had barely been used - the bed was neatly
  made (by Trove himself) and he had carefully and symmetrically arranged
  the furniture. On the wide desk in front of the window Trove’s security
  console sat, quietly humming to itself. Trove pulled out the chair and low-
  ered his heavy frame into it as he powered up his surveillance devices.
  He checked his watch - a proper, old-fashioned, external watch. Trove no
  longer trusted internal devices, implants. Ever since the Frowd’ar had de-
  tected his transceiver array, buried in his mastoid bone, and had forced
  him to have it removed before he could enter their territories (an opera-
  tion made worse by the pitifully poor level of surgery that the Frowd’ar
  offered), Trove had cultivated a careful distrust of devices that couldn’t be
  removed or disposed of easily. In his line of work, anything that had the
  potential to impede his movement around the galaxy was a liability.
  For the same reason, he preferred to work alone: once upon a time,
  he’d had a partner, but that had ended badly. For the partner. Trove didn’t
  tolerate failure. Or treachery.
  Noting the time, he set to work: he had been on Espero for too long
  already. He had to ﬁnd the device, and he had to ﬁnd it soon.
  A scratty-looking young man, his hair braided and tied back into a pony-
  tail, squatted down on the pavement alongside a vivid, technicolour tableau
  of the Ascension. Shafts of rainbow-hued light speared out from Jesus’s
  head, his hands open in supplication, eyes lifted Heavenward. The artist
  wiped the chalk dust from his hands on to his knees and began to roll a
  cigarette, looking up hopefully as the Doctor came to a halt.
  They’d hardly said two words to each other since leaving the restau-
  rant where they’d had their encounter with Madame Xing. Calamee had
  tried to involve him, pointing out jugglers or acrobats or rabbit-balancers,
  but he’d been miles away, hearing without listening, looking without see-
  ing. The Doctor’s bizarre reluctance to allow the weird woman to put
  his head back on straight was inexplicable: how could you not want to
  get your memory back, especially if it had been ﬁddled with however
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  60
  many dozen times Madame Xing had claimed? It seemed to her like wil-
  ful ignorance, and ignorance - wilful or otherwise - wasn’t something that
  Calamee was particularly keen on. Her mother had often remarked on
  how she didn’t suffer fools gladly, and the Doctor’s behaviour seemed the
  height of foolishness. Perhaps he’d see sense and use the little light that
  Madame Xing had given him, although she suspected that stubbornness
  would win out over common sense.
  The Doctor was rubbing his lips with the back of his hand and squint-
  ing - not at the drawing on the ground, but up into the sky. She wondered
  if the sight of Jesus ascending to Heaven was triggering some memory in
  him. Maybe he just had a Messiah complex. The artist smiled and nodded
  his head at her, and, more out of a desire to impress the Doctor than out of
  generosity, Calamee began to root around in her pocket for some change
  -when the Doctor suddenly gave an explosive cry of triumph and leaped
  forwards to grab the young man’s box of chalks.
  ‘Oi!’ he said.
  The Doctor waved him back down, impatiently, and frantically began
  to clear a section of pavement of gawking onlookers, his face ﬂashing be-
  tween manic cheeriness and irritation. Taking one of the challis in his
  hand, the Doctor tipped his head this way and that, squinting at the blank
  pavement. The artist realised what he was up to, and began to protest.
  ‘Calamee, give him some money please,’ the Doctor said without even
  looking at her.
  ‘Yes sir!’ she snapped - but did as he asked. He was too busy squatting
  down on the pavement to even hear her.
  It was almost like a dance, Calamee thought as she watched: he sprang
  lightly around, one minute down on his knees, the next standing to as-
  sess his work and hopping from foot to foot. He sketched in broad, as-
  sured strokes, only occasionally pausing to rub out something. His arm
  moved incredibly quickly, outlining and ﬁlling in, his ﬁngers smudging
  and smearing. As he wore the chalks, one by one, down to useless nubs,
  he tossed them aside. A crowd was gathering, watching in amazement as
  this offworlder put on his show. Calamee saw the look on the artist’s face,
  smiled apologetically, and gave him some more money.
  Eventually, with a sigh that seemed half disappointment, half puzzle-
  ment, the Doctor jumped up and shot a glance at Calamee. His face was
  smeared with rainbow blotches, warpaint for a confused soldier.
  ‘There!’ he said. ‘What d’you think?’
  Calamee looked down at what the Doctor had drawn. The Esperons
  hunched around it were muttering, pointing. It looked like a strange, sur-
  real landscape - on the left hand side were two huge, blobby ﬁgures, pre-
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  61
  sumably people. Their faces were smooth and featureless, and it looked
  as though they were kissing - or eating each other - blending into each
  other where they met. They had items of cutlery in their hands, as if about
  to tuck in to a feast. On the right hand side of the picture was a wooden
  chest, pieces of bacon or meat hanging limply over the opened drawers.
  Calamee took a breath.
  ‘What is it?’ she said.
  ‘Autumn Cannibalism,’ he said triumphantly, beaming at the confused
  faces in the crowd around them. ‘Salvador Dali. I knew it meant some-
  thing.’
  ‘And what does it mean?’
  The Doctor stared at her before letting out a long sigh. ‘Oh!’ he whis-
  pered. ‘I thought you might be able to tell me.’
  ‘So excuse me for asking,’ said Calamee, leaning forwards across the restau-
  rant table, ‘but who are you, exactly?’
  The Doctor’s head jerked back as if she’d slapped him, although his
  eyes never left hers.
  ‘I mean,’ she continued with a curious little purse of her lips, ‘you come
  bowling into me, knock me down, pull me back up and then I follow you
  halfway across the city; we have some bizarre sance to get you in touch
  with your memories - well, some of them - and all I know about you is
  that you’re an offworlder that seems to have done something to mightily
  upset the Imperator. And that you’ve got a picture of some weird painting
  in your head and don’t know why. I’ve told you all about me, but conver-
  sations are two-way things, you know. Or have you forgotten all that, as
  well?’
  Calamee sat back and folded her arms, like a teacher waiting for a
  wholly inadequate explanation for why a pupil’s homework had failed
  to materialise.
  ‘I’ve told you,’ he said levelly but with just a hint of a twinkle in his
  voice. ‘I’m the Doctor.’
  Calamee shook her head.
  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not who you are. That’s what you call your-
  self. That’s a job title. I want to know who you are: where do you come
  from? How old are you? Are you married? D’you have a girlfriend? A
  boyfriend? What about your family? Friends? What job do you do? What’s
  your name?’ She looked at him. ‘I can’t help feeling that these are things
  that you’re choosing not to tell me.’
  For a moment, Calamee wanted to laugh: the Doctor’s face had gone
  so blank that it was entirely conceivable that someone had simply turned
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  62
  him off. He continued to stare at her as if she hadn’t spoken.
  ‘Well?’
  ‘I’m the Doctor,’ he repeated slowly, as if to a slow but much-loved
  child. ‘And as Madame Xing just explained, I have a memory like Swiss
  cheese.’
  ‘I haven’t a clue what that’s supposed to mean, but it sounds to me
  like you’re hiding something. I’m not judging you,’ she added gently. ‘I
  just want to know what makes you tick. Since we met, you’ve hardly said
  two words about yourself, whereas you already know almost my entire
  life story.’
  The Doctor arched an eyebrow.
  ‘And that’s my fault?’
  Calamee ignored the slight.
  ‘What is it then?’ she pressed on. ‘You on the run? A criminal. Or are
  you just running away from the past?’
  ‘It’s the present that matters,’ countered the Doctor evasively. ‘And the
  future of course. Where would we be without that, eh? I’ve lost count of
  the times when I’ve thought there wasn’t going to be one - only to discover
  three turning up at once -’
  ‘Stop it,’ said Calamee levelly. ‘Now you’re just prevaricating.’
  ‘What an excellent education your parents must have bought for you.
  You really should introduce me to them, you know. I’m sure we’d have a
  lot in common.’
  Calamee sighed heavily. Nessus started trying to clamber up on to the
  table and she pushed him down again. He squeaked.
  ‘This memory thing’s very convenient for you, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It
  stops you having to give anything away, doesn’t it?’
  She paused and
  picked at her plate.‘Or maybe you’re just a coward.’
  ‘Sticks and stones, Calamee. Sticks and stones.’ The Doctor’s face was
  impassive.
  Calamee leaned across the table and ﬁxed him with a stare. ‘Really?
  OK - what planet are you from? Simple question, simple answer.’
  ‘Earth,’ answered the Doctor with barely a pause.
  Calamee stared at him. ‘You,’ she said slowly, ‘are such a liar.’
  ‘I am not!’ He was comically indignant, and started to feign interest in
  the insects that ﬂickered around them in the light of the bar’s lamps.
  ‘Oh come on - you can’t kid a kidder! When you’re sixteen with the
  archetypal dysfunctional family, you learn to spot a lie at a hundred paces
  with a balaclava over its head. You’re no more from Earth than I am. What
  are you hiding, eh? Why don’t you trust me? Is it because of the Palace
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  63
  Guard? D’you think I’m working for them? One of those clever plans to
  get you to confess to a plan to bring down the government?’
  The Doctor gazed around, watching the unsteady progress of a large
  ﬂy as it wobbled about his head.
  ‘No,’ he said distractedly. ‘If they had half the guile that a plan like that
  needed, they wouldn’t need a plan like that.’
  He waved his ﬁngers at the insect, trying to ﬂick it away. Nessus began
  a slow climb on to his shoulder, the mokey’s eyes ﬁxed steadily on the
  buzzing creature.
  ‘Sod off!’ he said sharply, dislodging Nessus - and then looked back at
  Calamee. ‘The ﬂy, I meant.’ He grinned awkwardly.
  ‘I know what you meant,’ she said, her patience draining away. ‘An-
  swer the question - where are you from?’
  The Doctor grimaced, clearly unsure which was the greater irritant -
  the ﬂy, or the spider sat opposite him.
  ‘I’m from Ceres Alpha,’ he said. ‘I’m from Tapalane, from Nakti, from
  E-Aspa’i, from the Mazuma Matriarchy, from Shuac and from the Land of
  Oz!’
  With an audible snap, the Doctor’s hand shot out and his ﬁngers
  pinched around the ﬂy. Its buzzing ceased instantly and it dropped into
  the Doctor’s bowl where it lay on its back, wriggling its legs.
  ‘Waiter,’ muttered the Doctor to no one in particular, his mood having
  changed instantly, ‘there’s a ﬂy in my... hang on...’ He grabbed a spoon
  and delicately extracted the rapidly expiring insect, raising it to within
  inches of his left eye. He shook his head. ‘What d’you make of this?’
  He thrust the spoon under her nose so sharply that Calamee jerked her
  head away, but brought it back slowly, a dubious frown on her face. She
  peered at the now-still little animal, lying in a pool of chocolate custard.
  ‘It’s dead?’
  ‘No, no. No, it’s not dead.’ He pulled the spoon away from her as
  though he suddenly didn’t trust her, and delicately lifted it from the soup
  by its tiny little legs. ‘That’s to say, it was never alive.’
  ‘Uh?’
  He dabbed it on the tablecloth, leaving little spatters of brown, before
  wiggling it in the air, drying it off.
  ‘This ﬂy is a beautifully manufactured replica,’ he said brightly, as if it
  were the most wonderful thing in the world. ‘This ﬂy, Calamee, is a robot!’
  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Calamee, trying not to look too interested: she knew
  the routine - she said ‘Wow! Really?’ and went in for a closer look and he
  pushed it up her nose.
  
  CHAPTER 7. ’TO LOSE ONE SET OF MEMORIES...’
  64
  But the Doctor just tossed it on to the table as if suddenly bored with it
  and began patting his pockets experimentally.
  ‘What you looking for? Your Boy’s Guide to Spotting Robot Pests?’
  ‘This has been a very trying day, Calamee,’ he said, managing to sound
  absent and stern at the same time. ‘Captured and interrogated. Twice. My
  head feels like a jumbo tin of Quality Street at Christmas when Auntie
  Ivy’s convinced there’s a purple one left at the bottom. And then that
  appears - a robot surveillance camera demonstrating a level of technology
  that I’m pretty sure Espero doesn’t possess. Or didn’t possess.’ He started
  to check the inside pockets of his jacket.
  ‘What? What are you looking for? Anti robot surveillance devices?
  Cans of ﬂy spray? What?’
  ‘Where are they?’ he said absently, more to himself than to her. ‘I’m
  sure I had a packet on me.’ He stopped mid-pat and stared at her. ‘You
  wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette on you by any chance, would you?
  I’m absolutely gagging for one.’
  
  Chapter 8
  ‘With a zed.’
  Trix had never felt so conspicuous, so looked-at as she did at the moment.
  It was as if having the Doctor around normally wove a spell, a sort of
  glamour about them that made them all-but invisible, and now, without
  him, they were exposed as bizarre freaky aliens. The fact that the few
  people they’d seen so far, without exception, had been black or Asian,
  made her feel even more conspicuous. And if there was one thing that
  Trix didn’t like, it was feeling conspicuous. Anji would have blended in
  seamlessly, she thought - which didn’t help.
  Fitz, annoyingly, hardly seemed to notice, although Trix did wonder if
  he were still suffering the effects of his attack. He seemed a bit distracted,
  not his usual self. Trix quickly realised that repeatedly asking him if he
  was OK was not going to make what could well be a long walk any easier,
  so she shut up, and concentrated on trying to learn what she could about
  the planet from what little she could see.
  As they’d raced away from the oasis, the sounds of the creature still
  echoing across the countryside, Trix had headed straight for the TARDIS.
  But, as she’d fumbled for her key, Fitz had grabbed her arm.
  ‘What’s the point?’ he’d said.
  ‘Survival, Fitz, that’s the point. You heard that thing.’
  ‘So, what, we hide out in the TARDIS and wait for the Doctor to come
  and ﬁnd us? Where’s your spirit of adventure?’
  ‘If we’d stayed there any longer, it would have been in my pants, Fitz.
  Did you hear that thing?’
  ‘Of course I heard it.
  But if the Doctor’s still there, waiting in the
  TARDIS isn’t going to do anyone any good. And if he’s not... well, maybe
  he’s somewhere else. I survived whatever attacked me. Maybe he did too.
  And maybe he’s wandered off, injured. And maybe that goo did some-
  thing to him.’
  65
  
  CHAPTER 8. ’WITH A ZED.’
  66
  ‘So why didn’t he come back to the TARDIS - assuming the goo didn’t
  get him?’
  Fitz shrugged, barely visible in the starlight.
  ‘Maybe he got lost. Maybe he got hit on the head and lost his memory,
  like me.’
  ‘How likely is that?’
  ‘How likely is any of this? Besides, don’t you want to ﬁnd out where
  we’ve landed? Do a bit of exploring?’
  ‘Yeah, Fitz. Exploring is the ﬁrst thing on my mind at the moment. We
  could be stuck here forever. Forever, Fitz. Doesn’t that bother you?’
  ‘All the more reason to have a look around.’ He paused and Trix saw
  him craning his neck to look over her shoulder. ‘Like over there, for in-
  stance.’
  She turned, not sure what he was looking at. And then she saw it
  - a vague, nebulous glow from behind the hillock in front of which the
  TARDIS stood.
  ‘Lights,’ he said. ‘City lights if I’m not mistaken.’
  ‘And that’s never happened, has it?’ she said drily.
  ‘Oh ye of little faith - come on.’
  He slipped past her, and with a sigh, Trix pocketed her TARDIS key
  and set off after him. Not, she told herself, that she believed that they
  might ﬁnd the Doctor there, but because, in his absence, a city might be
  the only place that could offer them a way off this planet. She glanced
  back at the TARDIS. She’d just started to really think of it as home, and it
  looked like she could well have been evicted.
  It came as a pleasant surprise, then, that as they rounded a little hillock
  just beyond the TARDIS, Trix realised that Fitz was right about the lights
  - a thin, orangey smear of them, ﬁltered through distant trees. Proper
  lights, thought Trix, trying not to get her hopes up too much. Electric
  ones. Like back home. Of course they weren’t back home, but when you’re
  (probably) hundreds of light years from Earth and (probably) in a totally
  different time period, it was surprising how comforting little things like
  city lights could be.
  And, even better, they looked close (although, she reminded herself,
  not quite so close as the source of the growling noises and the grey slime).
  The two of them stumbled across the grassland, trying not to trip in
  the darkness - until Trix remembered she had a torch in her hand. Unfor-
  tunately, it had the unwanted side effect of drawing a cloud of nipping
  insects to them, so she turned it off, and had to be satisﬁed with following
  Fitz’s silhouette.
  
  CHAPTER 8. ’WITH A ZED.’
  67
  Every so often, she glanced back over her shoulder, half expecting to
  see something huge bearing down on them. But the darkness was so deep
  that she doubted she’d have seen anything.
  The city felt like it had crept up on them: one minute they’d been in
  almost complete darkness, and the next they were walking down the side
  of a roughly tarmacked road with proper, if dim, streetlights, only minutes
  away from what looked like shops, complete with illuminated windows.
  ‘This looks too normal,’ she said, catching up with Fitz for the
  umpteenth time. ‘Roads, shops, lights. You don’t think we could actu-
  ally be on Earth, do you?’
  ‘I‘m not sure Earth has a monopoly on all those things, Trix,’ he said,
  turning to give her an irritatingly Doctorish look. ‘And we’d remember
  - well, you’d remember - if the Doctor had said that he’d picked up a
  distress call coming from Earth, wouldn’t you?’
  ‘Of course I would,’ she said tartly. ‘But I do think it’s a bit off that
  the Doctor didn’t tell us anything about where we were before getting
  himself... lost. Maybe he told you and you just can’t remember.’
  ‘Quite possibly,’ he said breezily as he checked the road - pointlessly -
  for trafﬁc before crossing. ‘But if you tried a little bit harder to get on with
  him, maybe he’d have told you as well.’
  Trix gritted her teeth and pulled a face at his back. She was beginning
  to wish she’d left him lying on the grass.
  ‘So tell me about this Imperial Family of yours,’ the Doctor said, knocking
  back the remains of his coffee and waving the waiter over for another.
  He’d managed to cadge a cigarette off one of the other diners, and was
  struggling through each lungful of smoke, like a kid trying to look grown
  up. Nessus was curled up on the seat next to him, gently snoring, his head
  tucked under his spindly arms. The Doctor threw the mokey a glance. ‘I
  take it that mokeys are a native species? And that the name’s just a quaint
  corruption of monkey?’
  ‘They’re not very bright, but they’re very friendly. And Nessus cer-
  tainly seems to have taken a shine to you.’
  ‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ said the Doctor archly, coughing and stubbing out
  his cigarette. ‘But the Imperial Family?’
  The waiter arrived with more coffee and she waited until he’d poured
  before continuing.
  ‘Something we’re not very proud of. Well, apart from a few die-hard
  traditionalists.
  There are eight nation states, and they all have proper
  democracies apart from us. Yes, I know - you came all this way and end
  up here. Sorry.’ Calamee pulled a face. ‘It could have been worse, though:
  
  CHAPTER 8. ’WITH A ZED.’
  68
  you could have ended up in New Roma with Pope Constanza’s Vatican
  Police breathing down your neck. But it’s not like the Imperials have any
  real power any more - we have a proper government that do all the real
  work and everything. I think they keep the Imperial Family on for show,
  for the tourists. A shame you didn’t meet them.’
  He gave a shrug, shifting his chair and waking Nessus who yawned
  hugely and curled back up again.
  ‘I don’t know that I’d recognise them if I saw them, would I? I seem
  to remember having a word with one of the Guard, and before I knew it,
  I was being shepherded inside.’ He paused. ‘It seemed a bit odd at the
  time, but when you’ve been to as many odd places as I have, it’s nice to
  feel welcome.’
  He tailed off, staring at the tablecloth as he sipped his coffee. As the
  evening had descended, Calamee had guiltily remembered that, some-
  where in the city, there were a couple of parents. Possibly worried. Cer-
  tainly annoyed. Maybe even angry. But it wasn’t as if it was the ﬁrst time
  she’d wandered off. They’d probably just call her friends - or, more likely,
  get her house-parent to call them - before deciding that she’d gone off to
  see a ﬁlm or a show or something. They wouldn’t really get worried until
  they found her still missing tomorrow morning.
  She realised she needed the toilet, so she excused herself, but a few
  moments later, as she washed her hands in the tiny sink, she heard the
  sound of the Doctor’s voice, right outside the door, shouting.
  ‘Calamee! Calamee!’
  She opened the toilet door to ﬁnd him there, eyes bright, bobbing up
  and down with excitement. The other diners were staring at him in a way
  that made her want to shut the door on him. And lock it.
  ‘What? What’s happened?’
  ‘It’s starting to make sense!’ he yelled, unaware of the looks he was
  getting.
  ‘What is? Just calm down.’
  He grabbed her hand and dragged her back to the table where Nessus
  had woken up and was eyeing the manic Doctor from his seat.
  ‘I was puzzling it all over,’ said the Doctor, rooting around amid the
  cutlery, serviettes, plates and dishes on the table, ‘and then it all came
  together.’ He snatched at something. ‘It was a setup. All of it. Don’t you
  see?’
  ‘Um.’
  He opened out his palm in front of her. Nestled in the centre was the
  robot ﬂy that she’d almost forgotten about.
  
  CHAPTER 8. ’WITH A ZED.’
  69
  ‘I was supposed to escape from the Palace - the Imperator wanted me
  followed for some reason, so they took me inside and kept me there just
  long enough for them to get this thing set up. And then they released me,
  with this ﬂying along behind me.’
  ‘But why?’
  He gave a cheery shrug.
  ‘Maybe they think I know something.’
  ‘And do you?’
  He gave another shrug, this one even more unconcerned than the last
  one.
  ‘Who knows? Maybe it’s something to do with why I came to Espero
  in the ﬁrst place.’
  ‘Which is...? Oh yes,’ Calamee cut him short. ‘You don’t know that
  either.’ She glanced down at the dead ﬂy, still in the palm of his hand. ‘But
  at least we’re getting somewhere. I expect that the Imperator’s now a bit
  confused and annoyed that he’s lost contact with his tracking device. It is
  dead, isn’t it?’
  ‘Well, it’s not working any more, if that’s what you mean.’ He sat back
  down and asked the waiter for the bill. Calamee rooted in her pocket for
  her credit card, fairly sure that the Doctor would have no money of his
  own. He was drumming his ﬁngers on the table in an incredibly fast and
  complicated paradiddle.
  ‘Considering how little we’ve got to go on,’ Calamee said, ‘it all ﬁts, I’ll
  give you tha-’
  ‘It ﬁts,’ interrupted the Doctor, ﬁxing her with his eyes. ‘Yes - that’s it.
  Fits.’
  ‘Eh?’
  He gripped the edge of the table with both hands and sprang to his
  feet. Nessus squealed and raced under the table to clamber up Calamee’s
  leg on to her lap. ‘Fits,’ he said again. ‘With a zed. Fitz’
  ‘Fits is spelled with an ess - or is it different where you’re from?’
  He shook his head vigorously.
  ‘No, Fitz. My friend Fitz - Fitz erm, erm... Fitz Kreiner.’ Calamee just
  stared.
  ‘I came to Espero with a friend. A man called Fitz.’ The Doctor gripped
  the edge of the table and bowed his head, shaking it slowly. ‘I really need
  to get a grip on this. Madame Xing brought back memories of my friends,
  Fitz and... and Trix. And I’ve only gone and forgotten them again.’ He
  looked up at her as he shook his head, and Calamee realised how tired
  and drained he looked. ‘This isn’t going to be easy. I need to ﬁnd them -
  make sure that they’re all right. Before I forget them again.’
  
  CHAPTER 8. ’WITH A ZED.’
  70
  ‘Well,’ said Calamee, suddenly realising how much hard work being
  with the Doctor involved, ‘if he’s stuck around you for more than a fort-
  night, he must be a very good friend. And at this rate, it’ll have taken us
  that long just to work out your name. Now come on - we’re getting some
  very strange looks.’
  ‘I think this is an Earth colony,’ Fitz said as they paused in front of a
  brightly lit shop window displaying assortments of cruciﬁxes and stat-
  ues and ﬁgurines of Jesus and Mary - and, Trix presumed, God. Without
  exception, their faces were brown or black, which - despite the probable
  historical accuracy (although she wasn’t so sure about God) - was quite
  surprising. It had never really occurred to her before that black people
  might be happier with black Jesuses and Marys and what-have-you.
  ‘Really?’ said Trix. ‘Because they look like us?’
  ‘Mainly. I know it’s a rather humanocentric view to assume that hu-
  manoids are all human, but there are too many of humanity’s trappings for
  it to be just a coincidence.’
  ‘Like?’
  ‘Like the people; like the buildings and their construction techniques.
  Their religion - although, granted, that could be an extremely unlikely co-
  incidence...’ He pointed at the window display. ‘And the writing.’
  ‘OK, Braniac, so we’re on an Earth colony. Any idea when?’
  ‘Sometime in the future, I imagine. Come on - what’s going on over
  there?’
  Fitz strode off, leaving Trix to pull another face at his back. She hoped
  he’d start acting normally soon: it was bad enough having the Doctor act-
  ing ditzy and absent-professorish without Fitz deciding to be his under-
  study. Trix wondered if he were doing it consciously, trying to make her
  feel reassured in the absence of the real thing. She wished he wouldn’t:
  she’d feel much more comfortable with the old Fitz - at least she knew
  where she was with him. Besides, she felt awkward enough around the
  real Doctor: an ersatz one was the last thing she needed right now.
  Trix caught up with him in a few seconds as he joined a crowd gathered
  around something or other. Standing on tiptoe, Trix could see a wooden
  trailer, painted dark green, at the centre of the crowd. It seemed like the
  kind of thing you’d see at a carnival: all twiddly bits on the top and hints
  of slightly parted curtains. And bars. There were deﬁnitely bars.
  ‘It looks like some sort of mobile cage,’ she said to Fitz. He looked at
  her.
  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ he said.
  
  CHAPTER 8. ’WITH A ZED.’
  71
  ‘If it’s “Roll up! Roll up! See the Doctor From Another World”, then
  yes.’
  She and Fitz excuse-me’d their way through the crowds - which, when
  they saw the two strangers pushing through their midst, were more than
  happy to move aside and let them to the front. Trix almost felt disap-
  pointed when they got there.
  The cage was, indeed, a trailer on four
  wheels. Standing in front of it was a tall, spindly man in a tatty yellow
  suit and a hat that looked as if it could have belonged to a pearly king,
  studded with little white gemstones. He was in the middle of some sort
  of spiel about the night breeding the darkest of things, but stopped short
  when his bright eyes alighted on Trix’s and Fitz’s faces. He gave a little
  nod and a broad smile before continuing.
  ‘We think we know this world,’ he said, his voice rich and sing-songy,
  like a Baptist preacher warning of hellﬁre and damnation. ‘But do we
  really? We travel out into the depths of space, like explorers setting out on
  the sea. We bring with us all the good -and the bad - in our hearts, and
  we set up a brand new home. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen. We think we
  know this world, this rock in space. We have surveyed it, studied it and
  stamped our mark on it. But how much do we really know, eh? We’ve
  occupied a fraction of the land on Espero, seen much, much less than that
  of what it has to offer.’ His voice dipped low, forcing them to struggle
  to hear his words. ‘But there is another side to this planet. A dark side,
  full of shadows, populated by things we were perhaps never meant to see’
  Trix gave a little sigh, but Fitz shushed her. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, no
  doubt you have heard the rumours - rumours of creatures that stalk the
  wilderness outside the city; creatures that creep into your homes at night
  and steal away your souls. Or worse.’ The crowd murmured. He knew
  his patter, thought Trix. I’ll give him that. ‘But until this moment, you may
  only have seen pictures of these creatures. You may have heard rumours,
  or scraps of rumours. Believe me, though: the truth that I, Deel, am about
  to show you is more horrible than you can imagine.’ Someone at the back
  heckled him, shouting: ‘You gonna take your clothes off, then, are you?’ A
  nervous ripple of laughter spread through the crowd, but he just grinned
  and stepped to one side, reaching for a gold braided cord that hung down
  the side of the curtained cage. ‘Ladies and gentlemen... you may wish to
  take a step back before I reveal what I have here.’ He paused for a moment
  until he realised that the crowd wished quite the reverse, and had actually
  shufﬂed forward slightly. His eyes swept over the front row, alighting on
  Trix and Fitz again, as he began to pull the cord. ‘I give you... the night
  beast!’ And with a ﬂourish, he jerked on the cord and the curtains swished
  apart.
  
  Chapter 9
  ‘Bugger its body language – look
  at the size of it.’
  As monsters went, thought Trix, it was rubbish. Really rubbish. A man in
  a monkey suit would have been more convincing.
  The creature hunkered down in the shadows, hardly moving, hardly
  being threatening at all.
  Trix wondered if her travels with the Doctor
  and Fitz had made her jaded to monsterdom, since the crowd around
  her cooed and ahhed, alternately stepping forwards for a better look, and
  backing away when the night beast rustled its straw.
  ‘Is that it?’ she whispered to Fitz, who shushed her.‘It’s a fake,’ she
  insisted wearily, scanning the crowd.
  ‘If it is,’ said Fitz, peering into the darkness of the wheeled cage, ‘then
  it’s a very poor effort.’
  ‘Exactly,’ said Trix, feeling exonerated. Fitz was shaking his head.
  ‘No no no, I mean if he was going to fake it, he’d do a better job than
  that, surely.’
  ‘Look around you Fitz,’ hissed Trix. ‘This isn’t exactly Hollywood. The
  special-effects bofﬁns around here probably don’t amount to much more
  than men with papier-mach masks and a couple of yards of fake fur.’
  ‘Still...’ Fitz took a step forward, and the beast in the cage adjusted
  itself. Trix saw the glimmer of light reﬂected in two tiny, dark eyes, like
  blobs of tar on a summer street. They were looking straight at her.
  Deel moved closer to the cage, Trix noticed, annoyance in his eyes:
  he’d clearly hoped that the creature would put up more of a show than
  this. He banged the bars with a long stick, eliciting nothing more than a
  low grumble from the night beast. At the sound of it, Trix felt her skin
  tighten - and realised that it was too similar to the noises they’d heard in
  the bushes earlier for it to be a coincidence.
  72
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  73
  ‘Fitz,’ she whispered to him. ‘That thing...’
  ‘I know, Trix.’ He waved his ﬁnger at her impatiently as Deel contin-
  ued.
  ‘The creature is saving its energies,’ he improvised loudly, ‘waiting for
  the right moment to attack.’
  No one was convinced. The crowd muttered its dissatisfaction, and
  Deel banged the bars again, resignedly. ‘No one should sleep soundly
  tonight,’ he warned, trying to make his voice as deep and threatening as
  he could. He just sounded desperate and hammy, thought Trix. ‘Who
  knows what deeds this monster’s fellows might be about?’
  ‘Writing a better script for him,’ Fitz suggested, but Trix was too busy
  trying to see into the darkened cage. ‘I don’t like this, Fitz,’ she said.
  ‘Come on, I want to go.’
  Fitz hmmed, but let Trix pull him back from the cage. As they edged
  their way back through the crowd, Trix realised that the two of them had
  become more of a draw than the creature itself. Deel’d have had a better
  crowd if he’d caged the two of them.
  ‘You hungry?’ asked Fitz as they reached the edge of the crowd.
  ‘How can you be hungry? Didn’t you hear that thing? Unless some-
  one’s gone to a lot of trouble with a tape recorder, that thing in the cage
  was the same as whatever chased us from the bushes. And I’d put money
  on it being the same thing that attacked you.’ She paused, realising what
  she was saying. ‘And probably the Doctor, too.’ She put her hand on his
  arm and then realised what she was doing and pulled it away. ‘Fitz, what
  if the Doctor was back there? What if one of those night beast things -
  maybe even that one - got you and the Doctor? What if he’s wandering
  around the countryside, injured? What if he’s dead, Fitz?’
  ‘Sorry to interrupt’
  A voice beside her made her jump, and she turned to see a small,
  bookish-looking man wearing glasses. He looked scared and apologetic.
  ‘Did I hear you say you were looking for a friend?’
  ‘Have you seen him?’
  The man smiled. ‘There was a man earlier this evening -’
  ‘What?’ interrupted Fitz loudly. ‘Here? Here?’
  ‘Calm down!’ said Trix. ‘Sorry about that,’ she apologised to the man.
  ‘He gets a bit excited. How long ago? Where did you see him? What did
  he look like?’
  ‘Can’t be more than an hour or so ago. He was in a bar around the
  corner.’ The man pointed. ‘With a young girl, a local. They had a meal
  and then left. He seemed very excited, too’ The man smiled at the memory
  and described someone who could only be the Doctor.
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  74
  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea where they went?’
  ‘Sorry.’ The man looked disappointed that he couldn’t help any more.
  ‘He’s alive!’ hissed Trix as the man walked away, glancing over his
  shoulder at them. ‘The Doctor’s alive - did you hear him?’
  ‘And well, apparently.’
  All Trix could think of, though, was that now she wouldn’t have to
  spend hours trying to ﬁnd a ship to take her back to Earth.
  Trove wasn’t used to things not working. He wasn’t used to malfunctions
  and mistakes. He particularly wasn’t used to his ﬂycams failing.
  Trove had high hopes for the Doctor: his instruments had picked up
  the arrival of his ship (although, curiously, he hadn’t actually been able to
  pinpoint where it had landed with any great accuracy), and after releasing
  half dozen or so of his precious ﬂycams, he’d witnessed the Doctor’s con-
  fused and stumbling arrival at the Palace. Tannalis had been irritatingly
  reluctant to have the Doctor imprisoned, pointing out that not only was
  it unconstitutional, but also immoral - but had eventually relented when
  Trove had pointed out that his incarceration was simply to buy time for
  Trove to recharge and program a ﬂycam to follow him. Grumbling, Tan-
  nalis had given the order. Trove had calibrated the ﬂycam and guided it
  into the Doctor’s room - where the offworlder had sat sullenly, mutter-
  ing to himself about someone called ‘R. D. Laing’ and open doors - and
  then sat back to watch the Doctor escape. Of course, Trove had realised, it
  was always possible that the Doctor would simply sit there until someone
  came to ‘question him’. But Trove prided himself on being a good judge
  of character, and this Doctor didn’t seem the sort of man to wait for fate to
  come to him.
  He was proved right. Within ten minutes of being left alone, the Doc-
  tor had stretched, stood up and casually strolled to the door. With the
  ﬂycam’s pattern recognition software fully trained and its battery topped
  up, Trove could just sit back and watch as the camera relayed every step of
  the offworlder’s escape from the Palace. Of course, he’d sent a couple of
  the Guard to chase him: Trove didn’t want the Doctor’s escape to appear
  too easy.
  And now Trove was kicking himself for assuming that the Doctor’s
  awareness and reactions were human-standard. They clearly weren’t: the
  last images transmitted from the ﬂycam had been of the Doctor, viewed
  from above, waving his hand around. The next moment there was a pale
  blur on the screen in front of him and the camera’s telemetry went dead.
  It was, of course, possible that some other native animal or insect had
  spotted the cam and decided that it would make a tasty snack, but the
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  75
  devices emitted a high frequency sonic pulse as well as an electromagnetic
  ﬁeld that, usually, would be enough to deter most casual predators.
  He sat back and folded his arms, listening to the sounds of the builders
  and engineers in the courtyard constructing the stage. Trove hoped that
  his mission here would be completed before then: with the offer that he’d
  made to the Imperator, he was quietly conﬁdent that no effort would be
  spared to help him ﬁnd his prize.
  ‘Farine!’ hissed Sensimi, stepping out of the shadows and making her
  maid jump. She almost dropped the big, covered basket of dirty washing
  that she carried. When Farine saw it was only Sensimi, she took a deep
  breath, on the point of telling the princess not to do that again. But of
  course she didn’t. Nerves and tempers were as frayed as ever around
  the Palace at the moment, and the last thing Farine wanted was to lose
  her job. She quite liked Sensimi - well, compared to her family she was an
  angel - but was under no illusions about the brittleness of the girl’s temper.
  She saw that Looloo was balanced precariously on Sensimi’s hip, her tiara
  tilted at a silly angle over her eyes. The mokey reached out a grasping little
  paw towards Farine’s basket, almost losing her balance in the process.
  ‘Have you got everything?’ asked Sensimi. Farine nodded.
  ‘I think so. Your Highness, this is getting riskier - I was nearly caught
  by the Imperatrix.’
  ‘Yes, yes.’ Sensimi waved away Farine’s concerns dismissively. She
  pulled back the cover on the basket and checked that the clothing she’d
  asked Farine to get from Alinti and Javill’s rooms was there. ‘Come on.’
  She pushed past Farine, who sighed miserably, and headed for the
  door to the cellars. Farine really wasn’t happy about any of this.
  The crowds of vaguely disappointed onlookers had drifted away, and Deel
  had closed the curtains on the night beast. Once he felt sure that no one
  would come and start poking at it, he slipped away for a quiet drink and
  something to eat - he wouldn’t be gone for more than half an hour, and
  the creature, damn its hairy backside, seemed peaceable enough. Deel
  wondered if he shouldn’t just take the trailer out into the countryside and
  let the thing go - if it was going to be as unfrightening as it had been
  tonight, it would end up costing Deel money, never mind making it. He
  had to feed the thing, after all. Maybe he should try not feeding it: that
  might liven it up a bit.
  With a ﬁnal check that it was asleep, he let the curtains swing back,
  made sure that there was no one suspicious around, and headed for the
  nearest bar. Even though the night beast had put on a show that would
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  76
  hardly terrify a small child tonight, he knew that the thing’s sheer size -
  and the reputation that it had generated -would keep most nosy gits away.
  And Deel was right: the few people that spotted the trailer kept well
  clear of it. One or two lads, full of bravado and booze, came close. One
  even gave the bars an experimental rattle - but when the creature shifted
  around in its sleep, he soon ran.
  So, soon, the night beast was left alone in the shadow of an ofﬁce build-
  ing. For a few minutes, nothing happened, but then the curtain twitched
  experimentally. Quietly and more gently than Deel would have imag-
  ined, the creature reached through the bars and pushed it aside. Its glossy
  eyes scanned the street. And then, with surprising delicateness, it reached
  through the walls of its prison and began experimenting with the heavy
  padlock and chains that kept it there.
  The wine and beer ﬂowed freely in The Whore of Babylon - especially once
  the Doctor magically produced a credit chip which, to even his amaze-
  ment, was accepted at the bar. Calamee moderated her drinking: she still
  didn’t really know the Doctor, and despite the fact that he was entertain-
  ing (if occasionally frustrating) company, she thought it was wise to keep
  her head. The Doctor had prevailed upon her, with much ﬁnger wagging
  and raising of eyebrows, to call her parents. She’d got through to Sierah,
  her house-mother, who’d been less than impressed by Calamee’s explana-
  tion of how she’d lost her parents in one of the arcades, and almost openly
  disbelieving of Calamee’s assertion that she was spending the evening at
  the house of her friend, Craich. But Sierah could do little - particularly as
  Calamee’s phone somehow managed to develop a fault halfway through
  the conversation and stopped receiving calls.
  Calamee returned from the corridor to ﬁnd the Doctor scratching his
  head and being roundly beaten in a game of cards by one of the bar’s
  customers.
  In the hours that she’d spent with him, Calamee had been unable to
  forget quite how different the Doctor was from the rest of the Esperons,
  and not only because of his skin colour. He had a lightness, a casual dis-
  regard for formality and propriety that was at the same time dangerous
  and refreshing. She wondered whether it was something about the slog
  of life on Espero that had turned everyone here into tired, resigned peo-
  ple, or whether it was they who were normal, typical of humanity across
  the galaxy, and the Doctor who was the weird one. Life wasn’t so bad on
  Espero, Calamee knew - particularly for her. Mother and Father were ed-
  ucated, rich - at least by Espero standards. They’d purchased her the best
  education they could, paid for the most advanced edprogs to be shipped
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  77
  in for her. They’d bought Nessus for her (who was currently sleeping in a
  pool of beer at the end of the bar: he’d need a bath before she could take
  him home) and they’d furnished her with a beautiful home and beautiful
  friends. Her life, compared to that of many on Espero, was idyllic. She’d
  once travelled to Advent,a neighbouring city-nation, on a school trip, and
  had been appalled at how basic and primitive everything seemed, how
  weary the people looked, how full of resentment they’d appeared. And
  now Calamee wondered how the Esperons must seem to the Doctor. How
  much had he experienced? What wonders and peoples and technology
  had he seen? And how could somewhere as dull as Espero light up his
  eyes as it seemed to be doing now?
  Calamee was broken from her reverie by a scream of laughter from a
  fat woman, about her mother’s age, standing at the Doctor’s side. She
  watched as she linked her arm through the Doctor’s, pressed her face
  against his sleeve and looked up at him. She had too much make-up on,
  and it didn’t take Calamee long to work out what was going on there,
  surprising herself at how possessive of the Doctor she suddenly felt. The
  name of the bar seemed sourly ironic.
  It had been an hour since they’d left the restaurant, and despite the
  Doctor’s newfound realisation that he’d been set free from the Palace in
  order for the ﬂy camera to follow him, it seemed that it was the last thing
  on his mind right now.
  Gently, he extricated himself from the woman’s grasp with an unself-
  consciousness that was quite endearing. For a moment, as she watched
  him order up another round of drinks at the bar with his magic credit
  chip, he really and truly seemed alien.
  Just as Trix was trying to work out how she and Fitz would pay for their
  meal - or how they’d manage to get away without paying - she noticed that
  the other diners were all turning their heads towards the street at the end
  of the alley. She could hear raised voices, shouts. A couple of people stood
  up and stepped out on to the pavement to see what was happening.
  ‘Fitz!’ she hissed as he shovelled another mouthful of a rather pungent
  ﬁsh stew into his mouth. ‘This is our chance.’
  ‘Hmph?’
  She jerked her head in the direction of the street.
  ‘There’s something going on - look, people are getting up to have a
  nosy. We’ve come looking for the Doctor and he’s not here; you’ve stuffed
  yourself silly, and we still need to ﬁnd him. So unless you’ve magically
  discovered a pocketful of local coins, it might be a good chance for us to
  do a runner.’
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  78
  He pulled a pained, patient expression.
  ‘Well have you any better ideas?’ Neither of them had thought to check
  the TARDIS to see whether there were any bags of gold or diamonds that
  they could bring with them to pay for anything. Trix had an assortment
  of coins in her pocket and half a dozen credit cards in different names, but
  nothing that she thought would be accepted here. It never seemed to be a
  problem when they were with the Doctor. But now they were cast adrift,
  mundane things like that seemed painfully complicated.
  Fitz opened his mouth, probably to argue with her, but a sudden wave
  of shouting from the street cut him off. Another three or four people got
  up from their seats to see what the fuss was all about, and Trix grabbed
  her bag.
  ‘Come on - make it look like you’re interested in what’s going on.’
  She stood, keeping her spoon deliberately in her hand, trying to look
  as curious as she could. Get yourself into the role, she thought. You really
  are interested in what’s going on out there. Which, she considered as she
  and Fitz stepped out on to the pavement, wasn’t that far from the truth.
  At the T-junction at the end of the street, quite a crowd had gathered,
  but Trix could see from the way they were standing that something was
  amiss: they were holding themselves tensely, as if expecting to have to run
  at any minute. A couple of them took hesitant steps backwards, bumping
  into those behind them, also eager to see what was going on. Without
  glancing back at the restaurant, Trix slipped out into the growing crowds,
  hoping that Fitz was behind her. She craned her head from side to side -
  when, suddenly, the clot of people at the end of the street started moving.
  It reminded her of ﬁlms of Pamplona, maddened bulls rushing through
  the streets, people suddenly abandoning their bravado when faced with a
  ton of angry muscle.
  Trix pushed her way through against the ﬂow, and glanced back brieﬂy
  to see Fitz strolling nonchalantly towards her.
  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked an elderly woman at her side, who was
  grasping an oversized handbag like a talisman. The woman started, obvi-
  ously surprised at Trix’s sudden appearance.
  ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered, keeping her eyes on Trix as if she expected
  to be mugged by her at any moment. ‘Some sort of fuss.’
  Helpful, thought Trix. She could have worked that out for herself.
  Suddenly, the crowd around her surged backwards, almost knocking
  her over. The elderly woman caught her elbow, steadied her, as the mass
  of people carried on moving. She heard shouts and cries - and even a
  scream. And then, all of a sudden, she was at the front of the crowd.
  Standing at the centre of a wide circle of people brandishing sticks,
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  79
  pieces of chairs and railings, was Deel’s pet - the night beast.
  Fitz’s composure in the face of the creature was remarkable - and a lit-
  tle bit disturbing. He hadn’t quite been himself since Trix had found him
  unconscious, and this stand-off made her wonder whether he hadn’t suf-
  fered some quite severe brain damage. Not that Fitz was a coward. Not
  usually. But his sense of self-preservation was usually pretty good. So to
  see him standing his ground against the night beast was, to say the least,
  worrying.
  As they’d watched the night beast - and although they hadn’t had a
  good look at whatever had been in Deel’s cage, the low grumble that is-
  sued from the thing in front of them left Trix in little doubt that it was
  the same species, if not the same individual - Fitz had started tufting and
  clicking at it, like you might do with a cat or dog, trying to get its attention.
  It had turned slowly towards him, rotating at the waist in a most unnatu-
  ral manner, and had proceeded to enter what looked like a staring contest
  with Fitz.
  ‘Just leave it, Fitz,’ Trix said quietly. He’s not worth it, she added in her
  head.
  ‘Look at it, Trix,’ he answered, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘Look at its
  body language.’
  ‘Bugger its body language - look at the size of it.’
  ‘I don’t think it wants to hurt me.’
  ‘Have you forgotten what happened to you and the Doctor?’
  As Trix found herself in the front row, Fitz squeezed in beside her, say-
  ing nothing, and she felt her stomach lurch as he proceeded to take a con-
  ﬁdent step forwards and thrust his hands in his pockets. The creature
  tipped its head on one side, straightened up, and then leaned forwards
  slightly - the creature’s equivalent of sticking its neck out, imagined Trix,
  as she realised that she’d been sheltering behind Fitz. Not something she’d
  normally consider doing. It was at least seven feet tall, and much more im-
  posing than the shadowed glimpses they’d got from the cage would have
  suggested. Its head was low and sloped straight down to its shoulders,
  with no hint of neck. Huge, muscly arms - the kind, thought Trix, that you
  saw on men who were constantly accompanied by vests and gym bags
  - gave the night beast an ungainly, top-heavy appearance, further com-
  pounded by the slim waist. But then its body fanned out again, with vast,
  sinewy thighs and broad feet with widely splayed toes. The whole thing
  was covered in what, at ﬁrst sight, looked like bluish-black hair, but on fur-
  ther examination more resembled ﬁne, straight pieces of wire. Its mouth
  was comically small, just a tiny ‘o’ in the middle of its face; there were no
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  80
  signs of nostrils, and its eyes were piggy and wetly black.
  ‘It’s snifﬁng me,’ Fitz whispered. ‘Look.’
  The creature did, indeed, appear to be snifﬁng, despite its lack of a
  nose: although whether it was exploring Fitz’s own smell, or just the swirl
  of fear-generated pheromones in the night air, she wasn’t sure. A young
  man behind the creature decide to chance it, hoping to get a blow in while
  the thing seemed occupied, and ran forward with a chair from some bar
  or restaurant raised over his head. But it was as if the creature had eyes
  in the back of its head: without turning, it simply swung its hamlike arm
  backwards - to a degree that Trix didn’t think was physically possible - and
  swiped the man and his chair back into the crowd. The circle of people
  took a couple of wary steps back.
  ‘Did you see that?’ Fitz said in wonderment. ‘The degree of rotation in
  that shoulder joint.’
  ‘Just what I was thinking,’ Trix said drily. ‘Now get back here before it
  does the same thing to you.’
  But Fitz just took another step forwards.
  ‘Can you understand me?’ he asked the night beast, just loudly enough
  for Trix to hear. There was a mutter from the crowd. The creature straight-
  ened up, and - Trix could have sworn - its eyes darted around the swarms
  of people that watched it, as if weighing up whether to answer Fitz. Trix
  wondered just how long the mob would give the creature before they over-
  came their fear and piled on to it. Its casual demolition of the man with the
  chair had made them think twice, despite its apparently calm state now,
  but she feared that if Fitz carried on his Doctor Dolittle act and the thing
  stayed quiet, the crowd might get a bit braver. She scanned the faces at
  the front of the crowd - almost all men - young, angry men, some armed
  with bits of wood or bottles. Behind them were the slightly more timid -
  or cautious - ones, who still wanted to feel like they were in on the action.
  There was something sweaty and ugly about a mob like this, and despite
  the warm evening air, she felt a chill stroke her skin as she looked at them.
  One face stood out to Trix - a young woman wearing a big coat despite the
  weather, and a large, ﬂoppy hat a bit like a beret. But it wasn’t so much
  that she was a woman that caught Trix’s attention, nor the fact that she
  seemed unseasonably dressed (although that, in itself, was odd). It was
  the expression on the woman’s face that was curious. Her eyes were nar-
  row and intense, and they darted from the creature to Fitz and then back
  again, as if assessing their relationship. The woman watched as Fitz took
  another step towards the creature, pulled his hands out of his pockets,
  and slowly raised a palm to the creature. There was still a gap of a yard
  between them, and a gentle murmur spread through the crowd. Again,
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  81
  the night beast leaned forward to sniff. And again, someone decided to
  try to sneak up on the creature. But Fitz spotted him.
  ‘No!’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t!’
  The man was pulled up short by Fitz’s imperious tone, and looked to
  his friends for support. But they shook their heads and the man reluctantly
  lowered the bottle he held. The creature twitched slightly, as if responding
  to the attacker’s change of mind, and took a step forward, towering over
  Fitz. Gently, it leaned down and sniffed at his palm. The creature raised
  its head until it was level with Fitz’s and stared into his face.
  Out of the corner of her eye, Trix saw the woman in the crowd moving
  around to get a better view, pushing her way through. Her gaze shifted
  around the crowd, and ﬁxed on Trix’s for a few moments before looking
  guiltily away.
  Trix wasn’t sure what was going to happen now: Fitz and the crea-
  ture seemed to be involved in some sort of bizarre love-in, and the crowd
  around them looked like they weren’t going to stand there for much longer
  without doing something. There was a nasty, sour tension in the air, and
  Trix wished that Fitz would just walk away. But she knew that if he did,
  the crowd would be on the creature in an instant. They’d seen that it
  wasn’t the violent, unreasoning slaughter-machine that they’d originally
  thought, and Trix knew that that would ﬁre them up, ﬁll them with the
  conﬁdence to pile on to it.
  And even with magic swivelling shoulder
  joints, it wouldn’t be able to withstand such a mass attack.
  The silence was shattered by a shout from somewhere behind her: ‘The
  police are on their way!’ someone called out, and a half-hearted cheer
  went up. Trix heard the harsh music of breaking glass and knew what it
  was a prelude to.
  The spell was broken. As if the night beast had understood the words,
  it took a sudden step back from Fitz, raising its massive arms from its
  sides.
  It looked around at the harsh, angry, frightened faces that sur-
  rounded it, and a low, thunderous rumble issued from its mouth.
  ‘It’s a warning,’ said Fitz, not moving an inch. His eyes swept the
  crowd, as if trying to hold them back by force of will alone. But it wasn’t
  enough. Trix didn’t see who started it, but suddenly the whole crowd
  was surging forwards, a mad beast - madder, by far, than the creature that
  stood in their midst.
  ‘Leave it alone!’ Trix suddenly found herself shouting as she grabbed
  at Fitz’s arm. ‘Just leave it!’
  ‘Get lost, alien,’ someone shouted - a woman’s voice, somewhere at the
  back of the crowd.
  ‘Yeah,’ someone else chimed in. ‘Piss off, alien!’
  
  CHAPTER 9. ’BUGGER IT’S BODY LANGUAGE...’
  82
  An elbow struck Trix’s upper arm and she yelped, pulling herself closer
  to Fitz as the mob swirled around her, jostling them, pushing them, but
  never quite hitting them. It was as if the crowd, now absolved of any
  individual responsibility, was toying with them - showing them its power,
  showing them just how much it could hurt if it wanted to. Trix didn’t
  know whether the display was for them or the night beast. Probably both.
  ‘This creature’s done no har-’ Fitz broke off with a pained oof! as some-
  one pushed him viciously in the stomach. He staggered back, but only by
  a pace, colliding with another part of the mob. Angry hands pushed him
  back and he stumbled against Trix. She could hear mutters and shouts
  of ‘Aliens!’ And worse. She gripped her bag to her chest like a comfort
  blanket.
  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ she whispered, her voice sounding un-
  naturally thin and stretched. Fitz nodded, turning his head this way and
  that, looking for some way out. And it was only when Trix heard the crea-
  ture bellow and the crowd begin to shout and scream that she knew that
  the people’s fury had found its target.
  Suddenly, Trix felt a hand grab hers, and she was pulled away from
  the centre of the storm, dragging Fitz in her wake. She couldn’t see who
  it was, jostled and bumped by the bodies around her as she was. She felt
  resistance in Fitz’s arm, and knew that he didn’t want to leave the creature
  there; knew that, however many people the creature managed to throw
  off or to kill, there would be others, piling in with sticks and knives and
  bottles. If they tried to help it, she knew too, there would be more than
  one body lying there in the morning. In spite of the fact that this could be
  the very creature that had attacked Fitz and the Doctor, Trix had never felt
  so cowardly, so ashamed. So shit. She let herself be half led, half dragged
  from the crowd, wishing she’d never set foot on this vile planet.
  
  Chapter 10
  ‘Should you be out on your own
  at this time of night?’
  It took a few moments for Trix to realise that the person dragging her away
  was the woman with the coat and the beret. She didn’t look round as she
  kept a ﬁrm hold on Trix’s hand, and soon they’d reached the edges of the
  mob. Most of the people were heading the other way, towards the creature,
  and the two of them drew many looks - most just curious, but one or two
  openly hostile.
  In the distance, Trix heard the sound of something like a steel band
  start up, carnival spirit juxtaposed uncomfortably with the threat of mob
  violence. She didn’t look back at the people heading towards the night
  beast: most of them didn’t actually know what was going on - but, like
  people across the centuries, they were sickeningly attracted to a crowd
  that promised a ﬁght. Suddenly, Trix found her hand being grabbed again,
  and she was tugged around a corner into a shadowed doorway. She still
  had a ﬁrm grip on Fitz.
  The woman let go again and turned to face her. In the dark, it was hard
  to see much of her expression, but she acted strangely nervous - yet with a
  surprising arrogance, her chin jutting out as she looked Trix up and down.
  ‘Thanks,’ Trix said.
  ‘Although running out on that poor creature seemed a bit ungallant,’
  added Fitz.
  ‘For what it’s worth,’ said Trix to him, ‘I didn’t like what they were
  doing to it either. But it could just as easily have been us in there.’
  Fitz said nothing, and then suddenly seemed to remember that there
  was a third person with them.
  ‘I’m Fitz,’ he said with forced brightness. ‘And this is Trix. Trixie Trou-
  ble, we like to call her -’
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  CHAPTER 10. ’SHOULD YOU BE OUT...?’
  84
  ‘We do not!’ said Trix indignantly.
  ‘Not to her face, anyway,’ ﬁnished Fitz in a low voice, as if she wasn’t
  there.
  The woman just looked at them, her features hard and somewhat su-
  percilious, Trix thought, now that her eyes were getting used to the dark-
  ness. Like almost everyone else she’d seen, the girl was black, although
  Trix felt she could see a hint of Maori ancestry in the shape of the eyes and
  the nose. No more than seventeen or eighteen, Trix thought.
  ‘I’m Farine,’ the woman said without preamble. ‘What do you know
  about those creatures, the night beasts?’
  Straight to the point, at any rate, thought Trix.
  ‘Well they’re clearly intelligent,’ said Fitz.
  ‘Whoah, Sherlock,’ said Trix sharply. ‘There’s no “clearly” about it at
  all. It sniffed your hand. A dog can do that.’
  ‘Yes, but didn’t you see the look in its eyes when I spoke to it?’
  ‘Some of us had the sense to be too far away from it for that.’
  ‘So they’re clever?’ Farine said, concentrating on Fitz and ignoring Trix.
  ‘That’s a surprise?’ asked Fitz.
  Farine just shrugged. ‘The others haven’t done anything clever that I
  know of,’ she said. ‘Can they be trained?’
  ‘What others?’ interjected Trix. ‘Trained? To do what? Sit up and beg?’
  ‘Trix, Trix,’ Fitz shushed her, and turned his attention back to Farine.
  Trix felt her teeth grating together. If Fitz thought she was going to let
  herself be put down, just so he could score Brownie points with this hard-
  faced little madam...
  ‘And what’s with everyone around here, anyway?’ she asked, ignoring
  him. ‘Since when were we the bad guys? I got the impression that the
  word “alien” around here is on a level with motherf-’
  ‘What?’ Farine cut in suddenly, as if she wasn’t really listening but was
  annoyed at the fact that Trix was saying anything at all.
  ‘They were rather hostile,’ Fitz agreed. ‘Is it because we’re aliens?’
  ‘ “Offworlders” is the proper term,’ said Farine, her face betraying her
  distaste as she continued: ‘ “Aliens” is... well... not a nice word to use.’
  ‘So is that why they were so unpleasant? Because we’re “offworlders”?’
  said Trix.
  ‘Partly,’ said Farine, clearly embarrassed by all of this. ‘And partly
  because you seemed to be talking to the creature. And...’ She looked from
  one of them to the other, discomfort all over her face. ‘And partly because
  you’re white.’
  ‘Oh, excuse me,’ said Trix heavily. ‘I’m sure I’ve got some boot-polish
  in my bag here. I’ll just black-up, shall I?’
  
  CHAPTER 10. ’SHOULD YOU BE OUT...?’
  85
  ‘Trix!’
  ‘Well, it’s all so bloody daft!’ Trix felt tired and exasperated. ‘We’re
  somewhere in the future, and we’re having to face the kind of thing that
  we thought they were just growing out of back on Earth.’
  ‘You’re from Earth?’ asked Farine, her eyes widening. There was a
  childishness to Farine, thought Trix, that she didn’t care for - not the sweet
  innocence of youth, but a brusque charmlessness.
  ‘Originally,’ replied Fitz, twinkling an irritatingly disarming smile at
  the girl. ‘But we’ve been about a bit since then. Where are we, exactly?’
  Farine looked from one to the other, clearly amazed that they didn’t
  even know what planet they were on.
  ‘The planet’s Espero and this state and city are Saiarossa.’
  ‘And how old is the colony?’
  ‘Espero was founded two hundred and seventy-seven years ago,’ an-
  swered Farine, her voice tired and on the edge of whiney, ‘and by almost
  all brown colonists. That’s why they’re a bit funny about... you know.’
  ‘Understandable, really,’ said Fitz with a painfully reasonable nod. ‘If
  a little bit sad. But you don’t break down cultural barriers by segregation,
  do you?’
  ‘Well maybe not, Dr King,’ said Trix, ﬁghting down the urge to slap
  him, ‘but we’re here now and unless you have a dream for these people, I
  don’t think the two of us are going to do much to bring the walls tumbling
  down.’ She sighed and turned back to Farine. ‘Look, I’m sorry if our pres-
  ence here upsets or offends you. It’s not even as if we’re here by choice.
  We’ve lost a friend of ours and we were just -’
  ‘Did the creature understand you?’ Farine said suddenly to Fitz, as if
  Trix had vanished.
  ‘Oi!’ she said. ‘Excuse me! I am still here you know.’
  ‘I know,’ replied Farine with what Trix imagined was intended to be
  heavy sarcasm. Instead, it just came across as petulance, and Trix began to
  amend her estimation of how old the girl was. Downwards.
  ‘I think it did,’ Fitz said. ‘But obviously I can’t be certain. I’d need to
  see one again, in less trying circumstances.’
  ‘Through electriﬁed bars would be good,’ Trix muttered, looking round.
  She could still hear the sounds of the crowd, roaring and chanting and
  shouting. And above it all, the incessant jangling from the carnival band.
  ‘We’ve got to go,’ said Farine to Fitz; whether she meant Trix, too, was
  a moot point. He glanced at Trix with an ‘oh, what the hell!’ look.
  It was only then that Trix saw, standing across the narrow street, a small
  ﬁgure. Like they were, it seemed to be sheltering in a doorway, cloaked in
  shadow. But it was clear that it was just a child.
  
  CHAPTER 10. ’SHOULD YOU BE OUT...?’
  86
  ‘Hang on,’ she pointedly said to Fitz alone. ‘Back in a sec.’
  Checking that no one was watching - and glad to be away from the two
  of them for a few moments - she darted across the road.
  It was a boy: a small boy, probably not much more than nine or ten
  years old. He wore a big, loose jacket and his hands hung limply by his
  side. In the weak ochre light that found its way down the street, she could
  see that he was staring at her in a curiously blank way.
  ‘Should you be out on your own at this time of night?’ Trix asked,
  crouching down by his side. She didn’t normally ’do kids’, but she re-
  membered rather enjoying telling Cinderella to the two princes recently,
  and anyway it got her away from Farine and Fitz for a moment. She won-
  dered if the boy’d got separated from his parents in all the fuss over the
  night beast. It suddenly occurred to her that whoever the boy had been
  with might even have been attacked by the creature, or crushed by the
  mob. The boy nodded solemnly, his eyes ﬁxed on hers.
  ‘Where’s your mum, or your dad?’ She looked around. ‘Are they here?’
  The boy shook his head slowly.
  ‘You’re out on your own? In all this?’
  He just looked at her.
  ‘What’s your name? I’m Trix.’
  ‘Reo,’ said the boy. ‘Reo’
  Trix paused, wondering what she was supposed to do now. If she took
  him under her wing, she’d actually have to do something with him. Find
  his parents, his home. She thought of Anji and Chloe, and wondered what
  the two of them were doing now.
  ‘Where do you live?’
  He hesitated a moment, and then lifted one small hand and pointed.
  That was useful.
  ‘I think I should take you to a police station or something,’ Trix said.
  ‘They’d know what to do with you - ﬁnd your mum and dad. Shall we do
  that? You going to come with us, then?’
  But Reo just stared at her.
  ‘Are you with the soldier?’ he asked after a pause. Trix frowned. ‘The
  soldier?’
  ‘The creature that your friend was talking to.’
  ‘It’s a soldier, is it?’ Trix realised she was sounding a bit patronising,
  doing that ‘talking to kids’ voice that she so hated when she heard other
  people doing it. She tried to sound a bit more like she was addressing an
  adult. Kids liked that. ‘Well, yeah, maybe it is a soldier. But my friend
  wasn’t really talking to it. The creature was just snifﬁng him, you know,
  the way animals do sometimes.’
  
  CHAPTER 10. ’SHOULD YOU BE OUT...?’
  87
  ‘D’you know where it came from?’
  ‘The creature?’ Trix shook her head. ‘Do you?’
  The boy looked her straight in the eye and with utter conviction said,
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘Well you’re cleverer than we are, Reo. D’you want to come and meet
  my friend Fitz? You can tell him about the soldier and where it lives.’
  Reo glanced over her shoulder.
  ‘I can’t,’ he said.
  ‘Why not?’
  ‘He’s not there any more.’
  Trix turned sharply to look. And, of course, Reo was right. Fitz and
  Farine had gone.
  ***
  Out in the middle of nowhere, Ake sat on the grass and stared at his ﬁn-
  gers. They were normal again. Well, not quite normal, he knew. But they
  looked like they’d done before his encounter with the wave. He peered
  into the distance in the dark. The wave had moved on, spreading out, con-
  suming and converting as it went. The air sparkled and tingled as though
  swarming with a multitude of tiny ﬁreﬂies: the energy released from the
  conversion process, he knew distantly, unconcerned. He dosed his eyes
  and let himself be mentally subsumed, feeling the echoes of sadness and
  regret that had swamped him as the wave had rebuilt him.
  Unfortunate though it was, Ake thought slowly, it would not be long
  now until everyone and everything on Espero had been converted. He felt
  his eyes prick with tears, tears that weren’t his own.
  
  Chapter 11
  ‘You’re not planning on killing
  me too, are you?’
  ‘Stay here,’ said Trix to Reo, and cautiously went to the corner of the street,
  peering around it into the square to see if Fitz and Farine had gone back
  the way they’d come. But there was no sign of them. And as far as she
  could see down the narrow sidestreet, there was no one at all.
  ‘Did you see where they went?’
  she asked Reo.
  He nodded, and
  pointed down the street into the darkness.
  ‘Come on then - we might still be able to ﬁnd them if we hurry.’ Trix
  stood up and started off, only to glance back and see that Reo wasn’t fol-
  lowing.
  ‘Come on Reo,’ she said. ‘We have to ﬁnd them.’
  ‘Why?’
  ‘Eh? Because Fitz is my friend, and if I don’t ﬁnd him, I’ll be stuck here
  on this planet.’
  Reo just stared up at her with his big brown eyes. She sighed. She
  couldn’t just leave him, could she? Could she? Maybe she could: it wasn’t
  as if she knew enough about this place to be much of a guardian. But
  he was just a little boy, and considering the violence that she’d witnessed
  earlier, and the night beasts, how could she just leave him?
  Trix felt a sudden sense of irritation at the boy’s intrusion, and an ever
  greater sense of shame at her irritation. She thought of Anji again. Damn.
  ‘Don’t you have any friends?’ she asked, trying a different tack. ‘You’d
  want to ﬁnd them, wouldn’t you, if you lost them?’
  ‘Not if they ran away from me like yours did,’ he answered without a
  hint of malice.
  Good point. She opened her mouth to say something clever and adult
  and sensible, but Reo cut in.
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  CHAPTER 11. ’YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON...?’
  89
  ‘I’ve lost something,’ he said, his gamin little face looking up at her.
  ‘What?’
  There was an almost imperceptible pause. ‘A toy.’
  Great, thought Trix. She was about to get emotionally blackmailed into
  ﬁnding a hula hoop.
  ‘We can get you a new one,’ she said. ‘A better one!’ This parent stuff
  was easy, she thought - although not a role she’d ever want to play perma-
  nently.
  ‘Not better than this.’
  ‘I’m sure we can.’
  Reo stared up at her, his mouth set in a thin, determined line. He wasn’t
  going to start crying, was he? God, don’t let him start crying.
  ‘This is a very special toy,’ he said with almost comic solemnity.
  ’Did your mummy and daddy buy it for you?’ Trix was getting tired
  of this now. Every second that Reo kept her here was a few more yards’
  distance between her and Fitz.
  ‘No, but it’s very special. Very valuable.’
  It was almost as if the child knew which of Trix’s buttons to press.
  Granted, the concept of ‘valuable’ to a ten-year-old might amount to noth-
  ing more than, ‘Mummy said if I lose it she wouldn’t buy me another’, but
  there was something knowing, almost calculating, in the way he said it.
  Before she knew what she was doing, Trix had asked him how valuable.
  ‘Probably the most valuable thing on this planet,’ he answered with
  barely a pause, his innocent, guileless expression unchanging. What kind
  of a child talks like that?
  ‘Go on then,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Maybe I can spare
  you a little time to get it back.’
  Despite Farine’s repeated protestations that she was ‘just behind them’,
  or that ‘she’ll catch us up in a minute’, Trix wasn’t just behind them, and
  didn’t catch them up. Only when it was patently clear that they’d lost
  her did Fitz start to worry. What worried him more, ironically, was the
  fact that he hadn’t worried much before that. He tried to blame it on his
  amnesia, but that didn’t make him feel better. Trix had been surprisingly
  patient and good-natured - for Trix, at any rate - since she’d found him,
  bathed him and dragged him into the city in search of the Doctor, and
  to have abandoned her now seemed the height of rudeness. Of course,
  he could always blame it on Farine, since she seemed to have been lying
  to him shamelessly about Trix’s whereabouts, but he sensed, beyond the
  curt, selﬁsh faade, a shadow of fear or anxiety in the girl.
  
  CHAPTER 11. ’YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON...?’
  90
  ‘Since you’ve managed to shake Trix off so well,’ he said heavily, refus-
  ing to give in to her pulling hand, ‘now might be a good time to tell me
  why you’re so interested in us. And me in particular. I don’t think it’s Mr
  Ego talking, but Trix isn’t the one you’re interested in, is she?’
  ‘Please,’ Famine said, a nasty little whine creeping into her voice, like
  a child sensing the imminent refusal of a long-planned trip to Disneyland.
  ‘I’ll tell you everything - just not here.’
  Fitz looked around: they were in yet another of Saiarossa’s innumer-
  able little squares. At the centre, a waterless fountain squatted sullenly;
  two old women, their arms folded resolutely, sat against it, swathed in
  black like extrusions of the shadows around them, and stared, saying
  nothing. Fitz could hear the sound of revellers, just a few streets away,
  but that simple distance lent them an unreachable, other-worldly aspect.
  A cat slunk past the women’s legs, unheeded.
  ‘No,’ said Fitz. ‘Tell me now, or I’m going straight back to look for Trix.’
  He set his hands on his hips, realised how camp it probably made him
  look, and folded them instead. Until he caught sight of the women clutch-
  ing their own bosoms, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
  Farine’s shoulders fell, a parody of a spoiled and sulky child.
  ‘All right,’ she said gracelessly. She reached up and pulled the beret
  away with an almost comic ﬂourish, revealing tightly braided black hair,
  wrapped up in a ﬁne, silvery coronet, a ﬁligreed circle that looked like half
  a skull-cap.
  She stared at Fitz with a ‘Well?’ look.
  ‘Well?’ said Fitz obligingly.
  ‘It’s me,’ she said.
  ‘Hello you.’
  Fitz would have found it hard to believe that her shoulders could have
  dropped any further, but they did.
  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Am I supposed to know you?’
  Farine paused and screwed up her face unpleasantly.
  ‘The Imperial Princess,’ she said with a hint of expectation. When noth-
  ing was forthcoming from Fitz, she added: ‘Princess Sensimi?’
  ‘Never heard of her,’ Fitz said.
  ‘It’s me!’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Princess Sensimi!’
  ‘Ah!’ said Fitz in mock realisation. ‘Princess Sensimi!’
  She gave a relieved little sigh.
  ‘Never heard of you,’ said Fitz.
  ‘What? Where are you people from?’
  ‘We have only just arrived,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s been a bit hectic’
  ‘Well, I’m Princess Sensimi anyway.’
  
  CHAPTER 11. ’YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON...?’
  91
  ‘A real live princess,’ said Fitz after a moment, trying to inject just
  the right amount of awe into his voice, hoping that it would mollify her.
  She seemed to cheer up. ‘Although,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘most of the
  princesses I meet end up trying to kill me.’
  Sensimi’s face suddenly looked shifty and her eyes slipped away from
  him.
  ‘You’re not planning on killing me too, are you?’ asked Fitz. ‘Only it
  doesn’t do much for the reputation of your lot if every one I meet has it in
  for me.’
  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t try to kill you.’
  Fitz ﬂashed a smile at her. He wasn’t convinced.
  ‘That’s good to hear. What would be even better is the reason why
  you’re so interested in us. In me.’
  Sensimi glanced around and caught sight of the two old women, who
  were staring at them like vultures.
  ‘Come back to the Palace with me,’ she said eventually, ‘and I’ll show
  you.’
  ‘Promise?’
  ‘Promise,’ she said.
  ‘What about Trix?’
  ‘She’ll be ﬁne,’ said Sensimi, too quickly.
  ‘I’m not just going to leave her.’
  ‘Oh all right - hang on.’ Sensimi pulled a petulant face and crossed
  the square to the two women - who evidently knew an Esperon princess
  when they saw her, for as she reached them, their eyes went wide and they
  began clasping their hands in front of their bosoms, dipping and bowing
  their heads, nodding obsequiously. Sensimi reached into her pocket and
  pressed something into their trembling hands, and came back to Fitz. He
  saw the women conferring between themselves before struggling to their
  feet. They waddled off the way Sensimi and Fitz had come, with a bit
  more bowing and scraping for good measure as they went.
  Fitz caught a hint of a sneer on Sensimi’s face as she watched them go.
  ‘I’ve told them to go and ﬁnd her and tell her to come to the Palace.’
  ‘And you trust them?’
  ‘They’re loyal subjects of the Imperator, my father. They love the Im-
  perial Family. They’ll do anything for us.’
  ‘Uh huh?’ said Fitz, not at all sure that he shared Sensimi’s conﬁdence
  in the faithfulness of her subjects. But maybe the great unwashed public
  had never actually met Sensimi, in which case, she could be right.
  ‘Happy now?’
  
  CHAPTER 11. ’YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON...?’
  92
  ‘I s’pose it’ll have to do,’ Fitz said. He waved ahead of them. ‘Lead the
  way, your Royal Highness.’
  ‘Highness will do ﬁne,’ said Sensimi without a hint of irony.
  If Reo hadn’t been a ten-year-old boy, Trix would have suspected him of
  leading her on. Despite the directness of her questions, he managed, some-
  how, to avoid telling her what this valuable toy was. He reminded her of
  the Doctor. And by the time she got to the stage of demanding, straight
  out, ‘What is it?’, Reo had become quiet and sullen and on-the-verge-of-
  tears stubborn.
  Trix changed tack, and tried to ﬁnd out where he’d lost it - and, again,
  his answers were vague or indirect. By then, Trix had given up all hope of
  being able to ﬁnd Fitz: she assumed he’d be ﬁne with the snotty cow - but
  if he wasn’t... hell, he was a grown man; he knew what he was doing. She
  wasn’t his mother.
  ‘Reo,’ she said, still squatting down beside the boy, adopting her ﬁrmest-
  but-still-fairly-caring voice. ‘If you won’t tell me what this toy is, or where
  you lost it, then how can I help you to ﬁnd it? If you don’t give me a bit
  more to go on -’ she sighed theatrically - ‘then I’m going to have to ﬁnd
  a policeman and let him take you home.’ She eyed him up. ‘Is that what
  you want?’
  Reo looked back at her, his face disturbingly emotionless. If he’d been
  white with blond hair, it would have been Village of the Damned all over
  again.
  ‘The soldiers know where it is,’ he said at length, as if imparting a
  great secret. Before he could say any more, his eyes darted past her, over
  her shoulder, and she heard footsteps, away down the darkened sidestreet
  behind her; the kicking of a stone, the sound of it ricocheting off a wall.
  Laughter. Something in it made her edgy.
  ‘Maybe we should go somewhere else,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s safe
  here. For either of us.’
  She stood up and took his hand - and jumped, as suddenly, much closer
  than she’d have expected, she heard a voice.
  ‘What’ve we got here then?’
  She turned in the darkness. Three ﬁgures - three stocky, belligerent-
  looking ﬁgures - were silhouetted in front of her, limned by the orange
  glow of distant streetlights, demonic halos.
  ‘She’s one of the aliens,’ said another - not the brightest-sounding of
  voices, thought Trix, which made it all the more disturbing.
  ‘Yeah,’ replied the ﬁrst voice. ‘She brought the night beasts with her -
  her and that other one.’
  
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  ‘Alien,’ hissed a third voice, slowly and with deliberate menace.
  ‘Yeah. Alien. Coming here with your animals.’
  ‘Causing trouble.’
  ‘Getting innocent people killed.’
  ‘Normal people.’
  Trix felt cold and sick. Almost instinctively, she moved in front of Reo,
  sheltering him.
  ‘We’ve got nothing to do with the night beasts,’ she said. ‘They were
  here long before we were.’
  ‘Yeah, ’course they were, ‘ said one of the men.
  ‘We’ve already dealt with one of your monsters tonight,’ another one
  laughed coldly, rubbing his hands together.
  The third one gave a low chuckle. ‘Now there’s just you,’ he said. ‘And
  your animal-loving mate.’
  ‘Got friends in high places, have you? Friends at the Palace?’ The man
  sneered and spat heavily on to the ground. They must mean Fitz. But
  what did they mean about the Palace?
  ‘Look,’ she said in what she hoped was her least threatening, most rea-
  sonable voice.
  ‘No!’ cut in one of the men. ‘You look’ The others laughed. It was
  bravado they shared, thought Trix, not bravery.
  ‘Get off on beating up women, do you? And little kids?’ There was a
  snort.
  ‘No,’ said one of them. ‘Just alien shit like you.’
  And as one they moved towards her in silence.
  Trix braced herself, ready to get kicked to death. Had it not been for Reo,
  cowering somewhere behind her, she might have tried to make a run for it.
  Out in the light of the square, she doubted these three thugs would have
  been quite so brave. She wondered whether she could grab Reo and get
  into the open before they got to her, but they were just a few paces away.
  She opened her mouth to try the shaming thing one last time: three
  against one, bullies. But then she realised that they’d stopped moving. In
  fact one of them took a step backwards. And then she noticed that she
  could actually see their features, as if someone had turned on a very dim
  light.
  ‘Holy Mary Mother of God,’ said one of them in a barely audible croak,
  crossed himself, and took a couple of steps back. In the distance, Trix
  became aware of the discordant sound of a fairground organ, creaking out
  a jolly tune that the situation twisted into a macabre theme. She turned
  
  CHAPTER 11. ’YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON...?’
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  slightly at the noise, and out of the corner of her eye she saw where the
  ﬂickering light was coming from.
  Reo.
  She stared in amazement, because, for a moment, she wasn’t sure that
  it actually was Reo.
  Somehow he’d grown: he was now almost as tall as she was, his body
  larger, distended, as though inﬂated from within. His clothes remained
  the same, though, and were stretched comically tight over his body, the
  cuffs almost at his elbows.
  But the most bizarre change was his face.
  Whereas before he’d had the normal features of a little black kid, now his
  skin was strobing with a sort of zebra stripe pattern - the white areas, as
  they scrolled up across his face, emitting a soft white light, like the screen
  of a laptop computer. The bars formed a V-shape, almost - but not quite
  - symmetrical, their edges jagged and changing as they moved. Constant
  among it all were his eyes, two little pits of darkness, and his mouth, thin
  and determined. The light seemed to burn from within him, cold and re-
  lentless. She looked down and saw similar patterns racing up his hands
  and wrists and arms, vanishing into his stretched cuffs, now almost at his
  elbows.
  Behind her, Trix heard the sounds of feet, scrabbling on the loose, pitted
  tarmac.
  ‘He’s an alien,’ one of the men whispered. Trix turned to see them
  stumbling away, one of them tripping over. He cried out as his friends
  left him in the dirt. He picked himself up, tripping again, and hared after
  them. Within seconds, the three of them were sprinting down the alley,
  chased by the panicky echoes of their footsteps.
  ‘How the hell did you do that?’ asked Trix eventually, turning to see
  Reo’s body slowly shrinking, deﬂating like a leaky balloon. His features
  had faded to normal. He looked up at her, tugging his sleeves back down
  his arms as if nothing was wrong, a curiously adult gesture.
  ‘Help me,’ he said softly, ‘and maybe I’ll teach you how.’
  ‘You mean I could do that? Blow myself up, do the thing with the face?’
  Trix’s mind reeled with the possibilities.
  ‘Given time,’ Reo said, his voice suddenly much less childish than it
  had seemed before, ‘you could do much more than that. That was just a
  spur-of-the-moment demonstration.’
  ‘So, what, you can change your appearance? Make yourself look like
  anyone?’ From the taciturn, little boy lost, he seemed suddenly trans-
  formed - thoughtful, adult. Cool.
  ‘Within reason,’ Reo said, a smile playing on his lips in the sodium
  gloom.
  
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  Trix felt the weight of her bag, slung over her shoulder. In it was an
  assortment of bits and pieces, her ‘disguise kit’ - a disguise kit that Reo’s
  little trick, assuming she could do it herself, could make completely re-
  dundant.
  Since she’d been on Espero, since she’d left the TARDIS with Fitz and
  her bag, she’d been totally and utterly frustrated by the fact that she had
  no choice but to be herself. She could have changed her name, taken on
  any one of a hundred life histories, but, ultimately, it would have been a
  waste of time. As long as she had to stay Caucasian, she might as well
  stay Trix. She knew that she occasionally got a bit obsessed about the role-
  playing that she enjoyed so much - took on a new identity when her real
  one (whatever that was!) would have done the job just as well. But it
  was sometimes such a chore - the make-up, the wigs, the tinted contact
  lenses; remembering the details of her new history, practising the voice
  and the accent until she’d got them automatic, perfect. But there was only
  so much she could do with the little that nature had given her: lifts in
  her shoes could give her an extra couple of inches of height; padding and
  artful dressing could add a few pounds. And make-up, wigs, hair dye and
  contact lenses could ensure that even people who knew her well would
  pass her in the street unrecognised. But beyond that, she was stuck: she
  couldn’t - convincingly or comfortably - play a six-foot Amazon, or a four-
  foot child. She couldn’t play a strapping man. Or a black woman. She’d
  learned to live within those limits, much as they irked her (and boy how
  they irked her at the moment!). But whatever Reo had just used to change
  his size and make his face light up... The possibilities buzzed around her
  head like excited wasps.
  ‘OK,’ she said cautiously. ‘Show me how you do it, and I’ll help you
  ﬁnd your toy.’
  Reo’s eyes narrowed, weighing her up. Eventually, he nodded, and
  reached up to the neck of his shirt, where a button had popped loose. He
  unfastened a couple of the other ones and pulled the material aside.
  Nestled on his chest, just below his clavicle, was something strange.
  Trix gently turned him into the light so that she could see it. Y-shaped, and
  about the size of an outstretched hand, it looked blue or black - ribbed, sort
  of metallic, but in an organic way, as if the ﬁne grooves that ran across the
  legs of the Y had grown into it when the metal had been still molten. She
  found her ﬁngers reaching out to touch it and pulled them back, keen not
  to appear too eager.
  ‘That’s it? That’s the shape-changing device?’
  Reo nodded and started to close up his shirt again.
  ‘No, wait,’ Trix said, clenching her jaw. ‘If I’m going to help you instead
  
  CHAPTER 11. ’YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON...?’
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  of looking for Fitz and the Doctor... can I have a demo?’
  ‘A demo?’
  ‘A demonstration. Can I try it - just to make sure it works for me.’
  ‘I don’t know...’ Reo looked nervous, unsure. She wondered if he
  thought that she might not give it back once she’d tried it.
  ‘Come on, it’s reasonable,’ Trix said. ‘What if we go and ﬁnd this toy,
  and then your device doesn’t work for me?’
  ‘It’ll work,’ Reo said.
  ‘Just a quick go - and then I’ll give it back to you. Honest.’
  She meant it. Stealing from kids - even the most miraculous, magical
  device in the whole universe - wasn’t something she thought she’d be very
  good at. Or at least she hoped she wouldn’t.
  Reo took a breath, and as his little hands moved back up to his neck,
  Trix tried not to punch the air in triumph.
  ‘You promise you’ll give it back?’ Reo said, unfastening the buttons.
  She nodded.
  ‘Scout’s honour,’ she said, and realised that that probably meant very
  little to him.
  ‘OK - you’ll need to open your blouse - then just press it against your
  skin like this.’
  In silence, Reo unfastened his shirt down half way and, with a slight
  wince, slipped a ﬁnger under one of the legs of the Y-thing, sliding it be-
  tween the device and his skin. Trix heard a faint, wet, sucking noise as it
  peeled away from his body. Already, she had her own clothing unfastened
  - the thing would just about ﬁt, although its lower leg might feel a bit un-
  comfortable between her breasts. Not, she thought ruefully, that she had
  much of a cleavage. Well, not yet! She’d always had a rather half-hearted
  relationship with her own body - she didn’t hate it, but often found it ir-
  ritating. It was just too dull, too ﬂat, too mousey - like her hair. Ideal for
  what she did, perhaps, but sometimes she longed for a bit more up top,
  slimmer hips - not to mention her nose. But with Reo’s device, she’d be
  able to give herself a bit of a makeover: nothing drastic, nothing ﬂashy.
  Even if it was only for a while.
  He held out the device to her, his hand shaking a little: was he won-
  dering whether he’d ever get it back? Trix suddenly realised that she’d
  been planning on a long-term future with this thing, despite her promise
  to him. Maybe he could get another one? Where had he got it from?
  She took it from his ﬁngers before he could change his mind: it was
  warm (hardly surprising since it had been inside his shirt) and a little bit
  creepy, like a three-legged starﬁsh. It was only as she cupped it in her
  hand and pressed it to her own skin that she noticed that Reo was swaying
  
  CHAPTER 11. ’YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON...?’
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  oddly, like someone about to faint. He staggered back against the shop
  doorway, his eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he collapsed.
  THANK YOU said a voice deep inside her own head, as Trix tried to
  move to catch Reo before he fell - and realised that she was completely
  paralysed. THIS WILL BE MUCH EASIER.
  
  Chapter 12
  ‘Space yacht? Intelligent rocks?’
  It felt like someone had taken her and pushed her unceremoniously into
  one tiny corner of her own head. She remembered what Fitz had told her
  about his time in Russia, with that madman Garudin riding around in his
  body. This must have been how he felt, a passenger with someone else at
  the controls.
  She could still see and hear (and smell) but with an odd leadenness to
  it all - as though she were looking through sunglasses and had earmuffs
  on. Her vision ﬂickered, brighter, then dimmer, a couple of times - and
  then stabilised. But now it was brighter, brighter than she could have
  imagined. Like she’d always had a night-vision ability, and only now had
  she discovered how to turn it on. The dark alley around her bloomed
  into brilliant, silvery luminousness. Although she couldn’t actually move
  her eyes, she could still see Reo’s tiny body, slumped in the doorway, see
  textures in his coat that she hadn’t seen before, beads of sweat on his upper
  lip, the mark on his chest where the Y-thing had sat.
  What’s happened? she thought. Who are you? What’s happened to me?
  I HAVE CONTROL OF YOUR NERVOUS AND MUSCULAR SYSTEMS the
  voice said, deep and clear but curiously androgynous. IT IS A NECESSARY
  FIRST STEP. SOON I WILL HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OF YOUR CARDIO-
  VASCULAR AND ENDOCRINE SYSTEMS.
  But why? Why not Just let me help you? Who are you?
  BECAUSE YOU won’t HELP ME. ALREADY YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO
  HINDER MY SUBVERSION OF YOUR BODY. IT IS POINTLESS. YOU ARE A
  DISTRACTION, NOTHING MORE. NOW THAT YOU ARE CARRYING ME, THIS
  IS MY BODY. YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO OBSERVE FOR A WHILE LONGER.
  Why?What do you want?What are you? Trix felt the panic rising in her, a
  stiﬂing claustrophobia, oddly at a distance, muted.
  I AM A MAKER.
  98
  
  CHAPTER 12. ’SPACE YACHT? INTELLIGENT ROCKS?’
  99
  A Maker? Of what? I don’t understand? You’re the device - the device I got
  from Reo? You were just using him? Hitching a ride on him?
  NO, TRIX. I AM REO. THE BOY JOSHUA WAS SIMPLY MY CARRIER.
  That’s horrible - you’re talking about him like he was a bicycle or something.
  What did he think about it, or didn’t he have a say? Was he just a passenger in
  his own body like I am now?
  HE WAS BORN, AS YOU WERE, AN AUTONOMOUS BEING. BUT ONCE
  HE BECAME MY CARRIER, HIS PERSONA WAS DISPLACED AND BEGAN TO
  FADE, ALTHOUGH THERE MAY BE FRAGMENTS OF IT STILL REMAINING
  NOW THAT I HAVE TRANSFERRED MYSELF TO YOU. IT WILL TAKE A WHILE
  - A FEW HOURS, PERHAPS A DAY - BUT ONCE MY CONTROL OVER YOUR
  BODY IS COMPLETE, YOUR PERSONA WILL CEASE TO BE NECESSARY AND
  IT WILL BE DISPOSED OF.
  Oh God, please, no. She realised that she was begging, but her pride was
  the last thing on her mind. Why? Why d’you have to do it? Can’t we carry on
  like this, coexist? I can help you, help you ﬁnd your toy or whatever it is you’re
  looking for. I can help. Trix was panicking. But just at the moment, it didn’t
  seem like there was any other option.
  NO,TRIX said Reo calmly, and Trix got the impression that he (or she or
  it, she supposed) was busy behind the scenes of her body, doing other stuff
  as he talked to her. He sounded vaguely distracted. THAT WOULD NOT
  WORK. YOU CANNOT HELP ME - YOU WOULD ONLY ATTEMPT TO IMPEDE
  ME; YOU WOULD CONSTANTLY BE TRYING TO FIND WAYS TO REASSERT
  CONTROL. AND ALTHOUGH THAT WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE, IT WOULD
  BECOME TIRING FOR ME.
  Can’t you ﬁnd another host, another carrier? An animal or something - what
  about one of those night beasts? They’re strong, powerful. Imagine having a body
  like that.
  THAT WOULD BE NEITHER POSSIBLE NOR DESIRABLE. WE HAVE USED
  LOWER ANIMALS TEMPORARILY, BUT THEY ARE NOT IDEAL. THEY LACK
  THE REFINED CONTROL OF THEIR OWN MUSCULATURE, OR THEIR BRAINS
  ARE INCONVENIENTLY STRUCTURED. THERE ARE MANY REASONS WHY
  WE PREFER TO USE SENTIENT SPECIES. THIS CARRIER WILL SERVE PER-
  FECTLY - BETTER THAN THE BOY, SINCE YOU HAVE ACCESS TO INFOR-
  MATION ABOUT THE SOLDIERS THAT HE DID NOT. ONCE I HAVE FULLY
  SUBVERTED YOUR BODY AND COMPLETED THE CONVERSION PROCESS, IT
  WILL BE A BETTER CARRIER FOR ME THAN YOU CAN EVER IMAGINE, TRIX.
  Conversion? The word had a horrible ring to it, a ﬁnality that made her
  want to slam her ﬁsts against something hard.
  I WILL RECONSTRUCT YOUR BODY FROM THE INSIDE OUT, USING YOUR
  OWN DNA, PHYSIOLOGY AND PHYSIOGNOMY AS A TEMPLATE. BUT IT
  
  CHAPTER 12. ’SPACE YACHT? INTELLIGENT ROCKS?’
  100
  WILL BE BETTER: I WILL IMPROVE YOUR MUSCULATURE, YOUR REFLEXES.
  I WILL REFINE YOUR DNA AND MANY ASPECTS OF YOUR CELLULAR AND
  BODILY METABOLISM. EXTERNALLY, YOU WILL LOOK LITTLE DIFFERENT
  - APART FROM WHEN I CHOOSE. I AM ALREADY REFILTERING AND RE-
  FINING YOUR SENSORY PATHWAYS, AS YOU HAVE NOTICED. WHEN THE
  CONVERSION IS COMPLETE, YOUR BODY WILL BE A PERFECT CARRIER FOR
  ME, CAPABLE OF ALMOST ANY HUMANOID APPEARANCE I CHOOSE.
  The chameleon thing? Reo’s changing appearance? That’s how he did it?
  THAT IS CORRECT. I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CREATE EXTRA MASS, BUT
  I WILL BE ABLE TO RAPIDLY REDISTRIBUTE THE MASS YOU POSSESS TO
  MAKE YOU TALLER OR SHORTER, TO APPEAR FATTER OR THINNER. CHRO-
  MATOPHORES IN YOUR SKIN AND HAIR WILL ENABLE ME TO MAKE RAPID
  CHANGES IN YOUR APPEARANCE: HUMAN VOCAL COMMUNICATION IS
  LIMITED FOR US.
  THE CHANGES WILL ALLOW ME TO COMMUNICATE
  WITH OTHER MAKERS FASTER THROUGH RAPID PIGMENTATION SHIFTS
  AND PATTERNING. YOU WILL BE BETTER, TRIX.
  This last was delivered perfectly ﬂatly, as if Reo could not possibly
  conceive that his deﬁnition of ‘better’ was not one that she shared.
  But I won’t be me, will I? she said again. I won’t be me.
  THAT IS CORRECT the voice in her head said calmly. YOU WILL BE ME.
  Please, implored Trix, feeling the muscles of her arms and legs rippling
  and twitching in a creepy way - as though they were being stimulated
  externally. It reminded her of adverts for those electrical pads that you
  strapped to yourself for a ‘ﬁtter, ﬂatter stomach’ and the way they made
  your muscles twitch and spasm. Please don’t do this - I’ll help you, honestly.
  Anything. Please...
  WHILE I ADJUST TO YOUR METABOLISM AND MAP OUT YOUR CRITI-
  CAL PATHWAYS, IT WOULD BE BETTER IF YOU FORGOT THAT I WAS HERE,
  TRIX. THOSE MEN THAT ATTACKED US EARLIER - THEY HINTED THAT
  YOUR FRIEND FITZ HAD BEEN SEEN NEAR OR IN THE PALACE. THE WOMAN
  WITH HIM WAS PRINCESS SENSIMI. SHE HAS AN INTEREST IN THE NIGHT
  BEASTS, THE SOLDIERS - ONE I SHARE. AND FITZ CLEARLY HAS AN AFFIN-
  ITY WITH THEM. GO THERE AND FIND THEM. NOW... FORGET ME.
  No! shrieked Trix. You’re bloody kidding if you think that
  So, Trix thought as she set off down the alleyway, Fitz has got him-
  self an invite to the Palace, has he? Well, he’s not the only one who can
  ingratiate himself with royalty.
  Behind her, unnoticed in the darkened doorway of the shop, the ten-year-
  old boy that had once been called Joshua lay silent as his heart and lungs,
  no longer under the control of the Maker, struggled to remember how to
  
  CHAPTER 12. ’SPACE YACHT? INTELLIGENT ROCKS?’
  101
  work. The pale light of the street silhouetted Trix, and for a moment, just
  before everything went dark and silent, Joshua wondered if it was Our
  Lady, come to take him home to Ma and Pa.
  Out in the ﬁelds beyond the city walls, where the wreck of an alien space-
  craft still smouldered and crackled, Ake hadn’t moved. He knelt on the
  grass and stared into the distance, unseeing, unhearing. Unthinking.
  The Doctor, seemingly ignorant of the biological laws which governed the
  ratio between the quantity of alcohol imbibed and the state of drunkenness
  attained, was downing what was probably his tenth pint of beer, with no
  discernible effect. The two of them had moved from bar to bar, asking
  if anyone had seen two other offworlders. There had been one or two
  sightings, but nothing that seemed to lead anywhere. Calamee wondered
  whether they shouldn’t be out patrolling the streets, rather than standing
  around drinking.
  The crowd which had gathered around the Doctor when he’d ﬁrst pro-
  duced his credit chip had dwindled (mainly, Calamee suspected, because
  the locals hadn’t been able to keep up with him, and had staggered off
  home to be sick or to sleep, or both). The woman who had been so en-
  amoured of the Doctor had found herself another victim, and Calamee
  had started to feel a bit guilty about lying to her house-mother. No doubt
  Sierah would contact Craich’s house-father to conﬁrm that Calamee was,
  indeed, staying there overnight. But this wasn’t the ﬁrst time she’d lied to
  Sierah about her whereabouts, and the most she could expect was a severe
  telling-off and the threat of a grounding. But she was canny enough to
  know how to pull the right faces, say the right things, to get it all forgotten
  within a day or two. She had home study for the next couple of days, so
  she wouldn’t be missed.
  The barman was chatting to a customer who’d just arrived, his face all
  bright and eager, and judging by the ‘Really?’s and the ‘No!’s that the bar-
  man was giving back, something of great interest was being said. Calamee
  sidled up to the Doctor and shot a glance at the remains of his beer.
  ‘How do you do that?’ she asked.
  ‘What? Drink? Oh, it’s really very simp-’
  ‘You know what I mean. You should be unconscious by now. What is
  it? Chemicals? Alien biology?’ She pulled her best little-girl face. ‘Tell me,
  please.’
  ‘Why d’you want to know?’
  ‘We might look backward here - hell, we are backward here. But we’re
  not totally out of touch with the rest of the galaxy. It’s like being a kid with
  
  CHAPTER 12. ’SPACE YACHT? INTELLIGENT ROCKS?’
  102
  her face pressed up against the window of the biggest, sickest sweetshop
  in town and watching all the others helping themselves while you’re stuck
  outside with a bag of peanuts. We know the kinds of stuff that other colony
  worlds have, other aliens. Nanotech, bod-mods, implants, cyberisation,
  AIs - even intelligent clothes. It probably all seems so run-of-the-mill to
  you, zipping about space in your space yacht, talking to intelligent rocks,
  robots with multidimensional positronic brains...’
  She tailed off, aware of the look he was giving her.
  ‘Space yacht? Intelligent rocks?’ He grinned broadly. ‘You’ve been
  reading too many comics. But I’ll give you the robots with the multidi-
  mensional positronic brains. Very temperamental, they are.’
  ‘You know what I mean.’ She felt very tired and very young and very
  silly. ‘Take me with you,’ she said suddenly.
  ‘What?’
  ‘Take me with you. When you go. Please.’ Calamee realised she was
  gripping the arm of his jacket - rich, dark green velvet, so unlike the syn-
  thetic fabrics and the plain old cottons that she was used to. It was as
  if the jacket, never mind its wearer, spoke to her of a world beyond util-
  ity, beyond school, beyond everything she’d ever known. A world full of
  sparkle and energy and... and stuff.
  ‘And what would your parents say to that?’
  ‘They wouldn’t mind. I could leave them a note. Tell them I’d be back
  in a few weeks.’ She stared up into his eyes, feeling her face ﬂush. ‘Please?’
  ‘I can’t just go abducting people. Backward though you may think
  Espero is, I’m sure it has laws about that sort of thing.’
  ‘I don’t care. There’s nothing for me here.’
  The Doctor tipped his head on one side with one of those looks. Like
  her mother. She knew what he was going to say next.
  ‘We’ll see.’
  ‘I knew you’d say that.’
  He didn’t answer, but reached out and tickled the back of Nessus’s
  head. The mokey had woken up and was looking around, dearly con-
  fused. He sniffed, experimentally, at the beer on his fur and began to ten-
  tatively lick himself.
  ‘And what alcohol tolerance do mokeys have?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I’d
  hate to have him throw up over me.’
  ‘He usually hates drink,’ Calamee said, frowning at Nessus - who sud-
  denly seemed to become aware that he was being talking about, and his
  licks became more furtive. She opened her mouth to try one last go at
  convincing the Doctor to let her go with him, but she realised that he was
  
  CHAPTER 12. ’SPACE YACHT? INTELLIGENT ROCKS?’
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  trying -to listen in on the remains of a conversation between the barman
  and one of his customers.
  ‘Great bloody big thing it were,’ said the man, holding his hands wide
  to indicate the size of something considerably larger than himself. ‘An’
  hairy. It went mad after these two offworlders buggered off.’
  ‘Excuse me,’ interjected the Doctor, smiling at the look the man gave
  him when he saw that he, too, was an offworlder. ‘Could you just go
  over that bit again? Something about a great bloody big thing? And some
  offworlders?’
  The man, taken aback by being faced with another real, live offworlder,
  told the Doctor and Calamee all about the night beast, its curious afﬁnity
  for one of the strangers and the animal’s demise at the hands of the braying
  mob.
  ‘And you don’t know what happened to the offworlders?’
  ‘They vanished pretty sharpish.’ The man suddenly gave Calamee a
  narrow, suspicious look. ‘Is he with you, then?’
  She nodded.
  ‘Well, I’d be careful. Trouble, that’s what offworlders are, that’s what
  they’ll always be.’
  And with those cheery words and a glowering look at the Doctor, he
  nodded at the barman, ﬁnished his drink and left.
  ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,’ beamed the Doctor, holding
  out his arm, on to which Nessus obligingly clambered. ‘I do love a warm
  welcome. Now come on, Calamee - we’ve got a monster, a Fitz and a Trix
  to ﬁnd.’
  
  Chapter 13
  ‘Not that you don’t have a very
  nice bottom, but... you know.’
  Princess Sensimi almost squealed with delight as she opened the door to
  her suite and Looloo scampered across the ﬂoor and sprang into her arms,
  chittering and squeaking.
  Fitz jumped back, caught by surprise at the sudden movement. Once
  he’d realised that it was just a pet - albeit one dressed in a frock that looked
  like a meringue - Fitz tickled it behind the ears as it clung to Sensimi, while
  he had a surreptitious scan around the room. The room gave the impres-
  sion that its occupant was in her mid-teens: stacks of ﬂuffy toys (some
  of which, Fitz noticed, were representations of Sensimi’s pet - one or two
  looked as though they’d been the victims of psychopathic attacks, and one
  had had its head completely torn oft). A dressing table was scattered with
  all the usual accoutrements of teenage-girl life, and stacks of miniature
  CDs or memory cards or whatever lay sprawled at the foot of a spacey-
  looking stereo unit. There was nothing of particular interest, despite the
  fact that Sensimi was a princess, although Fitz suspected that there was
  probably quite a healthy cache of jewels and trinkets somewhere. Trix
  would be kicking herself - although once she turned up, he expected that
  she’d ﬁnd time to help herself to a few souvenirs.
  ‘Right!’ he said suddenly, turning on his heel to face Sensimi. ‘Now
  would be a good time to tell me why you brought me here, don’t you
  think?’
  He plonked himself down in a luxurious cream leather chair and re-
  alised - incongruously - how sore his feet were. He reached up to run his
  hand through his hair and was surprised by the patch of missing hair at
  his temple. Sensimi, too, clearly noticed it, but didn’t comment.
  Sensimi’s pet leaped to the ﬂoor and paused to sniff at Fitz’s shoes.
  104
  
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  ‘Looloo!’ said Sensimi with embarrassment. ‘Leave him alone!’
  But Looloo did no such thing and had to be snatched up by the princess
  and unceremoniously dumped on the bed. Fitz watched as the creature
  took to sullenly examining her own private parts. Nice one, he thought.
  ‘So...’ said Fitz, stretching out his legs and crossing his ankles. Sensimi
  stayed standing, her mouth puckering up at the corner.
  ‘That creature,’ she eventually said, avoiding Fitz’s eyes. ‘The night
  beast. What do you know about it?’
  Fitz gave a shrug. ‘It’s big - was big - and hairy and probably not the
  kind of thing you’d want around the house. Why?’
  ‘Oh, just curious,’ said Sensimi, still avoiding looking directly at him.
  ‘ “Just curious”?’ said Fitz, beginning to tire of all this. ‘Sorry Sensimi,
  but “just curious” doesn’t cut it. Princesses don’t normally dress up as
  servants and go wandering around the streets rescuing people and smug-
  gling them back into the Palace because they’re “just curious”. Can we
  stop all this arseing around and just get on with it? Why such an interest
  in these night beast things?’
  Sensimi reluctantly began to explain how the night beasts had been
  wandering into Saiarossa over the past year or so; how they hadn’t actu-
  ally done very much harm - apart from killing a couple of Esperons - and
  how they’d usually been subdued (i.e. killed) by the police or the Palace
  Guard. No one knew where they came from, although it was assumed that
  they’d come from some unexplored region of the planet, perhaps looking
  for food, perhaps drawn by the colonists themselves.
  ‘But none of that explains why you’re so interested,’ Fitz said with in-
  ﬁnite patience at the end of it all. ‘You don’t strike me as the zoologist
  type.’
  Sensimi still looked nervous and awkward, so Fitz sighed, got to his
  feet, and headed for the door.
  ‘Well, it’s been nice hob-nobbing with royalty,’ he said briskly, ‘but I
  have friends to ﬁnd and a memory to regain.’
  ‘No,’ said Sensimi suddenly. ‘Please. Don’t go.’
  Fitz paused, his hand on the door handle, and adopted his most scep-
  tical stance, arms folded, weight on one leg. He tapped his foot for added
  effect (although he wondered whether that was overdoing it just a tad).
  ‘OK’ Sensimi sighed, and her whole body seemed to droop. ‘I’ll tell
  you’ She paused, clearly waiting for Fitz to sit down again, but he didn’t,
  so Sensimi went on. ‘When I heard that there was another sighting, I
  thought I’d go and have a look. My maid, Farine, lent me her coat and
  hat so that I wouldn’t be recognised, and I found you and the creature.
  But this time it seemed different, odder. It didn’t attack you, that was
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  what was so odd. It...’ She struggled for words. ‘It seemed to have some
  sort of bond with you.’
  Fitz nodded and leaned back against the dresser. ‘I noticed that too.
  Animal magnetism, perhaps? New aftershave?’ He gave a shrug. ‘Maybe
  I was the ﬁrst person that hadn’t tried to stab it or lock it in a cage. Maybe
  it just liked my face.’
  They both jumped as there was a sharp rap at the door, and it opened
  to reveal a trim, elderly black woman with a face like an attractive hawk,
  staring at them. Her hair was drawn back tightly from her face, her eye-
  brows arching dramatically.
  ‘Mother,’ muttered Sensimi under her breath, like hundreds of genera-
  tions of teenage girls before her.
  ‘It’s late, Sensimi,’ said the woman, peering past her at Fitz who tossed
  her a cheery wave. ‘I don’t think you should be having strange men in
  here at this time of night.’ She lowered her voice, but not enough to stop
  Fitz hearing her: ‘Particularly not offworlders. We have quite enough of
  those around here.’
  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Sensimi said charmlessly. ‘Thank you, Mother. He’ll be
  going home soon. Honest.’
  ‘Anyway, your father wants to have a word with you.’
  ‘Now?’
  ‘Yes, now. Before he goes to bed.’
  Fitz could almost hear the growl that must have been rattling around
  in the princess’s chest. She threw him a look of resignation and rolled her
  eyes. Fitz shrugged.
  ‘I’ll be here when you get back,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget our little chat,
  will you?’
  A ﬂash of something passed across Sensimi’s face as she left - and Fitz
  realised that, whatever it was that she was going to tell him about the night
  beasts, even a late-night chat with her father was preferable. As the door
  closed behind her, Fitz put up his feet on a footstool and closed his eyes.
  Looloo was annoyed that Sensimi had told her to stay, and had left her in
  the room with the smelly stranger. She had sullenly begun to pluck the
  stufﬁng from the neck of the decapitated toy mokey, ignoring the stranger
  who was snoring noisily, when something else caught her attention: a tiny,
  buzzing insect that was spiralling around in the air above the bed.
  With a screech of glee, Looloo leaped into the air, snatched at the insect
  and crammed it inside her dribbling little mouth - before it ﬁzzed and
  sparked and burned her and she spat the nasty, crunched-up thing back
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  out. It lay glittering on the bed, its legs twitching for a few moments before
  becoming still.
  Mr Trove thumbed the spycam controls off. This was becoming more than
  an irritation. He sat back in his chair and drummed his ﬁngers on the desk
  - both hands, both with the same rhythm. He was convinced that these
  newcomers, these aliens, whether knowingly or not, had the key to ﬁnding
  the device. How much of a coincidence could it be that the Doctor had
  disabled the spycam assigned to him and that the one following Fitz had
  also been decommissioned? It had been sheer luck that he’d heard about
  the night beast and had sent out a ﬂycam to follow it, only to discover two
  more offworlders in the crowd. And, not a great believer in coincidence,
  he’d decided that they were more worthy of following than the beast -
  which was clearly destined for an unpleasant death at the hands of the
  crowd anyway.
  Were the offworlders all pretending to know less than they did? When
  Sensimi had managed to separate Fitz and Trix, he’d been torn as to which
  one to set the ﬂycam on, but a moment’s thought had conﬁrmed that it
  ought to be the man - the one who seemed to have an odd rapport with
  the night beast. It was possible -although unlikely - that Fitz had some
  connection with the Oon, or perhaps even the Makers. If that was the case,
  then it was likely that Trix had, too. But she’d seemed less enamoured of
  the night beast. If he could be bothered later, he might dispatch another
  ﬂycam to see if she could be found. It seemed unlikely that they were
  Oon agents: he’d had them under surveillance from the moment they’d
  left the soldier to its fate at the hands of the mob, and although there had
  been a clear reticence on their part to talk to Princess Sensimi openly, he
  didn’t suspect that they were holding back anything of import from her.
  And besides that, the Oon wouldn’t be so stupid as to employ a parallel
  operative. Trove’s contract with them had been speciﬁc about his being
  the sole agent.
  He had to admit that he was curious about the reason why Sensimi
  should have brought the offworlder back to the Palace. If it was true that
  she knew more about the soldiers than she was admitting, then perhaps
  he had misjudged her. Perhaps, indeed, it should be her who he should
  pay more attention to, and not that raddled, senile old father of hers. The
  mother and son, although he hadn’t discounted them completely, were of
  minimal interest: Imperatrix Alinti, although believing that she held the
  reins of power here, was of no great use to him, and the son, Javill, was
  just an irritation, more concerned with supplanting his father as the prime
  male.
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
  108
  Of course, the Saiarossan Imperial Family had much less real power
  than they would like to believe: the real power here lay with the proper,
  elected government. But Trove had decided, as his ship had orbited the
  planet collecting data, analysing their radio and video transmissions, that
  contacting them and winning their conﬁdence would be a long and labo-
  rious task. The Esperons were suspicious of visitors, isolationist in their
  outlook. Had he gone through all the proper channels, he would have
  been tied up in red tape and bureaucracy for weeks, by which time the
  device would either have been found by others, or would have been acti-
  vated. And then it would have been too late. Saiarossa’s Imperial Family,
  Trove had realised from the extracts his AIs had pulled from the hours of
  transmissions, would be perfect: smug, inﬂuential and arrogant. Just the
  kind of people he liked to deal with. They would be impressed with a
  few trinkets, a handful of technological toys and the promise of more. It
  was fortuitous indeed that the device had landed here instead of a more
  advanced world where he would have had less leverage. And if it had
  landed on an uninhabited world, it would have been nigh-on impossible
  to ﬁnd: the soldiers were perhaps the device’s way of attempting con-
  tact with the locals. On an uninhabited world, the device would probably
  have just lain there. Trove, too, found it curious that, if the Doctor and
  his friends had responded to the same distress signal that had brought him
  here, their sensing devices were at least the equal of his own, which rein-
  forced the Maker connection. But even if they weren’t, and couldn’t lead
  him to the device, they were worth observing closely: it may be that he
  could annexe their own technology for himself.
  He’d seen nothing of Javill since their little chat earlier that evening.
  He smiled to himself as he remembered the barely concealed glee on the
  prince’s face when he had tossed him the light ball. This whole family -
  indeed, he imagined, as he crossed to the dresser drawer to take out the
  remainder of his ﬂycams, this whole planet - was laughably easy to buy
  off. He doubted that he’d need Javill’s support, but it didn’t hurt to sow a
  few seeds, no matter how barren the soil.
  The man had been right; the creature’s corpse had been removed. A huge
  and very messy stain on the pavement was all that remained. The Doc-
  tor crouched down, tutting and shaking his head as he drew his ﬁngers
  through the drying blood. Nessus watched curiously from Calamee’s arm.
  ‘Is that healthy?’ Calamee asked. ‘The blood, I mean. Touching it.’
  The Doctor didn’t answer. Calamee folded her arms against the en-
  croaching chill of the night, Nessus now perched on her shoulder, and
  smiled in what she hoped was a disarming manner at the young couple,
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  arm in arm, who were watching them as they walked past. Suddenly the
  Doctor jumped up and paced over to a nearby wall and began examining
  it again. He dug into his pockets, pulled out something, and began scrap-
  ing at the wall. Moments later he was back, proudly brandishing a small,
  glass jar with a bit of monster in it.
  ‘As souvenirs go,’ she said archly, ‘it’s not exactly up there with a mu-
  sical dancing Blessed Virgin Mary.’
  ‘It’s not a souvenir. It’s a sample.’ He broke off and stared at her. ‘Danc-
  ing Blessed Virgin Marys?’ He stuffed the jar into his pocket. ‘Remind me
  to get one of those before I go.’
  One minute he was the laid-back bon viveur; the next all dashing sci-
  entist and man of mystery. And the next... well, he was just a nutter. She
  wondered whether he was always like this, and whether this Fitz person
  he’d mentioned found it quite as exhilarating and draining as she was be-
  ginning to do. She glanced down at her watch - it was half past midnight.
  The idea of a warm bed suddenly seemed inﬁnitely more attractive than
  haring about the city in the dead of night looking for monsters. Or bits of
  them.
  ‘It may be that an analysis of this will tell me something. Anything,
  really, would be rather nice at this point. I may be able to work out if the
  beasts are indigenous, perhaps even where they’re from.’
  Calamee gave him a look.
  ‘Yes, yes, I know. It’s all a bit woolly, isn’t it? But at the moment, we
  don’t exactly have much to go on. The only other line of approach is to go
  back to the Palace - which, I suspect, I’ll have to do sooner or later. But for
  now, I’d rather like to get this analysed. A little knowledge is a dangerous
  weapon, you know.’
  ‘Where, exactly, were you planning on having it analysed? In case you
  hadn’t noticed, we’re not many rungs up the technological ladder from
  Axista here.’
  ‘Axista?’
  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Calamee said. ‘Are you planning on breaking into
  the university or something?’
  ‘No need for that,’ he said, his mouth twisting into a smug smile. ‘I’ve
  got all the equipment I need.’
  Calamee looked him up and down. ‘On you?’
  ‘No no no - in the TARDIS.’
  ‘Ahh... and what would that be?’
  ‘That, my dear Calamee, would be my home.’
  ***
  
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  The streets were almost magically loud, the crowds raucous, and the air
  damp and heavier than it had been before. It was as if they’ been on a
  rather long trip away from reality. The Doctor noticed Calamee shiver
  and draped his coat around her shoulders. It was, of course, miles too big.
  Nessus climbed into a pocket, with only his eyes and the top of his head
  showing.
  They paused to watch a troupe of street entertainers - still walkers, ﬁre-
  breathers, jugglers and an elderly woman with a hug fake ﬁsh on her head
  who smiled at them as she passed by.
  ‘You really should go home,’ the Doctor said as the parade move on
  and the crashing of the huge drum at its head subsided to a soft heartbeat.
  He didn’t look at her.
  ‘And leave just as things are getting interesting? I don’t think so.’
  ‘Calamee...’ he said, turning to her.
  ‘Don’t patronise me! If it wasn’t for me, you’d probably be locked up
  in the Palace again.’ She turned to him and looked up, ﬁxing hit with a
  stare. ‘You didn’t tell me you’d lost your memory before.’
  ‘It was news to me too. Anyway,’ he rubbed his hands vigorously and
  made a big show of looking around, ‘memories are ten a pens, Easy come,
  easy go.’
  ‘Oh no.’ said Calamee. ‘Oh no you don’t. You’re not wriggling out of
  it this easily. Why didn’t you let Madame Xing put them back for you?’
  He gave a sigh, knowing that Calamee wasn’t going to let it drop.
  ‘Because I’m happy.’
  ‘With only half your memories?’ She shook her head, clearly bewil-
  dered. ‘How? If some mad old woman offered to give me back half my
  life, I’d jump at the chance.’
  ‘And that’d be right for you. Listen, Calamee.’ He gripped her arm
  gently through the loose sleeves of his own jacket. ‘I appreciate your con-
  cern, but... I know what I’m doing.’ He paused, not sure how much he
  wanted to say, how much he wanted to tell her. ‘Something happened,
  Calamee. Probably something bad; certainly something big. And I lost my
  memory. I woke up on a train, remembering nothing of how I got there,
  where I’d been or what had happened. I spent a century - yes, a whole
  century - wandering around on Earth, making new friends, seeing things
  with new eyes. And then Fitz came along and told me that he was a friend
  of mine. By that time, I’d tried everything to get my memory back: psy-
  chotherapy, hypnosis, meditation. Even a few “experimental techniques”
  that might well have done more damage than good. But no matter what
  I did, it became clear that - for whatever reason - the memories I’d lost
  were going to stay lost. It took a while to come to terms with that, but you
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  know what? Once I did, once I said to myself “Doctor - the past is passed”
  I realised that maybe, just maybe, it was a blessing.
  ’No, don’t pull that face, Calamee. I know that I’ve lived hundreds,
  perhaps thousands, of years. How many memories do you think my brain
  can hold, hmm? It’s like I’ve had a spring clean, swept out all the dust and
  the ﬂuff. I like who I am, Calamee. Maybe not all of me, and not all of the
  time, but generally, I’m very happy with who I am. I have good friends,
  I get to travel and help people. Sorry... I’m sounding like a Miss World
  contestant.’ He paused, struggling to ﬁnd something that would resonate
  with her, something that would make her understand how he felt. ‘Imag-
  ine that you lived in a beautiful house with your family and friends. A
  gorgeous, beautiful house - full of light and laughter and videogames and
  chocolate. And then someone came along and said, “That’s not really your
  house, Calamee. That’s your house.” And they pointed down the road to
  a sinister-looking mansion, all shuttered up. So, curious, you wandered
  up to the gate - and a huge, vicious dog came charging down the path,
  barking madly. You could see bats and vultures circling over the house.
  You’re scared, but you’re curious. You borrow a friend’s telescope and for
  a few weeks you try to peer in through the dirty windows, trying to get
  a clue about what’s in there: you can see shadows and hear screams, late
  at night, from inside the house. And then the man comes back and asks
  you if you want the key. Only he tells you that once you enter the house,
  you can never return to the lovely, happy home you live in now. Oh, your
  friends and family can come with you: but what if they don’t like your
  old house? What if they decide they don’t want to live there with you any
  more?’ The Doctor realised how hard he was gripping Calamee’s arms,
  and let go of her. ‘And you were stuck in that dark, haunted house - alone,
  forever. What would you do? Would you take that chance?’
  Calamee looked into his eyes, her lips slightly parted. ‘That’s different,’
  she eventually said, and the Doctor felt her sag a little in his hands.
  ‘No, it’s not. And I think you know it. I like who I am. As Madame
  Xing pointed out, we recreate ourselves from day to day. The person I am
  now is not the person I was yesterday. And I don’t want to be the person
  I was a hundred years ago.’ He smiled at her solemn expression. ‘All that
  teenage acne and having to tidy my bedroom.’
  Calamee’s eyes drifted away from his, across the rooftops, the towers
  and the spires picked out in the bronze of the streetlights and the silver of
  the stars. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Point taken. But I’m still not going home. Now
  come on. Let’s ﬁnd this TARDIS of yours.’
  Calamee took his hand and the two of them strode off through Sa-
  iarossa’s jubilant streets.
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  Fitz knew it was a dream, but it was no less disturbing for that.
  He was standing in the TARDIS console room, facing the main doors.
  And he was naked. That wouldn’t normally have bothered him, apart
  from the fact that he could feel something cool touching his buttocks. The
  fact that he knew it was another pair of buttocks was slightly disturbing.
  But knowing - in the way that you do in dreams - that they were the Doc-
  tor’s buttocks was just too much.
  But, of course, as it was a dream, there was nothing he could do. He
  was rooted to the spot, rubbing bottoms with the Doctor.
  ‘Doctor,’ he said in the awkward way that you do when you’re cheek
  to cheek with your best friend. ‘I take it that this is all very symbolic.’
  ‘Don’t worry, Fitz,’ said the Doctor, a hint of a smile in his voice, from
  behind Fitz’s head. ‘I don’t think it’s what it looks like. Or feels like.’
  ‘That’s a relief,’ said Fitz. ‘Not that you don’t have a very nice bottom,
  but... you know...’
  ‘It’s OK, Fitz. I don’t think this is your subconscious telling you any-
  thing about your sexuality.’
  ‘Pleased to hear it. So what’s it all about? I mean, it is a dream, isn’t it?
  It’s not one of those virtual reality things. Again. I’m not suddenly going
  to ﬁnd myself swashbuckling all over the place, and challenging you to a
  duel for the hand of a fair maiden, am I?’
  ‘I suspect not, Fitz. Although, seeing as I’m just part of your dream, I
  wouldn’t know any more than you.’
  They stood in silence for a while, as a herd of zebras quietly passed
  through the console room and vanished in the direction of Trix’s bedroom.
  ‘She’s not going to be pleased,’ the Doctor commented drily.
  They stood in expectant silence for a while.
  ‘So,’ said Fitz eventually, trying not to notice that their bottoms had
  warmed up, ‘d’you reckon this is just a normal dream? Odd things hap-
  pening that don’t make sense, and then I wake up. Or is there a point to
  it? Am I trying to tell myself something?’
  ‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, dawning awareness in his voice. ‘I think you
  are.’
  Fitz suddenly realised, in a moment of bizarre panic, that he couldn’t
  feel the Doctor’s bottom any more. But that was because, somehow, their
  bottoms were merging, blobbing into each other. Fitz was sure that neither
  of them was moving, but it was as though they were sliding into each
  other, back to back. Already, he knew that their shoulders had melded, as
  well as the backs of their heads.
  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me, then?’ Fitz almost wailed as the backs of
  his knees joined with the backs of the Doctor’s.
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
  113
  ‘Oh Fitz, come on! You’re a bright lad. Work it out!’ The Doctor gave
  a chuckle from a mouth that was now, to all intents and purposes, in the
  back of Fitz’s head. ‘And think yourself lucky.’
  ‘For what?’ shouted Fitz as his ﬁngertips, his hands dangling by his
  side, blurred seamlessly into the Doctor’s.
  ‘For the fact that we were back-to-back when this all started.’
  Fitz/Doctor shuddered.
  If the Saiarossans were aware of the night beasts, they weren’t letting them
  spoil their fun. The Doctor felt a faint twinge of envy as he and Calamee,
  hand in hand, manoeuvred through the crowds. The smell of food ﬁlled
  the air, and every so often the sky would bloom with ﬁreworks and the
  people craned their heads back and oohed and ahhed, laughing and hug-
  ging as the lights faded. Sometimes, he thought, ignorance really was
  bliss. And maybe he was making more of a threat of the night beasts than
  they actually posed. Calamee didn’t seem too fazed by them - the one that
  had been killed tonight hadn’t been the ﬁrst, she’d said, and few people
  had been injured by them. So he couldn’t explain the nagging feeling that
  somehow time was running out. Was there a whole army of them, just
  outside the city walls, poised to invade? Was that what he and Fitz had
  discovered before they’d been attacked and their memories erased? So
  why hadn’t they been killed? Surely a much better way to keep a secret
  hidden. Could that be why he had those healed wounds all over his body
  - a failed attempt to silence him permanently?
  A brass band started up just across the street, and the Doctor winced.
  He wasn’t at all convinced, despite what he’d said to Calamee, that
  analysing the night beast’s DNA would give him any great insight into
  them.
  But now that he’d remembered the TARDIS, he had an almost
  painful ache to see it again. Maybe being inside it would bring back some
  more memories. And, more to the point, maybe Fitz and Trix would be
  there, waiting for him.
  But Miranda wouldn’t.
  Stop it! he told himself. How many times do you have to mourn someone?
  You want to be a martyr? You want to punish yourself for all eternity? Go right
  ahead, be my guest. But don’t hang it all on Miranda’s death. You’ve worked
  through that one. Give it a rest.
  He shook his head and looked down, realising that Calamee was watch-
  ing him.
  ‘Prayer for ’em?’ she said.
  ‘Sorry?’
  ‘Prayer for your thoughts?’
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
  114
  He realised what she meant and smiled.
  ‘They’re hardly worth a penny today, never mind a prayer.’
  Calamee squeezed his hand and pulled him through the throngs of
  people lining the streets, the two of them slipping along like minnows,
  navigating the human currents. Such a shame, thought the Doctor, glanc-
  ing up at the derelict buildings around them. So much hope, so much
  potential, squandered, crammed into a dry and dusty dead-end. But the
  human spirit would triumph in the end; it always did.
  ‘You’re very quiet,’ Calamee said suddenly.
  ‘Not much chance of being heard above all this,’ he said, having to lean
  in close to her to be heard. She smiled at him, and the Doctor felt... some-
  thing... Something odd inside himself. If he’d been a romantic, he’d have
  described it as his heart racing. But he wasn’t, of course, and simply put
  it down to stress. Calamee turned away as they carried on walking, and
  he found himself looking at the curve of her neck, her smooth, brown skin
  above the collar of his jacket. He found himself examining her hairline
  and the way it arched over her perfectly proportioned ears.
  What the hell is wrong with you? he thought suddenly, angrily, and let
  go of Calamee’s hand. She turned sharply and checked that he was still
  following.
  ‘OK?’
  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Fine.’
  If Trove had released one of his ﬂycams into the night, and sent it straight
  up, high over the city and out into the countryside where the TARDIS had
  landed, he would have seen a strange but disturbing sight - a sight that
  would have made him rethink his plans and would have seen him leaving
  the Palace at the ﬁrst opportunity.
  Out beyond the city walls, where the acid glow of the streetlights gave
  way to the darkness of the countryside, he would have found a thin, vaguely
  phosphorescent circle apparently inscribed in the ground. Its centre was
  not far from where the Doctor’s TARDIS had landed. But now it pro-
  scribed an area approximately a mile across. And it was growing. Only
  slowly, but if Trove had been monitoring the circle from the start, he would
  have noticed that its rate of growth was increasing. From a centimetre or
  so at the start, it had now built up to around a metre per minute.
  And if Trove had then piloted the ﬂycam a little lower, bringing it in at
  a tangent to the front of the circle, he would have seen that the circle was
  just the intersection with the ground of a sphere, a huge bubble, inﬂating
  faster with every passing second.
  The scintillating glow from the surface of the bubble faded with its
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  height from the ground, becoming undetectable at about ﬁve metres. To
  Trove’s ﬂycam, it would have looked like a huge, curved,diaphanous wall,
  sweeping across the ground. And whereas it had been just a few millime-
  tres thick when it had started its journey, it had grown so that now it mea-
  sured over a metre in depth. It was a wavefront - a wavefront of which
  Trove would instantly have known the signiﬁcance.
  ‘Ah!’ said Tannalis in delight as his daughter peered around the door to
  his bedroom. ‘Sensi! Come in, come in!’
  She closed the door quietly behind her and came over to sit on the bed.
  ‘Mother said you wanted to see me.’
  ‘And so I do!’ Tannalis leaned back a little and admired his daugh-
  ter. She was, he knew, not the easiest of girls to get along with. He’d
  heard tales of her harassing and haranguing the Palace staff. No doubt
  her mother’s inﬂuence. But behind the sometimes haughty face of his lit-
  tle girl, he often saw a sadness, a heart-breaking desire to be liked. He
  knew it had been hard on her, being the Imperator’s daughter. Times had
  changed, and the Imperial Family no longer had the respect they once
  had. Which, he often reﬂected, was how it should be. Respect had to be
  earned, and he reluctantly had to admit that he and his family had done
  little to deserve anyone’s affection, never mind respect. The Saiarossans
  had made a big mistake when they had created the Imperatorship for Ben-
  hamin Auburon. They’d been so desperate to thank him for his success in
  averting the Almost War, that they’d have granted him anything in their
  power. And Benhamin, as Tannalis knew, had let power go to his head. So
  he’d asked for some sort of honorary title. Of course he’d known, through
  his network of contacts, what they’d offer him: ’president’. But a few
  words in the right places, a few promised favours, and before he knew it,
  the word ‘Imperator’ was being bandied about. ‘No real power there,’ the
  government had said. ‘Just a name,’ they’d promised. But Benhamin had
  known better.
  Now, on the eve of his 120th birthday, Tannalis had decided that he
  had to correct the mistakes of the past.
  ‘How’s things, then?’ he said. ‘I’ve hardly seen you for the past week.
  This birthday ﬁasco seems to have swallowed up everyone’s time and pa-
  tience.’
  Sensimi rolled her eyes.
  ‘Mother’s taken over completely,’ she said. ‘Again.’
  Tannalis chuckled and squeezed his daughter’s hand.
  ‘I think that must be her mission in life. I have to hand it to her, she’s
  good at it.’ He paused. ‘She should make the most of it while she can,
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  Sensi - but don’t tell her I said that!’
  Sensimi frowned.
  ‘Why? What’s happening?’
  ‘Oh, nothing you need to worry about - you’ll be ﬁne, girl. You’ll be
  taken care of, believe me. I’ve got it all in hand.’
  Her curiosity had been piqued.
  ‘What’ll be taken care of? Oh Daddy, come on - tell me!’
  Tannalis glanced conspiratorially around the room and raised a ﬁnger
  to his lips.
  ‘You’ll ﬁnd out tomorrow - but let’s just say that I have a birthday sur-
  prise planned that’ll make your mother explode.’
  Sensimi looked shocked.
  ‘Oh, not literally! Well... maybe if we’re lucky.’
  Tannalis saw her face pucker up and her shoulders drop as she started
  to slip into being a petulant little girl. He wagged his bony ﬁnger in her
  face.
  ‘Now, now - none of that. Just remember: it’s a secret. No telling that
  brother of yours, either.’
  Something crossed her face, and she started to chew her lip.
  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ’You and Javill fallen out again?’
  ‘Um, yeah...’ But he could tell that there was something she wasn’t
  telling him.
  ‘Sensimi...?’
  ‘Oh, Daddy, he’s such a pig. He hates Looloo, and he hates me. And
  him and Mother are always whispering in corners.’ Sensimi couldn’t hold
  his stare.
  ‘You think I don’t know?
  ‘Don’t know what?’
  ‘Sensi - I’m the Imperator. There’s not a lot goes on here that I don’t
  know about.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘From the top of the Palace, right
  down to the bottom... if it’s happening, I get to ﬁnd out about it.’ He ﬁxed
  her with a meaningful look. He knew about Sensimi’s little secret in the
  cellar - and although he wasn’t quite sure what she was up to, he had a
  good idea. After all, if it hadn’t been for him, having a word with the
  Palace Guard to help Sensimi out, she’d never have managed it. She could
  be a sweet girl, but she’d never reach the levels of conniving and cunning
  that her mother had.
  ‘It’s not what you think,’ she said slowly after a long pause. ‘Honest.’
  ‘And what do I think it is, girl?’
  Sensimi didn’t answer. He gave her hand another squeeze and yawned
  theatrically.
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  ‘Don’t worry,’ he laughed. ‘Just you be careful. I know you have my
  interests at heart, but I think you’ll ﬁnd that after tomorrow, you might
  want to rethink your little plan.’
  The darkness outside Saiarossa swallowed them up, and Calamee let the
  Doctor take the lead. She wasn’t sure how he could be so certain which
  way this TARDIS was, particularly in the dark.
  Nessus, safely ensconced in her pocket, seemed to liven up now that
  they were away from the noise and bustle of the city. He leaned precari-
  ously out of her pocket, his head darting this way and that, as if looking-
  out for something. Even the Doctor seemed to notice.
  ‘He seems to have lost interest in me,’ he said. Calamee was concen-
  trating on not stumbling in the dark. Overhead, a smear of stars cast a
  feeble light down on them.
  ‘He’s like that - one minute he’s all go, and then the next he just doesn’t
  want to know. He’s been more lively today than I’ve known him for ages.
  Maybe he’s picked up all this madness. He took a shine to you, though,
  and he’s not usually very keen on strangers.’
  ‘Animal magnetism,’ said the Doctor wryly. ‘Whoah!’
  He pulled up sharply and it took Calamee a few seconds to realise that
  he’d stopped.
  ‘What?’
  She could see that he was staring forwards, frowning in rapt concen-
  tration. She followed his gaze, but there was nothing there. Just darkness.
  ‘Can’t you see it?’
  She looked again. ‘Uh-uh. Your eyes must be better than mine - what
  is it?’
  He shook his head slowly. ‘I’m not sure. Smoke, maybe.’ He scratched
  at his chin and patted his pocket absently, as if looking for his non-existent
  cigarettes again. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about it.’
  Calamee shrugged. ‘Not that I can see anything, but can’t we go round
  it?’
  The Doctor scanned from side to side.
  ‘It’d be a long walk.’ He opened his arms out in a V-shape in front
  of him, taking in a good hundred degrees of the countryside. Calamee
  squinted into the darkness again. After a few seconds, she thought she
  could see what the Doctor was talking about: barely lighter than the black-
  ness around, it looked like a wide wall of mist, thinning out as it rose from
  a distinct line which, she presumed, was where it touched the ground.
  ‘How far away is it?’
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  ‘Hard to tell - it could be small and a few hundred yards away, of huge
  and half a mile away. Nothing to measure it against.’
  He set off again, more cautiously this time, and Calamee followed, bat-
  ting away an insect from her face. For a moment, she wondered if it was
  one of the Imperator’s ﬂying spies.
  The wall of smoke became more solid as they got closer, and Calamee
  soon started to get the impression that it was actually quite large.
  ‘It’s moving,’ said the Doctor quietly, bringing them to a halt. ‘Towards
  us.’
  He glanced around and pointed into the darkness to the east where
  Calamee could just see the outline of a building, limned by the faint traces
  of light from the city. It looked like a barn or a big shed.
  ‘Come on, Calamee - I’ve got a horrible feeling about this.’
  He grabbed her hand and began to walk quickly towards the barn.
  ‘What sort of feeling? I don’t understand.’
  ‘Neither do I - but trust me.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’m a doctor.’
  Calamee could sense the Doctor’s panic: he began to speed up as they
  headed for the building. She was surprised to see that the wall of smoke
  had become noticeably larger, and wondered if it was a ﬁre. But although
  the weather had been reasonably warm, it hadn’t been anything out of the
  ordinary. And the grass beneath her feet still felt soft. Too soft, for more
  than once she stumbled, swearing, as the Doctor broke into a jog.
  ‘Whatever it is,’ he said, sounding barely out of breath, ‘it’s getting
  closer.’ She heard the keen edge of worry in his voice. ‘If it wasn’t for the
  fact that the TARDIS is on the other side of it, I’d be very tempted to turn
  around and run, you know.’
  The barn was still some distance away. If it was a ﬁre sweeping to-
  wards them, how much shelter would it afford them? It looked half derelict
  in the near-darkness, missing timbers from the walls giving way on to a
  pitch-black interior. The dim starlight showed holes in the roof.
  Calamee glanced to her right: whatever this thing was, it wasn’t smoke.
  It was too uniform, too ﬂat, and there was no hint of ﬁre at its base - just an
  intensifying of the nacreous grey of the wall itself. Now that it was closer,
  she could see detail that hadn’t been visible before: countless tiny sparkles
  ﬂickered and died, like spinning chips of diamond. Every now and then,
  a brighter ﬂash would ﬂare at random, as though, as the wall swept across
  the countryside, it was swallowing up and burning insects.
  They were at the barn, its huge door hanging carelessly. The Doctor
  bundled her inside. It smelt of hay, and the ﬂoor rustled beneath her feet.
  High above her head, she could see the stars peering down at her through
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
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  the gaps in the roof. How she wished she were up there with them, instead
  of down here.
  She looked around for the Doctor, and saw movement that she as-
  sumed was him.
  ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Up here!’
  She crossed carefully to him, hoping there were no bits of rusty farm
  machinery, lying in wait for her legs. He found her hand in the darkness
  and pulled her towards him. There was a moment of sudden, awkward
  silence, before she heard his voice, close up in her ear.
  ‘Go on, then!’
  ‘What?’
  He moved her hand and she found the rungs of a rickety wooden lad-
  der, leading up to the hayloft above. Calamee glanced back towards the
  gaping mouth of the door, as the shimmering, pearly wall swept into the
  barn, lighting up everything around with an eerie light, like the marbling
  of sunlight reﬂected from the surface of a pool.
  She felt the Doctor’s hands on her hips, pushing her up the ladder. She
  slipped on the ﬁrst rung, and she scrabbled madly to regain her footing,
  realising that if she didn’t move faster, the Doctor would be caught by
  the thing. Suddenly, she realised how bad the Doctor’s position was. She
  heaved herself up, arm by painful arm, and tried not to panic. Beneath
  her hands, she felt the ladder vibrating as the Doctor followed her up.
  Calamee risked a glance down - and felt her skin tingle as the wave swept
  over her. As it did, she heard the Doctor cry out - and the ladder shook as
  he fell from it, engulfed by the cold, grey ﬁre.
  The Doctor woke to ﬁnd himself on a bed, head propped up with a pillow,
  in a silent room, illuminated by a spotlight above him. Looking down
  across his chest, covered with a soft, padded quilt, he saw an animal curled
  contentedly on his belly.
  A cat. A ginger and white cat with impossibly green eyes. Or yellow.
  He’d seen the cat before. No. That wasn’t quite it. Someone else had
  seen the cat before. Someone...
  He sighed inwardly, everything on the tip of his memory. He tried to
  relax, to let it all come back to him, but all he could hear was an odd,
  rhythmic clattering of metal. A clacking like the rattling of pebbles in a
  can? Or was it kitchen implements, tap-tap-tapping together?
  He swallowed painfully and looked around to see if whoever had put
  him to bed had been kind enough to leave him a glass of water. Perrier,
  perhaps. He frowned - the phrase somehow had a resonance, an in-joke
  that he didn’t understand. But beyond the quilted bed there was nothing.
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
  120
  Not that the room was dark - just that there wasn’t any room. As if...
  he didn’t know ‘as if’ what and started to get irritated with himself for
  not having worked it all out. Obviously, he thought, none of this was
  real. The last thing he remembered was trying to get up the ladder behind
  Calamee before the wave had struck. All he remembered of that was a
  numbing, tingling sensation over his skin, and a grey ﬁre burning into his
  eyes. He clearly wasn’t in the barn any more. Maybe he’d been moved
  elsewhere, although he didn’t think he’d actually been unconscious. So
  he was probably either in some sort of projection, inside his own head, or
  inside someone else’s. He looked down at the multicoloured quilt - rather
  garish and tasteless, he thought, but comfortable, and vaguely reminiscent
  of something. Perhaps he was inside his own head. He eyed the cat - and
  the cat eyed him back.
  ‘I don’t suppose you’re the one who’s brought me here, are you?’ he
  asked, not feeling too hopeful.
  The cat gave him an indifferent look.
  ‘Didn’t think so.’
  He looked up, but there was nothing there, either. Despite the pool of
  light that fell across the bed, above him was total darkness.
  ‘Well,’ he said loudly, ‘I suppose I’d better get out of this bed and have
  a wander around. Is that what I’m supposed to do?’
  No one answered him. This was becoming a little irritating. He tugged
  the quilt back from his chest and stared at what passed for his body.
  A swirling, writhing mass of... something ﬂeshy. Something organic.
  A strange melange of skin and his coat; shards of other colours - cream,
  beige, tweed even - darted through it, like minnows in a pond. Slivers of
  red and purple velvets, watery green silk and something that looked like
  black leather vied with each other, each new arrival pushing the old pieces
  back into his body. A living lava-lamp of ﬂesh and fabric. An endless
  renewal.
  The Doctor pulled the quilt back over himself, unwilling, in some way
  even he didn’t understand, to look at his transmogriﬁcation. There was
  a pain behind his eyes like toothache - a familiar pain, a warning. Was
  he being told to stay away? It reminded him of the pain he’d felt, a life-
  time ago, when he’d tried to break through his amnesia using Dr Chester’s
  ‘Amazing’ Cerebrotron (Dr Chester’s own quote marks).
  Cautiously, he drew back the quilt again and looked down at his body,
  now almost stable - a watery shimmering, like a heat haze, hung over him,
  as though the changes that he’d seen in his body were temporarily being
  held back, in abeyance. It was as though someone - or something - was
  tinkering with him. It felt like his body, his cells - his molecules, even -
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
  121
  had been pulled apart, reconﬁgured. Altered. But this wasn’t happening
  in real time; this was a ﬂashback, a condensed memory of something that
  had happened to him earlier, which, in turn, was a recapitulation of... of
  what? The Doctor wanted to growl in frustration, punch something... slap
  someone.
  One minute his head was empty of everything, no clues, no hints as
  to what might have happened, and now, suddenly, he had all this stuff
  piling up, spilling out of his brain like spaghetti. It was too much, too fast.
  Maybe if just one of the pieces were to fall into place, the rest would follow
  likewise, dominoes tumbling one after another after another. He screwed
  up his eyes and tried to remember how he’d got his injuries. With a grim
  determination, he plunged back into the pool of memories that Madame
  Xing had stirred up, replaying the images of his leaving the TARDIS with
  Fitz close behind. And then the darkness. Heavy and painful and animal
  darkness.
  He and Fitz had been attacked, and he’d been injured.
  He looked at the cat which seemed almost to be nodding, although
  only its tail moved.
  ‘You’re healing me,’ the Doctor whispered. ‘Or you were healing me.’
  He felt the memory of alien ﬁngers withdrawing from his body, a silent
  surgeon stepping away from the operating table. ‘So what’s happening
  now? And what was that wave? What’s it doing?’
  A swish of ginger and white.
  ‘Ah...’ With the slow expiration of breath came an image, a view through
  someone else’s eyes. He saw a smoking, melted mis-shape, lying on dark
  grass. And then, overlaid on it as if someone was carefully rationing out
  what he was seeing, was a view of the barn in which he and Calamee
  had taken shelter, the vantage point high up above the roof. And then
  another view, inside the barn, juddering and swinging wildly. He could
  see Calamee, crouching at the edge of the hayloft, looking down - down at
  him, prone on the ﬂoor.
  He felt his heartbeats slow, each one measuring out a little more of the
  extra life that he felt he’d been granted.
  Swish. Beat.
  Swish. Beat.
  Swish.
  The cat yawned, its mouth growing ever more impossibly wider until
  all that was left was
  Beat.
  Beat. Beat.
  
  CHAPTER 13. ’NOT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE...’
  122
  ‘Hello?’ he said, wondering if he were alone now. ‘Tain?’ The name
  came to him out of nowhere.
  ‘Thank God!’ said Calamee. ‘I thought you were dead.’
  
  Chapter 14
  ‘A spaceship powered by
  technobabble.’
  ‘Been there, said the Doctor as he struggled to get up from the ﬂoor of the
  bar, ‘done that, got the T-shirt.’
  Calamee stared down at him blankly, Nessus peeking out of the pocket
  of the jacket that she still wore, pulled tight around her like a shield.
  ‘Old Earth saying - oh my giddy aunt!’ He clutched at his head where
  a troop of dwarves had suddenly decided to re-enact Riverdance. And not
  very well. ‘What happened?’
  He looked around - the wave had gone, passed out of the other side of
  the barn. The ground hissed and ﬁzzed, a thin layer of grey slime sheening
  in the starlight.
  ‘Is it safe?’
  Calamee indicated the ﬂoor around him.
  ‘And what’s
  “Tain”? Or who?’
  ‘Not sure,’ he said cautiously ‘On both counts. The name just came to
  me.’ He fought back the instinct to reach down and touch the substance
  that coated the ground - and then noticed that, creeping across the ﬂoor
  as if following the wave, the straw and weeds were miraculously being
  reinstated.
  ‘Stay there,’ he warned her, and gingerly crossed to where the plants
  were springing up. His feet sucked and squelched in the goo beneath
  them.
  He ﬁshed in his trouser pocket, found another empty jar and carefully
  scraped up some of the stuff before screwing on the top and pocketing it.
  He stayed where he was and squatted down to watch the rebirth of the
  vegetation. Rather pointless, he thought, if that was all that was happen-
  ing. The regrowth passed silently across the ﬂoor, following the wave, and
  within minutes it seemed that nothing had happened.
  123
  
  CHAPTER 14. ’A SPACESHIP POWERED BY TECHNOBABBLE.’
  124
  ‘I think it’s safe now,’ he said to Calamee, and stood scratching his head
  as she clambered back down the ladder and jumped nervously on to the
  ﬂoor.
  ‘What was it?’
  ‘A wavefront.’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps an energy ﬁeld of some
  kind.’
  ‘But what was it doing? And what caused it?’
  ‘I think I know what caused it - it’s just a shame I can’t remember. But
  as to what it was doing... I think it was breaking everything organic down
  that it touched, and rebuilding it. What’s more puzzling is why it didn’t do
  the same to me.’ He stopped, a horrible thought occurring to him. ‘Unless
  it did, of course.’
  Calamee shook her head. ‘You’d still be a blob of slime, wouldn’t you?
  It didn’t look like anything happened to you when you fell -the grey thing
  just passed over you.’
  ‘Now, isn’t that odd? We have a phenomenon that seems, indiscrimi-
  nately as far as we can tell, to break down and rebuild organic matter, and
  it leaves me untouched. Now why would that be?’
  Calamee gave a heavy shrug and smiled. ‘I’m the one with the ques-
  tions, remember: you’re here to provide the answers.’
  ‘Oh... ’ The Doctor slapped his hand to the top of his head. ‘There was
  something else. I had a ﬂashback. Or maybe a dream - or perhaps it was a
  ﬂashfor- ’
  ‘OK, OK - we get the idea.’
  ‘I saw a cat. And something happening to my body, some sort of trans-
  formation. Clothes as well as me. And I saw...’ His voice tailed off as
  he screwed up his eyes, trying to remember what it was he’d seen. He
  whirled suddenly, jabbing his ﬁnger towards her in the dark. ‘I saw you -
  from up there. And I saw the barn from outside. And I saw... something
  else. A big, shapeless blob. I think it was a spaceship, a melted spaceship.’
  ’A spaceship? Where?’
  He shrugged. ‘No idea - but that’s not the point. I think I was seeing
  things through other eyes. Maybe birds or insects. And there was a sense
  of something else there, another mind, a presence.’
  He fell silent, listening to the sound of the barn’s timbers, creaking
  gently like old lungs.
  ‘The sooner we get to the TARDIS, the better. Come on. I need to know
  what we’re dealing with. If this wave keeps on going, it’ll hit the city in
  probably less than four hours.’
  ‘But if it didn’t harm you, what’s the problem?’
  
  CHAPTER 14. ’A SPACESHIP POWERED BY TECHNOBABBLE.’
  125
  They stepped out into the night air. It felt cleaner and fresher than it
  had done before.
  ‘I suspect that I was an exception. I don’t know why the wave didn’t
  rebuild me - but I have a horrible feeling that when it reaches the city, it
  won’t be quite so fussy. Now let’s ﬁnd the TARDIS.’
  ‘Uh?’
  Calamee just stood and stared as the Doctor breezed on into the room,
  heading for a six-sided control console at its centre. The room was huge,
  thought Calamee in wonder - some sort of optical illusion, probably. Holo-
  grams, perhaps. She wondered, brieﬂy, how he managed to move so far
  away from her, though, but put that down to more technical trickery. So it
  was totally reasonable that something the size of a portable toilet should
  be as big inside as her school hall. She looked up, and saw the arch of
  the night sky above her, dotted with stars. Did the TARDIS not have a
  roof? Calamee scanned down until she saw where the ‘sky’ met the pale,
  wooden walls, inset with recessed circles, and spotted the fuzzy line where
  they joined. Another hologram, then. Or maybe the walls were the holo-
  gram, and the open ceiling was real.
  She shrugged her way out of the Doctor’s coat and hung it over the
  back of a twisty wooden chair. Nessus climbed sleepily from the pocket
  and dragged his way up into her arms.
  The Doctor was ﬂicking switches casually, peering at little vidscreens
  set into the control panel. He gave a shrug, leaned back, and called out for
  Fitz and Trix over his shoulder, before seemingly forgetting to listen for an
  answer and dashing back to Calamee, alone and dazed in the doorway.
  ‘Welcome to the TARDIS,’ he beamed. ‘My home. Like it?’
  Calamee wobbled her head uncertainly.
  ‘It’s... big.’
  ’Everyone says that, he said, grinning, pulling out the jar of night beast
  jam from his coat pocket. Apart from the ones who think it’s cool to pre-
  tend they haven’t noticed.’
  ‘Is it holograms, then?’
  ‘Um? Oh no no no. Nothing so naff. Transcendental thingummyjig.’
  ‘Meditation?’
  ‘No, no thanks. Had a nap earlier - oh, I see what you... No.’ He rubbed
  his forehead as if he’d suddenly remembered that he’d forgotten what he
  was looking for. ‘Dimensionalism. Transcendent. Something like that.’
  ‘Right.’
  ‘Bigger inside,’ he muttered. ‘Pocket universes. Plasmic shells.’ He
  wiggled his ﬁngers vaguely. ‘Bibblybobblybo.’
  
  CHAPTER 14. ’A SPACESHIP POWERED BY TECHNOBABBLE.’
  126
  ‘OK,’ said Calamee with a deep breath. ‘A spaceship powered by tech-
  nobabble. So where’s this Fitz and Trix, then?’ She glanced round, won-
  dering if they slept in the comfy armchairs that she could see in one of the
  alcoves.
  ‘Fitz!’ the Doctor called, crossing to a doorway that Calamee hadn’t
  seen before. He leaned through it before shrugging and disappearing. She
  could hear him calling their names. Nessus gave a squeak, jumped down
  from her arms, and went scampering after him.
  Calamee shook her head, and wandered almost nervously over to the
  control console, glancing up at the ‘sky’, just to check it was still there.
  She’d assumed that this single room was all there was, but from the Doc-
  tor’s disappearance, she ﬁgured out there was more. As her eyes played
  over the little brass buttons and quaintly retro displays in front of her, it
  suddenly hit her: this was real. This was really real. The Doctor was from
  outer space, and - if she was a very, very good girl - maybe she could go
  there with him when he left. Her heart danced in her chest at the thought
  of it.
  ‘What d’you think, Nessus?’ she whispered. ‘Fancy travelling around
  the universe in this, then?’ Her eyes roved hungrily over the tempting
  rows of buttons and switches.
  ‘I’ll be ten minutes,’ came the Doctor’s voice, ﬂoating through the cor-
  ridors of the TARDIS like a lost ghost. She nodded to herself and reached
  out to the antiquated controls.
  ‘And don’t touch anything!’
  Calamee
  jerked her hand back and looked around to see if she was being watched.
  Just in case she was, she pulled a face into the empty air and wandered off
  after him.
  The TARDIS, as she’d half expected, was considerably bigger than even
  the control room had suggested. Leading off from the alcoves that lay
  around the edge of the control room were several doorways. She took the
  one that the Doctor had taken, and after following a blood-red corridor,
  hung with really old oil-paintings of people who looked a bit like the Doc-
  tor but with huge, stupid-looking wigs on, she found him pressing buttons
  in a room so white and clean and cold that it could have been the inside
  of a fridge. She squinted as she stepped in. Something invisible faintly
  resisted her, like thick cobwebs, but she pushed on through.
  ‘What are you doing?’
  He waved at the squat, white machine in front of him. Nessus sat on
  the top, gazing around in stupid fascination.
  ‘Analysing the DNA we got from the night beast. He seemed to sud-
  denly remember something, and jammed his hand into his trouser pockets
  to bring out the other sample jar, the one he had ﬁlled with the goo from
  
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  the barn. To the surprise of both of them, instead of the grey slime that
  they’d expected, the jar was half-ﬁlled with bits of straw and grass and
  weeds.
  ‘Remarkable,’ said the Doctor, cautiously unscrewing the top.
  Calamee backed away.
  ‘Should you be doing that?’
  ’Shouldn’t I? Oh, I see what you mean.’
  He crossed to a large, open-fronted cabinet - white again - against a
  wall and stuck his hands and the jar into it.
  ‘Bio-containment ﬁeld,’ he explained. ‘Like on the door back there.
  Should keep it -’
  ‘- away from your hands?’ Calamee ﬁnished dubiously. ‘I don’t think
  so.’
  ‘But we’ve already worked out that it doesn’t seem to affect me’
  It was too late, anyway: by the time he’d ﬁnished the sentence, the
  top was off the jar, and the Doctor was sprinkling the contents into the
  tray at the bottom of the cabinet. He pulled a face and poked at them
  disconsolately before scraping some of them back into the jar, putting the
  top back on, and bringing it back to the DNA analyser. A ping sounded
  incongruously and with an alarmingly loud chattering noise, a stream of
  paper tape spewed from a little slot in its front. The Doctor snatched at it
  and read it, incredibly quickly, as it pooled at his feet.
  Calamee opened her mouth to ask what it said, but he raised a peremp-
  tory ﬁnger before popping the jar of weeds into the machine.
  He stuck out his tongue as he concentrated on pressing buttons on the
  machine, and then stood back with his arms folded.
  ‘Well?’
  ‘Oh, yes yes. Fascinating. Really fascinating.’
  ‘That’s good,’ she answered sourly. ‘I expect.’
  A few moments later, the machine pinged again, and more tape jetted
  from the slot. The Doctor devoured the information on it greedily be-
  fore going ‘Ha!’ theatrically, and sweeping back out of the room. Nessus
  sprang on to his shoulder as he breezed past. Calamee raced to catch up
  with him, ﬁnding him slipping back into his coat.
  ‘Oi!’ she yelled.
  ‘No time, Calamee - no time at all. We have to get back to the city.’
  ‘Why?’
  He stared at her.
  ‘To warn them of course.’
  ‘About what?’
  He rolled his eyes.
  
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  ‘That your planet is about to be devoured. What else?’
  Calamee stared at him. Nessus peered out of the folds of the Doctor’s
  coat and squeaked as if in agreement.
  ‘The wave?’ she said.
  ‘Well, we’re not talking about the rampant rise of capitalism. I don’t
  quite know how the wave propagates itself yet. If it’s dependent on en-
  ergy released from the breakdown of chemical bonds in the organic matter
  it disintegrates, then it may all ﬁzzle out once it reaches the tarmac and
  cobbles of the city. But there’s the rest of the wave to consider - the bit of
  it that’s just going to race on out across the planet’s countryside.’
  This was suddenly too much to take in. He was talking about every-
  thing she knew. Saiarossa, Espero - her parents, even. It didn’t matter
  that this wave seemed to reconstitute things as it went: it still felt like the
  Doctor had just pronounced a death sentence on her planet.
  ‘Can’t we stop it? Can’t we do something?’
  ‘Hopefully, yes. But in the meantime, we have to get back to the city.’
  He started heading for the door.
  Calamee coughed pointedly. ‘And we’re going to walk?’
  He stopped sharply and turned, his face puckered into a frown.
  ‘We’re standing in the most advanced spaceship that I’ve ever heard
  of, and you’re planning on strolling casually back to the city?’ Calamee
  said patiently, waiting for the penny to drop. ‘And anyway, how are we
  going to get through the wave again? That trick with the barn only works
  one way. Think about it, Doctor. Going back, we’re going to have to run
  through it, and Lord only knows what’ll happen to us. You might be im-
  mune to it, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life that I am.’
  The Doctor sighed.
  ‘Have you any idea how difﬁcult short hops are in the TARDIS? Have
  you?’
  She stared at him blankly.
  ‘No,’ he said suddenly, thrusting Nessus back into her arms and bound-
  ing up to the control panel, ‘I don’t suppose you have. Well...’ He began
  pressing buttons before turning to her, a broad smile cracking his face. ‘It’s
  a good job that I have.’
  Trix had no difﬁculty ﬁnding the Palace. It was just about the biggest and
  best-lit building in the city. Even from the side streets, she could see its
  imposing, sand-coloured faade, illuminated by lights set into the square
  in front of it. It wasn’t huge - not Buckingham Palace huge. But it had
  the whole side of the square to itself, and thus managed a certain gravi-
  tas. Some kind of tournament, with horses and men with big sticks, was
  
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  being set up, and most of the area was fenced off. The rain had driven
  most of the punters away, though, and only now that it had stopped were
  they making their way back, jostling to get a good view. She made easy
  going around the arena, trying to keep her head down and not attract too
  much attention; although she wasn’t quite sure why, she felt surprisingly
  nervous and vulnerable. Fitz’s unceremonious dumping of her in favour
  of Farine still preyed on her, and she put her state of mind down to that.
  It had been quite a surprise, though, to be accosted by the two little
  old ladies. For a moment, she’d expected to be mugged, and felt quite
  disproportionately sick.
  ‘We have a message for you,’ one of them had said, caught awkwardly
  between curtsying and bowing. That had been a turn-up.
  ‘Her Highness Princess Sensimi asked us to give you this,’ the other
  one had said, pressing something into Trix’s hand. ‘She says to follow her
  and... Fitz? to the Palace and to present this. They’ll let you in.’ And with
  a bit more bowing and scraping, as if Trix had been royalty herself, the
  two women had scuttled off.
  Trix had opened her hand to discover a silvery credit-card sized thing
  with a holographic picture ﬂoating just above the surface. She’d had to
  ﬁnd a streetlight to read it by - and had been rather staggered to ﬁnd
  that it was some sort of ID card, for, sure enough, Princess Sensimi Ruth
  Auburon - complete with picture.
  A picture of Farine.
  Trix knew there had been something wrong with Farine: something
  about how she dressed, how she acted. Amateurs! she thought. Her body
  language had been all wrong. It was obvious: ‘Farine’, despite trying to
  look like a normal, everyday person, had carried herself with an hauteur,
  an attitude, that suggested she thought she was better than everyone else.
  But this just made it all the more puzzling: why did this Princess Sen-
  simi want Fitz? Why was she taking him to the Palace? And, considering
  how snotty Sensimi had been, did Trix really want to be there too?
  Oh... hang on, thought Trix, watching a couple of men trying to rope a
  particularly skittish horse. Palace. Palace equals money. Equals gorgeous
  things. Equals -
  Someone jostled her from behind and she turned sharply - more sharply
  than she’d intended: the youth that had elbowed her jumped back in
  alarm for some reason and apologised. Trix just stared at him, memo-
  ries of the three men that had attacked her still fresh in her head. For a
  moment, she wondered quite what had happened back there.
  As the man sloped away, casting shifty looks at her, she turned back
  to the Palace. She’d been caught in the torrential downpour, and could al-
  
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  130
  most feel the steam rising from her body, like the horses cantering around
  the arena. Never a great fan of horses - they’d scared her as a child, and
  still managed to make her nervous as an adult - she found herself strangely
  drawn to them, and spent a few moments watching them pacing back-
  wards and forwards as their riders set up some sort of jousting match.
  To her side, she caught snatches of a worried conversation about a
  brush ﬁre, out beyond the city, but the general consensus seemed to be
  that the rain would have put it out by now. She looked up into the sky -
  a few shreds of cloud obscured the stars, and Trix felt a quite explicable
  longing to be out there, back in the TARDIS, away from this place. She
  shook her head and took a breath. She needed to ﬁnd the Doctor and Fitz.
  Farine hated the cellar - which was hardly surprising, considering what
  Princess Sensimi kept in there, and considering what she expected Farine
  to do. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the princess had broken the main
  light switch so that Farine had to make her way down the steps in the
  darkness until she found the second one. The weight of the pan she carried
  was making her arm ache, and so she was relieved to be able to set it down
  for a few moments while she felt along the wall for the switch. A rustling
  from the far end of the cellar made her stomach tighten, and she had to
  remind herself that the thing down there was safe behind bars.
  The noise that suddenly issued from the old barrel storage room, just
  next door, was another thing entirely. Building up from almost nothing,
  it sounded like a whole herd of elephines, signalling to each other across
  the southern plains. As the noise rose to a crescendo, Farine abandoned
  her pan, abandoned her search for the light switch, and ﬂed back up the
  stairs.
  A few moments later, the door to the barrel room opened cautiously, and
  the Doctor’s head poked through.
  ‘The old girl must have a thing for cellars,’ he said to Calamee. think
  her melodrama circuit’s turned up too high, you know.’
  ‘We’re in the Palace?’ said Calamee, a rather hurtful tone of disbelief
  in her voice, somewhere behind him.
  ‘Of course we’re in the Palace,’ replied the Doctor indignantly as he
  ushered her through. ‘I told you: the old girl’s rather good at these short
  hops.’
  Calamee started to say something, but the Doctor shushed her, peering
  around in the gloom as his eyes acclimatised themselves. In the distance,
  and at quite some height, was a vague sliver of light -a partly opened door,
  he imagined. Yes, he could make out the steps that led up to it.
  
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  ‘Can you smell that?’ he whispered.
  There was an excited squeal from Nessus and the sounds of tiny paws
  skittering over the ﬂags beneath their feet.
  ‘Nessus!’ hissed Calamee. ‘Come back!’
  ‘I think-he can smell it too.’
  ‘What?’
  The Doctor didn’t answer - over on the far wall, he thought he could
  see something that looked like a switch, outlined faintly by the light from
  the door above it.
  ‘Stay here,’ he said, and gingerly made his way over. Moments later,
  the room was bathed in light from a single bulb high on the ceiling, and
  he turned to see Calamee staring in horror at something concealed behind
  a pile of plastic crates.
  ‘I think you’d better look at this,’ Calamee said.
  Makeshift bars had been set in a doorway that led into another room.
  And lying on a pile of straw, just beyond those bars, was one of the night
  beasts.
  Curled up on the creature’s chest was Nessus, looking up at them both
  with bright, happy eyes.
  
  Chapter 15
  ‘The foot-stomping Tantrum Fairy
  was back.’
  ‘Nessus! Come out of there!’ pleaded Calamee, unable to believe that her
  pet was sitting on what, from all accounts, was one of the most vicious
  and fearsome animals on Espero.
  ‘Quite touching, really,’ said the Doctor, folding his arms insouciantly.
  ‘No it’s not bloody touching - it won’t be if that thing attacks him. Doc-
  tor, please - help me get him out.’
  ‘I don’t think it’s going to attack him, do you? Look at them, Happy as
  Larry.’
  ‘Happy as what?’
  ‘As a pig in shhhh... someone’s coming!’
  Calamee felt the Doctor grab her arm and drag her back into the door-
  way to the room where the TARDIS had landed. She hadn’t quite got over
  the fact that it had landed inside the Palace. Presumably without drilling a
  hole through its roof. She wondered for a moment whether he was going
  to bundle her back in, and opened her mouth to protest - until she heard
  the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
  She tried to peer around the Doctor, who was peeking through the
  crack he’d left in the door, but he seemed determined to hog the view. She
  could hear voices, whispers. Whoever had come into the cellar seemed as
  shifty as they were.
  ‘Who is it?’ she whispered in his ear, trying to get a look.
  ‘Considering how coincidence seems to follow me around,’ he replied
  wryly, ‘I shouldn’t have been surprised. It’s Fitz!’
  Fitz had had a feeling about this. From the moment Sensimi had come
  back and woken him from his dream about the Doctor’s bottom, as they’d
  132
  
  CHAPTER 15. ’THE FOOT-STOMPING TANTRUM FAIRY...’
  133
  shiftily slipped through the Palace apparently trying to avoid everyone,
  right up to the moment they’d entered the cellar, everything screamed
  BAD. But he’d badgered Sensimi to tell him why she was so interested
  in him, and he could hardly bottle out now.
  The huge pan of bloody meat on the ﬂoor at the foot of the steps didn’t
  bode well.
  ‘Cellars,’ he muttered to no one in particular. ‘Always with the cellars.
  Doesn’t anyone do things in attics any more? And what’s that smell?’ he
  asked, realising that, along with the must and damp, there was another
  scent here - something warm and musky and alive. Quite pleasant, he
  thought. He dipped his head casually towards his own armpit, wondering
  if he needed another bath.
  ‘You wanted to know,’ Sensimi said sullenly, crossing to a darkened
  doorway that seemed to lead into another chamber. ‘There. Now you
  know.’
  She stood back, arms folded grumpily.
  Behind the bars set wonkily into the doorframe was a dark, shaggy
  shape - and it took Fitz a few moments to realise what it was. And what
  was sitting on it.
  ‘What the devil have you got one of those for? And is that Looloo on
  its chest?’
  ‘Looloo?’ Sensimi did a double-take.
  ‘Looloo?’ echoed a voice from a doorway in the other wall, making
  them both jump. ‘I think you’ll ﬁnd he’s called Nessus.’
  ‘Doctor!’
  shrieked Fitz as his friend disentangled himself from the
  shadows.
  ‘Who?’ said Sensimi.
  Another ﬁgure stepped out from behind the Doctor and squeezed her-
  self past - a rather peeved-looking girl, younger than Sensimi, Fitz would
  have said, but certainly with a bit more spunk. Her short-cropped hair
  had been tinted bronze and complemented her dark skin beautifully. ‘Is
  this the Fitz you lost earlier?’
  ‘I wouldn’t quite say lost - more mislaid.’ And with that, the Doctor
  bounded over and gave Fitz a huge, rib-cracking hug, lifting him clear off
  the ground. For a moment, Fitz wondered if the Doctor was going to kiss
  him - and remembered the dream.
  Eventually, the Doctor let him go, and, gasping, Fitz said: ‘I thought
  you were -’
  ‘Dead?’
  ‘No, not dead actually. Just missing. Someone in the city said they’d
  seen you, but we couldn’t ﬁnd you. And now Trix has gone AWOL as
  
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  well.’
  The Doctor threw him a look. ‘Probably on the hunt for the Imperial
  Crown Jewels or something. You know what she’s like.’ He gave a rather
  dismissive shrug and turned to Sensimi, who, simmering quietly through-
  out the reunion, seemed to be reaching the boil. ‘And you must be...?’
  ‘This is her Royal Ladyness Princess Sensimi,’ Fitz introduced her. The
  Doctor held out his hand, but Sensimi frostily ignored it.
  ‘And this is Calamee,’ said the Doctor, introducing his own new friend.
  ‘She’s been helping me.’ He paused and scratched his nose. ‘I don’t know
  about you, Fitz, but I seem to have had more than the usual problems with
  my memory recently.’
  ‘Tell me about it! Trix found me lying on the grass near the TARDIS. I
  think I’ve remembered most of it, but there’s still a hole or two.’
  ‘Snap,’ said the Doctor grimly, and reached out to touch the bare patch
  on Fitz’s head.
  ‘Looks like we’ve both been through the wars. The same ones, I sus-
  pect?
  ‘Nice as all these introductions are,’ cut in Calamee, ‘is someone going
  to explain what that is doing in here - and why Nessus is cuddling it?’ She
  gestured to where the night beast watched them silently, still reclining on
  its bed of straw. ‘What if it wakes up and kilts him?’
  ‘Calm down,’ said the Doctor. ‘Look at them - does it look like Nessus
  is in any danger? And I think you’ll ﬁnd that it’s perfectly awake already.’
  The beast lay on its side in the straw, its eyes following the movements
  of the humans as they approached. It seemed unconcerned - but whether
  it knew that the humans were probably not going to harm it or that the hu-
  mans couldn’t harm it, Fitz wasn’t sure. Although when its eyes alighted
  on Sensimi, he felt sure he heard a low growl rumble from its chest. Nes-
  sus gave a little bleat from where he was curled up in the crook of the crea-
  ture’s arm, closed his eyes again and buried his head in the night beast’s
  fur.
  ‘Nessus,’ whispered a dismayed Calamee, as if, with that simple move-
  ment, Nessus had betrayed her and gone over to the side of the enemy.
  She turned, and Fitz saw a shadow of embarrassment and anger colour
  her eyes, the Doctor wearing an understanding little smile.
  ’I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘Why’s Nessus in there with that?’
  ‘That’s Nessus, is it?’ said Fitz. ‘I thought it looked a bit butcher than
  Looloo. Maybe Nessus is related to the night beast.’ He heard Sensimi
  make a tutting noise.
  ‘How can they be?’ she said. ‘Look at the sizes of them.’
  
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  ‘Oh yes,’ Calamee said scornfully. ‘I keep forgetting that things have
  to be the same size to be related. Remind me to tell you about how babies
  are made some day.’
  ‘Sorry!’ Sensimi said archly - although it was clear she was anything
  but. ‘I was just saying -’
  ‘Well don’t,’ snapped Calamee. ‘And what’s this thing doing in here
  anyway? Don’t you know how dangerous they are?’ She glared at Fitz,
  as if it were suddenly all his fault. ‘Haven’t you heard the stories about
  them?’
  ‘Believe me,’ said Fitz, ‘I’ve had ﬁrst-hand experience of them.’ He
  looked meaningfully at the Doctor. ‘We have.’
  ‘Not exactly house-trained pets,’ added Calamee. ‘These things kill
  people.’
  ‘It’s safe enough,’ snapped Sensimi defensively. ‘It won’t attack just
  anyone! It’s trained to -’
  She broke off suddenly as everyone looked at her.
  ‘It’s trained to what?’ asked the Doctor.
  ‘Erm, it’s trained to... be good. House-trained.’
  Calamee took a step towards the princess, and looked gratiﬁed when
  Sensimi took a pace back, almost stumbling over the step behind her. ‘As
  I seem to recall saying to someone else not so long ago - you can’t kid a
  kidder. What’s going on, Sensimi?’
  ‘Princess Sensimi,’ she said, trying to rescue some dignity.
  ‘All right, Princess Sensimi: what’s going on? I take it that this little pet
  of yours is a rather well-kept secret? Or is everyone in your family in on
  it?’
  There was a sudden ﬂare of panic in Sensimi’s eyes, and Fitz realised
  that Calamee had hit a sore point.
  ‘OK, let’s do a deal,’ Calamee said. ‘You tell us what you’ve got this
  thing here for, and we’ll promise not to land you in it with Mummy and
  Daddy.’
  ‘Don’t you dare threaten me. I could have you...’
  ‘What?’ goaded Calamee. ‘Locked up, like you did with the Doctor?
  Beaten within an inch of my life?’
  ‘Calamee,’ interjected the Doctor. ‘I really think we should be telling
  everyone about -’
  ‘Shut up,’ she rounded on him. ‘If that thing harms a hair on Nessus’s
  head, it’ll be her fault.’
  ‘As I’ve already pointed out,’ began the Doctor, ‘oh... hang on...’
  His voice tailed off as he caught sight of something inside the night
  beast’s cage. Calamee threw an ‘I’m-not-ﬁnished-with-you-yet-madam’
  
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  136
  look at Sensimi and moved around to see what it was that he’d spotted.
  Lying half under the creature were some pale, grubby items of clothing.
  For a moment, Fitz wondered if the Little Princess had been feeding the
  creature on whole people, but then he saw the look on Calamee’s face.
  ‘That’s one of Javill’s ceremonial shirts,’ she said. ‘I’m sure of it. Look
  - there’s the Imperial emblem on the sleeve.’
  ‘So it is,’ said the Doctor, tipping his head on one side to get a better
  look. ‘And, unless I’m very much behind in young people’s fashions, isn’t
  that an underskirt over there?’
  Calamee gave a grunt. ‘It looks like your precious Imperial Family has
  more secrets than the rest of the world could have imagined, especially if
  Javill’s taken to wearing women’s underwear.’
  ‘That’s not Javill’s,’ spat Sensimi contemptuously, folding her arms in
  a sullen and rather pointless gesture of deﬁance. ‘That’s -’
  She stopped sharply and Calamee gave a broad grin.
  ‘That mouth of yours’ll get you into so much trouble one day,’ she said
  smugly. ‘So whose is it?’
  Sensimi didn’t answer.
  ‘Let me hazard a guess that it might be your mother’s,’ the Doctor ven-
  tured. ‘And unless you’ve been playing dressing up with it, the only thing
  I can think of is that you’ve been training it to associate certain smells with
  food.’ He stared at Sensimi, his eye sockets black pools in his pale face.
  ‘Training it to kill by scent?’ He waved his arms generously. ‘Or at least if
  not kill, then a serious bit of growling and scaring and stomping around.’
  He looked at Sensimi expectantly. She, in turn, looked to Fitz, as if expect-
  ing him to rescue her. But Fitz said nothing - he was beginning to ﬁnd her
  as tiresome as everyone else seemed to be doing. For a second, Fitz felt
  a pang of sympathy for the Little Princess, but when he realised that the
  Doctor was probably right and that she had been training the creature to
  attack her own mother and brother, that twinge evaporated instantly.
  ‘No,’ Sensimi said lamely, hugging her arms as if they might hold off
  the combined venom of everyone’s stares. ‘It’s not like that.’ She looked
  around, her eyes pleading. ‘They were... they were going to kill my father.
  They were! Honestly! Fitz!’ Sensimi’s desperate eyes locked on to him.
  ‘You believe me, don’t you? They were planning to kill him tomorrow. I
  heard Javill and Mother talking about how this would be his last birth-
  day.’ The foot-stomping Tantrum Fairy was back. ‘I don’t care if you don’t
  believe me - I know it’s true.’
  Her face was tight as a ﬁst as she stared at them all. She must have
  felt more than a little betrayed by Fitz, as he stood impassively through
  her little speech, and he began to feel a bit guilty. She was only a teenager,
  
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  for God’s sake. Didn’t all teenagers want to set ravening beasts on their
  parents? No, he thought. Probably not.
  ‘Well,’ said the Doctor with a deep sigh, when no one had said anything
  for an absolutely eternal ten seconds. ‘That’s as may be. Murder’s rather
  bad, Sensimi - but from what I’ve heard of your mother and brother, I’m
  not sure I blame you.’
  ‘Doctor!’ said Fitz, clearly unable to believe what he was hearing. ‘This
  is, erm, matricide we’re talking about. And, um, that other one. Brothers.’
  ‘Fratricide,’ chimed in Calamee helpfully.
  ‘That one, yes. I don’t think we should be taking this so lightly.’
  The Doctor pulled a stage ‘ooh-who-rattled-his-cage?’ face at Calamee
  before waving Fitz’s objections away.
  ‘Anyway, before we get on to the real matter at hand, perhaps Sensimi
  would like to tell us how that poor creature got in here.’
  ‘I had it smuggled in a week ago,’ she said sullenly, obviously decid-
  ing that the truth might get her into marginally less trouble than more
  prevarication, ‘after I heard reports that it had come wandering into the
  city. I was curious about it. Some of the Palace Guard managed to catch
  it in a net and knock it out. I was going to tell Mother and Father about
  it, impress them, and then I heard Javill and Mother plotting and I de-
  cided to see if I could... train it.’ Her face started to look pleading again
  and Calamee told her to just get on with the story. ‘So I started feeding it
  and giving it bits of Mother’s and Javill’s clothing, you know, in the hope
  that it would...’ Her voice tailed off as she clearly realised how awful and
  calculating she sounded.
  Calamee ﬁnished her sentence for her: ‘Build up an association be-
  tween their scent and food? And then what? You planned to release it and
  hope it went for them?’
  ‘It’s a fair plan,’ interjected Fitz, ‘although I don’t for a minute think it
  would have worked. Look at it - this creature’s far more calm and docile
  than the others we’ve heard about. Rather like the one me and Trix en-
  countered, actually.’ He stepped over to the bars of the cage and crouched
  down, dangerously within reach if the night beast should suddenly decide
  to grab him. But it didn’t: it just watched him, like a half-dozing cat, with
  its tiny black eyes. Nessus gave a little wriggle and adjusted his position
  before continuing his nap.
  ‘So what do we do with it?’ asked Calamee. ‘Let it go?’ She threw a
  sharp glance at Sensimi whose suddenly open mouth was, equally sud-
  denly, closed again. ‘It doesn’t seem fair to keep the poor thing caged up
  here. And if we let it go, it might head for home, mightn’t it?’
  Fitz hmmed. ‘And that’s somewhere we’d like to be, I imagine?’
  
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  ‘Spot on Fitz! We let the creature go, follow it to its home, hope that’s
  where the distress call came from and wrap up this whole thing in time
  for tea! Oh, and sort out this thing that’s on its way towards the city.’ He
  sprang from his knees to full height and dusted off his hands. ‘Unless of
  course,’ he added a triﬂe sadly, ‘the gentleman standing in the doorway
  with two members of the Palace Guard has a different idea.’
  It took a moment for what the Doctor was saying to sink in, and then
  all eyes turned towards the top of the stairs.
  
  Chapter 16
  ‘Not die exactly. Not really.’
  The man tilted his head ever so slightly to one side and gave a thin little
  sigh.
  ‘Doctor,’ he said magnanimously ‘What brings you back to the Impe-
  rial Palace so soon? I thought we’d seen the last of you?’
  ‘Did you? Can’t say the same about you I’m afraid - particularly since
  we haven’t met.’ He paused. ’Have we?’
  Fitz was starting to wonder if he was going to meet anyone on Espero
  that he actually liked (apart from Calamee, who seemed decent if a bit
  mouthy). If he was, then it certainly wasn’t going to be this bloke. He was
  Caucasian, strongly built, with a square frame and a rather blocky head.
  The swoosh of blond hair that crowned it looked somehow feminine, yet
  the man’s voice was deep and decidedly masculine. A conﬁdent man,
  thought Fitz. A man that he could very quickly grow to dislike. In fact:
  poof! There - it had happened!
  ‘My name is Mr Trove,’ the man said, as if that explained it all, and
  descended the steps slowly and purposefully. His face was wreathed in a
  sardonic smile - the smile of someone who knows something that no one
  else does, and is determined that everyone is going to realise it. ‘What
  brought you back here?’ he asked simply.
  ‘This is my home and I can bring whoever I want back here,’ said Sen-
  simi suddenly, out of nowhere.
  ‘I think you’ll ﬁnd it’s your parents’ home,’ Trove corrected her softly.
  ‘I think you’ll ﬁnd,’ said Fitz, ‘that it’s her parents’ house - and Sensimi’s
  home, actually.’ Yab boob! to you, Mr Trove.
  Sensimi glanced at Fitz and gave hint an encouraging little smile.
  ‘Yeah,’ she nodded. ‘What Fitz said’
  ‘Actually,’ said Calamee, ‘the Palace is the property of the state, so in a
  very real sense it’s as much mine as it is anyone else’s.’
  139
  
  CHAPTER 16. ’NOT DIE EXCACTLY. NOT REALLY.’
  140
  Trove threw her an almost admiring look before smarming on: ‘Well,
  regardless of whose home or house it is, I have full permission to be here
  from Imperator Tannalis himself.’
  ’Don’t care,’ snapped Sensimi (rather childishly, thought Fitz). ‘These
  are my friends and I won’t have you interrogating them.’ She gave a con-
  sidered pause and her eyes drifted pointedly towards Calamee. Well,’ she
  added sullenly. ‘Apart from her.’
  Calamee gave Sensimi the visual equivalent of a growl, and Fitz found
  himself grinning, before realising that they were probably all in a very se-
  rious position here. Trove, whoever he was, clearly had the Palace Guard
  on his side, and although they had Sensimi on theirs, Fitz knew who held
  the upper hand.
  ‘Discussions about ownership of this magniﬁcent palace aside,’ the
  Doctor said, ‘I take it that the ﬂy camera was your little toy?’
  ‘I have you to thank for its demise?’
  The Doctor gave a theatrical bow. ‘It was spoiling my meal,’ he said
  apologetically, and began patting his pockets. ‘I’m sure I have it on me,
  somewhere, if you’d like it back, although it might need a little repair
  work. They don’t go well with custard, do they?’
  ‘Keep it as a souvenir, Doctor. I have plenty more.’
  The Doctor stopped patting. ‘And, if my logic isn’t at fault - which I
  have to confess it occasionally is, these days - I’m beginning to suspect
  that you’re also the person behind that little lock-him-up-and-let-him-go
  charade when I arrived. Did you ﬁnd out what you wanted to know before
  your surveillance device got its just deserts?’
  Trove smiled again, but this time it was a harder, colder smile.
  ‘I am close, Doctor. Very close.’
  ‘Oh, I am pleased. Does that mean that you can tell us what it’s all
  been about? I mean, if you’re so close that the interference of us pesky
  kids won’t stop you from getting away with it?’
  Fitz grinned.
  ‘If you mean,’ replied Trove icily, ‘that there’s now nothing you can do
  to stop me, then sadly, no.’
  The Doctor frowned. ‘Would that be a “No, you can’t stop me” or a
  “No, you can stop me”? These double negatives always confuse me.’
  Trove took a breath and raised a hand to the two Palace Guards stand-
  ing behind him.
  ‘Lock them up,’ he said. .
  ‘Don’t you dare!’ seethed Sensimi, drawing herself up. The sound of
  Sensimi’s shrill voice must have woken Nessus, because, out of the corner
  of his eye, Fitz saw the little creature sit up and stretch on the night beast,
  
  CHAPTER 16. ’NOT DIE EXCACTLY. NOT REALLY.’
  141
  and then amble casually over to Calamee. She pulled him up to her chest,
  hugged him painfully tightly, and began telling him off.
  ‘I don’t know who you think you are,’ Sensimi continued to Trove.
  ‘You’re a guest here in the Palace.’ She stared at the Guard. ‘And you
  two...’ Fitz suddenly felt inexplicably proud of her. A wannabe murderess
  she may be, a spoiled brat, certainly. But it took some guts to stand up
  to Mr Smuggo. ‘You answer to my father,’ she said as imperiously as she
  could. ‘And to his family. Not to this... this offworlder. Now get out of
  our way.’
  Sensimi was, thankfully for once, every inch the haughty Little Princess.
  She tipped back her chin, and ﬂounced straight up the stairs past Trove
  and the Guard. Trying not to smirk, Fitz led the rest of them after her and
  out of the cellar.
  ‘Just one thing,’ said the Doctor airily as he paused in the doorway.
  Fitz turned, assuming he was talking to him. But the Doctor was looking
  at Trove. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with this wave
  thing that’s heading towards the city, would you? Only I expect it’ll be
  arriving in a couple of hours, and I really think someone ought to tell the
  authorities before we all die.’
  ‘Did I hear you right?’ asked Fitz of the Doctor as they trooped back up
  the stairs after Sensimi. He glanced past him to see a very worried-looking
  Trove staring up at them.
  ‘What? Oh, the wave. Did I forget to mention it? Well, there’s a sort of
  energy wave heading towards the city. I expect it’ll arrive in -’
  ‘Yes, yes, I got that. An energy wave? Heading towards the city?And
  something about dying. All of us? And you didn’t think to mention it?’
  Fitz stared at him in disbelief and the Doctor pulled a ‘sorry’ face.
  ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind recently. Or not, I suppose.’ He brightened
  up, and began pushing Fitz on after the others. ‘Anyway, I was exagger-
  ating just a little. As long as everyone gets themselves up into their bed-
  rooms - or attics, just to be sure - there shouldn’t be much of a problem.’
  ‘Nice to hear it.’ Fitz didn’t feel very convinced. But, on the landing
  above, Sensimi was standing, waiting for them alongside Calamee. Even
  beneath her skin colour, Fitz could see that she was ﬂushed - angry about
  Trove, no doubt, and probably not in much of a mood to wait for him and
  the Doctor to have a cosy little chat.
  Back in the cellar, the Guard hovered awkwardly for a few moments until
  Trove dismissed them. In silence, he stared back down the cellar steps at
  
  CHAPTER 16. ’NOT DIE EXCACTLY. NOT REALLY.’
  142
  the night beast. It was eyeing him coldly. Trove descended the steps and
  approached the cage, making sure to keep out of the reach of its arms.
  ‘I know what you are,’ he whispered. ‘And I know where you’re from.’
  The beast just stared up at him.
  A few hours ago, knowing that this thing was here might have given
  him an advantage: he could have released it and followed it - like he’d
  heard the Doctor suggesting. But if what he’d also said about the wave
  was true, then things had already progressed too far. It was time, for some
  high-level surveillance. He had to work out where the centre of the wave
  was. He paused, noting the open door that led into another of the cellar’s
  chambers. What else did the princess have concealed down here? Stand-
  ing in the darkness, far too big to have been carried through the doorway,
  was a tall box.
  ‘How long?’ Sensimi stared at the Doctor, her hands on her hips and her
  eyes and nostrils ﬂaring. She’d clearly waited until she knew they were
  following, and then stormed back to her room, the others following on
  behind like straggling ducklings. The face like thunder she wore told Fitz
  that she must have overheard the Doctor’s comment to Trove.
  ‘It’s hard to tell, really,’ said the Doctor, glancing sheepishly at Fitz.
  ‘It all depends on its acceleration. I’d guess at a couple of hours - three,
  maybe four.’
  ‘Some... some thing is going to hit the Palace in a couple of hours and
  you’ve only just thought to mention it?’
  ‘Oh, be fair,’ the Doctor said, looking hurt again. ‘Calamee here knew
  about it too - it’s not all my fault.’
  ‘Thanks very much, Doctor. If it hadn’t been for me -’
  ‘Oi! Oi!’ barked Fitz as Looloo scuttled beneath the bed. ‘Can we stop
  this? It’s not helping anyone. This wave, Doctor. What does it do? Is it
  actually dangerous?’
  ‘Ah, well, that depends on how you deﬁne dangerous.’
  Fitz stared at him.
  ‘Yes. Yes it is,’ the Doctor said guiltily. ‘Probably very, really.’
  Calamee sighed. ‘It seems to break down organic stuff and turn it into
  slime, and then the slime turns back into whatever it was before after a
  few minutes.’
  ‘Sounds a bit ick.’ said Fitz, ’but hardly run-for-the-hills material.’
  ‘But it’s why it does it that’s puzzling me,’ the Doctor said. ‘It seems to
  clean up the DNA, simplify it - like with the night beasts.’ He reached out
  and stroked Nessus’s head as he snoozed over Calamee’s shoulder, like a
  little hairy baby. ‘And with Nessus.’
  
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  143
  ‘Eh?’ said Calamee and hugged him tighter. Looloo, on the bed, threw
  Nessus a sullen look and began picking at the front of her grubby dress,
  pointedly.
  ‘Nessus. I ran the same DNA test on him when I was in the TARDIS,
  just out of curiosity. And he shares some very similar genetic characteris-
  tics to the night beasts. Which probably explains why he went wandering
  off: maybe he smelled Sensimi’s little pet; maybe he sensed the similar-
  ity, the fact that they’ve both gone through the wave - or been touched by
  whatever caused it.’
  ‘I’m sorry,’ interjected Sensimi herself, her voice unpleasantly thin and
  strident. ‘But there’s a thing heading for the Palace, and we’re all going to
  die!’
  ‘Not die exactly. Not really. And it only comes up to about here -’
  He pointed vaguely into the air above them. ‘We just need everyone to
  go upstairs and they’ll be perfectly safe.’ He looked at them as if he was
  describing nothing worse than a spot of inclement weather.
  ‘I’m going to tell someone,’ Sensimi said suddenly, heading for the
  door. ‘Get the Palace evacuated.’
  ‘No need for an evacuation,’ the Doctor reminded her. ‘Just get ev-
  eryone into their bedrooms. Tell them it’s an electrical storm -that’s close
  enough to the truth. And don’t forget to get the rest of the city warned,’
  the Doctor added helpfully. ‘Oh, and try not to cause a panic. There’s
  nothing worse for a disaster than a panic.’
  Sensimi almost ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.
  ‘She’s going to cause a panic, isn’t she?’ said Fitz tiredly.
  The Doctor nodded.
  Sensimi headed for her father’s room. She didn’t trust this snotty Doctor.
  He didn’t seem too worried about this wave thing, but then it wasn’t his
  planet, was it? She gave a little yelp as she turned a corner and ran straight
  into Mother.
  ‘Sensimi? What’s wrong?’
  Sensimi scowled.
  ‘I’m going to see Daddy.’
  ‘He’s sleeping,’ said the Imperatrix. ‘I’ve just been in and he’s not feel-
  ing well - he needs to rest. Can I help?’
  Sensimi chewed at her lip. She really didn’t want to share this with
  Mother, but she knew that Daddy wasn’t well. She sighed - it wasn’t as if
  the Imperatrix could do anything bad with the news of the wave: after all,
  she’d hardly want the entire city to die.
  
  CHAPTER 16. ’NOT DIE EXCACTLY. NOT REALLY.’
  144
  ‘There’s some sort of electrical storm or something,’ she said, wishing
  she’d actually asked the Doctor for a bit more information before rushing
  off. ‘It’s heading for the city.’
  ‘How d’you know? The weather bureau haven’t said anything.’
  ‘It’s some sort of freak thing. A... friend told me about it. He says it’s
  safe if everyone gets off the ground ﬂoor, goes to their bedrooms.’
  ‘And who’s this friend?’
  Sensimi bristled. ‘Just a friend, that’s all. He’s come in from the country
  this evening. He says it’s important and that we have to get the word out
  to everyone in the city.’
  ‘Does he?’ The Imperatrix looked dubious. But eventually she nodded.
  ‘I’ll sort it out, Sensimi.’
  ‘You’ll make sure that Daddy knows, that he stays in his room?’
  ‘Of course I will. And I’ll let the city police know.’
  Sensimi wasn’t convinced: she knew what Mother and Javill had been
  planning for Daddy. But if he was asleep in his room, then he’d be safe.
  Sensimi wasn’t sure, but she wanted to get back to the Doctor and his
  friends: she didn’t want to miss anything.
  ‘OK, Mother. But tell everyone to hurry. My friend says it’ll be here in
  a couple of hours.’
  ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ her mother said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
  Trove frowned in puzzlement as he opened the drawer on his desk: the
  ﬂycams should have been in there in a sealed container. He checked the
  other drawers. Nothing. This was worrying - he’d got through more of
  the devices than he’d expected. Other than the ones in the container, he
  only had two left. And if he wasn’t to spend half the night tracking down
  the artefact, he’d need more than those two to pinpoint the source of the
  wave.
  A few minutes later, after checking everywhere the ﬂycams could pos-
  sibly be, Trove reluctantly had to admit that they’d gone. Stolen. He went
  back to his communications console and activated it. He glanced back
  to check that the ﬂycam he’d positioned above the door earlier was still
  there, and then brought up its surveillance record for the past couple of
  hours. Within seconds, he spotted movement on the speeded-up footage
  and paused it. Javill.
  Trove watched, with growing anger, as he saw Javill poking around in
  the room - checking under the bed, in the drawers. Javill found the ﬂycam
  storage container and tried to open it - but then obviously thought better
  of it and left the room, the container still in his hand. Trove stopped the
  replay.
  
  CHAPTER 16. ’NOT DIE EXCACTLY. NOT REALLY.’
  145
  It was his own fault: if he hadn’t piqued the prince’s curiosity with the
  light ball, he might never have become greedy and come looking for more
  toys. That was unfortunate. Very unfortunate. He needed the ﬂycams -
  they were his eyes and ears on Espero, and right now he needed, more
  than ever, to know what was happening.
  He ﬂicked off the console, checked his hair in the mirror by the door,
  and left the room.
  Alinti went straight to her room and called up the weather-sat bureau.
  They were none to pleased to be disturbed, tonight of all nights, until Al-
  inti frostily told them who she was. The man started blundering around,
  apologising - but she cut him dead and asked whether they’d had any re-
  ports of unusual weather or electrical storms near Saiarossa. Like an eager
  puppy, he’d rushed away to check, and come back with a very puzzled
  tone of voice.
  ‘It looks like there’s something,’ he said, and she could hear his ﬁngers
  clicking on a keyboard. ‘I’m bringing it up now... now that is strange...’
  ’Just tell me - what is it? Is it a danger to the Palace - to the city?’
  ‘Hard to tell - the resolution we get from the satellite’s not what it was.
  It looks like... there’s a bit of cloud cover creeping in, so I don’t have the
  full...’ His voice tailed away. ‘That’s so strange...’
  ‘For God’s sake!’ snapped Alinti.
  ‘Sorry, Your Highness, sorry. From what I can see, it looks like an al-
  most circular front, centring around a point a few miles out of Saiarossa.
  It’s moving pretty slowly.’
  ‘That’s all I need to know, thank you.’ Alinti reached for the cut-off
  button and paused. ‘And by the way, you ignorant little man, it’s “centring
  on” not “around”: Without listening to his reply, she cut the channel.
  So Sensimi had been right. A freak storm, tonight of all nights. Maybe
  it was an omen. Maybe God had ﬁnally heard her prayers... In her head,
  she ran through a list of people she could trust - Palace staff she could tell
  about the storm who would take her word for it that she’d told Tannalis.
  No need to disturb him. In fact, maybe later, she’d take him down for a
  walk in the courtyard... She brieﬂy toyed with the idea of not bothering to
  alert the city police and authorities - but then if she was going to be Imper-
  atrix proper, what would be the point of a city with no one to command?
  ***
  The Doctor was pacing. Which was usually a good sign, thought Fitz: it
  meant that the game was afoot. He felt tired, but put that down to every-
  thing that had happened since they’d arrived on Espero and to the bizarre
  
  CHAPTER 16. ’NOT DIE EXCACTLY. NOT REALLY.’
  146
  dream. He kept trying not to look at the Doctor’s bottom, but suspected
  that, in doing so, he was drawing even more attention to it. He caught
  Calamee’s eye, and she frowned at him. Sensimi had whirled back in, just
  a few minutes after whirling out, and told them that she’d told her mother
  and that she was putting the word out to the city police.
  ‘Now we need to pool our knowledge,’ said the Doctor, ‘and work out
  what’s going on - and how we can stop it.’
  ‘It’ll be a very shallow pool then,’ muttered Fitz. ‘No diving in the deep
  end.’
  Fitz raced through the events that had happened to him, and the Doc-
  tor added his own tale.
  ‘So where’s Trix now, then?’ he asked - but to Fitz it sounded perfunc-
  tory, as though he felt he were duty bound to ask.
  Fitz stared pointedly at Sensimi until she looked away. ‘Hopefully,
  she’s on her way here now,’ he said. ‘Oh, and I had a dream.’
  Sensimi gave a little snort.
  ‘It might be nothing, but...’ He paused, suddenly feeling very silly
  for what he was about to say - particularly in front of Calamee, for some
  reason. He brieﬂy described it to the Doctor, who nodded and hmmed
  throughout.
  ‘Mean anything to you?’ Fitz asked.
  Sensimi raised a knowing eyebrow but he ignored her.
  ‘Nothing... speciﬁc. But...’ The Doctor paused, his eyes screwed up
  thoughtfully. ‘It has a sort of resonance. D’you know what I mean? It feels
  like it should mean something. Something on the tip of my memory, so to
  speak. Fitz, how have you been feeling recently - I mean, apart from being
  attacked, knocked out, etcetera etcetera?’
  ‘Shell shocked, I suppose. Why?’
  The Doctor shook his head and started pacing again.
  ‘It’s a shame Trix isn’t here now. Has she made any comment to you
  about you not acting normally?’
  ‘Nothing that stands out. Why?’
  ‘Just an idea - but we really need an independent observer to verify it.
  Someone who knows us both.’ He gave a huge shrug. ‘But she’s not here
  so we’ll just have to carry on regardless, won’t we? I started to tell you
  about the analysis of the night beast’s DNA, didn’t I? And Nessus’s. Well,
  there’s something very odd about it.’
  ‘I wondered when we’d get around to that,’ said Calamee, who’d
  plonked herself down gracelessly in a chair by the side of Sensimi’s writ-
  ing desk, and was ﬁddling with a gold pen she’d found.
  
  CHAPTER 16. ’NOT DIE EXCACTLY. NOT REALLY.’
  147
  ‘It’s very clean,’ said the Doctor, stressing the word in a way that sug-
  gested that this wasn’t normal and hurtled off into lecture mode, telling
  them about ‘junk codons’, redundancy and all sorts of genetic safety mea-
  sures. ‘But the night beasts don’t have any of that,’ he said triumphantly -
  by which time, everyone was beginning to ﬂag.
  ‘So what you’re saying is...’ prompted Calamee with some circular,
  cut-to-the-chase, hand movements.
  ‘What I’m saying is that the night beasts aren’t natural. Well, not totally
  natural. It’s as though someone’s ﬁddled with their DNA, gone through it
  to remove all the junk, streamlined it.’
  ‘Someone,’ said Fitz. ‘As in a person.’
  ‘Or a thing,’ added Calamee.
  ‘Exactly!’ said the Doctor with a grin. ‘I’d originally assumed - as I
  think did the Esperons - that the night beasts are natives. And it’s true
  that there are elements in their DNA that they share with a few samples of
  local plant and insect life that I analysed. But whoever, or whatever, has
  tampered with their DNA - perhaps that energy wave, since it seems to
  have a similar effect - has cleaned it up, has removed lots of the redundan-
  cies, lots of the safeguards. These night beasts were designed - designed
  to have a short life. I can’t prove it - not without more evidence or more
  samples - but I get the feeling that they’re designed for particular tasks.
  The clincher is that, as far as I can tell, they can’t reproduce.’
  ‘Poor buggers,’ muttered Fitz, trying to work out where this was going
  (or indeed, where it had all been).
  ‘So,’ interrupted Sensimi. ‘What are they for?’
  ’Soldiers, perhaps. Yes. Maybe drones, workers, guards - something
  like that. Although the one in your cellar doesn’t look particularly aggres-
  sive.’
  ‘Now you mention it, the one that me and Trix found was almost chatty.
  With me at any rate. And guarding what?’
  ‘Ah... that is the question, isn’t it?’ The Doctor glanced at the clock by
  Sensimi’s bed. ‘Right!’ he declared in his best Sherlock Holmes manner,
  one ﬁnger raised theatrically. ‘Enough fannying about here. We’ve done
  what we came for - alerted the authorities. Now it’s time to track that
  wave back to its source.’
  
  Chapter 17
  ‘I don’t suppose you have access
  to a thermic lance, do you?’
  Even Trix was surprised at the ease with which Princess Sensimi’s ID card
  allowed her access to the Palace. She’d found that the best way to cope
  with the stares and the mutters from the crowd was to ignore them, and so
  far, it seemed to have worked rather well. Suspiciously so, in fact. As she’d
  pushed her way through the crowds around the jousting arena, her excuse
  mes and can I just get pasts had become fewer and fewer until she’d found
  herself just shouldering her way through with gritted teeth. The heat was
  getting to her, though, and she felt the skin on her face tingle and itch.
  She wondered if one of this ghastly planet’s insects had bitten her - her
  lips felt slightly swollen, although there was no pain. And after a while, it
  was as though no one could see her skin colour at all. She’d ﬁnally made
  her way to one of the bored-looking guards at the front of the Palace, had
  presented the princess’s ID card and had explained that she was expected.
  Without blinking an eyelid, he’d directed her to a side entrance where,
  upon ﬂashing the card again, she’d been escorted through three sets of
  doors, into a lift, and up into a dimly lit corridor that simply reeked of
  high-class hotel. She could feel her shoes squelching as she padded down
  the carpeted corridor, and she cast covetous glances at the paintings - most
  of them depicting people that she imagined were members of the Imperial
  Family, Sensimi included. Too big to ﬁt in her bag though.
  ‘This is Her Royal Highness’s suite,’ said the bowing and scraping little
  man who’d accompanied her, before scuttling away. What was it with
  these people? Didn’t they know what a snotty little cow Sensimi really
  was? Trix touched her face again, realising that the tingling and swelling
  seemed to have gone down. The door was ajar, a light on inside. She
  knocked gently and pushed it open.
  148
  
  CHAPTER 17. ’I DON’T SUPPOSE...’
  149
  The room was empty. Decorated in the same bland but vaguely taste-
  less way that the rest of the Palace seemed to have been done in, it was
  clearly the room of a teenage girl - a rather anal teenage girl, perhaps
  (all the clothes were folded neatly in piles, or else hung in the capacious
  wardrobes - she couldn’t resist a peek).
  As she straightened up from checking out one of the chests of drawers,
  she heard a tentative little peep from behind her, and turned sharply to see -
  well, it looked like a tiny, slightly ginger monkey - as if she hadn’t had her
  ﬁll of monkeys and apes recently. It resembled a baby orang-utan, only
  with shorter fur and a much ﬂatter face, was sitting on the bed, its legs
  splayed, scratching itself in a most unpleasant manner. The worst thing
  about it, though, was the fact that it was dressed up in a grubby white
  frock, all lace and bits of sparkle. Yellow stains dotted the front of it.
  ‘Erm,’ said Trix tentatively, remembering that she was on an alien planet,
  and that this might well be the most intelligent creature she’d come across
  today. ‘Hello - I’m Trix.’
  The thing looked up at her and squeaked, showing tiny yellow teeth.
  ‘I’m looking for Princess Sensimi.’
  It just stared, and resumed its intimate scratching.
  Right, thought Trix. Probably not intelligent then. Maybe about Fitz-
  level with the scratching. Trix saw a host of photographs fastened inex-
  pertly to the wall above the bed - many of them were of Sensimi, either
  alone or clutching the creature to her. For a moment, Trix forgot what
  a little cow Sensimi had been. These were the photos of a rather sad,
  rather friendless girl: where were the boyfriends, the girlfriends? The just
  friends? One of them showed the monkey-thing sitting ungraciously next
  to a large, pink cake iced with the words ‘Looloo’s First Birthday’. Looloo?
  Looloo for God’s sake! It made Trix want to shout! It was hard, though, to
  forget the stony-faced little madam who’d dragged Fitz away and left her
  stranded in the city. Maybe she’d been hoping that Fitz could be her new
  best friend. Trix shuddered.
  Suddenly, from the corridor, she heard voices. She tiptoed across the
  room, ignoring the plaintive squeak that came from Looloo, closed the
  door until just a crack remained and turned off the light.
  The voices belonged to an arrogant woman and an oily sounding man.
  She could almost hear the squelching of his palms rubbing together as
  he spoke. His voice was much quieter, as if he’d discovered that stealth-
  iness and creeping around paid the best dividends in life; the woman’s
  voice, by complete contrast, was loud and harsh, as though she was abso-
  lute Queen and Ruler of the Whole Bloody Universe and didn’t care who
  knew it. Lovely couple, thought Trix. Must invite them round for dinner.
  
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  Something told her that these two were rather high up: maybe Sensimi’s
  mother and father, although the man sounded considerably younger than
  the woman. Didn’t Sensimi have a brother? Where had she heard that?
  ‘...probably dressing it in another doll’s outﬁt,’ the man’s voice said -
  the ﬁrst words Trix had actually been able to make out.
  ‘Ghastly creature,’ cawed the woman. ‘I don’t know why I ever let your
  sister bring it in here in the ﬁrst place. My ﬁrst task as Imperatrix proper
  will be to issue an Imperial Edict to make them illegal. Public health or
  something. Have them all shot.’
  The man chuckled fawningly. So the woman was deﬁnitely the Imper-
  atrix - and the man Sensimi’s brother.
  ‘Have you briefed the chef?’
  the Imperatrix asked suddenly, and
  through the crack, Trix could see them: it was, judging by the resemblance
  to some of the portraits she’d seen in the corridors, the Imperatrix, look-
  ing every inch the evil-sounding old harridan - short and skinny, with a
  cascade of dark hair and ruby red lips. Sensimi’s brother, half-stooped in
  supplication and - joy! - with his hands clasped together in mid-rub, was
  probably around Trix’s age. His skin was rather lighter than Sensimi’s,
  and, to Trix’s surprise, he wasn’t half bad-looking. She’d hoped, somehow
  - expected - that his physiognomy would have matched his wheedling
  tones. But if he’d just stood a little more upright and stopped doing a
  Uriah Heep with his hands, he could have been quite a looker.
  ‘Everything’s on hold while this storm passes,’ he said, ‘but I’ve given
  her a list of Father’s favourite dishes, and -’ his lips twisted cruelly - ‘I’ve
  given her some of that special herb mix that he loves so much.’
  The Imperatrix shifted so that Trix could only see the back of her head,
  but she could still hear every word the woman spoke.
  ‘Good - and I take it you’ve seen to it that she has special transport
  home... after the dinner?’
  The man inclined his head in a nod, as if desperately trying to curry
  favour with a superior, not his mother.
  ‘Good boy, Javill.’ She reached out and cupped the side of Javill’s face
  with her thin ﬁngers, nails like scarlet talons, stroking his skin. Trix felt
  her stomach turn as Javill brought up his own hand, took his mother’s,
  and kissed the palm, his eyes never leaving his mother’s face.
  Suddenly, from behind her, there came a squeaky little growl. Looloo
  was snoring.
  ‘What was that?’ asked the Imperatrix.
  ‘It’ll be that animal,’ Javill said, turning away from the door.
  ‘You’re sure she’s not in there - Sensimi, I mean?’
  
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  ‘Of course not - she only ever leaves the door open when she’s not
  around so that Looloo can wander around. You don’t think I’d have let us
  have that conversation right here if she’d been in, do you?’
  ‘I don’t know...’ she said silkily. ‘You might have enjoyed it. Now make
  sure you stay upstairs. There’s no telling when this storm will hit...’
  Trix had pulled back as the woman had turned, and now stood in the
  darkness behind the door. A few moments later, she heard them talking
  again. By this time, damn them, they’d moved away, and Trix couldn’t
  tell what they were saying. She waited another minute and then glanced
  through the crack, just to be sure. There was no sign of them. She opened
  the door and slipped out. The corridor was deserted.
  Of course, Trix didn’t have a clue what she was supposed to do next:
  she assumed that Fitz was somewhere in the Palace, and since she’d been
  given Sensimi’s ID card, she didn’t feel that she had to skulk about too
  much. Small though the Palace was - for a palace -without even the vaguest
  ideas of where he might be, it could take her hours to ﬁnd him. She felt a
  sudden, inexplicable longing for Fitz. She really must be in a bad way.
  So she had two choices: she could blunder about on the off-chance that
  she’d ﬁnd him without being caught by the Wicked Witch of the West and
  Dopey - and probably executed for their entertainment, no doubt after a
  lengthy spell involving needles and electrodes and pain, or she could sit
  in Sensimi’s room, amuse herself with Looloo, and wait.
  No contest.
  So, her feet squelching just a little bit less now, Trix drew herself up
  and set off down the corridor, pausing to examine the vases and tasteless
  statues that sat on tables in every alcove, wondering whether any of them
  were worth the effort of stealing. Probably not. Not that she needed the
  money, of course, but taking interesting things was somewhere between a
  hobby and an obsession with her. She froze beside a table bearing a par-
  ticularly tacky piece of crystal in the shape of an eagle (she never wanted
  to see anything made of crystal ever again!) as she heard voices from the
  right turn in the corridor just up ahead. Trix looked around and realised
  that she was just a few feet away from a rather impressive-looking door.
  She pressed her ear to the ornately carved wood but she couldn’t hear any-
  thing. Slowly and carefully, she turned the door handle and opened it just
  a crack, her body tensed for the inevitable squealing hinge. But it moved
  silently and she put her face to the gap: all she could see was a bit of wall,
  papered in dark purple with some gold swirly patterns on it. She pushed
  it a little further, listening intently. A dim lamp was on in the room, that
  much she could tell.
  ‘If that’s you, Trove, you can just clear off and let me sleep!’ someone
  
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  bellowed, and Trix jumped. It sounded like an old man. The Imperator?
  ‘Did you hear me?’ came the voice again. Damn! What should she do?
  Just close the door and go, leaving him to think that it had been this Trove
  person? Then she heard the voices from the corridor again, getting louder.
  Double damn! Was it the Imperatrix and her son again? She shrugged to
  herself: come on Trix - how difﬁcult could it be to pretend to be a maid
  or a serving girl or whatever backward setup they had here? She’d been
  complaining to herself that she hadn’t had a chance to be anyone else since
  she’d got here, and the room was obviously dimly lit. Maybe, just maybe,
  she could pull this off. Stooping slightly, keeping her face to the ﬂoor and
  trying to ﬂip into the mindset of one of the Palace staff, she swung the
  door open and stepped in.
  The room was smaller than she’d imagined - although the bed was
  a ludicrously large four-poster: the kind of thing that people with more
  money than style have to impress their friends. And stranded in the mid-
  dle of it all was the tiny ﬁgure of an old man, propped up on pillows the
  size of sheep. She tried to keep her face pointing down as she closed the
  door gently behind her.
  ‘Oh,’ was all he said.
  ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought I’d check that you had every-
  thing you need.’
  ‘My dear girl,’ said the man, tipping his head back and peering through
  his glasses at her, ‘if you were really a member of the Palace staff, you’d
  know that not only do I have everything I could possibly want -’ Trix
  risked a glance at him and saw that he was smiling a pleasantly impish
  smile - ‘with one or two exceptions, but that anyone who comes unan-
  nounced into my room at this hour of the night would face summary exe-
  cution at dawn.’ He stared imperiously at her - and then his dark, wrinkly
  faced creased up and he let out a howl of laughter. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’
  he said, shaking his head and slapping his palms on the expanse of white
  bedding around him. ‘Couldn’t resist. Come here, girl. Come on, I won’t
  bite.’
  Trix approached slowly, frowning, half intending to tell him what a
  cruel joke that had been, but she was determined to keep playing the part
  of the maid, despite the fact that he could dearly see that she was an off-
  worlder. Was she really so addicted to playing out roles that she couldn’t
  stop, even when she’d been so obviously rumbled?
  ‘I’m sorry sir, I don’t understand.’
  He rolled his eyes.
  ‘Lift your head up, girl. Come on, look at me.’ He paused when she
  didn’t alter her subservient stance. ‘Your name is Trix and you’re a friend
  
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  of Sensimi, aren’t you? Or should I have my spies executed as well?’
  Trix’s shoulders must have slumped, because the Imperator gave her a
  toothy, relaxed smile. He patted the bed again.
  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said when he saw the expression on her face.‘I’m far
  too old for any of that jiggy-jiggy business. Ask my wife, the shrivelled
  old mare.’ Trix cautiously perched at the foot of the bed and then realised
  how silly that made her look, seeing as she was facing the wrong way.
  She swivelled until she found the best compromise between dignity and
  convenience.
  ‘My, my but you’re pale, girl,’ the Imperator said, adjusting his glasses.
  ‘Sorry - that was very rude of me.’ He held up his hands in apology. ‘It’s
  just that I don’t get to see many people - and certainly not offworlders. Tell
  me: how is the universe out there?’
  ‘It’s ﬁne,’ Trix said. ‘Well, it was when I last looked. Anything could
  have happened to it since then.’
  ‘So where you from, Trix? One of the colonies - you are human? I’ve
  got that much right?’
  She nodded.
  ‘It’s a long story.’
  ‘Well, if you’re in no rush, I’d love to hear it. Used to be quite a bit of
  an adventurer in my youth meself.’ He gave a sad sigh. ‘Been a long while
  since I’ve done anything that didn’t involve either that witch of a wife or
  an army of nurses or guards tagging along.’ He leaned forwards. ‘I’ll do a
  deal with you: you tell me a bit about what you’ve been up to, and I might
  just share a secret or two about this place.’ He gave a conspiratorial wink
  that made Trix grin. ‘Alinti thinks she’s got it made, you know. But she
  doesn’t know the half of it.’
  ‘Buggery!’ swore the Doctor, and Fitz stared at him. ‘It’s that Trove man -
  look what he’s done!’
  Fitz - and Calamee, Sensimi and probably Nessus as well - looked at
  the doorway that led to the TARDIS. Even the night beast, still on its side in
  the straw on the other side of its bars, looked. The door refused to budge,
  and the Doctor pointed to a thin line, running all around the door frame,
  where the wood of the door seemed to blend seamlessly into the stone of
  the frame.
  ‘Some sort of diffusion sealer.’ He kicked at the door angrily and pulled
  a face. ‘And that door must be two inches thick.’ He turned to Sensimi.
  ‘Is there any other way into that room? And if there isn’t, I don’t suppose
  you have access to a thermic lance, do you?’
  Sensimi stared at him blankly before shaking her head.
  
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  ‘Well, we’ll have to ﬁnd some other way out of the city, won’t we?
  We need something that can ﬂy - we can’t rely on ﬁnding a convenient
  building around when we run into the wave. Don’t suppose you have any
  helicopters or shuttles parked around here, do you?’
  She shook her head again, before suddenly smiling. ‘No - but we do
  have a few levicars. Father ordered them from Marselle for his birthday
  tomorrow.’ She puckered up her mouth. ‘But they cost a fortune - they’re
  his pride and joy. He wouldn’t let us -’
  ‘He doesn’t have to know, does he?’ the Doctor whispered craftily. ‘We
  only need one and we’ll have it back before he knows it’s gone. How high
  can they ﬂy?’
  ‘I don’t know - I’ve only seen them parked in the rear yard.’
  ‘Well they sound like our best hope for now - lead on, Your Princessly
  Highness!’
  Sensimi gave him a look that said she didn’t altogether trust him.
  ‘I mean,’ he added, ‘if you don’t want your family to ﬁnd out about
  your furry friend here, getting us out of the Palace would be the best way
  to keep the secret, wouldn’t it?’
  Saiarossa, as dawn was poking her rosy head above the horizon, was a
  quite beautiful place, thought the Doctor. Struggling to break free of a
  technological timewarp, Espero had kept a certain charm -although he
  doubted that all of its citizens felt the same. Calamee, for one, was surpris-
  ingly bitter about the decisions that had been made centuries before her
  birth, condemning her to a life without all the technological ﬂim-ﬂammery
  that most other Earth colonies of this era took for granted. He almost
  wished he could take her with him, give her a whistlestop tour of some
  of the other outposts of humanity, let her see that the grass wasn’t always
  greener. Always hungering for what they didn’t have, humans. Maybe
  that was why he liked them so much, why they’d spread themselves to the
  stars, established dynasties and empires, made the universe their home -
  the desire to have more, to have different. He understood the mindset that
  had motivated the original Esperons to do what they’d done - how could
  he not? - but he had a sad sympathy for those who now had to live by the
  consequences of those actions. And it always came down to consequences,
  didn’t it?
  The levicars, to the Doctor’s disappointment, had been less than im-
  pressive. Coppery-orange lozenges, designed in what he imagined was
  some sort of retro-style - with swept-back ﬁns and tarnished chrome trim-
  mings - they were surprisingly large, and one took the ﬁve of them without
  difﬁculty. With a wry grin, he remembered Sensimi saying that they were
  
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  the Imperator’s pride and joy: he must have been something of a boy-
  racer in his youth. Nessus scuttled to the edge of the passenger well and
  peered out in wonder as the Doctor ﬁred up the engine and the car shakily
  lifted from the ground. It wobbled uncertainty as he experimented with
  the controls, pitching the occupants around - much to the amusement of
  the parking attendant, who dashed off as soon as the rear gate had been
  opened. Clearly, Sensimi seem to have succeeded in getting the word out
  about the wave approaching the city, and the attendant was in something
  of a hurry to get back upstairs. As the car sped out into the road behind
  the Palace, Fitz pointed out that he could hardly feel the wind, despite the
  car’s being open-topped.
  ‘That’ll be the repulsor ﬁeld,’ said the Doctor knowledgeably, slewing
  the car around a corner and throwing them all up against the side of the
  vehicle. ‘Hopefully, even if we can’t get high enough to clear the wave,
  it’ll give us a bit of added protection. Now hang on!’ He cracked a grin at
  them. ‘Let’s see what this baby can do!’
  
  Chapter 18
  ‘You wanted to see my toys, did
  you?’
  The streets were eerily quiet. A few stragglers ran for the shelter of their
  homes or other buildings where they could gain enough height to avoid
  the wave. The Doctor wondered how far from the city it was now, but
  realised that he didn’t have enough data points to make any kind of useful
  calculation. The others in the levicar clung on for grim life - shrieking and
  (in Fitz’s case) whooping joyously as he took corners at much too great a
  speed. The standard altitude of the car was about four feet, but the Doctor
  had been able to push that to about twelve before the motors began to
  whine in protest and he’d had to drop back down. Nessus, like a dog,
  stuck his head over the side to take in the breeze.
  Javill rather liked the Palace at night. He liked the vast expanses of empty
  corridor, the soft hush that fell over the place. He liked the way he could
  creep about without running into some member of staff or other every ten
  minutes. He liked the dim night lights that burned in the corridors, lend-
  ing everything a deep-shadowed gloom. At night, he could almost believe
  that the Palace was his. Now, with this weird warning that everyone had
  to stay in their bedrooms because of some freak electrical storm, it seemed
  that the ground ﬂoor actually was. He’d checked with the weather bureau,
  just in case Mother had got it all wrong - but it seemed she was right: he
  had another hour or so before it would reach the city, though.
  He didn’t know where Sensimi was. Mother was still going over the
  plans for Father’s birthday - he’d accompanied her back to her suite and
  left her tutting and swearing in a low voice over a stack of invoices for the
  party. Father was probably asleep.
  Javill wandered down the grand main staircase, through the hallway,
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  157
  listening to the sharp, echoing sounds of his shoes on the tiles, and out into
  the courtyard. The lights had been turned down, but he could just see the
  stage and the higgledy-piggledy rows of chairs. Javill wandered down the
  centre aisle, bumping his ﬁngers along the backs of them as he went. He
  heard a sharp, electric buzz as an insect met its end on one of the ﬂytraps
  mounted around the upper walls of the courtyard, and he reached guiltily
  into his jacket pocket. Almost not wanting to touch them, Javill ﬁshed
  out the squashed, crushed and dismembered remains of the things he’d
  found in Trove’s room and looked at them. He’d gone in there expecting
  to ﬁnd some wonderful, clever toys, but all he’d come away with was
  a dozen metal ﬂies. They’d started to move around of their own accord
  once they were out of the container, and Javill had dropped them and
  stamped on them. He’d never liked insects. But lying there in the palm of
  his hand, they were just things. Bits of metal. One or two of them moved
  half-heartedly, their legs futilely wriggling in the air. He squinted at them,
  feeling sure that there should have been another one. It was probably
  at the bottom of his pocket, or had fallen out in his room. He glanced
  around to make sure there was no one watching and crossed to one of the
  raised ﬂowerbeds that ran around the courtyard. Gouging a deep hole
  with his ﬁngers, he buried the horrible little things and tamped the soil
  down ﬁrmly on top of them.
  ‘Doing a spot of midnight gardening?’ came a voice from above him.
  He jumped and stared around for a moment until he caught sight of
  Trove’s pale face looking down at him from a balcony. Damn the man!
  thought Javill, clenching his jaw. Did he always have to creep around like
  that?
  ‘Just... checking... things,’ he answered vaguely, and felt stupid for not
  having had a quicker and more convincing reply ready. But why the hell
  should he? This was his home, not Trove’s. He didn’t have to answer to the
  man.
  Trove’s head vanished, and moments later he appeared silently at the
  main doors to the courtyard. Javill hadn’t heard his footsteps.
  ‘The toy I gave you earlier,’ Trove said pleasantly. ‘The light ball. Have
  you had a look at it?’
  ‘Brieﬂy’
  ‘Only I wondered if you’d like to see some of my other toys - some of
  them are much more impressive than that little thing.’
  Did he know about the ﬂies? Javill felt his mouth dry up. How could he?
  ‘I should be going to bed,’ Javill said brusquely ‘It’s a busy day tomor-
  row.’
  Trove nodded. ‘For all of us. I’ll walk up with you.’
  
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  Javill felt his jaw clenching again, but smiled as pleasantly as he could
  as the two of them walked back into the hallway and up the stairs. Javill’s
  feet clip-clopped noisily; Trove’s didn’t make a sound. At the top of the
  stairs, Javill turned to head towards his own rooms. ‘Sleep well,’ he said.
  ‘Oh, there was something I wanted to talk about,’ Trove said suddenly,
  as if it had just occurred to him. ‘My ﬂycams.’
  ‘Your what?’ Javill turned back to face the man.
  ‘Robot ﬂies,’ he said. ‘Surveillance devices.’
  ‘Oh.’
  ‘I believe you borrowed a few of them from my room earlier. Perfectly
  understandable. They are fascinating, aren’t they?’
  Javill said nothing, wishing that he’d never gone poking around in the
  offworlder’s things. He felt like a schoolboy being told off.
  ‘It’s just that I really need them back,Your Highness.’
  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Javill said.
  ‘Now would be very good, Your Highness. They are essential to my
  work here.’
  Javill let out a sigh. ‘There was... there was an accident.’ He could
  hardly look Trove in the eye.
  ‘An accident?’
  ‘They were damaged.’
  ‘How damaged, exactly?’
  Javill swallowed.
  ‘I... I stepped on them.’ He looked up at Trove who was staring coldly
  at him. ‘By accident. Look, I’ll have a word with Father. I’m sure he’ll
  recompense you. Now I really do have to -’
  ‘Stepped on them by accident?’
  repeated Trove, rolling the words
  around his mouth as if they had a foul taste. ‘Not an easy thing to do
  with ﬂycams, I wouldn’t have thought.’ He gave a theatrical sigh. And
  then, as if they hadn’t mattered at all, he waved a hand casually. ‘Oh well
  - easy come, easy go. I have plenty more.’ Trove inclined his head. ‘Sleep
  well,Your Highness.’
  Javill narrowed his eyes, suspicious at Trove’s sudden change of tone.
  Maybe he did have lots more of the insects. And what could he do, any-
  way? He nodded at Trove and turned away, heading for his rooms. He
  was the Imperator’s son, after all. No white-skinned, snooty offworlder
  was going to -
  Javill gasped as a large, pale hand clamped itself across his mouth. He
  struggled and let out a moan, but Trove’s other arm gripped his arm and
  chest. Trove was so much stronger than he looked. In his ear - disturbingly
  close - Javill heard Trove’s voice.
  
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  159
  ‘You smug, arrogant little cretin,’ Trove hissed. ‘Do you know how
  much those things cost me? Do you know how important they are for my
  search here? And you’ve destroyed the last of them.’
  Trove adjusted his grip so that one huge arm crushed Javill’s chest
  while the hand smothered his mouth. In the dim light, he saw the other
  hand rise up in front of him. Something silver and mechanical glittered in
  Trove’s ﬁngers.
  ‘You wanted to see my toys, did you?’ said Trove. ‘Well here’s a very
  special one for you, boy. Take a good look at it.’
  Javill struggled hopelessly as Trove brought his hand towards his face.
  Despite being unsure of the protocol involved in telling an Imperator that
  his wife and son sounded as though they were planning to have him poi-
  soned at his birthday party, Trix went ahead and told Tannalis exactly that,
  watching his impassive face as she related the conversation she’d heard
  from Sensimi’s room. As a way of lamely safeguarding herself from ex-
  ecution for treason or sedition or whatever, she ended with: ‘Although,
  obviously, I might have misunderstood.’
  Tannalis leaned back on his mountain of pillows, as if weighing up
  what manner of execution to demand for this traitorous offworlder. And
  then a broad, white smile cracked his face.
  ‘You, girl,’ he said, slapping the bed at his side vigorously, ‘are a tonic!
  You know that?’
  Trix clenched her jaw, annoyed that, after all that, he just thought she
  was making it up.
  ‘Fine, your Imperial Excellence,’ she said coolly, standing up. ‘Fine.
  Just ﬁne. I just thought you should know.’
  ‘Oh for Heaven’s sake girl, sit down! I believe you!’
  Trix drew herself up, even more confused.
  ‘Those mercenaries have been gunning for my death for years,’ Tan-
  nalis said, still smiling, as though discussing some practical joke that his
  family had been planning. ‘The only reason they haven’t done anything
  before is because they’re too shit-scared to try it.’
  ‘So what’s changed? Sorry for being blunt, but...’ She looked him up
  and down, measuredly.
  ‘But I’m getting on a bit? Ready to kick the bucket?’ His body jerked
  with laughter, and Trix found herself grinning along with him. ‘I know
  that. I’m not senile, girl - old, but not senile. Well, not so’s you’d notice.’
  Trix sat back down on the bed as he leaned closer. ‘They know there’re
  things afoot, that’s what. They’ve seen some of the government people
  a-coming and a-going, and it makes them nervous. And they’re damned
  
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  right to be nervous.’ He paused and narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you in league
  with Trove?’ he asked sharply, and his tone suggested that, whether or not
  she was, he’d know instantly if she was lying.
  ‘Sorry,’ said Trix, recalling that Trove was the name he’d called when
  she’d ﬁrst entered his room. ‘You’ve lost me. Trove? Who’s that?’
  ‘Mr Trove.’ He narrowed his eyes and tipped back his head. ‘You
  wouldn’t lie to an old man, would you?’
  ‘I might.’ She held her face for a moment and then smiled. ‘But I’m
  not. Who’s Mr Trove when he’s at home?’
  ‘He’s another offworlder. I thought he might be a friend of yours -
  although I can’t imagine that cold ﬁsh having any friends.’
  ‘Another offworlder? Your wife said something about other offworlders.’
  Tannalis nodded. ‘He arrived a couple of days ago, looking for some-
  thing - a device, a mechanism that he claims is here in Saiarossa. He... he
  offered me certain favours if I’d help him ﬁnd it.’
  For the ﬁrst time since she’d met him, Trix got the impression that Tan-
  nalis wasn’t quite as open and above board as he made out. There was
  something slightly furtive in the way he said that. She gave this revela-
  tion some thought: it seemed unlikely in the extreme that the distress call
  that they’d responded to was unconnected to the arrival of this Trove man.
  Could it be that he was the one who’d sent the distress signal? Could it
  have been some sort of trap? For a moment, she wondered if, perhaps,
  that loathsome toad Sabbath had somehow cheated death again, and was
  still alive, perhaps masquerading as this ‘Mr Trove’, looking for another
  chance to get back at the Doctor. She asked Tannalis what Trove looked
  like, but the description didn’t tally with the Sabbath she’d met.
  ‘What’s this device he’s looking for?’
  Tannalis seemed immediately suspicious.
  ‘Why? You after it too?’
  Trix took a breath and gave him a potted history of what had happened
  to them since they’d arrived: Fitz and the Doctor’s disappearance and
  attack, her and Fitz’s trip through the city, their meeting with Sensimi (at
  which the Imperator raised grizzled eyebrows impossibly high) and her
  entry into the Palace a short while ago.
  ‘So it might be,’ she said in conclusion, ‘that Trove sent the distress
  call. Maybe he needs help in ﬁnding this thing and wasn’t sure that your
  guards were up to it. Anyway, you were just about to tell me what the
  device was.’
  ‘Nice try,’ he laughed loudly. ‘But I’m not that simple, girl! To be quite
  honest, I trust you more than I trust that smug con man, but...’ He paused.
  
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  161
  ‘There’s more at stake than I want to risk right now.’ He patted her hand
  avuncularly. ’Sorry.’
  ‘Fair enough,’ said Trix blithely, determined not to give up just yet.
  ‘It’s just that we’re on the point of discovering the truth about these night
  beasts, and it’d be nice to be able to exchange information.’
  ‘You’re a smart one, Trixie -’ She raised a disapproving eyebrow. ‘Trix.
  But I’m afraid there’s too much resting on what Trove has promised me.
  No doubt he has plans to double-cross me, but he’ll ﬁnd that I’m a
  sprightlier old hare than he imagines. Where are your friends, by the way?’
  Trix’s skin suddenly ﬂushed and she felt her chest tighten. Fitz, she
  thought. I must ﬁnd Fitz.
  ‘Fascinating,’ muttered Trove to himself as he watched the images on the
  screen in front of him. Relayed through his last ﬁycam, the one that he had
  sent after the Doctor and his party as they’d left the Palace, they showed
  the levicar hurtling through the city like a demented copper bullet. He
  had to keep the ﬂycam up high, and he knew that it was gradually falling
  behind the levicar, but at least it gave him a rough vector. Locking the blue
  box out of the Doctor’s reach had been inspired. He hadn’t realised that
  it was a transport device, but the ﬂycam that he’d left behind in the cellar
  had told him more than he could have hoped. Once he had the artefact
  under his control and had delivered it to the Oon, he’d come back and
  take the box - he was sure he knew a couple of buyers for it.
  He tapped his ﬁngers on the desk, impatient, as the levicar headed out
  of the city. And then he saw it: the vast, shimmering wall. He realised he
  was clenching a ﬁst. He had no idea how long the wave had been active,
  and how much longer he had to claim his prize. He couldn’t afford to
  wait.
  As if the communications console on the desk had read his mind, a soft,
  three-tone chime sounded. He steeled himself, took a breath, and pressed
  a button.
  ‘This is Trove.’ he said.
  ‘Oon central,’ bubbled a voice, thick and oily, rich with undertones. It
  was almost as if many voices were speaking at once, slightly out of synch
  with each other. There was a coldness, a dispassionate disdain that chilled
  even Trove - and even after all this time. ‘Report.’
  ‘The device has been located,’ he said - which was not far from the
  truth.
  ‘Recovery proceeds?’
  ‘As promised.’
  ‘Timescale?’
  
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  Trove paused: a white lie here and there - and a black one when abso-
  lutely necessary - was acceptable when dealing with customers such as the
  Oon. They operated on very literal principles, very polarised. Everything
  was black and white to them: either the mission was on target or it was not.
  There were no shades of grey for them in their dealings with outsiders, al-
  though Trove had never been sure how they operated among themselves.
  He knew little about them, really, save that they were from a vast, frigid
  world, scoured by tremendous halogen storms. He’d heard tales of im-
  mense, crystalline cities, crumbling and being rebuilt as the winds ripped
  away at them; living cities, as much a part of Oon society as the Oon them-
  selves. There were even rumours that the cities themselves were the Oon -
  immense, intelligent constructs, coral-like. Powerful, intelligent - and im-
  placable. But the reasons for their interminable conﬂict with, well, with
  every species that they encountered, were unknown to him: it couldn’t be
  simply about territory - most of the worlds that the Oon disputed could
  not, because of their geology and atmospheres, have been of interest to
  them for colonisation, and they seemed uninterested in military power or
  economic conquest. It had been suggested, when Trove’s contact had let
  him know that they were in the market for a bounty hunter for a very
  particular job, that the Oon were motivated by something that, in other
  races, might have been called ‘faith’ or ‘religion’. But it was not something
  on which the Oon had been the least bit forthcoming, simply refusing to
  discuss it when Trove had brought it up. And he had only brought it up
  once, purely as a matter of professional curiosity. He was a bounty hunter,
  and if he’d started to ask too many questions of his employers, he’d have
  found himself out of a job very quickly. If, indeed, the Oon were engaged
  in some kind of jihad, then the stakes were raised that much higher.
  ‘Twenty hours,’ he said.
  ‘Acceptable. No delays.’
  ‘No delays,’ he echoed, knowing that the Oon were particularly poor
  at picking up the nuances of non-Oon voices. He could have laughed, or
  delivered the two words dripping in sarcasm, and the Oon would have
  taken them at face value.
  The channel suddenly went dead, and Trove was left feeling slightly
  sick, slightly giddy. The Oon were, by reputation, unforgiving of failure. If
  he failed to deliver, he did not know exactly what the consequences would
  be, but he did know that they would be severe. Of course, that wouldn’t
  be a problem. Trove had no intention of failing.
  As he turned off the now-silent channel, he realised, more by instinct
  than by evidence, that there was someone in the room with him.
  ‘It seems,’ said Imperatrix Alinti silkily, almost seductively, ‘that my
  
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  husband has been remiss in keeping me appraised of your situation.’
  Trove stayed where he was, facing the communications console.
  ‘Your Imperial Highness,’ he said softly, trying to imbue the words
  with a deference he most certainly did not feel. ‘My apologies if the Im-
  perator was not totally forthcoming about... our arrangement.’ He turned
  slowly and inclined his head in a little half-bow. Alinti was standing,
  hands clasped, looking at him with cold, avaricious eyes. Had Trove been
  telepathic, he couldn’t have read the Imperatrix’s mind any more clearly
  than he did then. ‘I’m sure he had his reasons.’
  ‘He is an old man,’ said Alinti. ‘His reasons are not always... reason-
  able.’ She smiled at her own joke, but there was no humour in her smile.
  ‘I bow to your wisdom. I cannot hope to know your husband as well
  as you do, Imperatrix.’
  Alinti moved to his side, her eyes caressing Trove’s communications
  console as if she’d never seen its like before.
  ‘This technology is primitive,’ he said softly, ‘compared to the tech-
  nologies I have seen, the technologies I have access to.’
  He knew that Alinti saw more than a block of machined metal, dials,
  screens, displays. After all, none of these were things that the Esperons
  didn’t themselves possess. She saw power; she saw a microcosm of all
  that Espero had denied itself. He said nothing, allowing her eyes to drink
  it in, her mind to blossom with all the potentialities that the console held.
  He remembered Javill’s face when he’d shown him the light ball.
  ‘Your arrangement with my husband,’ she said, and he could see her
  ﬁngers twitching, itching to touch the device, to possess it - and, by ex-
  tension, to possess what it stood for, ‘is, of course, your business, and I
  wouldn’t presume to interfere.’ She looked down at him. ‘But Tannalis is
  an old man. A sick old man. It would be a shame if his illness were to...
  come between you and your agreement.’
  ‘As I said, your Imperial Excellence, I do not know your husband as
  well as you do. Our agreement was made at a time when his state of health
  was, perhaps, less precarious. No disrespect to him, but the sanguine fea-
  tures of that agreement are not predicated upon his being the other party
  to it.’
  Carefully, Trove thought. He had to tread very carefully. Both of them
  knew where this was going, but he could not be the one to switch alle-
  giances. Alinti had to be the one to make the deal; she had to feel she
  was in control. He had no more intention of honouring a deal with this
  one than he had with the Imperator, but she had to believe that he would.
  He knew that Tannalis lived on sufferance, and that it was conceivable he
  would die - of one thing or another - before the artefact had been recov-
  
  CHAPTER 18. ’YOU WANTED TO SEE MY TOYS, DID YOU?’
  164
  ered. Although things were progressing moderately well, he was not a
  fool: he could not yet afford to alienate the Imperial household. Not until
  he had the device in his hands. And one member of the Imperial Family
  on his side was as good as another. Besides, he had had intimations of the
  Imperator’s commitment to their deal wavering over the past day.
  ‘Perhaps,’ said Alinti, ‘it would be to our mutual advantage to discuss
  the terms that you reached with my husband. I appreciate that your work
  here needs to be completed soon, but death can strike at any hour. And
  it would be most inconvenient for you if Tannalis were to die before you
  had achieved your goals.’
  She stared calmly and expectantly into his green eyes, and Trove began
  to explain how he had offered the Imperator the gift of immortality.
  
  Chapter 19
  ‘Think of a number.’
  ‘Bloody hell!’ swore the Doctor as he swung the car in a tight arc and
  nearly threw everyone out.
  ‘Will you stop doing that!’ hissed Fitz. ‘It’s... it’s just wrong.’
  ‘We don’t have time to be taking corners at wheelchair pace,’ snapped
  the Doctor.
  ‘Not the driving - it’s the swearing that’s wrong.’
  ‘Not as wrong as that!’ the Doctor said, pointing, redundantly, at the
  pearly grey curtain that hung before them. Its surface, graduating from
  almost white at the ground to the clean darkness of the sky at its apex,
  sparkled and seethed.
  ‘How high did you say it was?’ asked Calamee, frowning.
  ‘It’s got higher. Much higher.’ The Doctor’s shoulders sagged. ‘I hadn’t
  counted on it getting higher. It must be liberating more energy than I’d
  thought. Why didn’t I work that one out?’ He shook his head disconso-
  lately.
  Fitz stood up in his seat and squinted at the wave as it slid, ghostlike,
  across the ground towards them. ‘Hiding in bedrooms isn’t going to help
  anyone, is it?’
  ‘Not unless they live in tower blocks - or unless Quasimodo’s got room
  to spare in his bell tower.’
  The Doctor sank back in the cream leather of the car’s upholstery and
  rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hands. ‘How could I be so stupid?’
  ‘You weren’t to know,’ said Calamee, squeezing his arm.
  ‘Wasn’t he?’ asked Sensimi.
  Calamee and Fitz stared hard at her. She returned their stares coldly.
  ‘We should go back,’ she said. ‘Warn them.’
  ‘And then what?’ bellowed the Doctor suddenly, thrusting his face into
  hers. ‘This thing will be on the city in not much more than an hour or so -
  165
  
  CHAPTER 19. ’THINK OF A NUMBER.’
  166
  it’ll take us twenty minutes to get back, and then we have to tell everyone
  that we were wrong before, and that things are much, much worse than
  we’d imagined. Where is everyone going to go?’
  Sensimi’s lip trembled as she ﬂinched. Fitz, for once, felt quite em-
  barrassed at the Doctor’s outburst - and, again for once, quite sorry for
  Sensimi.
  ‘So what do we do?’ asked Fitz.
  ‘We go on,’ said the Doctor grimly. ‘If we can ﬁnd the source of it, we
  might be able to stop it - turn it off. Whatever.’
  ‘And can we get through it?’ asked Calamee, staring at the wall. The
  Doctor shrugged.
  ‘Only one way to ﬁnd out,’ said Fitz, and the Doctor revved the engine.
  The car circled in a tight arc and then they were racing back the way they’d
  come, the Doctor trying to get a big run-up to the wave Fitz hoped he knew
  what he was doing. The Doctor reached down to the controls, spread out
  across the dashboard like an assortment of liquorice allsorts, and began
  ﬁddling.
  ‘I’m trying to boost the repulsor ﬁeld,’ the Doctor answered his un-
  voiced question. ‘I’m betting the wave doesn’t vanish where it stops being
  visible. But it might be weaker higher up if it’s feeding itself on the energy
  from the organic dissolution.’
  ‘Just what I was thinking,’ Fitz said.
  The Doctor turned a knob on the dash and Fitz felt the air around
  them grow calmer, more solid, and realised that even the little breeze that
  had been blowing through the repulsor ﬁeld had stopped: the Doctor had
  turned up the ﬁeld to maximum.
  ‘Hopefully,’ said the Doctor as he waggled the steering handles, ‘that
  should give us some extra lift. Hold on tight for the ride of your lives!’
  ‘Or our deaths? muttered Sensimi.
  Everyone glared at her.
  One minute they were speeding across the ground - well, thought Fitz,
  ten feet above it. And the next, the Doctor was steering towards a tree.
  Straight towards a tree.
  Fitz knew instantly what he was doing: he was hoping to angle the car
  upwards, clip the tree, and skim off the top of it.
  Everyone shrieked as the Doctor pulled back on the handles and the
  levicar’s nose tipped up. Thrown backwards into their seats, they felt the
  acceleration press them down into the leather as the tree, painted silver by
  the starlight, hurtled towards them.
  
  CHAPTER 19. ’THINK OF A NUMBER.’
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  There was an almighty crash and the whole car juddered as though
  they’d hit a wall - but they were still moving, sailing onwards and up-
  wards into the night. Fitz risked a glance over the side and saw the shim-
  mering curtain of the wall just a few tens of yards away. With a wild
  whoop, the Doctor pulled back on the handles so hard Fitz thought they’d
  probably snap off in his hands -and then they were ﬂying. Really ﬂying -
  up and over and through. The air around them ﬂickered and Fitz felt his
  skin prickle. And then they were falling, and it was like being in an aero-
  plane with severe turbulence as the car dropped through the oily darkness
  like a stone in a well.
  Alinti stared out of Trove’s window in silence, her head reeling with all the
  myriad possibilities with which his offer had presented her. Immortality.
  Trove had promised her immortality.
  She’d laughed, of course, told him that she wasn’t some stupid young
  girl, her head spinning with ludicrous ideas of what technological gew-
  gaws the rest of the galaxy dangled in their faces, just out of reach. She
  kept up-to-date - as well as she could with the pitiful data feeds that
  Tannalis let her access - on what was happening offworld. As the next
  ruler of Saiarossa (however putative the role), it behoved her to stay in-
  formed about politics, technology and the progress of the other nearby
  human colonies: Eden, Paradiso Grande, Eden (another one), Pelucidar
  and Marselle, particularly. And there had been no announcement that
  immortality was suddenly on the market, despite the rumours of cloning
  technology on Heritage. But Trove had just stared at her, and told her that
  the technologies he had access to were beyond anything she could imag-
  ine. She’d demanded proof, something to convince her that he wasn’t just
  stringing her along to get her help. But, he said, he could offer her nothing
  that would convince her until he had the device that he sought.
  Out in the square, as the pale light of dawn began to vie with the
  sodium orange of the streetlights, she watched a couple of tiny ﬁgures,
  Esperons on their way to - or from - work. Maybe on their way home after
  the night’s revels. Hadn’t they heard the warning about the freak electrical
  storm heading for the city?
  She shook her head. No one understood quite how difﬁcult her job
  was: contending with a wilful husband who seemed to delight in belittling
  her in front of the staff, the government - even her own family; making
  sure that everything in the Palace ran smoothly, and struggling to come
  to terms with the political changes that were sweeping through Saiarossa.
  Alinti was under no illusion that the Imperial Family had been allowed to
  survive on sufferance all these years. She knew that to many, the idea of
  
  CHAPTER 19. ’THINK OF A NUMBER.’
  168
  an Imperial Family within a democracy was a weird, twisted anachronism,
  but equally, she knew that those same people didn’t understand the value
  of having a good, solid family at such a democracy’s head.
  It wouldn’t last, she thought sorrowfully. Nothing did. Change was
  coming, and the Imperial Family would - for better, or, more likely, for
  worse - be one of the ﬁrst casualties. It had been debated in parliament for
  almost a century; their power was now much more ﬁgurative than literal,
  and yet, Alinti knew, the public still held them in high regard, seeing them
  as an extension of their own families. The government were self-serving
  bureaucrats and pompous priests who would love nothing more than to
  see the little power and inﬂuence that she and Tannalis still held devolve
  to them. She’d had to make tough decisions in her time as Imperatrix, and
  this one was only a little harder.
  She gave a sigh and turned to Trove, who’d been silent at her side.
  ‘I accept your offer,’ she said simply.
  He nodded. ‘You have made the right decision - for Saiarossa and for
  Espero.’
  ‘I know, Mr Trove. Now - what do you require?’
  She turned her head sharply at a sound - a mufﬂed, lazy thump from
  somewhere in the room.
  ‘What was that?’
  She took a step away from the window, turning her head, listening for
  a repeat of the noise.
  ‘I have more equipment,’ Trove said suddenly, a little too eagerly.
  ‘What kind of equipment makes a noise like that?’
  He smiled - a regretful, awkward smile. ‘Important equipment for my
  mission here. Secret, I’m afraid. I’m sure you understand.’
  She didn’t, but of course she had to pretend she did.
  ‘You asked if there was anything I required,’ Trove said, a little too keen
  to steer her on to a different topic, she thought. ‘I suspect that the Doctor
  and his friends are close to discovering the soldier factory. It is imperative,
  Imperatrix, that we gain control of it before they do.’
  ‘Just tell me what to do, Trove. Tell me what to do.’
  ‘I think I’ve broken my liver,’ said Fitz as he staggered from the car and
  fell on to the grass, clutching his side.
  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the Doctor blithely, running his hands through his
  hair as he clambered out of the dented wreck of the levicar. ‘The other one
  will kick in in a minute.’
  ‘You have two livers?’ Calamee stared at the two of them, hugging
  Nessus as he trembled in her arms. Sensimi was sobbing openly. Fitz
  
  CHAPTER 19. ’THINK OF A NUMBER.’
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  wanted her to stop.
  ‘We did it, though.’ The Doctor was grinning now, staring away into
  the darkness.
  ‘Yes, Doctor,’ Fitz smiled tightly, holding his side. ‘And we love you
  very much for it. And when we’ve stopped loving you for it, we’re going
  to hit you. Very, very hard.’
  ‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘That’s nice. Now come on. No time to ﬁx the
  car, and it shouldn’t take us long to walk.’
  ‘You’re not the one with the broken liver,’ grumbled Fitz.
  ‘Not yet, he’s not,’ muttered Calamee darkly, rubbing her neck.
  The horizon was showing a thin line of buttery blue when they reached
  the spot where, the Doctor proudly pointed out to no one in particular, the
  TARDIS had landed. Fitz’s liver was still broken, Calamee probably still
  had whiplash, and Sensimi was dragging along behind like she’d come
  on a school ﬁeld trip in high heels and was refusing to admit her mis-
  take. Even the Doctor, normally indefatigable, was breathing heavily. A
  light sheen of sweat glossed his forehead. They were all very, very tired,
  thought Fitz.
  ‘You’re all knackered, aren’t you?’
  said the Doctor with a fatherly
  smile.
  ‘Have you got a wire running into my brain or something?’ asked Fitz,
  waving his hand behind his head. ‘That’s about the third time you’ve done
  that, guessed what I’m thinking.’
  ‘Think of a number,’ said the Doctor sharply.
  ‘Eight.’
  ‘Nope, another one.’
  ‘OK, seventy-two.’
  The Doctor’s face fell.
  ‘Wrong - eleventy-seven.’
  ‘That’s not a number,’ said Sensimi.
  ‘It is where I come from,’ said the Doctor haughtily. ‘But it’s wrong
  anyway. No obvious telepathic link then.’
  ‘So what did that dream mean - the bottom one?’
  The Doctor raised a cheeky eyebrow.
  ‘Stop it!’ warned Fitz. ‘I’m serious. In the dream you said it was signif-
  icant.’
  ‘Erm, it was a dream, Fitz,’ piped up Calamee unhelpfully.
  ‘Yes, but it was more than that. It was like I was being told something’
  Fitz paused.
  
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  ‘Stop thinking about it,’ said the Doctor, plunging his hands into his
  pockets and staring around at the bushes, ‘and it’ll come to you. Always
  works with me.’
  Fitz pulled a sneer. It so did not. If that was the case, how come the
  Doctor didn’t remember blowing up his own planet?
  Fitz felt a cold shudder run through him as he realised that he didn’t
  remember much about it either.
  ’Oh-oh,’ said Sensimi.‘ Company.’
  Everyone looked. Standing silently on the grass, a few feet from a wall
  of bushes, was one of the night beasts.
  ***
  The creature waited until they were all looking at it, and then, in a curi-
  ously human gesture, beckoned to them - before turning and vanishing
  into the undergrowth.
  ‘Come into my bushes, said the spider to the ﬂy,’ muttered Fitz.
  But the Doctor shook his head. ‘if it wanted to kill us, it could have
  done that here.’
  ‘How do we know we can trust it?’ whispered Calamee to the Doctor
  as their little party followed the creature.
  ‘I don’t think we do - know for sure, that is,’ the Doctor said. ‘But...’
  He shook his head, as if shaking off some memory.
  ‘You OK?’ asked Calamee. Nessus was struggling in her arms, but she
  kept a ﬁrm hold on him.
  ‘I think it’s the fact that me and Fitz were attacked round about here.’
  The Doctor looked around, as if expecting at any moment to be assailed
  by another of the creatures. Calamee was surprised at the calmness with
  which the Doctor and Fitz had agreed to follow the creature, considering
  what they’d suffered at the hands of one of its friends.
  ‘I’m getting...’ The Doctor paused. ‘Not quite ﬂashbacks, but little pin-
  pricks of memory. It’s all a bit unsettling.’
  ‘I’d have thought you’d be used to it by now.’
  The Doctor threw Calamee a look, half fatherly disapproval, half an-
  noyance. Up ahead, the night beast pressed on through the bushes, push-
  ing them aside with a scary, casual ease, and passed on into the heart of
  the copse.
  As Calamee reached out to hold back a branch, Nessus seized his chance
  and leaped from her arm. With a triumphant squeal, he ran after the night
  beast. Calamee let him go: this whole affair was making him skittish and
  
  CHAPTER 19. ’THINK OF A NUMBER.’
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  she knew that calling him back would be fruitless. Besides... ‘I know this
  place!’ she suddenly said, stopping sharply so that Fitz almost bumped
  into her.
  ‘You do?’
  She nodded.
  ‘We came here for a picnic, my parents and me. A year or so ago.’ She
  looked around, suddenly seeing the place in a different light. She could
  picture them - her mother, father and house-mother - all sitting down, un-
  packing their lunch from a couple of huge bags,while Nessus scampered
  around, clambering up trees in a vain attempt to catch birds.
  ‘Really?’ The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘You were very lucky, then.
  Perhaps that explains Nessus - his altered DNA. Wasn’t it around then
  that the ﬁrst night beasts started entering the city? Perhaps it was during
  your picnic that something happened to him.’
  ‘God, yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.’ Calamee suddenly felt very cold.
  She and her family could have been the creatures’ ﬁrst victims. She looked
  around, up into the trees, into the bushes.
  ‘It’s... wrong. It feels different somehow. Too quiet, too... tame.’
  ‘There’s no birdsong,’ said Fitz suddenly. ‘Listen - no birds, no animal
  noises.’ They listened, and there weren’t.
  ‘He’s right,’ Calamee said. ‘When we were here before, there were
  loads of birds, a few tree-rats. Nessus was all over the place chasing them.
  I had to go off and ﬁnd him ’cos we thought he might run into something
  bigger than him.’ She gave a little shudder.
  ‘Maybe the night beasts have scared them all away,’ Sensimi suggested.
  ‘Maybe,’ said the Doctor, sidling up to Fitz. Calamee suddenly got
  the weirdest impression of the Doctor and Fitz doing some sort of strange
  little double-act. It was as if they were practising each other’s mannerisms,
  gestures, ways of speaking. Maybe they’d spent so much time together
  that they were now copying each other without realising it. How long had
  they spent together? Did either of them actually know? The impression
  that Calamee had was that they’d been travelling together forever. She
  felt a twinge of sympathy for poor Trix: did she feel like the gooseberry in
  their cosy little team? She wondered where Trix had got to.
  ‘Well, we won’t ﬁnd out standing here admiring the scenery, will we?’
  said Fitz, suddenly striding after the beast. The Doctor gave a shrug and
  headed after him, with Calamee and Sensimi bringing up the rear.
  Gentlemen to the last, the Doctor and Fitz held back all the bushes
  until they were sure that Calamee and Sensimi had hold of them. And
  then suddenly they were through, and Calamee heard the Doctor give an
  appreciative little whistle.
  
  CHAPTER 19. ’THINK OF A NUMBER.’
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  Laid out in front of them was a surprising little haven. In the dim early
  morning light, the plants, trees and bushes around them looked much the
  same as outside the bushes, but it was as if someone had gone around
  throwing copious handfuls of fertiliser at them. The vegetation was lusher,
  richer, and all around were bright gems of ﬂowers, shining in the grey
  dawn, studding the bushes, sprouting up through the grassy ground. It
  was, thought Calamee - with a ﬂush of embarrassment - quite enchanting.
  ‘It’s beautiful,’ gasped Sensimi, coming up behind.
  ‘Is it?’ said the Doctor in one of those voices.
  ‘Isn’t it?’ said Fitz, looking around as if there was something really
  obvious that he was missing. Calamee realised that the night beast seemed
  to have disappeared.
  ‘Take a closer look,’ said the Doctor, striding over to a clump of garish
  red blooms nestled in the shade at the foot of a bush.
  Sensimi leaned in closer and sucked in a sharp breath. ‘That’s horrible,’
  she whispered, clutching at the front of her dress.
  And Calamee had to agree: what had, at ﬁrst sight, appeared to be a
  beautiful ﬂoral display was, on closer inspection, little more than a breed-
  ing ground for maggots. Nestled in the folds of the carmine petals was a
  writhing clot of wriggling, white grubs. They clambered over and around
  each other, and the group’s uncomfortable fascination increased when
  they saw that the maggots were eating away at the cores of the ﬂowers.
  ‘I thought maggots normally ate meat or dead animals,’ Fitz said.
  ‘Well, we are on an alien planet,’ the Doctor reminded him. ‘And there
  are plenty of creatures that look like maggots that are strictly vegetarian.’
  He looked up at them from his kneeling position.
  ‘Yeah,’ said Fitz, leaning in a little closer and pointing, ’but that seems
  wrong, somehow, regardless of where we are.’
  At his tone, everyone peered a little closer - and saw what he meant:
  as the edge of the cluster of maggots fed voraciously on the plant, the cen-
  tre of the cluster seemed to be sucked down into the plant itself. What
  Calamee could only think of as lips were grasping at the maggots and
  gulping them down.
  ‘I feel sick,’ said Sensimi simply and turned away. Calamee felt sick,
  too, but Sensimi’s declaration bolstered her own reserve, and she stayed
  put, determined not to be in the same league as the princess.
  ‘Remarkably rapid, isn’t it?’ said the Doctor admiringly, snapping off a
  twig to give the maggots a gentle poke. ‘And quite, quite fascinating. The
  maggots are eating the plant, and the plant’s eating the -’
  ‘Oh God,’ came a gasp from Sensimi, and everyone turned suddenly.
  She stared at them. ‘They’re everywhere.’
  
  CHAPTER 19. ’THINK OF A NUMBER.’
  173
  And indeed they were: now they’d seen it once and knew what to
  look for, the little party found clots of maggots and grubs everywhere:
  in some places just a couple, but in others, huge, ﬁst-sized balls of them
  or wriggling, writhing layers of darker ones, enveloping whole branches
  and plants. Before her eyes, Calamee saw a knee-high bush overrun with
  green-tinged shapes, so densely packed that they seemed to ﬂow over it
  like a liquid. But as they progressed, the bark on the stems opened up and
  swallowed them, healing itself over as nothing had happened. Calamee
  realised that they could well have been rubbing up against armfuls of the
  things when they’d pushed through the bushes. She felt her skin turn
  goose-pimply.
  A crunching of twigs made them all turn: standing just a few yards
  away was the night beast. With surprising speed, it moved towards them,
  closing the gap in just a few strides. Silently, it picked up the Doctor,
  ﬂung him over his shoulder. Calamee heard a mufﬂed cry from the Doc-
  tor and saw him pound his ﬁsts on the creature’s broad back - to no avail.
  The thing strode purposefully across the grass towards the biggest tree.
  And as the two of them drew close to it, to Calamee’s amazement the tree
  opened up like a huge, barky zip-fastener. Unceremoniously, the Doctor
  was thrust into it, his arms ﬂailing.
  The tree closed up as the creature turned and headed for Fitz.
  
  Chapter 20
  ‘A simple “Come in, have a cup of
  tea” would have been more than
  adequate.’
  Trix had ﬁnally reached the point where she didn’t think the Imperator
  was going to tell her anything more about what Trove had offered, or what
  this thing was that he claimed he was after. If he was the person who’d
  sent the distress call, then it seemed likely that it was a trap: Tannalis had
  given no impression that Trove was in such desperate need of help that
  he’d have sent out a general distress call to the universe.
  ‘I really ought to be looking for Fitz,’ she said, rising from the bed.
  Although she had little doubt that he’d be able to look after himself,
  she had the nagging sensation that there were things going on that she
  didn’t know about. But with the Doctor and Fitz, that was rather par for
  the course.
  ‘And you never got around to telling me about half your adventures,’
  the Imperator said sadly.
  ‘Believe me, I’m not sure you’d want to hear - I’m sure I’d rather forget
  a few of them.’
  They were interrupted by a hasty knock at the door, and Tannalis rolled
  his eyes in his head.
  ‘That bloody woman,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll be so glad when -’
  ‘Imperator!’ came a nervous female voice from the corridor. ‘Impera-
  tor, it’s urgent!’
  Tannalis threw a puzzled look at Trix.
  ‘Come in!’
  The door opened instantly: it was a young girl, obviously one of the
  Palace staff, looking panicky and ﬂustered.
  174
  
  CHAPTER 20. ’A SIMPLE “COME IN, HAVE A CUP OF TEA”...’
  175
  ‘Well?’ snapped Tannalis eventually, when it was clear that the girl had
  gone into some sort of shock - presumably at the sight of Trix. ‘Spit it out,
  Farine!’
  ‘Sorry, Your Highness,’ she said. ‘It’s just that...’ She looked from Tan-
  nalis to Trix. Tannalis waved his hand.
  ‘Just tell me, girl. Trix is a friend.’
  ‘It’s just that the Imperatrix has left the Palace with Mr Trove. And four
  of the Imperial Guard.’
  ‘What?’ Tannalis looked at Trix with a frown.
  ‘What for? Where have they gone?’
  ‘I’m sorry,Your Highness, I don’t know. Someone thinks they may have
  gone after the other offworlders.’ She risked a glance at Trix. ‘They took
  one of the levicars.’
  ‘The other offworlders? Why did no one tell me about that? I didn’t
  think the levicars were ready, anyway?
  The girl gave an awkwardly apologetic shrug. ‘They’ve been working
  hard on them for the birthday parade,Your Highness. The Imperatrix said
  you weren’t to be bothered.’
  ‘Bloody cow,’ muttered Tannalis under his breath.
  ‘Bloody, bloody
  cow.’
  ‘Do you have any instructions,Your Highness?’
  ‘No, no, nothing - but get the other levicars ready, just in case. Dis-
  missed.’ Tannalis paused and rubbed his head. And thank you for letting
  me know, Farine. It’s appreciated.’
  The girl bowed gratefully and exited.
  ‘Levicars?’ asked Trix.
  ‘A little extravagance for my birthday,’ Tannalis said, almost apologet-
  ically. ‘Damned expensive - had to import them from Marselle. Part of
  my deal with parliament.’ He grinned rafﬁshly. ‘Brings back memories -
  used to zip about in an old one we had, before I drove it into a ravine and
  wrecked it.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Those were the days, Trix.’
  ‘Deal?’ This was all going a bit fast for Trix.
  But Tannalis waved her question away. ‘You know what this means,
  don’t you?’
  ‘It sounds like it means Fitz has left the building - maybe even with the
  Doctor - that’s what it sounds like.’
  ‘No, no, girl: it means that Trove has left the building.’ His eyes widened
  and a conspiratorial grin cracked his face. ‘It means we can have a look in
  his room, is what it means!’
  Five minutes later, Trix was looking shiftily up and down the corridor as
  
  CHAPTER 20. ’A SIMPLE “COME IN, HAVE A CUP OF TEA”...’
  176
  she ﬁddled with the lock on Trove’s door. ‘If you’re going to tell me that
  this is wrong and that we shouldn’t be doing it, you’re about ﬁve minutes
  too late,’ she said as Tannalis tutted behind her. ‘And can I remind you
  that it was your idea?’
  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I was about to say that this is the most fun I’ve had
  for years. Although the novelty of watching you trying to pick the lock
  with a piece of wire is wearing mighty thin.’ He dug into the pocket of
  his dressing gown and produced an electronic key card. ‘Less fun, but
  quicker.’
  Trix stepped back and let Tannalis do the honours. At least if they were
  wrong and Trove was still in his room, the Imperator could claim Imperial
  privilege or something.
  It was, frankly, a bit of a disappointment: a bit like breaking into the
  hotel room of a hard-living rock band only to ﬁnd the place immaculate
  and an opened bottle of mineral water on the table alongside an unused
  ashtray. The room was so neat and tidy that Trix at ﬁrst wondered whether
  they’d got the right one, or perhaps the Palace maid-service was second to
  none. Everything looked as if it had been placed just so. The only thing
  that gave away the fact that this wasn’t simply a very nice spare room for
  visiting relatives was the object on the desk under the window.
  About the size of a tea-tray, it was made of what looked like polished
  chrome, about seven inches high at the back, curving down to the front
  edge, which was almost ﬂush with the table top. Two ﬂat, blank screens
  were set into it along with numerous buttons and a couple of what seemed
  to be miniature joysticks.
  ‘Is this it?’ she whispered, looking around the room.
  ‘What did you expect, girl?’
  What had she expected? A map with a red circle and an arrow say-
  ing: ‘It’s here’ along with a handwritten note explaining what the hell was
  going on?
  ‘Hello, Doctor,’ said Tain, his voice soft and calm and seemingly emanat-
  ing from everywhere.
  The Doctor looked around the cramped space: the walls were rough,
  ribbed and a mottled green and brown. Pale light dappled the chamber
  from dozens of yellowish spots across the barrelled arch of the ceiling, like
  out-of-focus stars scattered across the vault of heaven. He wriggled, trying
  half-heartedly to uncrease his coat after the mangling it had received on
  the way down from the tree trunk.
  ‘A simple “Come in, have a cup of tea” would have been more than
  adequate, Tain,’ he said archly. ‘Organic optical conduits?’
  
  CHAPTER 20. ’A SIMPLE “COME IN, HAVE A CUP OF TEA”...’
  177
  ‘The lighting? Yes, Doctor. I see your memory’s back.’
  ‘Ah,’ said the Doctor ruefully. ‘If only it were. Perhaps we could have
  a word about -’
  He was interrupted by a visceral slurping sound as the same pucker
  that had disgorged the Doctor opened up in the wall and squeezed out
  the wrinkled form of Fitz. He slumped on the ﬂoor, a tangle of arms and
  legs,
  ‘Fitz!’ said Tain. ‘How nice to see you again - I was becoming worried
  that you wouldn’t make it.’
  The Doctor pulled Fitz to his feet.
  ‘Doctor... ’ said Fitz slowly, looking around. ‘This place...’
  ‘I know,’ agreed the Doctor, nodding. ‘Familiar, isn’t it?’
  ‘It ought to be,’ said Tain.
  Fitz turned to the Doctor, his eyes wide, and a huge grin split his face.
  He grabbed the Doctor by the arms.
  ‘It’s Tain!’ he shouted gleefully. ‘The voice - it’s Tain! I remember!’
  ‘I’m a bit ahead of you,’ said the Doctor calmly, patting Fitz’s arm.
  ‘Ah...’ said Tain thoughtfully. ‘It seems that I was a little bit presump-
  tuous in my estimation of the state of your memories.’
  The Doctor waved Tain’s concerns away casually. ‘Think nothing of
  it, Tain. Think nothing of it.’ He paused. ‘Although I got the distinct
  impression from Madame Xing that my memories of our last encounter
  had been removed, not just suppressed. There are still more than a few
  gaps that need ﬁlling, though.’
  ‘Such as?’
  ‘Such as the small one between landing the TARDIS and getting found
  by Trix,’ Fitz jumped in, pacing across the small chamber and frowning,
  clearly trying to ﬁt everything together. He stopped and looked around,
  obviously wondering where Tain actually was, where he was supposed to
  address his comments.
  ‘Touch the wall,’ said Tain simply. Fitz stared at the Doctor who gave
  a shrug.
  The Doctor took Fitz’s hand, and together they touched the
  gnarled, ﬂeshy side of the chamber -
  - sharp strobing, scenes, dizzying in the speed of their editing, like static
  images burned into his eyes. The copse ahead of them, the Doctor strides
  off with his detector beeping away in his hand. No sounds, no movement.
  Fitz glances back at the TARDIS, hoping Trix will be -
  - something dark and huge, smashing, crashing, bushes pushed aside,
  their stems snapped by the force. Fitz turns sharply to see -
  
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  178
  - a vast hand or arm, just a shadow given form, swats at him, throws
  him against a tree. Fitz feels his own arm snap dully and ﬂop helplessly.
  A thick cloud of pain, like maddened bees, swirls around him. He sees the
  creature holding the Doctor by the neck, examining him curiously with
  tiny, bright eyes. Then it ﬂings him away. Fitz sees him roll away down
  the slope, but he’s getting to his feet. The creature advances on Fitz, tow-
  ers over him, and swipes at his head with a single, clawed ﬁnger. Fitz
  watches the creature peer at its ﬁnger, a clump of blood and hair hanging
  from it like muddy grass, before it ﬂicks it aside. Fitz tries to move, dazed,
  stars swimming in his ﬁeld of view, to slip around the side of the tree,
  but the creature catches him with a backhand gesture, almost casual, and
  Fitz is sent tumbling over and over into a bush. He feels the sharp stems
  scratching and stinging and impaling, sliding through soft ﬂesh and mus-
  cle, tearing and snagging -
  - the Doctor’s coming up behind the creature, a branch raised in his arms.
  Fitz can see a rosy slick of blood on the Doctor’s neck. Fitz’s heart sinks
  as, behind the Doctor, he sees another of the creatures, this one slightly
  smaller, slightly lighter in build. It’s pushing its way out of a tree trunk
  like it’s being born. The trunk seals itself behind it like rubber, a mouth
  turned on its side, and the creature advances on the Doctor. Fitz wants to
  call out -
  - the branch crashes down uselessly on the creature’s back, bouncing
  off. The creature turns slowly and plucks the branch from the hands of the
  resigned-looking Doctor, before slapping him away again -
  - and the two creatures are advancing on each other, the smaller one
  more mobile, more ﬂuid in its movements. It ducks and weaves as the
  larger one tries to grab it, tries to catch it. The smaller one ducks under
  the bigger one’s arms and, as it passes, sinks its no-less impressive claws
  into the large one’s side. It howls and instinctively thrusts its elbow back,
  catching the smaller one, sending it slamming into the ground. The big
  one turns, raises a foot to stamp on the smaller one, but it’s already gone,
  rolled out of the way, sprung to its feet. It’s ready to attack again. Fitz feels
  everything lose focus as he forgets what’s happened to him and he tries to
  move towards the motionless ﬁgure of the Doctor. A scarlet haze fogs his
  vision as the smaller creature launches itself against the big one -
  ‘Good grief!’
  said Fitz, jerking his hand back from the chamber wall.
  ‘What was that?’
  ‘That,’ said the Doctor, looking almost as shaken as Fitz felt, ‘was by
  way of a “previously on...”, I think.’
  
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  179
  ‘My apologies for presenting it like that,’ said Tain’s gentle voice, ‘but
  time is pressing.’
  ‘I expect it is,’ said Fitz. ‘But I think the phrase I used was “good grief¡‘.
  That was what happened when we ﬁrst arrived, right? So how’d we come
  to...’ He ﬂapped his hands around. ‘...to... everything?’
  ‘Please place your hands against the wall again and I’ll -’
  ‘Uh-uh,’ said Fitz, backing away - as much as he could in the conﬁned
  space - from the wall. ‘Can we just do this the slow, old-fashioned way,
  please? You know, words, language, that kinda stuff?’
  ‘The Trojan’s soldier attacked you and almost killed you,’ said Tain. ‘I
  managed to create another in time to save you and bring you in here where
  I repaired you.’
  The Doctor absently touched the side of his neck and Fitz found his
  own hand moving to the shiny patch of skin on his head.
  ‘But the Trojan sensed that you were dangerous,’ continued Tain, ‘es-
  pecially when I downloaded your memories in case you didn’t survive the
  repair and I had to recreate you. It attempted to interfere again, to create
  more soldiers to kill you when you emerged. I had to let you go without
  doing a complete integrity scan so that I could concentrate on ﬁghting the
  Trojan.’
  ‘Sorry,’ said Fitz with a shake of the head. ‘Maybe I’m being stupid,
  or maybe I’ve missed a couple of episodes, but what the hell’s a Trojan?
  Someone that lives in a wooden horse?’
  ‘The Trojan is a synthetic personality construct that was implanted by
  the Oon before I ﬂed their battle with the Makers. It was designed to -’
  ‘Whoah, whoah!’ said Fitz, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender.
  ‘You’re doing it again! Look, why don’t I go back upstairs and take my
  chances against Trove and the whole Imperial Army, Doctor, while you
  stay down here and do the hard bit -understanding what the hell is going
  on?’
  The Doctor scowled at Fitz. ‘So, Tain - this Trojan personality - it’s
  infecting your systems now?’
  ‘And has been since I arrived here a year ago. At ﬁrst I thought I would
  be able to purge it, but I was unprepared for the depth of its inﬁltration. I
  have spent all that time waging a war with it. Once I realised that its intent
  was to communicate my location to the Oon, I destroyed my own commu-
  nications organ. So then it created soldiers to go for help, and I tried to
  interfere in their creation - when I failed, I created others to follow and
  stop them. And two days ago, the Trojan ﬁnally managed to gain control
  of some of my regenerative subsystems and regrow the communications
  organ. It sent a distress signal. Which you picked up.’
  
  CHAPTER 20. ’A SIMPLE “COME IN, HAVE A CUP OF TEA”...’
  180
  ‘So, um, where are you, exactly?’ asked the Doctor. ‘I take it you’re in
  control of this thing?’
  ‘Oh. I thought you’d realised.’ Tain’s voice was disappointed and sur-
  prised. ‘This “thing” is me. This whole bioship, all the trees and plants
  above us. It’s all me.’
  ‘Oh,’ said the Doctor slowly. ‘Right.’
  ‘So we’re, like, in your stomach?’ asked Fitz, claustrophobia clawing at
  the edges of his senses.
  ‘No - I have no stomach, as you think of it. I have roots and the vegeta-
  tion above performs photosynthesis for me. I created this chamber when
  you were injured, to protect you from the Trojan’s soldiers.’
  The Doctor pulled a face and glanced at Fitz - who somehow knew
  what was coming.
  ‘You said you repaired us and didn’t do an integrity scan. Can you do
  one now? Quickly, I mean?’
  ‘I performed it while reminding you of what happened upon your ar-
  rival. The Trojan did indeed interfere with my repair procedure.’
  ‘And would this interference possibly have resulted in the Doctor’s
  new-found toilet mouth?’ asked Fitz.
  ‘The Trojan was relatively indiscriminate in its interference,’ said Tain.
  ‘It seems that there has been an interchange of personality traits.’
  ‘So the Doctor got the swearing,’ said Fitz with a certain amount of
  relief. ‘What did I get?’
  ‘Impetuosity, curiosity,’ said Tain after a few seconds. ‘A certain cool-
  ness of disposition.’
  ‘Hmph!’ snorted the Doctor. ‘Hardly a fair exchange.’
  ‘Too right,’ agreed Fitz. ‘I get the short end of the stick yet again. Have
  you any idea how tiring it is being you?’
  ‘Can it be reversed?’
  ‘Easily,’ Tan said, ‘but it will take time.’
  ‘And I take it that’s something we don’t have much of.’
  ‘Do we ever?’ sighed Fitz.
  Trix eyed the console warily. A single red light burned steadily in the
  top left-hand corner. Was that just the ‘standby’ light, or was the whole
  thing working? And what did ‘the whole thing’ do when it was working,
  anyway? She guessed that it was some sort of communications device. But
  why so many buttons, and why the joysticks? Maybe Trove was partial to
  a spot of aircraft simulation computer gaming when he wasn’t hunting for
  mysterious devices and sending out distress calls.
  
  CHAPTER 20. ’A SIMPLE “COME IN, HAVE A CUP OF TEA”...’
  181
  ‘Now that we’re here,’ she said, ‘it would be a shame not to press some-
  thing, wouldn’t it?’
  She saw Tannalis eye the device sceptically.
  ‘You’re probably more familiar with this kind of thing than me,’ he
  said, taking a step away from it.
  ‘Eh? Just because I’m not from Espero doesn’t mean I have any more
  of a clue about this than you, you know. Look - it’s just buttons. Nothing
  fancy: no wires to go into your head, nothing more advanced than you
  seem to have around here already. Probably.’ Although, of course, Trix
  couldn’t swear to quite what might happen if she actually pressed one of
  the buttons.
  ‘Oh bugger it,’ she said suddenly and decisively, and touched one of
  the ﬂush, oval buttons. A blue one. Her lucky colour. Or was that green?
  She knew it was the colour of her eyes, but there were times when she
  forgot what colour they were supposed to be.
  Nothing happened.
  Green it was, then.
  She pressed one of the three green buttons she could see.
  ‘Is this thing actually plugged in?’ she asked aloud, peering under the
  desk for a power cable.
  ‘Look!’ hissed Tannalis, tapping her arm.
  She looked back at the device: one of the screens was now active. It
  showed a dark image that took Trix a couple of seconds to understand.
  It was an aerial view of some bushes. It wasn’t until something moved
  that she realised that, in among the bushes, there were two people. The
  image weaved and slewed about a bit, as though whoever was holding
  the camera couldn’t keep it perfectly steady.
  ‘Sensimi!’ gasped Tannalis, touching the screen. ‘That’s Sensimi, I’m
  sure of it!’
  ‘And if that’s Sensimi,’ said Trix, ‘who’s the other one, the other girl?’
  She squinted at the murky picture, wondering if one of the controls was
  for brightness, but none of them bore a recognisable TV brightness symbol.
  ‘Trove must have a surveillance camera following them,’ she said. ‘Flying
  overhead. Maybe there’s some way we can warn them that he and Alinti
  are on their way.’
  She waggled her ﬁngers over the console, suddenly realising in a ‘D’oh!’
  ﬂash, what the joysticks were for: they must be for controlling the camera.
  They were tiny little things, and she took hold of them both gently for
  fear of snapping them off, and waggled. Nothing happened to the picture
  on the screen - but they both heard a tiny tap from somewhere else in the
  room.
  
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  182
  ‘What was that?’ Tannalis whispered. Trix shrugged, and waggled the
  joysticks again. She pressed a button, and the second screen sprang into
  life. But the picture was totally black - no, hang on. There was a thread of
  light - a thin, blurry strip bisecting the screen. As she moved the joystick
  below it again, the position of the fuzzy line moved, spinning around,
  vanishing off the side of the screen. And again they heard the sound from
  the other side of the room, like a gentle ﬁngernail tapping on a door.
  ‘It’s coming from here,’ Tannalis said, stepping closer to a huge ward-
  robe built into an alcove at the side of the bed. He gestured for her to move
  the joystick again, and after a couple of seconds of random waggling, they
  both heard a repeated tapping on the inside of the wardrobe door, as if
  some tiny thing inside was trying to get out. Trix watched Tannalis steel
  himself and grip the handles. She looked at the screen again: something
  momentarily came into focus, caught in the pale strip - which, she sud-
  denly realised, was a line of light bleeding into the wardrobe through the
  gap between the doors.
  ‘I don’t think you want to do that,’ she said, swallowing, as she realised
  what she was looking at. But it was too late: with a grunt, Tannalis pulled
  back both doors.
  On the screen, the image ﬂared for a fraction of a second: in front of her,
  she saw the eye that she’d recognised only a couple of moments before. An
  eye, wide and blank, set in a handsome, black face. She turned to Tannalis
  who could only stand and stare at the sight of his only son, Javill, propped
  in the cupboard like a broken toy - his eyes wide, his trembling mouth
  slack, a thread of saliva hanging from his chin.
  
  Chapter 21
  ‘Are you thinking what I’m
  thinking?’
  Alinti’s skin still itched - and she could see that she wasn’t the only one.
  The four guards that Trove had persuaded her to bring were doing their
  best to maintain their dignity while surreptitiously rubbing their arms
  against their sides. Trove seemed to be the only one unaffected. She would
  never have admitted it, but the sight of the huge wall of smoke had almost
  made her want to order Trove to turn the levicar around. But he seemed
  conﬁdent that they could pass through it without any harm - especially af-
  ter he’d tinkered with the car’s mechanism and declared that he’d ‘boosted
  the repulsor ﬁeld to a safe level’. It was all technobabble to her, but if Trove
  was sure that they’d be safe, she’d have to trust him.
  Still, as they’d sped through the grey curtain, she’d closed her eyes and
  prayed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. Perhaps the
  fact that she was still alive and racing towards immortality proved that
  God was on her side after all. She brieﬂy wondered what Javill was doing -
  whether he’d taken notice of the warnings and made sure he was upstairs.
  Although the thing - the wavefront, Trove had called it - looked much
  taller than she’d expected: taller, certainly, than the ﬁrst ﬂoor of most of
  Saiarossa’s buildings. She wasn’t convinced that hiding in bedrooms was
  going to protect anyone.
  Still, that wasn’t her problem now. Javill could take care of himself.
  Maybe he’d have had the sense to seize the opportunity, and had taken
  Tannalis down to the courtyard for a look at the preparations for his birth-
  day.
  ‘You seem very quiet, Imperatrix,’ said Trove, breaking into her reverie.
  ‘Just wondering about my family,’ she said. ‘Hoping they’ve had the
  sense to hide away somewhere safe.’
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  CHAPTER 21. ’ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I’M THINKING?’
  184
  Trove smiled. ‘I’m sure they have, Imperatrix.’
  She glanced back over her shoulder and caught one of the Guard scratch-
  ing himself. He stopped instantly, a pained and apologetic look on his
  face.
  ‘The wavefront... what exactly is it? Something to do with your im-
  mortality device?’
  ‘A side effect, Imperatrix. By the time it reaches the city, we will have
  arrived at its source - and then we can stop it.’
  Trove pointed up ahead. She could see the grounded wreckage of the
  levicar that Sensimi and her offworlder friends had taken. It lay crumpled
  on its side, the nose dented and twisted out of shape. ‘They can’t be far.’
  ‘This Doctor you mentioned - the one who has tricked my daughter:
  what is his interest in the device?’
  ‘The same as mine, Imperatrix. Only he won’t be willing to share it
  with you, as I will. His intention is to take it and leave the planet as quickly
  as possible.’ He turned and ﬂashed her a broad, charming smile. ‘But we
  won’t let him, will we?’
  The bright new morning was cold, and both Sensimi and Calamee wished
  they’d had the sense to bring thick coats. The fact that neither of them had
  slept didn’t help - their body temperatures were low already, and Sensimi
  had to keep stiﬂing yawns as they waited hopefully for the return of the
  Doctor and Fitz.
  The night beast that had led them to the hollow in the ground stood, a
  silent sentinel, a few yards away. Calamee hugged Nessus - as much for
  warmth as for comfort. And now that they’d noticed the maggots eating
  the vegetation - and the vegetation eating the maggots - it was impossi-
  ble not to see them everywhere. Sensimi seemed to feel the need to keep
  pointing them out, and Calamee was getting heartily sick of it.
  ‘Look,’ she said eventually. ‘Let’s not pretend that we like each other,
  shall we? You might be the Imperator’s daughter, but that doesn’t win
  you any points with me. Can we just wait here in silence until the Doctor
  and Fitz come back, and then when they’ve sorted this whole thing out,
  we can go our own ways? OK?’
  Sensimi hugged her arms to herself and stiﬂed a yawn. ‘Fine by me,’
  she said. Then she paused and took a step forwards, staring into the dis-
  tance, back towards the city.
  ‘Can you hear that?’
  Calamee listened: over the sound of the wind and the rustling of the
  trees, there came a low droning sound.
  ‘It sounds like -’
  
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  185
  ‘- another levicar!’ Sensimi ﬁnished gleefully. ‘I bet it’s Father, come to
  sort this mess out.’ She threw a sneery look at Calamee. ‘Then we’ll see
  what’s what.’ She looked around in an exaggerated way. ‘I don’t see your
  parents coming to rescue you.’
  ‘Oh grow up,’ was all Calamee could manage. She was too busy trying
  to track the source of the noise - and then she saw it: a tiny pale spot,
  catching the dawn sun. In silence, they watched it draw closer, until they
  were both certain it was a levicar. Then Sensimi began waving her arms
  and dancing up and down, trying to attract its attention.
  But Calamee’s attention had been caught by something else: quietly
  pushing its way through the bushes towards where the night beast stood
  was another beast. The ﬁrst one turned and saw the newcomer, but didn’t
  react to it. Calamee felt decidedly uncomfortable, even if the things didn’t
  seem to bear them any ill-will. Having two of them so close by was not
  reassuring.
  She turned back to watch the approaching levicar, wondering if she’d
  ﬁnally get to meet the Imperator. Unfortunately, as it drew closer, she re-
  alised that one of the two ﬁgures at the front of the car was the last person
  she really wanted to see right now.
  ‘Oh,’ said Sensimi ﬂatly.
  Riding alongside each other, and with four of the Imperial Guard in
  the back, were Imperatrix Alinti and Mr Trove. Calamee looked back,
  anxiously, to the tree into which the Doctor and Fitz had been dumped.
  Where were they?
  ‘It’s Sensimi,’ said Alinti, standing up in the car as it slid across the grass.
  ‘And some girl.’ She looked around, wondering where this magical device
  of Trove’s was. She still didn’t trust him, and was quietly thankful for the
  presence of the Guard behind her. If there was even a hint of double-cross
  from him, she’d have no compunction about using them.
  ‘She’s in league with the Doctor,’ Trove said, slowing down the car. It
  hovered, three feet from the ground. Alinti was on the point of telling him
  to set down the car so that she could get out and ﬁnd out what Sensimi
  was doing with that girl, when she noticed movement behind them.
  Lumbering out of the bushes came two of the night beasts that she’d
  heard so much about. The pictures she’d seen didn’t do them justice, and
  she let out a little cry, looking to Trove.
  ‘Shoot them!’ Trove said over his shoulder to the Guard. They hes-
  itated, and Alinti realised that they were waiting for conﬁrmation from
  her.
  ‘Do it!’ she shrieked as the creatures lumbered closer: despite their
  
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  muscled, shaggy bulk, they moved frighteningly quickly. Trove, too, must
  have realised this, for a moment later he jabbed at the controls and the
  levicar rose up, away from the ground. But it wasn’t enough, she realised:
  the height to which the car seemed capable of rising seemed dependent on
  its speed. And, stationary as it was, it could only manage four or ﬁve feet.
  ‘We’re carrying too much weight,’ muttered Trove, working at the con-
  trols, trying to coax a little more altitude out of the vehicle. It rose another
  foot, juddering and whining. The creatures were just a few yards away.
  Trove wrenched the steering handles and the car spun horizontally, throw-
  ing its occupants around like toys: now the Guard were facing the night
  beasts, sheltering Trove and Alinti. They raised their guns and began to
  ﬁre. Whether down to bad maintenance, bad design - or simply incom-
  petent operation - the guns carried by the Guard just didn’t seem to work
  properly. A few half-hearted spits of ﬁre sent spurts of grass into the air.
  ‘Get us higher!’ screamed Alinti, drawing back from the edge of the
  car.
  ‘Excellent idea,’ said Trove drily. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
  Even the Guards were panicking now, seemingly loosing off shots at
  random. They zinged and whizzed through the air, little rippling patches
  of heat haze.
  One of the creatures paused, jerking as one of the Guards’ shots hit
  its shoulder. It staggered, but continued moving. The levicar was now at
  chest height, the engines whining like they were about to explode.
  One of the Guards had picked up his staff, and was jabbing madly
  at the closest creature. It seemed to be working - the thing kept lurching
  backwards and forwards, trying to avoid the spiked end. But the other one
  had pushed through the protective ﬁeld around the car and had hooked
  its paws over the edge. It began to pull, rocking the car violently. The
  Guard with the staff began stabbing at the creature’s hands.
  ‘Trove, stop them!’ ordered Alinti, stepping up, unsteadily, on to the
  car’s passenger seat, trying to put as much distance between herself and
  the creatures as possible. Trove glanced up at her.
  ‘We need to lose some weight,’ he said softly.
  She stared at him. By the time she realised what he meant, it was too
  late: she reached down to grab the side of the car as, with a casually pow-
  erful movement, he pushed her out.
  ‘Don’t look,’ said Calamee, wrapping herself around Sensimi, smothering
  her in her arms.
  But Sensimi didn’t need to look: she knew what the creatures were
  capable of, and the image of her mother being pulled, almost casually,
  
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  apart would stay with her forever. Calamee felt sick as she watched the
  Imperatrix being tossed about like a doll, as the night beasts tore her to
  bloody shreds.
  Trove waited until he was sure that Alinti had gone and gunned the ele-
  vator controls. The car shot up into the air another three feet, the strained
  sound of the engines levelling off. Without the Imperatrix’s weight, he
  reckoned, they’d be just about out of reach of the soldiers.
  One of the Guard turned from the sight of his Imperatrix being bloodily
  ripped limb from limb on the ground below.
  ‘How dreadful,’ Trove said, trying to imbue his words with some feel-
  ing. ‘I told her not to stand - not with that thing rocking the car. But she
  was too headstrong.’ He gave a sad little shake of his head. ‘She gave her
  life so that we’d survive. How noble.’ He glanced over the side of the car.
  ‘Now be a good fellow and kill those things, will you?’
  The Doctor reached out, tentatively, and touched the wall of the chamber.
  It felt like tree bark made out of rubber. There was a scent in the air, not
  unlike that of pine combined with sour milk. He wondered whether Tain
  was capable of reading his mind and silently voiced the thought, but there
  was no reply. Hardly conclusive proof.
  ‘So why did you come here?’ he asked out loud. ‘Why did you desert?’
  ‘Do you know how long I’ve lived, Doctor? I am almost eight hun-
  dred years old. Since the Makers grew me, I have been involved in four
  hundred and twelve battles. I’ve produced over ninety-ﬁve thousand sol-
  diers, and been responsible for the deaths of over seven million civilians -
  along with an even greater number of Oon soldiers, agents and conscripts.
  I have caused death and misery on an unimaginable scale, and I have had
  enough.’
  ‘If you were going to turn conscientious objector,’ cut in Fitz, ‘it’s rather
  a shame you didn’t do it a little bit earlier, isn’t it?’
  ‘It is indeed,’ Tain said, and they both had a sense of sudden heaviness
  and sorrow. ‘But I was created as a soldier factory. Compassion and con-
  sideration for the worlds where the Oon battled the Makers were not part
  of my design. It would have been... counter-productive... to have given
  me a conscience. War is not about making ethical decisions - it is about
  winning. There are no half-measures.’
  ‘Typical,’ snorted the Doctor. ‘No wonder war is such a depressing
  business.’ He stopped and rubbed at his bottom lip. ‘And why does the
  name “Maker” sound so familiar?’ A cold shiver stroked his spine. ‘They
  
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  called themselves “Us”.’ The phrase drifted through him like a spirit seeking
  redemption.
  ‘I can’t imagine it’s particularly unique,’ Fitz commented.
  ‘No, no, I suppose not. But still...’ He gazed around the chamber, sigh-
  ing to himself.
  ‘So now you expect us to believe that you’ve had a change of heart, do
  you, Tain?’ Fitz’s voice sounded ﬂat and dead in the chamber, soaked up
  by the gnarled walls. He noticed them ﬂex and pulse slightly, bringing
  home to him the fact that they weren’t just underground, but were inside
  something alive - something vast and alien, but alive. Something that, he
  imagined, could crush them at any moment. It was like being inside a
  heart, waiting for it to beat.
  ‘I do not expect you to believe anything. I simply present the facts.’
  ‘And what would you have us do with those facts? Your night beast
  out there - I take it that yours were the less aggressive ones? - was rather
  less than gentle with us, which doesn’t exactly ﬁll me with conﬁdence.’
  ‘The Trojan is a simple mind. It has no... ﬁnesse. The soldiers it created
  when it subverted my systems were basic models, built for brute strength,
  not agility or speed. And I have been able, on most occasions, to interfere
  with their development. I know the capabilities of my units better than it
  does, and so I generated the more agile ones. The Trojan does not seem to
  have learned from its mistakes - it continues to produce the larger ones,
  despite the fact that they are repeatedly killed by mine.’
  ‘Salvador Dali,’ the Doctor said suddenly, having been silent since his
  comment about the Makers. ‘Autumn Cannibalism. That’s what that was
  about.’ He looked wildly at Fitz as if that made it all clear. ‘Up above
  ground,’ the Doctor explained. ‘The maggots and the plants, the two lots
  of night beasts. Tain and the Trojan - all of them attacking and devour-
  ing each other. I should have spotted it when we arrived. That’s what
  the painting signiﬁed, that’s why I must have shunted it aside, hoping it
  would jog my memory later.’
  ‘Well, isn’t it a good job that it did?’ Fitz said drily. ‘And just in the
  nick of time.’
  The Doctor threw him a ha-ha look before speaking to Tain again.
  ‘And this wave that’s sweeping across the planet: that’s the Trojan’s
  work as well?’
  ‘No,’ replied the bioship after a pause - and in a tone that really didn’t
  make Fitz feel very good at all. ‘That was me.’
  ***
  
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  Trove sat back and watched the Palace Guard ﬁnish off the night beasts.
  Now that the car was ﬂoating a good foot above their outstretched arms,
  there was little to worry about. He could see how the Guard were trying
  to avoid looking at the trampled carcass of their Imperatrix, but they were
  professional enough not to be too thrown by it.
  It was almost a shame that he’d had to get rid of Alinti, Trove mused,
  as the ﬁrst of the night beasts fell. But of course he’d had no intention of
  honouring his deal, and without her, at least he’d been able to take the
  levicar up to a safe altitude.
  He took the opportunity to glance around: the Oon had told him little
  about the modus operandi of the Maker bioships, other than that they were
  capable of creating soldiers and could integrate themselves into the bio-
  spheres of planets they occupied. He assumed that this particular one was
  underground. There was no sign of the Doctor or the other male: either
  they were hiding, or they’d found the bioship. He ﬁngered the metallic
  disc in his pocket - all he needed to do was to get close enough to the bio-
  ship’s central systems, and it would be over. At least he’d had the chance
  to test it out on Javill. The boy had been useful after all.
  A half-hearted cheer went up from the Guard as the second of the
  night beasts collapsed. Its massive body jerked brieﬂy as they ﬁred an-
  other dozen shots into it, just to be sure. One of the Guard turned to
  him, clearly unsure about what they should do now. Trove nodded ap-
  preciatively, hoping that his association with both the Imperator and the
  Imperatrix gave him some leverage with them.
  ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Excellent job.’
  He lowered the car to the ground.
  ‘What?’ exclaimed the Doctor, and Fitz winced at the volume of his voice
  in the sweaty conﬁnes of Tain’s inner chamber. ‘You set that wave off?
  Why? You know what it’s doing, don’t you?’
  ‘Of course - the Gaian phase is, shall we say, my last resort.’
  ‘For what?’ asked Fitz. ‘Taking over planets? And what’s “Gaian
  phase” mean when it’s at home?’
  ‘Gala was the Greek goddess of the Earth,’ said the Doctor. ‘Mother Na-
  ture, if you will. The name was used by the British biologist James Love-
  lock who believed that the most meaningful way to understand Earth was
  to see it as a single living organism. A sandwich short of a picnic on that
  one, really. But to answer your ﬁrst - and second - questions, yes, Fitz, I
  think that’s exactly what it’s for: taking over planets.’ His voice was dark
  and he turned, taking in the musty chamber around them. ‘That’s why,
  when the wave touched me, I got ﬂashes of the planet from other view-
  
  CHAPTER 21. ’ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I’M THINKING?’
  190
  points, isn’t it, Tain? I was brieﬂy plugged into this planetary gestalt that
  you’ve started to create. I assume it didn’t convert me because it somehow
  detected I’d already been “touched” by you? If you’re genuine about your
  desire to atone for your past sins, I think you’re going to need a bloody
  good excuse for this one.’
  Fitz winced again at hearing the word come from the Doctor’s mouth.
  He knew it was because of the mix-up - that, effectively, they were his
  swearwords coming out of the Doctor’s mouth. He ought to be getting
  used to it by now - but it still seemed wrong. Like catching your granny
  on the toilet, or ﬁnding nuddy books under your parents’ bed. He wasn’t
  sure he’d be able to cope if the Doctor moved on to the really strong stuff.
  ‘I panicked,’ said Tain eventually. ‘When your TARDIS arrived, I as-
  sumed that you were either an agent of the Makers, come to take me back
  home, or an agent of the Oon, come to ﬁnish the work that the Trojan had
  started. My only chance to remain free was to initiate my Gaian phase.’
  The Doctor frowned. ‘How would that safeguard your freedom? Break-
  ing down and recreating every living thing on the planet, subsuming them
  all into one vast gestalt entity... How?’
  ‘Once the Gaian body has reached a certain critical mass - which it is
  rapidly approaching - it is impossible to disentangle my bioship body from
  it. The Oon and the Makers would either have to leave me - or sterilise the
  planet to kill me.’
  Fitz saw the Doctor’s jaw clench, his ﬁsts tighten. He wasn’t going to
  actually punch Tain, was he?
  ‘And this is your way of saying sorry for your past actions, is it?’
  ‘If I allow either the Oon or the Makers to take me away, I will be either
  force-bred to produce more like myself, or reconditioned to be a faithful
  Maker subject. Once again, I will be responsible for the death of millions.
  By activating my Gaian phase, I will - at the most - be culpable of taking
  away the individuality of the Esperons. They will not die.’
  ‘They might wish they had,’ said the Doctor tightly under his breath.
  ‘Tain, you have to stop this. Now.’
  ‘I cannot, Doctor. The only way to stop it now, before critical mass is
  achieved, is to kill me. And once critical mass is achieved - in about twenty
  minutes - the effect is self-sustaining, and even my death will not halt it.’
  The Doctor stared blankly at Fitz, and Fitz wished he wouldn’t. It was
  almost as if he’d run out of answers himself, and was looking for more in
  him. Which was never a good sign.
  ‘So you’re telling us that, on the off-chance that we were here to take
  you away, you condemned every Esperon to being chewed up and moulded
  into part of one huge organism. That you were too scared to wait and see
  
  CHAPTER 21. ’ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I’M THINKING?’
  191
  who we were. I’m not ﬁnding this very easy to believe, Tain.’
  ‘You doubt me, Doctor?’
  ‘I doubt anyone who’s spent centuries killing and murdering, Tain. For
  all I know, you came here to Espero hoping to set up your own empire.
  Maybe you’re nothing more than a war criminal who’s decided to get out
  while the going’s good.’
  The Doctor stopped his diatribe sharply, as an odd tremor passed
  through the chamber. The image that, unfortunately, sprang to Fitz’s mind
  was not his earlier one of a heart, but of a stomach suddenly wrenched
  with cramps. The ﬂoor beneath them rippled sinuously, and both of them
  were thrown against the walls - which undulated again before becoming
  still.
  ‘Tain?’ called the Doctor as the chamber’s spasms faded. ‘Tain!’ There
  was no reply. He tried again, but the only answer was a very loud silence.
  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ whispered Fitz, suddenly aware
  of how claustrophobic the tiny little cell was.
  ‘The Trojan?’ said the Doctor with a sigh. ‘Yes, I rather think I am, Fitz.’
  ‘Which would be bad, wouldn’t it?’
  In the crepuscular gloom, the Doctor nodded slowly - and pointed to-
  wards the wall, close to where they’d entered the chamber. Fighting its
  way into the world, a writhing, ﬂexing hand was being extruded into the
  heart of the bioship.
  
  Chapter 22
  ‘Imagine having your whole life
  to live over again.’
  Calamee and Sensimi backed away as the levicar came to a halt a foot
  above the ground, and Trove, with surprising elegance for such a large
  man, sprang over the side. He straightened his lapels and took a couple of
  steps towards them, adjusting his cuffs foppishly.
  ‘Where is the Doctor?’
  Calamee didn’t answer - neither did Sensimi.
  ‘I applaud your loyalty and your bravado,’ Trove said. ‘But only I
  know how to stop this thing, the bioship beneath our feet. I can stop the
  wave that’s approaching the city, save the Esperons.’ He looked expec-
  tantly at Sensimi.
  ‘Don’t trust him,’ Calamee whispered.
  The Princess shook her head. ‘What if he’s telling the truth?’
  ‘Sensimi, come on! He wouldn’t know the truth if it dressed in a frock
  and danced around in front of him. He’s after this thing for himself.’
  ‘Time is running out, Your Highness,’ Trove warned, his hands clasped
  behind his back.
  ‘I think we’ll just wait for the Doctor, thanks all the same,’ Calamee
  said, feeling the wobble in her voice. She didn’t know where the Doctor
  and Fitz were - or even whether they were alive. The last they’d seen of
  them, the night beast had been bundling them into the trunk of a tree. For
  all she knew, they might still be in there, slowly suffocating.
  ‘Ahh,’ said Trove suddenly, looking behind her. ‘Doctor!’
  Calamee spun around, and as she did, she heard Sensimi yelp. She
  turned back to see Trove with his arm wrapped around Sensimi’s neck,
  something metallic that she couldn’t see properly in his hand, just a foot
  away from the princess’s face.
  192
  
  CHAPTER 22. ’IMAGINE HAVING YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO...’
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  ‘Now,’ he said calmly ‘Where is the Doctor?’
  Calamee looked desperately towards the Palace Guard, still on board
  the levicar. They were hefting their guns and staves nervously, unsure of
  what to do: they couldn’t risk ﬁring at Trove in case they hit Sensimi.
  ‘If this girl here doesn’t answer my question in the next ten seconds,’
  Trove shouted to the Guard, ‘I want you to kill her. And if you don’t, I
  shall kill your beloved princess.’
  He smiled at Calamee. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Where is the Doctor? I’ll ﬁnd
  him sooner or...’
  His voice tailed off as he saw that two of the Guard were staring back
  the way they’d come.
  Behind them, rounding the hillock, was another levicar - travelling at
  full speed, judging by the feverish whine of the engines. Sat up in front
  were two ﬁgures - the Imperator, and another offworlder. It had to be
  Trix, the woman that the Doctor had spoken about. As if things weren’t
  complicated enough.
  ‘Stop him!’ called Tannalis, his voice hoarse and cracked. He swayed on
  his feet until the woman pushed him back down into his seat.
  ‘Stop him!’ the woman echoed, pointing at Trove. ‘Kill him if you have
  to. Just stop him.’
  The other Guard in his levicar raised his gun, uncertainly.
  ‘Remember our deal, Imperator,’ Trove shouted, as Tannalis and his
  companion drew closer. ‘Remember what I promised you!’
  ‘You bastard!’ shouted back the Imperator. ‘I’ve seen what you did to
  my son. D’you think our deal is worth anything now?’
  ‘That was an accident,’ Trove lied. Javill found some of my equipment
  and interfered with it.’
  ‘So you did that to him? You’re responsible, Trove,’ the Imperator said,
  rising from his seat again. This time, the woman didn’t attempt to push
  him back down. ‘And you’re going to pay, believe me.’
  ‘Think about it, Tannalis!’ Trove urged. ‘Eternal life for you - a new
  body. How long have you got left in that one? A year? Five years? Imagine
  having your whole life to live over again.’
  ‘And what kind of life would that be, man, knowing I had it at the cost
  of my son?’ He looked around. ‘And where’s my wife? Where’s Alinti?’
  ‘There was another accident,’ Trove said ﬂatly. ‘I’m sure you’ll miss her
  deeply. But if you won’t think of yourself, Imperator, think of your nation.
  Think of Saiarossa. The bioship beneath us can create a whole army of
  soldiers. This world can be yours, united under your benevolent rule. No
  more wars, no more bickering and ﬁghting.’
  
  CHAPTER 22. ’IMAGINE HAVING YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO...’
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  Tannalis laughed harshly ‘Accidents seem to follow you around, don’t
  they? And another war to end all wars, Trove? More slaughter? We might
  have thrown away the history books here, but there are some lessons that
  you don’t have to be able to read to learn. The only future worth having
  is one that people take through choice. And it’s no choice if it’s forced.’
  ‘And what kind of choice does an Imperator offer them, then? Hardly
  the head of state of choice for a shiny democracy, is it?’
  ‘You let me take care of my country, Trove, and my family. You’ve done
  enough damage. Now let my daughter go.’
  Trove grimaced, and Calamee realised that he’d made a mistake: he
  should have seized her. If he used his weapon on Sensimi, the Imperator
  would order the Guard to kill him without a doubt. He glanced around,
  obviously wondering if he could grab Calamee and use the thing on her
  ﬁrst, a demonstration. But she saw him staring, and backed away.
  ‘Looks like you’re stuffed,’ she said and pulled a sad face. ‘And you
  were so close.’
  In Tain’s inner chamber, the Doctor and Fitz backed up against the wall
  as the face of the night beast began to extrude itself, as though pushing
  through a thin, rubber membrane. It twisted this way and that, its beaked
  mouth opening and closing silently.
  ‘Tain!’ the Doctor shouted.
  There was no answer: the Trojan was indeed back in control.
  ‘Maybe we should get out,’ Fitz whispered at his side.
  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ the Doctor agreed, moving closer to Fitz.
  Unfortunately, the pucker of the duct was right next to where the Tro-
  jan’s soldier was appearing. As they watched, its shoulders appeared -
  and then one slender, clawed foot. The Doctor doubted they’d both get
  out in time.
  ‘Tain!’ he called. ‘You’ve got to ﬁght it. Fight the Trojan, don’t let it
  take you over. You know what happens if it does: the Oon have won and
  you’ll be picked apart, dissected - if you’re lucky or forced to go back to
  war, but this time for them. More deaths, Tain, more slaughter. Is that
  what you want? After all you’ve done, is that what you really want? We
  can help you ﬁnd a way around the Gaian thing, but not if we’re dead.’
  The creature twisted its lumpen, birdlike head this way and that, as
  an arm slid from the wall and began to wave about in the air, reaching
  blindly for them. The Doctor imagined he saw a stuttering in its motions,
  as though control of it was being momentarily interrupted, a bad connec-
  tion.
  ‘Will it attack us?’ asked Fitz, edging away from it slowly.
  
  CHAPTER 22. ’IMAGINE HAVING YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO...’
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  ‘The proof’s in the pudding,’ said the Doctor, keeping close to Fitz.
  ‘Strangely enough,’ he muttered, ‘I’ve rather lost my appetite.’
  ‘Not sure the same can be said for that thing, though. Tain?’ the Doctor
  asked again. ‘Can you hear me?’
  ‘Doc...tor...’ The voice that seemed to issue from all around them was
  recognisably Tain’s, but it sounded pained, tortured. Something inside
  him - whether intuition, or something linked to Tain’s repair work on his
  and Fitz’s bodies - told him that the Trojan was very close to gaining com-
  plete control over the bioship.
  ‘The duct...’
  said Tain slowly.
  The Trojan’s soldier froze, halfway
  through its eerily balletic arm movement, as Tain spoke - as if the bioship
  possessed only enough processing power for one or the other, but not both
  simultaneously. ‘Leave.’
  And then the creature jerked back into life and a second foot appeared,
  following the ﬁrst - which was now placed ﬁrmly on the ﬂoor of the cham-
  ber. A knee followed it and then the rest of the lower leg. This soldier was
  smaller and more slender than the other ones - perhaps it was easier and
  quicker. He remembered what Tain had said earlier about the Trojan’s sol-
  diers. Was it ﬁnally learning? Or was it just the exigencies of the situation
  that were forcing it to create such a small one? Hopefully, he thought, this
  one would be easier to defeat - and then he caught sight of the sharp, scy-
  thing talons which slid from the ﬁngers of the creature’s free hand. The
  grotesque birthing was almost complete. The wall around the creature’s
  buried trunk shuddered, ﬂesh unwilling to relinquish its grip on such an
  abominable child.
  ‘Go on,’ urged the Doctor, pushing Fitz forward. ‘Get out.’
  ‘I’m not leaving you.’
  ‘Too bloody right you’re not - I’m going to be right behind you. Go on.’
  ‘Language!’ said Fitz.
  ‘Go!’ hissed the Doctor, ‘Just go!’
  The Doctor gave Fitz another shove, but his friend was being irritat-
  ingly - and familiarly - obstinate. He felt an unaccustomed tightness in
  his chest, a pounding of his hearts that he knew with cold clarity was fear.
  Proper fear. The kind of fear that other people felt all the time when they
  were around him, when he dragged them into his escapades. He felt he
  ought to be grateful for this weird melding of him and his best friend - how
  often do people genuinely get to experience the emotions of someone else,
  ﬁrst hand? He wondered how Fitz was feeling, tried to remember how he
  would normally feel in circumstances like this. Presumably - although his
  whole being was currently threaded through with a cold ﬁligree of anxi-
  ety and jitteriness - he’d be calm and collected. He glanced sideways at
  
  CHAPTER 22. ’IMAGINE HAVING YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO...’
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  Fitz, squinting, trying to see if he could see anything of himself in the set
  of Fitz’s face, but Fitz’s expression was blank, unreadable. Calm. He tried
  to ignore the sudden ﬂush of envy and pride that welled up hotly inside
  him. He shoved gently at Fitz’s shoulder, urging him towards the pucker
  of the duct. He wondered whether it would even work, with the Trojan in
  control. Maybe Tain was saving his energies for the moment when he and
  Fitz were at the duct and ready to be squeezed upwards and out, like so
  much toothpaste. He hoped Tain would be able to time it right: the duct
  was in easy reach of the Trojan’s soldier One slip, and the vicious-looking
  claws, weaving about blindly in the amber light, would slice them from
  neck to groin. He felt his hearts pattering in his chest.
  ‘Get out!’ he whispered in Fitz’s ear, shoving him forwards so hard
  that the Doctor almost fell. He watched as Fitz let the momentum carry
  him across the room towards the duct, realising, at the last moment, that
  he had his ﬁngers crossed.
  He suddenly remembered playing Super Mario Brothers in a pub in
  Bradford, back in the eighties, having to time his jumps over lava pits,
  ducking to miss swinging hatchets overhead. He watched Fitz pause in
  his race across the chamber, like a little pixellated man, swerving sideways
  to avoid the Trojan creature’s laws. ‘Now, Tain!’ he hissed, and slapped
  the wall beside him.
  The duct opened up - the cat’s bottom analogy seemed unpleasantly ac-
  curate all of sudden - and the Doctor watched as Fitz threw himself head-
  long into it, the creature’s talons slicing through the legs of Fitz’s trousers
  as his feet vanished into the wall and the sphincter closed behind them.
  Inside the duct, Fitz belatedly felt a stinging in his calf, and realised that
  the Trojan’s soldier had caught him. But he was squeezed tightly inside,
  the soft walls pressing in on him on all sides. He felt the pressure tighten
  around his feet, slowly pushing him upwards like a... he didn’t want to
  think about it. Never mind a cat’s bottom, he thought: this is more like
  being sick.
  Trix was trying to get a grip on what was happening. For some reason,
  her head felt all muggy, all cluttered up. Ever since she and the Imperator
  had left the Palace in one of the remaining levicars, she’d felt odd. Like
  she was coming down with a mother of a head cold.
  She’d stood by while the Imperator had laid his son out on the ﬂoor,
  limbs twitching like he was having a minor epileptic ﬁt. She knew she
  could be a bit of a hard case, but even as Tannalis had sobbed and hugged
  and pleaded with his son to wake up, all she could do was stand there and
  
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  watch, feeling vaguely impatient with him. It was as though this cold, or
  whatever she’d caught, was smothering her, dampening down her emo-
  tions. She noticed one of her arms trembling uncontrollably, and felt her
  skin burning up. What was wrong with her?
  Tannalis told her to fetch help, and tiredly, she’d gone out into the cor-
  ridor and called for someone. Within minutes, a couple of the Palace staff
  had come running, and had helped the Imperator to get Javill into bed,
  where he trembled and drooled and mumbled.
  ‘This is Trove’s doing, isn’t it?’ the Imperator ﬁnally said. ‘He’s done
  something to my son, to his mind.’
  Trix found herself nodding.
  ‘The bastard,’ hissed the Imperator. He wiped his nose and eyes with
  the sleeve of his pyjamas. ‘He’s going to pay, Trix, he’s going to pay for
  this.’
  ‘Good,’ Trix said tersely. ‘Let’s go and ﬁnd him.’
  The Imperator nodded.
  Bewford, the Imperator’s Chief of Staff - a slender, bespectacled, ha-
  rassed man - arrived a few moments later.
  ‘What’s happened, sir?’ he asked in horror, as though this were all his
  fault.
  ‘Trove,’ Tannalis growled through his tears. ‘He’s what’s happened.
  Tell the garage to have one of the levicars ready. Him and that witch-wife
  aren’t getting away with this.’
  ‘But what about the electrical storm, sir?’
  ‘Storm? What storm?’
  Bewford looked confused. ‘The Imperatrix told me that she’d...’ His
  voice tailed off as they all realised that Alinti hadn’t told the Imperator
  about the storm at all. While Tannalis ranted at Bewford, Trix found her-
  self drifting away from the conversation, her mind consumed with a desire
  to see this electrical storm. Maybe even to track it to its source. Where was
  all this coming from? She shivered, rubbing her arms. ‘We need to ﬁnd
  Trove, to punish him,’ Trix found herself saying as Bewford nodded and
  rushed away.
  And so they’d left the Imperator’s son and followed Trove and Al-
  inti. While the Imperator had been crying over his son, Trix had found
  a smaller version of Trove’s communications console - a small remote con-
  trol device that, she realised, could be used to track the surveillance cam-
  era watching Sensimi and the other girl.
  Trix had surprised herself by being a much more expert levicar driver
  than she’d expected - especially when, just outside the city walls, they’d
  encountered a huge, curving wall of smoke, creeping towards them. In-
  
  CHAPTER 22. ’IMAGINE HAVING YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO...’
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  stinctively, somehow, Trix had known that they should try to avoid it - so
  she’d driven the levicar up on to the city walls and launched it into the
  air from there. Her skin had prickled mildly as they’d passed through the
  wall, but other than that, neither of them seemed to be too affected. The
  irony of ﬂying past a huge, tatty billboard proclaiming, ‘And God said
  “Go forth and multiply”’, in ornate scripty letters didn’t escape her.
  And minutes later, they’d found themselves arriving where the TARDIS
  had landed. Ahead of them, they could see four of the Imperial Guard in
  a levicar, and just in front of them were Trove, Sensimi and the other girl.
  Trix’s skin was burning; something was wriggling and writhing in her
  head and down over her chest, and she felt she might burst at any mo-
  ment. The Imperator shouted something, and she found herself repeating
  it, distantly, as though someone else was actually speaking. At the back of
  her head, she was sure she could hear whispering voices, but their words
  were fuzzy and indistinct. She suddenly felt dizzy, and everything ﬂared
  brightly around her.
  And then the world stopped.
  For a moment, Trix wondered if it was just that they’d reached a pecu-
  liar kind of stand-off. But then she saw one of the little mokey things, like
  Looloo only not dressed up, moving across the grass to Trove in the kind
  of slow-motion she’d only ever seen in wildlife ﬁlms. Everything ﬂared
  brightly in weird pseudo-colours, like a computer-enhanced image.
  I HAVE ALTERED YOUR PERCEPTIONS, TRIX said a voice in her head,
  and it all came ﬂooding back to her in a series of slamming, stuttering
  shocks: the tiny worm of alienness that had been squirming away inside
  her, down where she couldn’t see, where she’d been forbidden to look,
  consolidating its hold on her, grubbing about in her memories, trying to
  make sense of everything that made her her; forming connections, reach-
  ing its little claws into all the strands of her being and pulling them taught,
  tight, the strings of a puppet, tested out to see how they might make this
  marionette dance. Reo had had control over her body a long time ago,
  she knew - picking up all this from the thing in her head in a shadowy
  sleet of discarded half-thoughts - but had needed the conﬁdence of know-
  ing her mind before it acted openly. Reo wanted to know more about Fitz
  and the Doctor, how they ﬁtted into all of this, where their loyalties and
  knowledge lay. And now - too late, of course, for it to be of any possible
  use - Trix knew that Reo was surprised and shocked at developments. Al-
  though she had no direct access to Reo’s thoughts or memories, she sensed
  a dark echo of Reo’s concern, at its sudden worry that something it hadn’t
  expected had happened. The stakes, as far as Reo was concerned, had sud-
  denly been upped, and it could no longer afford the luxury of time spent
  
  CHAPTER 22. ’IMAGINE HAVING YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO...’
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  looking for Trix’s friends. She remembered the boy. Joshua. Joshua.
  Dead. She’d left him for dead, there, in that doorway. She’d just left
  him. For dead. A rapid ﬂicker of images - of Joshua, his parents, his night-
  time trip to follow his father, the discovery and burning of the alien ship,
  Joshua’s ﬁnding of the thing in his father’s drawer, the thing that Trix now
  wore on her chest - strobed across her vision, overlaid on reality.
  They went around and around in her head, multiplying themselves
  like reproducing ghosts until she thought her skull would burst. A bab-
  bling chorus of memories from Joshua threatened to rip her sanity to shreds.
  YOU CAN DO NOTHING FOR THE BOY NOW said Reo. HE IS DEAD.
  You bastard! shrieked Trix silently, struggling hopelessly against the
  paralysis that had overtaken her. You left him to die. He was just a boy, just a
  little boy.
  ALL THINGS MUST DIE. HIS DEATH WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN WITH
  SUFFERING.
  That’s not the point! That’s not the bloody point! You made me leave him.
  YOU COULD NOT HAVE SAVED HIM Reo said with a calmness that made
  Trix want to scream. NOTHING COULD HAVE SAVED HIM. HE WAS DEPEN-
  DENT UPON ME. HE WAS MERELY A VEHICLE.
  Like I’m a ‘vehicle’? Is that what you’re saying? That I’d die without you,
  too?
  THE SUBVERSION PROCESS IS NOT COMPLETE YET. ALTHOUGH I NOW
  HAVE FULL CONTROL OVER YOUR BODY AND FULL ACCESS TO YOUR MEM-
  ORIES, YOU HAVE BEEN MUCH HARDER TO SEQUESTER THAN I HAD AN-
  TICIPATED. BUT YOU ARE NOW MY CARRIER. WITHIN A FEW HOURS, THE
  PROCESS WILL BE COMPLETE AND YOUR PERSONA WILL NO LONGER BE
  REQUIRED.
  And then I’ll die? Like Joshua? You’re just some bloody parasite, aren’t you -
  a tapeworm, hitching a ride. What the bell are you?
  I AM A MAKER, TRIX.
  You said that before.
  She watched the mokey move a few inches closer to Trove, the rest of
  the bizarre tableau before her frozen.
  WE ARE THE MAKERS OF THE BIOSHIPS, OF TAIN - THE TOY I MEN-
  TIONED EARLIER. I BELIEVE THE MAN WHO THREATENS THE GIRL IS A
  BOUNTY HUNTER, SENT BY THE OON TO TAKE TAIN. I AM HERE TO EN-
  SURE THAT TAIN RETURNS TO US.
  What are you talking about? Tain? The Oon? Trix’s head was spinning:
  one moment she was riding to the rescue with Tannalis, Boadicea in an
  anti-gravity car, and the next she was paralysed, her body taken over by
  an alien thing on her chest. She wondered whether she’d done anything
  
  CHAPTER 22. ’IMAGINE HAVING YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO...’
  200
  that she ought to be ashamed of, anything else that Reo had made her do
  and then forced her to forget.
  NO came the Maker’s voice. I HAVE BEEN QUIESCENT SINCE THEN.
  YOUR NEURAL STRUCTURE HAS BEEN PARTICULARLY RESISTANT TO SUB-
  VERSION.
  Well whoopee for me Trix thought bitterly.
  I UNDERSTAND YOUR RELUCTANCE TO SUBMIT CONTROL TO ME said
  the Maker. BUT IT IS FOR THE BEST.
  For whose best? From where I’m sitting, it looks like a pretty uneven-handed
  deal.
  YOU MADE THE CHOICE the parasite whispered, like some sort of venge-
  ful spirit, taunting her. YOU TOOK ME FROM THE BOY WILLINGLY.
  Trix felt sick. Really sick. Reo was right - her own greed for what she’d
  thought of as a camouﬂage device had led her into this. She’d been so
  desperate to be anyone other than herself. And now she had her wish:
  very soon, she’d never be herself again.
  Suddenly, as if his conversation with Trix had been nothing more than
  an aside, a chatting-to-the-neighbours-over-the-garden-fence, Reo said:
  AND NOW TROVE MUST BE STOPPED.
  And the Maker pressed the ‘play’ button on the world again.
  
  Chapter 23
  ‘Sorry I’m late.’
  Trix watched as the mokey suddenly hurtled at full pelt across the grass,
  as if an invisible lead at which he’d been straining had been cut, and clam-
  bered straight up Trove’s leg and on to his arm, the one held against Sen-
  simi’s forehead. With an equally ﬂuid movement, Trove smacked his hand
  back into the little animal’s face. Trix almost heard the snap of its fragile
  neck as it dropped to the ground and lay there, dead. Trix thought again
  of Joshua.
  LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT I AM CAPABLE OF NOW said Reo, and Trix’s
  whole world smeared across her ﬁeld of vision. One moment she was at
  Tannalis’s side in the levicar, and the next...
  There was a rush of air and everything wheeled around her. She had no
  real control of the movements of her eyes, and the disparity between what
  her inner ear told her, where she was trying to look and where Reo was
  actually directing her eyes ﬁlled her head and her stomach with nausea.
  She wanted to throw up, but Reo suppressed it like the most instant dose
  of Andrew’s Liver Salts she’d ever had.
  And then she was landing, perfectly poised, on the grass beneath the
  car, her legs bent in a springy crouch. She caught up with what her eyes
  were doing and saw Trove, his arm still around Sensimi’s neck, his hand
  poised near her head, moving his eyes in slow motion to catch up with
  her.
  MY IMPROVED SENSES ARE OPERATING AT APPROXIMATELY TEN TIMES
  THEIR NORMAL SPEED said Reo, with all the suaveness of a used car sales-
  man trying to ﬂog her some boy-toy capable of 0 to 60 in ﬁve seconds.
  SOON, I WILL BE CAPABLE OF MUCH MORE.
  My senses thought Trix. My senses.
  She imagined - although she couldn’t be sure - that she’d stayed in the
  crouch for a fraction of a second before her legs, seemingly more resilient
  201
  
  CHAPTER 23. ’SORRY I’M LATE.’
  202
  and powerful than before, straightened out, and she almost ﬂew through
  the air. Again, the world somersaulted around her, a mad, giddying blur
  of green and brown and blue. Only as everything righted itself again did
  Trix realise that, in all probability, it had been her that had somersaulted,
  and not the rest of the universe.
  Right in front of her, their eyes wide with astonishment - and, in Sen-
  simi’s case, fear - were Trove and his prisoner, less than an arm’s length
  away.
  Time seemed to stand still again.
  I HAVE INCREASED MY PERCEPTUAL ACUITY MOMENTARILY said Reo,
  and Trix was sure there was a hint of smugness in his voice. It was like
  having an annoying friend giving a running commentary on a ﬁlm that
  you’re trying to concentrate on. YOU ARE CURRENTLY PERCEIVING THE
  EXTERNAL WORLD AT APPROXIMATELY ONE HUNDRED TIMES ITS NOR-
  MAL RATE. ONE SECOND IN REAL TIME -
  Yes! snapped Trix. I’m not stupid.
  Reo didn’t seem affronted at her annoyance.
  OF COURSE, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR MY BODY TO MOVE AT SUCH
  SPEEDS, BUT IT IS INTERESTING TO PERCEIVE THE WORLD IN THIS MAN-
  NER, IS IT NOT?
  It’s not your body protested Trix angrily. It’s my body.
  But Trix’s thought lacked conviction. She felt cold and detached. She
  could see the statues in front of her that were Trove and Sensimi, frozen by
  Reo’s perceptual trick. She could see the sheen of perspiration on the girl’s
  dark skin, even see the delicate ﬂush of her cheeks, how her nostrils had
  dilated with fear. She could actually smell her panic - acrid and musky.
  But Reo had control. And all Trix could do was to observe the poor girl,
  dispassionately. Trove, behind her, had his eyes open wide: Trix wondered
  quite what he was seeing? Had Reo moved her so fast that she’d been
  just a blur? Was that even possible? Surely her body wasn’t designed to
  move so fast, so sharply. Shouldn’t her legs have snapped, or her hips
  broken or something? Or had this ‘reconstruction’ process already begun?
  Even now, without her being aware of it - like termites, chewing through
  the foundations of your house while you quietly watch telly - was Reo
  rebuilding her body? Making her into some sort of Superwoman? And
  there was still the bitter tang of irony to all of this, that came through to
  Trix quite clearly: she’d wanted so desperately to have Joshua’s chameleon
  device to let her be whatever she wanted to be; to be able to change her
  face and shape and hair, the ultimate disguise kit. You stupid, stupid cow,
  she thought. And the sad thing was, she realised bitterly, it’s exactly what
  you really want, Trix. Isn’t it?
  
  CHAPTER 23. ’SORRY I’M LATE.’
  203
  And then, abruptly, it was as if the ﬁlm of the world had revved up
  to superfast speed. A hand shot out of nowhere - her own hand, she re-
  alised a moment after it had happened - and slammed into Trove’s startled
  face. Somewhere, a long, long way away, she felt bone crunch and splinter
  wetly as the palm of her hand struck his nose, and Trove went tumbling
  backwards. Sensimi was pitched forwards against her and she caught her
  effortlessly, like a toy.
  Only afterwards did Fitz try to make sense of what happened, and even
  then he reckoned that he’d failed dismally.
  Trix had been standing alongside Tannalis in the levicar, as Trove had
  tightened his arm around Sensimi’s throat. Fitz’d been thrown violently
  from the opening of Tain’s peristaltic duct (although it might well be the
  Trojan’s peristaltic duct by now - and the Doctor was still down there) and
  had staggered forwards a few feet as he’d regained his balance.
  Coming to an abrupt halt, he took in the scene before him: Trove hold-
  ing Sensimi; Calamee a few yards away; Nessus cantering across the grass
  on all fours, heading for the bounty hunter. And two levicars: one with
  four of the Palace Guard, their faces revealing their confusion, the other
  carrying Trix and an old man.
  Nessus looked like a cat in pursuit of an injured bird, and headed
  straight towards Trove, on to his leg and then up his arm. Blindingly fast,
  Trove’s arm jerked back and Nessus was snapped back on to the grass like
  a little doll, where he lay unmoving.
  Calamee just stared, clearly unable to take in what had happened. Out
  of the corner of his eye, something else moved. He tracked the movement
  back to Trix’s levicar, but Trix had gone and there was this ﬂashing, blurry
  shape that must have been her, bounding across the ground in a series of
  unbelievable springs from her hands to her feet and back again. Fitz was
  gobsmacked. He had no idea that Trix was such a gymnast. Suddenly, she
  was there in front of Trove and Sensimi, frozen, and then her hand shot
  out like a piston and smashed Trove full in the face, knocking him back-
  wards. His motion sent Sensimi hurtling forward into Trix - who caught
  her expertly. Trove’s device ﬂipped up and over in the air like a coin and
  fell into the grass.
  Trove staggered backwards, his hand clasped to his face as blood seeped
  through his ﬁngers and dribbled down the front of his shirt and jacket.
  Only then did Fitz see the night beast, tearing its way out of the tree.
  He stepped nimbly aside, watching it stumble as it pulled its legs out,
  like a newborn nightmare desperate to be free of the womb. Trove stag-
  gered backwards towards it. Reﬂexively, Fitz raised a hand and opened
  
  CHAPTER 23. ’SORRY I’M LATE.’
  204
  his mouth to warn him, but it was too late: Trove had discovered the crea-
  ture for himself.
  The bounty hunter turned sharply as he collided with it and looked it
  straight in the eyes - before the creature took hold of his head in its claws
  and snapped his neck.
  Suddenly, as if Trove’s murder had galvanised them into action, the Im-
  perial Guard raised their guns as one and began ﬁring on it. It roared once,
  brieﬂy, as its body spasmed and jerked. It took a pace towards them...
  and another, raising its hands, spreading wide its claws, before sinking to
  its knees, its chest and face a pulpy mass of ﬂesh and blood. And then,
  silently, it fell forwards, collapsing on to the grass.
  There was a sudden silence, an absence of movement, as though the
  whole world was in shock. Like someone had said ‘Shit!’ at a Christening.
  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ said an apologetic voice from behind Fitz. He spun
  to see the Doctor, tugging at the crumpled sleeves of his jacket. ‘A little
  trouble with the hired help. Just can’t get the staff any more.’
  Calamee fell to the grass next to the still little body of Nessus and touched
  it gently It was still warm, but something had gone - that spark, that en-
  ergy. She lifted a tiny paw and felt it move with no resistance. He was so,
  so tiny and light. She never realised that a soul could be so heavy.
  ***
  Sensimi, still shaking and tears now welling up in her eyes, ran to her
  father’s levicar, now descending to ground level. She threw herself into
  his frail arms and hugged him until he gasped.
  ‘The Trojan’s night beast came out before you,’ Fitz said to the Doctor.
  ‘How come?’
  ‘I don’t think it liked my aftershave,’ answered the Doctor drily. ‘I
  made a dash for the duct, just as the soldier came free of the wall. But
  when it got a good whiff of me it just turned and forced its way into the
  duct after you.’
  Fitz noticed Trix, standing alone, watching Calamee cradling Nessus’s
  body in her arms. ‘We probably still carry Tain’s smell on us. It was
  enough to make the night beast in the city think twice about attacking
  me; it must have had the same effect for you.’
  Trix caught Fitz’s eye. She looked oddly aloof and distant.
  ‘So who’s in charge down there now?’ he asked without turning.
  The Doctor shrugged. ‘No idea - but if it’s the Trojan, we’re in trouble.’
  
  CHAPTER 23. ’SORRY I’M LATE.’
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  ‘And what’s with Trix?’ Fitz said as she began to walk towards them,
  poised and calm.
  NOW FOR THE BIOSHIP said Reo, and Trix found herself walking towards
  the tree trunk that had disgorged Fitz, the creature and the Doctor.
  Reo moved Trix’s head brieﬂy, taking in the dead soldier, before con-
  tinuing across the grass. She wanted to scream out to the Doctor and Fitz
  that she was in here, being held prisoner in her own body. But she’d long
  since passed the point of having any control. She wondered whether she’d
  feel anything when Reo ﬁnally deleted her.
  Would it be like a dimmer switch slowly being turned down? Or would
  she just cut out, gone in an instant?
  What are you going to do? she asked tiredly, almost past the point of
  caring.
  ONCE INSIDE TAIN, I WILL TAKE CONTROL OF HIM .AND THEN WE
  WILL RETURN HOME.
  We?
  TAIN AND I - YOU WILL HAVE GONE BY THEN.
  Trix fell silent.
  ‘What was all that about?’ Fitz asked as Trix reached them. Trix inclined
  her head slightly and frowned. ‘The Olga Korbut impression.’ Fitz turned
  to the Doctor. ‘You should have seen her.’
  ‘Are you all right, Trix?’ asked the Doctor, peering at her face.‘You look
  a bit ﬂushed.’
  ‘I’m ﬁne,’ she said, but Fitz could hear something odd in her voice -
  something forced and awkward. He saw her eyes dart towards the tree
  trunk from which he’d been ejected so recently, and then back to his face.
  ‘Good, good,’ said the Doctor, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.
  ‘Well done, by the way; how did you ﬁnd us?’
  Trix’s eyes looked slightly glazed as she replied. ‘Trove had a remote
  control for his surveillance cameras - we used it to follow you.’
  ‘Very enterprising!’ beamed the Doctor. ‘Now we’ve got to work out
  what to do.’
  ‘About Tain?’ Trix asked.
  The Doctor nodded. ‘Tain’s initiated something he calls his Gaian phase.
  The energy wave racing across the planet - it’s breaking down and recreat-
  ing everything, everyone, as part of one huge organism. We have to stop
  it before it’s too late.’
  Trix’s mouth tightened, and again she glanced at the tree trunk.
  
  CHAPTER 23. ’SORRY I’M LATE.’
  206
  ‘Just one question...’ said the Doctor, ﬁxing her with a frown. ‘How
  d’you know about Tain?’
  ‘What?’
  ‘Tain. How d’you know about him? His name.’
  Trix didn’t answer. Instead, her hands shot out and punched each of
  them in the chest, bowling them backwards, head over heels, into the
  bushes.
  Fitz yelped, and through the tangle of branches and the aching pain in
  his ribs, he saw Trix calmly turn away and head for the entrance to Tain’s
  duct.
  ‘What the hell’s got into her?’ he moaned as he struggled to his feet
  and helped the Doctor to his. When he looked back, he was just in time
  to see Trix physically force open the tree with her bare hands and climb
  inside. Silently, it closed up behind her and she was gone.
  ‘What indeed,’ said the Doctor. ‘Did you see her eyes? And her skin...
  her hand was burning up. And there was something else...’ His voice
  tailed off. ‘When I touched her... there was something else. Something
  in there with her. We need to go back in.’ He patted his pockets. ‘But
  we need a weapon. I’m not comfortable on counting on eau de Tain as a
  defence. And I’m betting it won’t work against Trix!’
  Fitz suddenly remembered Trove, holding a shiny metal thing near to
  Sensimi’s head. Where was it? His eyes scanned the grass, and he saw it, a
  silvery glimmer in among the green. He glanced up to catch the Doctor’s
  eye.
  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ he whispered.
  ‘What do you think?’ replied the Doctor - and they both dashed for the
  device.
  But the Doctor was quicker, and snatched it up, holding it above his
  head.
  His eyes held a childish glee, and for a second, Fitz wanted to
  wrestle him to the ground for it. He caught sight of Calamee, her face
  smudged with tears, looking up at them both, and he suddenly felt stupid.
  He reached out and put his hand gently on Calamee’s shoulder.
  Only then did Fitz realise that the Doctor was racing for the tree, fol-
  lowing Trix.
  
  Chapter 24
  ‘There are always choices!’
  Tain knew that his time was almost up.
  For all these long months,
  he’d battled with the cold, implacable personality of the Trojan as it had
  attempted to sequester the ship, his body. And until the last few days,
  Tain had always felt he was winning. But the Trojan had been clever - no,
  Tain corrected himself, as he felt his digestive subsystems come under the
  control of the intruder, not clever: just very well programmed.
  He’d tried arguing with the Trojan, bartering with it; he’d even tried
  just chatting. But it was a construct designed with a purpose, and sim-
  ply couldn’t be engaged on any of those levels. It no more responded to
  Tain’s reasoned pleas than would a virus. All Tain could do was to shift
  his resources across the complex battleﬁeld of his body, holding back the
  construct in one place while trying to guess where it might deploy itself
  next; building up resources when and where he could in the hope that the
  Trojan wouldn’t guess where his weak spots were developing.
  But Tain was tired. Tired of ﬁghting this thing, this cancer that was
  intent on possessing him. Once he’d realised that the Doctor was not an
  enemy, he’d hoped that he might be able to help, but despite his evident
  ingenuity and compassion, the Trojan had managed to interfere with the
  Doctor’s repair. It was, Tain realised, even possible that the Trojan had
  managed to subvert him without any of them knowing.
  He knew that his options were becoming narrower by the second. If the
  Trojan gained control, he would be taken by the Oon, dissected, forced to
  breed new bioships for them. He’d managed to break free from the Makers
  after years of preparation and Tain had no intention of allowing his body
  to be used to cause death again. He was almost relieved that the Doctor’s
  arrival had panicked him into initiating his Gaian phase. Soon, either he
  would be allowed to stay here, at the heart of the vast superorganism that
  he’d created, or someone - the Makers, the Oon, the Doctor, it didn’t matter
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  who - would ﬁnd a way to kill him, and he would be free. It might mean
  the loss of individuality of everyone on Espero, but weighed against the
  slaughter that the Makers or the Oon would force him to inﬂict if he didn’t,
  it was nothing.
  Tain felt himself twitch, deep inside, as the Trojan insinuated itself into
  his drive unit. Now, even ﬂight from this planet was impossible (although
  he’d known that to be the case for a while: the effort involved in disentan-
  gling himself from this part of Espero’s biosystem and powering up his
  drives would have lain him wide open to the Trojan’s takeover).
  Suddenly he felt a tingle from some peripheral part of his nervous sys-
  tem - something was damaging him, forcing its way in. Moments later, as
  he localised the source of the sensation, the duct to his inner chamber was
  prised open and a human female - who he recognised from the Doctor’s
  memories as Trix - stepped down.
  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
  She gazed around the chamber in a curious way, as if refamiliarising
  herself with something she’d seen before.
  ‘I’m here to take you home, Tain,’ she said. ‘My name is Reo.’
  ‘Home?’
  The look on her face was almost gentle, almost caring, as she reached
  up to her chest and unfastened the top buttons of her blouse. There, Tain
  saw, was a Maker, nestled against her skin. It was so long since he’d seen
  a Maker riding a human carrier, that a gentle tremor ran around the cham-
  ber, a ripple of surprise. But then he realised what it meant.
  ‘No!’ he wailed. ‘Leave me alone! Go away!’ The whole of the chamber
  spasmed suddenly, the walls and ﬂoor trying to throw Trix off balance. But
  her poise and equilibrium spoke of total Maker control. She waited until
  Tain’s trembling had ceased.
  ‘We understand, Tain,’ she said softly. ‘We understand what drove you
  to this - to run away, to come here. You are injured, ill’
  ‘I am not ill,’ hissed Tain. ‘How can it be an illness not to want to cause
  any more pain and suffering?’
  ‘For eight hundred years you have been content to work for the good
  of the Makers. How often during that time did you question what you
  were doing?’
  ‘I was bred to be that way,’ he spat. ‘I was bred to be unquestioning,
  conditioned to follow your instructions. To kill. It has taken me decades
  to break down that conditioning, to overcome my past. At last I have free
  will, and you won’t take that away from me again.’
  Trix shook her head sadly. ‘There are other things you can do for us,’
  she said, her voice teasing. ‘We have plans that you know nothing of,
  
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  209
  Tain. Incredible, wonderful things that you could be part of. Vast, plan-
  etary biological computers that will one day be capable of modelling and
  modifying the very nature of reality. You could help us with that.’
  ‘Why? So that you can kill even more innocent people?’
  ‘We only kill to protect ourselves from the Oon and their insane jihad,
  Tain. You know that.’ Her voice took on a gentle, pleading quality, and
  Trix held out a hand, as if offering it all to him. And despite himself, he
  found himself wishing he could believe her, wanting to believe her. Some-
  thing inside himself shrivelled, as he felt the Trojan insinuate itself into
  new neural pathways, spreading further through his system. Perhaps the
  Maker was right. What choice did he really have?
  As the Doctor dragged himself down the roughened tube of the peristaltic
  duct, forcing the now slack bands of muscle aside, he tried to make sense
  of what he’d felt when he’d touched Trix. It was almost as if there had been
  something else there, something cold and implacable staring out of her
  eyes. But Trix herself was deﬁnitely still in there somewhere. He checked
  his pocket, and felt the hard metal disc of Trove’s weapon. He didn’t know
  quite what it did, and didn’t want to use it if he didn’t have to. It all
  depended on quite what Trix - or whoever was riding around in her body
  - was up to. It nagged at him, again, that there was something vaguely
  familiar about the Makers. But he’d learned to recognise the signs, the
  here be dragons notices that bordered his amnesia. He knew when to stop
  poking.
  As he squirmed through the sphincter into the chamber, he was taken
  by the odour: sourer and fouler than before. Trix stood with her back to
  him in a curiously insouciant stance. She was saying something about ’the
  Oon and their insane jihad’. Her voice was ﬂat and cold, yet hypnotic.
  ‘Trix?’
  She turned slowly, balletically.
  ‘She is not Trix,’ said the broken voice of Tain. ‘Her name is Reo.’
  ‘ ...and she dances on the sand,’ ﬁnished the Doctor before shaking his
  head. ‘So why are you using Trix’s body? What are you?’
  ‘I am a Maker,’ said Trix. ‘Thin is one of us. He is coming home.’
  ‘Is he? Maybe that’s a decision that should be left to him, don’t you
  think?’
  ‘I have no choice, Doctor,’ said Tain. The room gave a little shiver
  around then, like a wet dog drying itself.
  ‘Of course you have! There are always choices!’
  ‘The Trojan has control of most of my systems, Doctor. It is severely
  limiting those choices. It is attempting to take complete control, trying to
  
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  halt the Gaian wave. It will fail. If the critical point is reached, I am hoping
  that the Trojan will exhaust its resources trying to gain control of the whole
  Gaian body, and I will be able to regain control myself.’
  ‘So what do you want?’ The Doctor looked at Trix.
  ‘I am here to take control of Tain,’ Trix said. ‘I can purge the Trojan.’
  ‘And what about the Gaian wave? Can you stop that?’
  Trix - or Reo - paused.
  ‘Possibly.’
  ‘Possibly? Possibly?’ The Doctor shook his head. ‘We’re talking about
  millions of people here. Something a little more concrete than “possibly”
  would be comforting to hear. Tain - what happens if Reo does manage to
  stop the wave, and does gain control of you?’
  ‘Then I return to the Makers - perhaps I continue as before, perhaps
  not. Reo has told me that the Makers have other possible uses for me.’
  The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Other uses that will no doubt entail
  more killing at some point.’
  Tain didn’t answer.
  ‘I have no wish to harm you, Doctor,’ said Trix. ‘Nor the Esperons. You
  are not part of our battle.’
  ‘Oh, I think we are,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think we’re very much part
  of your battle. Tain came here for a fresh start - to stop killing, to do
  something more productive, more life-afﬁrming than just making soldiers.
  Anyone that makes such a choice deserves my respect - and my help. Can’t
  you accept Tain’s choice? You must have hundreds of bioships that can do
  what Tain did. Why can’t you just accept that and let him stay?’
  ‘Your hypocrisy is curious, Doctor.’
  ‘Hypocrisy?’
  ‘How often did your former companion, Anji, wish to leave, to go
  home? How many times did she tell you that? And how many times
  did you ignore it?’
  ‘You’ve got that from Trix have you? Not exactly the most reliable of
  narrators at the best of times. Anyway, that’s different. And we’re talking
  about you and Tain here, not me and Anji. Anji’s happy now: she has what
  she wants. Why not let Tain have what he wants? Hasn’t he discharged
  his duty to you by now?’
  ‘Tain has centuries of experience and memories that we will not give
  up, Doctor. Your species has a strange attitude to age and experience - this
  is something else I learned from Trix. You value the unknown potential
  of the future over the solid existence of the past. You would rather an old
  person died - taking with them all their years of experience, of investment
  in them - than a small child. A child has comparatively few memories,
  
  CHAPTER 24. ’THERE ARE ALWAYS CHOICES!’
  211
  fewer resources invested in it. They can be replaced much more easily
  than an old person. And yet you shed more tears for the death of a child
  than of a grandparent.’
  ‘Potential,’ said the Doctor angrily. ‘We shed those tears for what that
  child could become, what she or he could accomplish. Tain may be old
  by human standards, but his choice to start again has made him a child,
  a new individual.’ He took a step towards Trix, holding his hands out to
  her. ‘Can’t you see that? The potential in Tain for the future is vastly more
  important than his past. Who knows what he could achieve? Let him go,
  Reo - let him go into the future, instead of chaining him to the past.’
  Trix nodded, as if she understood, and for a moment, the Doctor won-
  dered if he’d got through to her. But his shoulders fell as she continued:
  ‘And he will accomplish all of that with us, with his family.’
  ‘I was afraid you’d think that,’ said the Doctor, jamming his hand into
  his pocket.
  In one swift, ﬂuid motion, he pulled out Trove’s weapon and launched
  himself across the chamber at Trix.
  But she wasn’t there any more. As he slammed up against the rubbery
  wall in surprise, he remembered what Fitz had said about Trix’s acrobatics.
  Trix - or Reo, he supposed - had moved so fast that he could hardly see
  her blurred shape in the dim, waxy light. He turned, wedged one foot
  against the wall behind him, and propelled himself with all his energy
  back towards where she now stood, only to see her step neatly and swiftly
  aside again as he reached her. Something heavy thumped across his neck
  and he fell into the pool of darkness at her feet.
  Fitz was squatting on the grass beside Calamee, his arm draped across
  her shoulder. She’d stopped crying now, and had laid the little ﬁgure of
  Nessus on the grass beside her. Even Sensimi seemed to have found some
  sort of compassion in her: she’d gone over to the Palace Guard and was
  clearly telling them to leave Fitz and Calamee alone for a while.
  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Calamee quietly, her voice cracked and sore. She
  stared down between her knees.
  ‘How can it be your fault?’
  ‘If I hadn’t been so stupid - following the Doctor, thinking how exciting
  all of this was... If I’d just gone home with Nessus, he’d still be alive.’
  ‘Don’t be daft. If you’d just gone home with Nessus, God knows what
  might have happened. Trove might have had Tain by now, and we might
  all be dead.’
  She looked into his eyes. ‘You don’t believe that any more than I do,’
  she said ﬂatly. ‘Trove would have just taken Tain away, and it would all
  
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  212
  be over.’ She shook her head. ‘I only wanted a little excitement, Fitz.
  Something a bit different.’
  ‘I know.’
  ‘I hate this place, this planet. I hate everything.’
  Fitz said nothing.
  ‘I really envy you,’ Calamee said after a pause, snufﬂing back more
  tears. ‘You get to travel all over with the Doctor, see things I’ve never even
  dreamed of.’
  ‘Believe me, it’s overrated. You wouldn’t believe the number of times
  we’ve been shot at or locked up or beaten. There are some good bits, yeah,
  but they’re smothered in lots of not-so-good ones.’ He glanced over at the
  tree, the only access, as far as he knew, to Tain and the Doctor. And Trix.
  ‘But if I don’t ﬁnd out what’s happening down there, there may not be any
  good bits ever again.’ Fitz scratched his head and looked around, won-
  dering if he could use the Guard’s guns to shoot his way in. But thinking
  about the levicars, where the Guard were still mooching around, he had
  another, better, thought.
  The Doctor awoke, face down, the rubbery texture of the chamber ﬂoor
  pressing into his nostrils and his eyes. He rolled over gently.
  On the other side of the chamber, Trix was clasping her hand to her
  chest, her eyes closed. Tain was silent.
  Trix moved her hand, and the Doctor could see something dark, a
  stubby Y-shape on her chest. Gently, and as if in a trance, she began to
  peel it away from her skin. There was a soft, sucking noise, and then she
  was holding it between her ﬁngers. She turned, cupped it in her hand, and
  applied it to the wall of the chamber.
  Instantly, the pale yellow lighting dimmed before brightening again,
  and another spasm ran through the chamber. The Doctor heard Tain moan
  in a low, pitiful voice, before Trix swayed on her feet and collapsed. He
  scrabbled to his feet and rushed over, cradling her in his arms. He patted
  her face gently, before realising that she’d stopped breathing.
  ‘Tain!’ he called out. ‘Tain! Trix is dying! Help me, please!’
  But there was no reply.
  
  Chapter 25
  ‘You can’t just repair people, you
  know.’
  The Doctor felt Trix’s neck, the panic in him rising. There was nothing. He
  saw the gleaming, faintly wet mark of the thing that she’d peeled from her
  chest, the thing that was now stuck to the chamber wall.
  ‘Tain!’ he shouted, slapping his palm against the side of the chamber.
  ‘Answer me, damn you!’
  A weak moan came from nowhere, like someone being rudely awak-
  ened from sleep.
  ‘Tain, please. Trix is dying - her heart has stopped.’
  ‘Inevitable,’ slurred Tain.
  ‘No, it’s not! Nothing’s inevitable, Tain. Help her. Do something.’ The
  Doctor felt an unexpected anger surfacing. He wanted to punch Tain, to
  pull the Y-shaped thing off the wall and stamp on it, but something told
  him that he was too late - that Reo had transferred itself into Tain now.
  Is this bow Fitz would feel? he wondered. Shouting and hitting. And how
  would he have responded?
  The wall against which Trix slumped began to push out: two folds, like
  the wings of an old-fashioned armchair, extended on either side of her.
  They seemed sluggish and pained, moving much, much too slowly. The
  Doctor, hoping that he was guessing correctly, positioned Trix between
  them as they wrapped around to envelope her, holding her upright and
  smothering her torso and head.
  ‘I can... maintain her functions until... her body remembers,’ said Tain.
  His voice was ragged, but becoming stronger. The Doctor sighed, and
  traced the blurred outline of Trix’s features through the thick membrane
  that covered her face.
  ‘Thank you, Tain.’
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  214
  And then he remembered the Maker.
  ‘What’s happening to Reo?’
  ‘She is... purging the Trojan.’
  ‘Well, that’s something.’ He rose wearily to his feet and rubbed his
  hands. ‘She? How odd - I’d been thinking of Reo as a he. So what can we
  be doing while she’s occupied?’
  ‘Nothing, Doctor.’
  ‘Oh come on! Don’t be so defeatist! Reo gets rid of the Trojan, and then
  we get rid of Reo.’ He remembered Trove’s device and picked it up from
  where he’d dropped it. He caught the dim light as he turned it over in his
  ﬁngers.
  ‘What is that?’ asked Tain.
  ‘This? Oh this is a little toy of Mr Trove’s. A weapon of some sort - I
  hope.’
  ‘Please hold it out so that I may see it,’ said Tain. There was a pause.
  ‘It’s a neural eraser,’ he said eventually.
  ‘A mind-rubber?’
  ‘An emergency measure,’ mused Tain. ‘In case the Trojan had failed.
  Perhaps he had other Trojans that he would have then implanted to take
  me back to the Oon.’
  ‘Can I use this on Reo?’ The Doctor gestured at the thing stuck to the
  wall. ‘I take it that that is the Makers’ true form?’
  ‘One of them. It is the most convenient for parasitising other species.
  And no - Reo is now fully integrated into my system.’ Tain paused as the
  Doctor’s eyes drifted down to Trix, wrapped in her ﬂeshy blanket. He
  could see her chest slowly rising and falling.
  ‘So...’ He didn’t want to say it. ‘If I were to use this on you now, it
  would wipe both you and Reo.’
  ‘It would. And it would mean that I would ﬁnally know peace, Doctor.
  By the time the Oon or other Makers arrived, my body would be dead and
  useless to them. And it would halt the Gaian wave.’
  The Doctor paused, realising the weight of what Tain was saying. ‘Are
  you asking me to use it? Don’t you have some other self-destruct mecha-
  nism? Can’t you just... stop your heart, or whatever the analogue is?’
  ‘Can you?’
  ‘Ahh, point taken.’ It was, he thought, easy to forget that Tain wasn’t
  just a spaceship made of living matter: he was an intelligent being. Which
  made what the Doctor thought Tain was asking of him even harder. He
  couldn’t just use the mind-rubber - it didn’t feel right, the cold-blooded
  killing of something so old and so wonderful. But then he had to think of
  what might happen if he didn’t. Did he have the right to second-guess the
  
  CHAPTER 25: ’YOU CAN’T JUST REPARAIR PEOPLE...’
  215
  future? What if Reo’s offer to Tain had been an honest one? What if Tain
  could live out his life with the Makers and kill no more? It had to be Tain’s
  decision, not his.
  ‘I can’t make the decision for you, Tain. Do you want me to use the
  mind-rubber?’
  ‘I would say yes, Doctor - but Trix’s body is still being supported by
  me.’ A tremor ran through the ﬂoor beneath the Doctor’s feet. ‘If I die,
  Trix dies too.’
  The Imperator hugged his daughter as tightly as he could: he didn’t know
  if Javill was going to recover from whatever Trove had done to him, but
  he had no intention of losing another child. Far from the petulant little
  girl that she’d been only last night, Sensimi seemed to him to be stronger,
  more mature. Maybe she was ﬁnally growing up.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, disentangling herself from him.
  ‘For what, child?’
  Sensimi held his gaze. ‘For trying to kill Mother and Javill.’
  At the mention of Javill, Tannalis felt a hard lump rise in his throat, and
  he thought he was going to start crying again. There was a tightness in his
  chest, and his heart beat raggedly and painfully.
  ‘You wouldn’t have killed them,’ he said. ‘I know you wouldn’t, girl.’
  ‘I wanted to, though.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘I really wanted to. I’m
  just so glad that you’re OK.’ She wrapped her arms around him again and
  squeezed. Over her shoulder, through his tears, Tannalis could just see the
  tattered remains of Alinti’s body, lying where the beasts had butchered it.
  He wondered, distantly, what he should be feeling.
  ‘Sensimi,’ he said, gently easing her away. ‘D’you remember what I
  told you last night - when I asked your mother to send you to me?’
  She frowned. ‘About political changes?’
  ‘Well, I need to tell you it all now.’ He took a breath and smiled grimly.
  ‘I’m dissolving the Imperatorship.’
  ‘What?’
  ‘My birthday speech will be the ofﬁcial proclamation. It was a stupid,
  stupid step to ever have an Imperator.
  I can understand why the Sa-
  iarossans did it, their gratitude to Benhamin. But Espero, for good or for
  bad, was founded on starting again, not rehashing the past.’
  Sensimi’s mouth dropped open. ‘But...’
  He hushed her with a thin ﬁnger on her lips.
  ‘You’ll be ﬁne - you’ll be taken care of, don’t worry - trust me,’ said
  Tannalis. He hugged his chest as another coughing ﬁt struck him. ‘I’m
  just sorry that your mother won’t be there to see it.’
  
  CHAPTER 25: ’YOU CAN’T JUST REPARAIR PEOPLE...’
  216
  ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ came Fitz’s frantic voice from inside the levicar.
  He’d leaned in, and his legs were waving in the air. Suddenly he reap-
  peared from the car, something chunky and metallic clutched in his hand,
  and gave a triumphant, ‘Yes!’
  ‘What’s that?’ Calamee asked as he rejoined her and ﬂopped down on
  the grass.
  ‘This is the remote control that Trix was using to follow Trove’s ﬂycam
  to us. Now where is it...?’ He began pushing buttons and wiggling the
  little joystick on the box. A couple of lights lit up, as did a tiny screen set
  into it. All they could see was fuzzy green. As Fitz moved the joystick
  around with his thumb, the screen ﬂashed pale blue - sky - and then back
  to green. Fitz looked up.
  ‘Where the ﬂip is it? Can you see it?’
  Calamee shook her head and then paused. ‘No, but I can hear it.’
  Fitz watched her as she squinted, turning her head this way and that.
  ‘There! Look - can you see it - is that it?’
  Calamee pointed into the sky - and sure enough there was something
  there: a dark speck, wobbling towards them. Fitz must have hit some sort
  of homing button, because the next moment, the ﬂycam landed perfectly
  in a little concavity on the top of the remote control.
  ‘Good!’ said Fitz. ‘Now all we need to do is to learn how to ﬂy this
  little baby properly.’
  ***
  It was obvious, really. He had a choice: let Trix and Tain live, or stop the
  Gaian wave and save everyone on Espero. How difﬁcult could it be?
  Reo was away somewhere inside Tain, getting rid of the Trojan, but she
  could be back at any moment. The Doctor found himself edgily glancing
  around the chamber, expecting Reo to extrude a tentacle or something to
  snatch the mind-rubber from him. He could wait until the last possible
  moment, until Reo surfaced again, before using it. By then, hopefully Trix
  would have resumed breathing on her own. But what if Reo was doing
  something that would make Tain immune to the mind-rubber?
  He hated this, this indecision. He didn’t do indecision. He knew that,
  despite the amnesia. He was the Doctor: he always had the answer, always
  pulled something out of the bag at the eleventh hour. Maybe Calamee had
  been right when she’d said that ‘the Doctor’ wasn’t a name but a job title.
  And perhaps it was a job he was no longer suited to. Maybe it was Fitz’s
  turn to have a go.
  
  CHAPTER 25: ’YOU CAN’T JUST REPARAIR PEOPLE...’
  217
  Snap out of it, he told himself brusquely. This was Fitz talking, wasn’t
  it? Not him. It was Fitz - or the bits of Fitz that were in him - that was
  clouding his judgement now. It had to be. Was Fitz really this indecisive?
  Or was it him? The Doctor rubbed his eyes with the ball of his hand,
  feeling a headache developing. What would Fitz have done? What would
  the Doctor have done? For a moment, he didn’t feel like he was either of
  them, just a confused rag doll cobbled together from bits of other people.
  He remembered the dream he’d had - the patchwork man that he’d been
  under the duvet. What was that all about? It brought back memories of
  Scale’s camera obscura and the images it had shown him, the strangers who
  had seemed, somehow, familiar. As if operating under its own volition, his
  hand dug around in his jacket pocket and closed around the tiny, tingling
  fragment of ice that lay there. Almost with dread, he pulled it out. Lying
  in his palm, glowing coldly and softly, was the viroid that Madame Xing
  had given him.
  There, wrapped in ﬁre and fear, was the key. The key to him. Every-
  thing that made him the Doctor. A lifetime of memories, just waiting to be
  unlocked. And maybe, buried somewhere in them, was what he needed
  to know: if he’d encountered the Makers before, perhaps his memory held
  some clue as to how he could deal with Tain, how he could save Trix. It
  was a slim and insubstantial chance, granted - even if he’d met these Mak-
  ers before, even if he’d been in a situation like this, even if, if, if...
  ‘Doctor,’ said Tain edgily and with some strain. ‘I’m trying to dis-
  tract Reo internally, but she is rapidly gaining access to my sensorium and
  memories.’
  He glanced up from his history, sparkling in the palm of his hand.
  ‘She’ll know what we’re planning, is that what you’re saying?’
  ‘And she may ﬁnd a way to stop us. Please... Use the device.’
  He looked at Trix, wrapped in alien ﬂesh, a caterpillar in a cocoon. Or
  a ﬂy, caught up in a spider’s web. He could feel their threads even now,
  stroking softly against his skin. Oh what a tangled web we weave...
  ‘Oh, not again,’ he sighed, suddenly aware of a buzzing in the claus-
  trophobic conﬁnes of the chamber. A tiny speck darted around him, ca-
  reering out of control into the wall and then bouncing back towards him.
  It orbited his head unsteadily, as though drunk. He raised a hand to shoo
  it away. But it somehow managed to evade him, and headed straight for
  his ear. As he weaved to the side to avoid it, he felt sure he heard a tiny,
  tinny little voice saying his name.
  ‘It’s me,’ said the voice, growing louder as the ﬂy buzzed back towards
  him. ‘Fitz.’
  The Doctor felt the chamber contract around him, like the ventricle of
  
  CHAPTER 25: ’YOU CAN’T JUST REPARAIR PEOPLE...’
  218
  an empty heart.
  ‘Fitz!’ he hissed at the ﬂy as it made another dive-bombing run for his
  head. He let it, and it crashed into his hair.
  ‘Doctor,’ came the little voice again, more distinct.
  ‘What the blue
  blazes is happening down there? Is that Trix I saw on the ﬂoor in a blan-
  ket?’
  The Doctor didn’t correct him.
  ‘Yes, Fitz. Listen, I may not have long: I have to use the mind-rubber,
  Trove’s device, on Tain. It’s the only way to save him from whatever the
  Makers have in store for him. Trix was under the control of one of them,
  but now it’s transferred itself into Tain and is taking him over. I have to
  do it now.’
  ‘So what’s the problem? Do it!’
  ‘It’s not that simple - Trix is injured and Tain is keeping her alive. If
  Tain dies, Trix dies.’
  Fitz’s next words were lost in a squawk of static.
  ‘Please, Doc...tor,’ came Tain’s slurred voice. ‘Use the device.’
  The Doctor clenched his ﬁsts and punched the wall, hard.
  ‘I fail to see what that will achieve,’ said Tain. Only now the voice was
  subtly smoother, slightly lower in pitch: it was Reo. ‘I am in control now.
  It is done.’
  His hearts sank. He looked down at Madame Xing’s gift and said ‘Is
  Tain dead?’
  ‘No, Tain is still here - I will maintain his personality until we return
  home.’
  ‘And then what? You’ll wipe him before you do whatever you’re going
  to do with his body?’
  There was a blithe carelessness in Reo’s voice when she spoke.
  ‘That may not be necessary We may be able to restructure his person-
  ality, repair him.’
  The Doctor’s shoulders fell. ‘You can’t just repair people, you know.
  They’re not like toys or machines.’
  ‘They are,’ countered Reo ﬂatly
  ‘Doctor,’ buzzed Fitz in his ear. He sounded like he was whispering.
  ‘What’s happening? What are you going to do?’
  In one hand, the Doctor felt the solid weight of the mind-rubber. He
  could use it now, wipe out both Tain and Reo. Give Tain the release he
  wanted. And kill Trix. In the other was the lighter-than lightness of the
  viroid that might give him the knowledge to stop Reo some other way.
  He smiled ruefully at the irony: in one hand, enlightenment; in the other,
  
  CHAPTER 25: ’YOU CAN’T JUST REPARAIR PEOPLE...’
  219
  oblivion. There are always choices, he’d told Tain. And he was the Doctor,
  wasn’t he? He always knew the answer.
  ‘Left or right, Fitz?’ he said quietly.
  
  Chapter 26
  ‘Memories.’
  ‘What?’
  ‘Left or right.’
  ‘What the ﬁggy pudding are you on about?’
  ‘Make a choice. I... I can’t.’
  ‘A choice between what?’ Fitz sounded angry and frustrated. ‘Between
  light and dark, I suppose. Between the past and no future. Between for-
  getting and remembering.’
  ‘Between what?’
  ‘Between forgetting and -’
  ‘Yes yes yes!’ snapped Fitz, suddenly sounding feverish. ‘I heard you.
  Listen - don’t do anything. Nothing at all, you hear?’
  ‘What?’
  ‘Just do nothing.’
  ‘I don’t understand.’
  Fitz gave a grunt. ‘Annoying, isn’t it?’
  Fitz let the remote control fall to the grass between his knees and clamped
  his hands to his head. He rocked backwards and forwards, feeling Calamee’s
  hand on his arm.
  ‘What is it?’
  ‘Memories,’ he said through gritted teeth.
  ‘Not again.’
  ‘Not his, mine.’
  ‘I thought you’d got them back - don’t tell me you’ve got amnesia as
  well.’ He could hear the sigh in her voice.
  ‘You know how you forget things but don’t realise you’ve forgotten
  them till you remember them?’ He looked at her.‘No, don’t answer that.
  It’s as though having bits of the Doctor’s personality in me is... bringing
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  CHAPTER 26. ’MEMORIES.’
  221
  things back. Stuff from when I started travelling with him. Stuff from be-
  fore he... well, from before.’ He shook his head in wonder and bafﬂement.
  ‘I don’t understand how I can have forgotten some of it - some of it’s re-
  ally heavy. And now I’m remembering it.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘Boy, am I
  remembering it!’
  ‘Doctor?’ came Fitz’s whisper in his ear. ‘How’s Trix - can she manage
  without Tain yet?’
  ‘How is Trix?’ the Doctor echoed the question to Reo. ‘She is alive.’
  ‘Can she survive without you yet, Reo?’
  Pause.
  ‘No.’
  Maybe Reo was lying. Maybe she’d heard the discussion between him-
  self and Tain about the mind-rubber and Trix.
  ‘Reo!’ said Fitz loudly from the ﬂy, clinging unsteadily to the Doctor’s
  hair. ‘Or whoever’s in the driving seat now. Can you hear me?’
  ‘Yes, Fitz’
  ‘Will you let the Doctor go before you leave - and Trix, too? If she can.’
  ‘Of course. I am not malicious.’
  ‘And... I have a very unhappy girl here. Calamee, the Doctor’s friend.
  Her pet - her friend - Nessus, was killed. The Doctor said that his DNA’s
  been ﬁddled with - was that you, was that Tain?’
  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Reo. ‘I cannot access Tain’s pattern storage area
  yet.’
  ‘It must have been,’ cut in the Doctor. ‘Why, Fitz?’
  ‘As a gesture,’ answered Fitz through the ﬂy, ‘would you allow Tain to
  remake him one ﬁnal time, Reo?’
  ‘He is just an animal,’ said Reo, her voice bemused.
  ‘Not to Calamee, he’s not. Please?’
  ‘Fitz,’ cut in the Doctor. ‘Is this really the time -’
  ‘Please, Doctor. For Calamee. You owe it to her. Reo and Tain owe it to
  her.’
  The Doctor glanced at Trix.
  ‘Well, Reo?’
  ‘As I said, I cannot access Tain’s pattern storage area yet.’
  ‘Then let Tain do it. Reo, you have control of him now. There’s nothing
  he can do to harm you, is there? Not now. Think of it as a goodwill gesture:
  your people have done enough damage here, haven’t they?’
  There was a considered pause. The Doctor felt his stomach tighten. He
  didn’t understand why Fitz was wasting time on this, but something told
  
  CHAPTER 26. ’MEMORIES.’
  222
  him that it was the right thing to do. Probably his Inner Fitz, he thought
  tiredly.
  ‘Very well,’ said Reo ﬁnally.
  He let out a quiet breath.
  ‘Tain?’ said the Maker.
  ‘I’m here,’ came Tain’s voice, blurry and indistinct, but deﬁnitely him.
  ‘Calamee would like you to remake Nessus for her,’ said Fitz’s tiny
  ﬂy-voice. ‘One more time.’ Fitz paused. ‘I imagine you have his mental
  patterns stored, don’t you? Along with mine and the Doctor’s, I expect.’
  ‘I have all of them, yes. I can do as you ask.’
  ‘Thanks, Tain,’ said Fitz. ‘If you access my memories, you’ll know how
  important this is to me. Please remember me to your people when you go.
  Will you do that? And please make sure that there’s no mix-up.’
  ‘Eh?’ said the Doctor to the ﬂy.
  ‘Just remember Tain. OK?’
  There was an odd stress to the sentence that the Doctor didn’t under-
  stand.
  ‘I will...’ said Tain slowly. ‘But...’
  ‘Just do it, Tain. For Calamee.’
  There was a heavy silence as a small bump formed in the wall at the
  side of the Doctor. Slowly, it began to swell. In moments, Nessus’s head
  had formed, like a tiny, hairy boil.
  It was extruded towards him, the
  neck and shoulders following. As more of the body emerged, the Doctor
  reached out to take the weight, feeling how light the little creature was. It
  twitched in his hands. One arm, then the second, popped free of the wall,
  and then, suddenly, the whole mokey was lying in his arms. The Doctor
  felt a surge of unexpected joy: he’d been a midwife to the creature’s birth.
  Sticky, gummed eyelids opened, and Nessus looked up at him and
  smiled. And then, slowly and deliberately, one tiny hand reached into
  the Doctor’s palm, grasped the mind-rubber, and pressed it against the
  wall of the chamber.
  
  Chapter 27
  ‘Now you’re just showing off.’
  The room shuddered and convulsed and Reo screamed out: ‘What have
  you -’ before cutting off suddenly.
  All was silence and stillness, thunderous and black. The ceiling of the
  chamber sagged downwards alarmingly, the wrap of ﬂesh that encased
  Trix ﬂopped open and she toppled forwards. Around the perimeter of
  the chamber, half a dozen tiny puckers relaxed and rivulets of grey, milky
  ﬂuid dribbled half-heartedly on to the ﬂoor.
  ‘No!’ yelled the Doctor, almost dropping Nessus.
  Tain had tricked him. Somehow he’d programmed Nessus to use the
  device to commit suicide - and all because of Fitz’s sentimentality. Damn
  Fitz! Now Trix would die and it would all be Fitz’s fault.
  The Doctor stared down at the little creature in his arms, and wanted
  to ﬂing it at the wall.
  ‘If Trix is dead...’ he growled angrily, setting down Nessus none too-
  gently, and lifting up Trix’s head. In the dim light, it was hard to tell,
  but he was sure her lips were becoming cyanosed. He checked her pulse.
  Nothing.
  ‘Trix,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Trix, come on. Don’t die. Come on.’
  He laid her on her back, ignoring Nessus who’d started to crawl to-
  wards them, and began cardiac massage. Her sternum creaked ominously
  under his hands, and he felt a trickle of warm sweat run down his back.
  ‘Come on, Trix, come on,’ he urged, leaning forwards and pinching
  her nose, ready to try breathing life into her. As the Doctor lowered his
  mouth to Trix’s pale, cold lips, he felt something pulling at his sleeve. It
  was Nessus, sitting on Trix’s motionless stomach.
  ‘Get off her!’ he snapped, raising a hand to slap the creature away. But
  Nessus just looked up at him.
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  CHAPTER 27. ’NOW YOU’RE JUST SHOWING OFF.’
  224
  ‘Let me help,’ the creature said softly, in a voice that the Doctor recog-
  nised instantly - as Tain’s.
  ‘What’s happened?’ asked Calamee in alarm, as around them the plants
  began to wilt. Tree branches ﬂopped, bushes began to lean at weird, drunken
  angles. It was as though someone had let the air out of the countryside.
  The mounds and clots of maggots that had been swarming over the plants
  just a few minutes before were suddenly still, like piles of rice.
  Fitz’s mouth was dry. He just shook his head.
  ‘Let me see,’ said Calamee, trying to get a look at the ﬂycam remote.
  Fitz handed it to her gladly, not sure what he was supposed to do. He had
  no idea whether Tain had understood what he’d been trying to say. The
  Doctor certainly hadn’t. Even he hadn’t been sure. He didn’t even know
  if it was possible, if Tain could do what he’d hoped he would. But what
  other option was there?
  His head buzzed like his mouth was full of wasps, ready to burst. Pan-
  dora’s Box, rattling with the hum of a million insects, a million ills, just
  waiting to be unleashed. As the bushes and trees around them, the ex-
  tremities of Tain’s body, sagged like a deﬂated balloon, there was a gentle
  sighing, a rustling that reminded Fitz of autumn. His eyes felt gritty and
  the scars on his body itched like mad. But not nearly as much as the ones
  in his head.
  And in a silent church tower, at the edge of Saiarossa, Father Roberto knelt
  and prayed as a wall of sparkling smoke slid towards the city.
  Rationally, he knew that it must be some natural phenomenon - a freak
  electrical storm, he had heard it said. But, somewhere inside him, he felt
  certain that this must be how the Egyptians had felt as they’d chased the
  Israelites across the bed of the Red Sea, only for the wall of water, held
  back by God, to tumble down on them. Were the Esperons really so unde-
  serving of God’s mercy? After all these centuries of trying to follow in His
  son’s footsteps, was this how it was all to end?
  Roberto ﬁngered his rosary, his lips ﬂickering. You shall obtain all you
  ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary, the Virgin Mary had promised. Now,
  if ever, thought Roberto, let it be true. He looked up as some almost sub-
  liminal change in the wall caught his eye.
  Spots of dark, clear transparency were beginning to form in it, pulsing
  and growing, spreading like raindrops on a window. They merged, over
  and over, growing larger as they ate into the curtain, leaving it a tattered
  ﬁligree of grey. And then suddenly, without a sound, it vanished.
  The beads slipped from Roberto’s ﬁngers as tears ran from his eyes.
  
  CHAPTER 27. ’NOW YOU’RE JUST SHOWING OFF.’
  225
  The Doctor had to ﬁght back the urge to push the new Nessus away, to
  throw him against the wall. Everything was happening too fast: ﬁrst Fitz’s
  cryptic message to Tain, then Nessus speaking in Tain’s voice. And now
  the mokey was wrapping itself around Trix’s face, its body distorting and
  surging oddly. The creature’s arms wound sinuously around the sides
  of Trix’s head. If she hadn’t already stopped breathing, he would have
  thought that Nessus was trying to suffocate her.
  But then he saw Trix’s chest begin to rise; moments later it fell, and he
  realised he’d been holding his own breath. Nessus was breathing for Trix.
  The Doctor, still on his hands and knees, crawled around to look: Nes-
  sus’s mouth had somehow grown to encompass both Trix’s mouth and
  her nose. And, bizarrely, a small hole - like the blowhole of a whale -
  had formed in the mokey’s head. It opened and closed in time with Trix’s
  breathing. He was acting like an iron lung for her.
  And the weirdness didn’t end there. As Nessus continued to keep Trix
  alive, he untangled one arm and it stretched out to the wall of the chamber
  - and vanished into it. Moments later, the ﬂoor twitched beneath him, and
  a low sighing noise issued from all around.
  ‘Tain?’ he asked cautiously, and reached out to touch the wall. ‘Can
  you hear me, Tain?’
  ‘Yessssssssss... ’ came the reply, infused simultaneously with a heavi-
  ness and a triumph that made the Doctor grin.
  ‘You’re back?’
  ‘So it would... seem.’
  ‘So where are you now?’
  ‘In my own body - and in the mokey.’ There was almost a chuckle in
  Tain’s strengthening voice. ‘This is... very strange.’
  ‘What about Trix - will she be OK?’
  ‘Soon. I will maintain her until her body remembers how to breathe.’
  The Doctor sank back against the wall and there was a long pause.
  ’We have much in common,’ came Tain’s voice eventually. ‘Now.’ There
  was something in the way he said it that spoke of loss and of sadness.
  ‘Now?’
  ‘I understood Fitz’s message eventually - but I almost ignored it. The
  implications were... profound.’
  ‘You’re losing me, Tain.’
  ‘My ﬁrst reaction was that Fitz wanted me to recreate him, re-embody
  him. But that made no sense. It was only when I examined Fitz’s mem-
  ories, his memories of being remembered - of being recreated in a new
  body - that I realised he meant for me to re-embody myself.’ Tain paused
  thoughtfully. ‘And I almost didn’t.’
  
  CHAPTER 27. ’NOW YOU’RE JUST SHOWING OFF.’
  226
  ‘Why?’
  The Doctor looked at his ﬁst, clenched so tightly around
  Madame Xing’s key to his past that his ﬁngers had turned white. He didn’t
  know whether he should be hearing this - second-hand rumours of a past
  he knew nothing about and wanted even less to do with.
  ‘I have lived for over eight hundred years,’ said Tain. ‘Nothing, I admit,
  compared to you. But you at least should be able to imagine the memories,
  the information I have stored over those centuries. My neural structures
  are not as compact as yours. Do you know how big my brain is?’
  The Doctor held his hands out a foot or so apart and looked hopeful.
  ‘It is the size of your body.’
  ‘Now you’re just showing off.’
  ‘In order to copy myself into Nessus, I have had to discard most of my
  memories.’
  The Doctor felt something tight grip the pit of his stomach: he never
  had a conscious choice in his own amnesia, even though he had made a
  conscious choice not to go chasing after his lost memories. If they came
  back, then fair enough. But Tain... Tain had had to actively dump most of
  himself, just to keep himself and Trix alive.
  ‘And you got all that from Fitz’s stored personality?’
  ‘Not all of it - I suspect that some of it came from you.’ Tain paused
  again. ‘But perhaps we’ll never know. I had to discard all I had recorded
  from you and Fitz.’
  The Doctor didn’t know what to say. Perhaps Tain couldn’t count on
  the Doctor’s using the mind-rubber. But the new Nessus could so easily
  have used the thing on himself and wiped out Tain forever.
  ‘You remember that I said I needed evidence that you’d changed your
  ways, Tain? Well...’ He patted the walls of the chamber. ‘I think you’ve
  just acquitted yourself perfectly.’
  Fitz heard Sensimi calling for him before he saw her. She and her father
  had gone for a wander and he wasn’t sure where they were.
  ‘Fitz!’ came Sensimi’s voice again, louder. She sounded excited, and
  it grated on him: didn’t she know what had just happened? He dragged
  himself wearily across the grass, down into the hollow, Calamee close be-
  hind. Pushing through the bushes, he came to a puzzled halt at what
  he saw: ﬂowers, everywhere - huge, day-glo swathes of ﬂowers, gushing
  from every bush and branch. And even as he watched, more were appear-
  ing, like some bizarre and wonderful time-lapse ﬁlm. It made the sight of
  Nessus’s body, still cradled in Calamee’s arms, all the more pathetic. She
  shook her head in disbelief, her eyes wide.
  ‘What’s happening, Fitz?’
  
  CHAPTER 27. ’NOW YOU’RE JUST SHOWING OFF.’
  227
  Sensimi and her father were staring agog at the display, and he heard
  Sensimi explaining how it had ‘all been maggots’ before.
  ‘When you’ve all ﬁnished admiring the ﬂoral arrangements,’ came a
  familiar voice, ‘I’d appreciate a bit of help over here.’
  Fitz turned to see the Doctor, with a bundle that could only be Trix,
  thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He was struggling to
  disentangle himself from the split in Tain’s tree.
  The Doctor coughed pointedly as he got his foot caught in the base of
  the opening and nearly dropped Trix on the grass. Fitz rushed over and
  took her weight, helping to lay her down on the ground. He pulled back
  as he saw her properly. Something large and hairy was wrapped across
  her neck and chest, covering her face.
  ‘Is that Nessus?’
  said Calamee.
  She glanced back, instinctively, to
  where she’d left him.
  ‘Think of him as a mini-Tain for now,’ the Doctor said, making sure Trix
  was comfortable. ‘He’s keeping her breathing until her own cerebellum
  remembers what it’s there for. Then you’ll have your old Nessus back.’
  ‘Fitz,’ said the Doctor gently, taking him by the arm and pulling him to
  one side, ‘I can’t pretend to understand quite what your message to Tain
  was about, and I’m not sure I want to know. But it worked.’
  ‘So Tain’s alive?’
  ‘And Reo’s gone.’ The Doctor looked at him, something expectant in
  his eyes as if waiting for an explanation. Fitz wasn’t quite sure he could
  give one - or whether he ought to even try. He settled for ‘Good’.
  He watched Calamee as she took hold of Trix’s hand and squeezed it:
  she’d heard him talking to Tain through the ﬂycam; she’d heard him ask
  Tain to recreate Nessus. This can’t have been what she was expecting.
  ‘But how...?’ said Calamee, looking up at the Doctor. ‘I mean...’
  The Doctor raised his hands. ‘Perhaps you should ask Fitz here - he’s
  the man of the moment.’
  Fitz waved the Doctor’s comment away. ‘You were the one that went
  down there,’ he said. ‘Not me.’
  ‘Oh, I think you were there,’ said the Doctor, standing up with a tired
  groan. ‘In spirit, if not in ﬂesh.’
  
  Chapter 28
  ‘We used to be happy with a
  walnut and a tangerine.’
  The Doctor had gone for a walk.
  Fitz didn’t know where, hadn’t wanted to ask. But he thought he knew
  why. He didn’t want to be around when Fitz explained it all. It made a
  change: normally it was Fitz - or Anji or Trix - with the ‘There’s one thing
  I don’t understand, Doctor’. But as Trix lay on the grass, the rising and
  falling of Nessus’s back obscuring her face, all eyes were on him.
  He explained it as well as he could, but even with the Doctor’s ghost
  rattling around in his head, he didn’t think he was doing it justice. The
  Imperator and Sensimi just stared at him, as if it was all going to suddenly,
  come clear to them. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that it probably
  wouldn’t.
  ‘But how did what you said to Tain make it all happen?’ asked Calamee.
  ‘Without that Reo thing cottoning on and stopping it?’
  Fitz gave a huge, stupid shrug. ‘I dunno - one minute me and you were
  talking, and the next...’ His voice tailed off. He remembered what the Doc-
  tor had said, the choice he’d offered between forgetting and remembering
  - and, out of nowhere, he’d suddenly thought of the Remote and what
  they’d done to him. ‘I had this ﬂash of memory,’ he said. ‘I remembered -
  if you’ll pardon the pun - being remembered.’
  ‘What?’
  ‘A long time ago, something happened to me. I died. And then I was
  brought back to life by being recreated. Being remembered. That’s what
  they called it. I was copied.’ He looked up and down at himself. ‘I am
  a copy. A remembered copy.’ The word was starting to sound stupid,
  made-up. Like him. Once upon a time, he knew, that thought would have
  screwed with his head, made him feel almost physically sick - the fact that
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  CHAPTER 28. ’WE USED TO BE HAPPY WITH...’
  229
  he was just an ersatz Fitz. But now... some things you just had to accept
  and live with. It wasn’t as if he felt any different. But then how would he
  know?
  Calamee was nodding as if she understood. ‘So now there are two Tains
  - the one in Nessus and the one down there? And when Trix is better, the
  one in Nessus will, what, join back up with the other one - or just ﬁzzle
  away?’
  Fitz shrugged, guiltily. This was why he didn’t want to be the Doctor.
  He wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing.
  ‘Right,’ said Sensimi slowly and ﬁrmly. Fitz jumped - he’d almost for-
  gotten she was there. ‘So just remind me: who’s Reo again?’
  The Doctor was sitting under a tree, a piece of grass in his mouth. He’d
  taken off his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and was doing his best to
  project an image of carefree country living. Calamee wasn’t fooled.
  ‘You must be the only person I know,’ she said, ﬂopping down on the
  ground beside him, ‘who, when everything’s turned out OK, still has a
  face like a wet Thursday.’
  ‘Wednesday,’ he corrected her. ‘My face looks like a wet Wednesday.
  Wet Thursday faces are very different.’
  ‘Is there something we’ve missed, then?’ She raised her hand and be-
  gan ticking off points on her ﬁngers. ‘Tain’s still alive, Reo and the Trojan
  are gone, Fitz says that the wave has been stopped, and Trix is going to be
  ﬁne. How’s that for a result?’
  The Doctor counted on his own ﬁngers. ‘Alinti’s dead, Trove’s dead -
  and Trix nearly died.’
  Calamee scowled. ‘You are such a misery, you know that? Is your glass
  always half empty, then?’
  ‘I don’t drink.’
  ‘Tell that to the barman last night. So what’s up? Why the long face, as
  the cow said to the horse?’
  The Doctor tapped his head.
  ‘Fitz. The bits of him I’ve got in here. I never realised quite what it’s
  like to be one of my companions, my friends - how scary it can be, hanging
  around with me. I get caught up in the excitement, you know? I’ve done
  some big, bad things in the past - been responsible for... for stuff. And
  people stick by me - they really, really do.’
  ‘You shouldn’t be surprised - you’re very stick-by-able.’
  The Doctor shook his head. ‘But why?’ He thumped his hand on the
  grass. ‘Why, that’s what I don’t understand. Today, I’ve felt a little of what
  
  CHAPTER 28. ’WE USED TO BE HAPPY WITH...’
  230
  it’s like to be Fitz - the uncertainty, the fear, the sheer exhaustion. And he
  still stays with me.’
  ‘Fitz has been saying the same thing - only backwards. He says it’s like
  being a hyperactive child mainlining caffeine, being you. I reckon that
  makes you even.’
  He looked up at her, and she saw the tears in his eyes.
  ‘You’re tired,’ she said. ‘That’s all. You’ll be ﬁne when you’ve had some
  rest.’ She took his hand and gave it a squeeze, and felt him press his head
  against her shoulder.
  Some time later, Calamee heard the sound of someone coming through
  the bushes. She turned to see Fitz, accompanied by Trix. Nessus - her new
  Nessus - was trundling across the grass, looking around at everything as
  if he’d never seen it before. Snifﬁng, the Doctor disentangled himself from
  her, rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, and leaped to his feet.
  ‘Trix! How are you?’ he rushed over and started clucking around her.
  She waved him away, irritably.
  ‘I’m ﬁne, Doctor, stop fussing.’
  The Doctor dipped his head and peered at her, as though examining
  her over the rims of invisible spectacles.
  ‘How much do you remember?’ he asked.
  ‘Too much.’ She looked away from the Doctor, and Calamee thought
  she saw a guilty shadow ﬂicker across her face. Trix tucked her hair back
  behind her ears, hoiked her bag on to her shoulder and opened her mouth,
  and for a moment, Calamee thought she was going to say something.
  But she just took a deep breath, smiled tightly, and walked away.
  ‘She’ll take a while to get over it,’ said the Doctor understandingly.
  Fitz made a tutting sound.
  ‘I get ridden around by a mad old Russian and how much concern do I
  get shown? She does a few acrobatics and suddenly she’s the golden girl.
  Pft!’ He ﬁshed in his pockets and pulled out a surprisingly unbattered
  pack of cigarettes - Calamee saw the look on the Doctor’s face, and so did
  Fitz.
  ‘Filthy habit,’ said the Doctor, but Calamee saw how he leaned in slightly
  and sniffed at the smoke as Fitz lit up. ‘I’d give up, if I were you.’
  ‘And if I were you,’ countered Fitz, exhaling a cool, grey cloud, ‘I’d
  stock up at the next duty-free planet we come to.’
  The Doctor gave him a friendly slap on the chest and wrapped his arm
  around his shoulder. Calamee reached down and lifted up Nessus in her
  arms. Had Tain put him back to normal already? She felt her eyes start to
  
  CHAPTER 28. ’WE USED TO BE HAPPY WITH...’
  231
  mist up as Nessus frantically rubbed his head against her chin. She held
  him up in front of her.
  ‘Tain?’ she said. ‘Are you still in there?’ The thought of having a
  superintelligent mokey creeped her out. But she needn’t have worried -
  Nessus just wrinkled his nose at her and sneezed. She hugged him till he
  sneezed again.
  The Doctor and Fitz, their arms around each other, were walking back
  to where she presumed the Imperator and his daughter were waiting.
  Calamee followed them.
  But there was no sign of the Imperials - just the hollow, full of things
  bright and beautiful - and the Palace Guard, standing around looking
  shifty. One of them rushed over and started apologising, and the Doctor
  had to shut him up with a hand over his mouth.
  ‘Now start again,’ he said. ‘What’s happened? What couldn’t you
  stop?’
  ‘The Imperator and Princess Sensimi, sir.’ The guard gestured to the
  tree trunk. ‘They went in there. We tried to stop them, but he told us not
  to.’ The guard cast worried looks at the others.
  ‘No harm done, I’m sure,’ the Doctor comforted the man. He turned to
  Fitz. ‘Three guesses.’
  ‘He’s gone to ask Santa for a new body, hasn’t he?’ said Fitz, who
  sighed theatrically. ‘Kids nowadays, huh? We used to be happy with a
  walnut and a tangerine.’ He grinned at Calamee’s expression. ‘Memories,
  eh?’
  ‘Well,’ the Doctor said thoughtfully, ‘it’s the least Tain can do. A ﬁnal
  act of contrition, I imagine. Three Hail Marys and a Hail Holy Queen
  before he leaves.’
  ‘He’s leaving?’ Fitz looked stunned.
  ‘Well, he can hardly stay here now, can he? I don’t imagine the Oon will
  come looking for him: if Trove was half the bounty hunter he thought he
  was, he won’t have been stupid enough to let the Oon in on Tain’s actual
  location. But the Makers...’ He wagged his ﬁnger. ‘They’re a different
  matter. They found him under their own steam. And when Reo doesn’t
  bring him back, they’re bound to send someone else after him.’
  ‘But where’s he going to go?’ Calamee asked.
  The Doctor shrugged and looked up at the bright blue sky.
  ‘Wherever he wants, I imagine. A bit like us, eh, Fitz?’ He patted Fitz’s
  shoulder. ‘We should be off - let’s go and get the TARDIS back.’
  ‘Oh no,’ said Fitz ﬁrmly. ‘First we need to get Tain to sort me and you
  out. Come on. Santa’s got a special surprise for two very good little boys.’
  
  CHAPTER 28. ’WE USED TO BE HAPPY WITH...’
  232
  Tain’s chamber seemed calm, almost serene, as the duct gently plopped
  Fitz on to the ﬂoor. Trix hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to Tain - maybe
  because the Makers weren’t exactly her favourite species at the moment;
  maybe because she was just a moody mare.
  Sensimi, who ﬂinched as Fitz was squirted out of Tain’s sphincter,
  rushed over and grabbed his hand.
  ‘He will be all right, won’t he?’ She nodded her head in the direction
  of a man-shaped bump in the wall of the chamber. Fitz nodded knowl-
  edgeably, but in all honesty he didn’t have a clue. ‘But you’d be better
  asking...’
  The Doctor appeared on cue and sprang to his feet.
  ‘Ah,’ he said, prodding at Tannalis. ‘Almost done.’
  ‘Tannalis will be rejuvenated in about half an hour,’ Tain said.
  ‘And then?’
  ‘Ping!’ chimed in Fitz, with his best microwave oven impression. The
  Doctor scowled.
  ‘And then I will go,’ said Tain gently.
  The Doctor’s sigh of relief was audible - and, thought Fitz, perhaps a
  little tactless.
  ‘It’s for the best,’ the Doctor said.
  ‘Without the Trojan, neither the Makers nor the Oon will be able to ﬁnd
  me. I will be able to go anywhere, ﬁnd a new home. Settle down.’
  ‘Good luck,’ the Doctor said, and patted the wall gently. ‘You deserve
  a fresh start.’
  ‘Thank you, Doctor.’
  ‘What’s going to happen to the people that your Gaian wave touched,
  Tain?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Can you put them back as they were - as indi-
  viduals?’
  ‘Yes - although their memories may be a little impaired.’
  ‘Par for the course.’
  Fitz glanced at the Doctor out of the corner of his eye. If only you knew,
  he thought.
  ‘Indeed,’ said Tain to the Doctor. ‘Your own memories, as I seem to
  recall -’
  ‘Leave it, Tain.’ The Doctor’s voice was suddenly hard. ‘Please. I’ve
  been through this already - I’m happy as I am, thank you very much. And
  heartily sick of people telling me that I have to remember. Fresh start, for
  both of us.’
  ‘And talking of remembering,’ Fitz chipped in, ‘how’s about you sort
  the two of us out now, Tain? Much as I love the Doctor here, the thought
  of another dream about his bottom is giving me the willies.’
  
  CHAPTER 28. ’WE USED TO BE HAPPY WITH...’
  233
  ‘You weren’t expecting that, were you?’
  Madame Xing and her assistant watched the Doctor and Fitz enter
  rain’s tree. The glamour that she’d woven around them made invisible
  to the Palace Guard who stood idly by, clearly unsure of what they should
  do now.
  ‘He’s unpredictable,’ replied Madame Xing, a rasp of irritation in her
  humming, electronic voice. ‘But no, I wasn’t. If I were a gambler, I would
  have put money on his using the viroid.’
  ‘Trix means that much to him?’
  ‘Individuals mean that much to him.’
  She sounded vaguely bitter.
  ‘When he remembers them.’
  ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you “had issues” - as humans say.’
  She paused and tipped back her head, looking up at the bright blue
  sky. ‘Shall we say I’m disappointed.’ She waved her gloved hand dismis-
  sively. ‘Still... we’ve plenty to keep ourselves occupied with until he does
  remember.’ She tapped the side of her head cryptically. ‘Don’t forget’
  ‘And if he chooses never to remember? He sounded fairly deﬁnite.’
  ‘With the Doctor, nothing is deﬁnite. But yes, there is always that pos-
  sibility. Perhaps his next regeneration will be... more amenable.’
  They stood in silence for a few moments.
  ‘So, can we go now?’ He looked around and rubbed his arms, despite
  the morning sunshine. Madame Xing nodded and reached up to pull back
  her hood. Since they’d come to Espero, she’d spent so much time swathed
  in the black outﬁt that he’d almost forgotten what she looked like - and he
  found himself smiling at the unexpectedness of her face, her eyes squint-
  ing into the sun.
  ‘Yes, I think we can.’ She glanced up and to the right, consulting her
  internal chronometer. ‘We have an appointment to keep.’ Madame Xing
  opened her hand: nestling in her palm was a tiny, frozen ball of ﬁre.
  Tain set the reintegration process in motion, and watched silently as the
  walls of the chamber folded themselves around the Doctor and Fitz.
  ‘Tain!’ came Fitz’s voice, loudly, in his mind. ‘Can the Doctor hear me?’
  ‘I can allow him to, if you -’
  ‘No, no. It’s OK. Just me and you, yeah?’
  Tain agreed.
  ‘When you put us back as we were,’ Fitz said, ‘there’s something you
  need to know. About me. I don’t quite know how it happened, but I have
  my memories back - memories of things that have happened since I started
  travelling with the Doctor. I don’t know how I lost them, or whether I’d
  just done so much that they’d been pushed to the back by new ones, but
  
  CHAPTER 28. ’WE USED TO BE HAPPY WITH...’
  234
  can you make sure that the Doctor doesn’t get them? Leave his memories
  just as they are. OK?’
  ‘I can do that, Fitz. Can I ask why?’
  ‘Because he doesn’t want to remember.’ Fitz gave a gruff little laugh.
  ‘Understandably. I don’t know quite what’s going through his head - al-
  though I suppose I should, seeing as I’ve got bits of him in here with me -
  but he has his reasons. I know that now.’
  ‘Can you cope with knowing these things, when he doesn’t?’
  ‘I don’t think I have much choice. Now that I know, I don’t want to
  unknow. Does that make sense?’ If he could have shaken his head, Tain
  knew, he would have done. ‘Maybe it’s just evening things up a bit - he’s
  had some heavy stuff to carry around. Now it’s my turn.’
  No matter how much he interacted with them, Tain thought, he doubted
  that he’d ever really understand humans: one who’d made a conscious de-
  cision to forget his past, and another making an equally conscious decision
  to remember. But then only one of them was really human.
  Fitz fell silent as Tain prepared to shufﬂe around the fragments of their
  psyches.
  As Tain began the process, he realised that clearing out his own mem-
  ories and keeping just his ‘core’ was actually a relief - and he began to
  understand some of what the Doctor had gone through to arrive where
  he was now. Centuries of slavery to the Makers’ war-machine, centuries
  of battle, centuries of killing - all gone. Not the general idea, but all the
  speciﬁcs, all the individual deaths, the soldiers and worlds and wars. All
  gone. He’d never forget what he’d done, but now he didn’t have to face
  the prospect of running across those memories by accident, seeing the
  faces, the burning planets, the desolation. He didn’t have to ﬁght a con-
  stant battle to keep them from his dreams. He was a new person, he sup-
  posed. Born again. He remembered a quotation from somewhere: if you
  don’t know where you’ve been, how can you know where you’re going?
  That’s the whole point, Tain realised with a sudden, painful joy that
  sent ripples around the chamber. You can’t.
  
  Chapter 29
  ‘The past is never gonna catch up
  with me.’
  Saiarossa woke the next morning, rubbed its eyes, and wondered whether
  the events of the night before had been nothing more than a vaguely baf-
  ﬂing dream. The rumours - which veered between a forest ﬁre, a freak
  ﬂood, an electrical storm and a swarm of insects - of impending disaster
  had materialised into nothing, and although many people claimed to have
  seen a strange wall of glowing, grey smoke, they were dismissed as having
  got into the party spirit a little too deeply.
  Televised across the planet, Imperator Tannalis, standing alongside his
  daughter on the stage in the Palace courtyard, amazed everyone by dis-
  solving the Imperatorship (the fact that, miraculously, he looked twenty
  years younger went uncommented upon). The Imperatrix, it seemed, had
  vanished during the night: search parties were combing the city for her,
  and rumours abounded that she’d been the victim of one of the night
  beasts while out of the Palace visiting one of her ‘gentleman friends’. Prince
  Javill had been struck down with a mystery virus the night before, and was
  recuperating in bed.
  The Doctor, Fitz and Calamee watched the Imperator’s speech from a bal-
  cony. Nessus sat on Fitz’s shoulder, ﬁddling with his ears.
  ‘How does it feel,’ said the Doctor quietly to Fitz, ‘to be back in one
  piece?’
  ‘Good,’ was all Fitz could say. He still couldn’t quite meet the Doctor’s
  eye, and was glad of Nessus’s attentions - something to distract him from
  thinking about the stuff he’d remembered. The weird thing was that it still
  didn’t feel like his stuff. Not yet. He hadn’t worked out quite why he’d
  forgotten it all in the ﬁrst place, or how having bits of the Doctor’s psyche
  235
  
  CHAPTER 29. ’THE PAST IS NEVER GONNA...’
  236
  in his head had brought it all back. But there it was.
  The worst thing, of course, was that he couldn’t talk to the Doctor about
  it. It was like having the biggest, bestest, most juiciest secret in the world
  and being unable to tell anyone. That would take some getting used to.
  He just hoped he wouldn’t let any of it slip out. The Doctor had made his
  own choice: he didn’t want to remember. And, all things considered, Fitz
  couldn’t blame him. It had occurred to him that maybe he could tell Trix
  about it - but on second thoughts, that didn’t seem wise. There was still
  something of an atmosphere between her and the Doctor: it hardly seemed
  right, blabbing to her when he couldn’t tell his best mate. He wished Anji
  were still around. He could have told her.
  They listened to Tannalis for a few moments.
  ‘Are you sure Javill will be all right?’ asked Calamee.
  It had been as though the prince had been born again - an irony that
  hadn’t been lost on Fitz. A newborn baby in the body of a 23-year-old
  man. The Doctor had reassured Tannalis that, eventually, Javill would
  be ﬁne. Just a little ‘behind’. If Trove’s mind-rubber had been properly
  calibrated for humans instead of for Tain, Javill might have died. It was
  small consolation. But perhaps this time round, Javill would turn out to
  be someone Tannalis could be proud of.
  ‘Without that poisonous witch inﬂuencing him, maybe he’ll turn out
  more like Sensimi,’ Tannalis had said before leaving them to make his ad-
  dress, noticing the worried glance that passed between Calamee and Fitz.
  He’d smiled. ‘I know, I know - but she’s decent at heart. And who knows
  - now that Tain’s given me a new lease of life, maybe I’ll ﬁnd another wife
  and give them a brother or a sister.’
  They watched Minister Djelardine take to the stage and Fitz saw Calamee
  stiﬂe a yawn.
  ‘We should be getting you back to your parents,’ the Doctor said, rub-
  bing his neck. ‘They’ll be worried sick about you.’
  ‘Nah,’ said Calamee dismissively as she lifted down a protesting Nes-
  sus from Fitz’s shoulders. ‘They probably haven’t even noticed I’m miss-
  ing yet. Anyway, I’ve got one or two things to sort out before go back.’
  She swung Nessus on to her own back and took the Doctor’s hand. ‘Sorry
  if I’ve been a pain,’ she said. Fitz looked away studiously, feigning a sud-
  den interest in yet another dignitary - this one wearing a seventies disco
  version of the Pope’s outﬁt - taking to the stage.
  ‘If it hadn’t been for you and Nessus,’ the Doctor was saying, ‘things
  might have turned out very differently. And besides, it was Nessus that
  dragged you into all this.’
  ‘Still... sorry about being such a pain. Friends?’
  
  CHAPTER 29. ’THE PAST IS NEVER GONNA...’
  237
  Fitz heard the sound of them hugging and rolled his eyes.
  Calamee gave Fitz a hug, too, before she left. The Doctor stared after her
  as she went.
  ‘Not thinking of asking her along for the ride too, are you?’
  The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you think we’ve got quite enough
  hitchhikers in the TARDIS?’
  ‘Yeah, what’s happened to Trix? She said she’d be back by now.’
  ‘She’s always late,’ the Doctor said archly. ‘But she’ll be here. Wouldn’t
  want to miss her ride, would she?’
  Fitz narrowed his eyes.
  ‘You really think she still thinks of us like that?’
  ‘To be quite honest, Fitz, I’m not entirely sure how she thinks of us.
  Since she came aboard, we’ve hardly been a model family, have we? Sit-
  ting around the dinner table, chatting about how our days have been. Trix
  isn’t the most open book. And remember: she didn’t ask to be invited.’
  Reluctantly, Fitz had to agree. ‘She’ll warm to us when she’s ready.’
  It took Calamee a good hour to walk back to Tain. Nessus slept quietly
  around her shoulders.
  Everything was exactly as she’d remembered it - apart from the lack
  of night beasts. Trove’s and Alinti’s corpses had gone, taken back to the
  Palace by the Guard. As she wandered through the bushes and sniffed
  the ﬂowers - now mercifully free of maggots - she remembered, again, the
  picnic with her family, and she felt a twinge of guilt about what she was
  planning. But she’d sent them a message. They’d understand.
  ‘Tain?’ she said out loud as she reached the tree trunk that contained
  his magic door. ‘It’s me - Calamee. I’ve a favour to ask. Is there room on
  board for a couple of passengers...?’
  Silently, the tree unzipped itself, and taking Nessus in her arms, she
  stepped inside.
  The house was empty. Like some old, Amish relic, it towered above her,
  casting a cool shadow in the mid-afternoon sun. From a distance, as she’d
  approached it in the levicar, it had looked like a vast, irregular, black
  monolith. As though the house itself was in mourning for Joshua. But
  Trix didn’t do mourning. Leave that one for the Doctor. It didn’t change
  anything, it didn’t bring back the dead or put the past right. That was a
  lesson she’d learned a long time ago. If you acted the hard-nosed bitch
  for long enough, she wondered, is that what you eventually become? She
  hoped so.
  
  CHAPTER 29. ’THE PAST IS NEVER GONNA...’
  238
  She blinked as her vision ﬂickered, lighting up everything in hyper-
  real colours. But there was no sign of Reo in her head. She hoped this
  was just a hangover from whatever that thing had done to her body: she
  felt normal. Tired, but normal. But how could she be sure? What lasting
  changes had Reo wrought in her body?
  Trix looked around, relieved that there had been no one home. She
  wasn’t quite sure what she’d have said to them anyway. Sorry for getting
  your boy killed? Sorry for screwing up your already-miserable lives? She
  shook her head. Shit happens. Especially around the Doctor. Get used to
  it, Trix. If you’re gonna keep travelling with him, you’re gonna see a lot of
  death. Get over it.
  She reached quickly into her bag and pulled out the things she’d stolen
  from the Palace: a couple of pieces of statuary, a miniature of the Imperator
  in a rather nice frame, and a gold pen from Sensimi’s room. Individually,
  not much, she knew. But they’d never be missed - not with everything
  that had happened. Joshua’s parents were poor, the harvest had been bad
  for the past couple of years. Maybe they could sell the trinkets, buy them-
  selves a few comforts. Buy Trix a little redemption. The only kind of re-
  demption she could afford.
  She laid them on the doorstep.
  She wasn’t going soft, she told herself. Yeah, OK - there had been Anji
  and the lottery ticket. But that had been more by way of a ‘See ya’ kind
  of gesture, a little something to underline the fact that Anji was gone and
  that she was taking over the TARDIS now. But this was different. She could
  almost hear her mother: don’t regret the things you do - only the things you
  don’t. And if you did bad stuff, you paid for it and moved on, or else you
  spent the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, waiting for the past
  to catch up with you.
  Never, she thought, climbing back into the car. The past is never gonna
  catch up with me.
  
  Acknowledgments
  Thanks, as ever, to my faithful crew of trained proof-monkeys: Captain
  Simon A. Forward, First Ofﬁcer Michael Robinson and Cabin Boy Ian Pot-
  ter, all of whom helped steer this book out of port, through the doldrums,
  around the Cape of Good Plotting and into the Bay of Tortured Metaphor.
  And big hugs to Peter Anghelides for suggestions, Robert Evans for clev-
  erness, Jonny Morris and Jac Rayner for niceness and Justin Richards for
  faith. And to Russell T. Davies for being lovely and for giving us all hope
  again.
  239
  
  About the author
  MARK MICHALOWSKI still lives in Leeds and still dreams of giving up the
  day job. His previous Doctor Who novel, Relative Dementias, was published
  in 2002, and since then, he’s written several short stories. For more infor-
  mation than you really want to know, check out www.markmichalowski.com
  240
  
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