TEXT: The 22nd century: a few short years of interstellar contact have taught
  humanity a hard lesson – there are creatures abroad that are nightmare
  manifest. Powerful, unstoppable, alien forces. It’s a realization that deals a
  body blow to Man’s belief in his own superiority, and leaves him with the
  only option he has ever had: to ﬁght.
  When the Doctor and his friends are caught in the crossﬁre, they ﬁnd
  humanity licking its wounds and preparing for war. But the ﬁght against
  alien forces is no job for an amateur, and for a Doctor only just ﬁnding his
  way in the universe again, one misstep could be fatal.
  This adventure features the Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Anji
  
  Fear Itself
  Nick Wallace
  
  DOCTOR WHO:
  FEAR ITSELF
  Published by BBC Books, BBC Worldwide Ltd,
  Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 OTT
  First published 2005
  Copyright c⃝ Nick Wallace 2005
  The moral right of the author has been asserted.
  Original series broadcast on BBC television
  Format c⃝ BBC 1963
  ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘TARDIS’ are trademarks
  of the British Broadcasting Corporation
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
  means without prior written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer
  who may quote brief passages in a review.
  ISBN 0 563 48634 1
  Commissioning editors: Shirley Patron and Stuart Cooper
  Editor and creative consultant: Justin Richards
  Project editor: Christopher Tinker
  This book is a work of ﬁction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a
  product of the author’s imagination or are used ﬁctitiously. Any resemblance to
  actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
  Cover imaging by Black Sheep c⃝ BBC 2005
  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
  For more informarion about this and other BBC books,
  please visit our website at www. bbcshop. com
  
  For my wife, for my daughter, for always
  
  It was the ﬁrst lesson we learnt when we reached for the stars: for everything,
  there is a limit.
  No matter how far we had come, how hard we had struggled, there would
  always be things out there beyond the comprehension of man.
  This is inherited knowledge, the lessons of history. It was decades ago that
  humanity broke free of its chains, leaving Earth behind to venture out into
  the dark and the cold. And in that time, before I was born, those ﬁrst hostile
  encounters took place.
  We had left behind our old playground, but didn’t yet understand the rules
  of this new one. A misunderstanding could lead to war in a moment. And with
  war, that simple lesson to be applied to all our achievements: for everything,
  there is a limit.
  Beings beyond understanding, weapons that could not be matched, forces
  that were all but unstoppable. The terror must have swept across our race
  like an ever breaking storm. One minute we stood among the stars, tall and
  proud; the next, we were beaten back by nightmares manifest. You can see
  those moments even now, replayed in miniature every time we step into battle.
  Fear on the faces of the young and the innocent.
  Decades since those ﬁrst moments of terror and so little has changed.
  Beings beyond understanding, weapons that cannot be matched, forces
  that are all but unstoppable. Presented with such obstacles, we ﬁnd ourselves
  with the only option we have ever had. To ﬁght. Such a ﬁght is, of course, no
  job for an amateur.
  
  MARS
  It wasn’t that long ago that Anji had sat in her brother’s bedroom on a
  cold winter’s night. A cardigan wrapped around her shoulders to ward off
  the chill, leaning out of the window to smoke a cigarette, a brief ﬁrst-term
  habit. Her parents were downstairs, oblivious, watching Stars in Their Eyes.
  Rezaul was next to her at the window, complaining about light pollution as
  he focused his telescope.
  Home for the holiday, astronomy with her brother made a change from
  long days in the library and long nights in the union.
  There’d been a burst of triumph from Rezaul, who’d blindly waved a
  hand at her, eye ﬁxed on the lens. Anji had stubbed the cigarette out on the
  underside of the sill, blown the last smoke into the night and pulled back
  into the room. When Rezaul stepped away, she bent over the telescope
  herself. Blackness ﬁlled her vision. Then, with a blink, she found the orange
  disc.
  Rezaul ﬂicked through an astronomy book, calling out the major fea-
  tures. The Valles Marineris. The polar ice caps. And the biggest mountain
  in the solar system: an extinct volcano, he’d explained, so tall it pressed
  the roof of the planet’s atmosphere.
  Olympus Mons on Mars.
  Two hundred years later and they’d built a town there.
  It was set on the lip of the caldera, and the view was stunning. On one
  side of the town, the mountain sloped away to red soil miles below; on the
  other, a hard drop to the dead heart of the volcano, its far side lost over the
  horizon.
  Looking out through the bubble shell that protected the town, Anji
  Kapoor watched the sun set over Mars.
  ‘Spectacular, isn’t it?’ The man was tall, with chestnut hair and an easy
  smile. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘Didn’t mean to disturb.’
  ‘That’s all right,’ Anji replied. ‘And, yes, it is spectacular.’ She shrugged.
  ‘You’re probably used to it.’
  ‘A little,’ he answered, leaning up against the rail next to her. ‘Some-
  4
  
  times you forget where you are. And then you see something like that and
  remember.’
  ‘You’re not in Docklands any more.’ Anji looked past him to where the
  TV crew were ﬁnishing their set-up. ‘You’re the cameraman, right?’
  He nodded. ‘Michael.’
  ‘Anji Kapoor.’
  They moved away from the blister wall, back towards the crew. ‘Why
  did they pick here for the shoot?’ Anji asked, making conversation.
  ‘As good a place as any,’ Michael shrugged. ‘The foundation work was
  done by Wal-Mart, supposed to be Mars’ ﬁrst commercial trading post. They
  sold it on to the government when Shefﬁeld got established here ﬁrst.’
  ‘No point being second to the market.’
  He nodded at her head. ‘What happened there?’
  Anji ﬁngered the spray-on bandage covering one corner of her forehead.
  ‘A ﬁght of all things.’
  He laughed. ‘A ﬁght? How does a historian get into a ﬁght?’
  ‘Economist,’ Anji corrected. ‘Couple of squaddies turned nasty in a caf´e.
  In Shefﬁeld, as it happens. I didn’t do a lot of the ﬁghting.’
  ‘Sounds nasty.’
  ‘I had. . . ’ Anji paused. ‘I had friends who helped out.’
  The director waved. Anji gave Michael a pat on the shoulder. ‘Duty
  calls.’
  While Michael returned to his camera, Anji talked the presenter through
  the on-screen graphics.
  The woman was bright, but her grasp of old-
  fashioned capitalist models was slim.
  Which, Anji supposed, was fair
  enough. If anyone ever asked her about the trading routes of the eigh-
  teenth century she’d be able to murmur some half-remembered history and
  comment on their economic legacy, but no more than that. She worked
  in futures, not histories. And that was what her knowledge was to these
  people: history.
  It was weird. Dislocating. But the Doctor had promised to get her home
  and, bit by bit, he seemed to be getting there.
  That was Fitz’s spin, anyway: Mars was closer to Earth than Earthworld,
  even if it was the twenty-second century. Anji wasn’t sure who he’d been
  trying to reassure most: her or the Doctor.
  It was as they were preparing the day’s ﬁnal shots that Anji heard it.
  The broadcast unit had a small TV showing the network feed. It was
  just background noise to Anji; there was nothing in the headlines she knew
  or could easily reference. It was probably why the name leapt out at her. A
  quiet voice talking of news just in and unconﬁrmed reports.
  5
  
  ‘Turn it up,’ Anji whispered, but nobody heard. She started pushing
  through the crew. ‘Turn it up!’
  And ﬁnally somebody did.
  – corporation ship reported the signal at ten to four this morning. Military
  spokesmen are currently refusing to conﬁrm or deny the reports, but long-
  range scans from civilian arrays can ﬁnd no trace of the Station –
  ‘Oh, God,’ Anji said.
  – while little information is publicly available about the research under-
  taken at Farside Station, the general understanding is that this is one of the
  key components in Earth Forces’ science programme. If as reports suggest, the
  Station has been lost with all hands, it’s a major blow to –
  The world started to spin, her breath roaring in her ears.
  ‘Oh, God,’ Anji repeated.
  She grabbed at a table for support, sending a jug of water crashing down
  on to the ﬂoor. Someone was at her side then, holding her arm, keeping
  her upright, but it didn’t matter.
  It was too late. Two hundred years and millions of miles from home.
  ‘Not this,’ Anji whispered. ‘This isn’t my life.’ She fell then, knees hitting
  hard on the red concrete surface of a Martian town. Someone was calling
  for an ambulance.
  Anji wanted to tell them not to bother.
  There was
  nothing an ambulance could do.
  She wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t her life.
  6
  
  JUPITER SPACE
  Now
  It’s the eyes that worry O’Connell.
  He’s been studying the Professional for days now; it’s a long ﬂight from
  Mars’ orbit and O’Connell’s had little else to occupy his time. He’s watched
  the Professional hustle and tweak the parameters of his suit’s AI; ﬁll and
  seal every scar on his body armour; strip his plasma riﬂe time and again,
  cleaning every interface and greasing every moving part.
  But for all this, O’Connell can almost believe the Professional might be
  passed in the street as an unexceptional man.
  Medium height and medium build; hair cropped so close to the scalp
  its colour is all but lost; the long midline of his nose distorted by a break
  to make a boxer proud. Deep creases around the mouth mean he looks
  older than he might otherwise seem, while the fat-free jawline just adds
  to the impression of a face honed by long years in space. In itself it’s not
  exceptional. O’Connell could walk down any street in any one of a hundred
  towns on the system colonies and see two dozen faces like that.
  Except none would have eyes like the Professional’s. Cold eyes that
  have seen too much and speak of things a mouth would never tell.
  More than once O’Connell has wondered what a man has to do to get
  eyes as cold as that. And now, despite himself, staring at the Professional
  through a ﬂickering viewscreen, he has another thought: if he had seen
  those eyes beforehand, orders or not, would he ever have agreed to this
  job?
  The shuttle rocks and O’Connell is thrown back in his seat and out of
  his reverie.
  O’Connell’s an old-fashioned pilot; a man who, a hundred years back,
  would have been said to ﬂy by the seat of his pants. He’s good at his job
  – so good his superiors keep throwing him into situations like this one –
  and likes to think he’s sharp enough to ride any storm, just trusting to skill.
  But part of that skill is knowing enough’s enough. And if a sudden wave of
  7
  
  atmospheric pressure throws him from his chair and he breaks an arm or a
  rib, it’s all over.
  So O’Connell pulls at the harness he never uses. Magnetic catches snap
  shut and he hauls the straps one notch tighter, just to be sure. He toggles a
  switch, opening the intercom, and says: ‘Buckle up. It’s going to be a rough
  ﬁve minutes.’
  He’s not expecting his passenger to take the advice but feels honour
  bound to give it anyway. Jupiter’s trying to kill them and if a man’s going
  to die, he deserves to know the cause.
  ‘What’s happening?’
  The Professional’s crisp tones distort over the
  speaker.
  ‘Turbulence,’ O’Connell says, activating another previously redundant
  system. The cockpit is normally a tight, dark space; just the bare minimum
  of ﬂight systems online. For the past half-hour it’s been lit up like the Mars
  Orbital. ‘I’m trying to compensate.’
  The Professional checks the AI screen on his wrist, then says, ‘The cor-
  rect atmospheric current is 1500 metres below, Lieutenant.’
  ‘I’m aware of that.’ A warning ﬂashes red over O’Connell’s shoulder.
  He punches an override and makes another course correction. ‘You handle
  your end of the business, I’ll handle mine.’
  This time the Professional nods, then turns his back to the camera,
  checking the seals on his suit one more time.
  O’Connell’s worked with plenty of soldiers over the years, ﬂown some
  generals, even carried a government minister one time. He’s also worked
  with other Professionals. Most never take off their armour, never reveal the
  faces beneath the helmets. But none has been as focused as this man. Not
  deviating from his own course by a single word or action.
  O’Connell checks the intercom is off, mutters that two can play at that
  game. Then he tilts the shuttle’s nose forward and they push on down into
  hell.
  Until now, the orange and red of Jupiter’s atmosphere has ﬂared only
  brieﬂy above the cockpit. It’s been comforting to O’Connell to look up and
  see the stars appear in those gaps, tiny glimpses of what he best calls home.
  Now there’s one last ﬂash of dark and then it’s gone.
  They’re enveloped by gas and tiny particles and God alone knows what
  else. Just like space, it’s as if there’s no horizon, no up and down, just some
  featureless void. Unlike in space, in Jupiter’s anonymous atmosphere there
  is an up and down and it’s pretty damn important to get that distinction
  right. As a crosswind catches the shuttle and throws it at forty-ﬁve degrees
  to the invisible horizon, O’Connell decides – orders or not – it’s the last time
  he’s ever doing a job like this. Atmosphere is now, ofﬁcially, a bigger bitch
  8
  
  than O’Connell’s ex.
  Redlining the engines drops the Professional’s 1500 metres to ﬁfteen.
  Now ten. The crosswind eases. Five. O’Connell gets the shuttle ﬂying
  almost level. Zero. They’re in the right place, and even if the navcom
  wasn’t telling him, the feedback from the controls would. It’s not plain
  sailing, but it’s better than it has been for some time.
  The Professional is statuesque on the viewscreen, helmet tucked under
  one arm, plasma riﬂe locked across his suit back.
  O’Connell checks his instruments, reactivates the intercom. ‘This is as
  good as it gets. The signal from the Station’s pretty weak. We’re in position
  for now, but that could change in a second and we might not know until
  it’s too late.’
  The Professional checks his AI again. ‘It’s within tolerance. We proceed.’
  ‘Hey,’ O’Connell says, ‘I’m just playing the percentages, OK?’
  The Professional slips the sheer metal helmet over his head. Bad as the
  intercom is, O’Connell can still hear the seals hiss tight as the suit pres-
  surises. The camera lens is reﬂected in the helmet, all that is visible where
  the Professional’s face used to be. But, damn, if O’Connell can’t still feel
  those eyes.
  ‘Start the cycle.’
  O’Connell almost asks whether the Professional’s sure. Instead, he slips
  a cover back, turns a key and watches a series of lights blink from green to
  red.
  On screen, the airlock doors creep open. There’s a moment of stillness
  as the atmosphere sweeps out of the compartment, the Professional braced
  against its pull. Then the room gets foggy as Jupiter rushes in to ﬁll the
  void, O’Connell’s passenger a hazy silhouette against billowing clouds.
  And despite all his study of the man, part of O’Connell still can’t quite
  believe he’s going to go through with it. Until the silhouette steps up to the
  edge of the airlock, steadies itself and jumps.
  O’Connell is sick and impressed at the same time. He’s never seen any-
  one leap to near-certain death before, and having witnessed it once he’s
  almost sure to see it again.
  He checks the atmospheric tolerances, then – against everything he’s
  ever held dear – activates the autopilot and releases his harness. Praying
  nothing bad happens, O’Connell pulls himself back into the shuttle’s inte-
  rior. Slipping one arm around a pipe for support, he powers up a screw-
  driver and starts undoing the access panel for one of the fuel tanks.
  O’Connell’s shuttle is old and it shows all the signs of age. Here and
  there shiny metal shows where broken parts have been replaced or modi-
  ﬁed to bring them up to date. But it’s mostly battered and bruised; surfaces
  9
  
  caked with years of blood and grease and dirt. Every screw on every bulk-
  head is so old and worn you couldn’t get a bit to hold on them if you tried.
  Except for the screws on this panel. Neat, shiny screws, with a crisp,
  sharp cross ingrained on their heads. O’Connell has worried about these
  screws every day since Mars. Worried that the Professional’s eyes might
  settle on them and not move. When the panel falls away, O’Connell’s worry
  is already anonymous within a spacesuit.
  He sighs. ‘Dammit, lady, I was hoping you’d come to your senses.’
  His face dances on the helmet as the stowaway shakes her head. He
  takes hold of a gloved hand, pulls her back along the shuttle.
  ‘You heard the intercom, you know the signal’s weak.’ O’Connell glances
  at her. ‘The Station could shift, crosswinds could change, any number of
  things could go wrong. Be prepared.’
  They’ve reached the airlock now. O’Connell reverses the cycle, lights
  shifting back to green as ﬁlters push Jupiter’s atmosphere back out where
  it belongs.
  ‘First thing to remember is this: you make it down there and he ﬁnds
  you, you were never on board this ship.
  You were on an independent
  charter; you shadowed us from the perimeter. You were never here.’
  O’Connell hauls the interior door open, catches the stowaway’s arm as
  she steps into the airlock. He raises a wafer-thin circuit in front of her.
  ‘This is the code for his AI. It’ll let your suit tap into his, access his data,
  copy his movements. He makes it, you make it. But before I give you
  this. . . ’
  She doesn’t need prompting. A small glass slide is placed in his hand;
  plugged into the shuttle’s comms system, it will authorise a very substantial
  contribution to O’Connell’s retirement fund.
  He slips the circuit into the slot on the stowaway’s suit, then seals the
  door behind her.
  O’Connell starts the cycle one more time, leans into the intercom panel:
  ‘You’ve got until I reach my seat to jump clear. I get to the controls and this
  ship is gone.’
  If Anji Kapoor answers, he does not hear it.
  The Station is shifting.
  Six weeks ago the Charing Cross was dispatched to Jupiter to study a
  shift in the planetary weather systems.
  It found more than anyone ex-
  pected.
  For six weeks, a guide signal has been beamed from a satellite. A pulse
  goes out, an echo comes back. For six weeks, that echo has been constant,
  waiting to draw the Professional down into this maelstrom. And now the
  10
  
  moment has arrived there is the tiniest change in the pitch of that echo.
  The Station is shifting.
  Mission insertion, plus 190 seconds. Time enough to compensate. The
  situation is recoverable.
  Since he jumped the AI has been projecting a stream of ﬁgures on to
  the interior of his helmet, scrolling upwards as the length of each line de-
  creases. It’s the narrowing list of probabilities affecting the Professional’s
  course through Jupiter’s atmosphere. The AI absorbs every detail the sen-
  sors can feed it, factoring a thousand options for a thousand possibilities,
  formulating responses to every one of the million possible outcomes.
  Now, another column appears to the right of this ﬁrst one. A new set
  of variables to be brought into line with the ﬁrst: the movement of the
  Station.
  The Professional focuses the AI on the task – which direction has the
  Station moved in? What will it take to get the ﬁrst column of numbers to
  mesh with the second?
  The Station has shifted at the precise moment it might most jeopardise
  his mission. Sceptical though the Professional is, it’s most likely accidental;
  the sudden drift any object this deep in a volatile suspension of gas and
  dust will experience. A bubble of air pressure breaks, the Station drops ten
  metres. Without further evidence, the movement is best attributed to bad
  luck.
  The AI suggests course corrections – pushing him into a marginally dif-
  ferent windstream – to compensate for the Station’s movement. There’s a
  slight pressure in the small of the Professional’s back as the suit’s thrusters
  ﬁre. The two columns of numbers stutter. There’s a pause as the calcula-
  tions catch up, a split second when the numbers grow larger. Then both
  sets of ﬁgures start falling into line with each other.
  Back on course. Mission insertion, plus 237 seconds.
  Jupiter ﬂows around him.
  There is something odd, almost familiar,
  about this experience. He does not know his family, cannot remember his
  mother, but wonders if this is what it felt like to be in the womb.
  He blinks, refocuses.
  Mission insertion, plus 253 seconds.
  The Professional should reach the Station in the next forty seconds.
  He could take charge of the touchdown, but has an AI program prepared
  for the purpose. This could be his only chance to get a good look at the
  Station’s exterior. Any detail missed because he’s doing his AI’s work might
  cost dear.
  The streams of numbers continue to roll upwards, line lengths dropping
  from six ﬁgures to ﬁve.
  11
  
  Mission insertion, plus 274 seconds.
  Something huge snaps out of the fog as the AI routine comes online. The
  shape gains clarity as it explodes in his vision: a spherical hub, surrounded
  by a web of circles and spokes. The Professional lets the AI take hold of the
  suit’s mechanisms, pushing him around, manipulating his limbs. A tower
  ﬂashes past and the suit angles his torso, the arms ﬂing forward, explosive
  bolts release, more systems come alive and two lines ﬁre out into the mist.
  There is no sudden jerk as the grapples take hold of the Station’s sur-
  face; that kind of stop would pull the cables free of their anchoring points
  on each forearm. Instead, the lines unravel and only slowly do the motors
  begin to bite. Once a quiet equilibrium is reached, they begin to reel him
  in.
  The rows of ﬁve-ﬁgure numbers drop to four.
  The surface of the Station is battered: hull plating hangs loose in some
  places, in others it is pitted by meteorites and the sundry debris Jupiter has
  thrown at it. A blister of scarred metal and a small hole mark an overload
  and hull breach.
  The suit pulls the Professional in towards a tower, one of the spokes that
  dissects the entire structure. The Station is big enough for him to make out
  the central hub only dimly through Jupiter’s atmosphere; sight of anything
  beyond is subject to the elements. The arc lights on the exterior are dim,
  some cracked, some missing altogether, leaving cables trailing in the wind.
  Proud painted letters are worn away to ghost writing: FARSIDE STATION.
  The four-ﬁgure numbers slip to three.
  Though it’s difﬁcult to tell through the haze, the central hub looks
  bright.
  Four years. Could people have survived down here?
  Three to two.
  The AI magnetises the suit’s extremities – the boots and the gloves – and
  as the Professional’s feet touch down, it retracts the grapples and powers
  down other systems, instead charging servomotors to compensate for the
  wind shear and weight of Jupiter. Allowing him to move in something
  approximating a normal fashion.
  Mission insertion, plus 380 seconds.
  The numbers on his helmet have been reduced to blinking zeros. The
  Professional replaces them with a schematic of the Station.
  He’s standing on what is labelled as the North Tower. He pauses, slowly
  taking his bearings, then heads south towards the central hub. Just before
  the tower meets one of the rings there is an access hatch.
  Anji Kapoor watches the Professional move away. Part of her curses her
  12
  
  own stupidity; a larger part curses O’Connell’s.
  This is the code for his AI. It’ll let your suit tap into his, access his data,
  copy his movements. He makes it, you make it.
  When O’Connell said ‘copy his movements’, Anji hadn’t assumed he
  meant this so precisely. Natural forces have created a slight variance –
  her grapples are lodged twenty feet from the Professional’s – but ideally
  she would have doubled that, maybe hauled herself in on another one of
  the tower’s faces. As it is, if the margin of error had differed in another
  direction by another degree she’d have stapled herself to his head.
  The Professional vanishes into the fog, and Anji lifts her head from the
  artiﬁcial horizon of the tower and looks up into Jupiter’s maw.
  In this instant she is sucked back into the nightmarish descent: the suit
  pushing her this way and that, her mind, torn by circumstance, unable to
  take a proper hold on the situation. Anji Kapoor. In free fall above Jupiter.
  One part of her mind wondering what she’s doing there, because this must
  be suicide; another part telling her she’s been dead for four years and this
  is her one chance at feeling alive again. And in that context, it all makes
  sense.
  She’s not going to make it through this by panicking.
  That was then – a dizzying nightmare of violent forces, whirling colour,
  lost perspectives. It’s what the streaming vapours above and around remind
  her of. But it’s not the same. Ever since those grappling hooks sunk into the
  Station’s hull the purpose that brought her here has returned. Four years of
  not quite knowing how the universe changed around her are about to end.
  Anji is guessing the Professional’s mission is twofold: locate any sur-
  vivors and ﬁnd out what happened here. The most obvious place to achieve
  those aims is the central hub. From her helmet schematic Anji assumes the
  Professional is heading towards an access hatch to the environmental sys-
  tems. From there he’ll work his way into the maintenance ducts – just like
  a soldier – and deeper into the structure.
  Anji is not a soldier. She never has been and most likely never will
  be. She sees no reason to crawl around in maintenance ducts – just like
  a soldier – when corridors are available. Take things steady, keep an eye
  out for danger, and there’s no reason why one route should be any less safe
  than the other.
  So she moves north to where the more conventional access of an air-
  lock is situated. It takes thirty seconds to transfer power from her suit to
  the locking mechanism but, that accomplished, the door grinds open with
  surprising ease. As other systems come online and pump air into the cham-
  ber Anji notes an odd residue on the interior surfaces; not quite a moss or
  lichen, not quite rust. Her suit’s database can’t ﬁnd a match, just declares
  13
  
  it non-toxic.
  One ﬁnal hiss of pressurised air and the automatic locks on the inner
  door click off. Anji releases her helmet catches and tucks the metallic ﬁsh-
  bowl under one arm. The room has a reassuring scent. She pulls open the
  inner door to reveal the Professional directly beyond it, the grate from a
  maintenance duct at his feet.
  Anji drops the helmet.
  There are a number of things her body tells her to do in this moment.
  She wants to reach for the side arm she brought with her and ﬁght; she
  wants to keep still and not provoke him; she wants to slam the door shut
  and depressurise the airlock and ﬂee. But most of all, despite all this, she
  cannot help but look at his face.
  From the mufﬂed conversations on the shuttle, Anji knows the Profes-
  sional unnerved O’Connell. She suspects O’Connell didn’t realise what pan-
  icked him, but Anji’s life has given her a different perspective.
  She knows straight away there’s something wrong with the Profes-
  sional’s face. It’s the face of a dead man.
  There’s no emotion in that face, no life or soul. Set ﬂat against the
  world, its lines speak of hardship not joy.
  It’s a face that hides mental
  processes and adds nothing of its own. It speaks of unerring determination,
  of the kind of man who doubles back through sixty feet of maintenance duct
  just to check whether he’s being followed.
  A cold face with a cold voice: ‘Of course. The fuel tank.’
  Which is when Anji realises how his kind have got their name. Every
  trace of personality is subsumed by the job he does. Professional.
  Something inside her breaks and she reaches for her side arm. The
  Professional kicks it from her grasp, then grabs her wrist and twists her arm
  about. Anji rolls with the movement, hits the ﬂoor and – as the Professional
  releases his hold – pushes up on to her feet. Her energy and speed surprise
  herself as much as they do the Professional and it’s a slightly narrower
  margin of victory this time when he catches the ﬁst she’s swinging at him.
  As she attempts to pull free, he places the tip of the plasma riﬂe against
  her neck. Anji freezes.
  ‘I recognise you.’
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘You’re a reporter. For one of the Martian news networks. Anji Kapoor.’
  She hesitates, conﬁrms. ‘I present a programme. On the antique stocks
  market. I’m not really a –’
  The basics established, the Professional tightens his trigger ﬁnger. The
  riﬂe’s batteries whine, anticipating the energy release.
  It is, Anji re-
  alises, his way of showing that all their exchanges to date have been non-
  14
  
  consequential. It’s the answers she gives from now on that are going to
  count.
  ‘Why are you here, Miss Kapoor?’
  ‘I came looking for my friends.’
  ‘What friends?’
  Anji knows her story doesn’t sound convincing, but it’s the only one
  she’s got. ‘The Doctor and Fitz.’
  A brief pause, then the Professional pushes her up against the wall be-
  fore taking a couple of steps back.
  Giving himself space, Anji thinks, and giving himself time to react. Be-
  cause he’s going to have to take his eyes off you. Because he’s going to
  check something. Because he can’t afford simply to dismiss you.
  And, in those terms, his reaction seems obvious enough.
  She can’t be certain how much the Professional knows about her, but
  their conversation suggests a train of thought that’s not dismissive of her
  plausibility. The only facts he has mentioned are public knowledge. She
  reviews antique stocks; she’s not a gung-ho reporter looking to make a
  name for herself; she clearly has no camera or recording equipment with
  her. There’s no – for want of a better word – professional reason for her
  presence. So, unless she has a personal stake, why come here?
  ‘Full names and titles.’ The Professional is looking at his AI screen. Anji
  can guess what it’s showing. It’s had a few euphemisms over the last four
  years: the 228; the list; the missing. The names of those presumed dead
  ever since this Station fell from orbit. Swallowed by Jupiter, never to be
  seen again. Until now.
  ‘Dr John Smith, Mr Fitzgerald Kreiner.’ Anji can tell from a ﬂash across
  his eyes that the list is scrolling up and down, searching. ‘But you won’t –’
  The ﬂashing stops. ‘How do you know those names?’
  ‘I don’t understand,’ Anji says.
  Except, as she thinks about it, she does.
  The Doctor and Fitz were
  never included among the 228; she’d always assumed some query about
  their status meant they were logged with the classiﬁed personnel whose
  presence was never disclosed. ‘That’s the full list, isn’t it?’ she asks.
  ‘On the passenger manifest from the PSV Pegasus four years ago.’
  ‘They were here?’ Anji says, ‘They were here when – ?’
  ‘If you are their friend, their presence on this list should be no cause for
  celebration.’
  ‘What do you mean?’
  ‘Despite the evidence supplied by your following me down here, Miss
  Kapoor, I’m going to give you the beneﬁt of the doubt and say you’re not
  stupid.’ For the ﬁrst time the Professional lets the barrel of the gun drop
  15
  
  away from Anji. ‘Look around you. If they are here, they’ve been dead four
  years already.’
  16
  
  Four Years Earlier
  Fitz had long ago decided the Doctor’s most annoying habit was turning a
  pleasant, everyday activity into a life-threatening crisis.
  Case in point: today’s activities. Seven days out from Mars on an Earth
  Forces’ personnel carrier. As transportation went, the Pegasus was better
  than most. They had a cabin and hot food. Recreational facilities were
  minimal – it was a military vessel, after all – but there was an observation
  lounge where you could quietly stargaze.
  They’d been seated there a few minutes earlier: the Doctor studying one
  of the holographic slides that had replaced paper in this time period, Fitz
  watching Jupiter swallow space in front of them.
  Final approach to Farside Station. It made a neat contrast to one of
  the least appealing things about travel by TARDIS: that you never got the
  impression of travelling anywhere, you just arrived.
  Then the ship’s pilot had walked past. He’d paused at the steps down
  into the ship, looked up at the view, then walked on.
  And when the Doctor turned to Fitz at that moment, Fitz had somehow
  known he was about to have a very bad day.
  ‘There’s something wrong with his eyes. Like that trooper on Mars.’
  And then he was off, chasing towards the steps and Fitz was trailing in
  his wake. By the time he’d caught up, the Doctor was at work in the corridor
  outside the cockpit. It was one of the few areas off-limits to passengers;
  something a female mess ofﬁcer was trying to make clear at pretty much
  the exact moment the Doctor’s most annoying habit came to the fore once
  more.
  The ship had gone crazy around them, with the ninety seconds follow-
  ing living up to all Fitz’s expectations of life with the Doctor.
  ‘If I die pretending to be an accountant,’ Fitz said, ‘I’ll never forgive
  myself, I swear.’
  The Doctor looked at Fitz. A deeply unhappy look that impressively
  conveyed the message that self-pitying wit was not the order of the day;
  what was really impressive was the way he continued to pull wires from
  17
  
  the bulkhead and splice them together as he looked.
  ‘Here.’ The Doctor handed him a long strip of cable. ‘Hold this.’
  Fitz and the mess ofﬁcer looked dubiously at the lead. For some reason
  she remained unhappy with their involvement; muttered, ‘I’m really not
  sure you should be doing this.’
  ‘Don’t worry,’ the Doctor answered. ‘I’m sure Earth Forces’ insurance is
  pretty comprehensive. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you weren’t in a position
  to stop me.’
  The ﬂoor lurched beneath them and Fitz grabbed the mess ofﬁcer to
  stop her falling over.
  ‘Besides,’ the Doctor continued, ‘if I don’t do this, there’s a very good
  chance we’ll be dead in ﬁve minutes.’
  The mess ofﬁcer looked at him, then pulled free of Fitz’s grasp and
  stumbled back towards the passenger compartments.
  ‘She may be going to get help,’ Fitz said.
  ‘Yes,’ the Doctor murmured, ‘we could do with another set of hands.’
  ‘The critical thing being, of course,’ Fitz continued, ‘whether the help
  she brings –’
  ‘Thinks we’re the solution or part of the problem.’ The Doctor nodded,
  connecting his wiring to a nearby computer terminal. ‘With any luck we’ll
  have it all sorted by the time she gets back.’
  Fitz frowned.
  ‘There!’ the Doctor exclaimed triumphantly.
  During the exchange from orbital lander to personnel carrier Fitz had
  only glimpsed the craft they would be travelling on; he’d devoted most of
  his time to the Martian landscape beneath them. However, that glimpse
  was enough for him to place the diagram on the terminal as representative
  of the Pegasus. The fact that huge sections were covered in red warning
  symbols didn’t bode well.
  ‘I repeat,’ Fitz said, ‘if I die pretending to be an accountant, I’ll never
  forgive myself. Or you.’
  ‘We’ll have to see what we can do about that then.’ The Doctor looked at
  the cockpit door. ‘The lock’s jammed from the inside, but the ﬂight systems
  all seem to be operating efﬁciently.’
  They were jerked from their feet as the personnel carrier dived.
  ‘It’s just that the pilot has misplaced all his ﬂying skills.’
  ‘You’re not reassuring me, Doctor.’
  ‘Sorry.’ The Doctor pulled himself over to the cockpit entrance. ‘Any
  sign of our stewardess?’
  ‘They’re military,’ Fitz replied. ‘I think they like to be called mess ofﬁ-
  cers. And no, no one’s in sight.’
  18
  
  ‘Good, because strictly speaking, as an accountant I shouldn’t have a
  device like this on my person –’ The Doctor produced the sonic screwdriver
  from his jacket pocket and thrust his arm into the open bulkhead. ‘– Or use
  it to do something like that.’
  ‘What?’
  There was a brief hum and a ﬂash. Then the cockpit door slid open.
  ‘That,’ the Doctor smiled.
  The ﬁrst thing Fitz noticed was the blood on the military-clean ﬂoor.
  The second thing was the source of the blood: a series of wounds on the
  pilot’s leg. This led to a whole series of realisations.
  The thing causing the wounds was the tip of a miniature harpoon, still
  sitting in a high-tech harpoon gun. The gun was in the possession of the
  pilot, who was stabbing himself with one hand while crazily manipulating
  the ship’s controls with the other. And crazily really was the word. Because
  the pilot was a bug-eyed lunatic, and the odds on Fitz actually dying while
  pretending to be an accountant had suddenly reached evens.
  Then the Doctor stepped into the doorway, blocking the view. Fitz knew
  the routine. The Doctor was making good eye contact, keeping his body
  language non-threatening, speaking with that contradictory voice of his.
  Old, but young; strong, but calm; peaceful, but determined. A voice to
  ease any trouble, right any wrong.
  The corridor was ﬁlled with an explosion of noise and movement.
  The door to the cockpit crashed shut, but Fitz didn’t really notice. The
  Doctor was sitting on the ﬂoor a couple of feet away, one hand tight around
  the harpoon embedded in his abdomen.
  Which was when Fitz realised ‘bad day’ wasn’t about to cover what was
  happening.
  The Doctor blinked twice. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was far too close.’ And with
  a jerk he pulled the shaft free.
  ‘Wha–’ Fitz managed.
  The Doctor climbed to his feet, blood staining his shirt. ‘Handkerchief?’
  he asked Fitz.
  Fitz produced one, which the Doctor pressed tight against the wound.
  He glanced at Fitz. ‘Are you all right?’
  ‘You caught it,’ Fitz said. ‘Took the worst of the momentum out, twisted
  your body so it missed any vital organs.’
  The Doctor frowned. ‘I do this kind of thing a lot?’
  Before Fitz could reply they were thrown against the wall. The Doctor
  hissed, pressing Fitz’s handkerchief harder against his side. ‘What does the
  console say?’
  19
  
  Fitz peered at the terminal, ‘Nose down, engines overheated. Exterior
  conditions and windspeed.’ He paused. ‘You don’t get windspeed in space,
  do you?’
  ‘He’s taking us into the atmosphere,’ a voice said.
  A tall man, muscular, with close-cropped hair, was coming down the
  corridor towards them, the mess ofﬁcer following behind. Dressed in civil-
  ian clothes, the way he braced himself against the ship’s movement told
  another story. A soldier.
  As the Doctor turned, Fitz noticed he’d buttoned his jacket to hide the
  wound. ‘And you are?’
  ‘John McCray, 101st Airborne.’
  ‘Currahee,’ the Doctor muttered obscurely.
  Before McCray could answer there was a gasp of air from the cockpit
  door, followed by a burst of sparks.
  ‘Now what?’ Fitz asked.
  ‘The pilot’s engaged the pressure door and fused the lock.’
  McCray checked the terminal. ‘We don’t have a lot of time: this ship isn’t
  rigged for atmospheric entry.’ He glanced at the wiring running between
  the terminal and the wall. ‘Did you do this?’
  ‘Yes,’ the Doctor replied.
  ‘Could you rig access to the ﬂight systems?’
  The Doctor’s eyes narrowed as he considered the wires. ‘I could access
  the ﬂight routines,’ he said, ‘but without rewriting the command structure,
  protocol is always going to defer to the cockpit.’
  ‘Not a problem,’ McCray answered. ‘Get to work.’
  As McCray turned to a separate wall panel, the Doctor knelt by the
  terminal again. ‘This won’t do any good,’ he said.
  ‘Will someone please explain what’s going on,’ Fitz demanded.
  ‘I can wire this computer into the ﬂight systems, but control has to be
  released by the cockpit before we can use it to ﬂy the ship. Which still
  leaves us with the problem of getting through that door. With that pressure
  door locked in place, we don’t –’
  ‘The pressure door,’ McCray interrupted, ‘makes it possible. C-grade
  personnel support vehicle; in emergencies, the pilot engages the pressure
  door and the cockpit section is jettisoned as an escape capsule.’
  He ﬁnally released the wall panel, revealing a heavy red unit complete
  with warning stickers.
  The Doctor frowned at the sight. ‘Explosive bolt?’
  McCray nodded. ‘Just because the ejection control is in the cockpit, it
  doesn’t mean we can’t use the mechanism.’ He slid a pistol from his jacket,
  20
  
  pointed it at the unit. ‘Trigger one bolt and the rest ﬁre in sequence. Lose
  the cockpit, gain ﬂight control.’
  ‘What about the pilot?’ Fitz asked.
  The Doctor and McCray looked at each other. ‘The cockpit has an inde-
  pendent air supply,’ the Doctor told Fitz. ‘If we jettison it, the pilot has a
  chance of survival.’
  The ship rocked again, and the hull began to creak.
  ‘More of a chance than he’s giving us.’ He nodded at McCray. ‘Do it.’
  There was no worse sound than the ‘message waiting’ tone before seven in
  the morning, not for Jennifer Valletti. The hour didn’t bother her; twenty
  years’ service had left her capable of handling a late night, an early start,
  or – more often than not – both together.
  It was what the tone signiﬁed: trouble.
  Valletti’s command was a research station sitting in Jupiter’s orbit, far
  from prying eyes, two days from the nearest help. Trouble was never wel-
  come.
  Now, thirty-ﬁve minutes after being woken by that sound, Valletti was
  in uniform, watching the docking-bay doors open as heavy power drones
  hauled the Pegasus in. Twenty years and she’d never got used to that sight:
  the vacuum of space before her, only an invisible mix of magnetics and
  force ﬁelds keeping the air in her lungs. An uncomfortable reminder of
  how fragile life still was out here.
  She trusted the technology but was
  always happier once the doors were shut.
  The atmospheric shield ﬁzzed as the ships nosed through it. A ﬁzz that
  was lost to a deafening scream: engines running silent in the vacuum sud-
  denly given voice by the Station’s atmosphere. There was a thump as the
  Pegasus was released on to the ﬂoor, then the engine noise geared down as
  the drones edged away to their landing zone.
  Valletti recognised the acrid smell coming from the Pegasus: burnt-out
  engine coils. Although the emergency crews were on standby, it looked like
  the worst was over.
  She trusted her crew to get on with their jobs, and as they ran their
  checks she waited. Only when they were done did she approach. Battered
  by their ﬂight, passengers and crew ﬁltered down the off-ramp.
  There
  was a slight break in the ﬂow of personnel, then the ﬁnal three passengers
  disembarked.
  As soon as she’d checked the manifest, Valletti had an idea who’d pulled
  the Pegasus out of its suicide dive. Sure enough, McCray was there, com-
  plete with two civilians. She checked their faces against the passenger list,
  ﬁnding the accountancy team she’d requested six months earlier.
  21
  
  McCray was dedicated, smart and approachable.
  Even so, number-
  crunchers were odd bedfellows for a paratrooper.
  The lead accountant was Smith: bright-eyed with thick ﬂoppy hair and
  an easy and elegant movement that reminded her of the men back home.
  Even though his assistant, Kreiner, was wearing an identical designer suit
  – House of McCartney, charcoal grey, fashionable half-lapels – he somehow
  looked shabbier in comparison.
  McCray straightened as he saw Valletti, snapped a salute.
  ‘At ease.’
  ‘Ma’am.’
  The lead accountant offered his hand. ‘Dr John Smith, my assistant
  Fitzgerald Kreiner.’ He smiled. ‘You can call me Doctor.’
  Valletti nodded at the ship. ‘I hope you’re not planning to put this mess
  on my budget.’
  McCray answered: ‘The Doctor was instrumental in regaining control of
  the Pegasus, ma’am.’
  ‘Reconﬁguring military-grade computer systems,’ the Doctor shrugged.
  ‘Everyone needs a hobby.’
  The easy manner extended beyond his walk; not what Valletti expected
  from an accountant. ‘I requested a business team to clear the paperwork,
  not create more of it. I want statements from all three of you by tomorrow
  morning at the latest.’
  ‘Oh, good,’ Kreiner said, ‘homework.’
  Back when he was a kid, Fitz had met some soldiers while playing in a
  bombed-out house: American GIs who didn’t know his surname. They’d
  laughed and played and handed him a chocolate bar. While it was a military
  image more recently supplanted by frogmarching guards who’d shoot ﬁrst
  with no promise of questions later, Fitz still remembered them.
  Both McCray and Valletti had a business-ﬁrst attitude, but standing
  there watching Valletti lay out her credentials Fitz could see more than a
  hint of those GIs. Making sure he and the Doctor knew who was in charge,
  yes, but a hint of a smile and something in her eyes assured Fitz that giving
  orders was her least favourite part of the job. Authoritative, but kind.
  He put Valletti in her early forties, slim and attractive – green eyes and
  auburn hair set off by the crisp white of her uniform jacket – but just a little
  too worldly-wise for the Kreiner charm.
  She was telling the Doctor something about the audit she wanted when
  Fitz noticed a change in McCray. Like Fitz he’d drifted away during the
  ﬁnance talk, but had suddenly come back to life, turning to the massive
  doors leading into the Station.
  22
  
  Fitz looked and saw a swarm of troops entering, one of them calling
  out: ‘Captain!’
  He turned to McCray. ‘Yours, I take it?’
  ‘For better or worse,’ McCray answered. ‘Commander?’
  ‘You’re excused, Captain.’
  ‘Ma’am.’ He saluted, then strode towards his comrades. In the moment
  before McCray was enveloped by their cheers he turned, nodding a smile
  at a janitor. The man’s hands were still on his mop, and only when McCray
  and his squad had gone did he start cleaning again.
  The Doctor tugged on Fitz’s arm. ‘Grab the cases, will you?’
  Twenty minutes later they were alone in their quarters.
  It wasn’t a huge space but there was room enough for them both, plus
  a bunk bed, washbasin and small window on to the stars. Thankfully, the
  toilets were positioned down the corridor: there were still some things Fitz
  didn’t want the Doctor privy to.
  The Doctor handed him a small disc. ‘Slip that in the comms unit, will
  you?’
  ‘Comms unit?’ Fitz asked.
  ‘The TV set in the wall over there.’
  ‘Right,’ Fitz said, ﬁnding the slot beneath the screen. As he slipped the
  disc inside the unit came to life: a middle-aged man behind a desk, gravely
  intoning headlines. Two hundred years and the news hadn’t changed that
  much since Richard Baker.
  ‘Was it meant to do that?’ Fitz asked.
  The Doctor settled back on his bunk, slowly unbuttoning his jacket. ‘I’m
  piggybacking a signal across the commercial networks.’
  Fitz was about to ask what kind of signal, but the question died on his
  lips as the Doctor opened his jacket.
  ‘Bloody hell,’ Fitz said.
  ‘It looks worse than it is,’ the Doctor answered. The strain in his voice
  said otherwise.
  ‘That,’ Fitz replied, ‘is a lot of blood.’
  ‘Most of it’s dry,’ the Doctor gasped, peeling the handkerchief away. It
  was true; although bruised and puckered, the puncture wound itself had
  started healing. Fitz dampened a towel and began to wipe away the blood.
  ‘You should get this looked at.’
  The Doctor shook his head, ‘I can’t.’
  ‘You just saved a ship full of people. They’re not going to begrudge you
  a bandage, Doctor. Besides, I thought you’d squared away your physique
  for their security stuff?’
  23
  
  ‘A faked medical record referencing a bicardial mutation wouldn’t ac-
  count for my blood work. It’s probably never a good time to be an alien
  inﬁltrator, but this deﬁnitely isn’t the right period for it.’ He caught Fitz’s
  look and smiled. ‘I’ll let you ﬁgure out why.’
  ‘Oh, God,’ Fitz groaned, ‘I’ve heard about your initiative tests.’
  With a burst of static, the news report was replaced by a grainy image
  of Anji Kapoor. The swelling had gone from her face, the only remnant of
  the attack a large sticking plaster on her forehead. She was looking away
  from the camera when the signal came through, eyes focused further down
  the hospital ward. Then she turned and saw them; there was a moment of
  indecision on her face before she ﬁnally broke into a laugh.
  ‘Is this a good time for you both, or would you like to be left alone?’
  Fitz looked at the Doctor’s naked torso, the damp towel in his own hand
  and the way he’d been bathing his friend. He dropped the towel, pushing
  himself back along the bunk. ‘Now’s ﬁne, thank you.’
  ‘How are you feeling?’ the Doctor asked.
  ‘Much better.’ Anji put a hand to her face. ‘I don’t know what they’re
  using in the twenty-second century, but when I get home I’m buying shares.
  I still would have preferred to go with you.’
  ‘That was quite a fracture,’ the Doctor said sternly. ‘Halfway between
  Mars and Jupiter would not have been the place to discover any complica-
  tions. You were better off staying in hospital.’
  There was a pause, then Anji nodded, any jollity fading as she asked,
  ‘Any idea what happened?’
  ‘We’ve only just got here,’ Fitz protested.
  Anji tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘You said you were good at
  this kind of thing.’
  The Doctor interrupted before Fitz could respond. ‘Anything more from
  the authorities your end?’
  Anji shook her head. ‘Two squaddies on leave from Farside Station run
  amok in a Shefﬁeld mezzanine. Authorities reassure the time-travelling
  futures trader unfortunate enough to get in their way that the parties in-
  volved are simply suffering from stress. Quote one ofﬁcer, they’ve gone
  space happy, unquote.’
  ‘Nothing we didn’t already know.’ Fitz turned to the Doctor. ‘I told you
  this was a wild-goose chase.’
  The Doctor shook his head, ‘I don’t think so. One person might snap
  like that, but two? Within seconds of each other?’
  ‘There is something you don’t know,’ Anji said. ‘They’re still in custody,
  but no charges are being brought. Rumour has it they’re being shipped
  back to Earth for specialist treatment.’
  24
  
  The Doctor leant forward, steepling his ﬁngers. ‘Interesting. Did they
  say what they were treating them for?’
  ‘I don’t know.’
  ‘Couldn’t you have asked? It might be important.’
  Anji shook her head. ‘I didn’t get that from the military. It’s secondhand
  information from a source; that’s all they knew.’
  ‘You’ve only been on Mars ten days,’ Fitz protested. ‘How do you get to
  have a source?’
  ‘I. . . ’ Anji paused before continuing, ‘I’ve been watching a lot of TV. One
  of the news networks has a series on economic history.’ She looked away
  bashfully. ‘I may have phoned in to complain about some inaccuracies.’
  ‘I do hope you’re not drawing attention to yourself,’ the Doctor said.
  ‘Relax. I used the ID you created; they bought it and, well, they offered
  me some consulting work on the last couple of episodes. The researcher
  asked about the cut on my head; she’s the one who told me about the
  squaddies.’
  ‘Almost thirty years living on Earth,’ Fitz said, ‘and the best I could man-
  age was a job in a garden centre.’ He threw up his hands. ‘Ten days on
  another planet and you land a gig in television.’
  Anji smiled. ‘It helps to have some kind of work ethic to begin with.’
  Fitz opened his mouth to reply but the Doctor raised a hand, silencing
  him. ‘That’ll do, thank you.’
  He turned to Anji. ‘They’re releasing you?’
  ‘Tomorrow,’ she nodded.
  ‘Take care,’ the Doctor said, ‘keep a low proﬁle, and we’ll be in touch.’
  ‘See you in a week or so,’ Fitz said.
  As the screen clicked off the Doctor said, ‘A week might be optimistic,
  don’t you think?’
  ‘I thought that was the point of our cover.’
  ‘Posing as Earth Forces’ accountants gets us here, provides good access
  to this station’s ﬁles, and isn’t so high-powered a job that security will take
  more than a cursory look at our credentials.’
  ‘Which is good, because they’re fakes.’
  ‘Exactly.’
  The Doctor glanced at Fitz, curious and uncertain.
  ‘We’ve
  done this a lot, haven’t we? That’s why you think we’ll be back on Mars in
  a week.’
  ‘This?’ Fitz said. ‘Inﬁltrating research stations around Jupiter? No. But
  we’ve done enough similar stuff the last couple of years.’
  The Doctor nodded, taking this on board. ‘There’s something wrong
  here,’ he said. ‘The way those two suddenly turned, the way they attacked
  Anji. . . ’ He looked to the window and the stars beyond, his voice dropping
  25
  
  to a whisper: ‘She didn’t ask to be out here. She’s my responsibility, and if
  she’s been hurt I want to know why.’
  ‘I know this is a daft question, given we just travelled halfway across
  the galaxy –’
  The Doctor sighed. ‘Solar system, Fitz. Not galaxy. Different things
  altogether.’
  ‘Solar system, then. But. . . You are sure, aren’t you? That whatever the
  problem is, it’s here?’
  ‘We checked every lead on Mars and found nothing. Those soldiers were
  on the planet less than twelve hours.’ The Doctor shrugged. ‘I’m taking it
  one step at a time, tracing back along their path. Before Mars they were
  here. If there was any doubt, the pilot’s behaviour on our ﬂight in clinched
  it. That’s three people now, all with one common link. This station.’
  ‘So, what do you think happened to them?’ Fitz asked.
  ‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor said. ‘This is a weapons research facility. They
  could have been exposed to a nerve gas or neurological disruptor. Either
  containment procedures aren’t up to scratch. . . ’
  ‘Or?’ Fitz prompted.
  ‘Or someone’s testing their work outside of the laboratory. Whatever
  happened, something needs to be done.’
  As Fitz slept the Doctor worked on their statements, keeping the grammar
  loose to non-existent on the one Fitz would sign. For some reason, that
  seemed appropriate.
  Fitz was conﬁdent this would all be over soon; a conﬁdence the Doctor
  wished he shared. It had taken a lot of work just to trace the two soldiers
  this far.
  It had been nearing ﬁve o’clock and they’d spent the day exploring
  Shefﬁeld. Wandering into a mezzanine, Fitz had spotted the New Jupiter
  Caf´e; the irony of their last port of call demanded a visit, apparently.
  Anji had found a table while he and Fitz went to fetch drinks. In the
  mirror behind the counter the Doctor saw the two soldiers – one dark, one
  blond – approaching the New Jupiter. The ﬁrst was agitated, his friend
  trying to calm him. Then the dark-haired soldier had stiffened, pushing his
  way into the caf´e, screaming.
  The Doctor went to intervene, but was stopped by the blond soldier who
  looked straight into his eyes and told him he wasn’t needed.
  The ﬁrst soldier began to throw over tables, and punched his hand
  through a glass counter, shards lodging in his knuckles.
  26
  
  As the Doctor stepped forward the blond trooper stopped him once
  more, only this time his expression had changed. His eyes lost focus. A
  moment later he was swinging a ﬁst. A second after that, Fitz had smashed
  a bottle over the soldier’s head and he’d sunk unconscious to the ﬂoor.
  By the time the Doctor reached the ﬁrst soldier, the man had already
  landed ﬁve hard blows on Anji. A concussion she was still clearing almost
  ten days later.
  When they reached the hospital the soldiers were placed under military
  guard. There was no response when the Doctor asked what was going to
  happen to them; more importantly, he wanted to know why the incident
  had happened.
  As Fitz sat with Anji he’d found the troopers’ names on the hospital
  register. A starting point from which the Doctor had worked backwards.
  The hotel rooms they’d checked into, the restaurant they’d had lunch in.
  Looking for similar symptoms across Shefﬁeld, widening the search to all
  of Mars.
  He’d found nothing. The last search was a hack into the Mars Orbital’s
  database, ﬁnding out where the soldiers had come from. Farside Station
  meant nothing on its own but a cursory search of public records had told
  him enough.
  People didn’t just snap. Not like those two had.
  There had to be an answer, and that answer was most likely here.
  Despite its specialist requirements the Station was a standard design. A
  central, spherical hub housed reactors, administration and research labs;
  concentric rings and spokes surrounded it, holding docking facilities, posi-
  tioning thrusters and storage bays. That standard design placed the com-
  mander’s ofﬁce at the Station’s highest elevation, on top of the spire rising
  out of the central hub.
  The ﬁrst thing Valletti had done was move her ofﬁce down into Com-
  mand and Control. The previous location had obvious psychological infer-
  ences which she’d never cared for. Leadership wasn’t the same as demand-
  ing people look up to you. Respect was earned. Symbolism aside, the move
  placed her at the heart of the Station, able to judge its mood just by looking
  up and seeing the faces of her staff.
  This meant that when the Doctor and Kreiner walked in the next morn-
  ing she could watch as they made their way through the control boards and
  technicians. Both quite comfortable; the Doctor obviously taking more in
  with every glance made.
  She picked up a slide as they approached, and scrolled through their
  statements. ‘You’re quite adaptable, aren’t you, Doctor?’
  27
  
  He smiled. ‘Lucky more than anything.’
  ‘That’s good,’ Valletti answered. ‘I think I like lucky more than adapt-
  able. Did you ﬁnd your ofﬁce?’
  ‘Yes, thank you. It’s not as impressive as this one.’
  She shrugged. ‘The best I could do under the circumstances. I’ve been
  waiting for an accounts staff for six months, then you arrive with a week’s
  notice.’ Valletti picked up a pair of blank cards from her desk: ‘Just add
  your biometrics to these.’
  ‘Our what?’ Kreiner sad.
  The Doctor turned the card over in his hand, then glanced at Kreiner
  and said, ‘Look at the dot in the centre.’ He held his pass at arm’s length
  and smiled. As his face appeared on the front he showed it to his colleague.
  ‘What do you think? Good likeness?’
  Kreiner frowned suspiciously at his own card, then blinked, horriﬁed.
  ‘Oh, balls, I wasn’t ready.’
  As his confused portrait faded into view he
  hurriedly tucked the card into the breast pocket of his suit.
  ‘Those passes give you access to most departments,’ Valletti explained.
  ‘Try not to lose them.’ She smiled, guiding them towards the main lift.
  ‘Time for the tour.’
  As the doors opened she tugged the card from Kreiner’s pocket. ‘Sorry,
  but you do need to keep your pass in sight at all times.’ She ushered them
  into the lift. ‘It helps the security systems keep track.’
  ‘Do I have to?’ he answered, glancing down at his frowning face. ‘I
  really wasn’t ready.’ He smiled. ‘And it’s Fitz, by the way. We don’t stand
  on ceremony in accounts.’
  There was a whisper of air as the lift swept upwards.
  ‘I don’t care for ceremony, either,’ Valletti explained. ‘But you need to
  remember, you’re here for one reason. When this facility opened it offered
  a secure locale for a half-dozen research projects. We’ve grown since then.
  You’re here to keep things running smoothly.’
  The ﬁrst stop was the sight Valletti liked to show everyone when they
  arrived. An illustration of the scale of their task.
  The doors opened and the Doctor let out a brief whistle. ‘Nice reactors,’
  he said.
  A dozen fusion engines formed the Station’s heart: pulsating towers,
  eight storeys high, held in a latticework of cables. Technicians clambered
  over and around the towers, while a long catwalk ran around the edge of
  the enormous spherical chamber that held them all.
  ‘A station this size,’ Valletti said, ‘would normally use half this number
  of reactors. At any one time there are over forty projects under way on
  Farside Station.’
  28
  
  The Doctor stopped, studying the main control console as he said, ‘Takes
  some managing, I suppose. The Station, I mean, not the reactors.’
  Valletti shrugged. ‘I can deal with people.’
  ‘But not budgets.’
  ‘Bookkeeping.’ She smiled. ‘That kind of ﬁght I’m not trained for.’
  They reached the opposite side of the chamber and boarded another lift.
  Fitz watched Valletti watching the Doctor. Then he looked at the map next
  to him, trying to get a bearing on where the massive reactors had been. As
  the lift slowed he pursed his lips, thinking about the Doctor’s initiative test.
  The next level was more conventional. A central corridor led on to mix
  of open lab space and enclosed test facilities, some empty, others ﬁlled with
  oversized machinery. There were a few bearded, science types, but mostly
  it was just regular people, hard at work.
  A deep throb sounded as a glare ﬁlled one compartment. As they passed
  a mannequin stood burning on one side of the room, a smoking cannon on
  the other. A six-inch slab of metal was untouched between them.
  Reaching a convenient stopping point, Valletti turned to them.
  ‘I’ve
  shown you this and the reactors for one reason. You’re cleared for access
  to all these areas, but if things were left to you, you might sit in your ofﬁce
  and never venture down here.’
  She gestured at the corridor they’d just come down. ‘I said I wanted this
  station running smoothly. But this place is not just columns and numbers
  on a page. You’re both old enough to remember the occupation. Well, this
  is the cutting edge, where the work is done to stop that ever happening
  again, to keep our families safe for the next hundred years. Don’t let me
  down,’ she entreated. ‘Don’t let them down.’
  ‘I understand,’ the Doctor said solemnly.
  While Fitz had taken in the emotion behind the speech, he’d struggled
  with the context. Either the Doctor’s background reading was paying off
  or he’d just demonstrated how good a liar he could be. Regardless, Valletti
  seemed satisﬁed the message was received and understood.
  Heading back to the lift, the Doctor nodded at an empty room. One
  corner of the ﬂoor and wall was missing; sliced clean away to reveal the
  electrics beneath.
  ‘Experiments go awry,’ Valletti explained. ‘This is what happens when
  you create an artiﬁcial singularity and it goes wrong.’
  ‘No more than ten feet across,’ the Doctor mused. ‘You’re lucky it didn’t
  swallow half this station.’ He checked the nameplate on the door. ‘Professor
  Deschamps.’ He frowned at Valletti. ‘Artiﬁcial singularity? For some kind
  of bomb?’
  29
  
  ‘Testing moves out into space in the next few months,’ Valletti said, then
  smiled. ‘If Deschamps hears you’re running ﬁnance, you’ll have plenty of
  opportunity to ask him about it.’
  Installed in their ofﬁce, Fitz started rearranging the pot plants as the Doctor
  got on with the business of accountancy.
  ‘Did you notice?’ the Doctor said.
  ‘You only ask things like that when you think I haven’t. So,’ Fitz said,
  ‘let me surprise you.’
  The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
  ‘Commander Valletti is big on the whole team thing,’ Fitz continued.
  ‘One of the lads, works with all the personnel, and they all get along fa-
  mously, ﬁghting the good ﬁght.’
  ‘Except?’
  ‘Except, not everyone is in on the team thing. The reactor room, chock-
  full of dirty hands and sweaty overalls, right?’
  The Doctor nodded.
  ‘And those labs had lots of nice white coats. It takes thirty seconds to get
  from one to the other, but you didn’t see any white coats near the reactors
  or overalls near the labs. That’s the most extreme example’ – Fitz tapped
  the Station layout mounted on the wall – ‘but it’s all over the design of this
  place. This ball bit is where the important people live.’
  ‘Research and administration.’ The Doctor nodded.
  ‘Whereas out here –’ Fitz pointed to the Station’s rings ‘– is where you
  ﬁnd your minions. And never the twain shall meet.’
  The Doctor smiled. ‘That’s very astute.’
  ‘Not really,’ Fitz said, settling down to light a cigarette. ‘I’m not that
  smart, but I’m good with people.’
  ‘It wasn’t what I was talking about,’ the Doctor said, ‘but it was very
  astute.’
  ‘Oh. What were you talking about?’
  ‘The control panel in the reactor room. There’s no power being drawn
  to level six.’
  ‘So?’
  ‘There must be something on level six. And if there’s something, then
  it’s got to be using some power.’
  Fitz shrugged. ‘This is a military base, Doctor. There’s bound to be
  classiﬁed stuff.’
  ‘Maybe.’ The Doctor tapped his pen against his teeth. ‘Commander
  Valletti seems quite welcoming; there’s no hint of deception or malice about
  her. Either she’s very good at lying or –’
  30
  
  ‘She’s got the hots for you,’ Fitz said, matter of fact.
  There was an uncomfortable silence. Fitz looked up to ﬁnd the Doctor
  staring at him. ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, ‘a hundred years stuck on Earth. You
  must have learnt something about women.’
  The Doctor continued to stare at him.
  ‘Maybe not,’ Fitz muttered.
  The Doctor turned to the computer built into his desk – another one
  of the glass slides – and mused, ‘Whatever’s on level six must be funded
  somehow.’
  ‘ “Funded”? You’re not going through with this accountancy stuff, are
  you?’ Fitz said, suddenly nervous. ‘Because the thing is, I was never very
  good at maths.’
  ‘Don’t worry,’ the Doctor answered, producing a glass chip from his
  jacket pocket. ‘While you were watching the world go by on the Pegasus, I
  was writing an AI program to take care of the bookkeeping.’ He tapped the
  chip triumphantly. ‘If you want an audit, get yourself an AuDoc.’
  He slipped the chip into the computer and a new graphic blossomed on
  the desk screen. ‘It’s capable of adaptive thought, so if I ask AuDoc to locate
  black-money projects, it’ll ﬁgure out how to do that itself. We just have to
  sit back and wait for the results.’
  Fitz looked around the ofﬁce glumly. ‘I’ve got to be honest with you, I
  think I’ve done all the waiting I can in this room.’
  ‘Is there something else you’d prefer to be doing?’
  Fitz smiled.
  That something else was the standard Kreiner mooching around. It wasn’t
  the structured approach the Doctor would have taken, but Fitz felt his
  record spoke for itself. Mooching delivered results.
  He left the Doctor playing with his computer program. Which in itself
  wasn’t right.
  About a month ago, by Fitz’s reckoning, the Doctor had saved the uni-
  verse for the umpteenth time. Only he hadn’t escaped unharmed. The vic-
  tory had come at a huge personal cost, leaving him and his TARDIS badly
  damaged. The only solution had been for Fitz to leave his friend and the
  time ship on Earth to recover, rendezvousing with him later on. And while
  all that was just a few weeks ago for Fitz, the Doctor had spent more than
  a hundred years recovering.
  Fitz’s problem had started when they’d met up again: the Doctor said
  he couldn’t remember anything from before he’d woken up on Earth.
  And Fitz believed him.
  31
  
  But then they’d arrived on Mars and he’d seemed quite at home in the
  future. Not as off-the-cuff blas´e as he would once have been, but quite
  capable of hot-wiring spaceships, writing accountancy programs or expertly
  forging Earth Forces’ credentials.
  Something Fitz could only explain as being ﬂashes of the old Doctor
  breaking through.
  While reluctant ever to look a gift horse in the mouth, those ﬂashes of
  memory left Fitz worried. Only a couple of weeks earlier the Doctor had
  taken a risk to try and get those memories back. He’d failed, and while Fitz
  had been relieved at his failure at the time, now he wasn’t so sure.
  Leaving administration behind, Fitz paused at a junction.
  A right turn led back to the central hub. If those soldiers’ rampage had
  been the result of research gone awry, the answer would be found there.
  Only, while Fitz could bluff his way through most situations with a bit of
  authentic future slang, deciphering space-age weapons programmes was
  beyond him. So he turned left towards the outer rings, where the white
  coats and dataslides were replaced by overalls and tool boxes.
  As he walked, Fitz realised his problem was not what the Doctor could
  remember but what he couldn’t.
  They were friends; at least, they had been.
  Fitz’s life had been one of continual underachievement until he’d met
  the Doctor. Since that day, he’d seen things beyond imagination. True, he’d
  faced death more often than he’d have thought possible, but he also felt
  alive. And the Doctor had been the best of travelling companions. Brave
  and intelligent, caring and funny. He and Fitz had a history.
  Only now the Doctor was still there, still doing Doctor-ish things, but
  that history was gone. And Fitz didn’t know how to react.
  Did the Doctor want to know the how and why of his lost memory?
  Fitz had assumed not, but could he be sure? And if the Doctor couldn’t
  remember Fitz, if they didn’t have that history, what was it that made them
  friends?
  The next junction led Fitz to the docking bay. A sign was ﬂashing over
  the main doors: NO ENTRY – DOCKING IN PROGRESS.
  Fitz was looking for a viewing point; somewhere with a comfy chair
  where he could sit with a cigarette and watch whatever was going on.
  Quiet observation was, after all, just as instructive as casual mooching.
  In the end, he settled for trying a smaller set of doors away to the left.
  These led on to a small cargo hold and a scene of organised chaos. Crew-
  men worked on small platforms, rising and falling between tall shelves,
  hefting boxes on their shoulders, racking up canisters. The main docking
  bay had been clean like the central hub, and while the corridors of the
  32
  
  outer rings hadn’t been quite so pristine they were nothing compared to
  this. Even if he hadn’t been able to see the stained overalls, dented bulk-
  heads or puddles on the ﬂoor, Fitz would have recognised the smell: oil
  and dirt and sweat.
  This was the factory ﬂoor.
  ‘Hey, you!’ a thick voice called.
  Fitz turned to see a huge black man in overalls. Fitz pointed at his own
  chest, mouthed: Me?
  ‘Yes, you. Move. People are working.’
  ‘Sorry,’ Fitz said, stepping out of the way of one crewman and into the
  path of another. The collision sent the box he was carrying tumbling from
  his shoulder; Fitz winced as it split open, small parts sweeping across the
  ﬂoor.
  ‘Oh, bollocks,’ Fitz said.
  The crewman gave a scowl that made Fitz
  worry about what was going to follow it up. Then the guy who’d shouted
  at him intervened, thrusting a slide into the crewman’s hand.
  ‘Bay sixteen, medical equipment to the inﬁrmary. C’mon, Archer, move.’
  He glanced at Fitz. ‘I’ll clean this up.’
  As Fitz dropped to his knees next to the man, he began to realise the
  enormity of his mistake. The box was compartmentalised and all the parts
  needed to be sorted and returned to the right section.
  ‘Oh, bollocks,’ Fitz repeated. ‘I really am sorry. I was looking for a
  viewing platform.’
  The man snorted. ‘You’re one of the accountants, right?’
  ‘That’s right,’ Fitz said. The man was studying the parts, dropping them
  back into place. Fitz held his hand out. ‘Fitz Kreiner.’
  The man looked at Fitz’s proffered hand, then raised his own. It was
  covered in oil. Fitz kept his hand where it was and after a moment’s pause
  the man shook it: the strong grip of manual labour. ‘My name’s Robertson.’
  As Robertson continued sorting the parts, Fitz realised there was a
  schematic on each appropriate box. He picked up a piece, compared it
  to the diagrams and slotted it home.
  ‘That’s a nice suit,’ Robertson said. ‘You hang around Greenwich, it’s
  going to get dirty.’
  ‘Place like this must have a laundry somewhere.’
  Robertson chuckled; a deep timbre, warm and comforting.
  ‘Besides,’ Fitz said, ‘what’s Greenwich?’
  ‘This is,’ Robertson grinned. ‘This is Greenwich.’
  ‘Still lost,’ Fitz said.
  ‘Everything that comes into this station comes through here. People,
  supplies, even accountants. This is zero longitude, where life on this station
  33
  
  begins and ends. Turn right outside and it’s Greenwich East, turn left –’
  ‘– and it’s Greenwich West.’
  ‘Strictly speaking, we’re in Greenwich East here. The systems access
  hatch in the docking bay marks the meridian.’
  ‘And you’re in charge?’
  Robertson nodded. ‘Ships and cargo. I sign it in, I sign it out.’
  ‘Big job,’ Fitz said.
  ‘Big enough. The man’s tone gained an edge not present a moment
  earlier. ‘Doesn’t mean I can’t cope, or that I like it when people muscle in
  on my territory.’
  Fitz looked at the part in his hand. ‘Sorry, I was only trying to help.’
  Robertson smiled. ‘Not you, Mr Kreiner.’ He nodded his head towards
  a set of doors. The hold they were in sat adjacent to the docking bay; the
  same sign that was over the main doors outside was ﬂashing above this
  smaller set.
  ‘Hang on,’ Fitz said. ‘If you’re in charge of ships and cargo and the sign
  says docking in progress then –’
  ‘– what am I doing in here? Good question.’ Robertson tossed the last
  component into the box as a chime sounded. ‘You helped pull the Pegasus
  out of that dive?’
  ‘More my boss than me.’
  ‘Either way, you might be interested.’ Robertson hoisted the box upon
  to a shelf, then crossed to check a control panel. ‘Exterior doors secure.’
  He released the lock, and the doors into the docking bay hummed, sliding
  back on well-oiled runners.
  The shuttles and drones had been eased over to one side, leaving an
  open space in the middle of the bay. A half-dozen men in spacesuits hovered
  around a pair of grapples, holding a familiar shape: the cockpit section of
  the Pegasus.
  ‘What the – ?’
  Robertson nodded. ‘McCray and the boys. Went in this morning to
  retrieve it.’
  Fitz looked again. ‘That’s McCray?’
  Robertson nodded.
  ‘So what’s the problem?’
  ‘Basic training doesn’t qualify me to run combat missions, so why are
  they doing cargo and salvage?’
  Explosive bolts ﬁred and the canopy ﬂew across the docking bay. Before
  it even hit the ground, the pilot was climbing from the cockpit. Twenty-four
  hours tumbling around Jupiter’s atmosphere hadn’t improved his mood.
  But before he could get any further, the spacesuits touched down in a circle
  34
  
  around him. The pilot ﬂailed wildly at one, only to be grabbed by the wrist
  and ﬂicked over on to his back. As the pilot landed the other suits moved
  in, holding him down.
  A tall woman, dressed in white, slipped into the circle and sunk a needle
  deep into the pilot’s leg. A few moments later he was still.
  ‘That,’ Fitz said, ‘is how to hold your nerve.’
  The soldier who’d ﬂipped the pilot stepped back, raising the visor on his
  helmet. McCray. He gave Fitz a curt nod, then the man was loaded on to
  a stretcher. McCray and the others formed a procession out of the docking
  bay, the woman in white in the lead.
  ‘Maybe that’s why they were doing the salvage?’ Fitz offered.
  ‘I can handle myself,’ Robertson snorted.
  The docking bay was already grinding back into life. The janitor had
  started cleaning the grubby exterior of the Pegasus, while Robertson took
  hold of a trolley and began to haul it back towards the cargo bay.
  ‘I never trained at Marineris,’ Robertson continued, ‘but I can take one
  guy with a rush on. Besides, if all they did was salvage I wouldn’t mind.
  But they do cargo and they break stuff.’ He looked at Fitz. ‘Anyone who
  breaks things on my team doesn’t stay on it.’
  Fitz struggled not to laugh. In Robertson’s world, breaking stuff was
  clearly a capital offence.
  The muscles stretched across Robertson’s back as he lifted one of the
  crates from the trolley. He seemed like a nice guy, but Fitz was sure his ﬁrm
  shake could translate into a stone ﬁst if required.
  He glanced at his watch. The Doctor would be ironing the tweaks out
  of AuDoc for another couple of hours and, when all was said and done, Fitz
  didn’t suit ofﬁce work. He hung his jacket over the door handle and – as
  Robertson chuckled – began to roll up his sleeves.
  ‘Right,’ Fitz said, ‘where do you want that lot?’
  35
  
  MARS
  This isn’t my life.
  That’s what she’d said one year ago. How quickly things changed.
  It had taken a few weeks for her situation to really sink in. The Station
  was gone, the Doctor and Fitz weren’t coming back. Every day the prob-
  ability of their death inched closer to certainty and, with that, so did the
  need to plan. It ﬁnally came home to her when she left their hotel and
  returned to the warehouse where the TARDIS waited. As she stood in front
  of the police box, Anji realised the Doctor had taken his key with him and
  she didn’t have a spare.
  Fitz had implied the ship was somehow sentient. If that were true then
  maybe, she thought, it would recognise her and let her in. She took hold
  of the handle, the metal cold in the Martian night, and pushed at the door.
  It refused to give.
  And that was when Anji started to plan.
  She talked her way into a research job and a ﬂat-share at the TV net-
  work; one of the producers was documenting the success of the antique
  stocks market. The ASM was an alternative investment market, based on
  twentieth-century economic models; like fantasy football league, if you
  were allowed to pick Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Moore and Jimmy and
  Bobby were actually Microsoft and Coca-Cola.
  Her plan was to save as much money as possible and buy a ticket back
  to Earth. She wanted to go home.
  Three weeks later she realised home didn’t exist any more.
  Anji had been walking across Boone Plaza in front of the network build-
  ing. He’d come in the opposite direction, holding a bulky camera unit. She
  didn’t recognise him at ﬁrst – her memories of the day the Station fell were
  hazy. Then she remembered. The man from the bubble town’s wall.
  They’d smiled, had met for a drink that night.
  He talked about his
  holiday on Earth. Michael was Mars-born, so he’d done all the tourist traps:
  the Paris crater, the New York waterways. Anji had nodded and smiled, and
  quietly realised she didn’t recognise the world he was talking about.
  36
  
  She could never go home again.
  One year since the Station fell, ten months since that evening, and his
  hand was warm in hers now.
  She’d insisted they sit in the back row, slipping into the cathedral at
  the last minute. The Doctor and Fitz were never listed among the Sta-
  tion’s crew and Anji had never questioned this, fearful of the attention she
  might attract. Partly because of that, she felt like a fraud gatecrashing the
  ceremony.
  When Michael had suggested they go, she’d said she hadn’t known them
  well enough. You couldn’t grieve for people you’d only known two weeks.
  The memorial itself was an ebony block, the 228 listed in gold.
  Hymns were sung, the marines outside offered a twenty-one-gun salute,
  a brief speech was made. In front of them people were crying. It was
  only when Michael squeezed her hand that Anji realised she was crying
  too. He’d think she was weeping for her friends. And while the ceremony
  reminded her of her loss, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t a goodbye to them, but to
  her old life.
  They were getting up to leave when the shouting started.
  A lone woman rushed to the stage. The soldiers caught her in time, but
  she was focused on one of the ofﬁcers on the podium. Screaming and spit-
  ting, straining to break free. He sat there, stone-faced, staring the woman
  down.
  It was only as she was dragged past that Anji could make out what she
  was saying: What about the body, Colonel?
  As the cathedral doors shut, the words echoed around the nave.
  What about the body?
  As they left Anji heard a trio of women, dressed in black, talking about
  the protester. The crowd was drawing her and Michael on like a tide and
  Anji slipped her hand from his, called out to him: ‘I’ll see you back at the
  ﬂat. I’m ﬁne.’
  Then she tucked into the cathedral’s shadow, making her way back to
  the women. One carried medals tight in her hand. War widows.
  ‘Excuse me,’ Anji said, ‘I was wondering if you knew what that woman
  was talking about?’
  They exchanged glances, one checking over her shoulder. ‘Conspiracy
  theory,’ she said, ‘that’s all.’
  ‘I’d like to know,’ Anji replied.
  Another cluster of glances. But, Anji noted, both times the ﬁrst look had
  been between two of the women, who then turned to the third member of
  the group. It was this third one, a short blonde, who was just opening her
  37
  
  mouth when the woman holding the medals said, ‘I’m sorry, but we can’t
  help you.’
  Anji was waiting for the subway when there was a tap on her shoulder. The
  blonde widow.
  ‘Hi,’ Anji said.
  The blonde glanced around. ‘They mean well. Everyone’s lost some-
  one and. . . ’ She paused. ‘Nothing was ever conﬁrmed, but some of the
  relatives, the ones in the military, we heard stories.’
  ‘What stories?’ Anji asked.
  The subway train rolled into the station, the crowd jostling along the
  platform as the doors opened.
  ‘Ofﬁcially, the Station was lost without a trace. No wreckage, nothing.
  Like space opened up and swallowed it whole.’
  ‘I know,’ Anji said.
  The train doors closed and it pulled out.
  The woman looked down the tunnel. ‘The stories say that’s not quite
  the whole truth.’
  Anji felt a chill. ‘They found someone.’
  ‘No one alive,’ the woman said. ‘They found an escape capsule and a
  body, badly burnt.’
  ‘Did they identify it?’
  ‘DNA only.’ She laughed, bitter. ‘A janitor.’ A pause, then a shake of the
  head. ‘That’s the story anyway.’
  ‘You don’t believe it,’ Anji said.
  Something was building inside the woman. Her hands started to trem-
  ble, her voice breaking. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. I just. . .
  All those
  people, all those people they were so well trained. My husband was a vet-
  eran, he was with the Icarus when it lost power out past the rim, but he
  made it home, they all made it home and –’
  She stopped, suddenly glaring at Anji.
  ‘A janitor,’ she spat. ‘My husband was a colonel, decorated ﬁve times
  over and a janitor got out and he didn’t.’ And she turned away, into the
  crowd.
  The noise of the next train made the woman’s last words inaudible,
  caught by wind roaring down the tunnel. Anji didn’t need to hear them.
  It’s just a story, the woman said. Just a story.
  When Anji got back to the apartment Michael was in the kitchen, pasta
  just coming to the boil. She pressed up behind him, wrapped her arms
  around his waist, her head against his shoulder.
  ‘You OK?’ he asked.
  38
  
  ‘You were right,’ Anji said. ‘It was good to go.’
  He turned around, taking her face in his hands, gently kissing her fore-
  head. ‘Dinner’s in twenty minutes. If you want a shower, now is the time.’
  Anji went on tiptoes to kiss him properly. They held each other for a
  minute, then she slipped from his grasp. ‘Thank you,’ she said. He smiled
  and turned back to the stove.
  Anji padded into the bathroom, quickly undressing and stepping into
  the shower cubicle. A year ago she’d never have expected to be here. Not
  just on Mars, but with another man. Back on Earth she’d had a ﬁanc´e. But
  Dave had died soon after she’d met the Doctor, the ﬁrst severed tie to her
  old life.
  Mars had helped with that grief, she thought. If she’d got back to Earth
  there would have been reminders everywhere. Not here. As she towelled
  herself off in the bedroom, Anji could hear the clink of dishes and cutlery as
  Michael set the table. She turned the TV on, checking the network news: a
  science piece about a comet passing through the Jovian system. The orange
  and red of Jupiter ﬁlled the screen.
  It’s just a story.
  39
  
  JUPITER SPACE
  Now
  Anji wakes disoriented.
  The last thing she remembers is the airlock and this isn’t it. The Pro-
  fessional had stripped Anji of her gun, sealed her inside, and – for good
  measure – taken away her helmet to prevent escape across the hull. She
  had banged on the door for a minute, examined the airlock for any other
  exit, then sat down and waited.
  Now she is here.
  ‘Here’ is a cage. Although the light is dim, she can make out more cages
  all around her. Her spacesuit is gone, leaving her in cotton underwear. It’s
  not cold, but there’s a chill on her skin. Something about this place just
  feels wrong.
  As her eyes adjust she begins to make out her surroundings. The cages
  are about six-foot square.
  While the crisscross of crudely welded bars
  makes it difﬁcult to see far, the noise tells her she’s not alone: whimpering,
  laboured breathing, creaking metal, a faint scratching. Underlying all that,
  exterior bulkheads groaning under pressure.
  Wherever Anji is, she’s still on the Station.
  The smell of stale urine and faeces ﬁlls the air. An animal hand snaps
  through the bars on her left, grabbing her hair. She screams, throws her
  body weight against the creature, trapping it against the bars. There’s a
  howl and the hand releases her. Anji backs away to the rear of her cell,
  making sure nothing reaches up from below to trip her. Her stomach churns
  with the sick feeling this place gives her. She steadies herself against the
  wall, making an effort to control herself. There’s a cold sweat on her brow.
  And then, just as she thinks she is about to panic, the wall in front of
  the cages cracks open. Once upon a time it was probably automated. Now
  the motors are abandoned and, as the door is hauled back on twisted rails,
  the animals howl and throw themselves against the bars drowning out the
  screech of metal.
  40
  
  The air that comes through the door is stale and old, but it helps clear
  some of the smell. That alone is enough to calm Anji as the woman steps
  into the room.
  ‘Hello?’ Anji calls nervously.
  The woman ignores her. She drags a gantry across the ﬂoor until it’s
  positioned in front of Anji’s cage, then starts to climb. All sight is lost as a
  ﬂashlight shines straight into Anji’s eyes. The animals begin to howl again.
  ‘Please,’ Anji says, ‘I don’t know where I am.’
  The woman’s hand slams against the front of the cage. ‘Shut up. One
  wrong move and I swear I’ll –’
  ‘I don’t understand what –’
  ‘Shut up!’ the woman barks.
  ‘That’s enough.’ A male voice now, coming from the doorway. ‘She’s not
  wounded and we need answers.’
  There’s something about the stress he places on the word wounded. Not
  an adjective, but a noun. She’s not Wounded and we need answers.
  ‘We don’t know anything about her,’ the woman snaps.
  ‘Which is why we need to ask.’
  A moment’s silence, then the ﬂashlight clicks off. Anji blinks her eyes
  clear, sees the woman shouldering past the man on her way out. The man
  watches her go, then turns on an overhead light. As he begins climbing the
  gantry Anji gets some sense of her surroundings.
  The ﬁrst thing she sees is what’s in the cage to her left. Anji had thought
  it was an animal. She was wrong.
  It’s another woman: naked, nursing a gash where Anji smashed her
  arm against the bars. This prisoner is startled by the light and whimpers,
  scrambling towards a dark corner. The room is ﬁlled with similar noises,
  the metal bars rattling with movement.
  ‘What is this place?’ Anji whispers.
  As the man draws back the bolt holding her cage shut, she gets her ﬁrst
  real look at his face.
  It should be a boy’s. The curly hair belongs to the Renaissance, but light
  catches the grey running through it. The eyes are shadowed and heavy, the
  mouth expressionless. Someone tired of living.
  The door swings open and he extends a hand. ‘You’re not Wounded,
  you’re free to go.’
  Anji blinks. ‘What’s going on? What is this place?’
  ‘Quarantine. Or prison. Take your pick.’ He holds his hands up, showing
  he means no harm. ‘A patrol found you. In one of the airlocks.’
  Anji shakes her head. ‘I don’t remember any patrol.’
  41
  
  ‘They vented some oxygen; put you to sleep before opening the door.’
  The man shrugs. ‘They weren’t sure what you were.’
  ‘Weren’t sure –?’ Anji stammers. ‘I’m human, for Christ’s sake!’
  The man smiles then. A long, sad smile, and says, ‘Yes. Yes, you are. I’m
  Joshua Easter.’ He pauses. ‘There are others.’
  Neither of them moves. The cages creak around them.
  ‘You’re free to leave.’ Easter begins to retreat down the steps. ‘I’m as-
  suming you do want to leave.’
  The darkness, the cramped space and the stale smell ﬂash in Anji’s mind.
  ‘Yes,’ she whispers. ‘Please, get me out of here.’
  Rummaging through a locker near the door, Easter ﬁnds Anji some clothes.
  ‘Can’t I have my suit back?’ Anji asks. ‘The spacesuit?’
  ‘Maybe later,’ Easter says. He hands her trousers and an old T-shirt, both
  torn and grubby. He nods at the cages behind them. ‘In the end they just
  tear them off and. . . ’ He pauses, shrugs again. ‘It doesn’t leave them much
  dignity, but it’s a waste of resources.’
  Twelve cells to a row and ten rows that she can see. Most occupants in-
  visible, keeping to the shadows. But Anji’s seen enough to know a majority
  of those cells are occupied.
  The past couple of years have seen Anji do the occasional piece of off-
  world reporting. Everyone tells her space travel is getting better; it’s not
  as utilitarian as it was, but the departure points on the Mars Orbital still
  aren’t the ﬁrst-class lounge at Heathrow. Now that she’s free and has some
  perspective, Anji can recognise her place of captivity for what it is. A cargo
  bay that’s been ripped apart and put back together in hellish fashion: row
  upon row of cages fashioned from cargo pallets and scrap metal, occupants
  huddling in fear. Like news reports on battery farming.
  Anji gets dressed, but there must be a look on her face because Easter
  says, ‘They’re Wounded. It’s the best we can do.’ There’s real strain in his
  voice, and when he ushers Anji out of the cargo bay she sees how his hand
  trembles.
  As Easter pulls the door closed behind them, Anji looks at the sight
  beyond. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispers.
  It used to be a docking bay, Anji can still see that, but it hasn’t fulﬁlled
  that purpose for a very long time. Bare bulbs hang from cables strung
  across the space. The skeletons of shuttlecraft line the far wall, each one
  ﬂayed open to form a ramshackle habitat. A patchwork water tower weeps
  in one corner. Towards the rear of the bay four tents have been erected as
  greenhouses, their plastic hides damp with condensation, interiors glow-
  ing with ultraviolet light. Elsewhere the hard, electric light is replaced by
  42
  
  the dull warmth of ﬂames; near by, sparks ﬂy as metal connects with a
  grindstone. And everywhere are the people. The tired, haunted look on
  Easter’s face repeated over and over as they pass back and forth. Repair-
  ing the habitats, ﬁring generators, hammering metal, carrying sacks, lifting
  buckets.
  ‘Oh, God,’ Anji repeats. ‘What happened here?’
  Easter looks at her, his tone as expressionless as his face as he explains:
  ‘We survived.’
  The Professional moves through the Station. The corridors are dark, illu-
  minated only by the ﬂash of distant electrics.
  After leaving Kapoor, the Professional accessed the main Station sys-
  tems. The central computer registered as undamaged and online, but it was
  impossible to access. Many systems have overloaded; carbon scorches scar
  the walls. His suit’s diagnostics suggest an unhealthy percentage of the Sta-
  tion’s engineering resources are shut down, all available power redirected
  to positioning thrusters. Jupiter is a hostile environment and the Station’s
  continued existence suggests someone must have survived the initial dis-
  aster. By virtue of ripping half its systems apart and adapting most of the
  rest, that someone has done just enough to stop it sinking any further into
  the planet’s grasp.
  The ﬂares that roll down the corridors are, the Professional surmises,
  the result of overloads from this continual struggle to maintain position.
  Whatever their cause, the bursts are not enough to really see by.
  Every hundredth of a second the Professional’s suit runs a sensor sweep
  across the EM spectrum, projecting the results on to the helmet interior
  and showing him far more than his eyes could ever hope to see. This sensor
  sweep also ﬁlters the noise around him, screening out the Station’s pressure
  aches and the gouts of steam and the groan of ill-repaired hydraulics.
  And, as the Professional moves onwards, in sweeping clean all this au-
  ral debris his suit leaves one sound that he hears over all others: careful
  footsteps, shadowing his every movement.
  ‘I don’t believe you.’
  It’s the woman who confronted Anji in quarantine. Her name is Caroline
  Arquette and something about her has put Anji on edge. It’s taken a few
  minutes, but Anji’s ﬁgured it out: it’s the way Arquette moves.
  She isn’t any better fed than the rest of the survivors. Her body has
  the same hallmarks of borderline malnutrition; dark shadows on sallow
  skin speak of the same lack of sleep, and four years without sunlight. But
  whereas the others are tired and worn down, Arquette isn’t.
  There’s a
  43
  
  hardness beneath the surface. Running through that body, powering its
  exertions, is an energy that Anji is only just recognising: blind, unrelenting
  hate.
  ‘She’s a spy,’ Arquette barks, a statement she’s made several times in the
  past few minutes.
  Easter has brought Anji into the de facto headquarters of the survivors’
  camp. A circle of crates for chairs, around a pair of jury-rigged computer
  terminals that feed through an access hatch into the systems beneath the
  docking bay.
  While some survivors carry on with their daily routine, others have
  come to this spot, looking at Anji with shock and suspicion. One – a thin
  man with patchy red hair – had moved in close when she left the Wounded,
  whispered, ‘Have you come for me?’, his eyes desperate.
  Easter had drawn her away and to this place. At his prompting, Anji has
  been trying to explain who she is and how she came to be here. At every
  opportunity, Arquette has called Anji a liar.
  ‘It’s preposterous,’ Arquette says.
  ‘Why?’
  It’s another one of the survivors.
  A thin man introduced as
  Gould.
  ‘Four years,’ Arquette snaps. ‘And the only person who comes to ﬁnd us
  is a reporter? No evac ships, no medical aid, no weapons, no support. Just
  a reporter.’
  Anji shakes her head. ‘That isn’t what I –’
  Arquette delivers a backhanded blow that snaps Anji’s head around,
  leaves her sprawled on the ﬂoor.
  Anji tries to pick herself up, but Ar-
  quette’s hand is at her throat. Anji doesn’t see what happens next, but
  there’s shouting, Easter’s voice in among the cacophony, then the pressure
  on her windpipe vanishes.
  Coughing, Anji gets pulled to her feet. Arquette is being kept at bay by
  two of the survivors, her eyes locked on Anji.
  ‘Enough!’ Easter shouts. ‘That’s enough!’
  ‘If Earth Forces could drop on to the Station like that, don’t you think
  they’d have done it before now?’ Arquette spits. ‘If she got through the
  blockade, then she must have been allowed through. She’s working for
  them.’
  Anji is about to protest her innocence again, but she is given a more
  immediate cause for concern.
  ‘We’ll ﬁnd out,’ another survivor says. ‘Once we’ve caught her friend,
  anyways.’
  ‘Oh, no,’ Anji says.
  Arquette turns, scenting vindication. ‘Worried we’re on to you?’
  44
  
  ‘You’re tracking him,’ Anji says. ‘You’ve got men out tracking him?’
  ‘They’re going to do more than track him.’
  Anji looks at Easter. ‘Call them off.’
  Easter frowns. Wondering if Arquette was right, Anji thinks.
  ‘He’ll kill them,’ Anji says. ‘That’s not a bloody amateur, that’s a Profes-
  sional out there, and if you don’t call off your men he’s going to kill them
  all.’
  Arquette snorts. ‘What the hell is a Professional when it’s –’
  But she’s cut off by a burst of sound from one of the computer terminals.
  Static and screams, cut through by distorted explosions and gunﬁre. A
  voice deep and desperate.
  ‘– trap. Sonofabitch had laser mines. Easter, do you hear? We’re trapped
  on the secondary drag. We need help, we –’
  Arquette looks at the computer screen: the voiceprint is rising and
  falling. ‘Robbie?’ she whispers.
  ‘Give me my suit,’ Anji says.
  Arquette reaches for a knife at her side. ‘You shut up.’
  Anji ignores her, looks at Easter. ‘If you want to save them, give me my
  suit and give it to me now.’
  The Vickers Class III Pulse Mine is less than three centimetres in diameter,
  attachable to any surface and remote-activated. The thirty miniature laser
  emitters that coat its surface deliver quarter-second bursts in a random
  sequence. Unlikely to score an immediate kill, the mine incapacitates with-
  out being so indiscriminate as to punch through a vital bulkhead. Standard
  issue for a close-quarters ambush in a conﬁned space.
  Most of the Professional’s pursuers have fallen back.
  One of the smarter ones has deployed some kind of smoke bomb to
  cover their retreat. It only makes the Professional’s job easier. The head-
  up display cuts through the smoke, which is only masking his advance up
  the corridor. He takes aim at one of the hostiles – prone, clutching his
  leg, oblivious.
  Then one of the periodic overloads explodes behind the
  Professional, offering up his shadow amidst the smoke. The hostile sees
  him, raises a weapon and the Professional squeezes off a single round. A
  clean hit in the centre of the hostile’s chest.
  As he turns to the next target, feedback screams in the Professional’s
  helmet. Then Kapoor’s voice: ‘– human. Can you hear me? They’re the
  Station personnel. You’re killing the –’
  The Professional cuts the signal, switches the laser mine to protective
  ﬁre mode, turns back to the hostile. A young man, mid-twenties, oriental.
  45
  
  Neither clothing nor armaments are Earth Forces’ issue, placing the hos-
  tile ﬁrmly within the rules of engagement. The Professional runs his AI’s
  scanner over the man’s face. A name blinks among the 228: David Verger,
  electrical engineer.
  The Professional activates his suit’s external speakers: ‘Cease ﬁring.
  This is your one chance. Lower your weapons and no one else dies.’
  Robertson saw a face once and it will haunt him for the rest of his days.
  He only saw it once, for less than a moment, but he will never be able to
  forget.
  The stranger hasn’t said much since they ceased ﬁring. Some of the
  others – Fletcher and Alonso most of all – wanted to carry on the ﬁght; you
  could see it in their eyes. But Robertson gives the orders and when he told
  them, they shouldered their weapons. When word came through from the
  Village, it was simple: return home, bring the stranger with you.
  By the time they reach the barricades sweat is soaking the back of
  Robertson’s shirt. In theory, he’s one of the lucky ones: covering the rear
  when the laser mine erupted, quick enough to ﬁnd cover, not taking a sin-
  gle hit. A couple of others were that lucky, though most have a burn on the
  face or a hole in an arm or something. The only serious casualty is the one
  weighing across Robertson’s shoulders.
  Robertson was one of the lucky ones, but Caroline is going to kill him
  if she sees him like this.
  The survivors don’t have much in the way of
  body armour – crude pads hammered from the research shuttles’ protective
  plates – and Robertson has stripped his off in order to carry David. Worse,
  he’s had to hand his weapon to someone else.
  He remembers a time before the Fall and other men like the stranger.
  Dangerous men. You could drink and laugh together, could gamble and
  cheer, but you always knew just how dangerous they were. It was the way
  they walked, the way they sat, the way they watched. An awareness of
  their surroundings; observation; anticipation.
  McCray was like that.
  The stranger has the same look. Silent as they move through the Vil-
  lage’s barricades. Not asking questions but observing: electriﬁed barriers
  of twisted metal, the uneven grind of automated gunpoints. His head con-
  stantly on the move as his body takes long, smooth steps.
  Dangerous.
  Past the ﬁnal barrier and there’s a hum as the power is switched back
  on. The stranger pauses at that, raises a hand over one of the metal shapes,
  doesn’t ﬂinch as electricity that keeps the enemy out arcs against his ﬁngers.
  He nods and they walk on.
  46
  
  Weir and Carvacchio are on sentry duty. They know what’s happened,
  are looking for the stranger as Robertson and the others pass by. Archer
  is watching, eyes ﬁxed on the stranger; he looks terriﬁed. He shouts the
  refrain he’s been shouting for years –‘It wasn’t me!’ – then withdraws.
  Easter is waiting, counting them in. His face falls as he sees Robertson’s
  cargo and points to a cot-bed set near the Meridian’s computers. With a
  ﬁnal groan, Robertson sinks to his knees and rolls David from his shoulders
  on to the bed. Easter gets to work, tearing David’s shirt open.
  ‘What happened?’
  Robertson nods back across the compound. Framed by Weir and Car-
  vacchio, the stranger is looking up at the main entrance to the docking bay,
  studying the makeshift sign that reads GREENWICH VILLAGE.
  ‘He happened,’ Robertson explains. ‘One shot, close range.’
  ‘You!’ Easter shouts. ‘What are you carrying?’
  The stranger walks towards them, studying their surroundings.
  ‘What did you shoot him with?’ Easter demands.
  ‘Grade-seven plasma riﬂe.’ The stranger nods at David. ‘He moved at
  the last second. The spinal column is severed, but I missed the heart.’
  Easter shakes his head, begins plugging David’s wound. ‘I’m supposed
  to be grateful it isn’t worse, am I?’
  ‘I need to speak to your commanding ofﬁcer.’
  Easter pulls a patch of cloth from his pocket, slapping it down for the
  Professional to see. The stripes they took from Captain Stokes’ uniform.
  ‘I’m the commanding ofﬁcer,’ Easter says. ‘And you’ll have to wait until
  this man is either stable or dead.’
  Robertson is watching this exchange from the ﬂoor. As Easter works
  on David, packing the hole with swabs, the stranger continues to study
  the Village. People aren’t approaching, just shooting nervous glances as
  they pass by. They know what the stranger has done; they don’t want to
  attract his attention. Robertson realises they’re also looking curiously at
  him. Fingering his T-shirt he ﬁnds it slick with David’s blood.
  Today was too close.
  Without a word to Easter or the stranger, Robertson gets to his feet and
  walks away. The other members of the patrol are scattered near by, but
  he shrugs them off, heading for the showers beneath the water tank. The
  water is never hot or cold, always the same lukewarm temperature as the
  docking bay. The dim light is not enough to disguise the red pooling at his
  feet. The shower still feels good, though.
  ‘Robbie.’
  He turns, blinks the water clear. Caroline is there, fully dressed, stand-
  ing on the edge of the grate that marks the shower area. The drainage
  47
  
  pump is out, water laps at her boots. Her voice is tight.
  ‘Are you. . . ?’
  ‘Not a scratch,’ he whispers.
  ‘What happened?’
  ‘There was an alarm from one of the airlocks. We checked it out, found
  the woman. Howerd and Bluth brought her back here. We followed him
  and. . . ’ He stops, whispers. ‘It was too close.’
  He looks at Caroline, but her eyes are in shadow. Robertson turns his
  face back into the falling water. When he brings it out again, she has gone.
  By the time Robertson has found himself fresh clothes, curiosity has over-
  come suspicion and a small crowd has gathered at the Meridian.
  Caroline is there, casting hard looks at the stranger and the woman.
  Robertson tries to squeeze her hand, but her ﬁngers keep slipping free to
  brush the handle of the knife strapped against her thigh.
  David is still on the cot, its fabric soaked black with blood. There’s an
  ugly bandage on the chest wound and Easter is programming one of the
  terminals to regulate pain control. He says, ‘He’s stable now.’
  Robertson reads the look on Easter’s face. What he means is David’s just
  going to take longer dying.
  Caroline’s hand slips free of his again and Robertson’s ﬁngers clench
  into a ﬁst. He glares at the stranger: ‘You’re Earth Forces?’
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘This is what we do in wartime now? We kill our own?’
  ‘You were tracking me, without recognisable uniform or equipment.
  That made your –’
  ‘Shut up,’ Caroline says.
  Robertson blinks.
  There’s a tension across her shoulders, the hand
  ﬁrmly closed on the knife now.
  ‘I want to know what’s going on,’ she says.
  ‘That makes a refreshing change.’ It’s the woman they found, speaking
  for the ﬁrst time.
  ‘You’re nobody,’ Caroline says. ‘Stuck in an airlock, no weapon, un-
  trained. You’re not a soldier, we can’t use you.’
  ‘All right,’ Easter says, trying to impose himself on the group. ‘If every-
  one ﬁnds themselves a seat, then we can start hearing explanations.’
  There’s a pause, then – to Robertson’s surprise – Caroline breaks ﬁrst,
  pulling up a crate. Within moments, everyone except the stranger has fol-
  lowed suit. Easter looks like he’s about to ask the man to sit down, but
  changes his mind.
  48
  
  Easter nods at the woman. ‘Miss Kapoor, I think we’ve got the basic
  of how you’re here.’ Robertson frowns: there’s something in his memory,
  something about that name. ‘I’d like to know the why.’
  ‘Fitz.’ Robertson whispers the name, but somehow everyone hears it.
  And the woman, Kapoor, turns to him, her eyes shining. ‘The accountant,’
  Robertson continues, ‘the scruffy one. He said he was here for a friend. Her
  name was Kapoor.’
  ‘Anji,’ the woman says. She extends a hand. Robertson blinks at it. The
  gesture belongs to another life. He reaches out and grips her hand.
  ‘I’m Robertson.’
  ‘Fitz and the Doctor were here,’ Anji says. ‘You saw them?’
  It should be a simple question, but it’s been four years. If they were any
  other names Robertson might not remember. But Fitz and the Doctor have
  come up in conversation more than once over the years; always in relation
  to the Fall.
  Robertson picks his words carefully. ‘I got to know Fitz a little. Nice guy.
  Your other friend, the Doctor?’ Anji nods. ‘I don’t remember him much.
  Only spoke to him the one time, I think.’ He pauses, ‘They were stuck in a
  holding cell.’
  Anji smiles. ‘That sounds like them.’ There’s a pause and they can all
  see the hope in that smile on Anji’s face.
  The stranger looks at Easter. ‘She came for her friends. She has no
  authority here.’
  ‘And you do?’ Weir calls out.
  The stranger ﬁnds him in the crowd, says, ‘I’m a Professional.’
  ‘What’s your name?’ Easter asks.
  ‘He doesn’t have a name,’ Anji says. ‘None of them does.’ A pause. ‘He’s
  Earth Forces Special Ops.’ She laughs. ‘He’s here to rescue you.’
  ‘One man?’ Robertson says. ‘Four years down here and they send one
  man?’
  ‘There are casualties, aren’t there?’ It’s Caroline, speaking for the ﬁrst
  time since they sat down. She nods her head upwards, towards unseen
  stars, ‘We’re in trouble, aren’t we? We’re losing the war.’
  A sudden quiet descends on the group.
  Anji opens her mouth, but the Professional speaks over her: ‘What do
  you know about the war?’
  ‘Only what we’ve been able to ﬁgure out,’ Caroline answers. ‘We were
  attacked, the Station fell, we were boarded. We’ve been trying to keep the
  enemy at bay, but. . . ’ She shrugs. ‘Look around. There’s only so much we
  can do.’
  Other voices cut in. ‘We ﬁgured there must be a blockade,’ Bluth calls.
  49
  
  ‘This station was a valuable resource.’ A woman’s voice, Lin.
  ‘That’s right.’ Alonso now. ‘Earth wouldn’t let it fall into enemy hands
  without a ﬁght.’
  And then more voices, talking over each other, demanding answers.
  Like on so many occasions, Robertson can see Easter lose control of the
  meeting. Easter gets to his feet to try and calm everyone down, but it only
  prompts others to stand in turn.
  In the end, it’s the Professional who restores order. ‘There was a block-
  ade,’ he says. And in a moment the silence returns. ‘A rescue mission was
  impossible.’
  ‘Until now,’ Caroline answers. ‘And if they sent you to run the blockade,
  then they must have needed something from this station. They must be
  desperate.’
  It’s Robertson who voices the question she’s skirting around: ‘We’re los-
  ing, aren’t we?’
  Anji looks at the Professional. Both stay silent.
  ‘Tell us,’ Robertson says. ‘It can’t be worse than this.’
  ‘I need to know what happened on this station,’ the Professional replies.
  ‘Start with the ﬁrst attack and take it from there.’
  The Professional watches. The schism in the group is clear to see. Whether
  by accident or design, this place – with its computer access and medical
  supplies – has become the default meeting point for the makeshift com-
  pound. Circular in shape, it should be an inclusive space. But when Easter
  sat down, he positioned himself directly opposite Arquette, leaving every-
  one else caught between them.
  Kapoor caught the look he gave her when they began talking about a
  war and she’s stayed silent ever since.
  There are facts to be gained here that will only be uncovered if events
  run their course. But these people’s tensions are barely held beneath the
  surface, every one of them carries ticks and nervous mannerisms. Easter
  is in charge: a doctor, young, comparatively low-ranking among the 228,
  always pulling at those stripes in his pocket.
  The Professional looks at the small blonde-haired woman, sitting taut
  opposite Easter.
  Her hand resting on the knife she carries.
  The considered way Robertson reacts around her suggests a relationship
  between them; an undercurrent of need and respect absent in their peers.
  But even here there’s tension. Need, respect, but uncertainty too.
  Others contribute, random voices interrupting, but – for the most part –
  50
  
  they let Easter do the talking.
  – The alert sounded. It was that simple.
  There’d been an accident and I was running triage. It’s what saved me. The
  Defcon had been rising for a few days. None of us had access to any intelligence
  reports, but the stuff on the civilian channels was worrying enough. So when
  the alarm sounded. . . It wasn’t a shock. Everyone had been waiting for it.
  – You’re forgetting the commander.
  – Yes, yes, of course. Commander Valletti was on comms, announcing the
  Defcon alert. But. . .
  She was panicked, afraid. You could hear it in her
  voice. Then she was cut off. Atmospheric control was lost and people started
  screaming. It was the air pressure.
  – The enemy hacked the environmental system. They were trying to kill us
  before we could defend ourselves. Kill the personnel, leave the Station intact.
  – We never found out what stopped them. The best guess is that someone in
  the central hub was able to interfere, to stop the worst of it. The atmospheric
  pressure had ramped up in a couple of seconds. Enough for nosebleeds and
  burst eardrums. There were conduits blowing out and hydraulics failing.
  When the pressure dropped people picked themselves up, looking for orders
  that didn’t come. None of the protocols was implemented. There was nothing
  coming out of the central hub.
  – That’s when we found the body.
  – Jason. Four years of this and our only casualty.
  – Until today!
  – David’s not dead yet.
  – No, but he’s going to be.
  – He could still –
  – Jason was killed by the enemy. Robbie and Easter don’t believe that, but
  I do.
  – When the central hub went quiet, Captain Stokes sent a few of us to make
  direct contact. That’s when we found Jason. He was just a cleaner; but. . . We
  found him on one of the main drags, near the bottom of an elevator shaft.
  Burnt like he’d been caught in a plasma ﬁre or something. I mean, really
  burnt. It took a DNA reading to make an identiﬁcation. Except. . .
  – He’d been poisoned.
  – No. We don’t know that. His DNA had been distorted and that’s all we
  know. Medics keep things simple: patch up the wounded, move them on. In
  the event of biological attack, we have orders to exercise containment. The
  Station was falling apart, we couldn’t access the sickbay. . . So we loaded his
  corpse into an escape capsule and jettisoned it.
  Ten minutes after that the defence batteries opened up, then the Station’s
  thrusters ﬁred and our orbit destabilised. We were falling.
  51
  
  Anji has been listening to the words, trying to piece the story together.
  While they’re all talking about how the Station fell, what comes over in the
  voices is the life they’ve lived since.
  The more Anji hears, the more she looks around, the worse it seems to
  get. It’s no surprise that these people look tired. Everything here – from
  the air they breathe to the food they eat – is the result of struggle. It shows
  in their faces; it echoes through their voices.
  Arquette is talking now, addressing the Professional: ‘Six months after
  the Fall, six months of jury-rigging Station systems, then the enemy showed
  themselves. Stokes was the ﬁrst one to be Wounded.’
  ‘The cages,’ Anji explains. ‘He’s in one of the cages.’
  And as bad as Anji had thought their life was, it suddenly gets worse as
  a small voice sounds.
  ‘Don’t let the monsters touch you. It’s the law.’
  It’s a boy, dark-haired with big eyes. No more than three years old,
  his voice rising with a toddler’s disregard for audience and surroundings.
  He’s slipped between the legs of the adults, ﬁnally making it to the front.
  Arquette gives the child a hard look and he runs, the crowd parting before
  him.
  Anji opens her mouth to ask the obvious question, but Easter catches
  her eye, shakes his head.
  ‘When the enemy touch you,’ Easter explains, ‘you’re infected with
  something. Some toxin and it –’
  ‘It drives you insane,’ Anji says. ‘The people in the cages. That’s how
  they were hurt, isn’t it?’
  ‘Wounded,’ Easter nods.
  The Professional interrupts, staring at Arquette: ‘Why jury-rig the con-
  trols?’
  ‘What?’
  ‘ “Six months of jury-rigging the Station systems.” Why not hack the
  central computers? Why locate here rather than the hub?’
  A silence falls over the group, then Easter clears his throat, explains:
  ‘The central hub is off-limits.’
  ‘There’s an energy barrier.’ It’s the big man, Robertson, explaining. ‘A
  force ﬁeld or something. You touch it, it burns. You can’t penetrate more
  than a couple of millimetres.’
  That’s when the pieces fall into place for Anji. ‘The hub,’ she says. ‘That’s
  where the Doctor and Fitz were, isn’t it? When all this happened.’
  Robertson nods. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers.
  The Professional barely registers this information. Like he has no in-
  terest in Anji’s friends at all. ‘I’ll want to see any records. Sensor logs,
  52
  
  telemetry, schematics.’
  ‘We don’t have much,’ Easter replies, ‘and it’ll take a while to gather the
  information.’ He gestures to the terminals. ‘The computers function, but
  they’re not that reliable. Caroline?’
  Arquette shrugs. ‘I can set it running overnight, give you the results in
  the morning.’
  ‘I want it by 06:00,’ the Professional states.
  ‘Is that it?’ Arquette asks. ‘Is that all the explanation we get?’
  The Professional could let it go. But, as he turns to Arquette, Anji re-
  alises this isn’t going to happen.
  ‘I’m the spearhead,’ the Professional says ﬂatly. ‘Sent to judge the via-
  bility of a rescue mission. You answer to my authority now.’
  It’s a deliberate challenge. Since she woke in the cell Anji’s only ever
  seen Arquette pushing against her superiors. It’s not something the Profes-
  sional will have failed to pick up on: it’s not a position he’ll let Arquette
  take with him. Easter is reluctant to face her down; the Professional wants
  to see how far Arquette’s attitude will take her.
  As Anji watches, she can see Arquette’s grip tighten on that knife. She’s
  sure the Professional must see it too, only he gives no hint of what awaits
  the woman if she attacks.
  Then Robertson places a hand on Arquette’s shoulder, making her ﬂinch.
  ‘We’ve work to do,’ he tells her.
  Arquette looks at the Professional, shakes her head. ‘You’ll get your
  report,’ she says. Then she shrugs off Robertson’s touch and stalks away.
  As the meeting breaks up Kapoor looks around, unsure what to do. She
  moves to follow Robertson and Easter, but the Professional takes hold of
  her wrist. Kapoor looks at him. He gives a very subtle shake of his head,
  then walks away.
  The Professional walks through the camp, ignoring the looks from the
  survivors. One of them reaches out to touch him, pilgrim to saviour, but
  the Professional just brushes past. A brief glance backwards reveals Kapoor
  trailing in his wake. Whether it’s her lack of authority or a reaction to his
  own dismissal of them, no one grabs her.
  Approaching the rear of the compound – Greenwich Village according
  to the sign he saw – the Professional passes by the ﬁrst greenhouse tent;
  silhouettes show people working inside. He opens the ﬂap on the second –
  empty – and slips inside, moving down the aisle. The survivors have pieced
  together some hydroponics equipment. The tent has a rich, loamy scent;
  echoes with the slow creak of air in the pipework hanging above. The
  beds hold fruits and some root vegetables. Not much, but enough to help
  53
  
  supplement their rations. Four tents, the Professional thinks, suggesting
  conditions are staggered across the seasons to ensure a constant harvest.
  When he reaches the middle of the tent he stops and waits for Kapoor
  to catch up. As she approaches he turns a stiff and rusted tap. The pipes
  cough, then shower heads come to life and rain begins to fall. The rat-
  tling pipework and the hiss and patter of water should render conversation
  inaudible to anyone outside the tent’s walls.
  The sprinkler isn’t that sophisticated and the aisle where they are stand-
  ing offers no protection. Kapoor shivers as the water strikes her, soaking
  the dirty clothes she is in, slicking her hair.
  ‘Don’t make friends,’ the Professional says.
  ‘What?’ Kapoor replies.
  ‘You were going to sit down with Easter and Robertson. You were going
  to help them, to speak to them, to forge a connection with them. I have
  one instruction for you. Don’t.’
  A few minutes later, Anji steps from the tent, T-shirt and trousers sopping
  wet. She sees a pressure vent set into one of the docking-bay walls. Slipping
  behind the remaining tents, keeping out of sight, Anji makes her way over
  to it. The vent blows stale and pungent air, but it’s hot and as Anji leans
  against it she can feel her clothes tighten against her skin.
  As she waits, she watches.
  Don’t get close. Because you know what I know. You know about the past
  four years. There’s no war. There’s no enemy.
  She sees Easter at a computer terminal, tugging at his hair as he works.
  Robertson sits near by, next to the camp bed holding the man the Profes-
  sional shot. Robertson’s head is sunk into his hands. His shoulders should
  be heaving with tears, Anji thinks, but he doesn’t move.
  They’ve been ﬁghting a rearguard action against alien intruders for almost
  four years, but there are no fatalities, no evidence of sustained ﬁghting.
  Anji thinks about the red-headed man whispering, ‘Have you come for
  me?’ He’d screamed at the Professional when he walked in. She ﬁnds him
  now, tucked down by a habitat, checking something beneath it, his head
  twitching, trying to make sure no one’s watching him.
  Their story makes no sense.
  The boy ﬂashes across the periphery of her vision, screaming at adults
  who jump at the sound. In the distance she can see Arquette standing under
  one of the showers. Stripped of her clothes and her attitude, a marionette
  with its strings cut. Her head bobs up and down, gasping for breath to clear
  the tears from her throat. She still holds the knife, the blade brushing back
  and forth against her bare thigh.
  54
  
  Look around you, look at these people and the life they’re living. What
  would this life do to you if you had to live it for four years?
  And Anji looks across the compound to where the door to the cargo bay
  is ﬁrmly shut. There’s a noise that undercuts all the other activity. The
  brain ﬁlters the sound out most of the time, but it’s there. Anji has heard it
  every minute since she woke in this place.
  It would leave you mad.
  A low keening, occasionally punctuated by a wordless shout of anger
  and frustration.
  Just like it’s left all of them.
  The song of the Wounded.
  55
  
  Four years earlier
  Accounts, the Doctor decided, were amazing things.
  He’d hoped he would be able to manipulate his security clearance
  enough to gain access to anything on ﬁle. Unfortunately, the Station’s se-
  curity systems were tighter than he’d thought. He could access biographies
  for the civilians on board, but records for all the military – including the
  troopers he’d followed here – remained sealed behind ﬁrewalls.
  Which meant he’d have to do things the hard way. Investigation. Means,
  motive and opportunity.
  And for that, he needed leads. Which was where accountancy came in.
  On Earth he’d hardly ever seen accounts viewed in anything but a neg-
  ative light: grim tales of tax returns, missed deadlines, penalties, confusion
  and boredom. But that was only half the story. If you divorced the trail of
  money from capitalist philosophy, then the numbers offered a fascinating
  viewpoint all of their own. Page after page of accounts was a dull sight,
  true, but it was the translation of those ﬁgures that gave insight. Like time-
  lapse photography, each line was a still moment transformed as part of a
  bigger picture. You could, he thought, trace the activity of a whole city just
  by looking at its accounts. A city or even a space station.
  So when a skeletal man entered his ofﬁce without knocking, the Doctor
  already had a good idea who he was.
  ‘Professor Deschamps?’
  The man frowned, then pulled himself up straight. ‘You were expecting
  me, of course.’
  The Doctor tapped his desk screen. ‘Real-time ﬁnance. You blew out a
  quantum generator this morning and want to requisition another.’
  ‘No, no,’ Deschamps said. ‘I have requisitioned another. Bad enough
  we’re days away from the nearest supply centre, now Valletti tells me I
  need your signature for the order to be processed.’
  The Doctor looked at him. Deschamps was keeping his tone civil, but
  there was something about how his eyes darted around the room, the way
  he kept his hands wedged in his pockets. An energy just below the surface,
  56
  
  straining to get out. Dedication to his work, maybe.
  The Doctor smiled and decided to give Deschamps a push. Just to see.
  ‘Standard procedure. With an audit in progress, all spending needs to be
  approved by this ofﬁce.’
  One hand snapped from the trouser pocket, clenched tight. ‘Just sign
  the damn order, will you?’
  ‘It would help if I knew what you needed it for.’
  The tension was starting to show in Deschamps voice. ‘You wouldn’t
  understand. Sign the order.’
  ‘I really would like –’
  Deschamps’ body was tightening, his shoulders squaring. ‘Every mo-
  ment you keep me here is a moment you are taking away from my work.’
  The Doctor made a show of consulting his records. ‘Deschamps? It’s the
  singularity bomb, isn’t it?’
  ‘Yes, it’s the singularity bomb! Do you treat all the staff here like this, or
  are you just making an exception for me?’
  ‘I don’t –’
  ‘It’s Mukabi, isn’t it? What’s he been saying? Dripping poison in your
  ear, is that it?’
  ‘I haven’t –’
  The clenched hand slammed down on the desk. ‘Sign the order!’
  There was a pause, then the Doctor hit a control and smiled. ‘Done.’
  Deschamps snapped round, pushing past Fitz on his way out of the
  door. Fitz looked after Deschamps for a moment, then turned to the Doctor.
  ‘Satisﬁed customer?’
  ‘I think we both got what we wanted.’
  ‘Which was?’
  ‘A quantum generator for him; insight for me. That was a very angry
  man.’
  ‘I could tell.’
  ‘Struggling to keep his anger under control.’
  ‘I’d never have guessed,’ Fitz said, slumping back in a chair. The Doctor
  looked at his companion. Fitz had been gone a couple of hours now, and
  had returned red in the face, jacket over his shoulder, sweat on his brow.
  There was an oily stain on his shirt.
  ‘That’s no way to treat designer fashions,’ the Doctor said.
  ‘I was working,’ Fitz said. ‘Lending a hand in the cargo bay.’
  ‘Useful?’
  ‘Among other things, I think I’ve solved your initiative test.’
  ‘Really?’ the Doctor said. ‘What exactly did you learn in the cargo bay?’
  57
  
  ‘What that occupation Valletti mentioned was, that the atmosphere on
  Mars used to be breathable,’ Fitz said. ‘A couple of decades ago there was
  some sort of invasion.
  Earth was under alien control, with alien ships
  blockading Mars. These aliens tried to land on Mars, but got their arses
  handed to them by some sort of biological weapon. They got their own
  back; released a virus from orbit that ate through all the oxygen.’ Fitz
  paused. ‘It’s taken them years to reverse the damage.’
  The Doctor watched Fitz think things through.
  ‘When I played guitar in the clubs, I had a stage name. I was never Fitz
  Kreiner. Twenty years after VE day and I was still afraid to use my own
  name. Because people still remembered.’ Fitz looked at the Doctor. ‘These
  people are afraid. You don’t forget a war when it’s over and you don’t forget
  being invaded.’
  ‘Go on.’
  Fitz held up his jacket. ‘This is a nice suit, but it reminded me of some-
  thing the moment I saw it.
  Those big square shoulders?
  We look like
  G-men.’
  The Doctor smiled to himself. Fitz had it.
  ‘It’s Reds under the bed, isn’t it?’
  ‘A good analogy,’ the Doctor said. ‘After Pearl Harbor, America woke
  from an isolationist slumber. When they won the war, people looked to the
  next danger. It’s a similar thing here. As you say, people remember.’
  ‘And that’s why you’re trying to keep your head down?’
  ‘The major cultural indicators – the clothing and architecture, even the
  literature – are built around themes of unity and strength. Listen to the
  news reports. The key adjectives are variants on a theme: power, threat,
  strength. There are undercurrents of nerves and paranoia leaching across
  human society, the background noise to everyday activity.’ He shifted in his
  chair. ‘Humanity is preparing for the next war; they’re just waiting to ﬁnd
  the enemy.’ He smiled. ‘And I’d rather it wasn’t me.’
  ‘Fair point. The way McCray and his boys handled themselves, I can’t
  blame you.’
  ‘Why?’ the Doctor frowned. ‘What happened?’
  Fitz explained what he’d seen in the docking bay. As he got to the end,
  the Doctor started playing with his computer terminal. A few seconds later
  a hologram appeared, hovering over the desk. It was a swirl of slowly
  dancing colours, vaguely spherical in shape. Streams of red and blue criss-
  crossed each other, white cubes revolved on their axes, golden spheres
  trailed each other around the exterior.
  58
  
  ‘AuDoc,’ the Doctor smiled.
  Then he pointed to where a tiny black
  droplet was bleeding from one colour stream to be swallowed by another.
  ‘It’s an appropriation from the rescue and salvage funds, made by one
  of the science team.’ He squinted. ‘Dr Sara Mukabi. That must have been
  the woman you saw. Same name as the person Deschamps didn’t want me
  talking to.’ He frowned. ‘Wrong sex, though.’
  Fitz nodded at the hologram. ‘This is all the money ﬂowing in and out
  of the Station?’
  ‘A representation of it, yes.’
  ‘And you know what all these bits are?’ Fitz peered sceptically at the
  mess of coloured shapes. He pointed to one at random, his ﬁngertip sinking
  into a revolving sphere of yellow and black.
  ‘What’s that, then?’
  The Doctor glanced at the sphere. ‘Overtime on systems maintenance.
  The yellow and black indicates above average spending for the last quarter.’
  ‘You’re not making that up, are you?’
  The Doctor handed him a colour key and said, ‘Feel free to check for
  yourself.’
  As the Doctor got back to work Fitz began to play with the hologram,
  zooming in and out. A few minutes later the Doctor turned to him and
  asked, ‘Is there something in particular you’re trying to achieve, Fitz?’
  ‘Robertson said McCray’s mob handle more than just salvage.’ Fitz nod-
  ded at the hologram. ‘There are some shipments the cargo crews are never
  allowed near. But those shipments will still have to be paid for, right?’ He
  shrugged, checked his watch. ‘It’ll wait till tomorrow. Clocking-off time,
  and Robbie owes me a beer.’
  ‘You go,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’
  When Fitz had gone, the Doctor returned his attention to AuDoc.
  The personnel ﬁles of the military on board remained conﬁdential.
  However, while he couldn’t call up those records for the soldiers who’d
  attacked Anji, the ﬁles he did have access to could be useful. A simple
  request delivered the pair’s time sheets, but no real answers.
  The two man had been general workers, rotated around various depart-
  ments – maintenance, shipping, communications – in the Station’s outer
  rings. There was nothing linking them directly to any research projects.
  Which left the Doctor back at square one, looking for leads. Fitz’s mys-
  terious cargo shipments were as good a place to start as any.
  McCray’s men belonged to the 101st Airborne. Calling up their time
  sheets generated a series of black cylinders. Wherever the 101st’s duties
  coincided with other budgetary areas, AuDoc drew red lines to highlight
  59
  
  the links. As the cylinders moved through the graphic the lines hung like
  ghosts behind them, gradually fading as they were absorbed into the bud-
  get. Several sets of lines showed interactions with fuel budgets and pilot
  hours. The ﬁgures suggested short hops; most likely research shuttles mak-
  ing trips into Jupiter’s atmosphere.
  Other connections were made with time sheets for the cargo and han-
  dling ledgers. Connections with inbound ﬂights, the Doctor assumed, most
  likely picking up Fitz’s shipments. But the pick-up wasn’t the problem. It
  was where the cargo was deposited that was difﬁcult. When the 101st de-
  livered the cargo the black cylinders should have extended new lines to a
  new section of the accounts. Instead, when those lines were generated they
  simply faded into a grey haze.
  The Doctor chewed on his thumb.
  The grey area was AuDoc extrapolating. The AI could tell there was a
  funding program there because of the effect it had on the objects around
  it, but it couldn’t deﬁne what that program was because the data was un-
  available.
  For all intents and purposes, the grey haze could have been a red sign
  ﬂashing the words TOP SECRET at him.
  The Doctor asked AuDoc to locate any similar anomalies, cross-
  referencing with other ﬁnancial areas to see if there was any overlap. It
  proved to be a slow process, producing a handful of results. Almost all of
  them saw the grey area intersecting with the names Mukabi, S. or Muk-
  abi, T. , both civilian workers, which meant their records were on ﬁle and
  available.
  Sara and Terrance Mukabi were one of the Station’s few married cou-
  ples. He could see their living allowance, their wages, the money spent
  on their food and their quarters. She was the Station’s psychiatric ther-
  apist, while he was one of the computer-support team. Only their time
  sheets didn’t match their income and outgoings, with no hint as to why
  that would be the case.
  His frustration was only made worse by the fact that AuDoc appeared
  to be slowing down. He’d ring-fenced the AI’s processing needs from the
  Station’s computers, which meant the problem wasn’t with the AI’s thought
  processes, but with the lag time on the Station computers it was interacting
  with.
  The Doctor accessed the comms system. ‘Locate Commander Valletti,
  please.’
  ‘Commander Valletti is currently off-network.’
  He frowned. ‘And when will she be back on network?’
  ‘At 20:00 hours, Recreation Hall A.’
  60
  
  Fitz had dumped his sweaty suit and tie in the laundry, then taken a shower.
  Dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and dog-eared leather jacket, he was now ready
  for the evening. Robertson had said to meet him in the mess hall. The only
  trick, Fitz realised, was ﬁnding the mess hall.
  He’d thought he was getting close: the right level, the right section,
  cigarette smoke and laughter on the air. Only somewhere he’d taken a
  wrong turn, because the corridor he was in was tighter and less well lit
  than the others. Approaching a junction, Fitz opted to make a U-turn; take
  the ﬁrst right, then right again and keep going.
  Rounding the corridor, he bumped into a maintenance man. ‘Sorry,’ Fitz
  said and, as he looked at him, he realised it was the same guy he’d bumped
  into in the cargo bay. Archer, he remembered. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I really am
  sorry.’
  Archer disconnected a lead from the open wall-panel, then tucked the
  computer pad into his pocket. ‘Can I help you?’ he said.
  ‘Mess hall?’ Fitz enquired.
  ‘Back the way you came. When you reach the main drag, take the sec-
  ond right. It’s signposted from there.’
  Fitz turned back. He paused at the corner to offer his thanks, but Archer
  had already reconnected his dataslide and was ﬁtting an earpiece around
  his left ear.
  ‘Never mind,’ Fitz said to himself.
  His reception in the mess hall was friendlier. Robertson clapped an arm
  around him and grinned. ‘You’re late.’
  Her hair was tied back in a crisp ponytail, exposing strong cheekbones
  and the hint of freckles on her skin. Her eyes were shut in concentration,
  her chin tucked against the violin. The black dress was sleeveless, and as
  Valletti worked the bow back and forth the Doctor could see muscles move
  beneath the skin. Her shoulders dipped, her body half-turning as she bent
  into the instrument and the music, back arching with each note, body alive
  with every stroke.
  It was, the Doctor thought, an exceptional performance.
  The other members of the quartet were good, but none of them deliv-
  ered a performance like their commanding ofﬁcer’s.
  As the other instruments sank away, Valletti was motionless save for
  the languid motion of her wrist, drawing out one last, long, mournful note.
  The room was still and then the audience began to applaud. As the clapping
  started Valletti opened her eyes. Almost, the Doctor thought, shocked to
  discover people there.
  61
  
  He rose from his chair, making eye contact with Valletti, the nod of his
  head making it clear this standing ovation was for her. She smiled in return,
  then stepped back into the quartet to take their bow.
  Afterwards the Doctor approached her, taking her hand and bowing to
  plant a kiss on the back of it. ‘Mozart,’ he smiled. ‘Exquisite.’
  ‘You like our quartet?’
  ‘The technical standard is very good,’ he answered, pausing to ﬁnd the
  right words. ‘But some are more committed to the music than others.’
  She laughed. ‘I can’t help it. It’s how I play, how I’ve always played.’
  ‘May I?’ The Doctor nodded at her violin. There was a moment’s pause,
  then she carefully passed it to him. He turned the instrument over in his
  hands, feeling the silky ﬁnish of the wood, carefully pressing a ﬁngertip
  against the tensioned strings. ‘Beautiful workmanship.’ He frowned. ‘Not
  antique, though?’
  Valletti shook her head. ‘My father made it. The last one he ﬁnished
  before the occupation.’ She pointed to a small crest embossed in gold – an
  ornate ‘V’ with Firenze – 2157 beneath it.
  The Doctor smiled.
  ‘It’s a clich´e, but Florence really is one of my
  favourite cities.’ He paused, remembering. ‘It was raining the ﬁrst time
  I went there. Spent the entire day running from one museum to another,
  head under an umbrella. It wasn’t until the following morning that I could
  look up. It’s amazing how much the Duomo dominates the skyline, how I
  could have nearly missed it.’
  ‘My father has a shop on the Ponte Vecchio, sandwiched between two
  jewellers.’ Valletti smiled. ‘I used to sit on the sill in the summer, dangling
  my feet over the water.’
  The Doctor handed the violin back. ‘The work of a craftsman.’
  ‘You play?’ Valletti asked.
  The Doctor shook his head. ‘I did. Until the monks started complaining
  about the noise.’
  ‘If it’s antiques you’re interested in, you should talk to Terrance.’ Valletti
  nodded at a thin man of African descent to their left, one hand on a cello
  leaning against a stand. ‘That’s a Stradivarius, the Lady Rose. Colourful
  history, so I’m told.’
  The Doctor looked at the man. He hadn’t consulted the programme
  he’d been handed as he walked in, had intended just to ask Valletti about
  the computer problems. But the quartet’s performance was opening up
  possibilities for the evening.
  He smiled. ‘Could you introduce me?’
  Even more than the cargo bay, the mess hall was the most untidy place Fitz
  62
  
  had seen on the Station. But the coffee stains, cigarette burns and peeling
  posters signiﬁed one thing: life.
  Some kind of jukebox was playing in the corner, a metallic console,
  shaped like an apple for what Robertson called historical reasons. Fitz just
  smiled and nodded. Notionally a place to eat, the mess hall had become the
  de facto nightspot for the people who worked in the outer rings. A couple of
  hours ago, the tables had been occupied by men and women eating. Now,
  food trays had been replaced by beer bottles; a surprising percentage of
  which had been emptied by Fitz and Robertson.
  Robertson who was, as it turned out, in love.
  The woman in question was crossing the mess hall – a latecomer, carry-
  ing a dinner tray – and Robertson couldn’t keep his eyes off her. A couple of
  inches over ﬁve foot with mousy blonde hair; no honed military physique,
  but the natural frame of someone who needed neither diet nor exercise.
  Fitz watched Robertson’s eyes trace her across the ﬂoor, a hint of a smile
  on his lips.
  It was increasingly obvious to him that his ﬁrst impression of Robertson
  had been correct. He was indeed a bear of a man; only the bear in question
  was more teddy than grizzly.
  Fitz laughed. ‘I’ll bet you haven’t even spoken to her.’
  ‘Spoken to whom?’
  Fitz nodded at the woman. She was still looking for a seat. As she
  neared their table her eyes found Robertson, who smiled.
  ‘I’m working my charm,’ he whispered to Fitz.
  And for a moment Fitz thought there might be something in that, then
  she turned right, to an empty space at another table.
  ‘What’s her name?’ Fitz asked.
  ‘Arquette,’ Robertson replied. ‘Caroline Arquette. Computer engineer,
  third grade, came by a couple of months back to ﬁx a problem with the
  cargo scheduler.’
  ‘And?’
  ‘And look at her,’ Robertson said.
  ‘She’s nice,’ Fitz nodded.
  ‘No,’ Robertson laughed. ‘You need to look at the way she moves, the
  way she thinks about things.’ He smiled. ‘You missed the best part; it’s
  when she’s in the queue studying the menu. It’s the way she thinks about
  the food.’
  ‘You,’ Fitz said, ‘are in love.’
  ‘I am not.’
  Fitz watched Caroline lean in to whisper and laugh with the women on
  her table. ‘So,’ Fitz said, ‘how long have you been working your charm,
  63
  
  then?’
  ‘Like I said, a couple of months.’
  ‘Does the charm go any further than just smiling?’ Fitz asked. ‘Have we
  had Caroline and Robbie sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I –’
  ‘If you ﬁnish that sentence, I will punch you.’
  ‘In which case,’ Fitz said, ‘I will not ﬁnish it.’ He picked up his beer,
  clinking its neck against Robertson’s. ‘Case closed.’
  As Robertson put his bottle to his lips, Fitz darted sideways, slipping out
  of range before he could be caught. Robertson’s eyes were wide in horror
  as Fitz grinned and slid on to the bench next to Caroline Arquette.
  ‘Hi,’ Fitz said, ‘I was wondering what you were doing tonight.’ He nod-
  ded at Robertson. ‘Only my friend would really like to buy you a drink.’
  The performance over, Recreation Hall A had become a dining room. The
  glass-domed ceiling that had been a perfect backdrop for music was now
  delivering the warm atmosphere of an outdoor restaurant. The Doctor and
  Valletti had joined Terrance and Sara Mukabi and another half-dozen staff
  at a long table.
  ‘This used to be executive ofﬁce space,’ Valletti explained.
  The Doctor looked up. Every minute or so, the Station’s slow revolution
  would bring a slice of Jupiter into sight against the stars. ‘A waste of a view,’
  the Doctor said. ‘I approve of the change.’
  ‘I’m glad,’ Valletti said.
  Further down the table someone laughed. ‘Just don’t complain ’bout the
  cost.’
  ‘Justiﬁed expenditure,’ Valletti retorted.
  The Doctor raised an eyebrow. Valletti smiled and got to her feet, cross-
  ing to select a bottle of wine from a nearby rack. Returning to the table,
  she showed the label to the Doctor. A Chilean Merlot, the red so dark it
  almost looked black as she ﬁlled his glass.
  The Doctor swirled the wine around for a moment, inhaling deeply,
  then tipped the glass back. ‘Perfect,’ he judged. ‘I’m amazed it keeps so
  well. South America to Jupiter is a long journey.’
  ‘And that’s why it’s justiﬁed expenditure.’ It was Terrance elaborating.
  ‘It needed a bottle that would withstand the travel and replicate cellar con-
  ditions to keep the taste.’
  ‘Quite a project,’ the Doctor said.
  ‘Earth Forces invest a lot of money in things like that,’ Valletti said.
  ‘Always with protesting accountants.’
  ‘Couldn’t it be better spent elsewhere?’
  64
  
  ‘There are lots of tricks like that.’ It was Sara Mukabi speaking now.
  ‘Like this ceiling and the windows on the Station and the transports. Space
  is black.
  Outside of an atmosphere, the stars are that much harder to
  see. Atmosphere makes them seem larger, makes them shine. And people
  missed the stars they knew. So, all the windows have a ﬁlter to replicate
  atmospheric haze.’
  ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star,’ the Doctor said.
  Valletti nodded back down the table. ‘Sara’s ﬁeld of expertise. The
  psychology of interstellar living. The theory is, and I’m sure she’ll correct
  me if I’m wrong, but the theory is we’re hard-wired for life on Earth?’
  Sara nodded. ‘The biggest problem with life in space is that we’re sepa-
  rated from the things our bodies evolved around: gravity, daylight, the air
  we breathe.’
  ‘But you can simulate gravity, day and night, even the seasons.’ The
  Doctor gestured at the dimming light around them. ‘Sunset? This late in
  the evening? Must be summer.’
  Valletti smiled at him as Sara continued: ‘But those things only take the
  brain so far. It’s the small comforts that tip the balance: like seeing the
  stars and having wine that tastes like wine should.’
  ‘And that,’ Valletti explained, ‘is why this is justiﬁed expenditure. We’re
  a military outpost, but our goal is to facilitate the research of highly edu-
  cated civilians. It’s a difﬁcult balance, so we make allowances. This isn’t a
  front-line starship.’ She shrugged. ‘People deliver better results with home
  comforts available.’
  Sara laughed. ‘If front-line starships were like this, I’d probably still be
  married to Jonathan.’
  ‘Jonathan did all right, Valletti replied. ‘He’s got an Earth Forces’ budget
  and an admiral’s suite in Cape Town now, hasn’t he?’
  The Doctor studied his wine glass, then said, ‘This doesn’t always work,
  does it?’
  He looked up, staring at Sara.
  ‘The pilot on the Pegasus, for
  example.’
  Sara gave Valletti a quick glance, then said, ‘We recovered the cockpit
  section this afternoon. The pilot will be shipped back to Mars on the next
  transport, but until then I’m trying to ﬁgure out what happened to him.’
  She took a sip of the wine. ‘Space-related stress is my speciality, but he
  doesn’t ﬁt any of the usual protocols.’
  ‘Can I ask,’ the Doctor said, ‘what a stress specialist is doing on a
  weapons-development station?’
  ‘You can ask,’ Valletti interrupted, ‘but you won’t get an answer. Your
  clearance is limited, I’m afraid.’
  65
  
  ‘Idle curiosity, nothing more.’ He smiled at the Mukabis. ‘Unless either
  of you is responsible for the excessive maintenance being logged, of course.’
  Terrance laughed. ‘Not my purview, thank God.’
  ‘It’s one of the difﬁculties of being this far from supply lines,’ Valletti
  said. ‘We have to be more self-sufﬁcient than a lot of research posts. Things
  get repaired, not replaced.’
  ‘Professor Deschamps mentioned that,’ the Doctor said. ‘He didn’t un-
  derstand the need to build the Station this far out.’
  ‘Security,’ Valletti smiled. ‘Keep things away from prying eyes, it’s as
  simple as that.’ She drained her wine and smiled. ‘Enough shop talk. Who
  wants to dance?’
  The main lights were switched off, leaving glowing strips set into the walls
  to illuminate the room.
  The tables were moved back, the jukebox was
  turned up, and the room slowly ﬁlled with laughter and body heat. The
  past ﬁve minutes had seen more people come off shift, more pushing on to
  the impromptu dance ﬂoor.
  At ﬁrst Fitz had wondered if he’d done the right thing, dragging Caroline
  over for a drink. As she and Robertson had talked, Caroline had kept on
  giving quick glances back to her friends. But then a moment had come and
  she’d laughed a real rich laugh, and when she looked at Robbie again it was
  to meet his eyes full on. Now, Fitz was seated at one of the tables, a beer
  in hand, back against the wall, watching Robertson and Caroline dance.
  You need to look at the way she moves, Robertson had said and Fitz
  understood now. It was a lack of guile or self-consciousness. You could see
  it in the easy way she laughed, but when she danced that attraction was
  turned all the way up to ten.
  ‘Hey,’ Fitz called, recognising the beer-drinking soldier passing in front
  of him.
  McCray smiled as he saw Fitz. They clinked bottles and Fitz bellowed
  over the music, ‘Nice moves in the docking bay.’
  ‘All part of the service,’ McCray answered.
  ‘Your boys look pretty sharp. Were you down in the atmosphere in those
  suits?’
  ‘Some of us.’ McCray nodded at the dance ﬂoor. ‘Think that’s wild? Try
  riding the windstream down there. A man could lose himself in a place like
  that.’ He snorted. ‘Hell, you could hide a whole ﬂeet down there and no
  one would ever see it.’
  ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’
  ‘Don’t worry,’ McCray laughed. ‘To get to you, it’s got to get through me
  and that’s not going to happen.’
  66
  
  ‘Hey.’ It was Robertson approaching. ‘You stealing my friends as well as
  my work, now?’
  ‘Might take your girl too, if you’re not careful.’
  ‘You could try, but I wouldn’t recommend it.’
  For a brief moment Fitz was worried about a ﬁght breaking out, then he
  caught the glint in Robertson’s eye and knew he was being had. ‘You two
  know each other?’ he asked.
  ‘We did basic training together,’ McCray replied. ‘Went our separate
  ways after that.’
  Robertson nodded. ‘I got into logistics and John ended up with the hard
  corps at Marineris.’
  ‘Right until we both got assigned here and I started stealing his work.
  Six months and all I hear is how I’m stealing his work.’
  ‘Or my girl,’ Robertson reminded him.
  ‘Or your girl,’ McCray replied. Only, as he did so Fitz could see dis-
  traction sweep over him; McCray looked past Robertson, emotion draining
  away in the course of those three spoken words.
  McCray blinked then said, ‘Rain check.’ He nodded across the room and
  Fitz could see the other members of his squad ﬁltering in. ‘I should spend
  time with my boys.’
  ‘Oh, right,’ Fitz said, and McCray was gone.
  ‘Don’t take it personally,’ Robertson said. ‘He does that a lot. Currahee.’
  Fitz frowned. ‘The Doctor said that, back on the Pegasus. Does it mean
  something?’
  ‘It’s their motto.
  Native American or something, means “alone to-
  gether”. We stand alone together.’ Robertson wiped the sweat from his
  brow, watching as McCray was enveloped by his squad. ‘The 101st, the
  Gurkhas, the Swiss Guard. There’s only a handful of national units that
  made it through the last couple of centuries.’
  ‘What do you mean?’
  ‘The fundamentalist jihads, the occupation, even the two decades the
  wall was up, they all took their toll. The 101st used to have an eagle as
  their insignia.’
  Robertson drained the last of his bottle then nodded at the ﬂoor. Caro-
  line was waiting for him, the beat thumping, the walls vibrating. Robertson
  looked at Fitz and grinned: ‘Let’s dance.’
  The black dress was cut low on Valletti’s back and she could feel the warmth
  of his ﬁngertips as they danced. Hands not really gripping her, just guiding,
  his skin barely brushing her spine. There had been a delay to their stepping
  out, a sensor glitch on the outer ring that needed her to sign off on a
  67
  
  maintenance order. That done, the Doctor had taken her hand as a waltz
  played.
  He was a nervous dancer; while his eyes never fell to his feet, you could
  see him working through the steps in his head.
  Each step was smooth
  enough, but there was a tension underneath for anyone watching to see.
  There had been dances in her youth. On Victory Night, masses of people
  would ﬁll the Ufﬁzi Gallery and the squares in front of the Palazzo Vecchio.
  Women smiling as young men tried so hard to impress.
  The Doctor didn’t dance like that. It was the ﬁrst time she’d seen him
  show any kind of nerves. Although he’d smiled all the way through dinner,
  there had been an edge to his conversation; the words sharp and probing.
  There was a phrase her father had used: an iron ﬁst in a velvet glove.
  Smooth on the surface, hard underneath. That was so very nearly him.
  He was a curiosity. There was toughness to him, but Valletti got no
  impression of malice. The distance in the eyes was a sadness. He could
  dance, but he’d never lose himself in it.
  As if sensing her thoughts, he blinked. With a grin he stepped up the
  pressure against Valletti’s back, taking a deep breath and spinning her away
  across the ﬂoor.
  Sweat soaked the back of Fitz’s shirt. The beat pounded in his ears, made
  the blood pump in his neck, his breathing ragged. As Arquette danced –
  arms above her head, lost in the music – he could hear Robertson’s laughter
  amidst the thunderclap as he brought his hands together in time with the
  beat.
  McCray and the 101st were positioned near the bar. In among the bod-
  ies around them Fitz could see some of Robertson’s crew, the concentrated
  faces of the afternoon transformed by the promise of a long night.
  He wished he’d brought his guitar. When the tempo started to ease,
  people would want something a little mellower to come down on. A few
  genuine Kreiner tunes would have been just the thing.
  He looked again at Robertson and Arquette dancing and smiled.
  The ﬂoor bucked beneath them and people staggered, grabbing for support
  as the Station juddered and then was still.
  The Doctor was there before Valletti but only just.
  The lifts were in shutdown, so they took the stairs. She ran barefoot,
  the hem of her dress in her hand. They made it to the docking bay in less
  than three minutes, approaching from the east.
  The pristine walls were scorched black, equipment strewn across the
  corridor, the prongs of a forklift truck embedded in the wall. Beyond that,
  68
  
  the docking bay was aﬂame. Some people staggered away from the blast
  area, clothing torn and bloody; others moved towards it, dragging ﬁre ex-
  tinguishers behind them.
  Valletti grabbed one man. ‘What happened?’ she asked, but it was the
  Doctor who answered.
  ‘The Pegasus,’ he said.
  Valletti looked. He was right; the main body of the ship was ripped
  apart, debris and ﬂame spreading from that focal point.
  Another ﬁreball erupted, a wall of heat slamming into them. Valletti
  picked herself up, blood in her mouth where she’d caught her lip. The Doc-
  tor had removed his jacket, was smothering the ﬂames on a man stumbling
  out of the docking bay.
  ‘Fire suppression?’ Valletti barked.
  ‘Ofﬂine.’ It was one of the docking managers, Alonso. ‘Maintenance
  was on the way when it happened.’
  ‘We’re running out of time,’ the Doctor shouted. ‘If the ﬂames reach the
  fuel lines, you could lose half the outer ring.’
  Valletti looked into the ﬁre, nodded at the main entrance to the docking
  bay: ‘Everyone back. Seal the main doors, prepare to vent the atmosphere.’
  ‘They’re jammed,’ the Doctor said, pointing. A chunk of engine was
  embedded in the ﬂoor, jamming one of the bay’s doors.
  ‘Then we’ll evacuate this area too,’ Valletti snapped. ‘Everyone retreat
  to the next section. Both sides!’
  She began ushering her crew up the corridor, glancing back to make
  sure they were doing the same on the other side of the docking-bay
  entrance.
  Another explosion roared and they ducked as ﬂaming metal
  slammed into the nearby wall.
  ‘I think that’s everyone,’ Alonso called.
  Valletti took a long look at the chaos surrounding the main doors.
  Smoke was beginning to obscure the view. The Doctor was still at her side,
  looking intently into the ﬂames. She grabbed his hand and pulled him back
  up the corridor to where the others were waiting. One last glance, then she
  smashed an elbow into a glass panel and a siren sounded as the pressure
  door slowly ground down out of the ceiling. She could see just enough
  through the smoke to spot a similar door descending on the other side of
  the entrance.
  She turned to Alonso. ‘Once these doors are shut, deactivate the atmo-
  spheric shield and open the exterior doors on the docking bay. No more
  than a half-metre, I want equipment losses at a bare minimum.’
  Alonso prised open a panel and set to work.
  ‘Fifty-centimetre gap.
  Might lose a few wrenches, but anything larger will sit up against the
  69
  
  doors.’
  ‘Commander,’ the Doctor said, ‘I thought I saw something.’
  Valletti followed his eyes, peering below the descending door into the
  docking bay. Flames were roaring now and the smoke was dragging back
  down the corridor as the ﬁre ate the oxygen.
  ‘Whatever it is,’ she said, ‘it’s going to have to wait.’
  ‘There!’ The Doctor pointed.
  And as the smoke cleared, for a moment it was clearly visible: an arm
  and a shoulder pushing out from underneath loose plating. A body trying
  to work itself free.
  Valletti shook her head. ‘Too late. Once this is down, I can’t reopen it
  until –’
  ‘I understand. Don’t wait for me.’ The Doctor broke free of her grasp,
  dropping to the ﬂoor and rolling through the narrowing gap.
  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I hate dancing, I’m not very good at it.’ And then
  she lost sight of him as the door sunk home.
  ‘Dammit!’ Valletti swore, smashing her ﬁst against the wall. ‘Of all the
  idiotic –’ She turned to Alonso. ‘Is it done?’
  ‘What?’
  She nodded at the control panel. ‘The sequence for the docking-bay
  doors. Is it ﬁnished?’
  ‘Yes, but –’
  ‘Then run it.’
  ‘What about –’
  ‘He knew what we were doing. Now run the damn sequence!’
  Valletti could still taste copper where she’d bitten her lip. She wiped
  the back of her hand across her mouth, a thin smear of red across her pale
  skin. Beside her Alonso pressed a button on the control panel.
  The sound didn’t penetrate the pressure door, but beyond it the air
  would be screaming.
  Fitz was late on the scene. The shock wave from the initial explosion had
  tripped something in the mess-hall doors and it had taken a minute to free
  them.
  Running down Greenwich West, all he and Robertson found was a
  sealed pressure door and a group of confused and smoky personnel.
  Robertson glanced at a nearby screen: ‘Fire suppression’s ofﬂine. Some-
  one’s running a sequence from the other side of the docking bay; venting
  the atmosphere to put out the ﬁre.’
  ‘What’s that?’ Fitz asked. A thin trace of green liquid was running down
  the wall.
  70
  
  ‘Hydraulics have ruptured,’ Robertson said. ‘Getting that door up isn’t
  going to be as easy as getting it down was.’
  Fitz nodded at the screen. ‘Any idea what happened?’
  ‘Nope,’ Robertson said, surveying the workers who’d been caught in the
  ﬁre. ‘I’m just hoping none of my people got hurt.’
  The whole corridor groaned with the sound of aching metal. Robertson
  looked at the readings on-screen. ‘The docking bay is oxygen-free,’ Robert-
  son said, ‘and the ﬁre. . . ’ He paused. ‘The ﬁre is out.’
  A nearby intercom hissed. Valletti’s voice: ‘We’re repressurising the dock-
  ing bay.’
  ‘Understood,’ Robertson replied.
  There was a pause, then Valletti said, ‘Robertson? Is that you?’
  ‘Ma’am.’
  ‘Is Kreiner with you?’
  ‘How did you know?’ Fitz asked.
  There was a silence, then Valletti said, ‘We’re releasing our door now.’
  And the intercom went dead.
  Fitz looked at Robertson. Valletti could only know he would be with
  Robbie if the Doctor had told her.
  Which meant he was probably with
  Valletti when the explosion happened. And suddenly she didn’t want to
  speak to Fitz.
  ‘Get the door open,’ Fitz whispered.
  ‘Fitz, I –’
  ‘Get the bloody door open!’ he snapped.
  Robertson hit the switch, but there was no response.
  ‘There’s not
  enough pressure in the hydraulics to –’
  ‘Here.’ It was Caroline, pushing through the crowd. She took Robert-
  son’s hand, moved it away from the panel and slipped past him to get to
  work. ‘I can divert some power to the motors. Without the hydraulics it
  won’t open all the way, but –’
  There was grinding noise and a gap, just a little over a foot wide, ap-
  peared at the bottom of the door. The control panel exploded in a shower
  of sparks. Caroline yelped in surprise, bumping up against Robertson, then
  nodded at Fitz. ‘That’s all you’re going to get,’ she said. ‘Go.’
  Fitz dropped to the ﬂoor. It was a tight ﬁt and there was no way Robert-
  son’s broad frame was going to squeeze through. There was a brief moment
  of claustrophobia as Fitz thought he was going to get stuck, then he was
  out the other side, picking himself up.
  The pressure door on to Greenwich East was wide open and people
  were streaming through into the bay, some carrying salvage gear, others
  71
  
  medical bags. Fitz saw Valletti, her face smeared with blood and soot, her
  dress torn down the thigh. She didn’t have any shoes on.
  The ﬂoor of the docking bay was completely clear. Large swathes of
  it were black or pockmarked, and at points the decking had broken away
  revealing the infrastructure below. But beyond that, everything – every box,
  tool, step and trolley – was haphazardly piled up against the exterior doors.
  Even the shuttlecraft had been dragged across the ﬂoor by the sudden loss
  of atmosphere.
  When Valletti saw him she just shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. He was your
  –’
  But Fitz wasn’t listening. He was looking at the pile of debris crushed
  against the doors. ‘Over there!’ he said.
  ‘What?’
  And then Fitz was past her, running across the ﬂoor, pushing through
  the rescue crews.
  Nestled near the base of the debris, bolted into the junction of the ﬂoor
  and the wall, was a large metal box, the words CUTTING GEAR – EMER-
  GENCIES ONLY stencilled on the side. A trolley was pressing down on the
  box, but there was just enough room beneath it for some movement.
  And the lid of the box was pressing up from the inside.
  Fitz grabbed the edge of the trolley, braced himself and pulled.
  It came away with a crash, the lid on the box springing free. As he got
  to his feet, he was joined by Valletti who was shaking her head: ‘I don’t
  believe it.’
  The Doctor pulled himself up out of the box, a young man held across
  his shoulders.
  ‘Medic!’ Valletti called, looking around, snapping her ﬁngers at a green-
  suited man: ‘Easter! Over here now!’
  The Doctor laid the man down on the ﬂoor, then stepped back to let the
  medic in. ‘He’ll be ﬁne. Some cracked ribs and a nasty burn on his back,
  but he’ll be ﬁne.’
  He nodded at the box he’d just climbed out of: ‘Even holding the lid
  down it wasn’t completely airtight,’ he panted, ‘but who cares about com-
  pletely? It was airtight enough, that’s what matters.’ He looked at Valletti.
  ‘As it turns out, I’m both lucky and adaptable.’
  Valletti knelt down by the young man. She squeezed his hand as his
  eyes turned towards her. ‘Jason,’ she asked, smiling, ‘how are you feeling?’
  The man said nothing, just nodded as the medic pushed an injection
  into his forearm, the needle piercing the thick blue lines of a tattoo. Then
  Fitz’s attention shifted as the Doctor tapped him on the shoulder.
  72
  
  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ the Doctor said quietly. His eyes were tired and
  his face was pale and sweaty. Fitz frowned –
  Behind them Valletti said, ‘Someone tell McCray to meet us in sickbay.’
  – and then the Doctor opened the ﬂap of his jacket. Blood was staining
  the point where the harpoon had hit home. ‘I may have overexerted myself.’
  Fitz slipped an arm around his friend and they began to move back
  through the rescuers and out of the docking bay.
  The Station’s lighting had dimmed, signifying the end of the day. A quarter
  to one and it was dark as Fitz walked its corridors.
  When they’d got back to their quarters, the Doctor had slumped on to
  his bunk and gone to sleep with barely a word of explanation. Fitz had
  dug out the contemporary equivalent of a newspaper – a holographic slide,
  constantly updated – and sat down in a chair, reading and occasionally
  glancing over to the sleeping Doctor. As he read, he slowly drained a jug
  of iced water. Adrenalin had delivered an immediately sobering effect in
  the docking bay, but now that it was wearing off the evening’s beer was
  creeping back into his consciousness. The water was there to take the edge
  off the hangover he was due to have and make sure he was sober enough
  if the Doctor did anything unexpected.
  The downside to this strategy was Fitz’s need to take a leak on a regular
  basis. Every trip down the corridor to the toilet was creating a level of
  anxiety. Would the Doctor be there when he got back? Eyes shut, asleep,
  chest rising and falling with each healing breath? Or would he be up and
  about, manically working on some lead or another? Or, worse, lying half-
  out of his bunk, eyes open but unseeing, blood trailing on to the ﬂoor, one
  hand reaching out to the chair where Fitz should have been?
  The door whispered open and Fitz stepped back into their room.
  The Doctor was where he’d left him.
  The only change was the soft
  red light blinking across the room. An icon, shaped like an envelope, was
  ﬂashing on the communications screen. It unfolded as Fitz touched it; the
  message was headlined GENERAL MEMO – ALL STAFF.
  Early signs were that the explosion had been caused by a catastrophic
  systems failure on board the Pegasus; probably the result of its traumatic
  inward ﬂight. Until investigations were complete, though, Station security
  was raised to Defence Condition Four.
  Fitz closed the message, sat back down in his chair.
  The headline on the slide had changed. There were riots on one of the
  system colonies, sparked by rumours of alien inﬁltrators. Seventy dead,
  troops dispatched to quell the uprising.
  Fitz shook his head. He had his own problems.
  73
  
  Looking across the room to the Doctor, his voice little more than a whis-
  per, he asked: ‘Did you know?’
  Had the Doctor known what he was doing when he ran into those
  ﬂames? A few months ago, Fitz wouldn’t have doubted it. His friend was a
  hero. But a lot had happened in the past few months.
  ‘Did you know?’ Fitz repeated.
  The Doctor could have seen the box when they’d disembarked from
  the Pegasus. When he knew what Valletti was planning and had seen the
  man trapped in the ﬂames, had he immediately thought of that emergency
  locker? When he jumped into the fray had he had any idea what he was
  going to do? Fitz had checked the Station’s logs. The Doctor had had
  less than thirty seconds to cross the docking bay, rescue the man and throw
  them both into the locker; hoping it would hold enough air, hoping it would
  be strong enough to protect them from the debris.
  Before, Fitz wouldn’t have worried. But now he realised it wasn’t just
  the Doctor’s loss of memory that worried him. He knew his own recollec-
  tion of what the Doctor had done, how he had been stranded on Earth,
  wasn’t what it should be. Something had happened; he had to ﬁght to re-
  call the details now, worried that the events themselves might fade away.
  But he could still remember his life, who he was.
  The Doctor couldn’t.
  And without knowing who he was and what he’d done, could he still do
  this? Could he still be the hero?
  When Fitz had heard Valletti’s voice go dead over the intercom, when
  he had understood the Doctor was trapped in the docking bay, it had felt
  like his heart stopped. Because in that moment, he’d had no idea whether
  the Doctor was dead or alive.
  So Fitz looked at him in the dark, at the face he had come to trust
  so well, and he wondered: when you did all that, when you rescued that
  man and saved yourself, when you put yourself in harm’s way for the sake
  of others, did you know what it was you were doing and what you were
  doing it for?
  ‘Did you know?’
  ‘I hear your boss is a hero,’ Robertson said.
  Fitz shrugged noncommittally, something that made Robertson pause.
  Yesterday’s Fitz had been easy-going, half-truth, half-bravado; today’s man,
  picking his way through the mess of the docking bay, looked nothing but
  tired.
  Fitz forced a smile, gesturing to the overalls he was wearing. ‘I brought
  my working clothes.’
  74
  
  When Robertson frowned, Fitz added, ‘The hero is still sleeping things
  off. And if the boss is asleep, I have to ﬁnd ways of amusing myself.’ He
  nodded at the pile of debris stacked up behind them. ‘I ﬁgured you could
  probably use a hand?’
  ‘Sure.’ Robertson tossed Fitz a pair of work gloves. ‘Anything completely
  trashed goes in the container on the left. Anything that might be salvage-
  able, you hand to the technicals. We don’t do maintenance.’
  Against the wall on Greenwich West a dozen workers stood at a hastily
  erected table, sorting through equipment. In the middle of them was a
  sight that had made Robertson’s day when he’d walked in an hour earlier.
  ‘Did you request Caroline for the job specially?’ Fitz said.
  ‘She volunteered.’ Robertson grinned. ‘Still working my charm.’ He
  offered Fitz a hand up on to the debris next to him: ‘You all right, Fitz?’
  ‘Long night.’ Fitz nodded along the line of workers. ‘How come you
  can’t sort the machinery yourself?’
  Robertson looked. Fitz was staring at where Archer and Garcia were
  lifting scrap. He shook his head. ‘We leave the smart stuff to the people
  with the know-how and the rank.’ Fitz pursed his lips, like he was about to
  say something, then just nodded and got to work.
  It was about ﬁve minutes later that Fitz asked, ‘What should I do with
  this?’ He was kneeling on a compressor which had lost its main cover.
  Robertson shrugged. ‘Looks pretty much OK.’
  ‘Not the. . . the –’ Fitz gestured at the compressor ‘– thing. I mean this.’
  Robertson stepped across to take a closer look. Trapped between two
  compressor hoses was a book: dog-eared leather cover, a dark stain across
  one side. Robertson pulled it clear, then freed the loop of string holding the
  covers shut. Its pages held the occasional sketch – faces he recognised – but,
  for the most part, the book comprised poetry; line upon line of awkward
  longhand. On the ﬁrst page there were three lines:
  Stars climb high at night
  The strongest hands cannot hold
  Only hope breaks a chain.
  Robertson checked the cover. ‘No name on it.’ He handed the book to
  Fitz. ‘Finders keepers. Anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re the man to see.’
  At lunch, Caroline made her way over to join them. Seeing her approach
  Fitz just smiled and wandered off, chewing on his sandwich crust.
  ‘Is he OK?’ Caroline asked.
  ‘He had a strange night,’ Robertson answered, looking over to where
  Fitz was studying the locker where, rumour had it, his boss had rode out
  75
  
  the decompression. ‘I think we all had a strange night. Me more than most.’
  He smiled. ‘Never got to say thank you for dancing.’
  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said, her ﬁngers struggling with the vacuum seal
  on her packet salad.
  ‘Here,’ Robertson said. ‘Let me.’
  ‘I can never get those things open.’
  ‘I wanted to ask you. . . ’ he paused. ‘I was going to ask you, last night,
  before everything. . . Well, I was –’
  She looked at him and smiled, full of humour and life. ‘Yes,’ she said.
  ‘ “Yes” what?’
  ‘Yes, I’ll have dinner with you. You wanted to ask me to dinner, but
  you’re shy.’ She took the opened salad from his hands. ‘It’s very endearing.’
  ‘You think I’m being shy?’
  Robertson smiled.
  ‘This is charm.’
  She
  laughed then, clear and free of malice, and with that sound Robertson
  knew Fitz was right. He was in love.
  They were interrupted then, as Fitz wandered back turning something
  over in his hand.
  ‘What have you found?’ Caroline asked.
  Fitz handed it over; curled plastic, a face fading in and out beneath the
  charred surface. ‘Security pass. It was in the locker over there, must belong
  to the bloke the Doctor saved.’ Fitz shook his head. ‘I didn’t recognise him
  last night, but that’s the guy, isn’t it? The janitor round here?’
  ‘That’s Jason,’ Robertson nodded.
  ‘The name on the pass is McCray. It’s Jason McCray. I hadn’t noticed the
  resemblance before, but –’
  ‘They’re brothers,’ Robertson said. He remembered a long night, doing
  basic in Guantanamo, a group of them drinking iced water and talking
  about their ambitions. He had always wanted logistics, but John McCray
  had talked about his older brother. He’d heard the stories, he knew what
  he wanted. First in, last out.
  ‘Jason was a paratrooper too,’ Robertson mused. ‘Must have had an
  accident or something.’
  ‘You never asked McCray?’
  ‘Never knew to ask him.’ Robertson shrugged. ‘Jason’s only ever been
  called Jason, and like I said McCray and me haven’t talked much.’
  He looked at the face on the card. He could see it now. The eyes were
  the same as McCray’s, but devoid of expression. The signature caught his
  eye though.
  ‘You still got that book?’
  ‘Sure.’
  ‘I think the handwriting matches.’
  76
  
  ‘Does it matter?’ Fitz asked.
  ‘Have you tried talking to Jason?’ Robertson said. ‘He can’t talk, can
  barely process language at all. Not spoken, not written.’
  Fitz opened the book, ﬂicking through it, pages upon pages of verse.
  77
  
  MARS
  ‘Happy anniversary,’ Michael said.
  ‘Happy anniversary,’ Anji answered and they clinked glasses.
  The champagne was from one of the bubble vineyards, up past Jack-
  sonville. Good, but somehow the taste never matched what Anji remem-
  bered from Earth. She’d asked a wine waiter about it once; he’d replied it
  was the way grapes responded to the ammonia in the regenerated Martian
  soil. Which explained the why, but not what it was that was wrong with
  the taste itself.
  The restaurant was full; a queue outside when Anji arrived. Inside,
  Michael had been wearing his nervous look. Not nervous like he’d been in
  the ﬁve minutes before he proposed, but she could easily guess the conver-
  sation he’d been having with the maˆıtre’d just before she entered.
  As they drank Michael glanced at her. ‘No regrets?’
  ‘About married life?’ Anji said. ‘None whatsoever.’
  ‘I was wondering,’ Michael said. ‘Given that the table was reserved for
  eight o’clock.’
  ‘I know, I know,’ Anji smiled. ‘I never used to be late. And I’m very, very
  sorry.’
  And it was true. She could remember when, a lifetime ago, she’d run
  from one building to another in the square mile, mobile under her chin,
  palmtop bleeping reminders, and she’d made every single meeting. The
  past couple of years, she’d lost that ability. It had bothered her for a while,
  but then she’d rationalised it as her body reacting to another world. The
  Martian day was thirty-seven minutes too long; close enough to Earth stan-
  dard to be jarringly disconcerting. She rationalised those extra minutes as
  something that was always at the back of her mind, leaving her daydream-
  ing more than she thought possible, and running late instead of on time.
  ‘You were working,’ Michael said.
  ‘Yes,’ Anji replied, hurriedly studying her menu. She could feel Michael’s
  eyes narrowing, interrogation eyes that got results only because she
  couldn’t help laughing at them.
  78
  
  ‘Not at the network.’
  Anji looked up.
  ‘I called there looking for you. Maggie said you ﬁled the piece on the
  dollar collapse at midday.’
  Anji paused, then reached across the table, taking hold of his hand. ‘I
  should have said. I took the bullet train down to Nicosia. I was meeting
  someone there.’
  ‘But not something for work.’
  Anji broke a breadstick, chewing on one end. ‘Military,’ she said.
  Michael nodded. ‘Thought I heard one of your widows on the phone
  the other night.’
  Anji looked at the window. There was a dust storm brewing on the
  horizon, the sunset a haze behind it. There had been a sand storm a year
  ago, turning day to night and hissing against the registrar’s windows as
  they exchanged vows.
  ‘Kathleen found someone who’d talk,’ Anji said. ‘She’s come a long way
  since the memorial. I never expected to hear from her again, but there’s a
  lot of us out there. Wives and husbands. People who want the truth.’
  ‘Is that what you want?’
  Anji found his eyes. Not criticising or carping, just inquisitive. Her past,
  Anji thought, was the part of her he’d never ﬁgured out.
  ‘I don’t know. I’m happy here, I really am.’
  ‘But?’
  ‘Whenever I hear about it, or pass the memorial, or see a picture of
  Jupiter. . . ’ Anji paused. ‘It feels like I’m missing something. It’s the only
  way I can explain it.’
  ‘You might never know,’ Michael said. ‘It’s important you realise that.
  I’m not trying to discourage you, Anji. But it’s over two years ago and we
  might never ﬁnd out what happened. This could be another dead-end; like
  that corporate ship that was in the area when the Station was destroyed.’
  ‘I got a name today,’ Anji said. ‘The name. The guy who cordoned off
  Jupiter space after the disaster? He works here, he’s stationed on Mars.’
  ‘What’s the name?’
  ‘McNamara,’ Anji said. ‘I was checking the Earth Forces registry. My
  source says he’s here, but there’s no listing for him. But it ﬁts, Mike, it all
  ﬁts.’
  ‘I don’t recognise the name. Is he brass?’
  ‘Do you remember the memorial service?’ Anji asked. ‘The uniform who
  just sat there, the one the protestor was screaming at. I never matched his
  picture to any name on ﬁle. That must be McNamara.’ She paused. ‘He’s
  79
  
  black-money funded, which suggests weapons research. And Farside was
  weapons research.’
  ‘So?’
  ‘So if the Station were destroyed by a test gone wrong, he’s the man
  who’d know. If there are answers, he’s got them.’
  80
  
  JUPITER SPACE
  Now
  Anji is back with the Wounded.
  One in the morning on the Station clock and most people have with-
  drawn to their makeshift beds. Beyond the keening from the Wounded, the
  only human sound is dull conversation from the sentries.
  Working slowly, Anji and the Professional have managed to ease the
  cargo-bay door back without provoking a rusty cry. As they move it one
  last time, Anji notices GREENWICH HOSPITAL daubed in red on its surface.
  The paint is ﬂaking. Anji wonders who was responsible for the sign, and
  whether they’re now one of its patients.
  The Professional thinks the Station structure may be weakened here,
  incapable of supporting their magnetic grapples. So, they’re going to use
  the cages as ladders, and climb up and make their way into the superstruc-
  ture. According to him, they don’t need to go far: a few metres to clear the
  sentries, barricades and automated weapons, then drop back down into the
  main corridor.
  Four years to get here; now the Professional is going to drag her away
  after less than twenty-four hours on board.
  He switches his suit’s ﬂashlight to its lowest candlelight setting, then
  passes it over the cages. The stale smell that had threatened to overwhelm
  Anji earlier remains, but she’s prepared for it now. The Wounded are mostly
  asleep, but some still press against the wire.
  There’s one pair, though, reaching through the bars to brush each other’s
  skin and sink ﬁngers into unkempt hair. Anji’s been trying to think of the
  Wounded as less than human. Since her talk with the Professional, she’s
  been trying to see all of the survivors in that light. Mad, insane, beyond
  reason. But this sight makes her wonder about his hypothesis.
  Such a basic human moment among these damaged people.
  Anji has to stop herself thinking about it. The Professional’s right: she
  can’t allow herself to get caught up in this situation, with these people,
  81
  
  their lives and emotions.
  Not if she’s going to get the answers she came for.
  Kapoor’s suit was returned to her shortly before the Station’s crew retired;
  the physician, Easter, handed it over with an apology. Not, the Professional
  thinks, that Kapoor has a real understanding of the protection it offers.
  Jupiter’s atmosphere carries enough radioactivity to be deadly. The Sta-
  tion’s EM shield is ﬂuctuating: solid around the central hub, uneven over
  these outer rings. Another pressure that has contributed to these people’s
  instability. Step off those safe paths and the Liebig cage of the Station’s
  structure offers only limited protection.
  Kapoor’s suit, like the Professional’s, is interwoven with tiny Dortmu-
  nium threads that will keep the radiation at sub-lethal levels for up to three
  weeks. Her behaviour suggests she is looking at it in psychological terms,
  barrier protection, keeping the outside at bay. But whether she realises it
  or not, she moves far more comfortably now than when dressed in just her
  own skin. There’s still a problem, though. For all their micromotors and
  automatic systems, the armour can still be awkward. A combat suit like the
  one Kapoor has procured takes months to master, learning to interpret the
  sensor feedback that makes its surface a second skin and not iron plating.
  As they climb the exterior of the cages, the Professional can feel the
  wire beneath his ﬁngers and adjust his grip to compensate. Kapoor doesn’t
  have that kind of control, is relying on eyesight to guide her.
  Reaching the third tier, the Professional realises Kapoor is falling behind.
  He secures a hold on the nearest cage, swings around, ﬂashing his light
  below to check on her progress. The beam catches her face and the shine
  from the reﬂective helmet is enough to catch her ﬁngers closing around
  their latest handhold.
  The cages have been constructed hastily to cope with human pressures.
  The suit’s enhanced strength and the inexperienced grip of Anji Kapoor are
  enough to tear a lock from its housing. The Professional can only watch as
  her handhold comes free and she tumbles back towards the ﬂoor.
  Her landing wakes the survivors in the cages, ﬁlling the room with
  screeching and bodies crashing against bars. Worse, the cage door, sud-
  denly shorn of its lock, is swinging open. Initially hesitant, its occupant
  gains conﬁdence in moments, charging, leaping down to the ﬂoor below.
  Kapoor rolls out of its path and the creature – a woman – pushes at the
  main door, screaming and crying as it runs free into the compound.
  Kapoor looks to the door: ‘We should stay. We’ve got to stop that woman
  harming –’
  ‘They can stop her,’ the Professional answers. ‘We need to leave now.’
  82
  
  He turns and continues climbing. There’s a moment of silence, then the
  cages rattle as Kapoor starts after him once more.
  Two minutes later and they are into the ceiling, crawling through the
  infrastructure above the corridor. The Professional is running a scan of the
  area below, pinpointing their position in relation to the barricades.
  A sudden spike on one of the readings gives him pause. A sound, too
  low for the human ear to pick up, easily registered by the suit. He raises a
  hand, signalling a halt.
  Her voice whispers over their intercom: ‘What?’
  The Professional doesn’t reply.
  The network of girders behind them
  is a hard, narrow space; in front, larger gaps accommodate the Station’s
  workings. He recalibrates the sensor array and resurveys that area. The
  dark latticework comes into sharp resolution: beams and pipework covered
  in the rust that is endemic outside the docking bay, tangles of electrics and
  conduit.
  And moving through it, a mess of shapes: grey and indistinct even with
  the suit’s enhanced resolution. But he can see them in the paths they create,
  pushing wires aside, limbs and torsos connecting with each other and the
  metal stud work.
  A half-dozen of them, closing from the front.
  Indistinct shapes, clearly inhuman. Hostiles.
  The girders are too narrow for the hostiles to ﬁt through, but they are
  already fanning out, one pair moving round to close off that escape route.
  The Professional takes aim, releases ﬁve rounds in quick succession.
  The sensor that spiked with the sound of the hostiles’ movement goes
  wild as the crawl space is ﬁlled with unearthly screaming.
  The Professional stamps on the ceiling plate beneath them. ‘Get behind
  me,’ he tells Kapoor. As she moves he can feel the plate weakening; the
  bolts are rusted like everything else. He stamps again and, as he does so,
  he picks a single target, aims and ﬁres, all the while trying to increase the
  targeting resolution.
  ‘Loosen those bolts,’ he tells Kapoor.
  The hostiles are within ten metres and closing.
  The plating creaks again.
  His shots are striking home but dissipate across the hostile’s skin.
  Six metres.
  The Professional abandons precision ﬁre, switching to fully automatic,
  sweeping the plasma riﬂe back and forth over the target area. This slows
  the advance, but does not stop it.
  Five metres.
  There’s a clang as Kapoor ﬁnally works one of the bolts free.
  83
  
  He brings his foot down hard. The remaining bolts snap and the Profes-
  sional and Kapoor tumble backwards as the ceiling plate collapses into the
  corridor below. The Professional rolls with the landing, twisting away and
  coming up with the riﬂe aimed back into the superstructure.
  There’s stillness for a brief moment.
  They’re past the majority of the barricades, but a few of the electriﬁed
  stanchions remain. The grind of motors signals the automated weapons fo-
  cusing on them. The Professional hopes they are programmed to recognise
  only non-human targets.
  Voices call down the corridor to them, the sentries, drawn by the gunﬁre
  and the ceiling’s collapse. The Professional doesn’t turn, keeps his eyes
  locked on the space above them.
  ‘Get up,’ he tells Kapoor. ‘Get behind me and start moving.’ He grabs her
  hand as she starts to head back to the compound, thrusts her back up the
  corridor, ﬁring as one of the hostiles drops through the opening on to the
  ﬂoor between them and the compound; where Kapoor had stood a moment
  earlier.
  The hostile swings at him and he ducks under its arm, raising his riﬂe.
  The creature is tall, that’s Anji’s ﬁrst impression. Almost seven feet high, it
  hunches over, ﬁlling the corridor. It ﬂinches and screams, unable to avoid
  touching the awkward electriﬁed shapes of the barricades. Double-jointed
  limbs covered in a hard dark carapace, the feet hooked and clawing at
  the ﬂoor. A bullet-shaped head sits on a multijointed neck, gliding back
  and forth; parallel rows of round black eyes, unblinking; teeth showing
  through two separate mouths positioned on either side of the head, jaws
  slowly opening and closing.
  The Professional gets a dozen shots in before the corridor ﬁlls with noise
  and ﬂame as the automated weapons on the barricade open ﬁre. The guns
  are aiming at the creature, but in the tight space of the corridor they’re
  all too close together. And the automated gunﬁre is getting very near to
  both Anji and the Professional as the creature advances, every jolt from the
  barricades making it angrier.
  They back up the corridor as two more creatures drop through the ceil-
  ing behind the ﬁrst. The guns readjust their aim, but the shots barely im-
  pact on them. For a moment their heads ﬂick back and forth between the
  humans in one direction, the compound in the other. Then they settle on
  Anji and the Professional and begin to follow their compatriot, marching
  towards them, forcing them back into the open corridor beyond the fortiﬁ-
  cations.
  The Professional keeps ﬁring. He’s walking backwards at an unﬂinching
  84
  
  pace, not looking where he’s going, the riﬂe at his shoulder, taking aim and
  ﬁring every couple of seconds. As she retreats, Anji grasps the purpose of
  this painstaking accuracy: concentrating his ﬁre, trying to pick out one spot
  on the carapace again and again. But the creature is still pressing forward,
  getting closer.
  ‘Don’t let them touch you,’ she shouts. ‘That’s the law.’
  The creature swings for the Professional and he parries the blow with
  the butt of his riﬂe.
  Reaching a junction in the corridor, Anji darts left, moving deeper into
  the Station. Firing once more, the Professional takes a step after her, then
  shouts, ‘Not that way.’
  But he’s forced to take another step back as the creature attacks again,
  and it’s too late as the junction is ﬁlled with more of the aliens.
  As Anji backs up the corridor, the Professional drops and rolls in closer
  to the lead creature, springing up within reach of its arms, planting the tip
  of the riﬂe next to one of its mouths. He can’t get the angle to strike back
  through its head, but he’s found the vulnerable point he was looking for
  and the plasma bolt tears the creature’s jaw apart.
  The Professional springs back as it writhes in pain, limbs thrashing
  against both sides of the corridor, blocking the path for the ones behind.
  He grabs Anji’s arm and they’re running now, the Professional not glancing
  back but focusing in front all the time, looking anxiously at the long curve
  ahead. Behind them, the sounds of alien movement.
  ‘You shouldn’t have come this way,’ the Professional says.
  And Anji sees why as they skid to a halt.
  The corridor is blocked off. An undulating black ﬁeld ﬁlls the space from
  wall to wall; a glossy black that shimmers and sparks.
  ‘Energy barrier,’ Anji says. ‘The hub’s cut off an energy barrier.’
  The Professional opens the kit store on the thigh of his suit, throws a
  pair of pulse mines back down the corridor. There’s a clunk as they attach,
  then the space is ﬁlled with a fusillade of blinding light.
  ‘We’re trapped,’ Anji says.
  The Professional ignores her, sinking to one knee by the barrier. He
  opens a small access hatch and plugs a lead from his suit into it.
  The creatures are inching towards the mines, forcing their way through
  the lasers. The Professional ignores them, continues working. Anji’s initial
  thought is that he’s trying to take the barrier down, but that’s not it at all.
  The screen on his wrist shows him downloading information.
  There’s a ping as a pincer shatters one of the mines, leaving just the
  other operational. The creatures’ rate of advance increases.
  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Anji says.
  85
  
  The Professional detaches himself from the junction point, turning as
  the ﬁrst creature makes it past the mine. Anji ducks as it charges, swing-
  ing its limbs wildly, one hooked claw digging into a wall panel, another
  stabbing at the Professional. He sidesteps, but then the creature is on him,
  throwing him up against the barrier.
  And Anji hears a sound she could never have imagined: the Professional
  screams.
  She can see his face contorting beneath the visor.
  Then he gathers
  strength, actually braces himself on the unyielding surface of the energy
  barrier and pushes back against the creature. He gains just enough room
  to slip the last of the pulse mines from its pouch, attaching it to the inner
  edge of the creature’s hook.
  Anji presses against the wall as the laser beams activate.
  The creature releases its hold on the Professional, backing up to deal
  with the mine. As it does so, the Professional pulls himself clear of the
  energy barrier. His suit back is blackened and smoking, and he drops to his
  knees – the only moment of real weakness Anji’s seen so far – then recovers
  himself. He picks up his riﬂe, starts ﬁring, and, in conjunction with the
  efforts of the pulse mine, drives the creature back.
  Anji’s not sure how much more he’s going to be able to achieve. The
  other creatures are past the remaining mine on the ﬂoor and the corridor
  is a mass of twisted limbs, screaming double mouths and hard, armoured
  skin. The Professional is struggling to contain one of the creatures and
  there are another ﬁve behind it.
  Then, when he has the ﬁrst creature backed up, the Professional
  switches his aim, raking ﬁre across the far wall. Steam gouts from a rup-
  tured conduit. The Professional aims once more and the corridor is ﬁlled
  with a wall of ﬁre.
  They still sleep together. Just sleep.
  Robertson’s body lies on the cot behind hers, arms around her, tight
  against each other and the world. Robertson remembers a time, years ago,
  when Caroline’s body wasn’t this hard shell. He remembers soft skin, softer
  scents, the give of her ﬂesh beneath his hand. That person is gone now.
  Sometimes he is awake when she dreams, can feel the muscles beneath
  her skin pushing against the images in her head. Robertson whispers to her
  in those moments. Only hope breaks a chain, he tells her. He wonders if
  Caroline has a face of her own, one that haunts her sleep like the one that
  haunts his. When he’s asleep and she’s awake, does he twist and struggle
  like this?
  86
  
  Robertson is dimly aware of distant gunﬁre. The enemy press the barri-
  cades on a routine basis, never making it inside the perimeter. He doesn’t
  suppose it’s going to be different this time. Caroline is normally less toler-
  ant of such noises, awake at the ﬁrst sign of trouble, but not tonight.
  It’s only when the Station bucks, throwing them from the cot, that trou-
  ble ﬁnally registers.
  Without a word, they stumble from their compartment in the gutted
  shuttle, heading for the Meridian. Easter is there, holding on to David’s
  body, directing others, shouting instructions. Archer is at the main com-
  puter terminal, but gives way as Robertson and Caroline approach.
  ‘We’ve lost the feed from the hydrogen collector to the starboard array,’
  he shouts. ‘We’re falling.’
  As Caroline settles at the terminal Robertson looks at the on-screen
  graphic. Keeping the Station steady in Jupiter’s atmosphere requires a con-
  stant balancing of the positioning thrusters, often seeing them running at
  110 per cent capacity for half the time. If anything disrupts those thrusters,
  the Station falls.
  ‘Can you ﬁx it?’ he asks Caroline. She ignores him.
  The exterior doors that have been jammed shut for four years are groan-
  ing behind them. Everyone knows the Station is operating at the limits of
  its structural integrity; the decay that’s rampant across its surfaces speaks
  for that. If they drop much deeper those doors will buckle, bulkheads will
  crack and the Station will split open, casting them out into Jupiter’s poi-
  sonous winds.
  It’s how they’re all expecting to die.
  But not now, Robertson thinks. Not with rescue so close.
  Caroline says nothing for another ten minutes. She’s working the sys-
  tems they spent months jury-rigging, crawling through conduits and splic-
  ing wires, cannibalising any system they could get their hands on, turning
  them to purposes they were never designed for. Over the past four years
  Robertson has learnt a lot about engineering. He’s one of the people who
  has made this Station their own and he knows how bad tonight is. So he
  stays silent, watching Caroline cut systems, reroute power and reignite the
  thrusters.
  And ten minutes after he asked, the ﬂoor steadies beneath them and
  she says, ‘It’s done.’
  Easter nods appreciation, but Robertson shakes his head: ‘That was too
  close. We couldn’t handle another failure like that.’
  Caroline has already forgotten, is looking around. ‘Where are they?’ she
  asks.
  87
  
  Robertson looks too, immediately knowing who she’s talking about. The
  Professional and Anji Kapoor are nowhere to be seen.
  ‘They slipped out somehow.’ Easter shrugs. ‘Rebecca had got free and
  Jones and Garcia were helping get her back under control. When they got
  back to the barricade the two of them were in the corridor.’
  Robertson remembers the gunﬁre. ‘Enemy?’
  Easter nods. ‘They drew them away from the compound.’ He checks
  David’s readings. ‘Apparently his weapon wasn’t as effective on them as it
  was on one of our own.’
  There’s a bang as a deck plate ﬂies free of its housing, crashing back
  down.
  Robertson knows Greenwich Village inside out now. Underneath that
  deck plate is the primary hydrogen feed for the failed thruster array. He’s
  expecting feedback, an explosion caused by a build-up of pressure from
  some blockage.
  He’s not expecting a smoking and charred hand to reach out from the
  hole in the ﬂoor.
  The gloved hand of an armoured spacesuit.
  The Professional’s visor has a crack down its front: a silver line across
  smoky darkness. They just stand there as he climbs free of the fuel line,
  reaching back into the pipe to haul Anji up after him.
  Their suits had been sleek curves and crisp lines, with occasional
  patches of heavy technology, even free fall through Jupiter’s atmosphere
  failing to dull their appearance. Now they’re matt black, patches of the
  exteriors ﬂaking away as smoke rises from the joints.
  More shocking than this, the Professional’s panther-like movement has
  gone. He looks tired. He looks, for the ﬁrst time, like he belongs among
  the survivors.
  ‘You detonated the fuel line,’ Robertson says.
  The Professional releases the catches on his helmet. ‘We were trapped
  by the energy barrier,’ he says. ‘These suits can withstand the temperatures
  of a burning fuel line. Your enemy can’t.’
  Easter looks confused, but Caroline has caught up. ‘You shot open the
  fuel line, crawled inside while it was on ﬁre. Too tight and hot for them to
  follow.’ She nods, laughs. ‘The only way out of a dead-end.’
  It’s months since Robertson has heard Caroline laugh.
  In all those
  nights, he’s sometimes thought of her laughter as her dreams press against
  him. Dancing in the mess hall, hair slipping loose, laughing in pleasure.
  He wanted to hear her laugh again. But this isn’t the sound of memory. It’s
  short and ugly, punctuating her admiration for the Professional’s actions.
  And it makes Robertson angrier than he thought possible.
  88
  
  ‘You nearly killed us all,’ he says.
  ‘You rerouted the hydrogen, what was left in the pipe burned off. There
  was no danger when we opened that hatch.’ The Professional nods to the
  computer terminal. ‘You compensated for the power loss, It was well within
  your capabilities.’
  Robertson shakes his head. ‘You didn’t know that. You were guessing.
  You could have killed everyone!’
  There’s a hiss as Anji removes her helmet. She brushes her hail back,
  ﬁxing Robertson with a stare. ‘Let it go,’ she says. ‘Even if you’re right,
  there are more important things to do.’
  ‘Like what?’ Robertson snaps.
  ‘Like getting everyone off this station,’ Anji replies.
  They crawled through the pipe in darkness, visors blanked to the ﬁre burn-
  ing outside, their voices the only sensation.
  – This is insane.
  – It gets us back to the docking bay. You should have stayed on the main
  corridor.
  – I forgot about the energy barrier. A pause. What were you doing back
  there?
  – It was one of the emergency datacores. That energy barrier has cut access
  to the main computers. A handful of back-up storage areas are positioned
  around the Station. I downloaded a snapshot of the Station’s computers from
  before the attack happened.
  – They’re not insane, are they?You got it wrong, they really were attacked.
  – They’ve rationalised their experience, extrapolating from the few facts
  they possessed. Creating a war, a blockade. Supposition to deﬁne their lives,
  giving them role and purpose.
  – Those things back there. The enemy. They’re real.
  – Yes.
  – Do we tell them the truth? That there’s no war?
  – No.
  – Why not?
  – They need to believe. Focus that belief and we can use them. They’ve
  been here four years, Miss Kapoor, they’re tired and very close to the psychosis
  I’d assumed. Break their belief you break them. We say nothing.
  And nothing is what they continue to say as Easter presses for answers.
  ‘What were you doing out there in the ﬁrst place?’
  89
  
  Unashamed and unfeeling, the Professional has no interpersonal skills
  Anji recognises. Except one. He can lie. His cold face is the perfect vessel
  for lying and he knows how to weave ﬁction close to the truth.
  Stripping the blackened suit from his body, he explains: ‘Reconnais-
  sance.’ When Easter raises an eyebrow in response, the Professional con-
  tinues, making Easter appear slow for not immediately understanding: ‘Re-
  connaissance for the evacuation. This Station is beyond salvage. Even if
  they penetrated the blockade, bulk ships can’t dock this deep in the atmo-
  sphere.’
  It’s an impatient tone that immediately puts Anji on edge, certain its use
  is not accidental.
  Focus that belief and we can use them.
  Anji had let that phrase slip by, but now she wonders just what the
  Professional meant.
  ‘So how do we get out of here?’ Easter demands.
  ‘Escape pods,’ the Professional replies. ‘They won’t make escape veloc-
  ity, but they should reach high enough for a safe intercept by a smaller
  vessel.’
  Anji watches as he scans the surrounding personnel, focusing on Ar-
  quette.
  ‘Once the evacuation is complete, we destroy this Station from
  orbit, taking the enemy with it.’
  And any doubts Anji had about his ulterior motives are dispelled by the
  look on Arquette’s face. The Professional is playing to the crowd now.
  We can use them.
  There’s silence. Anji has this one opportunity to break the Professional’s
  hold on the survivors, to stop whatever he’s planning to do. But if she tells
  them the truth now, the truth the Professional wants hidden, she can’t be
  sure of the outcome.
  She begins to open her mouth but is cut off by Robertson.
  ‘Look around you.’ He points. ‘Over there, that trunking is from the in-
  ertial response systems from the pod on level three. The generator running
  the computer terminal right here, stripped from life support on the pod two
  sections across.’ He shakes his head. ‘What kind of life do you think we’ve
  been living here?’
  ‘Robbie,’ Arquette says.
  ‘No,’ Robertson snaps. ‘No.’ He ﬁxes on the Professional, ‘When the
  Station fell, the EM shield started ﬂuctuating. Nearly 150 people spent six
  months crammed in those research shuttles behind you, because it was the
  only guaranteed protection from the radiation.’
  Anji says nothing as Robertson continues.
  90
  
  ‘We took it in relays, ﬁve-minute spells to put together shields, lay safe
  paths, ﬁnd anything from anywhere that might keep us alive!’ He points to
  one of the crowd. ‘That man has a tumour the size of your ﬁst on his lungs.
  He’s not alone. This place has taken years off all our lives. Escape pods?’
  he barks. ‘You stupid sonofabitch, take a look at the life we lead. There are
  no escape pods left intact on this Station.’
  As silence falls, Anji starts thinking that Robertson has done her job
  for her. A glance at the Professional dispels the idea. His face remains
  neutral, unconcerned by Robertson’s broadside. It should call into question
  his competence and ability to control the situation.
  When he answers, the Professional’s face remains ﬂat, his voice level.
  But somehow Anji can feel the smile beneath it. Like Robertson’s outburst
  was exactly what he was looking for.
  ‘Maybe you should look at that life you lead.’
  ‘What?’ Robertson says.
  ‘How did you get here? Who brought you to this?’
  ‘The enemy,’ Easter says.
  ‘There’s more than one kind of enemy,’ the Professional says.
  Easter’s a good man, Anji thinks. More suited to command than he
  realises, but cautious. Someone who examines the way ahead and acts
  only on certainty; a man unfazed by the Professional and unlikely to be
  taken in by him.
  Suddenly Anji knows what the Professional is doing.
  ‘There’s the enemy at the door,’ the Professional says, ‘and the one that
  lives inside. Who keeps your head down. Who stops you from ﬁghting.’
  ‘What are you talking about?’ Easter asks.
  ‘Fear,’ the Professional says. ‘And you stink of it.’
  Easter sees the jaws of the trap opening up to swallow him whole. And
  he blinks in the face of it. Blinks for everyone to see and in that instant he’s
  ﬁnished.
  ‘You all smell of it,’ the Professional says. He turns round to Arquette.
  ‘Everyone except you.’
  Anji sees Robertson shaking his head.
  Like her, he’s realised what’s
  happening. His mouth is moving in silent prayer. Don’t do this, he whispers,
  but the Professional pays no heed.
  ‘Only strength can give hope.’
  Robertson tries to take Arquette’s hand, but she snaps it back. At that
  point, he turns and walks away.
  Anji sees the hurt in his eyes and understands it. He’s been party to
  the Professional’s trick. The way he can’t stand and watch Arquette follow
  Easter into the trap speaks volumes about how much he cares for her.
  91
  
  ‘You want this job?’ Easter tells Arquette, pulling a set of threadbare
  stripes from his pocket. ‘You can have it.’
  The cloth lands on the ground by Arquette’s feet.
  It’s Easter’s last stand. To his credit he looks at Arquette, right until
  she ﬁnally breaks contact and sinks to her haunches, picking up the stripes.
  With that done, he silently turns back to David’s cot, checking on his pa-
  tient’s condition.
  Anji looks around. The others are accepting the change without hes-
  itation, some nodding positively, momentum swinging behind the Profes-
  sional. Except she knows the truth. She can’t trust him and, on current
  form, he could dispense with her as easily as he did Easter. If she’s going to
  achieve anything here, she needs allies.
  A couple of hours later and Robertson is at the barricades. Shadows twist
  further down the corridor, throwing themselves at the electriﬁed barriers;
  the automated weapons are conserving power, only ﬁring once or twice a
  minute.
  When he hears footsteps his ﬁrst thought is that it’s Caroline, but the
  tread is too crisp. Only one woman on this station has boots that aren’t
  falling apart.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anji says.
  ‘Joshua Easter’s a good man,’ Robertson says. ‘He didn’t deserve that.’
  Anji settles on a crate next to him, stripped of her suit, uneasy in the
  thin clothing underneath it. She holds up a slender card. ‘It’s a download.
  From the emergency datacore.’
  ‘Then he wants my wife, not me. She’s the computer technician.’
  Anji pauses, uncomfortable. ‘She said you could do it. She’s busy help-
  ing with the repairs to our suits.’
  Robertson snorts.
  He knows his wife.
  The frustration she’s felt at
  Easter’s caution has suddenly found an outlet. ‘They’re planning some-
  thing? Some strategy?’
  ‘I’m not sure.’ Anji hesitates, then says, ‘I’d like to see it too. The last
  readings from the main computer? There could be all sorts of data.’
  ‘Fitz,’ Robertson says, looking at the datacard. ‘You want to know what
  happened to Fitz and his friend.’
  ‘Yes,’ Anji says quietly.
  They sit in silence for a long while, listening to the noise of the barri-
  cade. Robertson tries not to look at her.
  ‘How long have you been married?’ she asks.
  ‘Three years,’ he answers.
  A gunshot punches the air.
  92
  
  ‘You seem lonely,’ she says.
  That’s too raw to answer.
  ‘What about you?’
  Robertson says.
  ‘You
  friends are four years gone. You still came for them. Why?’
  She smiles a little. ‘Maybe I’m lonely, too.’
  Robertson shakes his head. ‘Maybe.’
  There’s a pause, then Anji says, ‘I’m married too. His name’s Michael;
  he’s a journalist too.’
  Another pause. Robertson is about to speak when she cuts him off. ‘I
  had another life. Before I met Michael, before this station fell.’ She smiles.
  ‘And when it fell, I started again. And it’s been good. I’ve seen things and
  done things, but. . . ’ She looks at him. ‘My family weren’t there when I
  married. When I lost the Doctor and Fitz, I lost any chance of keeping in
  touch with them and. . .
  I missed them. I still miss them. Talking with
  my dad, ﬁghting with my brother. And Michael. . .
  I’d love for them to
  have met Michael.’ She pauses. ‘My dad was a good man. He’d have liked
  Michael.’
  Robertson nods, eyes ﬁxed on the ﬂoor.
  ‘When I was a kid,’ Anji says, ‘he used to take me to the football, to see
  Leeds play.’
  Robertson is confused for a moment, then catches up. Anji’s British, like
  Fitz. When she says football, she means soccer.
  Her voice is clear with memory. ‘Rezaul wasn’t old enough to go and
  my dad thought maybe I’d like it. And it was ﬁne, you know. Cold, but
  the terraces were just getting friendly again. None of that trigger, trigger,
  trigger crap. And it’d be a cold day and he’d pull me through the crowd
  and I was ﬁfteen and so grown up, but. . . His hand felt so big, so warm.’
  Robertson looks at her. There are no tears, but there’s a faraway look in
  her eyes. ‘Did you like it?’ He asks. ‘The football?’
  Anji smiles. ‘Enough to keep checking the scores every Saturday. Did
  that for a good few years.’
  ‘But not now?’
  She laughs. ‘Where I come from Manchester United are still a football
  team, not a junk-bonds clearing house.’
  Robertson frowns. He never followed soccer much, but he could swear
  Manchester United hadn’t played football for nearly 150 years.
  ‘It wouldn’t matter if I’d shipped out to one of the system colonies, I’d
  still have missed my dad.’ She looks at him. ‘That’s why I’m here. If there’s
  a chance, I’d like to see them again, like them to meet my husband.’
  There’s another moment of silence, then Robertson takes the data-card
  from her hand. They walk back to the Meridian and the computer termi-
  nals. As Robertson settles down, he asks Anji: ‘Is he for real?’
  93
  
  ‘The Professional?’
  Robertson nods. ‘You’re normal enough; you’ve got that vibe, like Fitz
  had. Regular people, and I trust regular people. But him? I don’t know him
  and I need to know: can we trust him?’
  Anji stays quiet. Robertson plugs the datacard in, sifting through its
  contents. Finally, Anji answers: ‘I don’t think anyone really knows.’
  ‘How come?’
  ‘The Professionals are one of those fairy stories – imps and sprites doing
  dishes and tidying the house while everyone’s asleep.’
  ‘Imps and sprites don’t put holes through people.’
  Anji shakes her head. ‘The point is, you only ever see their work, never
  the person.’
  ‘So who are they?’ Robertson asks. ‘Who is he?’
  ‘No one knows,’ Anji says.
  Robertson stops working, turns to make sure she’s serious. She is.
  ‘No one I’ve ever spoken to knows, anyway, and I’ve spoken to lots of
  military.’ A pause. ‘You spot Professionals by the bodies they leave behind.
  Beyond that, they’re anonymous.’
  ‘That’s it?’
  Anji shrugs, ‘There’re some urban legends. Robots; clones of famous
  warriors; aliens ﬁghting for Earth; the dead brought back to life.’ She looks
  at him. ‘That’s just the sensible stuff. They have voodoo-markings tattooed
  on their bodies; they’re blessed by oriental magicks; they’re the physical
  embodiment of the Earth’s spirit.’
  Robertson snorts, takes a long look past Anji back into the heart of
  Greenwich, where the Professional is talking to Caroline. When did Green-
  wich become Greenwich Village? When did this place become their home?
  ‘You know what I think?’ Robertson says. ‘He’s just a soldier.’
  Anji follows Robertson’s gaze. ‘You love her, don’t you?’
  Robertson can feel something building inside of him. Something that
  threatens to overwhelm him.
  Robertson saw a face once and it will haunt him for the rest of his days.
  ‘I don’t know,’ he says softly. ‘I don’t know any more.’
  The terminal beeps and Robertson breaks from Anji’s stare. He checks
  the computer, shakes his head. ‘I got nothing for you. Not yet, anyway.’
  Anji peers over his shoulder. ‘Problem?’
  Robertson gestures at the screen: ‘There’s a lot of data. Video streams,
  status reports, that kind of thing. But’ – he points to a stream of sym-
  bols crisscrossing the screen – ‘there’s corrupted material overlaying it.’ He
  shrugs. ‘It’s not unusual in holographic storage, but the computers can’t
  self-clean with half the system caught inside the energy barrier.’ He nods at
  94
  
  the two terminals. ‘Caroline had to rebuild the programming from scratch.
  Ghosts in every machine.’
  ‘Can you clean it up?’
  ‘Sure,’ Robertson says.
  ‘And do me a copy?’ Anji asks. ‘Of the corruption, I mean.’ She shrugs.
  ‘He wants to see everything, I say we give him everything.’
  ‘Even if it’s a waste of time.’
  ‘Especially if it’s a waste of time.’
  Robertson smiles, then hits a few keys and slots a datachip into the
  printer. ‘The clean-up will take a few hours. Everything should be ready to
  view tomorrow.’
  Anji lays a hand on his shoulder.
  Her ﬁngers are cool.
  She smiles.
  ‘Thank you.’
  When she ﬁnds him, the Professional’s meeting with Arquette is over. Anji
  doesn’t ask what they talked about.
  He’s sitting near one of the greenhouses. The damp smell reminds her
  of Regent’s Park on a spring Sunday, but the Professional doesn’t look like
  anyone from that life. A small set of tools is in his hand, checking compo-
  nents on the armour stripped from his torso.
  ‘I thought you said those things could withstand the burning fuel,’ Anji
  says.
  ‘They did.’ He nods to where her suit is stacked. ‘Yours is ﬁne. This is
  damage from the energy barrier.’
  ‘What did it do?’
  ‘Some components have an organic base; neural interfaces on the suit’s
  AI. All burnt out.’
  ‘Irreparably?’
  ‘I can bypass.’
  As he gets to his feet, Anji sees the burns for the ﬁrst time. Calloused
  patches of skin, puckered red and white across his shoulders.
  ‘Is that the energy barrier too?’
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘You should get a dressing on that.’
  ‘It’s difﬁcult to reach.’
  ‘Then get someone else to do it. Easter would have been the perfect
  choice, only I don’t think you’re on speaking terms.’ She picks up his medi-
  cal kit. ‘So that leaves me.’
  A moment’s pause, then the Professional sits down, offering her his
  back. Anji begins to spray analgesic on to the burns. He ﬂinches as the chill
  95
  
  vapour touches injured ﬂesh. There’s an odd mechanical hiss as he does
  this.
  ‘That’s a big scar,’ Anji says, looking at the back of his neck. There’s a
  two-inch strip of raised, hard ﬂesh at the top of the Professional’s spine.
  ‘How did you get it?’
  ‘I don’t remember,’ he says.
  Anji sprays more salve and the hiss sounds again. This time she locates
  the source. The Professional hasn’t removed every piece of his armour. A
  bulky strip of metal encircles his right biceps; tiny vials arranged are along
  its surface. Anji looks at it, then gently prods the Professional’s back. He
  gasps with pain and Anji makes a show of apologising; but, as she does,
  she hears the hiss as one of the vials bubbles.
  Automated pain relief.
  But there’s more to it than that, Anji realises.
  Up until now the Professional’s voice has been vague; quite unlike the
  crisp orders issued previously. Maybe he was distracted by the burns and
  the drugs now dulling the pain are all it takes, but suddenly that focus is
  back.
  ‘What did you recover from the download?’ he snaps.
  Anji hands over the chip containing the record of the interference. ‘A
  ghost in the machine,’ she says.
  As he turns the chip over, she seals his wounds with a layer of synthetic
  skin. ‘The ﬁle was corrupted,’ she explains, watching the coating stiffen
  then go supple over the burns. ‘That’s the pattern overlaying all the data.’
  The Professional slots the chip into the gauntlet from his armour, checks
  the data on its small screen.
  ‘It looks random,’ Anji says.
  ‘I can see how it looks,’ the Professional replies.
  There’s a clear implication to this sentence that Anji isn’t happy with.
  The possibility that she’s missed something.
  ‘Anything else?’ she asks.
  ‘No.’
  As he continues to study the ﬁle Anji repacks the medical kit. As she
  does so, she ﬁnds a small rack of tiny vials; replacements for the ones his
  suit pumps in response to pain, the ones that sharpen his mind. Checking
  he is still focused on the ﬁle, Anji slips a vial from the clip, then closes the
  medical kit.
  As she moves away, the Professional does not even acknowledge her
  departure.
  The Professional studies the ﬁle for ﬁfteen minutes.
  96
  
  There’s no formula here, no trace of inﬁltration programs or sign of alien
  thinking. Just a random series of letters and numbers. Except something
  nags at him, telling him there is more to see.
  Continued study reveals nothing and he closes the ﬁle down.
  For all the night’s activities – the escape and ﬁreﬁght, their return and
  the subsequent manoeuvring – it is not yet dawn.
  The survivors have
  drifted back to their beds or their duties. In this corner of the compound,
  he is alone.
  The Professional has felt like this before. His primary role is as an an-
  alyst: studying the possibilities of tactics, attack and counter-attack. On
  occasion, he has trouble focusing. It surfaces like a headache, pressure
  building inside his skull; most times, the medication relieves the tension.
  Sometimes it doesn’t work.
  An image comes to him in these moments.
  A raid on one of the system colonies, targeting a group of alien insur-
  gents. Explosions ﬂowering above marshland. One of the hostiles pushing
  through the water towards him, his back alive with ﬂames that will never
  burn out.
  The Professional reported this problem to the colonel.
  The colonel explained how the brain forms patterns. When the Profes-
  sional’s mind is overwhelmed by detail, it ﬁnds a release valve. This image
  has become that release. What is required is a more efﬁcient distraction.
  The longer he stays on the Station, the more options and scenarios
  weigh upon the Professional’s mind. The more he sees that hostile, sees
  the ﬂames. This place feels uncomfortable. He feels dislocated from the
  people and the surroundings.
  He opens the suit’s dictation routine. His new release valve.
  The Professional pauses, giving his thoughts a voice: ‘It was the ﬁrst
  lesson we learnt when we reached for the stars: for everything, there is a
  limit.’
  97
  
  Four years earlier
  ‘I’ve got it,’ the Doctor said.
  Fitz looked over sulkily as the Doctor hit a control, letting the video
  play.
  The docking bay, the previous night. Jason McCray, slowly passing a
  cleaner over the Pegasus’s surface, paying close attention to its blackened
  underside.
  ‘Heat scars,’ the Doctor said, ‘from the suicide dive.’
  ‘I still don’t see what’s so interesting,’ Fitz commented.
  “Wait.’ The Doctor slowed the footage as Jason turned away. ‘Here, he
  ﬂicks his right hand, like it’s wet.’
  ‘He’s been cleaning, it probably is wet.’
  ‘Oh, I’m sure,’ the Doctor said. ‘Now look. He realises he’s dropped
  the journal, goes to pick it up.’ He froze the picture, with Jason’s arm
  outstretched. ‘With his right hand.’
  ‘Great,’ Fitz answered.
  The Doctor sighed. ‘The poetry isn’t that interesting, Fitz.’
  ‘Look,’ Fitz said, ‘I checked. The 101st used to have an eagle as their
  insignia, right? But that’s changed to a sword and a scythe.’
  ‘Representing the power impellers and chain swords used as weapons
  during the occupation,’ the Doctor said.
  ‘So Jason used to be one of them,’ Fitz said. ‘I saw that tattoo on him
  last night.’ He swung his feet over the edge of his bunk, looking down at
  the Doctor. ‘McCray’s got a brother, who used to be part of his unit, but
  barely acknowledges him when his boys are around. A brother who can
  barely talk, but somehow manages to pull a Byron on the sly.’
  ‘And,’ the Doctor said, ‘that kind of discrepancy isn’t unheard of. Autistic
  children can have phenomenal recall of shapes and numbers, for example.’
  He held the journal up. ‘Now, does that look like a thumbprint to you?’
  ‘I don’t understand the fuss,’ Fitz said.
  The Doctor returned the comms panel to its default, the screen still
  showing Defcon 4. ‘I’m concerned about the Pegasus exploding.’
  98
  
  ‘I thought that was a malfunction?’
  ‘Or sabotage. People shouldn’t just snap, ships shouldn’t just blow up.
  It’s another piece of random violence.’
  ‘Ships aren’t people, though, are they?’ Fitz said. ‘Ships don’t commit
  suicide, they get blown up.’
  The Doctor smiled. ‘Exactly. Which brings us to this.’ He tapped the
  stained cover of Jason’s journal. ‘Trace evidence.’
  Fitz sighed. ‘Go on, then.’
  ‘Water shouldn’t stain leather like this. Jason touched something on
  that ship, something he transferred to this book when he picked it up.’
  ‘Bleach?’ Fitz suggested.
  ‘The cleaning agents here don’t work like that, I checked.’ He looked up
  at Fitz. ‘Could your friend in the cargo bay spare some supplies for a day
  or two?’
  ‘What do you want?’
  ‘Some lab equipment.’ He sniffed the book cover. ‘I want to run an
  analysis of this. Traces of explosive, that kind of thing.’
  Fitz shrugged. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
  As the Doctor continued to examine the book, Fitz read the newspaper
  headlines, following up on the riots. After quelling the protests, the shock
  troops had investigated the colonists’ claims. To everyone’s surprise, they’d
  found alien artefacts.
  Fitz put the paper down, sighed. ‘Are we getting a bit sidetracked? We
  came here for Anji, now we’re looking at exploding ships.’
  ‘Patterns of violent behaviour,’ the Doctor repeated.
  ‘Yeah, but detectives look for motive, don’t they? And we don’t have
  any, or any suspects, come to that. That stuff you mentioned, nerve gas,
  that kind of –’
  ‘Dead-ends.’ The Doctor handed Fitz a dataslide. ‘The latest from Au-
  Doc. The only research like that is designed for alien neurologies; it’s com-
  pletely harmless to humans.’
  ‘So?’
  ‘We look at other projects, other people. I want to know about those
  shipments for the Mukabis, what they’re working on that’s so classiﬁed.
  And I want to know why someone would destroy the Pegasus. Something’s
  going wrong on this station and there’s got to be a trail somewhere.’ The
  Doctor tapped the journal again. ‘Lab equipment, please.’
  ‘All right,’ Fitz said, trying to think things through. ‘This Mukabi pair.
  What about them?’
  ‘Ah.’ The Doctor smiled. ‘I’ve had AuDoc joining some dots. A quick
  round of six degrees of separation, in fact.’
  99
  
  ‘Excuse me?’
  ‘The ﬁrst thing Commander Valletti did after explaining why the Station
  was built here was swallow all her wine. She sips wine; she’d been sipping
  all through dinner.’
  ‘She was lying to you.’
  The Doctor called up a graphic. ‘This dot is Jupiter, this dot is Farside
  Station. I asked AuDoc to ﬁnd the six people linking them. It only needed
  one.’
  Fitz could guess. ‘Sara Mukabi?’
  ‘This dot’ – the Doctor pointed – ‘is an Earth Forces science mission to
  Jupiter ﬁfteen years ago. A number of the crew suffered severe psycholog-
  ical trauma; the on-board psychologist was Sara Mukabi.’
  ‘OK,’ Fitz said, ‘psychos then, psychos now, both connected to Jupiter,
  both connected by Sara Mukabi. What’s the next step?’
  The Doctor called up AuDoc’s graphics program, focusing on the black
  cylinders of the 101st. There was no pattern to their interactions with the
  cargo-bay time sheets, the shipments appearing at random.
  ‘Did your friend give any idea what these shipments are?’
  ‘Not really. Big, long drums.’
  The Doctor nodded, stared out of the window. Jupiter was coming into
  view.
  He was hiding it well, but Fitz could see frustration beneath the surface.
  If he thought they were chasing their tails, the Doctor must have seen it a
  mile off.
  Getting down from his bunk, Fitz knocked the newspaper on to the ﬂoor,
  jogging its controls. When he picked it up, the slide held an image from
  the system colonies: a trooper, holding a weapon designed for alien hands.
  The blue liquid on his hands and the gun could only be blood.
  When Fitz looked up, he saw the Doctor’s reﬂection in the window star-
  ing at him.
  ‘Of course,’ the Doctor said, ‘there is another possibility. This is the
  cutting edge of Earth’s defence research, and a prime target for any hostile
  force. AuDoc showed a lot of ﬂights down into Jupiter’ atmosphere recently.
  They might be searching for something.’
  ‘This might have nothing to do with the Station personnel? Then really
  could be Reds under the bed?’
  The Doctor smiled. ‘Sometimes when you’re paranoid –’
  ‘They are out to get you.’
  ‘The only problem with that scenario,’ the Doctor said, ‘is that kind of
  hunt should be co-ordinated by Commander Valletti. And it’s the Mukabis
  who are responsible for those ﬂights.’
  100
  
  The sickbay was a large circular room: beds around the exterior, bank of
  monitors positioned in the centre. When the Doctor arrived Jason McCray
  was the sole occupant.
  The Doctor found the screen for Jason’s bed. Burns under control ribs
  healing, release imminent. He paused, then called up more detailed infor-
  mation.
  ‘No evidence of nerve damage or deliberate toxicity,’ he muttered ‘But. . .
  Hello. What’s that?’
  A hand reached across, clicked the monitor off. The Doctor turned to
  ﬁnd John McCray behind him. ‘Patient records are conﬁdential.’
  ‘Professional curiosity,’ the Doctor smiled. ‘I’m not just a doctor of eco-
  nomics.’
  McCray looked at him, then his stone face relaxed and he sighed. ‘I
  know Commander Valletti looks easy-going, but. . .
  We run a tight ship.
  Don’t go sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.’ He held hi! palms up.
  ‘Honest advice, OK?’
  ‘Appreciated,’ the Doctor said.
  There were footsteps, Valletti approaching. ‘Is everything all right?’
  ‘Fine, thank you,’ the Doctor said. ‘I was just returning this.’ He held
  up the journal; there were scratch marks where he’d taken samples a the
  cover. ‘It was recovered this morning; I understand it belongs to Captain
  McCray’s brother.’
  ‘I see.’ Valletti looked at the control bank then slipped between them,
  reactivating the monitor. The cranial scan the Doctor had been examining
  was still there: a bright silver silhouette penetrating Jason’s skull.
  For the ﬁrst time, the Doctor saw anger ﬂash on Valletti’s face.
  ‘You shouldn’t have seen that. And Captain McCray should know better
  than to cover up for you.’
  ‘It’s not his fault,’ the Doctor said. ‘I have this insatiable curiosity.’
  ‘Lucky, adaptable and now curious,’ she snapped. ‘Anything else I should
  know about, Doctor?’
  ‘Those three are probably enough to be going on with.’
  Valletti looked at him for a long moment. ‘Captain McCray, you’re here
  to see to the discharge of your brother?’
  ‘Yes, ma’am.’
  ‘The Doctor can help you. He doesn’t leave your sight. When you’re
  done report as scheduled, bringing the Doctor with you.’ She reached in,
  pulled the Doctor’s pass from his jacket. ‘Are we clear?’
  ‘Yes, ma’am.’
  The Doctor had left Fitz with a shopping list of equipment.
  Some Fitz
  101
  
  borrowed from the cargo bay, but most of the items weren’t the kind of
  thing you left hanging around.
  Returning to their ofﬁce, Fitz pondered how to proceed. He swung his
  feet up on to the desk, then jumped as a mass of colour exploded in his
  vision.
  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, calming himself as he realised what had hap-
  pened; his heel had hit the computer control pad, launching AuDoc. He
  was looking for the off switch when he remembered what the Doctor had
  said.
  It’s capable of adaptive thought, so if I ask AuDoc to locate black-money
  projects, it’ll ﬁgure out how to do that itself.
  Fitz nodded to himself and reached for the controls.
  A little experimentation showed that asking the AI to do something was
  a simple matter of typing your question; with the hologram active, the
  answers drifted across the space over the desk.
  ‘Right.’ Fitz cracked his knuckles, leaning over the keypad. ‘Let’s see
  how you handle an initiative test.’
  LOCATE UNUSUAL ACTIVITY ON THIS STATION.
  – HIGH LEVEL OF MAINTENANCE OVERTIME, AuDoc replied.
  ‘AuDoc, one; Kreiner, nil,’ Fitz muttered and tried again, awkwardly
  tapping instructions with two ﬁngers.
  SCAN ALL STATION RECORDS FOR UNUSUAL PATTERNS AND AC-
  TIVITY. He paused, thinking about how the Doctor had studied the video
  footage from the docking bay. INCLUDE ALL SURVEILLANCE.
  Fitz thought about the Reds under the bed, added, PAY SPECIAL AT-
  TENTION TO ANY SUSPECTED ALIEN ACTIVITY.
  – ESTIMATED RUN TIME: THIRTY-TWO HOURS AND FORTY-SEVEN MIN-
  UTES.
  USE YOUR INITIATIVE. JOIN THE DOTS.
  – ESTIMATED RUN TIME: FORTY-FIVE HOURS AND TWELVE MINUTES.
  Fitz sighed. ‘No chance of you getting me this equipment, then?’ he
  said, waving the Doctor’s list.
  The desk printer whirred into life, a completed requisition form gliding
  out.
  ‘Oh,’ Fitz said, ‘you could have mentioned voice recognition.’
  The Doctor felt no real surprise when McCray reported for duty.
  Level
  six. The one drawing the power from the reactor, the one Valletti hadn’t
  mentioned. The lift doors opened on to a long corridor, so self-consciously
  devoid of features it probably contained more security systems than he
  knew what to do with.
  102
  
  Valletti was waiting.
  ‘Don’t move,’ she said, reaching into the lift to pin the pass back on
  his lapel. ‘I needed to upgrade your clearance. For this level, I have to
  authorise the pass personally.’
  The Doctor stepped cautiously out into the scope of the invisible security
  systems. Nothing happened.
  ‘You look surprised,’ Valletti said. ‘What did you think was happening?
  That you were going to be tortured?’
  The Doctor smiled. ‘Of course not.’
  Valletti turned and led them down the corridor. ‘I’m sure you’ve noticed
  some irregularities during your audit. You’re smart enough to have realised
  there are black-money projects on this station, even before last night’s din-
  ner.’
  ‘I couldn’t –’
  ‘It never made sense to me to have an audit that couldn’t account for
  funds. There’d be no way for you to know whether or not it was going on
  legitimate projects.’
  ‘And that’s what this is?’ the Doctor asked. ‘A legitimate project?’
  Valletti laughed. ‘The singularity bomb is a legitimate project. This’ –
  she nodded down the hall – ‘is less conventional.’
  They’d reached another security door now.
  ‘Like a titanium implant sunk six inches into Jason McCray’s cerebel-
  lum?’
  Valletti shook her head. ‘Not just Jason.’
  McCray pulled down his uniform collar. Metal glinted at the base of his
  skull. ‘Every member of the 101st has one.’
  ‘Why?’ the Doctor asked. ‘What does it do?’
  ‘Hurry up and we’ll show you.’ It was Terrance Mukabi, standing in the
  opening doorway. ‘I don’t want to tie up the network longer than necessary.’
  The chamber was similar to the medical bay: circular with couches
  slung against its outside edge, a small platform occupying the otherwise
  empty centre. Another door was set in the wall on the far side: heavily
  plated, with yellow and black stripes, and a large keypad.
  As the Doctor and Valletti entered, McCray removed his uniform jacket
  and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He settled down on one of the couches, the
  rest of the 101st seated around him. Valletti ushered the Doctor up a set
  of steps on to a catwalk above. From this new vantage point, the Doctor
  could see diamond lenses glittering on the central platform. A low whine
  was building, and he could taste ozone on his tongue.
  Terrance was working on a console on one side of the catwalk, while
  Sara Mukabi was positioned behind a similar control bank opposite. They
  103
  
  gave each other quick glances, then Terrance nodded.
  Almost immediately the whine increased in pitch, and a small white
  spot appeared in mid-air above the platform. A moment’s pause, then it
  expanded into a dull grey sphere.
  ‘Holographic projector,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’m not sure I’m impressed.’
  Instruments unfolded from the arms of the couches, ice-thin needles
  sliding into the muscle tissues of McCray’s squad. Clamps followed, holding
  their heads in place as probes drilled into the implants they carried.
  ‘The holograms aren’t the clever bit,’ Valletti said. ‘It’s the data that’s
  projected.’
  The Doctor looked down at the twelve men below, musing. ‘Because
  they generate it?’ He frowned. ‘I don’t see the beneﬁt. The human mind is
  a wonderful thing, but even a dozen of them, linked together at their fullest
  potential, still wouldn’t come close to this station’s processing power.’
  ‘That isn’t the point, though.’ It was Terrance speaking now. ‘They’re
  human, and the avatars they generate in there’ – he pointed at the holo-
  graphic sphere – ‘believe themselves to be human.’
  ‘A simulation programme,’ the Doctor said. ‘High-tech training. But why
  bother with the simulacra? Surely it’s more efﬁcient just to walk into an
  imaging chamber?’
  Terrance was about to answer, but Valletti raised her hand to silence
  him. ‘I want to see if the Doctor has the intellect to match his curiosity.’
  The Doctor frowned at her, but it was a genuine challenge, devoid of
  underlying threat. He turned away, resting his hands on the catwalk railing,
  his ﬁngers drumming as he surveyed the room’s equipment. It was only
  when he spotted Sara Mukabi opposite that he smiled.
  ‘This isn’t about technology, is it? It’s psychology.’
  ‘Go on.’
  ‘Military training is predicated around repetition and reduction. Every-
  thing becomes a series of small tasks. Repeat those tasks until they’re as
  automatic as breathing and you can perform them in any circumstance.
  Reload, strip your gun, bind a wound, whatever. And for all the advances
  in weapons technology, that’s how it’s worked for hundreds of years. But
  it’s all just training. You could use the most advanced holographic proce-
  dures and your soldiers would still know they were just in training. And
  training is no substitute for combat experience.’ He brought his hand down
  on the rail in triumph, grinning. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? This is like your wine
  bottle or the atmosphere ﬁlters on the windows. Something to trick the
  mind.’
  ‘The implants link them to the computers,’ Valletti said, ‘then a pharma-
  ceutical cocktail enhances the sensation and integrates the memories into
  104
  
  the hippocampus.’ She gestured at the holographic ﬁeld. ‘What’s generated
  in there is, to all intents and purposes, real. If they’re hit, it hurts. You feel
  mud under your boots, taste blood in your mouth, smell the ﬁres burning.’
  The holographic ﬁeld began to ﬂicker, shapes coming into focus.
  ‘They believe it’s real. And when the session is complete,’ the Doctor
  said, ‘they retain those memories, those experiences.’
  ‘In this room,’ Valletti said, ‘we can create combat veterans without the
  soldiers ever once stepping into the ﬁeld. It’s the most important thing we
  do here.’
  ‘Because a weapon is only ever as good as the soldier wielding it,’ the
  Doctor agreed.
  AuDoc had provided a remarkably simple solution to the problem of pur-
  loining the Doctor’s equipment: walk into the labs and take it. Most of the
  scientists glanced wearily at the requisition form and handed the stuff over.
  It was all going well until Fitz turned a corner and ran into the thin man
  he’d seen leaving their ofﬁce in a temper. Professor Deschamps.
  The professor’s eyes narrowed, then recognition dawned and he nod-
  ded. ‘The accountant.’ He pointed to the trolley Fitz was pushing. ‘Leave
  that here. Come with me. Now.’
  The holographic sphere had coalesced; the 101st crouched in a muddy
  ﬁeld. The bio-readouts on the couches below jumped as this happened.
  The Doctor could see a black liquid being pumped into the men’s arms.
  ‘This is a classic training scenario,’ Valletti explained. ‘An actual mission
  and a West Point textbook example for almost 250 years. We re-create
  the landscape, equipment, opposition, even the weather, all down to the
  smallest detail.’
  The Doctor looked at the sphere.
  ‘Normandy, I’d guess.
  A German
  machine-gun emplacement, circa 1944. The sixth of June, perhaps? Near
  Br´ecourt Manor?’
  Valletti smiled. ‘You know your history.’
  ‘So do you. The paratroopers who stormed those guns back then were
  also members of the 101st Airborne.’
  The Doctor studied the holographic sphere. The dew on the grass; the
  dirt and shrapnel accompanying each explosion; the crease and movement
  of the uniforms; the awkward weight of the weaponry.
  All down to the smallest detail.
  And, the Doctor thought, the experience would be different for each
  soldier. Different perspective, sounds and textures.
  105
  
  Deschamps guided a reluctant Fitz into one of the sealed chambers on the
  lab ﬂoor.
  Equations that hurt Fitz’s eyes just when he looked at them scrolled
  across screens on the wall, a handful of staff keeping track of their progress.
  Behind them a cage of rats sat on a worktop, close to a set of generators
  producing an unsettling whine.
  ‘I thought you were moving on to deep-space testing,’ Fitz said, glancing
  uneasily at the machinery.
  ‘Weeks away, boy,’ Deschamps snapped. ‘And we still need to work on
  the theory.’ He pointed to one of the screens. ‘There. Look at that.’
  Fitz did. The symbols that glided elsewhere were stuttering here. ‘Yes?’
  he said nervously.
  Deschamps sighed in frustration. Fitz could see the man’s temper build-
  ing. ‘It’s not good enough,’ Deschamps said. ‘I’m underfunded and supplied
  with faulty equipment.’
  Fitz smiled, edging back towards the door.
  ‘It really is Commander
  Valletti you need to sp–’
  Deschamps grabbed his arm, wheeled him over to the generators. Each
  one had a tiny screen set into its top. ‘Look,’ Deschamps ordered.
  Fitz looked. The nearest screen was white, punctuated by tiny pinpricks
  of black snapping in and out of existence.
  ‘What am I supposed to be
  looking at?’ he asked.
  ‘Singularities,’ Deschamps said.
  ‘Hang on,’ Fitz said. ‘Aren’t singularities like black holes or something?’
  Deschamps waved his hand dismissively. ‘On this level, they’re nothing
  like them and exactly the same.’
  ‘How big are they?’ Fitz asked.
  Deschamps gave him an irritated look, pointing to the bottom of the
  generator’s screen: ‘Can’t you read?’
  All Fitz could see was a long mathematical formula. ‘Oh, right.’
  Deschamps tapped the generator. ‘They last less than a billionth of a
  second. It’s only the computer that lets you see them at all.’
  ‘I’m really not the man for –’
  ‘The screen, boy,’ Deschamps said, slamming his hand down on the gen-
  erator. ‘You can understand the screen, can’t you?’
  ‘It doesn’t seem to be working,’ Fitz said.
  ‘Precisely,’ Deschamps said. ‘And who is responsible for the upkeep of
  the theoretical-intelligence computers?’
  Fitz took a guess. ‘Terrance Mukabi?’
  The generator behind them suddenly stepped up in pitch.
  ‘Who is never anywhere to be found!’
  106
  
  Fitz glanced at the generator screen. The black dots were ﬂashing with
  a greater frequency and getting larger. ‘Is that supposed to be –’
  An alarm sounded and the generator screen went black. Deschamps
  reached over, cutting the power, studying the readings. ‘Bloody continuum
  imbalance,’ he muttered.
  Fitz watched him for a moment, then realised the scientist had already
  forgotten he was even in the room.
  ‘Never look a gift horse,’ Fitz murmured, edging towards the door. As
  he passed the cage the rats suddenly screamed at his presence, clawing at
  the bars and each other.
  ‘Before your recital, you were off-network,’ the Doctor said. ‘In here? Run-
  ning a training scenario?’
  ‘Yes,’ Valletti answered, ‘How did you – ?’
  ‘Time lag on the Station computers. I imagine this level of detail ties up
  an awful lot of processing power.’
  ‘We’re having some difﬁculty,’ Terrance admitted.
  ‘But we’re hoping
  to extend the system’s uses to justify the processing time. Pure research
  applications, for example.’
  The holosphere ﬁlled with ﬂame and mud as one of the emplacements
  was destroyed. McCray, crouched low, led his squad on through another
  trench, rolling grenades around a blind corner.
  ‘What kind of research?’ the Doctor asked.
  ‘Whatever you like. We’ve duplicated Jupiter’s atmosphere, for example,
  trying to understand its weather systems. Modelled ten thousand years of
  activity in just under ﬁve minutes.’
  One of the men at McCray’s side snapped back, a bullet exploding
  through his shoulder. The Doctor located the man on the couches below:
  he hadn’t moved.
  ‘You integrate these virtual memories with their real ones, yes?’
  ‘It’s tricky,’ Valletti said. ‘At present, it requires a regular drug regime
  to ensure the synapses don’t reject the input, but yes, they’ll remember all
  this.’
  The lights were dimming as they walked back to their quarters. The Doctor
  had found Fitz as he was leaving their ofﬁce. Fitz hurriedly told the Doctor
  about Deschamps and his schizophrenic rats; in return, the Doctor ﬁlled
  him in on his day’s discoveries.
  ‘Well,’ Fitz said, ‘I thought I’d had a good day on the investigation front.
  Deschamps is a complete nutcase, but I didn’t need to bother you with that:
  you’ve got it sussed.’
  107
  
  ‘Have I?’ the Doctor replied.
  ‘Oh, come on,’ Fitz said. ‘Brain implants. The Mukabis are using them
  to control those soldiers. It’s why they’re so secretive about it.’
  ‘They’re secretive,’ the Doctor explained, ‘because that kind of work is
  highly illegal. During the occupation, the aliens kept a lot of Earth’s pop-
  ulation subjugated with neurological implants. Technology like that has
  been banned since 2171. That’s why it’s black money, that’s why no one
  here knows about it. Besides,’ the Doctor said, ‘what would the Mukabis
  gain from that kind of mind control?’
  ‘Whatever they want,’ Fitz replied. ‘Think about it. What couldn’t you
  do with your own private army?’
  ‘It’s an interesting theory,’ the Doctor said. ‘But I have a few questions.’
  ‘Yes?’ Fitz said.
  ‘The soldiers on Mars may not have had implants.’
  ‘We didn’t know to look,’ Fitz said.
  ‘True,’ the Doctor replied. ‘But the pilot deﬁnitely didn’t. There was no
  implant and no scarring to suggest he’d ever had one.’
  ‘Ah,’ Fitz answered.
  ‘Plus, there are those restricted cargo shipments. And there’s another
  room on the far side of the Avatar chamber. One they didn’t show me.’
  ‘Do I sense breaking and entering coming on?’
  ‘Possibly,’ the Doctor said. ‘The Avatar chamber couldn’t account for all
  the power drawn to that level.’
  He opened the door to their quarters. Almost half the room was ﬁlled
  with crates, test tubes, piping and gas canisters.
  ‘Everything you asked for,’ Fitz said. He smiled at the mess. ‘Best of luck
  with it.’
  ‘Why? Where are you going?’
  ‘Dinner and a beer or two,’ Fitz answered. ‘Try not to get yourself killed
  while I’m gone this time.’
  The Doctor settled down, the news channel running in the background.
  Fitz’s comments about the stability of Deschamps’ experiments worried
  him. It wasn’t the behaviour of the rats, as such; a scan of Deschamps’
  published notes suggested they might be able to detect the subspace friction
  his work caused, like birds ﬂeeing a thunderstorm. Even if the soldiers on
  Mars had been in contact with the project, it was difﬁcult to see how it
  could have affected them billions of miles away.
  The concern was the instability Deschamps seemed unwilling to ad-
  dress: if one of his singularities began spiralling out of control, would he
  be able to contain it?
  108
  
  As the Doctor sorted through the equipment, he started wondering ex-
  actly how Fitz had got it all. Which sparked another thought. The power
  used by the Mukabis wasn’t registering on the Station records, which pre-
  sumably meant that any equipment requisitions wouldn’t show up either.
  But the Avatar lab indicated a large-scale project, with more rooms he
  had yet to see. And there was no way the shipments the 101st handled
  could account for all the equipment involved.
  He picked up a slide holding the inventory AuDoc had drawn up, and
  began highlighting discrepancies between equipment ordered and equip-
  ment used. If he could identify components the Mukabis had siphoned off,
  he might be able to reverse-engineer some of their equipment.
  Try not to get yourself killed while I’m gone this time.
  That thought stayed with Fitz as he headed for the mess hall.
  The Doctor hadn’t mentioned his wound the entire day. The Doctor
  of old would have shrugged off that injury in an afternoon. When he’d
  lost his memories, had he lost that ability too? Fitz didn’t know but was
  increasingly coming round to the idea that he should ﬁnd out.
  ‘We really need to talk,’ he muttered.
  He pushed open the door to the mess hall.
  While a lot of the faces were the same, the mood was different. The
  cargo crews had been working hard to clear Greenwich of debris.
  Fitz
  hadn’t been expecting a party, but he’d thought there’d be a rewarding bev-
  erage or two at the end of the day. There were drinks, but people weren’t
  roaming the tables. They were clustered together, talking and whispering,
  casting glances between them. There was no music, no hustle, no life.
  Robertson and Arquette were huddled in a group like any of the others.
  ‘What’s happening?’ Fitz asked.
  Robertson said nothing, but Arquette slid a newspaper over. A passenger
  ship on the edge of the solar system had come under attack; there were
  unconﬁrmed reports of vessels in the area that didn’t match any known
  silhouette.
  Fitz looked at a comms screen; the Defcon symbol had moved up an-
  other notch.
  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ Fitz said. ‘This is newspaper talk, like those
  missiles in Cuba. Nothing happened in the end.’
  Robertson shook his head, ‘They don’t change the Defcon for newspaper
  talk. There’s solid info backing this up. What it means is the one word they
  take real care not to use in that article.’
  Fitz noticed Arquette’s hand had slipped inside Robertson’s, their ﬁngers
  locked, holding tight on to each other.
  109
  
  ‘War,’ Robertson said. ‘It means there’s a war coming.’
  110
  
  MARS
  Anji ran, feet kicking up red dust, breath rasping against the ﬁlter.
  Terra-forming efforts were slowly clawing the planet’s atmosphere back,
  increasing the oxygen, thickening cloud cover and raising the ambient tem-
  perature. It meant her exposed skin still felt ice cold, sweat freezing like
  diamonds. But she could run without a cumbersome spacesuit, her arms
  and legs pumping freely. There were other beneﬁts too. The atmosphere
  wasn’t great – it was a long way from the Earth standard of the tent cities
  – but, in an emergency, you could breathe it.
  Which was good. Because as Anji sprinted across the roof of the es-
  carpment, her pursuers were closing and the alarm on her ﬁlter unit was
  sounding.
  She glanced behind, found black-clad ﬁgures in her dust wake.
  The ﬁlter was weighing her down, its mix stale and probably no better
  than the raw atmosphere.
  Anji ﬁxed on the ridge where her pack was
  stowed, just a minute away, and unclipped the ﬁlter.
  The unit tumbled clear and Anji Kapoor ﬁlled her lungs with chill Mar-
  tian air. Maybe the breather’s mix had been that bad, maybe she just felt
  freed by its removal. But where Anji should have been gasping for air, with
  legs like lead and her vision blurred, she was suddenly unchained. As if life
  beneath tent walls was an aberration.
  She could imagine the look on the faces chasing her. Seeing her ﬁl-
  ter gone, thinking they ﬁnally had her, only for her stride to stretch, legs
  working harder, pushing up the ridge. To see her widen the gap.
  At the top there was a sheer drop, empty sky the only thing beyond.
  Anji didn’t even break stride. Leaning forward, one hand trailing to grab
  the shoulder straps on her pack, hauling it behind her as a foot planted on
  the very cliff edge drove her onwards into thin air. Back on Earth, the thick
  air would have pulled at the pack as she dragged it over her shoulders,
  the wind trying to tear it from her grasp, send her tumbling. But it didn’t
  happen like that on Mars. The air offered some resistance but nothing that
  mattered.
  111
  
  The last buckle secured, Anji stretched out, turning her body into an
  arrow and pointing it down towards the plain seven kilometres below. She
  was falling, screaming through sky, alien wind on her face, eyes streaming
  with tears.
  The pack’s safety margin was set to engage at one thousand metres, but
  Anji hit the override. Anyone who’d jumped within thirty seconds of her
  could still catch up if she deployed at the margin. And she’d worked too
  hard – lungs bursting, legs burning – for that to happen.
  The plain below gained focus. She could make out the contours of the
  land; dust clouds where vehicles circled, waiting for her; portable atmo-
  sphere tents and people moving amidst them.
  Anji hit the button on her shoulder strap. There was a moment of heart-
  stopping terror as it felt like the pack wasn’t going to engage. Then she
  felt the crack as it broke open, the tips of specially designed glider wings
  catching the Martian wind, the airstream dragging them open and locking
  them in place. She leant back into the pack, pushing against the currents.
  There were cheers as her feet touched down. People crowded around
  her, a thermal blanket was thrown over her shoulders. Someone tried to
  push a breather towards her face, but Anji shook it off, releasing the glider
  wings, sinking to her knees. The red dust clouded, collecting on the sheer
  black of her sports suit.
  She took a deep breath of Martian air, and turned it into a laugh, grin-
  ning as she looked into the air, the competition spread out against the cliff
  face, coming in to land. It didn’t matter: the best any of them could do
  now was come second.
  And then Michael was there. Pushing through the crowd, he dropped
  to the ground beside her. He too offered a breather, but Anji just grinned,
  one hand pulling him close as the other dragged his ﬁlter away, her mouth
  closing on his.
  ‘Anji Kapoor,’ Michael said, ‘ﬁnancial commentator, vanquisher of profes-
  sional athletes and winner of the inaugural Olympus Mons triathlon. You’re
  famous. How does it feel?’
  Anji lifted her head from his chest, a sly smile on her face. ‘I think I
  should feel knackered,’ she said.
  He laughed, the sound bouncing off the walls of the atmosphere tent.
  ‘Somehow, I don’t think that’s the case.’ He nodded to where the gold cup
  lay by the zip door, its shine dusted with Martian red. ‘You should take
  better care of that.’
  Anji laughed, kissed his chin. ‘I had better things to do.’
  ‘Bruno put himself in hospital trying to beat you to that cup.’
  112
  
  ‘Just because Bruno thought up the event, doesn’t mean he had any right
  to win it.’
  ‘True,’ Michael answered. ‘But I think the fact that it was you who beat
  him isn’t going to sit well.’
  ‘A girl’s allowed to enjoy herself, isn’t she?’
  ‘I just didn’t have you down for this kind of thing, that’s all. I don’t think
  Bruno did, either.’
  Anji shrugged, sitting up on the mattress to tie her hair back. ‘I used to
  do this back home. Kind of.’
  ‘What does that mean?’
  ‘Mountain biking at the weekend,’ she laughed. ‘A parachute jump for a
  kids’ charity my mum was involved with.’ She paused. ‘Oh, and some rock
  climbing on an Outward Bound trip once.’
  He laughed. ‘A long way from that to a triathlon.’
  ‘Almost as far as Earth to Mars.’ Anji lay back down against him. ‘I
  feel different here,’ she explained as Michael ran a ﬁnger down her spine.
  ‘This isn’t the life I ever expected to be living. But you have to adapt to
  survive. And if jumping from mile-high volcanoes is what people are going
  to be doing for fun on Mars’ – she smiled mischievously, reaching for her
  husband – ‘well, I’m all for work hard and play hard.’
  113
  
  JUPITER SPACE
  Now
  They should be trying to get back some of the sleep they’ve lost. But Caro-
  line can’t rest and all Robertson can do is sit, watching her pace the ﬂoor:
  more energised, more alive than she’s been in years.
  ‘I don’t trust him.’
  ‘But I do,’ Caroline says.
  ‘Five hours ago, you were both ready to go toe-to-toe. Are you really
  bought that easily? A few stripes on a piece of cloth?’ Robertson shakes
  his head. ‘You should listen to Anji, the rumours she’s heard.’ He tries to
  impress the words on Caroline. ‘Just think about it.’
  She’s not interested. He knows it from the body language before she
  even speaks.
  ‘I have thought about it,’ she says, looking at Robertson with a hard
  smile. ‘I know what he reminds you of. He moves like one of the 101st, like
  a soldier.’
  ‘And you’d follow him anywhere. Just like that.’
  Caroline stops pacing then, turns to Robertson, shaking her head.
  ‘You’re jealous.’
  Robertson can only blink at that. It takes him a moment to realise that
  his wife is actually serious, that this isn’t some sick joke. Jealous. That’s
  how far they’ve fallen.
  ‘It’s late,’ he whispers. ‘We both need some sleep.’
  ‘You’re jealous,’ she repeats.
  ‘He shot David!’ Robertson yells. ‘He aimed, he ﬁred. Just like that, he
  put a hole through his chest.’
  ‘You think he’s replacing you.’
  ‘Is that what I think? Because it’s not what I feel.’
  There’s a silence, then Robertson looks at Caroline, getting some control
  back in his voice.
  ‘Those stripes. You don’t want them, Caroline. You don’t.’
  114
  
  And he knows he has her then, because she turns her back, crossing to
  the corner of their compartment, strapping on battered pieces of armour.
  ‘He’s dangerous,’ Robertson says. ‘He doesn’t care what happens here.’
  ‘Maybe we could use some of that,’ Caroline says. ‘We could try ﬁghting
  instead of scrabbling around this hole, just to survive another day.’
  ‘We take it a day at a time because it’s all there is,’ Robertson says. He
  gets to his feet. Almost all the plating is on now, Caroline tightening the
  buckles around her chest. There’s one patch of bare ﬂesh remaining and he
  lays his hand on her left shoulder, feeling the chill of her skin.
  ‘Is that really all you want?’ he asks. ‘To ﬁght? Because I want bet-
  ter. I want some clean air and sky and fresh water and food that tastes of
  something again. I want out of here. I want back everything we lost.’
  Caroline is still for a long moment, head bowed. Then she shrugs his
  hand free, ﬁxes the last armoured plate into place and turns. Her eyes are
  locked in the past.
  ‘I can never get back what we’ve lost,’ she says.
  Robertson’s head drops, and he lets her walk away.
  Anji waits until the Village has settled down again. Something she saw
  earlier has piqued her curiosity. She keeps an eye on the red-headed man,
  Archer, waiting until he is asleep.
  Then she creeps round to the edge of one of the habitats, the spot where
  she saw him crouching earlier. There’s a desperation to his behaviour that
  isn’t typical of the others. Anji begins prodding the wall panels, ﬁnding one
  that’s loose.
  Tucked inside is what Archer was checking on.
  It’s an old data-storage unit: a silver cylinder, covered in dust, un-
  touched in years. A long crack down its side reveals the crystalline cells
  inside.
  Anji leaves it untouched, pushes the panel back. Whatever data the
  device held is unrecoverable now and it’s of value only to Archer. Just
  more obsessive-compulsive behaviour from people driven too hard for too
  long.
  When morning comes, Arquette calls them to the Meridian.
  The Professional, so distracted last night, is resolutely focused now. And
  with his escape route unusable, Anji thinks, he’ll need that focus.
  As he speaks, though, there’s compassion in his voice. Anji doesn’t be-
  lieve it for a moment; she can see her look reﬂected in Easter’s and Robert-
  son’s faces. Like his provocations of the day before, it’s just another manip-
  ulation.
  115
  
  ‘I’ve reviewed your reports,’ he says. ‘You’ve done well, done your duty,
  but that duty isn’t over. Rescue here is a precarious option. We need an
  escape route. The enemy must have had a way to travel through the atmo-
  sphere to penetrate this station after the Fall. So our objective is simple.
  We ﬁnd that transportation and take it for ourselves.’
  Robertson looks at Anji for support. When she says nothing, he speaks
  up.
  ‘We’re supposed to ﬁnd their ship, then run the blockade with it?’
  ‘No,’ the Professional says. ‘No ship was docked on my approach to the
  Station. Something Miss Kapoor can conﬁrm if you wish.’
  Using them, Anji realises, and not afraid to use her either. Her situation
  is more awkward, because he’s right: there was no ship. She can only
  counter his argument with a lie and, unlike the Professional toying with
  the survivors’ belief in a non-existent war, it would be an easily proven lie.
  All he would have to do is give someone his suit and tell them to take a
  walk.
  ‘So no ship,’ someone calls from the crowd. ‘What then?’
  ‘An interstix,’ Robertson says. ‘You’re talking about interstitial transport.’
  ‘Interstitial vortexes have been banned for decades,’ Archer snaps.
  ‘Banned?’ the Professional replies. ‘You think the enemy know or care
  about the Brasilia rulings? If we locate their vortex generators, we can use
  them. Correctly focused, everyone would be past the blockade and free in
  a matter of hours.’
  There’s a murmur through the crowd, scepticism and hope.
  The Professional tells a good lie, Anji realises.
  One people want to
  believe in.
  Arquette speaks then: ‘It’s worth taking the chance for.’
  The words are good, but Anji only has to look at Robertson’s face to see
  how hollow the sentiment is when Arquette says: ‘It’s hope.’
  ‘We know the enemy maintain a presence near the barricades,’ the Pro-
  fessional says. ‘We lure them in, then launch a counter-attack.’ He holds
  up a small device taken from his kit store. ‘We attach this tracker as they
  retreat. Find their base on this station, seize their transport.’
  ‘They could be anywhere,’ Easter says. ‘What if the base is behind the
  energy barrier? We would have expended time and resources on a wild-
  goose chase –’
  ‘Then we vote,’ Arquette says, cutting him off before he can build up
  steam. ‘We see who wants to believe in hope and who doesn’t.’
  Easter leaves before the show of hands: he knows what the result is going
  to be. If he were anyone else, he’d probably be making the same choice as
  116
  
  they are.
  Cut off in their own desperate world, he’d been able to contain Arquette.
  Everyone knew what had happened, everyone saw through the mask. But
  the Professional has given Arquette’s anger an outlet. Worse, it’s irrevocably
  changed the survivors’ dynamic.
  Assured and powerful, the Professional ﬁlls the others with a conﬁdence
  they’d lost long ago. He and Anji are reminders of life before the Fall. That
  new-found memory makes the survivors bold. It’s why Arquette is no longer
  an isolated voice; it’s why Easter suddenly is.
  He crosses towards the hospital.
  Toby is near by; ﬁfteen years too young for any meeting, he’s created a
  small den, pushing loose plating up against the wall. As Easter approaches
  he’s just emerging from one end.
  ‘It’s all right. Toby,’ Easter tells him. ‘You carry on.’
  Toby gives him a suspicious look, retreats. Easter squats down. This
  section of the Village is dark – to avoid disturbing the Wounded – making
  it even darker inside Toby’s den.
  The boy glances at Easter, then returns his attention to an old computer
  pad.
  It’s one of the few toys they’ve been able to provide.
  A yo-yo; a
  threadbare teddy; crudely fashioned charcoal sticks. The computer pad
  is a luxury.
  An argument had raged over it six months earlier: give it
  to Toby or break it down for spares? Until yesterday, that argument had
  seen Arquette’s only victory. With no family, they were all responsible for
  Toby’s upbringing, she’d said, and the pad would improve his hand-eye
  co-ordination. It was important.
  Now Toby is playing with a crude program Arquette created, joining the
  dots to produce simple pictures. A house. A dog. A ﬂower. Things he may
  never see.
  ‘Hey.’
  Easter turns, ﬁnds Anji behind him. ‘Hello,’ he answers.
  Toby peeks out to see Anji, then retreats, emerging from the den’s far
  end to run back into the Village.
  ‘He doesn’t like strangers.’ Easter pauses, corrects himself. ‘No, he just
  doesn’t understand what a stranger is: he’s never seen one.’
  ‘His parents?’
  ‘Toby’s dad was trapped behind the energy barrier.
  His mother. . . ’
  Easter pauses. ‘She didn’t know she was pregnant till after the Fall. And
  then. . . ’
  Anji nods, surmises. ‘She was Wounded.’
  ‘A couple of months after he was born.’ Easter rests a hand against the
  hospital’s door. ‘She didn’t name him. She wanted his father to see him, to
  117
  
  decide together.’
  ‘Who picked Toby, then?’
  ‘Tobias,’ Easter smiles. ‘My father’s name. My vanity, I suppose.’
  Anji shrugs. ‘It’s hard, so far from home. I understand that.’
  ‘I was two weeks away,’ Easter whispers. ‘An Earth Forces scholarship
  put me through medical school; I was two weeks from clearing it when the
  Station fell.’
  ‘How did you end up out here?’
  ‘Someone had broken an arm or something, I don’t remember now. I
  was sent out to do triage.’
  ‘You would have been stuck behind the barrier otherwise.’
  ‘Yes,’ Easter laughs, hard and bitter. ‘But I wouldn’t have had to do this,
  would I? The ranking ofﬁcers were called back to the hub; when the Station
  fell there was one ofﬁcer here outranking me.’
  ‘Stokes,’ Anji says.
  ‘Who ended up in there. Too brave, too bloody stupid to not take the
  enemy on.’ Easter sinks back against the door. He comes here when it’s
  quiet, because no one else ever does. ‘I can’t do anything for them. I spent
  the best part of three years trying. I’ve isolated the infection, can identify
  when it’s passed on.’
  ‘But no cure,’ Anji says.
  ‘No resources,’ Easter answers. He looks through the crack in the door,
  takes in the cages, the noise, the smell. ‘They’re getting worse. The ﬁrst
  ones infected? Their minds are gone. They don’t want to eat or drink; two
  of them are on IV ﬂuids, but we can’t keep that going long.’
  ‘No resources.’
  Easter smiles, wonders how much it shows on his face. Four years of
  doing everything he can to keep them all alive. Making sure no one took
  the misstep that would kill them or anyone else. How much do four years
  like that show?
  He shakes his head. ‘They’re good as dead now. All of them.’ Easter
  looks at Anji. ‘But you know that, don’t you?’
  ‘What do you mean?’
  Easter nods towards the Meridian.
  ‘His grand plan.
  Most of them
  haven’t ﬁgured it out and those that have don’t care. Capturing this in-
  terstix? We’d have to ﬁght them, ﬁght every step of the way out. Even
  Toby.’ He pauses. Cages rattle, low keening sounds. ‘There’s no place for
  the Wounded in that ﬁght. They’ll be left behind.’
  ‘You could sedate them,’ Anji says.
  ‘Nothing we have works.’
  ‘What about something new, to help ﬁght pain, maybe focus the mind.’
  118
  
  ‘I thought you didn’t bring any supplies.’
  ‘I didn’t,’ Anji says, holding up a yellow vial. ‘But he did.’
  Robertson watches as Easter checks on David. The colour is slowly draining
  from the young man; the dressings on his wound are black and sticky.
  Easter doesn’t say anything but it doesn’t take a doctor to know: David’s
  going to die soon.
  Anji stands near by; like Easter, she left before the vote. She didn’t get
  to see Robertson’s wife complete her transformation into a wartime leader.
  Caroline is standing by the forge with the Professional, talking Ross and
  Weir through the canisters they want machined, more smoke grenades to
  mask the deployment of the Professional’s tracker.
  Robertson doesn’t like the plan.
  The enemy could spot the tracker; they might not lead them back to
  their base; the base might be inaccessible; if they do ﬁnd that base, they
  might not be able to take it. Even then, supposing everything goes right,
  there’s no guarantee interstix generators will be waiting for them.
  Robertson’s a practical man: all his life he’s worked with his hands. He
  likes solid and tangible, something he can feel beneath his ﬁngers or taste
  on his tongue. This plan is less substantial than the tents strung against the
  east wall.
  The computer terminal sounds. Robertson calls to Anji: ‘Done.’
  The housekeeping program has cleaned the computer download. Anji
  and Easter join him at the terminal as he constructs a menu to navigate the
  material. Robertson studies their reﬂections on-screen, sees them exchang-
  ing glances. When Anji looks to check on the Professional and Caroline,
  Robertson loses patience.
  ‘If you’re going to ask me something, get on and ask me.’
  Another glance, then Easter says, ‘Now the clean-up’s ﬁnished, is there
  any spare capacity on the system?’
  ‘You know there is.’
  ‘Enough for a composition analysis?’
  Easter unfolds his hand, revealing a small glass tube containing a
  poisonous-looking ﬂuid. ‘He uses this. To kill pain, stay focused.’
  ‘So?’
  ‘I want to know if it could work on the Wounded.’
  Easter isn’t explaining himself well, but Robertson understands anyway.
  The theory is the Wounded have lost all control of their actions. If this stuff
  can focus their minds, they might gain enough control to make it to the
  interstix.
  119
  
  There’s a ﬂurry of sparks from the forge, Caroline barking orders and
  curses. His wife and the Professional are going to be busy for a while yet.
  ‘You shouldn’t have this, should you?’ he says.
  ‘No,’ Anji replies. ‘But if it makes a difference –’
  ‘I’m already sold, OK?’
  He enters a few commands and the second computer chatters into life.
  Robertson nods at Easter. ‘You know what to do.’
  As Easter prepares a slide, Robertson looks to the forge. He gets up,
  guiding Anji towards his seat.
  ‘You wanted to see the download,’ he says. ‘And I want everything to
  look normal. All our friends will see is Easter working on David and you
  checking the download.’ He taps the screen. ‘So check. Open the security
  folders and you’ll have the last video images on ﬁle.’
  Over the next few minutes, Robertson keeps glancing between Caro-
  line’s progress and Anji’s and Easter’s.
  He doesn’t understand what Easter’s doing; he can see the proteins and
  molecular chains or whatever the hell they are circling on Easter’s screen,
  but they mean nothing to him.
  Anji’s progress is a different matter. The images take a long time to call
  up but they chill Robertson. The corridors are bright and white and clean;
  smartly dressed personnel frozen in mid-step. Everything tidy, everything
  ordered. No burnt-out cables, exposed bulkheads, or rust coating every
  surface.
  It’s the past brought to life and it frightens him.
  ‘Dammit,’ Easter whispers.
  Robertson looks over as Easter removes the slide, closing down the anal-
  ysis program. ‘No good?’
  Easter shakes his head. ‘It’s tailored to a speciﬁc neurology. Give me
  six months and I might be able to rebuild it, adapt it somehow.’ He slips
  the vial into his pocket, starts checking David’s wound again. ‘As t is, it’s
  useless to anyone other than the Professional.’
  Robertson exchanges a glance with Anji: Easter’s holding something
  back.
  ‘What is it?’ Anji asks. ‘What’s bothering you?’
  ‘The way that stuff works,’ Easter explains.
  ‘The synaptic inhibitors
  aren’t just targeting pain, but affecting how the brain processes thought.’
  He glances nervously towards the forge. ‘It’d need more study to ﬁgure it
  out, but –’
  ‘But?’
  ‘To get that kind of neurology would take some very invasive proce-
  dures. Whoever they are, your Professionals have had bad things done to
  120
  
  them.’
  Robertson absorbs this and follows Easter’s gaze. Sparks spiral up from
  the forge. Caroline is standing next to the Professional, for all he world
  looking like that’s where she belongs.
  121
  
  Four years earlier
  The night before Fitz hadn’t seen what the Doctor had done with the lab
  equipment. Whether by accident or design, there’d been a path cleared
  from door to bunk, so Fitz had just followed it and gone to sleep.
  When he woke, he thought the bubbling sound must be coffee brewing,
  but the smell persuaded him otherwise. ‘Bloody hell,’ he coughed. ‘What is
  that?’
  ‘Sorry,’ the Doctor said. ‘My fault.’
  Test tubes sat in racks, coloured liquids boiled, a centrifuge whizzed in
  one corner and some kind of Bunsen burner was positioned next to Fitz’s
  shaving kit. The Doctor was seated in the middle of it all, peering down
  the lens of a microscope.
  ‘When I brought all that kit,’ Fitz said.
  ‘Yes?’
  ‘I was expecting you to pick the bits you wanted and return the rest.’
  The Doctor paused, lifted his head from the microscope to look around.
  Then he just said: ‘Ah.’
  ‘Still,’ Fitz said, ‘I’m sure you’re putting it all to good use and absolutely
  none of it is here for show.’
  The Doctor smiled, hurriedly refocusing on the microscope. ‘You slept
  well. I was worried I might disturb you.’
  ‘I always sleep well.’ Fitz rubbed his eyes. ‘Remember that time on
  Bathesda when I slept right through the entire revolu– ’ He stopped himself
  then, suddenly realising what he was saying. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean
  to –’
  ‘No, no,’ the Doctor replied. There was a pause, then he looked up
  again. ‘It must be difﬁcult for you.’
  Fitz smiled. ‘Forget it.’
  He climbed down from his bunk as the Doctor went back to work.
  Fitz ran some hot water, and as he worked soap into his bristles the
  mirror slowly steamed up. He was about to wipe away the fog when he
  heard the Doctor’s voice.
  122
  
  ‘More than a hundred years and I never felt at home there. From the
  moment I woke on that train, I didn’t need memories to tell me I didn’t
  belong. It took me a long time, decades, to ﬁgure out just why that was. To
  understand. The only hope I had was a note. A promise that if I endured,
  someone would be waiting for me. A friend. All of this, the ships, the
  planets, the TARDIS, all feels familiar. The ghost of memories.’ He paused.
  ‘But they’re not what makes me sure this is my life.’
  The voice faded into silence and Fitz wiped his hand across the mirror.
  The Doctor was revealed in the reﬂection, his eye on the microscope.
  ‘We should talk,’ Fitz murmured as he picked up his razor.
  As he washed and dressed, Fitz watched the Doctor work. The samples
  from the journal were lined up in a row, each one ﬂoating in a test tube.
  ‘Found anything?’
  ‘No trace of explosive I can locate,’ the Doctor answered. ‘Not yet.’
  ‘So, if you’re doing this, does that mean there’s no need to go into the
  ofﬁce today?’
  The Doctor waved at the comms terminal. ‘You can run AuDoc from
  over there if you need to.’
  ‘Ha,’ Fitz said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Let’s see how it’s getting on
  with the initiative test.’
  As he called up AuDoc he could feel the Doctor’s eyes on him: ‘What
  exactly do you mean by “initiative test”?’
  ‘I asked AuDoc to scan the Station records, look for odd patterns.
  Y’know, alien inﬁltrators, mad scientists.’
  The Doctor leapt from his seat, pushing past Fitz to get to the comms
  panel, hands ﬂying across the controls. Fitz’s instructions blinked on the
  screen.
  SCAN ALL STATION RECORDS FOR UNUSUAL PATTERNS AND ACTIV-
  ITY. INCLUDE ALL SURVEILLANCE. PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO ANY
  SUSPECTED ALIEN ACTIVITY. USE YOUR INITIATIVE. JOIN THE DOTS.
  The Doctor sighed. ‘I really wish you hadn’t done that.’
  Fitz blinked. ‘What’s the problem?’
  ‘AuDoc learns and evolves, but it’s still very literal in its interpretations.’
  The Doctor tapped the screen. ‘Ask it to search all records and it will try to
  do exactly that. Including the conﬁdential ones.’
  ‘So?’
  ‘So AuDoc isn’t as good at breaking and entering as I am. It’s likely to
  get caught.’
  Fitz was getting a sick feeling in his stomach. ‘Can’t you stop it?’
  123
  
  ‘I have. The question is: how far it’s got and whether anyone noticed it
  looking.’ The Doctor was starting to calm down now, studying the screen.
  ‘No system alerts. I think you got away with it.’
  ‘Did it ﬁnd anything?’ Fitz asked.
  The Doctor frowned. ‘Video footage from the cargo bay.’
  ‘We’ve seen that.’
  ‘Different video footage.’ He tapped the screen, peering at the grainy
  picture. ‘Now, what is it AuDoc thinks we should be seeing?’
  ‘The time code,’ Fitz said. ‘That’s one of the shipments for the Mukabis.’
  ‘Yes, but only the cameras with safety requirements were kept on during
  those deliveries; the ones governing the bay doors.
  There wouldn’t be
  anything to –’ The Doctor stopped, staring hard at the screen, whispered,
  ‘Good work, AuDoc.’
  Fitz looked. It was a side angle on the bay doors, very little of the
  interior visible. Then, in one corner, the ﬂash of movement. The Doctor
  froze the video, zoomed in. Someone’s shoulder, the corner of a drum. The
  drum was mostly covered by a tarpaulin, but a symbol was visible. Sharp
  black curves against a yellow background.
  ‘Bio-hazard,’ the Doctor said. ‘Now, why would a computer simulation
  require dangerous biological material?’
  ‘Did it ﬁnd anything else?’
  ‘Some station bureaucracy.’ The Doctor scanned the results. ‘The usual
  comment about maintenance overtime.’
  ‘You can take the program out of accountancy –’
  ‘But you can’t take accountancy out of the program,’ the Doctor ﬁnished.
  The words trailed away as something else caught his eye. He looked
  accusingly at Fitz: ‘You haven’t been in touch with Anji, have you?’
  ‘Not guilty, honest.’
  ‘C&C are monitoring commercial wavelengths, looking for piggybacked
  transmissions. Looking and ﬁnding. Someone’s sending secret messages.’
  Fitz was about to nod dumbly when something occurred to him. Some-
  thing Robbie had said while they were clearing the debris. We don’t do
  maintenance. If he wasn’t conducting repairs, what had Archer been doing
  in that corridor when Fitz stumbled across him?
  ‘I can’t believe I was complaining about the lack of good suspects,’ Fitz
  said. ‘We’ve got at least three now. If we count our ﬁrst lot of mad scientists
  –’
  ‘The Mukabis.’
  ‘As one. Our other mad scientist –’
  ‘Deschamps.’
  ‘Makes two,’ Fitz said.
  124
  
  ‘And the third?’
  Fitz looked at the Doctor. ‘I think we might have a Red under the bed.
  Or in the cargo bay, anyhow.’
  ‘If they start looking too hard for inﬁltrators, we could be in trouble.’
  The Doctor pursed his lips. ‘It might be time to come up with an escape
  plan, just in case.’
  ‘Doctor,’ Fitz said, ‘we’re on a military space station, days from any-
  where. What kind of escape plan is going to work?’
  ‘A desperate one.’
  A chime rang out from the comms unit.
  The Doctor closed AuDoc,
  checked the message board. ‘It’s a note from one of our mad scientists.’
  ‘Oh, no,’ Fitz said.
  ‘I couldn’t stand another inquisition from De-
  schamps.’
  ‘It’s Sara Mukabi,’ the Doctor said. ‘With an invitation.’
  Sara Mukabi’s ofﬁce was a calm, white space with comforting furniture and
  soft lines. As Fitz and the Doctor settled in front of her desk she smiled.
  ‘Don’t worry. This is standard procedure; something I get to do with all
  new personnel. The only difference being, your security clearance means
  you know the context for what I’m doing.’
  ‘Really?’ the Doctor said.
  ‘I help devise the speculative scenarios for the Avatar chamber,’ Sara
  said. ‘The challenge is to create something as realistic as possible.’
  ‘And?’
  ‘And fear is the key,’ Sara responded, tapping at a glass slide. ‘We need
  home comforts –’
  ‘Like the wine.’
  ‘Like the wine,’ she nodded. ‘But that need makes us vulnerable. My job
  is to identify those vulnerabilities and construct scenarios around them.’
  ‘No wine,’ Fitz assured her, ‘would scare me.’
  Sara ignored him. ‘The key to this is a database, charting responses to
  a basic survey I designed.’ She held up the slide; it showed an array of
  ever-changing ink-blot patterns. ‘You’re here to contribute.’
  The test lasted about ﬁfteen minutes, and as far as Fitz could tell didn’t
  really get into his fears at all. Ink blots, word association, some hypothet-
  icals, queries about their personal history. Fitz tried to keep his responses
  simple and give away as little as possible. Too often that meant he was left
  stumbling over his choice of words.
  Contrastingly, the Doctor would consider the blot or query for a second,
  then smile with a concise answer. All the time, Fitz noticed, keeping his
  eyes on Sara Mukabi, even when she wasn’t addressing him.
  125
  
  ‘Last question,’ she smiled. ‘If you were an animal, what animal would
  you be?’
  Fitz considered, then said: ‘A dog. Probably a golden retriever?’
  Sara nodded. ‘And you, Doctor?’
  ‘Any animal?’ he asked.
  ‘Whatever you feel like being.’
  There was a pause, then a smile ﬂuttered on his lips. ‘A unicorn, I think.
  Tomorrow, it would probably be a goldﬁsh, but today. . . ’
  Sara nodded. ‘Today is a unicorn kind of day.’
  ‘Exactly.’
  It took her a few minutes to ﬁnish recording their answers, logging dates
  and times. Then she just nodded. ‘That’s it. All done.’
  ‘Most interesting,’ the Doctor said pleasantly. So pleasantly Fitz knew
  something else was coming. ‘Now, would you like to tell me about your
  interest in Jupiter’s atmosphere?’
  There was a silence, then Sara Mukabi gave a slow smile. ‘Commander
  Valletti said you were clever.’
  ‘The evidence is all over the accounts,’ the Doctor said dismissively. ‘The
  pilot hours logged and all the equipment you’ve siphoned off. Plus, I don’t
  buy either you or your husband as amateur meteorologists, so what would
  be the point of re-creating Jupiter’s weather in the Avatar chamber?’
  Her smile tightened, then she nodded, impressed. ‘You already know
  what my interest is. You saw it in action yesterday.’
  The Doctor clicked his ﬁngers, ‘The pharmaceutical cocktail. You’re dis-
  tilling something from the atmosphere.’
  ‘The holographic chamber only does half the work. The trick is convinc-
  ing them it’s real. The trick,’ she said, ‘is making them scared.’
  ‘That’s a bit cruel, isn’t it?’ Fitz said.
  Sara shook her head. ‘New frontiers, new challenges. We saw it dur-
  ing the occupation and now more and more on the system colonies. The
  biggest threat isn’t sonic cannon or disruptor beams.’ She paused. ‘It’s the
  unknown. More speciﬁcally, our fear of the unknown. Those soldiers have
  to learn to manage fear, and to do that they need to feel it.’
  The Doctor let her words fade away into silence. He sat there for a long
  moment, staring at nothing, then smiled and nodded.
  ‘You found something in Jupiter’s atmosphere, didn’t you? Something
  that helps with that? That research vessel you were on, the one that had the
  hull breach in Jupiter’s atmosphere. The crew exposed to the atmosphere
  developed extreme post-traumatic stress disorders. Only they weren’t psy-
  chological traumas, but neurological ones. Something in the atmosphere,
  some gas or particle they’d inhaled caused it.’
  126
  
  Sara said nothing, just looked at him.
  He got to his feet, began to pace the room. ‘Whatever it is, it plays havoc
  with the chemical transmitters in the brain. The very things that govern
  memory. And what we fear is governed by what we know. By memory.’
  ‘You really are clever,’ Sara Mukabi said.
  ‘Overly analytical thinking,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Standard accountancy
  job hazard.’
  ‘Is there anything else you over analysed?’
  He shrugged. ‘I was bothered by that simulation of Jupiter’s weather,
  but it makes sense now. An attempt to identify new caches of this sub-
  stance?’
  ‘Gas,’ Sara sighed. ‘It’s a gas. When a distilled and modiﬁed version
  is combined with the data from these psychological screenings, we can
  generate absolute fear.’ She paused, then crossed to a security locker and
  entered a code. The door swung open to reveal vials of black liquid. ‘We
  call the stimulant Nightmare.’
  The Doctor looked at the vials. ‘That’s what you give the 101st when
  they’re training.’
  ‘There are a number of variations.’ She shrugged. ‘One induces fear,
  another helps facilitate the integration of the simulations into their memo-
  ries.’
  They spent the rest of the day in their ofﬁce.
  The Doctor kept busy, covering AuDoc’s tracks as well as looking for
  something they could use if they needed to make a getaway.
  Fitz was reluctantly collating AuDoc’s accountancy ﬁndings into a stan-
  dardised report, a necessary evil if they were going to maintain their cover.
  All the time, the Doctor found his mind distracted.
  He was certain Jason McCray’s condition was the result of exposure to
  an earlier, experimental version of Nightmare.
  The human memory was governed by activity in the synapses – the junc-
  tions between neuron cells in the brain – and how they responded to the re-
  lease of chemical transmitters. When absorbed into the system, Nightmare
  would disrupt those chemical transmitters, causing an imbalance. Access-
  ing any memory would then generate a fear reaction.
  In Jason McCray’s case, that imbalance was probably permanent.
  Could someone have got hold of a dose of Nightmare and tailored it
  to provoke violence instead of fear? It was possible, but the Doctor could
  see no motivation. Plus, from what he had witnessed – the bio-readouts
  jumping as the 101st were injected – Nightmare delivered an instantaneous
  127
  
  reaction; something that didn’t ﬁt with the circumstances on Mars or the
  Pegasus.
  There were still too many unanswered questions. The cargo the 101st
  handled was too big to be atmospheric samples. Then there was the issue
  of what was behind the other door in the Avatar chamber.
  Maybe Fitz had the right idea in setting AuDoc loose. Maybe it was time
  to get a bit more proactive in gathering data.
  He set AuDoc to monitor the real-time payroll and notify him as soon as
  Terrance and Sara were both logged on in their ofﬁcial roles.
  The Doctor’s upgraded security clearance got him through the automated
  checks and on to the sixth level. He showed his dataslide to the waiting
  guard, smiled: ‘Inventory.’ There was a moment of indecision, then the
  guard nodded and let him pass.
  Entering the Avatar chamber, the Doctor glanced back. The guard was
  speaking into his comms unit.
  Despite his new credentials, the Doctor
  somehow doubted his presence here would be tolerated. It all depended
  on who the guard was calling. But whoever it was, he had very little time.
  When the entrance closed he crossed the chamber to the other door. It
  would take too long to break the algorithms generating the locking code;
  better to prise open a wall panel and circumvent the lock entirely, just like
  he’d done on the Pegasus. Except it proved far less easy than that. The wall
  was thick with electronics. Worse, the access he’d been able to create only
  allowed room for his arm, so he was working blind.
  Working blind in more ways than one. Too many suspects, too many
  leads, not enough motives, and still no chain of evidence to link the troops
  who’d attacked Anji to any of them.
  And he was out of time. A distant hum echoed through the open panel:
  the lift arriving down the corridor.
  He gave the lock one last, bitter look, then withdrew his arm.
  When the main entrance opened twenty seconds later, the panel was
  back in place, the Doctor working on his inventory. Expecting to see the
  Mukabis ﬂanked by the 101st, he saw Jennifer Valletti.
  Nothing was said as they looked at each other.
  Then she took a step into the room, keeping her eyes on his. The Doctor
  smiled. ‘I was just –’
  ‘Don’t.’ Valletti shook her head. ‘Don’t lie to me. Curious, adaptable
  and lucky, isn’t it? How far does that curiosity take you?’
  ‘I’m not –’
  She slammed her hand down on a console. ‘I’m trying to help you, damn
  it! You’ve got the access you need to do your job, now leave it at that.’
  128
  
  ‘Is that an order?’
  ‘Yes, it’s an order,’ Valletti snapped. ‘Are you as smart as you are curious?
  Do you know when to stop?’ She took a deep breath, eyes closed, some of
  the rage bleeding away before she said, ‘This place is illegal. You know
  that.’
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘Hard copies of your credentials are being sent to Earth Forces’ head-
  quarters in Cape Town.
  They’ll be delivered in person to Vice-Admiral
  Carter, who will add your and your assistant’s names to a very short list:
  staff who are immune from prosecution should this project ever become
  public.’
  ‘Immunity?’ the Doctor said.
  ‘I insisted on it before I took this command. Acquiescing to Admiral
  Carter’s request to host the research was my decision, it’s my responsibility.’
  He looked at her, suddenly understanding the tension she felt. ‘You
  don’t like this place, do you? You’re risking everything for it, but it makes
  you uneasy.’
  Valletti said nothing.
  ‘Something more than the stimulant Sara Mukabi’s created. Those im-
  plants,’ he said, ‘they look very advanced. They wouldn’t be alien technol-
  ogy, would they?’
  Valletti laughed then, shaking her head. ‘Alien resources are the respon-
  sibility of Colonel McNamara back on Mars.’ She looked at him. ‘You don’t
  understand at all, do you? Do I like the Avatar project? No. But bad as this
  is, it’s better than the alternative.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘The Professional
  programme is monstrous – a dangerous abomination.’
  The Doctor looked around him, suddenly gaining insight. ‘An arms race.
  Between the Mukabis and this McNamara.’
  ‘Something you have no part in.’ Valletti’s voice turned hard. ‘You’re
  smart, you’re inquisitive, I like you and I don’t want to see you hurt. Go
  back to your ledgers and leave the ﬁghting to the people who are trained
  for it.’
  ‘So,’ Fitz said, ‘what does all that mean?’
  ‘It means when those hard copies get to Earth our cover’s blown.’ The
  Doctor was looking hard at Fitz. Presumably, Fitz thought, checking he
  understood the implications.
  ‘How long?’
  ‘A week,’ the Doctor said, toying with the lab equipment. ‘Maybe less.’
  ‘I hate a deadline,’ Fitz said. ‘Especially the dead part of it.’
  129
  
  ‘Tomorrow I’ll get to work on the escape plan. I think there’s a project
  I can adapt to give us a head start, at least.’ The Doctor was playing with
  one of his test-tube samples. ‘Hand me that oxygen bottle, will you? The
  small one?’
  Fitz passed it over and the Doctor began ﬁltering oxygen through one
  of the test tubes.
  ‘Can I ask what you’re doing?’ Fitz said.
  ‘That stain on the journal might be organic.
  The computer analysis
  couldn’t identify it, but if I can cultivate a proper –’
  ‘It’s boring then,’ Fitz said.
  ‘Very,’ the Doctor answered.
  Fitz looked at him for a moment, then said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll ﬁgure it
  out. We always do.’ He patted the Doctor on the shoulder. ‘I’m going to go
  eat. Do you want to come see the mess hall?’
  The Doctor nodded at his experiment. ‘I need to ﬁnish this.’ As Fitz
  reached the door, he added, ‘When you see your friend Robertson, ﬁnd out
  some more about that crewman.’
  ‘Archer.’ Fitz nodded. He pressed the door release but nothing hap-
  pened. Another press, still nothing. Did you lock this?’ he asked.
  The Doctor frowned. ‘No.’
  Fitz stepped aside as the Doctor knelt by the lock. ‘Nothing wrong here.’
  He put his hand against the door frame, then snatched it back. ‘That’s hot.
  The mechanism’s fused solid.’
  ‘Shall I call maintenance?’ Fitz said.
  ‘That depends how hungry you are.’
  ‘Very.’ Fitz activated the comms panel: the usual menu was overlaid
  with static. ‘Looks like my mum’s old telly.’
  The Doctor glanced over at the unit to see what Fitz was talking about
  and his face darkened. His shout of ‘Get down!’ came just seconds before
  the explosion.
  Valletti was in her quarters when the alarm sounded. Every threat had a
  distinct tone. Intruder alert, power surge, ﬁre. And this one: hull breach.
  Running for C&C, Valletti was taking constant updates en route: crew
  quarters in the outer ring, something had sealed the breach, no indication
  of how long that would last.
  It was only when she reached C&C that she discovered the quarters
  affected.
  ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered, then snapped. ‘Have the rescue crews got in
  there yet?’
  130
  
  ‘The door’s jammed.’ It was Graves, one hand at his ear, taking reports
  from his engineers on site. ‘They could cut through, but if whatever’s hold-
  ing the breach fails –’
  ‘Evacuate the surrounding area and depressurise, then get some suits in
  there with cutting gear and survival equipment,’ Valletti ordered, struggling
  to keep her voice level. ‘I want them out alive.’
  ‘That’s going to take time.’
  ‘Then get started!’ she barked.
  ‘Too late,’ Graves said. ‘The seal’s failing.’
  Valletti looked at the faltering gauge. Lucky and adaptable, she thought.
  ‘Is there any other way out? Air ducts? Anything.’
  Thomasson looked up from his position at the security station and shook
  his head. ‘All too small.’
  ‘It’s going!’ Graves shouted.
  Valletti looked at the screen: the red line plummeted, oxygen levels
  dropping to zero. Sensors showed small objects cascading in the station’s
  vicinity; debris sucked through the hole. Her voice tightened as she asked,
  ‘Anything?’
  ‘The internal security net’s running again.’ The screen ﬂickered, show-
  ing a hazy image. The cabin walls were pockmarked, panels black where
  the power had overloaded. An empty hole lead directly on to the vacuum.
  Anyone inside had been sucked out when the seal had gone.
  Valletti turned from the picture. She closed her eyes, bowed her head,
  ﬁngers rising to cross over her chest when –
  ‘Commander.’
  ‘What?’ she whispered.
  ‘Strange readings; hull sensors registering multiple hits.’
  ‘Debris,’ she said, ‘bouncing back.’
  ‘Commander,’ Thomasson insisted. ‘Look at the pattern.’
  Valletti looked. Regular impacts, marking an almost straight line.
  ‘Exterior cameras,’ she said. ‘Section Twelve. Now.’
  The screens ﬂickered, showing the long curve of the Station’s hull, silver
  against the black of Jupiter space. The image faltered for a moment, then
  zoomed in, tracking movement.
  There was a long silence in the control room. Finally someone said, ‘I
  don’t believe it.’
  Lucky and adaptable.
  ‘I do,’ Valletti said. She activated the comms panel: ‘I want the 101st
  suited up in airlock nine in the next two minutes. Emergency rescue proce-
  dures.’
  131
  
  She turned back to the screen. He was there. Eyes screwed tight against
  the vacuum, hair splayed by weightlessness, ﬁngers stiff with cold, pulling
  himself hand over hand across the Station’s exterior. His lips were clamped
  tight around a thin rubber tube, a tiny oxygen bottle attached to its other
  end.
  Something was wrapped around his waist. Strips of bed sheet, knotted
  into a makeshift line, stretching out behind him. Tied on to the far end,
  bouncing lifelessly against the hull, was the body of Fitz Kreiner.
  Fitz’s face was black against the white pillow; his skin a mass of bruises and
  burst capillaries. An IV pumped drugs to clear the radiation he’d absorbed;
  another machine fed oxygen into his blood as more equipment repaired his
  lungs. The medics called it a ReGene process; it would take a day or so to
  repair the core damage.
  ‘Another few days and we’d have had him ﬁxed quicker,’ the medical
  ofﬁcer had commented. ‘There’s a more advanced unit stuck in the backlog
  in the cargo bays. Then again, another minute or two and there’d have
  been nothing we could have done anyway.’
  The Doctor had just nodded; swallowed the anti-radiation pills he’d
  been given. While the medics had worked on Fitz he’d spent an anxious
  half-hour plugged into a ReGene device himself.
  The damage wasn’t so severe for him: his lungs had stayed inﬂated,
  blood had kept pumping. The few exploded veins he had were fading.
  Once he was happy the device had done its work the Doctor had unplugged
  himself and wiped its memory.
  Now there was nothing to do but wait.
  The room ﬁlled with light. Sound vanished. Fitz ﬂailed for a handhold. Some-
  thing ﬂashed past on the left. Then sound returned and he dropped to the
  ﬂoor.
  The Doctor was pressed up against the exterior wall, holding the long metal
  slab of his lab bench. Their room had been hit by a hurricane.
  Fitz touched his cheek, bleeding where a bottle had smashed against it.
  ‘We’re in trouble,’ the Doctor said.
  ‘What happened?’
  ‘An overload, taking a chunk of the bull with it.’ The Doctor stepped cau-
  tiously back from the bench, which stayed attached to the wall. Fitz was aware
  of a high-pitched whistling sound, air getting cold, his ears starting to hurt.
  ‘Bugger,’ he coughed.
  The bench creaked, a thin crease forming down its middle.
  Fitz tried the door again.
  132
  
  ‘That won’t work,’ the Doctor said, sorting through the chaos, turning the
  debris over. ‘And that bench isn’t going to hold.’
  Fitz began studying the walls, checking off escape routes. It didn’t take
  long. ‘No way out.’
  The Doctor kicked through the remaining equipment. ‘There’s nothing here
  to shore up that bench.’
  ‘They’ll come for us.’
  ‘They’ll need to cut through and there’s no time.’
  Fitz watched him then, looking around the room, studying everything.
  So focused, springing into life, reaching down to pull the Bunsen burner free
  along with a length of rubber hose. He lit the ﬂame, told Fitz, ‘Find the oxygen
  bottle.’ The bench gave another creak, began to buckle. Quickly.’
  ‘What’s the plan?’
  The Doctor was heating the end of the hose, plunging his ﬁngers into the
  ﬂame to manipulate its shape. ‘When the seal goes, you’re going to have to
  use the oxygen to breathe.’
  Fitz handed the bottle over, and the Doctor began to mould the pipe on
  to it with one hand, adjusting its valve with the other ‘This is undiluted, you
  want to sip at it, not take full breaths.’ Fitz nodded.
  ‘Start ripping up that sheet.’ Fitz did as he was told. ‘What’s this for?’
  ‘There’s an airlock three hundred metres to the left on the Station hull.’
  Fitz paused, something creeping upwards in his mind. ‘There’s only one
  bottle.’
  The Doctor said nothing.
  ‘What happens, to you?’ Fitz insisted.
  ‘You tie yourself on to me, pull me to the airlock.’
  ‘You’ll die,’ Fitz said.
  ‘There’s no other way.’
  Fitz looked at the bottle then the creaking lab bench.
  His breath was
  steaming in the air, his lungs cold, his ears throbbing. ‘Yes, there is,’ Fitz said.
  ‘You take me.’
  ‘No,’ the Doctor answered.
  ‘You’re stronger, your constitution’s better, you don’t smoke thirty a day. If
  I take you, we’ll both die. The other way round and we’re in with a chance.’
  Fitz lashed a sheet around his wrist, knotting it to another, throwing the
  free end across to the Doctor. The bench screamed, wind from nowhere tearing
  through the room.
  ‘When we get out of here,’ Fitz shouted, ’we need to talk.’
  There was a pause, then the Doctor nodded, tying the sheet around his
  waist.
  133
  
  They stood there for a moment, ﬁxed against the maelstrom around them.
  The Doctor spoke, but Fitz couldn’t hear the words. It didn’t matter: he could
  read the Doctor’s lips well enough.
  In the docking bay, the Doctor was saying, I knew what I was doing.
  Fitz nodded: ‘I know.’
  The bench screamed, folding in on itself as the vacuum claimed them.
  There were burns on Fitz’s chest where McCray had used the deﬁbrillator.
  The Doctor had been crouched on the airlock ﬂoor when that happened:
  exhausted, aching, trying to shift the chill from his lungs, regain feeling in
  his hands.
  Unable to help as someone else forced life back into Fitz’s body.
  He thought of Anji’s forehead, split open by the trooper’s bloody knuck-
  les.
  As the Doctor looked down at Fitz, he promised, ‘Whatever’s happening,
  this is the second time it’s hurt one of my friends. There won’t be a third.’
  He checked Fitz’s vitals, then turned away, dispensing with his hospital
  gown, collecting the suit that had been left near his bed.
  ‘Computer,’ he ordered, ‘locate Commander Valletti.’
  She was playing the violin, casually dressed, hair down, a look of con-
  centration on her face. The recreation suite’s soundprooﬁng absorbed the
  music, but this clearly wasn’t the elegant freneticism of her recital. It was
  less studied, as if she was feeling her way though the piece.
  The Doctor studied her through the window a moment longer. Calm
  and considered when in command; losing herself in a moment outside of
  it. A strong personality, but governed by circumstance and the mood of
  others.
  For a hundred years, he’d passed for one of them. Spoken their lan-
  guage, eaten their food, looked like them, moved among them. But how-
  ever close he’d come to them, however much he had laughed and talked
  and smiled with them, there had always been an unknown corner inside.
  Something he’d learnt never to show. The part that was alien and cold and
  beyond them.
  Anji had been hurt, Fitz had nearly died, countless others might be at
  risk. It was time to let the fac¸ade drop a little, to let the darkness show.
  He opened the door, letting music ﬁll the corridor.
  The bow stopped moving and Valletti looked up.
  ‘I’m not an expert on music, so I forget,’ the Doctor said, slamming the
  door behind him, ‘does that tune signal surprise or disappointment?’
  Valletti shook her head. ‘No.’
  134
  
  ‘Why do I think that’s an answer to a question I haven’t asked yet?’
  He could see the strain within her. On her face, the way she held the
  violin, the grip on the bow. She’d trusted him, had thought he trusted her.
  If this was going to work he needed to break that trust. He needed her
  angry.
  ‘Did you do it?’ he snapped. ‘That overload was no accident.’
  ‘No.’ She turned her head, the violin back under her chin, starting to
  play once more.
  The Doctor paced around the room, reached out as he passed the selec-
  tion of instruments and snatched up a violin.
  She looked at him, uncertain, unsure, as he glared at her.
  His thumb found a resting place on the underside of the instrument’s
  neck, ﬁngertips picking out the individual strings. His right hand grasped
  a bow. The aim, he remembered, was always to keep the bow as upright
  as possible, maintaining a right angle to the vibrating string. His mouth
  tightened and he angled the bow down on the strings, dragging it sharp
  across them, a ﬁrst discordant note cutting into Valletti’s melody.
  She ﬂinched at the sound but played on.
  ‘Jason McCray,’ he said. ‘What happened to him?’
  He took a step closer, swivelled the bow again, pressing down on the
  ﬁngerboard with his other hand, feeling the tension and give and contrast
  of the strings.
  The noise was sharper this time, still she played.
  He drew again and again, a hard rhythm breaking against Valletti’s long,
  graceful movement.
  She turned away, bending into the music. The Doctor stepped after
  her, twisting his wrist, dragging the note out. He watched Valletti’s elbow,
  judging the pace, trying to predict where it was going.
  ‘His lobotomy. Terrance’s work or Sara’s?’
  Still no answer. He stepped closer, ﬁnally working the bow into a steady
  ﬁgure-of-eight movement, delivering not one note, but several. A counter-
  point to her melody.
  ‘Is it worth the price?’
  A tune of his own. Hard and cold.
  Alien.
  And Valletti dropped the violin, span round. ‘Yes, it’s worth it.’
  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘What’s so important? What’s so special?’
  The heartbeat he’d generated dropped, pitching low, running beneath
  the conversation, slowly picking up the pace as Valletti spoke, drawing her
  in.
  ‘The Avatar project is our best option for –’
  135
  
  He cut her off with a ﬁnal savage twist, then let the bow drop.
  Silence dwarfed them.
  He could see it in her face, the set of her shoulders. He’d pushed her
  far enough. She stepped up, close enough for him to feel her breath on his
  face, then she snatched the violin up, drew a sharp note of her own.
  ‘The best defence,’ she said. ‘No alternatives. No options. This is it.
  They are our best defence, our only choice.’
  The Doctor stroked the bow over the strings again.
  ‘Really?’ he said.
  Slowly at ﬁrst, starting low, he began drawing the ﬁgure of eight. The
  dark corner revealed in music.
  ‘That’s the best Earth can do?’
  She was still, but he could see it building inside her.
  ‘War games with no value.’
  Faster still. Stepping closer to Valletti, unﬂinching.
  It just needed one more push.
  ‘The right opposition would show that project up for the fac¸ade it is.’
  And ﬁnally she broke, snapping, ‘What opposition? You? You wouldn’t
  last ﬁve minutes.’
  The Doctor twisted his arm, one last note cutting the air, signalling full
  stop. And said: ‘Challenge accepted.’
  136
  
  MARS
  It had taken a while for Anji to understand, but the Martians were like
  the homeless two centuries ago. When you ﬁrst arrived in London, you
  would see them: sleeping on the Embankment or drinking by Hungerford
  footbridge. But they would slowly become background, until one day all
  you noticed was the book fair by the National Film Theatre or the sun
  shining on the Thames.
  The Martians were like that. A small handful had jobs as bodyguards;
  the rest just looked sad and alone in the human tent-cities.
  After six
  months, they slipped from your sight, lost in what their world had become.
  They proved harder to forget when they stepped out of the background
  and into her ofﬁce, taking Anji and her colleagues hostage.
  The siege had been going on for ﬁve days.
  The Martians’ bulk only exaggerated the fragile nature of the prefabri-
  cated ofﬁce. A punch from one of them was enough to put a hole in the
  plasti-board partitions; one burst from a sonic weapon levelled a wall.
  They were demanding the return of their planet. The usual aim of the
  militant clans. The only question was whether the answer involved the
  deaths of the hostages as well as their captors.
  Michael was off-planet, on assignment. Anji wasn’t sure whether that
  made it better or worse. The past couple of months had been difﬁcult;
  something she couldn’t pin down. They hadn’t argued or stopped talking,
  but their marriage felt increasingly distant, like it was one step removed
  from her life.
  ‘Anji,’ Michelle hissed.
  Anji looked up. The Martians were talking in clusters, taking up differ-
  ent positions. The background noise that had ﬁltered into the building –
  sirens, engines in hover mode – had faded. It meant only one thing: the
  police had cleared out, Earth Forces had been called in and the end was
  very close indeed.
  Anji nodded to where the bureau’s desks had been overturned. ‘Get
  everyone back,’ she said softly. ‘Find some cover.’
  137
  
  Michelle looked confused for a moment, then realisation dawned. ‘Oh,
  no,’ she whispered, and turned to tell someone else.
  Then it was too late.
  The building jumped, air ﬁlled with dust and debris as detonations thud-
  ded in every direction. Anji was thrown back on the ﬂoor, and when she
  lifted her head she could see Michelle screaming but heard nothing. The
  ﬁngertip she touched to her ear came away bloody.
  There were ﬂashes of light through the smoke and the dust.
  The Martian closest to her had raised its hand towards the dust storm,
  but the hand and the sonic weapon lodged in the forearm were obliterated
  before it could ﬁre. It staggered backwards, silent holes punched in its
  chest armour, green blood spitting across the carpet.
  The ﬂoor shook as the dead Martian landed next to Anji.
  She pushed herself back, eyes ﬁxed on the corpse, only dimly aware of
  the other gun ﬂashes around them. Then she bumped into Michelle and
  turned to see what she was looking at.
  The smoke billowed in strange patterns around the Martians’ sonic
  blasts. But through the clouds you could see tall ﬁgures calmly advanc-
  ing through the debris. The Martians were hitting their targets but nothing
  was happening. As the ﬁgures came closer the dust seemed to part be-
  fore them, revealing smooth, armoured lines and the mirror sheen of their
  helmets. A dull ache in Anji’s jaw brought understanding. Each set of ar-
  mour had a shield or something, emitting its own sonic bursts; enough to
  dissipate the blasts from the Martians’ weaponry.
  One of the Martians had realised this, pulling a sword from the harness
  on its back and charging the attackers. Its target dropped as the Martian
  swung the blade and kicked out one leg in a wide arc, connecting with the
  weak point at the back of the Martian’s knees; as the Martian buckled the
  attacker plunged a short knife into the neck joint of its armour.
  The smoke was clearing.
  Anji watched the armoured soldier get to his feet and look around. In
  the time it had taken to dispatch his opponent, the other Martians had all
  suffered similar fates. The last of them, retreating towards the lifts, took a
  direct hit, tumbling back into the empty shaft.
  As the hostages climbed from the wreckage not one of their rescuers
  moved to help. Instead, they stood almost immobile, their heads alone
  sweeping back and forth. Checking for any further danger.
  The Martian with the knife in its throat was still alive. It struggled to
  ﬁnd purchase on the ﬂoor, one hand reaching up to pull out the knife. Only
  when it had pulled the blade clear did the soldier kick it from its hand. The
  Martian didn’t move as the soldier raised his riﬂe and put one shot through
  138
  
  its head.
  An hour later Anji was in Shefﬁeld Memorial Hospital, a temporary implant
  in her ear until her hearing recovered. The news channels were all covering
  the same event, a follow-up to the end of the siege. Journalists milled
  around a blank room, jostling for position in front of a podium. They were
  all working from the same press release, every channel using the same
  words.
  The soldiers who had broken the siege were part of the Professional
  Unit, a special-ops squad. Today’s operation was the ﬁrst sanctioned ap-
  pearance of a project years in the making.
  Anji’s interest was piqued long before the press conference started. But
  when the man with salt-and-pepper hair took the podium, her hand tight-
  ened on the bed sheet. She’d seen him before, knew his name before the
  press ofﬁcer announced him: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, questions will now be
  taken by Colonel McNamara, commanding ofﬁcer of the Professionals.’
  139
  
  JUPITER SPACE
  NOW
  Forty-eight hours since he kicked it from her hand, the Professional returns
  Anji’s gun to her. The reason is simple: he wants her on the mission with
  them, helping trace the enemy. She’s not combat trained, she hasn’t got
  the experience the survivors have accrued, but in contrast to most of them
  she’s fully ﬁt and alert.
  When he hands the gun over Anji looks at him, wondering if this indi-
  cates some kind of recognition. But there’s nothing in his eyes or tone; just
  the same dispassionate evaluation.
  She takes the weapon and the job.
  An hour later, she is in the middle of chaos.
  It was Arquette who lured the enemy towards the Village. Masked by
  smoke bombs, the Professional planted his tracking device. The crossﬁre
  laid down – a hard ﬁve minutes and the closest thing they could muster
  to all-out assault – was enough to put the enemy into retreat, hissing and
  ﬂailing. The survivors took a few minutes to regroup, then followed.
  Robertson is in front of Anji now, tracing the signal. He’s struggling
  to ﬁlter the background noise Jupiter is putting out, but the signal is just
  distinctive enough.
  Only they are not sure they should follow where the enemy have gone.
  Because the corridor in front of them looks like hell.
  Robertson consults the tracker, shakes his head. ‘This is it.’
  Anji checks the Station map on her visor. Before they left Robertson
  updated it, marking the points where the EM shielding is weak. For the
  most part, their journey has kept to the safe routes, and radiation exposure
  has been minimal. Not now. They’re at the very edge of the survivors’
  territory. On the map Robertson provided it’s marked with the legend Here
  Be Dragons.
  Did he have any idea, Anji wonders, how accurate that was?
  It doesn’t need a map to explain why the survivors haven’t ventured fur-
  140
  
  ther, though. At some point this section has borne the worst of a meteorite
  hit. Flooring is buckled, bulkheads twisted, the mangled Station infrastruc-
  ture all too visible in places. Steam vents from cracked pipes, short-circuits
  ﬂare. The background noise of the Station’s struggle against Jupiter’s grav-
  ity and air pressure is to the fore here. The looks the survivors exchange
  tell the story: the corridor is a death trap, waiting to close its jaws around
  them.
  Robertson saw a face once and it will haunt him for the rest of his days.
  ‘That’s it,’ he says. ‘This little expedition is over.’
  ‘No,’ Caroline says.
  Robertson looks at her in disbelief. ‘Even forgetting that corridor isn’t
  stable, there’s no EM ﬁeld and the shielding is shot through with meteor
  rock. Twenty minutes, we take on enough radiation to kill in six months.
  Twenty-ﬁve and that’s down to six weeks. Five after that, we’re talking
  hours.’ He points to the Professional and Anji, safe in their armour. ‘They’ve
  got protection. We haven’t.’
  And he can see confusion and desperation on her face now. She knows
  he’s right but wants to carry on anyway. Whatever the cost. Unable to see
  a future, unable to see beyond this Station.
  That’s when Robertson ﬁnally understands. He’s lost her to this place
  and she’s not coming back. He remembers her dancing and the way she
  looked as she studied the menu. He can still feel the cool touch of her hand
  in his as war drew close.
  Only hope breaks a chain.
  He sees the confusion in her face, sees her looking at the Professional.
  And Robertson’s heart is stretched to breaking. He’s breathing hard, screw-
  ing his eyes shut, trying to do anything to keep from remembering. When
  he opens his eyes again Anji is looking at him, but she’s the only one.
  Because the others are looking at the Professional.
  He’s on the edge of the safe zone. Without a word, he reaches up and
  uncouples the helmet. Piece by piece, in less than a minute, he removes the
  hard shell of armour. The medication dispenser Anji described is all that
  survives. With no protection save a cotton undersuit, he slings his riﬂe over
  his shoulder and steps into the hot zone.
  Robertson knows what’s coming. Easter lost to the Professional’s grand-
  standing, just like Robertson’s losing now. He’s worked with Weir and Gar-
  cia and Alonso and Bluth and all of them for years. But they’re all tired and
  desperate, and they hold faith with the Professional now. Lost to the same
  place as Caroline. Robertson breathes hard, white-hot ﬂame in his lungs,
  scouring his veins.
  141
  
  He screams, raises his weapon and charges, past Anji, past Caroline,
  pushing by the Professional, on into the hot zone, deck vibrating beneath
  his feet, steam in his face, sparks burning his back. There are shouts and
  footsteps behind him, the walls and ﬂoors beating with their footsteps.
  Movement ﬂashes to Robertson’s left, the junction of another corridor, and
  he screams, swivels, his riﬂe connecting with a carapaced hook, pivoting,
  thrusting the barrel back, under the joint of the creature’s arm and ﬁring.
  There are tears on his face.
  The air is ﬁlled with white light and noise; the others yelling, ﬁring,
  twisting, charging. Everything is lost to the hammer of his pulse in his ears
  and the screaming ache of his muscles and the roar of breath in his lungs.
  It’s the same for all of them. As the creatures press forward against
  them, they ﬁght.
  Robertson doesn’t know how long they ﬁght for. It feels like hours but
  it can’t be. And as the enemy ﬁnally fall back he feels the rage seep from
  his body, and as they disappear into the dark the ﬁre burns itself out and
  he drops to his knees.
  He ﬂinches at a touch on his arm.
  He thinks it must be Caroline but it isn’t. It’s Anji, blinking tears, mouth
  trying desperately to form words. Robertson wipes his own eyes and looks
  at her. Like the Professional, she’s stripped her suit off in a show of solidar-
  ity. Only now there’s a ragged tear across her right shoulder. It’s not a deep
  cut, but Robertson can see the tiny hairs embedded in it: the signature of
  the enemy’s touch.
  ‘How long?’ Anji asks.
  Robertson shakes his head, pushing up on to his feet. ‘It varies. Easter
  can run tests. He’ll tell you.’
  Flashlights stab the darkness around them. Like everywhere outside the
  Village, the wall and ﬂoors are coated by the rust of Jupiter. Beyond that,
  the corridor has few similarities to the rest of the Station. It’s one of the
  handful of points where the outer rings meet the Station’s towers; power
  lines and computer systems run through here. It’s not a room as such, but
  this nexus point of corridors has become the enemy’s base.
  To that extent, the plan is a success.
  Machinery is crudely wired into the surroundings, tapping those energy
  cables. But there’s no sign of an interstix or a teleport or anything like it.
  Everyone can see this, everyone knows the mistake they’ve made.
  Weir turns to the Professional: ‘You stupid son of a –’
  ‘Hold it,’ Robertson says, pointing across the hallway.
  A large chunk of machinery is built into the walls; battered and scarred,
  but familiar. ‘ReGene.’ Robertson pulls at the memory. ‘Davis was hauling
  142
  
  a new ReGene unit to sickbay just before the –’
  ‘It’s not a transport,’ Caroline snaps, ‘it’s not a weapon, it’s no –’
  ‘It’ll keep you alive!’ Robertson shouts, striding towards his wife. He
  is still a big man, still towers over Caroline, his body clenched, trying des-
  perately to keep control: ‘We’ve all taken too much radiation. Get that
  machine back to Greenwich, we ﬂush it from our systems.’ He glares at the
  Professional. ‘If we’re quick enough, we might give David a chance.’
  Neither Caroline nor the Professional responds.
  Robertson breathes
  deep, points to where the ReGene unit is wedged into the walls. ‘Marcus,
  Susan, get that thing free.’
  It’s only as they set to work that Robertson realises how easily he won
  this particular victory. His wife, he can see, is stunned into silence by the
  plan’s failure or his own show of temper. But not the Professional.
  Robertson glances at Anji. She nods to where the Professional is stand-
  ing, looking into the darkness where the enemy ﬂed. And Robertson ﬁnally
  notices how the Professional is standing: one hand holding his biceps, am-
  ber liquid trailing between his ﬁngers. At some point, the medication dis-
  penser has been shattered.
  ‘Hold still,’ Easter tells Anji. He slips the needle into her arm, drawing a
  vial of blood. As he pulls it clear, Easter presses her thumb up against the
  puncture mark. ‘Push down, it’ll stop you bruising.’
  ‘You don’t want me to bruise,’ Anji says ﬂatly, ‘but going insane will have
  to wait?’
  Easter places the vial in a rack. ‘There’s nothing to worry about just yet.’
  He peels back her T-shirt, begins to clean the wound. ‘The cut isn’t that
  deep. Infection is governed by the level of penetration, plus your general
  ﬁtness and good health should help.’ He presses a dirty bandage on to
  the wound, tries to offer a reassuring smile as Anji rearranges her clothes.
  ‘You’re the ﬁttest patient I’ve seen in years. It’ll be a week or two before you
  start showing any symptoms: forgetfulness, bad temper, that kind of thing.’
  He nods to where Robertson is wiring the ReGene unit into their computer
  terminals. ‘When I get a chance, I’ll run the test, give you a timetable. As it
  is –’
  ‘You need the computers for the ReGene unit.’ Anji nods. ‘I understand.’
  ‘Priorities,’ Easter says.
  ‘The sooner we get David into the unit, the
  better his chances.’
  Anji nods and Easter crosses to supervise Robertson’s work.
  Since they returned Robertson has seemed quieter than Easter’s ever
  seen him.
  143
  
  Even in the beginning, during the long months spent in close quarters
  on the shuttles, Robertson never gave up. Even when his face said other-
  wise, something in him signiﬁed strength. Whether he realised it or not,
  Robertson was always the one who stood for hope. That’s gone now; eyes
  and mouth ﬂat, his movements mechanical.
  Nobody has given Easter a report on what happened, but snippets of
  conversation are enough to know what Robertson did. If the ReGene unit
  doesn’t work, Robertson has killed everyone who followed him down that
  corridor and he knows it.
  Robertson ties off the last connection. ‘Try it now.’
  Easter powers up the terminal.
  There’s a moment of uncertainty
  between the two machines, jury-rigged processor meeting standardised
  equipment, then the ReGene unit recognises the connection and uploads
  its software. The DNA protocols look to have survived the past four years
  intact. It’s not surprising. It looks as if the enemy have been using the ma-
  chine themselves, repairing the handful of wounds the survivors manage to
  inﬂict.
  The unit has a number of different conﬁgurations but it’s years since
  Easter worked equipment this advanced. So he chooses the default: analyse
  the patient’s genetic structure, extrapolate the necessary sequences to ﬁll
  any gaps, then advance tissue repair.
  ‘We’re ready,’ Easter says. ‘Load him in.’
  Robertson and Marcus lift David from the cot. The young man’s face is
  pale; he doesn’t even stir as they lay him inside the ReGene unit. Easter
  connects the different probes and instruments, makes one last check on
  the readings. With everything registering normal he slides the glass cover
  down over the unit. The machine hums and the glass frosts over, and all
  that’s visible of David is a backlit silhouette.
  It is, Easter realises, like glimpsing someone through the lid of a cofﬁn.
  The Professional approaches then. At ﬁrst Easter assumes he’s checking
  on the ReGene unit, but it’s given no more than a cursory glance. Instead,
  he steps up to Robertson and says: ‘Come with me.’
  Robertson thought the Professional was going to berate him for his sui-
  cide charge but the raid goes largely unmentioned. It’s only referred to as
  the source of the damage to the Professional’s suit. Or rather, Robertson
  realises, the medication dispenser.
  ‘Arquette said you repaired the microhydraulics on the automated
  weapons,’ the Professional explains. ‘This is similar.’
  They’re sitting in the quiet corner near the greenhouses that’s become
  the Professional’s territory. The armour once again covers his body, restor-
  144
  
  ing the implacable image. Except, Robertson thinks, there’s a sliver of vul-
  nerability where he has removed the medication dispenser. Robertson is
  holding it, poking its shattered innards with a tiny screwdriver. A thin trail
  of wire marks an umbilical cord between the device and the Professional’s
  suit.
  Robertson shakes his head. ‘This isn’t microhydraulics.’
  ‘Close enough.’ The Professional blinks rapidly, then his eyes snap open,
  focusing on Robertson: ‘Keep working.’
  ‘This is Easter’s job,’ Robertson says, ‘I’m not medical.’ He lifts the dis-
  penser. ‘And this is medical, right?’
  ‘Standard issue,’ the Professional answers.
  Robertson probes further into the mass of split wiring. ‘For what?’
  And as Robertson looks at him, the Professional frowns again. ‘For op-
  erational duties.’
  ‘Look,’ Robertson says, ‘if I know what it is that it does, it might help me
  ﬁx it.’
  He wonders how much he can reasonably have ﬁgured out on his own,
  makes a show of turning the dispenser over in his hand. ‘It’s medicine,
  right? Some kind of pain relief?’
  ‘Yes,’ the Professional says.
  ‘It responds to feedback from this suit’s
  neural monitors.’
  ‘I’m not registering any input from your suit here.’ Robertson purses his
  lips. ‘If I can ﬁx the link, could you run diagnostics?’
  His thinking is simple: if the suit can tell him what the problem is, he
  has a better chance of ﬁxing it. Simple enough, but it takes the Professional
  for ever to catch up and nod agreement.
  Robertson hunts through his tool box for a circuit to splice into the
  wiring between the suit and dispenser. The Professional repaired his suit
  earlier, so should be capable of doing this himself. Only the Professional is
  a different man now. Distracted.
  Robertson tries to remember the ﬁght.
  Was the Professional touched by the enemy?
  Robertson’s memories
  are confused snapshots but he recalls glimpses of him. Smooth and swift
  movements, ﬂuid and controlled. Stepping and twisting, taking aim, ﬁring.
  Robertson can’t believe that a man who fought like that would get caught
  by the enemy.
  It’s only as he leans close, connecting the fault-locator circuit, that he
  sees it. The tendons standing out on the back of the Professional’s hand, the
  ﬁngers stretching, clenching, doing anything to stop themselves shaking.
  Feedback erupts from the fault locator; static beneath a tinny voice.
  145
  
  – It was the ﬁrst lesson we learnt when we reached for the stars: for every-
  thing, there is a limit. No matter how far we had come, no matter how hard
  we had struggled –
  The Professional snatches the circuit free of the wiring. His hand opens
  and closes around it, over and again. They sit there for almost a minute,
  Robertson trapped in the Professional’s stony gaze. Then the Professional
  reaches out, lifts the dispenser from Robertson’s palm.
  The Professional smiles very thinly, shaking his head slowly, chastising a
  child. Robertson holds his hands up in surrender, climbs to his feet. When
  the Professional makes no further response, he collects his tools, turns to
  leave. As he does so, he says, ‘It was just an honest mistake, OK?’
  The Professional says nothing and Robertson walks away.
  Before he turns the corner he glances back. The Professional is trying
  to force the dispenser around his biceps. Whether it’s the shake in his hand
  or the fact that something no longer ﬁts, he is left trying to close the circle
  again and again and again.
  It was the ﬁrst lesson we learnt when we reached for the stars.
  As he walks, tool box banging against his thigh, Robertson remembers.
  That tinny voice was thick with the past.
  He ﬁnds Easter easily enough; still hovering by the ReGene unit, waiting
  for it somehow to go wrong. It’s a good hour before Robertson can take the
  medic aside and speak to him privately. It’s not a useless hour, though; it
  gives Robertson time to pull at his memories, collating his thoughts.
  In the end, they come down to one question: ‘Was Jason dead?’
  The shadows under Easter’s eyes are deeper than ever; he blinks slowly
  in response to the query. ‘Sorry?’ he says, ‘I don’t think I –’
  ‘Jason. When we found Jason, he was dead. There was no mistake?’
  The tiredness is replaced by annoyance and confusion; a look that says
  You pulled me away for this?
  ‘Yes,’ Easter answers. ‘Yes, I’m sure. You should be too; you were there.’
  ‘I know, but. . . ’ Robertson stops, checks over his shoulder. ‘He keeps a
  journal. The Professional. A diary or something, recorded on his suit.’
  And now annoyance and confusion are replaced by simple curiosity.
  Easter tries to hides it: ‘There’s nothing unusual about that.’ But he doesn’t
  hide it well; the words say one thing, the way he says them another.
  ‘Not for one of us, maybe. But him? For that man?’ Robertson shakes
  his head. ‘And the words. They weren’t the words of the guy who snaps
  orders and puts holes in people.’ He pauses, because he knows how this is
  going to sound. ‘It sounded like Jason.’
  Easter laughs. ‘Jason never spoke.’
  146
  
  ‘He kept a journal,’ Robertson says. ‘There was a poem.’ He still remem-
  bers reading the words, remembers speaking them, his breath on Caroline’s
  neck:
  Stars climb high at night
  The strongest hands cannot hold
  Only hope breaks a chain.
  Easter shakes his head. ‘So?’
  ‘The Professional’s journal entry had the same meaning.’
  ‘Jason was dead. You saw the state the body was in.’
  Robertson nods at David’s silhouette, clear in the ReGene unit. ‘What
  about one of those?’
  ‘There are limitations on the technology, Robbie. You can’t bring back
  the dead.’
  ‘But you could rebuild someone, right? If they were still alive? Make it
  so you didn’t recognise them?’
  ‘Rewriting the DNA like that would generate mutations,’ Easter says.
  ‘You’d never be able to re-create the original pattern in its entirety.’ In the
  end, it all comes back to that ﬁrst question. And Easter’s answer remains
  unchanged: ‘Jason was dead.’
  Robertson says nothing in reply. What worries him more is his own
  attitude.
  Desperate theories from second-hand myths and a handful of
  words years apart. It only tells him how lost he is, how lost they all are.
  ‘We’re not going to make it,’ he whispers.
  ‘The ReGene unit –’ Easter begins, but Robertson cuts him off.
  ‘Buys us time from the radiation. Beyond that, how long before we
  start dying?’ He looks around, looks at the Greenwich Village he helped to
  build. He knows the stitches holding it together are starting to show. ‘We
  had a good run, Joshua. God knows we tried, but this place has six months,
  maybe a year. Then the shields reach capacity, water recycling goes, oxygen
  scrubbers start to fail.’
  ‘The Professional –’
  ‘Isn’t going to save us,’ Robertson says. ‘He can fool them, fool Caroline,
  but we know better.’ He pauses, then says: ‘We’re done, aren’t we?’
  Before Robertson dragged him away, Easter freed capacity for Anji on the
  second terminal. He said it would help her to stay busy.
  She thinks she could probably ﬁnd other things to occupy herself with,
  but there’s little harm in keeping Easter happy. So she sits at the terminal,
  slowly working through the snapshots from the Professional’s download.
  147
  
  It’s hard to identify the decayed panels and tarnished surfaces outside with
  the pristine corridors on the screen. They are a ﬁction that has no relation
  to this dirty, hard life.
  At some point Arquette walks up behind her. Robertson’s wife has been
  subdued since the raid; startled, maybe, by her husband’s ferocity. She
  tries to ignore the screen, but Anji sees her reﬂection drawn to it; in the
  end Arquette stands at her shoulder, watching her ﬂick onwards.
  It’s not just empty corridors, of course. There are people too, frozen
  in action: reaching for controls, bracing themselves, holding each other.
  Even in still frame, fear and excitement are writ large on their faces. This
  was what these people trained for. The opportunities they waited on, the
  moments they dreaded.
  Anji ﬂicks forward and stops.
  She doesn’t say anything, neither does Arquette.
  There are footsteps behind them; Anji is all too aware it could be the
  Professional. If it is, what will he make of the chaos on the screen?
  It isn’t the Professional, though.
  It’s Easter, checking on David’s
  progress. He taps at the adjacent terminal for a minute before noticing
  Anji and Arquette motionless beside him.
  ‘Something wrong?’
  Anji is expecting Arquette to answer, but she stays silent. Anji nods at
  the monitor.
  Like the rest of the pictures, it shows a stark, white interior. A tall room,
  maybe three or four storeys high; the camera set up high, too. It’s easy to
  place this as ground zero for the madness that’s overtaken the Station. The
  walls of the room are vaulted, ﬁlled with the remains of tall glass cylinders.
  The picture isn’t clear, but while some of the cylinders look empty others
  seem to hold blurred forms, slumped and disﬁgured bodies.
  ‘I don’t recognise that,’ Easter says. ‘Where is it?’
  Anji checks the reference. ‘Level six.’
  Fire rages, caught in one corner, smoke thick over one-half of the screen.
  It’s still possible to make out other ﬁgures behind it. Anji zooms in. The
  computer doesn’t have image enhancement. As they close on the faces the
  resolution drops, but it’s still good enough to see expressions of pain and
  fear. It’s good enough for recognition.
  ‘That’s Commander Valletti.’ Easter points to a tall woman with one
  hand on a communications panel, head tilted, looking back into the room.
  He tracks across the screen. A thin man reaching for a woman, her arm in
  a sling. ‘That’s. . . ’ He pauses, trying to remember. ‘African name. Husband
  and wife.’
  ‘Mukabi,’ Anji says ﬂatly.
  148
  
  She sees Easter’s puzzled reﬂection.
  ‘It’s been four years,’ Anji answers. ‘I know the 228 off by heart. Com-
  mander Valletti? Her ﬁrst name is Jennifer. Her brother works in Toronto.
  Her father still prays every day at the Santa Croce, hoping his daughter will
  be found alive.’
  ‘What about those two?’ Easter says, frowning. ‘I don’t think I –’
  ‘That’s Fitz.’ It’s Arquette, speaking for the ﬁrst time. She points to the
  man with scruffy hair, crouched on the ﬂoor, looking across the room in
  horror. There’s another man lying next to him; Fitz pressing a jacket down
  over his body. The man’s blackened sleeve tells the story: Fitz is smothering
  ﬂames.
  ‘Is that him?’ Easter asks.
  Anji looks at the two bodies on-screen, one wrapping the other in a
  McCartney fashion four years out of date. Fitz staring out of the past and
  right at her.
  ‘Yes,’ Anji says, ‘that’s the Doctor.’ Her eyes drop as she whispers, ‘It
  feels like another life.’
  ‘It was another life.’ Arquette’s voice is as ﬂat as Anji’s, but somehow the
  pain is more evident because of it. ‘I don’t know if I remember life before
  this.’ A pause. ‘I’m not sure I can ever be that person again.’
  And with that, she turns and walks away.
  Anji looks at Easter. ‘What the hell was that about?’
  ‘It’s complicated. Her and Robertson,’ Easter says, then stops, shakes his
  head. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
  As he starts to leave Anji catches his wrist. ‘I wanted to ask you some-
  thing. These pictures. They’re from just before the energy barrier went up,
  right?’
  Easter frowns. ‘I think so, yes.’
  ‘I’ve been looking through them and there’s nothing that could be cre-
  ating it. No force-ﬁeld generators, no projectors.’ She nods at the screen.
  ‘Nothing like that visible in the corridors.’
  ‘Alien technology,’ Easter shrugs. ‘In four years, we’ve never got a proper
  reading on the barrier; it barely registers anything’s wrong.’
  ‘It’s just. . . ’ Anji pauses, thinking about how to phrase this. ‘There were
  inquiries, after the Station fell. Every project came under scrutiny.’
  ‘So?’
  ‘They all got a clean bill of health. All but one. Singularity weapons.’
  ‘I’m a doctor,’ Easter says.
  ‘Not a rocket scientist, I know,’ Anji smiles. ‘Neither am I. The inquiry
  used lots of long words and physics stuff I didn’t understand.’
  ‘There’s a “but” coming, isn’t there?’
  149
  
  ‘If a singularity isn’t properly regulated, it could do serious damage.’
  Anji takes a deep breath. ‘Like destroying space-time.’
  Easter’s confused expression ﬁnally manifests itself in a laugh. ‘I really
  don’t –’
  Anji taps the screen. ‘What if it isn’t the work of the enemy?’
  Easter is silent, then slowly says, ‘You mean something already on
  board.’
  Anji smiles. Like a slow ﬁsh, Easter has ﬁnally seen the bait in what
  she’s saying.
  ‘If one of those singularities got out of control,’ Anji says, ‘it could have
  disrupted everything and we’d never know.’
  ‘Quantum uncertainty,’ Easter says.
  ‘The energy barrier’s the border
  of a state of quantum uncertainty. We’re trapped on the outside, where
  everything’s ﬁxed, and the inside is just a mess of possibilities. . . ’
  ‘Or,’ Anji prompts, ‘the inverse.’ She looks to the exit. Somewhere be-
  yond is a shimmering black ﬁeld. ‘No one knows what one of those things
  might do.’
  Easter looks away but the line of his shoulders tells Anji he’s not dismis-
  sive, is thinking about what’s been said. And slowly he turns hack to her.
  From the excitement on his face, Anji worries she’s said too much.
  ‘ “It was another life.” We say it all the time.’ Easter is ﬂushed with
  energy. ‘You said it could be the inverse. What if everything inside the
  barrier is stable and everything outside is uncertain?’
  ‘I was just thinking aloud,’ Anji says.
  But Easter doesn’t listen. He’s caught on the hook of the idea.
  Think about it,’ he says, ‘everything that’s happened since the barrier
  went up could all just be one of an inﬁnite number of possibilities.’ Some-
  thing comes to him and he smiles. ‘If we could break through, we might
  be able to change everything.’ He taps the screen. ‘The past might still be
  there, waiting for us to ﬁnd it, to resolve the uncertainty.’ He looks around
  them, at their desperate ghost of a life. ‘We could stop all this from ever
  happening.’
  Across the Village, Robertson catches sight of the Professional.
  At ﬁrst, Robertson doesn’t think he’s moved since he last saw him; still
  seated in the same spot, offering the same silhouette. He knows there’s no
  reasonable connection between a body four years dead and this man. But
  so much in recent days has brought back the past that he wants to be sure.
  So he circles closer, studying the Professional, trying to remember Ja-
  son. Height, weight, hair colour, proﬁle. Robertson tries to ﬁnd any trace
  of the man he remembers. But there’s nothing there.
  150
  
  Jason died and he hasn’t come back.
  Robertson is close enough to see what the Professional is doing. The
  medication dispenser is disconnected on the ﬂoor near by; a familiar com-
  puter pad is in his hand.
  It’s the corrupted data from the security download. The ghost in the
  machine. There’s a schematic of the Station on the pad too. As Robertson
  watches the graphic swivels on its axis, glowing dots overlaid on to it. It
  takes him a minute to realise what the Professional is doing. He’s trans-
  lating the pattern in the Ghost ﬁle as co-ordinates, seeing how and where
  they might intersect with the Station.
  The Professional’s head suddenly snaps around, ﬁxing on Robertson.
  ‘There’s no scale,’ he says.
  And Robertson is scared. Up until the past hour, the Professional has
  moved like a hunter, but that power and assurance are gone. There’s an
  urgency that doesn’t seem to ﬁt his character, like a caged animal, desperate
  to escape.
  ‘There’s no scale, no starting point.’ The Professional turns back to the
  screen. ‘I can see the pattern. I just don’t recognise it.’ He looks at Robert-
  son again, his eyes wide. ‘If I can ﬁnd the scale and the starting point, I’ll
  understand what it means.’
  Robertson knows the ﬁle is a nonsense. He’s ﬁltered that kind of thing
  from their systems enough to know the pattern’s random. There’s nothing
  to be found.
  But the Professional believes. So Robertson nods his head in quiet reas-
  surance, says: ‘I’m sure you’ll get there.’
  151
  
  Four years earlier
  Their new quarters were the same design as their old. With very little left
  in the way of belongings, it only took the Doctor a few minutes to settle in.
  Then he got to work.
  The leads AuDoc had identiﬁed before the hull breach still needed
  checking.
  The bureaucratic documents it had identiﬁed didn’t immedi-
  ately mean anything to him: details of the voting on the committee that
  had decided where to locate the Station. The same name featuring on the
  proposals and delivering the casting vote: Admiral Jonathan Ferguson.
  He wanted to ask AuDoc what dots it had joined to make that informa-
  tion relevant, but he’d already set the AI another task.
  Fitz woke on a pristine white bed. The sight on the nearby monitor was
  like the Doctor’s schematic of the Pegasus only with his own body in place
  of the spaceship. Similarity came in the way vital sections seemed to be
  covered in red warning signs.
  It was only when he shifted to get a better look that Fitz realised just
  how much pain he was in.
  A hand loomed at the periphery of his vision, something cold hissed
  against his neck. Pain receded and movement became easier. Fitz tracked
  the nurse as she disappeared, passing Robertson and Caroline on the way
  in.
  Robertson looked at him, then turned to Caroline. ‘Now that’s ugly.’
  She gave him a dig in the ribs, but Robertson continued, leaning over
  the bed. ‘I mean, there’s frostbite, radiation exposure, a whole load of
  burst capillaries and talk about bloodshot, those eyes are going to be red
  for weeks.’
  ‘The eyes are open,’ Fitz said, ‘and there’s nothing wrong with the hear-
  ing.’
  Robertson turned to Caroline again: ‘He’s alive! It’s a miracle!’ She
  smiled at Fitz. ‘How are you feeling?’
  ‘Glad there’s no mirror near by,’ Fitz managed. As he pushed himself up
  in the bed, the fog of how he’d got there lifted. ‘The Doctor,’ he said, ‘is he
  152
  
  OK?’
  ‘Improvised space walk to drag his friend to safety?’ Robertson shook
  his head. ‘No one’s sure if accountants qualify for medals, but there’s talk.’
  Caroline squeezed Fitz’s hand. ‘Do you remember what happened?’
  Pressure in his ears. Cold on his eyes. Blood thumping in his neck. Fighting
  for air, breathing ice.
  Fitz shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’
  They stayed for almost an hour, Fitz’s body getting stronger as they
  talked. Looking at Robbie and Caroline he felt like Rip van Winkle, waking
  from a lifetime of sleep. A couple of days ago they’d barely known each
  other; now, the way they spoke and acted made it look like they’d been
  together for years.
  Robertson’s hand was resting on the arm of his chair. Without miss-
  ing a beat, without either of them noticing, Caroline’s ﬁngers wrapped
  around his. Two days ago Fitz had seen them do this for the ﬁrst time,
  self-conscious and unsure as the news reports left the future looking so
  bleak.
  A moment of simple comfort, now as easy as breathing.
  Neither of them mentioned those reports today. Fitz could guess what
  people would think had caused the hull breach, though. The popular theory
  would be sabotage. Alien sabotage.
  He looked again at their hands.
  Fitz’s earliest memories were of wartime London. The father who tow-
  ered over young Fitz – a ﬁgure of trust and warmth – making himself look
  small as he walked the streets, fearful of being recognised. The looks his
  father received had left Fitz confused, but had also brought them closer.
  Because Fitz had understood what his dad needed, and he had held on to
  his father’s hand on those walks. Not for himself, but to comfort his dad.
  It would have been easy to see Robertson taking Caroline’s hand as a
  thing of the moment. Passion in the face of war. Fitz didn’t believe that,
  though.
  As soon as her temper receded Valletti knew the Doctor had goaded her
  into the challenge. For all she’d thought about it in the hours since, she still
  couldn’t see why he had.
  There was a large market for industrial espionage on the system
  colonies, but the Doctor’s current level of access provided enough infor-
  mation to retire on. There was no need for him to enter the Avatar system.
  Similarly, if sabotage were his goal he already had the necessary privileges.
  Either way, it didn’t seem to matter to the Mukabis.
  153
  
  Valletti had mentioned the Doctor’s proposal to Terrance as they rode
  the elevator together, making idle conversation. She’d focused on the lu-
  dicrous nature of the idea, stressed that she was going to withdraw the
  challenge.
  Five minutes later Terrance had come to her ofﬁce.
  ‘It’s an opportunity,’ he said. ‘We can test out the non-invasive interface.
  It’s good, but it’s not as good as the implants. We’re restricted on who
  can help reﬁne the process.’ He’d shrugged. ‘He’s interested, let’s take
  advantage.’
  As he said it, Valletti knew he was right.
  Their ability to develop the system was limited by the number of test
  subjects available. If any other member of her staff had the security access
  and was willing to volunteer, she wouldn’t have hesitated. Why make an
  exception for the Doctor? She knew the answer, of course. The whisper
  of his feet on the dance ﬂoor, the light in his eyes as he laughed, the cool
  touch of his ﬁngertips against her back.
  Terrance was still waiting, but her eyes were ﬁxed unseeing on paper-
  work.
  ‘Commander?’ he prompted.
  ‘All right,’ she said reluctantly, ‘but nothing too advanced. Earth stan-
  dard conditions, basic training. That’s it.’
  When Fitz woke the next time the Doctor was waiting.
  ‘You should be up and about in a few hours,’ the Doctor said, nodding
  at the equipment surrounding him. ‘Very impressive stuff. They had me
  plugged into one for a bit.’
  ‘I thought you didn’t want any medical attention,’ Fitz said.
  The Doctor smiled. ‘They had a patient who required attention far more
  than I did. A bit of concentration and I was able to regulate my body to
  the human median; enough to fool the diagnostics until I could wipe their
  memory, anyway.’ He paused. ‘Which gave me a bit of an idea.’
  ‘Why,’ Fitz said, ‘am I suddenly worried that “up and about in a few
  hours” is code for “you’re putting me in danger again”?’
  ‘Nonsense.’ The Doctor held up a computer chip. ‘You won’t need to
  move from this bed. You simply plug this into your terminal at the right
  time.’
  ‘The right time being?’
  ‘Three in the afternoon.’
  Fitz raised a painful eyebrow.
  ‘Which is when I’ll be joining McCray and the others in an Avatar train-
  ing programme. At Commander Valletti’s invitation.’
  154
  
  ‘This invitation,’ Fitz said. ‘She wouldn’t have been provoked into mak-
  ing it, would she?’
  The Doctor shifted uncomfortably.
  ‘She may have.
  But there’s little
  danger. If I can fool the medical diagnostics, I should be able to trick the
  Mukabis’ systems into creating a human avatar of myself.’
  ‘The point being?’ Fitz asked.
  ‘It’s very simple,’ the Doctor said. ‘Creating the avatars uses up vast
  chunks of computer-processing power.’
  ‘Which makes getting into a ﬁght with the 101st useful how?’
  Power crept into the Doctor’s voice as he spoke. ‘Because it won’t be an
  easy ﬁght. My avatar should register as human, but with my anticipation
  and reaction times. Commander Valletti thinks her troops can’t be beaten.
  I’m going to show her otherwise and I’m going to push the Avatar system
  to its limits.’ And then that steel vanished, replaced by a disarming smile.
  ‘That’s the aim. If I can just increase the drain on the Station computers by
  a few per cent, gaps should start appearing in more vital systems.’
  Fitz shook his head. ‘Still lost.’
  ‘It’s a distraction, Fitz. Slow the computers enough and we should be
  able to break through the ﬁrewall programs.’
  ‘And if we can do that –’
  ‘Then we ﬁnd out everything we need to know about the Mukabis, De-
  schamps, singularity bombs and the hunt for alien inﬁltrators.’
  ‘And this,’ Fitz said, taking the datachip from the Doctor, ‘is going to get
  that information?’
  ‘I told AuDoc to redesign itself to operate under minimal conditions.’
  ‘So it won’t be affected by what you do to the computers.’
  The Doctor nodded. ‘And it is under orders. Search all Station records,
  use your initiative, that kind of thing.’
  ‘And all I have to do is plug this into the bedside computer here?’
  ‘At the right time, yes,’ the Doctor said.
  Fitz looked at his friend. So much just the same: the energy, the smile,
  the easy way with people. Superﬁcially, all a hundred years on Earth had
  done was add the odd grey hair and deepen the lines around his mouth.
  But there was something else underlying this. Initially Fitz had thought it
  was a lack of conﬁdence, that the Doctor was blufﬁng it. Maybe he was,
  but that wasn’t the difference.
  There was something harder below the surface.
  Whether it was years spent alone, or whether on some level he remem-
  bered the events that had stranded him on Earth, Fitz could see a steel in
  his friend that hadn’t been there before.
  155
  
  That steeliness was catching Fitz off guard and it was leading the Doctor
  to risks he might not have taken before. But it had also dragged Fitz across
  the exterior of a space station, it had brought them here to stop anyone else
  being attacked like Anji had been. It brooked no room for interference, but
  the focus – the need to help – was still there.
  They would talk, soon, and maybe that talk would give the Doctor
  enough answers to allow him some peace.
  But for now, Fitz looked at
  his friend and saw the things that remained the same. The man he had
  long ago chosen to trust with his life.
  He turned the chip over in his hand and glanced at the bedside terminal.
  ‘This better not be dangerous,’ he said. ‘That thing about not dying as an
  accountant? That still stands.’
  The Doctor hung his jacket over the back of the couch, and began rolling
  up his sleeves.
  ‘Cooler in here today,’ he said, lying down.
  Terrance massaged gel on to the Doctor’s temples before attaching a
  series of pads. ‘The lower temperature helps the conductivity on the inter-
  face. Better conductivity means more input for the computers and a better
  avatar.’
  ‘I’ll have no awareness I’m an avatar?’ the Doctor said. ‘It’ll all seem
  real?’
  Terrance smiled. ‘That’s the theory.’
  ‘Excellent,’ the Doctor replied. ‘I love putting theory to the test.’ He
  looked up to where Valletti was standing next to Sara Mukabi. The psy-
  chologist had barely paid him any attention at all. Valletti, though, had
  watched his every move. It was only now, when he turned to look at her,
  that she broke away.
  The Doctor felt a pang of regret at how he’d had broken her trust, then
  pushed the feeling to the back of his mind. Terrance attached sensors to his
  forearms, carefully inserted a needle into one wrist. The Doctor breathed
  deeply, focusing on his body’s reactions, making sure it mimicked human
  normal as closely as possible.
  It was a gamble and if it didn’t pay off, he’d be trapped inside the Sta-
  tion’s most secure area with little hope of a getaway.
  ‘The swelling seems to be doing nicely,’ the nurse smiled.
  There were, Fitz thought, too many replies he could make to that. In
  the end, he took his medication and watched her walk away.
  It was almost three o’clock. He was just reaching out to slip the datachip
  into the bedside terminal when a trolley was wheeled in. Fitz recognised
  156
  
  the patient immediately. Archer, his hands blistered and burnt.
  Fitz lay back in his bed, trying to look casual as one of the medics fussed
  at Archer’s hands. Archer looked anxious and, as the doctor turned to a
  trolley for some spray, pulled something from his overalls and tucked it
  under his bed.
  His grimace as he did it told Fitz everything he needed to know about
  the object’s importance.
  When he closed his eyes: the air in the lab was cold, his breath steaming;
  Valletti had stopped pacing the gantry; the 101st were settling into their
  couches; an icy sensation pushed down the needle and into his veins.
  When he opened his eyes: the lab was gone.
  He blinked rapidly. There was a man standing before him: medium
  height and build, waiting like an animal on the hunt. Captain McCray,
  dressed in a grey-green sweatsuit. There were trees all around, and beyond
  McCray a path, leading on to cargo nets and tyres, trenches and water
  tunnels. An assault course.
  McCray held up a stopwatch: ‘On my mark.’
  There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Other men were already
  negotiating monkey bars, stripped to their sweat-soaked vests and bare
  arms. Sunlight fell through the branches of tall trees. Humid Georgian
  weather. In the distance, he could see Mount Currahee, rising above Camp
  Toccoa.
  ‘Mark.’ McCray clicked the stopwatch.
  A chill on his skin didn’t seem right. Like he was caught outside on a
  frosty morning. He didn’t move.
  ‘Don’t stand there,’ McCray barked. ‘You’re losing time. Run!’
  He heard voices in the distance, issuing from mouths nowhere to be
  seen.
  – level of disorientation –
  – not handling the transition. There’s resistance to the environment –
  – bring him out of there. I’m giving you –
  And he remembered. ‘Of course,’ he said, moving off.
  As he ran – stretching his calf muscles, slowly pushing into a longer
  stride – the awareness came back to him. Twigs snapped beneath his feet,
  there was a damp taste to the air.
  The Avatar system used one form of Nightmare to subdue the conscious
  mind, routing sensory input via the subconscious. The participant’s mind
  ﬁlled in some of the details from its own experiences, he guessed, drawing
  on real-life memory to help cement the virtual experience in the hippocam-
  pus.
  157
  
  He ran, jumped, came down in knee-high water, its resistance dragging
  at him as he pushed onwards.
  His body had mimicked human reactions too well; for his ﬁrst few mo-
  ments, he had responded to the Avatar system like a human would.
  There were footsteps: McCray keeping pace with him. Except the Mc-
  Cray following behind would have no idea this was fake and, if Valletti was
  right, even when withdrawn from the system the imprint on his memory
  would be indistinguishable from the real thing. Speciﬁc medication, the
  Doctor mused, would be needed to help the soldiers’ neurology deal with
  that contradiction.
  ‘Move! Move!’ McCray shouted at him.
  The Doctor took one last look, breathing deeply in the sticky Georgia
  air, admiring the beauty of the simulacrum.
  Then he stopped sightseeing and got to work.
  The space walk had left a crack across the face of Fitz’s watch. The second
  hand ticked around to the top of the dial, drawing the minute hand after
  it.
  Archer was resting in the bed opposite, unattended, but wide awake
  with a venomous look on his face. And he was looking straight at Fitz.
  A glance at the watch told Fitz he couldn’t wait any longer. For all the
  times he had pulled these stunts, he still had the urge to whistle noncha-
  lantly whenever he was doing something people weren’t meant to see. His
  lips were too swollen for that, so he settled for smiling at Archer as he
  inserted the datachip.
  ‘War and Peace,’ Fitz said, nodding at the screen. ‘Have you read it?’
  Valletti turned from the holographic sphere. She’d been the only one watch-
  ing it; Terrance and Sara no longer needed the visuals to know what was
  happening.
  Terrance studied the code tracing across his console. ‘He’s picked up the
  pace,’ he nodded. ‘Quite impressive.’
  Valletti glanced back at the hologram.
  The Doctor’s face was coated in mud as he wriggled under barbed wire,
  but there was no obvious discomfort. Despite his initial hesitation, he’d
  made up the thirty-second gap with the soldier in front, leaving McCray
  some metres behind.
  A strand of Valletti’s hair had worked its way loose. Keeping her eyes
  ﬁxed on the holosphere, she began tying it back.
  ‘Medical readouts all within normal,’ Sara said. ‘I’d like to see how he
  responds to a more interactive environment.’
  158
  
  Done with her hair, Valletti laid her hands on the railing, leaning out
  to look down on the room below. As their bodies pushed on through the
  Georgia summer, the 101st and the Doctor slept soundly on their couches.
  The rail was cold against her palms.
  ‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked.
  ‘Does he have any combat training?’ Terrance queried.
  ‘His ﬁle says nothing beyond Earth Forces basic.’
  ‘Something historical, then,’ Terrance mused, ‘but not too far back.
  Thousand Day War, maybe?’ He consulted the on-screen menu. ‘Ambush in
  Achebe Gorge?’
  Valletti considered, then nodded: ‘Make it a smooth transition. If he
  gets shot because he’s disoriented it’s not really a good test, is it?’
  Approaching the ﬁnishing line only open ground remained.
  The Doctor pushed on, passing through the 101st, arms and legs settled
  into a long rhythm. As he rounded the last corner he could see the leader
  in front of him; a hundred metres further on, a sergeant stood with another
  stopwatch. The Doctor breathed deep and kicked.
  He was taking a risk. Coming from behind like this could raise suspi-
  cion, but he had to balance this against the pride of Valletti and the Muk-
  abis. If he was going to create gaps in the security systems, things had to
  get more complex than an assault course. And they’d only do that if he
  could demonstrate that everything so far had been a walk in the park.
  He needed to challenge the soldiers on their own terms. But it wasn’t
  an idea he was completely comfortable with.
  He remembered the ﬁrst time he’d killed. The man had been trapped
  in immovable arms, a lunatic whose obsession had caused massive destruc-
  tion, and the Doctor had aided his demise, kicking him back into raging
  ﬂood waters. He’d felt so alone back then, so cold and divorced from the
  people around him. He hadn’t understood the good things that they were
  capable of.
  He didn’t feel that cold any more. But he needed that ruthless streak
  now, and just as he’d provoked Valletti before, he needed to provoke the
  101st and the Mukabis.
  He passed the soldier at the line, and as the
  sergeant snapped at the stopwatch he felt the ground get harder beneath
  his feet, his limbs growing heavier as battle armour and a breathing unit co-
  alesced around him. His mind ﬁlled with the detail of the campaign against
  the Martian aggressors.
  Georgia was gone and a red Martian storm raged down canyon walls
  towards him and the 101st. The clouds rippled from a sonic discharge
  159
  
  and one of his comrades was thrown backwards, armour rupturing, oxygen
  exploding into the cold.
  The Doctor threw himself forward, shielding the body with his own and
  shouted: ‘Medic!’
  Fitz frowned.
  He knew this was a slimmed-down AuDoc, but even so it was surprising
  when all he was presented with was an on-screen button that read GO.
  A world away from the layered hologram he’d been prodding a few days
  earlier.
  Fitz glanced at Archer, then pressed the button. It winked, then folded
  in on itself and disappeared from sight.
  ‘Well?’ Valletti asked.
  ‘No disorientation, but. . . ’
  ‘What?’
  ‘He’s supposed to be a member of the Third Tactical, only he’s not fol-
  lowing the mission specs or rules of engagement.’ Terrance pointed to the
  hologram. ‘Look. Pinned down by snipers, they should be retreating under
  cover of the storm. It’s what the Zens did when it happened for real, it’s
  what he should be doing now.’
  Valletti activated the head-up display on the hologram, coloured letters
  bobbing above the silhouettes visible through the storm. One was mov-
  ing forward, drawing ﬁre, percussive blasts tearing at his shadow. And
  then, just as they appeared to be closing on him, he darted left. As Valletti
  watched he sprinted along the far edge of the gorge, close to the canyon
  walls, drawing ﬁre after him.
  The image stuttered for a moment until Terrance ﬂicked a couple of
  switches. He shook his head, bemused. ‘A simple ﬁreﬁght shouldn’t need
  that much extra processing to –’
  ‘Yes, it should,’ Valletti said. ‘It always does when dealing with major
  changes to the environment.’
  ‘What do you –’ As Terrance saw what Valletti was referring to the words
  died on his lips.
  The Doctor had dived for shelter below an overhang, the cliff behind
  him shaking. Weakened by millennia of bitter winds and dust storms, the
  sonic blasts had sheared its support. The image juddered again as the Sta-
  tion computers struggled to keep up with the falling rocks; the canyon wall
  buckling and blistering, outcrops exploding into thousands of fragments
  under suddenly changed pressures.
  160
  
  Valletti pulled the image back and the scale of the change was easy to
  see. Snipers on one side were attempting to ﬂee as the ground disappeared
  beneath them. A handful made it, but most were dragged to their deaths
  in the rockfall.
  Amidst all this the 101st had regrouped, taking aim at
  the Martians on the opposite ridge. The range was too great and they were
  scoring only a handful of hits. But it didn’t matter. The enemy were beaten.
  Valletti had seen the 101st tackle the scenario a handful of times; victory
  rated as keeping the casualty rate below 80 per cent.
  A low chime issued from the comms pad on Valletti’s wrist. She shook
  her head in irritation. ‘I’m needed in C&C,’ she said. She checked the
  hologram. ‘He’s still alive under that outcrop?’
  ‘That’s compacted silicon,’ Terrance said. ‘Combined with the armour,
  he’s at no risk.’
  ‘Let the scenario run; see if he gets out from under that rockfall by
  himself.’ Valletti nodded. ‘Someone gets lucky like that, you wonder if it’s
  luck at all.’
  Deschamps stood in his laboratory, working on the generators. One glance
  told him the system was struggling to keep the containment algorithms
  balanced. The black dots of the singularities were ﬂaring across the obser-
  vation screen.
  ‘Bloody Mukabi,’ he muttered, shaking his head.
  Terrance watched Commander Valletti leave; his eyes on her until the door
  slid closed. There was a pause – to be sure Valletti wasn’t suddenly about
  to return – then Terrance looked at his wife: ‘Well?’
  ‘Too good an opportunity to miss,’ Sara said. ‘When was the last time
  we had a new test subject?’
  ‘Valletti’ll have our bloody hides if she ﬁnds out.’
  ‘Only if something goes wrong,’ Sara answered. She tapped her ﬁngers
  against the console. ‘Hide and seek,’ she said. ‘A bug hunt.’
  Terrance nodded. ‘Asteroid belt?’
  ‘No mission specs, in at the deep end.’ And as Terrance began to enter
  the commands, Sara continued, ‘With one added ingredient.’ She leant
  over her console, ordered: ‘Nightmare.’
  Below them the IV pumping ﬂuid into the Doctor’s arm billowed as the
  liquid turned jet black.
  ‘Drop the room temperature again,’ Sara said. ‘I want that connection
  to sing.’
  The Doctor could feel the shift coming this time and prepared himself. As
  the red planet faded away, the weight vanished from his limbs and he found
  161
  
  himself tumbling over and over. Arms and legs ﬂailed against nothing, his
  head snapping around to make sense of his surroundings. The visor and
  armoured suit were much the same, but the dust was gone, replaced by
  the distant glare of the sun. Light and shadow ﬂared dizzyingly as he fell
  through space.
  More than that, the Doctor realised, his heart was pumping too fast. His
  eyes twitched one way and another and he realised he was panicking, lost
  again, forgetting this wasn’t his body.
  Shadow loomed over him and as his breathing accelerated he threw
  out a hand, ﬁngertips scrabbling against the rock slowly spinning past. His
  glove scraped soundlessly across the surface, ﬁnding no purchase, and he
  bounced terrifyingly into free space again before ﬁnally taking hold of a
  thin ridge. He held tight and let the asteroid’s motion swing him around in
  its wake, bringing his feet down on to its surface.
  The relief was only temporary. The rock itself provided a ﬁrm horizon,
  but its movement meant the rest of the world was now tumbling around
  him. As he struggled to ﬁnd his feet, nausea threatened to overcome him.
  It was only when his stomach began to clench that he remembered where
  he was.
  ‘Fitz,’ he said, ﬁnding memories to anchor on. ‘Fitz and Anji.’
  And with that, his focus returned. Even so, he was having trouble low-
  ering his heart rate and keeping his breathing under control. The entire
  environment now seemed that much more real.
  As he took stock of his surroundings, he realised something else.
  There’d been no mission brieﬁng or illusory history to provide any context.
  It didn’t really matter. The laser bolts that tore at the surface a few
  moments later made the scenario perfectly clear. Using military-grade EVA
  suits, the 101st were closing from all sides and he was their target.
  The Doctor turned, checking the positions of the approaching troopers,
  then crouched down on the asteroid’s surface, waiting for the optimum
  moment to push off and out into the fray.
  ‘Bloody hell,’ Terrance swore. The Avatar projection juddered, losing res-
  olution at the edge as he increased the system’s draw on the Station com-
  puters.
  ‘What is it?’ Sara asked.
  ‘He’s taken down one of the troopers,’ Terrance replied, ‘and got control
  of an EVA.’
  ‘That’s allowed for within the scenario: what’s the problem?’
  The image came back into resolution. Flame guttered along the edge of
  one of the asteroids, sending it spinning off in a different direction.
  162
  
  ‘Same as Achebe Gorge, using the environment against the opposition.
  That cannon ﬁre’s setting off a chain reaction.’
  Asteroids began to tumble into each other, rebounding again, hurtling
  towards the circling troops as their target manoeuvred his EVA unit through
  the chaos.
  ‘Only this time it’s not one cliff face, but hundreds of moving objects
  affected.’ He looked at Sara. ‘We’re already exceeding our allocated pro-
  cessing by 35 per cent. Any more of this and –’
  His words were cut off as the ﬂoor shook, a deep throb resonating
  through the Station’s structure. The lights in the lab came on full for a
  moment, then ﬂashed red as an alarm sounded. The bass noise and move-
  ment echoed again.
  Terrance looked at Sara in shock. ‘That’s the defence batteries open-
  ing up,’ he said, starting emergency-shutdown procedures. ‘We’re under
  attack.’
  The asteroid ﬁeld faded. Gravity pulled at his limbs, a chill settled on his
  skin and unfamiliar sounds echoed in his ears. He opened his eyes, ﬁnding
  the Avatar chamber around him.
  ‘Home sweet home,’ the Doctor breathed.
  As he pulled himself up he could see McCray and the 101st disconnect-
  ing themselves. Sara Mukabi was snapping orders: ‘Take your meds, report
  to your duty stations immediately.’
  As the Doctor peeled sensors from his arms and forehead, the troops
  ﬁled out of the room; each one stopping to self-administer an injection of
  golden ﬂuid. The Doctor nodded at them: ‘Do I need a shot of that?’
  ‘Not for one session,’ Sara said, approaching. ‘It helps integrate the
  simulations with real memory, but it’s only necessary after prolonged expo-
  sure.’ She drew the needle from his wrist. ‘Your mind should cope with a
  one-off; give it a day or two and it’ll feel like a very vivid dream.’
  The Doctor looked at his wrist. There was a faint smear of black around
  the puncture wound.
  Helping him to his feet, Sara wrapped an arm around his waist, the
  movement taking him by surprise. He winced, but Sara didn’t notice.
  ‘Get to your quarters,’ she said. ‘We’re on alert.’
  He slipped his jacket on, quickly buttoning the front; he couldn’t look
  to check, but he was fairly sure there would be fresh blood on his shirt.
  In the sickbay, Fitz was suddenly surrounded by a mad rush of activity: doc-
  tors pulling out carts of instruments, preparing beds, getting ready for ca-
  sualties. All undercut by klaxons and that deep vibration running through
  163
  
  the Station.
  And then it all stopped. Moments later, Valletti’s voice came over the
  intercom:‘This has been an emergency response drill. The drill is now over,
  debrieﬁng scheduled for 09:00 tomorrow.’
  Fitz could see the relief on the faces around him. They’d thought it was
  real, they’d thought this was war.
  He returned his attention to the bedside terminal. There was a message
  waiting for him. He frowned, pressed the icon. It was from AuDoc, a data
  ﬁle attached to the message: DANGER. TIME TO RUN.
  ‘What the bloody hell does that mean?’ Fitz said. He tapped the icon
  again, but nothing happened. ‘AuDoc?’ When there was no response, he
  opened the ﬁle. The data looked incomprehensible, and not just because it
  was all high-powered scientiﬁc stuff.
  ‘Arse,’ Fitz said.
  As he settled back in his bed he looked over at Archer, wondering how
  long he’d be in for, and, more importantly, how deep a sleeper he was.
  The Doctor had strapped a new bandage around his waist.
  When the technology had become available, he’d taken the opportunity
  to test his own DNA. The gene pattern was broadly similar to the human
  norm, but had a stronger regenerative capability. This had explained a lot:
  his constitution usually cleared cuts in days, a broken bone in a week.
  But this wound was taking an unusually long time to heal, most likely
  because he wasn’t getting an opportunity to rest up; an impromptu space
  walk wasn’t exactly the best recuperative experience.
  There was a message waiting; a copy of the report on the hull breach.
  He scanned it, then called up the Station schematics. The power vents run-
  ning along that part of the Station exterior had been closed, the feedback
  enough to disrupt electronics in the outer wall and blow out a small section
  of the hull.
  A malfunction in a low-level environment system. The conclusion being,
  as Valletti had claimed, that the breach was an accident.
  Except while the Doctor could accept the cause of the breach, he
  couldn’t believe it was an accident. And, he thought, if he and Fitz were
  someone’s target then he needed to organise that escape plan.
  Fitz glanced over at the nurse’s bay. The shift had changed, and it was a
  bloke now: occupied, watching some war movie. Providing he was careful,
  Fitz was free to roam.
  Archer was a deep sleeper and a snorer.
  164
  
  Giving his fellow patient a quick glance, Fitz started prodding the
  nearby screen. He was familiar enough with the Station computers now,
  but it still took a few attempts to ﬁnd Archer’s records.
  There was a break in the snoring.
  Fitz looked up.
  Archer was still
  asleep, his breathing reverberating again a second later.
  The medical stuff looked normal to Fitz’s eyes – Archer had burnt his
  hands in an overload in the docking bay – but he saved it to disk for the
  Doctor anyway.
  There was another break in the snoring, but still no movement as Fitz
  crept closer to Archer’s bed. He wanted a look at the object Archer had
  slipped under his mattress. He waited for the snoring to begin again, then
  dropped on to one knee and carefully began to slip his hand along the edge
  of the bed. He found it almost straight away: a slender, metallic cylinder,
  cold to the touch. There was writing on the side, but Fitz couldn’t easily
  make it out. He was peering more closely when he realised the snoring had
  stopped again.
  There was dim light at the periphery of his vision, Archer’s voice whis-
  pering: ‘Put it back, or I’ll put this laser scalpel through your throat.’
  Fitz swallowed. ‘There are security cameras here. You wouldn’t get
  away with it.’
  ‘Put it back and I won’t have to try.’
  The light edged closer to Fitz’s skin and he pushed the device back under
  the mattress.
  ‘Good boy,’ Archer said. ‘Now keep your mouth shut for another day or
  so, or I’ll put you in a grave you can’t come back from.’
  It took him a few hours to put the ﬁnishing touches to the escape plan:
  a subroutine added to the Station’s communication systems. On his com-
  mand an initial burst of sonic feedback would incapacitate anyone around
  him or Fitz; a subsequent wave would blanket all sound across the Station,
  making it that much more difﬁcult to co-ordinate security responses.
  It wouldn’t be a huge advantage and Fitz probably wouldn’t appreciate
  the bleeding eardrums, but if it came to it the Doctor was reasonably sure
  he could carry his friend out of harm’s way. It would have to do.
  As he worked on the program, though, his mind kept returning to other
  things. The Avatar chamber had stirred his subconscious and things were
  rising to the surface.
  Chieﬂy, Sara Mukabi at the dinner table: If front-line starships were like
  this, I’d probably still be married to Jonathan.
  Then there was the Avatar chamber itself. Something to do with how
  the 101st reacted when those asteroids had started hurtling around.
  165
  
  He paused, thinking about the implants in the back of their heads. The
  ﬁrst time he’d seen one had been in the sickbay, on Jason McCray’s scan. A
  couple of hours later, Valletti had introduced him to the Mukabis and the
  Avatar chamber.
  He hadn’t thought anything about it at the time, but now this seemed
  odd. As far as Valletti was concerned, he was an accountant. Was keeping
  him apprised of where the money was going really a reason for allowing
  access to the most secretive project on the Station?
  He’d told Fitz that Valletti was nervous because implants were illegal.
  But he’d only known that because Valletti had told him. He’d abused her
  kindness – to get close to the Mukabis, to get himself into an Avatar sim-
  ulation – but had she been manipulating him in return? And, if so, what
  exactly had she been trying to hide?
  The Doctor ﬁnished inputting the escape program, then accessed the
  Station’s legal database.
  Valletti had only been in the bath for a couple of minutes, but she was
  almost asleep when the door chime sounded. Everything she’d been trying
  to forget – the defence bays, the security reports – snapped back into focus.
  ‘Dammit,’ she whispered. The chime rang again.
  Wrapping a towelling robe around her, she left the bathroom. In the
  three years she’d been running this station no one had ever come calling
  this late. Which meant she had a good idea who was at the door.
  ‘This isn’t appropriate,’ Valletti told the Doctor.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ he replied, ‘but something occurred to me.’
  She glanced down the corridor. ‘All right,’ she sighed, standing aside to
  let him in.
  Valletti could see him taking in the room: her violin on its stand on
  the dresser, steam drifting though the bathroom door. He sniffed the air.
  ‘Coconut?’
  ‘This had better be something more than a discussion of my bath oils.’
  He swivelled, ﬁxing her with a stare. ‘The 101st.’
  Valletti kept her face like stone, but something inside her was breaking.
  He was too smart. She’d worried about that the moment he started talking
  to the Mukabis in the recreation hall.
  ‘What about them?’ she said.
  ‘They don’t react the way they should.’
  She didn’t reply.
  He crossed to the dresser, slowly running a ﬁngertip along the neck of
  the violin. ‘If I’d been paying attention, I would have seen it before. As it
  was, it wasn’t until I started thinking about that asteroid-belt scenario.’ He
  166
  
  drew a ﬁngertip along one of the strings, producing a long low note. ‘They
  don’t feel fear, do they?’
  Valletti said nothing. He was trying to draw answers from her; if she
  kept quiet he’d have to show his full hand. Reveal just how much he’d
  ﬁgured out.
  ‘Those implants,’ he said, ‘they’re not really necessary for accessing the
  Avatar simulations. I don’t have one and that session felt real enough to
  me.’
  ‘They help the –’
  ‘Once I’d seen the implant in Jason’s head, you needed to tell me some-
  thing. Telling me they were there to facilitate a training programme was
  obviously far more palatable than the truth. Technically illegal, but not
  irresponsible.’ He paused, then ﬁxed his eyes on her. ‘They do something
  else, yes? Not a hive mind, because the 101st act like individuals. But
  something similar; linking the subconscious, maybe.’
  She realised then that when he’d come to her door he hadn’t had it all
  worked out. Even when he’d started talking, he hadn’t quite known where
  it would lead him. There was an energy in his voice as pieces began to fall
  into place.
  ‘Something,’ he said, ‘that allows each squad member to feed off the
  strength of his colleagues.’
  Which was close enough.
  ‘You’re just theorising,’ Valletti said, trying to end the conversation be-
  fore he got any further, ‘and I’m not discussing that with you.’
  ‘I can see why. It’s stupid and dangerous,’ he snapped. ‘A collective
  strength sounds like a brilliant idea. Brought together in times of stress
  people are inspired to acts of the greatest courage. Only you can’t create
  bravery the same way you simulate gravity or replicate the seasons.’
  She shook her head again. ‘There’s nothing to discuss.’
  ‘Then let me ﬁll in the blanks,’ he said. ‘The Avatar project is illegal
  because of those implants.’
  She said nothing.
  ‘And the law you’re being ordered to break, that’s the Riley Act of 2171?
  Which outlaws cerebral implants for what reason?’
  ‘I won’t –’
  ‘Let me remind you. Implants are dangerous, because they leave the
  recipient open to outside control –’
  ‘We have safety protocols to –’ She stopped herself.
  He glanced at her, smiled brieﬂy, then continued. ‘And because they are
  a fundamental infringement of human rights. Most speciﬁcally, the right
  167
  
  to privacy. Recalibration of those implants would strip those men of that,
  laying bare their innermost thoughts.’
  It was getting harder and harder to maintain her stone face. ‘You’re a
  legal expert now, are you?’
  ‘I don’t need to be. Even supposing you kept that kind of abuse from
  happening, even supposing those implants work as they’re meant to, there
  are other reasons why this is a bad idea. Reasons Riley never thought to
  include in his Act, like what the long-term effects might be on those men’s
  personalities.’
  Valletti opened the door, pointed. ‘You need to leave. Now.’
  The Doctor looked at her, then exited. As she started to close the door
  he caught her wrist, looking straight into her eyes. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘think
  about what that conﬁdence you’re creating might mean. For every act of
  collective bravery, there’s one of insanity. History is littered with people
  feeding off each other’s beliefs and doing so to justify the most heinous
  acts against their fellow men.’
  She said nothing, just looked pointedly at his hand. He let go of her
  wrist and she closed the door behind him.
  Steam still curled in the air, but Valletti no longer wanted the bath.
  Sitting at her desk, she accessed the reports from C&C that she’d been
  studying. The defence batteries hadn’t opened up as part of any drill; it had
  been yet another malfunction. The experts assured her there hadn’t been
  any more attempted security breaches in the last couple of days. Which left
  the latest theory: that there was a previously unseen ﬂaw in the computers’
  operating system.
  ‘Techno-speak,’ Valletti muttered, closing the report.
  Secret messages piggybacked on the commercial frequencies, system
  glitches, malfunctions, ﬁrewall breaches, whatever. All techno-speak. What
  mattered was that somehow, someone was taking a hammer to her station.
  She wanted to know who and she wanted to know why.
  And whoever it was, was being very smart about it.
  Valletti sent a message to the computer-security team, telling them to
  recheck the system records. Then she put in a call to the Mukabis.
  Fitz was discharged in the morning. Puffy and discoloured, his face was, at
  least, recognisably vintage Kreiner again.
  Archer had just smiled at him as he left.
  It took Fitz a few minutes to locate their new quarters, but on entering
  he was greeted by a now familiar sight: the Doctor strapping a bandage
  over his stomach.
  ‘You have got to be kidding me,’ Fitz said.
  168
  
  ‘I tensed up during the simulation,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Plus there were
  a couple of knocks from panicked crew members during the defence drill.’
  Fitz nodded.
  ‘Except it wasn’t a drill,’ the Doctor said. ‘Maintenance logged overtime
  yesterday afternoon and on into the night.
  A malfunction which left a
  dozen cannon ﬁring blindly into Jupiter’s atmosphere.’ He shook his head.
  ‘I don’t like it, Fitz. We’re missing something here and I don’t know what it
  is.’
  ‘Do you want the bad news, then?’ Fitz held up the datachip.
  The Doctor’s eyes closed. ‘AuDoc couldn’t penetrate the security sys-
  tems?’
  ‘Not quite.’ Fitz handed the chip over. ‘But it all looks really garbled.’
  The Doctor inserted the chip in the comms panel, tapped the top corner
  of the screen. ‘That’s a security code, so AuDoc got through the ﬁrewall
  programs. Except. . . ’
  And as his voice trailed away, Fitz could see life returning to his friend’s
  eyes. ‘It was attacked,’ the Doctor said. ‘AuDoc was attacked.’
  ‘AuDoc’s not the only one.’ Fitz described his encounter with Archer.
  The Doctor listened and then nodded. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if that might
  not be the same cause and effect.’
  ‘What do you mean?’
  ‘What do we know? Someone on this station has been sending secret
  messages; Archer threatened you; AuDoc was attacked by something else
  behind the security screens. If Archer threatened you in order to keep his
  secrets, then whatever attacked AuDoc was probably doing the same.’ The
  Doctor peered at the mess of numbers and letters on the screen. ‘Something
  triggered this. AuDoc spotted something in the computer system and that
  set it off.’
  ‘Archer,’ Fitz said, ‘was doing something with a computer link, just be-
  fore the Pegasus blew up.’
  The Doctor nodded. I’ve been thinking about that. The kind of problem
  that caused our hull breach could also have destroyed the Pegasus. A vent
  closed that should have been open, catastrophic overload of the cooling
  systems.’
  ‘Boom,’ Fitz said.
  ‘Boom, indeed,’ the Doctor replied. ‘The kind of thing that would be
  easy to orchestrate from anywhere on the Station, provided the Pegasus
  was linked to Farside’s systems.’ He clicked his ﬁngers. ‘Which it would
  have been while in dock for repair and analysis.’
  ‘All roads lead to Archer,’ Fitz said.
  169
  
  The Doctor sighed. ‘All except the one we came here for. He could be
  responsible for all the chaos we’ve seen on this station but not for those
  soldiers on Mars.’
  Fitz thought about this. ‘This thing that attacked AuDoc, it’d be like a
  computer virus or something, right?’
  ‘Yes?’
  ‘Well, if those two squaddies did have those implants, aren’t they like
  computer chips stuck in your head?’
  ‘I see where you’re going, but there’s no motive, Fitz.’
  ‘Maybe that’s it, maybe that is his motive. Chaos. Disrupt life as much
  as possible. Leave the Station open to attack.’
  ‘Then what’s on that cylinder he was hiding? Why tell you to keep quiet
  just another day?’
  ‘Because whatever it is he’s planning, it’s going to happen soon?’
  The comms system chimed. Fitz recognised the tone now: message
  waiting.
  The Doctor read the memo, pursing his lips. ‘Another invitation from
  Sara Mukabi. How opportune.’
  Although he’d heard the Doctor’s description, Fitz hadn’t actually seen this
  part of the Station himself. When the lift doors opened on to the long sterile
  corridor he said, ‘I don’t like this.’
  ‘Why not?’
  Fitz nodded down the hall, ‘Last walk of the condemned man, isn’t it?’
  The Doctor sighed. ‘We can’t just ignore the message, Fitz.’
  ‘And I’m glad you haven’t.’
  It was Sara Mukabi, emerging from the
  guard’s station, waving a dataslide.
  ‘The analysis of your performance.
  Quite impressive.’ She moved off down the corridor. ‘If you’d care to follow
  me.’
  As they followed her, Fitz couldn’t help but notice the lights switch
  themselves off as they passed; like the corridor was closing down in their
  wake. He tugged on the Doctor’s sleeve, nodded at the darkness.
  The Doctor winked slowly at him, a thin smile on his lips.
  Fitz felt a sudden chill of anxiety and anticipation. If Sara Mukabi was
  leading them into a trap, the Doctor was ready for it.
  The room matched the Doctor’s description except for one thing. The
  door that had resisted his attempts at breaking and entering was wide open.
  As Sara disappeared through it, the Doctor gave Fitz a shrug and walked
  after her.
  ‘Bloody hell,’ Fitz muttered, following on behind.
  170
  
  The room was almost ﬁve storeys high, vaulted gantries spiralling up
  its walls, metal cylinders lining them. In its centre there was a pair of
  operating tables, surrounded by gleaming, multijointed arms. The lower
  level was ﬂanked by a succession of video screens.
  Terrance Mukabi was working at a console and just nodded a greeting
  when they entered. As the Doctor circled, taking in their surroundings, Fitz
  glanced nervously around.
  There was no immediate sign of danger.
  Sara had connected the slide to a video screen that ﬁlled with shots of
  the Doctor, dressed in running gear, clambering over a high wall in a forest.
  ‘Very impressive,’ Sara explained. ‘It’s rare for someone to adapt that
  well to the dislocation ﬁrst time out. Rarer still for them to perform like
  you did.’
  ‘I’m adaptable,’ the Doctor said.
  It was the phrase Valletti had used to describe the Doctor in C&C, Fitz
  realised. Only then it had been a joke, delivered with a smile and offhand
  sincerity. This time the steel he’d heard in the Doctor’s voice in the sickbay
  was back. As Fitz looked, he realised that the Doctor’s eyes were moving
  over the video screens, absorbing the information, ﬂicking from them to
  the gantries in the room to the operating tables.
  Whatever this place was, whatever secrets it held, the Doctor had just
  ﬁgured them out.
  And he was angry.
  ‘It occurs to me,’ he said, ‘that I’ve only seen a fraction of what the
  Avatar chamber can do. Georgia, Achebe Gorge, hide and seek in the aster-
  oid belt. Very nice, but missing one vital component for combat training.’
  He prowled the room, his hand trailing over the controls as he gave Sara
  Mukabi a hard smile: ‘Alien opposition.’
  His hand came down on a switch and the screens surrounding the cylin-
  ders lining the walls drew back with a hiss.
  Fitz yelped. The cylinders were full of an electric-pink liquid and ﬂoat-
  ing in that liquid were corpses. Alien corpses to be precise. Each cylinder
  marked with a yellow and black emblem.
  ‘Dangerous biological material,’ the Doctor said, ‘to be handled only by
  the 101st. You wouldn’t want everyone knowing what you were bringing
  on board.’
  ‘Very good, Doctor,’ Sara said.
  ‘I’m ashamed it took me so long to work it out. I was focusing on – those
  fear-suppressing implants of yours. That is what they do, isn’t it?’
  She nodded. ‘Commander Valletti mentioned your chat.’
  171
  
  ‘I’d forgotten about the rest of your system.
  The part that relies on
  biological input to create the avatars.’
  Fitz looked at the corpses. ‘I don’t see how.’
  ‘They’re not dead, Fitz. None of them is.’
  The shapes varied – humanoid, or amorphous, or reptilian – but you
  could work out the biology easily enough. You could see the injuries they
  carried, the holes punched, the limbs missing.
  ‘Front-line enemy casualties from the past ﬁve years,’ Sara said. ‘Placed
  into stasis before they expired.’
  ‘These are sentient beings,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘They’re prisoners of
  war.’
  ‘No,’ Sara barked in return. ‘They’re dead bodies that just aren’t dead
  yet. Not one of them would survive more than two minutes outside those
  capsules.’
  Fitz saw his friend’s shoulders tighten, his jaw clench ﬁrm. Then the
  Doctor took a deep, shuddering breath and turned away from the cylinders.
  As he studied one of the computer screens, Fitz could see him struggling to
  keep his revulsion in check.
  The Doctor tapped a chemical formula visible on one of the screens:
  ‘This is your stasis ﬂuid?’
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘That’s a volatile mixture. Very invasive.’
  ‘It completely halts cellular decay. Correctly applied, that could freeze
  the electrical impulses driving a computer.’
  The Doctor nodded. ‘You use these facilities to re-create them in the
  Avatar chamber. As and when required, you poke the bodies with an electri-
  cal stick and produce enough base input to create functioning alien avatars.
  Very crude and, with a stasis mixture like this, very dangerous.’
  ‘The ﬂuid’s volatile,’ Sara responded, ‘but the avatars need to be as real
  as reality itself.’
  ‘Because,’ the Doctor said, ‘you think that if you can understand how
  we react to a ﬁght, then you can master that fear.’
  ‘Via the implants,’ Fitz said.
  ‘And Nightmare,’ Sara added.
  The Doctor smiled. ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’ He nodded to a
  mess of equipment in one corner. ‘That’s what you use to distil Nightmare
  from this gas you discovered, yes? Strip-mining the properties that disrupt
  the chemicals of the brain?’
  She looked at him impatiently. ‘You know all this.’
  ‘ “If front-line starships were like this, I’d probably still be married to
  Jonathan”. That’s what you said. Not Admiral Jonathan Ferguson? The
  172
  
  man who conveniently located this station right next to the only supply of
  the material needed for your project?’
  And suddenly Sara Mukabi looked nervous. ‘What if he did?’
  ‘You pulled strings to get this up and running. I’m wondering about any
  other short cuts you might have taken. What is it in that gas that you use?’
  ‘Nightmare works ﬁne, Doctor.’
  ‘Oh, I can testify to its effect,’ the Doctor said. ‘You used it on me, didn’t
  you?’
  ‘We give it to anyone entering a combat simulation. The 101st have
  been subjected to all the terrors we can throw at them; every one en-
  hanced by a dose of Nightmare. And they’ve survived it all, thanks to those
  implants.’ Sara paused, pointing to the results from the Doctor’s session.
  ‘All of which got me thinking,’ she said, ‘about how you survived the Avatar
  chamber.’ She drew a silver pistol from her coat: ‘Your psychological proﬁle
  was very interesting, Doctor.’
  ‘Oh, balls,’ Fitz said.
  ‘For one thing, it has the hallmarks of a man with a reconstructed living
  context, typically symptomatic of amnesia. Only there’s nothing on your
  record to indicate such an event.’
  ‘Ah.’ The Doctor smiled.
  ‘Then there are other underlying traits. Things no one would normally
  notice, but that the trained eye can spot if looking for them.’ She cocked
  the pistol. ‘Like whether you think of yourself in human terms, or whether
  you really are a unicorn.’
  Fitz’s ﬁrst instinct was to follow plan A and run for the door. But the
  Doctor said nothing, just looked at Sara, a faint smile on his face.
  ‘You see,’ Sara said, ‘it occurred to me that if you are an alien, you might
  be smart enough to fool the Avatar system into thinking you were human.’
  There was a bustle of noise around them. Figures stepped out on to the
  galleries, ﬁlled the exits. Fitz couldn’t remember the names, but he knew
  the faces: the dozen members of the 101st. Stepping into the room behind
  them were McCray and Valletti.
  The commander looked tired, but there was no mistaking the anger and
  disappointment as she looked at the Doctor.
  ‘You might be able to fool the Avatar system’ – Sara nodded to the op-
  erating tables – ‘but you won’t be able to fool a dissection.’
  The Doctor smiled at Valletti. ‘I really am sorry.’ And then said: ‘Jericho.’
  There was a moment of silence.
  Fitz got the impression that something impressive should have hap-
  pened. The Doctor opened his mouth to repeat the phrase. Valletti struck
  him across the face, the slap echoing around the galleries.
  173
  
  Hell hath no fury, Fitz thought, as Valletti stared the Doctor down.
  ‘The trumpets sounded and brought the walls of Jericho down. Prosaic
  name for a sonic weapon.’ She shook her head. ‘You’re good, Doctor, but
  you’re not as good as you think you are. You underestimated this station’s
  staff. That ﬁrst attempt to breach the ﬁrewalls was ham-ﬁsted.’
  Fitz winced and looked apologetically at the Doctor.
  ‘It was enough,’ Valletti said, ‘to make us track every shred of computer
  activity on the Station.’
  ‘This isn’t what you think,’ the Doctor said.
  Valletti ignored him. ‘But there’s so much activity on this station it was
  impossible to trace the culprit, even when we found an anomaly. But last
  night, you ﬁnally overplayed your hand by adding that subroutine to the
  comms protocols. It was easy to disable it.’ She turned to Fitz. ‘They also
  uncovered Mr Kreiner’s activities yesterday. You have one chance: what did
  you do with the ﬁles you stole?’
  ‘Your security programs rendered them useless,’ the Doctor answered.
  ‘Security,’ she snapped, ‘didn’t know you were there till after the event.
  The truth, Doctor.’
  ‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor said, ‘but whatever’s happening on this station, I
  am not responsible.’
  There was a long pause.
  Then Valletti shook her head. ‘We’ll ﬁnd out, won’t we?’ she said, turn-
  ing to McCray: ‘Strap him down.’
  174
  
  MARS
  – Anji, it’s Jenna at the network. Can you call me when you get –
  – This is your husband calling. My shuttle lands at ﬁve, so I should clear
  customs by –
  – Miss Kapoor, this is a message from the Bradbury Pharmacy. You wanted
  to be informed when we received this year’s cold vaccine. Surgeries will be open
  from nine each morning, or you can purchase a self-administered –
  – It’s Kaylie from the Families Association. Anji, please call me when you
  get this message, there’s been a development. A big one and you need to –
  Anji hit the erase button. The terminal had been bleeping through her
  dreams all afternoon, but checking it hadn’t been worth getting out of her
  sickbed. Now she’d made the effort, she wished she hadn’t. The network
  could wait, the cold vaccine was two days too late, the war widows never
  had any real news.
  And then there was Michael.
  ‘And what am I going to do about you?’ she whispered.
  It was approaching the fourth anniversary of Anji’s new life. In that time
  she’d found a job, made a home and married. An interesting life to live.
  She’d realised during her hospital stay four years ago that medicine had
  moved on since 2001. It stood to reason diseases had too, and Anji had no
  idea what she was immune to any more. As soon as ﬁnances had allowed,
  she’d signed on at a local doctor’s and got every vaccination going. It was
  the kind of scrupulous behaviour that Michael laughed at, but she’d not
  had a sick day in four years.
  Except the latest cold vaccine had shipped late and ﬁve days ago Anji
  had been stuck on a bullet train to Jacksonville with an offworlder with a
  hacking cough. Now she had a temperature, and her forehead was caked
  in sweat, her body shivering.
  And Michael was back in town.
  Their ﬁrst couple of years seemed like a dream now. They didn’t row
  or ﬁght, he wasn’t violent and she didn’t sleep around or anything like
  that. They were just drifting apart. Anji’s job kept her tied to the Shefﬁeld
  175
  
  conurbation, while Michael had progressed to war correspondent, spending
  months at a time on the system colonies. A distance between them that was
  hard to overcome.
  Anji sat down on the sofa, dressing-gown tight around her, cradling a
  cup of cocoa. Almost seven o’clock in the evening; Michael would have
  cleared customs and decontamination, was probably hauling his dusty
  cases across town, could be walking through the door any minute.
  Anji turned the holoscreen on; the default was set to the news channel.
  Six-ﬁfty-seven, the shipping forecast. A dust storm brewing in Mars’ south-
  ern hemisphere; possibly the global event mathematicians said was now
  overdue. Hurricanes sweeping the gulf coast on Earth, disrupting the op-
  eration of the Yucatan space elevator. Unusual weather activity on Jupiter
  closing the surrounding area to civilian trafﬁc; transport ships bound for
  outposts around Neptune needed to allow extra fuel for the diversion.
  ‘Freeze broadcast.’ Anji picked up the remote control, zooming in on the
  pictures from Jupiter. The change was clear to see. The storms that passed
  for the planet’s atmosphere usually circled in bands around it, faster around
  the equator; the infamous red spot the eye of an ever present hurricane.
  It wouldn’t be obvious to a casual observer, but Anji had seen enough
  pictures of Jupiter to recognise the difference.
  There’d been no news about Farside Station for almost eighteen months
  now; Anji’s contacts had all met a stone wall. Either the information was so
  closely guarded only the top brass had access, or it genuinely wasn’t there
  and all the conspiracy theories really were just theories. Jupiter, Farside
  Station, the Doctor and Fitz had all faded from Anji’s mind and, without
  really making the decision, she had simply got on with her life.
  Now, curled on a sofa, her body wracked with spasms from a virus she
  wasn’t equipped to ﬁght, her eyes losing focus and the cup increasingly
  distant in her hand, Anji Kapoor looked at the picture of Jupiter and re-
  membered what she had tried so hard to forget.
  For all her efforts, she had never moved past that day in the New Jupiter
  Caf´e and the Doctor’s and Fitz’s attempt to solve the mystery of her attack-
  ers.
  176
  
  JUPITER SPACE
  Now
  Robertson is asleep when the screaming starts.
  Unable to face his bed, he’s slumped back against one of the habitats;
  knees tucked up against his chest, arms wrapped around them. The com-
  forting position of a scared and tired boy. His dreams are ﬁlled with the
  Professional, imprinting his face on to the past; faces from years ago ap-
  pearing in the present.
  Breaking glass and a scream snap him awake. He’s on his feet in mo-
  ments, running towards the noise.
  His ﬁrst thought is that the enemy have breached the barricades. Be-
  cause there’s a monster loose in the compound: a tall silhouette, with
  hunched shoulders and distorted physique. The head tilts back, the crea-
  ture howls.
  The Meridian is chaos.
  A computer terminal lies sparking and smoking, irreparably damaged.
  The ReGene unit is twisted, the misted glass-front in pieces on the ﬂoor.
  Easter’s medical supplies are spilt among the shards. Carvacchio, Gould
  and Fletcher are there, backing slowly away from the creature.
  Caroline’s near by. Like the rest of them, she’s had no time to don ar-
  mour or pick up arms, but she’s not retreating. She’s just waiting, balanced
  on the balls of her feet, hand resting on the hilt of her knife.
  Robertson knows if the creature attacks, she won’t stand a chance.
  ‘Run!’ he screams, but she doesn’t listen.
  Then the creature moves, away from Caroline, towards the main en-
  trance, everyone parting in front of it.
  Robertson looks around: ‘Where’s the Professional?’
  ‘He’s coming.’ It’s Easter, stumbling out of the chaos. ‘What is that?’
  ‘I don’t know,’ Robertson answers.
  Caroline is on the move now. ‘Fetch the guns,’ she tells Weir, as she
  starts jogging after the creature. Robertson pushes through after her.
  177
  
  ‘How did one of them get in here?’ she barks at him.
  The creature is studying the barricades in front of it. The rusty metal
  forms blocking the corridor are completely intact, no sign of it having
  fought its way in. As it moves, light from the forge catches its back, re-
  vealing a circle of hard puckered ﬂesh.
  Caroline yanks at Robertson’s arm: ‘How did it get past the defences?’
  Robertson watches the creature as it reaches the edge of the Village,
  shakes his head, whispers, ‘It didn’t.’
  The creature reaches out to tear at the ﬁrst barricades, ignoring the
  electricity sparking from the metal stanchions. Only when its oversized
  hand closes on the rusted metal does it snatch it back. The creature howls
  again, striking the obstacle, snapping the bolts securing it to the wall. It
  steps forward to charge once more, but as it does so it begins to howl again.
  Anger and pain.
  Someone pushes Robertson aside. The Professional, plasma riﬂe at his
  shoulder, blinking down its sights. Just like he did with David in the corri-
  dor. Only this time, he doesn’t take the shot instantaneously. He looks at
  the creature, blinks, raises his head and refocuses.
  A moment of hesitation in which the creature turns from the barricades,
  back towards the Village.
  ‘Shoot it!’ Caroline screams, but it’s too late.
  It catches the Professional with a vicious backhand and he tumbles
  across the ﬂoor, riﬂe skittering away in another direction. There’s a moment
  when everyone is frozen, stunned by the ease with which the Professional
  has been dispatched. Then the creature charges back into the compound.
  Weir has found a projectile weapon, ﬁres, the shot going wild. The ﬂash
  is enough for Robertson to see the survivors are ﬂeeing.
  The only one left in the creature’s path is the tiny ﬁgure of Toby.
  Awakened by the noise he sits, quiet and confused, by an overturned
  camp bed. The computer pad Caroline fought so long for him to have is in
  his hand.
  Robertson saw a face once.
  He begins to run.
  ‘Get out the way!’ It’s Caroline’s voice.
  Robertson ignores her. He can guess what’s happening. She’s behind
  him, holding the Professional’s riﬂe, one hand struggling with its awkward
  weight, the other ﬁrmly wrapped around the grip, ﬁnger on the trigger.
  ‘Move!’ she cries.
  He’s in her line of ﬁre, but Robertson runs straight, watching the crea-
  ture close on Toby. Its stride is longer than his, but he moves more quickly,
  more smoothly, and is closing the gap.
  178
  
  ‘Robbie!’ Caroline screams desperately.
  Robertson reaches down as he passes the ReGene unit and as the crea-
  ture reaches out for Toby, and Caroline screams one last time, he throws
  himself forward, sinking one of Easter’s syringes deep into the creature’s
  neck.
  The world spins as the creature throws Robertson off and he lands hard
  among the wreckage, lungs burning as the wind is knocked from his body;
  as he coughs and claws his way to his feet he sees Caroline closing, aiming
  the riﬂe again. He tries to yell at her to stop, but his voice has no volume.
  The creature is swaying, one hand pawing at its neck. Then it keels
  forward, crashing to the ﬂoor before Caroline can shoot.
  As she advances, holding the riﬂe in trembling hands, Robertson ﬁnally
  ﬁnds the air to wheeze: ‘It’s David.’
  The words are barely a whisper but they carry in the sudden quiet.
  Caroline pauses in her advance and slowly turns to Robertson.
  He meets her eyes and repeats, ‘It’s David.’
  There should be screaming when a marriage ends. Love is meant to grow
  and evolve, to last a lifetime and its loss should hurt. There should be
  screaming and crying for what is gone and can never be recovered.
  Robertson would have died for Caroline Arquette.
  In those ﬁrst moments, when he watched her dance and saw her face
  ﬁll with life, when they joked and laughed, when she entwined her ﬁngers
  with his, he knew. He wanted to spend his life with her and wanted her to
  be safe and loved for the rest of her days. He still does.
  ‘We’ve not lost a single man,’ Robertson says. ‘I wasn’t going to start.’
  Caroline nods, swallowing hard. ‘I understand.’
  ‘We’ve come so far. It just feels like if we lose one person now, then
  that’s it, that’s the sign.’ His eyes drop. ‘It would all be over.’
  ‘I understand.’ She lays her hand across his and squeezes. Robertson
  looks up to ﬁnd tears in his wife’s eyes. ‘It’s not your fault, Robbie. None of
  this is your fault. You can’t make it better.’
  ‘I should give up,’ Robertson says. ‘I know I should give up.’ The words
  swell in his throat and he can barely get them out. He shakes his head. ‘But
  I had to take the risk. I can’t give up yet. I just can’t –’
  ‘Toby could have died,’ Caroline says softly.
  ‘I couldn’t give up,’ Robertson whispers. ‘I won’t stop hoping. Not yet. I
  can’t.’
  There’s a pause then and Caroline’s hand slips free from his. Robertson
  knows what’s coming. Their marriage ends not with screaming, but with
  simple acceptance and three soft words: ‘Hope died, Robbie.’
  179
  
  The only time Robertson encountered an actual Rorschach test was on his
  arrival at Farside Station; some psychological screening one of the coats
  was running. Everyone knew the principle, though; like lying on your back
  in the long grass, looking up and seeing shapes in the clouds. The coat had
  been at great pains to explain how it was impossible to fail a Rorschach
  test.
  A couple of years later, Robertson proved her wrong.
  The face appeared from a cloud of static. Never really there, but so clear
  Robertson could reach out and touch it.
  Eighteen months after the Fall and they had been married a year. It
  had been a couple of months before they were certain, but Caroline was
  pregnant.
  With Greenwich Village still in its infancy, equipment was scarce and
  life was hard. Neither of them had spoken much about the baby, had made
  sure the news wasn’t common knowledge.
  They’d told Easter, though. He managed to rig up a scanner. It wouldn’t
  provide anything like the foetal monitoring that was now standard but, he
  assured them, it would give some idea of how things were progressing.
  Robertson had watched as Easter started the scan.
  He told them there
  wouldn’t be much to see. No more than a heartbeat. But looking into the
  screen, Robertson found it.
  The face appeared in a cloud of static. Small and delicate, eyes closed,
  cheeks rounded, mouth closed tight in sleep.
  Robertson is a practical man, not a man of words. He still doesn’t know
  how to describe what he felt in that moment when their tight, tawdry world
  fell away and he saw the face.
  It was the future and it was hope.
  But even before Easter started speaking Robertson remembered: too
  small to register more than a heartbeat. And in the blink of Robertson’s
  eye the face vanished, lost to the static. Robertson almost cried out, to tell
  Easter to go back, that he’d had it.
  No more than a heartbeat.
  He doesn’t remember exactly what Easter said to them – something
  about radiation and malnutrition, chromosomes failing to match, whis-
  pered regret – but he remembers Caroline’s hand tightening on his.
  Robertson remembers the face.
  He remembers hope dying.
  As Caroline leaves, Robertson has no strength left to follow. He never told
  her. Never told her that he saw a face once and it will haunt him for the
  rest of his days.
  180
  
  ‘They must have transport. They have to have it.’
  Easter watches the Professional circle the Meridian. Holding court be-
  fore, he has been measured in word and movement. Not this morning,
  though.
  David is chained up in one of the stronger cages in the hospital, some-
  one on constant watch with a tranquilliser. Easter wants to get back to
  work, salvage something from the ReGene unit, understand what happened
  to David’s physiognomy. Except he needs help to get their remaining com-
  puter terminal back online and there’s none on offer.
  Robertson sits mute, alone among the other survivors; Arquette stands,
  anxious, supposedly chairing the meeting but really just watching the Pro-
  fessional pace. Of the rest, some – Bluth, Alonso, Marcus – are nursing
  minor injuries from David’s rampage, while Garcia and Weir are heading a
  party to secure the barricades, and others are trying to catch up on their
  sleep.
  There’s a bruise on the Professional’s cheek where David struck him.
  Easter knows that’s not where the real damage lies.
  ‘They must have supplies, support from somewhere.’ The Professional
  turns to look directly at Easter. ‘A ship,’ he says. ‘An interstix would be the
  logical answer. But they’re alien, their technology would be different. An
  Earth vessel could never hold position in this atmosphere, but they might be
  able to. They could be keeping a ship near by. Something to run supplies.’
  Easter looks at Arquette, hoping, but there’s a distant look in her eyes
  and she says nothing. It’s left to Easter: ‘That’s supposition.’
  ‘We’ll prove it,’ the Professional says. ‘The external sensors are intact,
  they just need power. Route the signal through your terminal here and
  locate their vessel.’
  ‘You’d need to go outside to connect the –’
  ‘My armour can cope with the pressure of Jupiter’s atmos –’
  ‘And,’ Easter emphasizes, ‘even if you did come back in one piece, it’s
  still pointless.’
  The Professional blinks.
  ‘Supposing you locate a ship, you can’t reach or attack it, can’t even
  trace it for more than a minute or two.’
  ‘The external sensors –’
  ‘Need power.’ Easter points to the wreckage around them. ‘We can
  maybe use the one terminal we have left to monitor the signal. But if we
  divert power to the sensors we have to drop the supply to the barricades.’
  The Professional says nothing. On the periphery of his vision, Easter
  can see Arquette slowly shaking her head. The others are stirring, perhaps
  listening to him for the ﬁrst time in years.
  181
  
  ‘Have you heard them?’ Easter says. ‘Because there’s always one of the
  enemy out there, testing, waiting for an opportunity. Go and stand at that
  entrance and listen. There’s one of them there, waiting for you to drop the
  power.’
  Among the crowd, Easter ﬁnds Anji’s face.
  She’s been quiet since last night; the sight of her friends frozen in time
  unsettling her. But even Anji, with the promise of madness awaiting her, is
  nodding encouragement.
  ‘Your plan,’ Easter says, ‘gains nothing and risks everything. I think –’
  ‘ “I think”?’ the Professional snaps. ‘ “I think”? You’re not in charge
  here, Easter.’
  ‘No,’ Easter answers. ‘I let you take that away from me. But that mistake
  doesn’t allow you to –’
  The Professional snaps a hand out, grabbing Easter’s throat, kicking his
  feet from under him. Easter lands on the ﬂoor, the Professional pinning
  him down, ﬁngers tightening on his windpipe. He ﬁghts, tries to claw at
  the Professional’s arm, but he’s too slow, too weak, caught by the speed
  and ferocity of the attack. The Professional is going to kill him. People are
  screaming, pulling at the Professional’s arm, but he’s stronger than all of
  them and the motors in his armour make the hand an immovable vice.
  There’s a sharp crack and the Professional’s head snaps forward, blood
  trickling down one temple as his eyes ﬂutter and close. He is hauled off
  Easter, revealing Robertson, a length of pipe in his hand. ‘Strip that armour
  and lock him up,’ Robertson says.
  There’s a moment’s silence, then Bluth and Jones take an arm each and
  begin dragging the Professional away. It’s only now that Arquette ﬁnds her
  voice: ‘Stop. I’m telling you to stop. He’s our only link to Earth Forces. If
  we’re going to help in the –’
  ‘There is no war.’
  Everyone stops then.
  It’s Anji’s voice. Heads turn towards her, but she can’t meet their eyes.
  ‘He lied,’ she says. ‘I shouldn’t have gone along with it, but. . . ’ The words
  die on her lips. Under the weight of everyone’s stare, all she says is: ‘There
  is no war. There never has been. I’m sorry.’
  Her head lifts and Easter can see the shame as she absorbs the look on
  all their faces.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeats. And then she turns and walks away.
  It’s an hour since the meeting. An hour since the Professional was conﬁned
  to the hospital. An hour since Anji Kapoor revealed his deceit.
  182
  
  Robertson shrugs off Easter’s gratitude, gets to work mending the barri-
  cades.
  Easter tries to piece together the ReGene unit.
  Caroline Arquette sits at the remaining terminal, ﬂicking through the secu-
  rity download.
  It was another life. I don’t know if I remember life before this. I’m not sure
  I can ever be that person again.
  Arquette looks across the Village to where her husband works, power
  and life drained from him.
  I’m not sure I can ever be that person again.
  She has her answer now. Arquette switches the monitor off and walks
  away. When Joshua Easter looks up, he sees a scrap of cloth left by the
  terminal.
  Nearing her habitat, Arquette’s eye is caught by a ﬂash of silver.
  Light
  catching on the ﬁshbowl of Kapoor’s helmet, the rest of her suit piled near
  by. Arquette pauses, looks around, but Kapoor is nowhere to be seen.
  The Professional recognises the smell as he wakes: he’s with the Wounded.
  A cautious hand ﬁnds tender skin and dried blood on his skull. More wor-
  rying than pain, though, everything feels distant, like he is living a dream.
  He scratches at his bare biceps. He’s been stripped of his armour, of
  course, and has limited hope of breaking free. This cage is solid. Without
  some kind of tool, there’s little he can achieve against welded metal.
  As he tests the bars, he realises he is not alone. Sitting near to the door
  Caroline Arquette watches him, gun in hand. Only when he’s done testing
  does she speak.
  ‘Who are you?’
  The Professional frowns. ‘I don’t understand.’
  Arquette’s voice is quiet and thin. ‘You lied about the war. You used me,
  made a fool of me. What happened? Who are you?’
  The Professional looks at her. The light is dim, but he can see tears on
  her cheeks.
  ‘Where’s my equipment?’ he asks. ‘My armour, the dataﬁles.’
  ‘The armour’s safe. The pad they gave to Toby.’ She laughs, hoarse and
  cold. ‘David damaged his. He thinks yours is a lot better.’
  There’s a pause, then she gets to her feet, crosses to stand in front of his
  cage. They look at each other, neither moving, then Arquette reaches out
  a hand, slipping it between the bars to touch his face. Her ﬁngertips are
  cold.
  183
  
  ‘You’re feverish,’ she says.
  ‘Training is based on routine. We adapt in combat situations. I made an
  error removing the armour.’ He pulls away from her touch. ‘It’s this place.
  How did you survive down here? It’s small, stiﬂing, so dark.’ He looks at
  her. ‘Don’t you miss the sun?’
  ‘Why was it a mistake to remove the armour?’ Arquette asks. ‘When we
  were hunting the enemy, yes? Was that the mistake?’
  ‘Never remove the protection around the physical control unit. It’s one
  of the basic instructions.’ He pauses, blinks, shaking his head, trying to
  clear his thoughts. ‘We’re told to adapt in combat. It was a qualiﬁed risk.’
  ‘That’s why you attacked Easter?’ Arquette says. ‘Because you’d lost
  your medication?’
  His head snaps towards her: ‘We have to reactivate the sensors. The
  external sensors. It’s the only thing that matters.’
  He still has ﬂashes of lucidity amidst the dream. He has one now, look-
  ing at Arquette’s face. Reluctant, but she still wants to believe. You used
  me, made a fool of me. So he tells her the truth. ‘Look out that door. Look
  at your fellows. Look at what truth has done. Tell me I was wrong to lie.’
  ‘I don’t care,’ Arquette says, her voice slowly breaking. ‘It doesn’t mat-
  ter.’
  It’s what she doesn’t say that the Professional hears.
  He once ran OpTech to an Earth Forces unit out on the rim. The look
  on Arquette’s face is the same as the way those soldiers looked. Orders
  and objectives were irrelevant. They were damaged, all they wanted was
  to ﬁght back. It no longer mattered what the ﬁght was.
  She has it all prepared, he is suddenly sure. Before she snuck in here,
  she worked out what they needed. She’s carrying his gun, probably has his
  suit near by. Any guard is dismissed or unconscious. Arquette’s prepared.
  All she needs is to hear the words.
  The Professional reaches out between the bars, taking her hand as he
  makes the only promise that will buy his freedom: ‘Find their ship and I’ll
  kill them all.’
  Easter is buried in the ReGene unit when his name is called. Garcia and
  Carvacchio, shepherding Anji towards the Meridian; stripped of her ar-
  mour, feet unsteady, a drowsy angle to her head.
  ‘What happened?’ he asks. He’s worried about the enemy’s infection.
  The answer he gets is not even close.
  ‘Found her by the airlock,’ Garcia answers. ‘She said Arquette and the
  Professional attacked her, took her suit.’
  184
  
  Easter lies Anji down on a nearby cot. As he checks her pupils, he asks,
  ‘What are you talking about?’
  ‘The airlock by the exterior doors cycled ﬁve minutes ago. Carvacchio
  and I went to check, to make sure there wasn’t a malfunction or something.’
  ‘You’re sure it was –’
  ‘The Professional’s gone, his suit is gone.’ Garcia points to where Anji
  lies in her underwear. ‘Hers is gone too.’
  ‘Damn it,’ Easter snaps. ‘If he’s free with a willing accomplice –’
  ‘We know,’ Carvacchio answers. ‘But no one was expecting him to be a
  fake, no one expected Arquette to still be on his side.’
  Easter attaches Anji to the terminal’s triage diagnostic, then turns to
  Garcia and Carvacchio: ‘Set a guard by the airlock. They’ve got to come
  back some time; hopefully, it’ll be there.’
  ‘And if they do?’
  ‘Short the exterior door, keep them conﬁned until they tell us what
  they’ve been up to.’ Easter glances towards the barricades. ‘You’d better
  get Robertson; she might still listen to him.’
  When they’re gone, Easter draws some blood from Anji and starts the
  analysis program.
  Repairing the ReGene unit is going to be weeks of work, making this
  as good a time as any to check the status of Anji’s infection. The system
  already has a copy of the blood work he ran when she was brought into the
  Village two days ago. A basic compare and contrast with the new sample is
  all that’s required.
  With her blood work clear and the DNA analysis conﬁrming she was
  human, Easter hadn’t looked too hard at Anji’s original results: ﬁt and
  well, clearly in better shape than anyone else on this station. There simply
  hadn’t been the need. But as he sets up the test on the new sample, Easter
  checks that data over, just to be sure there’s nothing to confuse the analysis
  program.
  A small red icon is ﬂashing next to the gene pairs governing Anji’s im-
  mune system.
  Easter leans forward, his face reﬂected in the screen as he traces a ﬁnger
  across the code. The distortion has its centre in the immune system, but
  there are traces of it throughout her body, speciﬁcally the parts governing
  chemical activity in her brain. Easter is reassured in one way: he’s seen the
  enemy’s infection often enough to know that this isn’t it. But that’s small
  comfort. Whatever the infection is, it’s taken years to rewrite Anji’s DNA.
  Something else ﬂashes on-screen. The results from the triage diagnos-
  tic: no concussion, no fracture, no injury at all. Easter checks for a bug in
  185
  
  the program. Because if Anji wasn’t attacked, then she’s given up her suit
  willingly, which makes no sense.
  As he leans back in his chair, Easter’s reﬂection no longer ﬁlls the moni-
  tor. Instead, he can see Anji unfolding from the cot behind him in one ﬂuid
  movement, reaching down to pick up a piece of debris.
  As Easter turns, he’s already far too late.
  Robertson reaches the airlock just in time: the exterior door is creeping
  open.
  He feels sick as he looks through the glass.
  When Garcia found him, he didn’t need to be told; he could guess what
  Caroline had done. The wife he loves is lost, all he’s left with is what others
  expect of him. As he looks through the airlock door, his face reﬂected in
  the visor of Caroline’s stolen spacesuit, he knows she feels the same.
  The Professional just paces the airlock, tapping instructions into his suit,
  drumming his ﬁngers against the walls.
  Robertson activates the speaker: ‘What did you do to Anji?’
  Caroline’s voice hisses with static: ‘What are you talking about?’
  ‘You’re wearing her suit,’ Robertson snaps. ‘What did you do to get it off
  her?’
  Caroline’s face is invisible behind the mirrored helmet. ‘Nothing,’ she
  answers.
  Robertson shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe you.’
  ‘Atmosphere reaching normal,’ Garcia says.
  ‘Hold it there,’ Robertson answers. ‘Lock the interior door. Any trouble,
  start venting –’
  The alarm blares, weapons ﬁre sounding from the entrance.
  ‘Enemy,’ Carvacchio says.
  Robertson’s ﬁrst instinct is that Carvacchio’s right. Except that the en-
  emy constantly test the barricades. Only no one ever sounds the alarm for
  that and the weapons ﬁre isn’t stopping.
  Robertson runs, Garcia and Carvacchio behind him. As they clear the
  greenhouses, the main entrance is illuminated by ﬂashes of light: the yel-
  low of gunﬁre, electric-blue from the barricades.
  It should be over by now, the enemy should be retreating, but Robertson
  knows that isn’t going to happen. Not this time. He grabs a weapon from
  the rack, pumping rounds into the chamber, the very last reserves of his
  energy gathering inside of him.
  It’s not just one or two of the enemy. They ﬁll the east and west corri-
  dors, pushing against the barriers, gunﬁre ricocheting off carapaces. Weir
  and Alonso are already there; Marcus marshalling others; Archer holding a
  186
  
  gun in trembling hands. Garcia and Carvacchio step up next to Robertson,
  ﬁnding places in the line.
  ‘Concentrate your ﬁre,’ Weir shouts. ‘Front targets! West corridor!’
  And they raise their weapons, joining the fusillade.
  As he breathes cordite, Robertson hopes the airlock door will be enough
  to hold the Professional.
  Arquette watches as the Professional hauls Easter’s body from the terminal
  and drops him to the ﬂoor. She kneels down, presses her ﬁngertips against
  his neck. There’s blood on his face, but the pulse is strong enough.
  There’s no sign the enemy have breached the defences. ‘Who did this?’
  Arquette asks.
  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ the Professional answers.
  And only then does Arquette realise what he’s doing: accessing the en-
  ergy supply grid. It only took him thirty seconds to crack the code on the
  airlock door. The external sensors will be powered up in half that time.
  ‘Stop it,’ she says. There’s a scream from the entrance. ‘We’ll lose the
  barricades.’
  ‘Acceptable risk,’ the Professional snaps. ‘We have to ﬁnd their ship.’
  ‘Not now!’ Arquette says, reaching out to grab him. ‘You have to wait
  until –’
  But he swings around, punches her full in the face. Arquette tumbles
  over Easter’s body, blood in her mouth. By the time she’s back on her knees,
  the Professional is already executing the sensor sweep.
  There’s a click as the defences switch off, and everyone hears the hum of
  the electrical charge vanish.
  Someone shouts: ‘Hold steady!’
  There’s a moment of caution as the ﬁrst of the enemy touches the bar-
  ricade. Then, with no ﬂash of electricity, they swarm forward, clawing at
  each other and the walls and hacking at obstacles; automated weapons are
  torn from their posts.
  People begin to creep backwards.
  There’s a panic Robertson has never seen in the survivors before. Deep
  down, they know: this is the end. The collective will that’s kept them alive
  breaks and they push past him to escape, every one forgetting the Village
  is a closed environment. There’s nowhere to escape to.
  Robertson thinks of the face that haunts him. All the hopes he had in
  that single moment, the sights he wanted to show his child, the things he
  wanted to teach, the way he wanted to be a better man as a result.
  He thinks of the face and knows there’s nowhere left to hide.
  187
  
  So Robertson stops moving and he turns, raising his gun. And as the
  enemy break through the barricades and rush into the compound, he starts
  ﬁring.
  The survivors push through the compound, their ﬂight tearing it apart. Col-
  liding with each other, tables overturned, barrels falling, the forge tumbling
  in a blaze of ﬂame. Amidst it all, the Professional is unmoving at the com-
  puter terminal, trying to block out the chaos around him. There’s a coldness
  within him. He wants to scream and ﬁght until there is silence and he can
  think and do what needs to be done. An impulse that’s been building for
  days, since the control unit was destroyed, since before then.
  The Station is too close, too hot.
  Ragged and unpleasant, surfaces
  coated in rust, the air warm and damp and stale. It is impossible to breathe
  here.
  He needs to escape this place.
  To his right Arquette throws herself forward, wrapping the child in her
  arms, stumbling away as the enemy close in. There is a clatter as the pad
  the boy was holding falls to the ground.
  None of this matters.
  The sensor sweep scrolls over the screen: a hazy outline of the Station,
  scrolling information about windspeed, radiation levels, magnetics. The
  image shrinks as the sensor wave pushes out, covering a greater and greater
  area. And then, ﬁnally, the screen blinks, reforming as the sweep begins
  again.
  There is no spaceship within 100, 000 kilometres of the Station.
  The Professional feels the pulse in his throat crushing the air from his
  body, the energy from his limbs. He squeezes his eyes shut.
  The screaming and the chaos are all too familiar.
  His knees give way and he falls backwards. In the distance there is the
  whoosh of a small explosion and he can feel its heat on his skin. There is
  a sweat on his brow and he wants to tear at his armour, to break it away
  so that his chest can expand and he can breathe once more. He needs to
  breathe.
  There are footsteps near by.
  The Professional’s eyes ﬂutter shut, opening to see. . .
  The computer pad the child was playing with is lying on the ﬂoor. The
  image blinking at him shows the co-ordinates he entered from the Ghost
  ﬁle. No longer mapped on to the Station architecture or swivelling and
  rotating around three dimensions in search of the correct ﬁt.
  They are laid out across two plain axes.
  188
  
  And the boy has simply joined the dots the co-ordinates represent to
  produce a simple and elegant picture.
  189
  
  Four years earlier
  ‘Only hope breaks a chain.’
  Robertson whispered the words, his lips brushing her ear, his hand
  warm on her shoulder. Caroline smiled, rolled towards him. ‘What is that?’
  ‘One of Jason’s poems,’ Robertson answered. ‘My kind of poetry. Short.’
  Caroline sat up on the bed, looking around his quarters. ‘What time is
  it?’
  ‘Almost ten. I’m due on shift in ﬁfteen minutes. New equipment for
  the medical bays, supplies for hydroponics.’ He grinned. ‘All exciting stuff.
  What about you?’
  ‘Same shift, same location.’ She gave him a hard stare. ‘Still trying to
  sort out the mess your guy made with the electronics yesterday.’
  ‘Archer should know better than to mess about with a comms panel.’
  Caroline rescued her uniform blouse from the top of a nearby chair. She
  gave Robertson a smile. ‘Means I can meet you for lunch, though.’
  He smiled. ‘Every cloud. . . ’
  The Doctor lay back on the operating table, wrists and ankles ﬁxed down.
  The automated arm of the surgical computer swivelled above him, a thin
  beam slicing his shirt open.
  It was Valletti who raised her hand, calling a temporary halt. ‘Interest-
  ing wound, Doctor.’ She nodded to his abdomen. ‘How did you get it?’
  ‘Saving the Pegasus from one of your men.’ He tested the restraints, but
  there was no give. Looking directly at Valletti, he implored: ‘This isn’t the
  Earth you believe in.’
  Valletti just turned to Sara Mukabi. ‘Start with the blood work around
  this wound; nothing invasive until we have some answers.’
  ‘Those creatures lining the walls are not resources,’ the Doctor said.
  ‘They’re people, with cultures, beliefs and families of their own. Everyone
  has something they want to protect.’
  ‘They’re all as good as dead, anyway,’ Sara snapped. She manipulated
  the controls and a clear probe extended, burying itself in his wound.
  190
  
  The Doctor gasped, then clenched his teeth, glaring at Sara. ‘I wish I
  could say the only inhuman thing was the way you’re denying them the
  release they deserve. But your little project to overcome the ﬂight-or-ﬁght
  impulse is equally insane. You pulled strings to get this station located here.
  What other short cuts have you taken? Are there any medical bodies that
  validate illegal research?’
  ‘You’re not helping yourself, Doctor.’ Blood bubbled in the probe. ‘Anal-
  ysis under way,’ Sara said to Valletti.
  A video screen came to life: an image of the Doctor’s blood, slowly
  increasing in magniﬁcation.
  ‘Unusual iron levels, unique structure to the white blood cells. Indica-
  tive of quite impressive recuperative powers.’ Sara turned towards Valletti.
  ‘Some basic similarities, but that blood is not –’
  The restraints on the table clicked open as the probe withdrew.
  McCray sprang forward, but the Doctor swivelled, lashing out and
  catching him with the heel of his boot. The paratrooper fell back, blood
  streaming from his broken nose.
  Sara reached for the controls, only to cry out as light ﬂared and a pin-
  point scorch mark blistered her sleeve. Everyone looked at her, then after
  a moment’s pause the blinding light returned.
  Pulses ﬂashed from laser tracks around the room. The Mukabis and the
  101st dived for cover. Valletti reached for the Doctor, only for him to drag
  her down behind the operating table as a blast struck the point where she’d
  stood a moment earlier. A paratrooper levelled his weapon, only to have it
  shot from his hand as the laser ﬁre intensiﬁed.
  ‘I really am sorry,’ the Doctor told Valletti. Then he chopped at her neck
  and she collapsed on the ﬂoor.
  The Doctor waited a moment, studying the ﬁring pattern, then broke
  cover, racing towards the door. He grabbed Fitz’s hand, pulling him out
  from behind a console, shielding him with his body and throwing him for-
  ward.
  Fitz tumbled through the lab door. He took one last glance back into the
  tall chamber, ﬁlled with laser beams, then the door slid shut. The Doctor
  examined it for a moment, then shrugged and drove his elbow into the
  keypad, smashing the lock.
  Fitz could still smell smoke. ‘What the hell was that?’
  ‘These labs are ﬁtted with very sophisticated intruder-alert capabilities,’
  the Doctor said.
  ‘That just go haywire and shoot everybody?’
  ‘No,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘That shoot anybody who isn’t me.’
  191
  
  ‘Is that your escape plan?’ Fitz started towards the exit. ‘This Jericho
  thing?’
  ‘No, Jericho was a subroutine in the comms system. The one Valletti
  found and disabled.’ The Doctor frowned at Fitz. ‘What are you doing?’
  Fitz paused. ‘Escaping?’
  The Doctor shook his head, climbing the gantry towards one of the
  control consoles. ‘Not yet. Those lasers were nothing to do with me.’
  Fitz started after him. ‘So now what?’
  The Doctor was working the console, casting quick glances at the door
  to the other chamber. ‘We’ve been asking the wrong questions, looking for
  a “who?” the entire time. We should have been looking at the evidence and
  asking “why?” and “what?”’ He tapped the console, emphasising the words.
  ‘Something activated that security net to protect me just now. Why? Sara
  Mukabi’s distilling something from the atmosphere. What? The pilot of the
  Pegasus was trying to destroy the ship in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Why? The
  defence grid opened up and targeted Jupiter’s atmosphere. Why?’
  ‘McCray said something, how you could hide an alien ﬂeet down –’
  The Doctor shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t explain why this wound hasn’t
  healed.’
  And ﬁnally Fitz caught on, the way the Doctor had been studying the
  screen as he hectored Sara Mukabi. ‘You saw something, didn’t you? On
  her scan.’
  ‘Valletti said AuDoc wasn’t attacked by the security systems. Something
  else was responsible. And you’d need a very smart and adaptive computer
  virus to get the better of AuDoc.’ The Doctor nodded. ‘Curiously, the thing I
  saw on the scan of my blood was an infection. Something probably carried
  by the pilot’s blood on the harpoon. A very smart and adaptive infection.’
  ‘How the hell could that get into the computers?’
  ‘It all depends on how smart and adaptive it is.’ The Doctor punched
  a control and a hologram appeared in the centre of the room. ‘This is a
  simulation of Jupiter’s weather systems, probably using a sample of the
  atmosphere to create an accurate template.’
  ‘So?’
  ‘There are patterns of activity I want to look for.’ The Doctor zoomed in
  through weather fronts and clouds, getting closer and closer in, his hands
  working the controls.
  A glass of water had been left by the console. As Fitz leant over to
  watch what the Doctor was doing, he knocked it over. The glass rolled off
  the edge of the console, tumbling away to smash on the ﬂoor below.
  ‘The two that attacked Anji,’ Fitz said. ‘They worked in the cargo bay,
  didn’t they?’
  192
  
  ‘Yes,’ the Doctor murmured, ‘but only for a couple of days.’
  The image zeroed in: clouds swallowed the room, dust particles ex-
  ploded to the size of planets, zooming in on nothing at all. Fitz guessed
  they were at some kind of microscopic resolution now. Then a chain of
  spheres appeared, twisting and turning.
  ‘Got you,’ the Doctor whispered.
  Something else caught Fitz’s eye.
  A screen had come to life on an
  adjacent console, information ﬂashing at tremendous speed. He pointed.
  ‘What’s that?’
  The Doctor frowned. ‘I don’t know.’
  He overlaid the screen’s contents on the hologram. It was moving too
  fast for him to make sense of it; brief ﬂashes showed the Station and equa-
  tions, personnel ﬁles streaming across the edge of the hologram. A repeat-
  ing sequence, playing over and over again.
  Then there was a crash, sparks ﬂying as the door burst open. The holo-
  gram folded in on itself and they were plunged into the red of emergency
  lighting.
  The 101st advanced into the lab, weapons levelled at the Doctor and
  Fitz.
  Valletti explained that no ﬁnger of suspicion pointed at them. Robertson
  suspected this was true, but the fact that the commander was conduct-
  ing the interview with him and Caroline told him something was seriously
  wrong.
  Fitz and his friend had travelled using good forgeries, Valletti said, and
  – whatever their motives – were highly skilled at inﬁltration techniques.
  ‘I don’t care,’ Robertson said. ‘I never met the other guy, but Fitz is
  solid.’
  Valletti rubbed the back of her neck. ‘There’s no –’
  ‘I hear what you’re saying, Commander; I just can’t square it with what
  I saw. They saved the Pegasus, this Doctor guy saved Jason, they were both
  nearly killed in that hull breach.’
  Caroline laid a hand on his arm. ‘Robbie.’
  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not security, but I’m good with
  people. And Fitz is a good man. I’d bet my life on that.’
  ‘The evidence says otherwise.’
  Robertson shrugged. ‘I can’t help the evidence. You’re asking my opin-
  ion, Commander. I’m giving it to you.’
  Valletti turned to Caroline. ‘What about you?’
  There was a pause, Caroline looking between Valletti and Robertson.
  He could see the light in her eyes, like they were still dancing.
  193
  
  ‘I trust Robbie’s judgement,’ Caroline said.
  Valletti sighed. ‘You’re not making life any easier.’ Her communicator
  chimed and she got to her feet. ‘Wait here.’
  As she left, Robertson and Caroline looked at each other. ‘Thank you,’
  Robertson said.
  ‘Do you really believe what you said?’ Caroline asked.
  Robertson’s replies had been front to an extent, the result of being taken
  by surprise. Now that Caroline was asking, he considered his answer and
  found it the same. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do.’
  Caroline nodded. ‘Good,’ she said.
  As she did so, Robertson looked past her. Valletti had left via the main
  door, but behind the desk was an entrance to the brig. The light on its
  keypad was green.
  Fitz had been given a ﬁrst-aid kit to patch the Doctor’s wounds with. It was
  something he had gotten used to in the past week. With the Doctor propped
  up against the cell wall, Fitz was securing another layer of bandage when
  there was a tap at the door.
  Fitz peered through the glass panel in the door. ‘It’s Robbie.’
  The voice was mufﬂed, but Robertson’s baritone was still audible
  enough. ‘How you guys doing?’
  ‘We’ve had better days.’
  A pause, then: ‘What’s going on, Fitz?’
  As Fitz opened his mouth to speak, the Doctor slowly shook his head.
  And Fitz understood. Even if Robbie could get them out of the cell there
  was nowhere to run.
  ‘Long story,’ Fitz answered. ‘We came here because a friend of ours had
  been hurt.’
  ‘Anyone I know?’
  ‘I don’t know,’ Fitz smiled. ‘Ever heard of Anji Kapoor?’
  ‘No,’ Robertson answered.
  ‘Best you don’t get involved, then.’
  Robertson nodded and smiled through the glass.
  ‘Robbie,’ Fitz said, ‘when we ﬁrst met, you told me something. You said
  anyone who breaks things on your team doesn’t stay on your team. Did
  you mean it?’
  The Doctor glanced at him then, a smile of admiration creeping across
  his face. Fitz grinned in return as Robbie said, ‘It’s the rule I work to.’
  ‘I’ve got a question,’ the Doctor called out.
  Robertson frowned at the new voice. He craned his head, unable to
  194
  
  make out the Doctor through the small window. ‘That your friend?’ Robert-
  son asked. Fitz nodded.
  ‘The 101st deal with the restricted cargo. What about atmosphere sam-
  ples?’
  ‘No,’ Robertson answered. ‘That’s our job.’
  ‘A couple of men were transferred out of cargo six weeks ago. Was that
  because they broke something?’
  Robertson nodded. ‘A capsule from a research shuttle. The pilot released
  it too early, they failed to hold it.’
  The Doctor smiled, leaning back against the wall. ‘What happened to
  the pilot?’
  Robertson glanced back down the cell bay. ‘Relegated to passenger duty.’
  Another glance, then he said, ‘I’ve got to go,’ and vanished. ’
  Fitz looked at the Doctor. ‘Three people break the capsule. Two end up
  on shore leave, one on a passenger transport.’
  The Doctor nodded. ‘And we’ve met all three. Good work, Fitz.’
  ‘What about all the others? Deschamps?’
  ‘Our mad scientist,’ the Doctor said, ‘is just a bad-tempered scientist.’
  ‘And Archer?’
  ‘The source of those unauthorised transmissions and in possession of
  those stolen ﬁles Valletti mentioned. And nothing to do with any of this.’
  The call that had summoned Valletti was from the security team in C&C.
  The AI the Doctor had used to penetrate the secure ﬁles was still in
  the systems. Security’s bloodhound programs had achieved some success,
  deleting parts of its core programming before it escaped into the mainte-
  nance systems on the outer rings.
  Like an old submariner, the AI was running silent and deep.
  Like old warriors, the security team were brandishing the limbs they’d
  managed to cut off before it escaped. In this case, the AI’s language centres.
  Which, Valletti supposed, wasn’t a bad thing. Although security hadn’t
  been able to trace its path, they were assuming it was the AI that had
  taken control of the Avatar lab’s defence screen. If the AI didn’t have di-
  rect language centres any more, it would have trouble obeying any vocal
  commands from the Doctor.
  Caroline was casting nervous glances at the door when Robertson returned.
  He smiled quickly, sitting down just as Valletti returned; she shook her
  head. ‘There are cameras in the cell bay.’
  ‘They didn’t ask me to help,’ Robertson answered. ‘They had the oppor-
  tunity, they didn’t ask the question.’
  195
  
  His stare met hers. There was a brief silence, then Robertson ﬁnally
  broke away.
  Valletti shook her head again, said quietly, ‘You’re dismissed, both of
  you. Get back to work.’
  The Doctor and Fitz were being frogmarched from the brig. Fitz kept on
  tugging at his handcuffs, but there was no sign of any give. The Doctor, he
  noticed, wasn’t even doing that.
  ‘What you said last night,’ Valletti commented, ‘about the reasons why
  implants were made illegal? It has interesting implications.’
  ‘Such as?’ the Doctor said.
  ‘The loss of privacy. And how the Riley Act makes no provision for loss
  of privacy among alien life forms.’
  ‘Allow me to let you into a secret,’ the Doctor replied. ‘I’m not concerned
  about your project or the arms race with Earth Forces on Mars. They’re
  a side issue. A misguided and dangerous side issue, but they’re not the
  problem.’
  ‘And what is?’ Valletti sighed, stopping as they reached the lift.
  The Doctor stepped forward. It didn’t matter that he was the one in
  chains or that Valletti had the men with guns backing her up. In that mo-
  ment, the Doctor towered over her.
  ‘There’s a contagion loose on this station,’ he said.
  Valletti just stared at him.
  The Doctor shook his head. Fitz could hear the frustration in his voice.
  ‘Two hundred years into the future and you’re all still the same. You’ve
  done so much and come so far. But underneath it all, the same bitterness,
  the same anxieties, the same baseless fears.’
  ‘I’ve been charmed by you, Doctor,’ Valletti said. ‘Do you really think I’m
  going to be any more impressed by your slurs?’
  ‘The evidence is all around,’ he snapped. ‘You only have to look.’
  The lift doors opened and Fitz and the Doctor were pushed inside. As
  the lift rose the Doctor looked at Valletti again. ‘The thing that Sara Muk-
  abi is distilling from Jupiter’s atmosphere, the thing that lets her create
  Nightmare, is an organism, a virus that’s probably been there thousands of
  years.’
  ‘I’m well aware of what Sara Mukabi is doing,’ Valletti said.
  ‘And neutered as Nightmare that virus is largely harmless. Its raw form
  is another matter. The Mukabis ran a simulation of Jupiter’s weather sys-
  tems to locate stockpiles of the gas the virus lives in, yes?’
  Valletti said nothing.
  196
  
  ‘When they did that,’ the Doctor continued, ‘they created a virtual ver-
  sion of the virus itself.
  And viruses evolve, Commander.
  So when the
  simulation pushed forward ten thousand years that virus got very smart,
  very quickly. It became aware of its environment.’
  ‘It escaped,’ Fitz said.
  ‘The security protocols around the Avatar system are very efﬁcient at
  stopping intruders getting in, not stopping things getting out.’ The Doctor
  paused. ‘The malfunctions, system failures, even the excessive maintenance
  are the result of this virus exploring its surroundings.’
  Valletti turned to him, impatient. ‘And how does this explain your es-
  cape from the lab?’
  ‘When my AI breached the secure ﬁles the virus followed it back in.
  That gave it access to the defence systems. It’s the virus that ﬁred the gun
  batteries yesterday, the same virus that activated the security systems in
  the lab.’ He paused. ‘It recognised a threat to its biological counterpart, the
  one in my blood.’
  Valletti was silent and Fitz could see the Doctor’s shoulders tensing. His
  voice grew harsh: ‘The one that infected the pilot and those soldiers when
  they broke that research capsule.’
  Still no reply.
  ‘One that could have infected a friend of mine, that could be loose on
  Mars.’ He slammed his ﬁsts into the side of the lift. ‘You have a responsi-
  bility here!’
  And ﬁnally Valletti turned to him. ‘My responsibility is to Earth.’
  The doors opened, revealing the interior of the Mukabis’ lab. There
  was still an acrid smell in the air and the players, Fitz thought, remained
  largely the same. Sara Mukabi now had her arm in a sling, the 101st looked
  impassively on. The only difference was the ﬁgure laid out on the second
  operating table: Jason McCray.
  ‘What’s going on here?’ the Doctor snapped.
  ‘We’re testing your hypothesis about the dangers of the implants,’ Val-
  letti said. ‘You’re not allergic to titanium, I hope.’
  ‘What do you need Jason for?’
  ‘You fooled the Avatar program once.’
  ‘You’re using Jason as a ﬁlter to screen out any duplicity on my part.’
  The Doctor’s anger was spent now, replaced by an overwhelming sadness.
  ‘This is foolishness, Jennifer.’
  ‘No one’s coming to help you, Doctor. Your AI is crippled, the security
  systems in this lab have been isolated. Your only option is to explain what
  you’re doing here, what your species is planning.’
  ‘I can’t.’
  197
  
  ‘Then I can do nothing for you.’
  The Doctor gave Fitz what he hoped was a reassuring smile, then slipped
  his jacket off and handed it over to his friend.
  This time he didn’t protest as he was secured to the table.
  The important thing was to deal with the virus, both real and virtual,
  before the situation got out of hand. Except he couldn’t do that until he
  was shown to be innocent. Unpalatable though it was, the implant was the
  best opportunity to prove his word. It wasn’t an easy option, though. If the
  link became unbalanced there was a real danger he’d lose himself in the
  mix.
  Then there was the virus itself ﬁghting his system.
  It had clearly learnt from its initial attacks on human hosts. He sus-
  pected it was trying to use his DNA’s recuperative abilities to its advantage
  somehow. If Anji was infected, he hoped it was taking the same approach.
  Otherwise, by the time they got back to Mars she’d have been driven mad
  by the virus, like those troopers had been.
  The immediate trouble was he’d never been certain how much control
  he had over his body’s systems. The prospect of the virus gaining a hold
  on him while he was distracted by the mind-link worried him. As cocktails
  went, it was as volatile as the stasis ﬂuid that held the alien bodies.
  The table swivelled, leaving him face down and looking at the ﬂoor, the
  back of his head exposed. Sara Mukabi’s voice sounded, something cold
  pressed against his spine. ‘This may sting a bit.’
  ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ Fitz turned to Valletti. ‘I can’t believe
  you’re doing this.’
  ‘I wish I weren’t,’ Valletti snapped. The icy tone had an undercurrent of
  regret now. She didn’t want to do it, but she didn’t have any choice.
  ‘He doesn’t remember anything,’ Fitz said. ‘There’s no information for
  you to ﬁnd.’
  Sara Mukabi studied her console. ‘Good readings on the link; signal
  strong and clear.’ She turned to Valletti. ‘We’re ready whenever you give
  the order.’
  Valletti glanced at Fitz, then nodded. ‘Proceed.’
  Sara called over to her husband, ‘Bring the Avatar system online. It’ll
  take a minute or two to calibrate the system.’
  ‘And after that?’ Valletti asked.
  ‘Anything we retrieve should be displayed in Avatar form.’
  ‘Good.’ Valletti nodded. ‘I want this done with.’
  198
  
  Fitz looked at the video screens. Most had been blank as Sara inserted
  the probe into the Doctor’s skull, only a handful showing schematics of the
  procedure. Now that the Mukabis’ contraption was starting up, more and
  more screens ﬂicked into life. As Sara manipulated the controls Fitz caught
  ﬂashes of familiar images: the blue of a police box; Anji smiling; one of
  the princesses from Earthworld. Then things he didn’t recognise: a blonde
  teenager; a city consumed by ﬂame; a statue falling into a river.
  And then he noticed something else that was familiar.
  One corner of one of the screens was ﬁlled with the same mess of data
  they’d seen in the Avatar room a couple of hours earlier. Only, as he looked
  Fitz noticed something he hadn’t seen earlier a counter in the bottom corner
  of the screen, ticking away towards 100 per cent.
  ‘Now 99.5,’ Fitz read, frowning. ‘Up to 99.6.’
  Valletti looked at him. ‘What are you talking about?’
  ‘That screen.’ Fitz pointed. ‘What’s it for?’
  But as Valletti turned to. look, the counter hit 100 and the screen went
  dark.
  Valletti turned to one of the 101st. ‘Restrain him.’
  Except there was no response from the paratrooper. ‘Lieutenant,’ Valletti
  said, ‘I ordered you to –’
  She was cut off as the Doctor screamed.
  Eyes shut a moment before snapped open, his back arched against the
  table, jaw wide in pain. Then he collapsed, head slumping to one side.
  ‘What happened?’ Valletti demanded.
  ‘I don’t know,’ Sara answered. ‘An upsurge in computer activity caused
  an imbalance. Terrance?’
  Her husband was studying the nearby screens. ‘All nonsense. Personnel
  orders, power surges, security programs going crazy. I need to compensate.’
  Fitz was looking at the Doctor. His eyes had shut again but his lips were
  moving.
  ‘What’s he saying?’ Fitz asked.
  Valletti knelt down by the table. ‘It sounds like. . . It sounds like some
  kind of poem.’
  There was a moment of silence as the Doctor’s voice ﬁlled the laboratory.
  Then a pneumatic hiss sounded as every door slid open.
  ‘What the hell?’ Valletti murmured.
  She was crossing to a comms panel when she was shoved aside by Mc-
  Cray. Without a word, the 101st were striding towards the exits. By the
  time Valletti had picked herself up they had vanished.
  ‘Something’s happening,’ Terrance said urgently. ‘Environmental con-
  trols have been hacked, air pressure’s increasing in the outer rings. Every
  199
  
  door and hatch is open for a dozen ﬂoors.’ One of the screens ﬂared. ‘That
  power surge is building again.’
  Fitz saw Terrance’s eyes go wide as he studied the console.
  ‘Get them out of there,’ Terrance shouted, punching a control.
  The
  restraints holding the Doctor and Jason clicked open. ‘Get them out!’
  The Doctor knew something had gone wrong.
  The link was painful at ﬁrst, but he’d been able to relax his mind in the
  end. It was cruder than the machine on Earthworld, but the principles re-
  mained similar. Jason McCray was a shadow across his mind, echoes of old
  passions and fears and feelings, but no more than that. Then searing heat
  had lanced through his thoughts and the shadow had gained substance,
  had weight and form, and was thrashing around inside his head.
  He was going into shock.
  Something was happening inside his body. His system was already trau-
  matised by the infection; this new pain was suddenly more than he could
  bear. Then the link closed down. He could feel it click off and wondered
  what was happening. It should have been a relief, but it wasn’t. He could
  still feel Jason McCray inside his head. And what the Doctor had suspected
  before he now knew for certain.
  Jason McCray had been the leader of the 101st before his brother. The
  ﬁrst to undergo Sara Mukabi’s rigorous testing procedures, his implant had
  worked ﬁne. It was an experimental version of Nightmare that had crippled
  him.
  He had overdosed on fear.
  Jason would remember the man he had been and wonder, afraid, what
  had happened to him.
  He would try to take solace in writing, but the
  inability to verbalise the words he wrote confounded him. He would see
  his brother and comrades, and the knowledge that he no longer belonged
  made him shake. Every step, every glance, every touch, taste and sensation
  in every waking moment provoked only one reaction.
  Fear.
  The Doctor could feel all of this now. And he screamed.
  Electricity ﬂared across the Mukabis’ equipment. The computer banks over-
  loaded, raining sparks.
  Before Fitz or Valletti could reach the operating tables the massive sur-
  gical arm exploded, the ﬁreball swallowing Jason and the Doctor. By the
  time Fitz picked himself up, the centre of the lab was lost to smoke and
  ﬂame.
  ‘Doctor!’ Fitz shouted.
  200
  
  He saw a silhouette, its back aﬂame, and ran, launching himself for-
  ward, bringing the man down, rolling him over and over and smothering
  the ﬂames with the Doctor’s jacket.
  It wasn’t the Doctor, though.
  The body ﬂinched and stirred against him, and Fitz pressed the jacket
  down against the smouldering torso. ‘It’s all right, Jason,’ he said, ‘you’re
  going to be all right.’
  As Sara Mukabi moved in to help, Fitz glanced back into the pillar of
  ﬂame. ‘Doctor!’ he shouted again.
  ‘Oh, no,’ Sara said beside him. ‘The stasis capsules.’
  Fitz looked up and the clear glass cylinders lining the walls were sud-
  denly broiling, the pink liquid churning as the energy surge that had swept
  through the lab equipment was poured into the stasis ﬂuid.
  ‘We’re losing stability on the ﬂuid. Volume and pressure increasing ex-
  ponentially.’
  ‘Shut it down!’ Valletti screamed at Terrance. ‘Close the doors and shut
  everything down!’
  ‘I can’t!’ He pounded the computer bank. ‘The environmental systems
  have gone haywire!’
  Movement caught Fitz’s eyes and then he saw him, a man of ﬁre, free-
  ing himself from a blazing backdrop, clothing alight, skin blistering and
  burning. Stumbling across the laboratory for some kind of safety. He fell,
  rolling across the ﬂoor, trying to put the ﬁre out, mostly succeeding. An-
  other explosion puckered the ﬂoor between them and Fitz couldn’t reach
  him, could only watch as he pulled himself away from the ﬂames, began to
  stumble to his feet, to run.
  Fitz heard Valletti cry out, ‘No!’
  Only then did he see the danger. The Doctor was stumbling towards one
  of the doors that had opened as the 101st ﬂed the room. One that opened
  onto an empty lift shaft.
  ‘Stop him!’ Fitz cried. An ache was building in his ears, his breathing
  was getting heavy. It felt like he was drowning. He could see Valletti,
  stranded in no man’s land, halfway between the Doctor and the comms
  panel. She turned, activated the intercom: ‘Defcon 1! Repeat: Defcon 1!’
  The Doctor reached the lift door, teetered on the edge as the ﬂames
  licked his back, then pitched forward into darkness.
  ‘No!’ Fitz screamed.
  As he screamed, there were explosions all around him, glass cracking.
  And then Fitz knew nothing at all.
  The Doctor fell, trailing smoke and ﬂame, body twisting, careening off the
  201
  
  lift shaft, light strobing through open doorways all the way down. There
  was wind on his face, building stronger and stronger. An acid taste ﬁlled
  the air. He saw but did not really comprehend the bottom of the shaft
  racing towards him. The air pressure increased, as if it were as thick as
  water, slowing his fall, pushing him back.
  And then he could feel it. The speed was draining away, something else
  was taking hold of him, clawing at the ﬂames on his back, trying to draw
  him in. As he tumbled and twisted in the air, he could see it then, a cloud
  racing after him, trying to swallow him whole.
  Even in his shattered state he recognised it. The cloud was the pink of
  the stasis ﬂuid.
  He was slowing, the wind roaring in his ears. The bottom was close
  now. He screamed at the ﬁre on his back, the broken bones from his fall,
  the voice inside his mind.
  He screamed.
  And then the fall ended, the cloud solidifying, catching him on its outer
  edge. There was just enough momentum left to pull him free of its grip.
  And he fell the last two metres to the base of the lift shaft.
  Glancing up, he could see the cloud ﬁlling the shaft. With an electric
  shimmer, it was gas no longer, growing solid. Steam to water to ice in a
  second.
  And there it was, a glistening black wall suspended above him.
  The Doctor’s body screamed with the movement as he turned, reaching
  out to grasp the lip of the shaft, to pull himself up and out through the
  open doorway. He got halfway before the pain became too much. Every
  cell in his body on ﬁre, as though it were ﬁghting itself. He raised his head
  to look down the corridor in front of him.
  And then his strength deserted him and his head fell forward, and his
  eyes ﬂuttered shut, before opening to see. . .
  202
  
  THE SYSTEM COLONIES
  McNamara looked at the squad. The helmets left them anonymous, but
  occasional ﬂashes of light across the visors told him they were reviewing
  orders. All except one: Nine.
  Garvin had seen it too, nodded towards Nine. McNamara just waved
  him away.
  The engines deepened as the dropship hit atmosphere.
  As one, the Professionals formed a line down the centre of the hold.
  The rear door dropped. A purple sky lay beyond. They stepped forward,
  activating thruster packs. Nine was second to last. Like the others, no
  hesitation as he jumped.
  As the door closed, Garvin shook his head. ‘Too soon.’
  ‘He’s been imprinted more than three years. He’s been in-ﬁeld before.’
  ‘On support missions,’ Garvin replied. ‘And it’s not the time that counts,
  you know that.’ He shook his head. ‘The personality imprint registers nor-
  mal, but he’s not ready. I’m not sure he’ll ever be ready. OpTech? Analysis?
  Yes. Not combat.’
  McNamara studied the tactical board as he answered. ‘He’s fast. Faster
  than all the others. Not physically, but the way he thinks. It’s what makes
  him the best of them.’
  ‘In training. He only goes along with it because he knows they’re simu-
  lations.’
  ‘That’s just your theory.’
  McNamara thumbed a nearby control pad. Images from the remote
  drones materialised over the board. He focused in on Nine, who was hold-
  ing the rear as the squad closed on the insurgents’ camp. An idea was
  forming in his mind. Putting Garvin’s theory to the test.
  ‘Patch me in. Closed comms with One, Five, Six and Eight.’
  The sky was purple above, the silhouette of the dropship visible against one
  of the moons. The kind of error that could disrupt the mission proﬁle.
  The Professional returned his attention to the camp. The valley rose
  around it, the other squad members taking position along the ridges. He
  203
  
  was back-up, sited in the marshland at the valley’s exit. The others would
  deliver magnesium charges into the camp, destroying the hostiles in one
  strike.
  That strike wasn’t due for another minute when the ﬁrst explosion
  sounded.
  Consulting the head-up display, the Professional could see half the
  squad hadn’t been in place. As a result, the strike was far from clinical.
  The squad opened ﬁre from the ridges as the insurgents ﬂed.
  The suit registered the sound of the aliens approaching. Cold-blooded,
  they were difﬁcult to detect on the heat sensors. All save one.
  A young man, charging forward, arms and shoulders on ﬁre. The ﬂames
  cast enough light for the Professional now to see the others. Over two
  dozen, ploughing through the marshes.
  The Professional raised the riﬂe to his shoulder. Minimal offensive ca-
  pabilities, already weak and tired, stunned by the attack. Simple targets.
  He scanned back and forth across the advancing line.
  He did not ﬁre.
  He blinked. The suit hissed, a chill in his arm.
  The young man was closer now. The Professional could see the magne-
  sium ﬂames. A ﬁre that would burn for days; a long, slow death.
  Something was itching inside his head. The suit hissed. He swung the
  riﬂe across the group again. A chill in his arm.
  He ﬁred.
  The young man twisted with the impact, fell back into the marsh, ﬂames
  still burning beneath the water. A clean shot, an immediately fatal wound.
  The riﬂe motionless at his shoulder, the Professional locked on to the
  body illuminated beneath the water.
  He saw a different face on the body.
  The Professional raised his visor, looking at the boy with his own eyes.
  One of the hostiles screamed, swung a ﬁst, connecting hard with his face.
  As he rocked backwards, blood streaming from his nose, the insurgents
  moved past him, wading through the marshland, the dropship’s engines
  screamed as it circled around, belly guns raking the waters behind him.
  The Aviator was a state-of-the-art ship, six months out from the lunar dock-
  yards. As its engines ﬁred, driving it back into the system, back towards
  Mars, the deck in McNamara’s cabin shook.
  There was a light pen on his desk; all the holoslide required was his
  signature.
  They’d put theory to the test. Twenty-six hostiles; one kill, the target
  already good as dead.
  204
  
  McNamara picked up the pen.
  There was a knock at the door and Garvin entered. He held a holoslide
  of his own, the black and red lettering marking it EYES ONLY. He nodded
  at the termination order in McNamara’s hand. ‘You might want to delay
  that.’
  ‘You should be pleased. You were right.’
  Garvin handed him the slide. ‘There’s been a development. It’s the
  Charing Cross.’
  ‘Captain Southon’s ship,’ McNamara said, ‘stationed in-system, survey-
  ing. . . ’
  He remembered then, the recollection showing on his face because
  Garvin nodded.
  ‘They’ve found it. Deep in the atmosphere, but intact.’
  There was a pause, then McNamara activated a comms channel:
  ‘Bridge, this is McNamara. I want a secure signal to CapeTown as soon
  as we’re in range.’ He turned to Garvin. ‘I want control of that rescue
  mission.’
  Garvin smiled. ‘I thought you’d be interested.’
  ‘It’s the perfect test for his personality implant.’
  ‘It’ll need work. An increased level of sublimator in the medication,’
  Garvin mused. ‘Maybe some other psychological tricks to reinforce it. It’s
  the core personality held in the subconscious that’s the problem. If we
  could give that some kind of outlet. . . ’
  ‘Details,’ McNamara snapped. ‘Just details to be worked out.’ He sat
  back in his chair, picking up the tumbler of whiskey that had sat untouched
  since he poured it. ‘If he succeeds, we get copies of all the research con-
  ducted at Farside. If he rescues any survivors, that’s our funding secured for
  the next decade.’ He picked up the termination order, smashed it against
  the edge of the desk. ‘And if he fails, he dies a hero and it’s no reﬂection on
  the project.’
  205
  
  JUPITER SPACE
  Now
  . . . that the boy has simply joined the dots the co-ordinates represent to
  produce a simple and elegant picture. One hoof raised, its head turning
  towards him, a unicorn looks out from the pad’s screen.
  Buried memories surface, the tension in his body unwinds and clenches
  over and over. The man known as the Professional runs a hand over his
  face, taking in the changes: the removal of the Mukabis’ implant has left a
  ridge of scar tissue at the back of his skull, his hair is cut back close to the
  scalp, there’s a break in his nose.
  His eyes stay ﬁxed on the picture. Then a shadow falls across him and
  he looks up, blinking.
  Unlike him, her appearance hasn’t changed in the slightest.
  In the four years since they left her in a Martian hospital she hasn’t
  changed one bit. The hair hasn’t grown, there’s no change in body weight,
  no new lines on her face.
  He’s had a bad haircut and hasn’t been acting like himself. But there’s
  nothing so changed that she wouldn’t have recognised him the moment she
  laid eyes on him in the airlock of Farside Station.
  ‘Anji?’ he says.
  She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, smiles. Not a warm smile.
  ‘Well, well, if it isn’t the real Slim Shady.’
  She pivots, twists, one leg arcing around, heel connecting with his jaw.
  His head snaps back. By the time he’s regained his senses Anji is level-
  ling one of the survivors’ weapons at his head. She’s learnt from the airlock
  too, taking a step back, out of reach so he can’t disarm her. She doesn’t say
  anything, just tightens her ﬁnger on the trigger.
  His eyes ﬂick left, tracing movement. Anji thinks it’s a trick and ignores
  it. It’s her one mistake, because a second later she’s bowled over as a bear
  of a man brings her to the ground. Anji and her assailant roll apart, get to
  their feet. The gun is lying on the ﬂoor between them. They look at each
  206
  
  other, then Anji gives the man a last glance and shakes her head.
  Without a word, she turns and walks away; not back into the safety of
  the compound, but straight into the enemy lines and on towards the exit.
  Fires and smoke ﬁll the compound, screams of pain and fear drifting
  across the air. The hulking shadows of the enemy pause, then begin to
  retreat. It’s a slow movement at ﬁrst; they have no conﬁdence in what
  they’re doing. Then, almost as one, this caution is gone and they march
  towards the entrance where Anji Kapoor is waiting.
  The lights are out and the hallway beyond is impossible to see.
  One by one the enemy slip past Anji and on into the dark. Across the
  wreckage of the compound, Anji locks eyes with him once more. Then she
  takes a step back and is lost to shadow.
  There’s a cut on his shoulder and his sleeve is wet with blood, but Robertson
  doesn’t really feel the pain. His head is spinning, his pulse thumping.
  The attack is over.
  When his gun was empty he’d used it as a club, and only when the club
  was broken had he fallen back. He’d reached the Meridian just in time to
  see Anji getting ready to blow the Professional’s head off. If he’d given it
  any thought, he wouldn’t have stopped her. But he’d carried on running,
  catching her before she could ﬁre.
  And now, it’s over.
  There’s something different, though.
  The Professional looks the same, but he moves like a different man.
  There’s a weariness to him and the clipped military movement has gone.
  He’s looking at his hands and his armour like he’s never seen them before.
  And there’s a freedom to his face that wasn’t there before.
  The Professional looks at him and frowns, like he’s trying to remember:
  ‘Robertson?’
  Robertson’s eyes narrow. ‘Who are you?’
  ‘A pity you didn’t ask that days ago,’ the Professional answers.
  ‘Anji said –’
  ‘Anji isn’t quite herself at the moment,’ the Professional whispers.
  ‘There’s been a lot of that going around.’
  ‘Who are you?’ Robertson demands.
  ‘We’ve met before,’ the Professional says. ‘You spoke to me through a
  cell door. I asked you about research capsules and breakages.’
  The face that’s been so cold breaks then, ﬁlling with life. The smile isn’t
  in his mouth, but in his eyes, because as he speaks it seems to Robertson
  that they shine. ‘I’m the Doctor.’
  207
  
  Anji moves through the corridors of the Station, fast but assured.
  The
  enemy follow, oversized bodies and awkward limbs crowding the space
  behind her.
  All the way through her preparations on Mars and the journey here,
  looking for the Doctor and Fitz had been a good cover story. It ﬁtted her
  background, offered a plausible motivation. The only problem was she’d
  never expected to ﬁnd either of them alive. They were four years dead.
  Which had made that ﬁrst encounter in the airlock interesting.
  She’d known straight away there was something wrong with the Profes-
  sional’s face. The face of a dead man. There’d been no emotion in that face,
  no life or soul. Set ﬂat against the world, its lines spoke of hardship not joy.
  Fortunately, although she likes to plan for the future, Anji’s always been
  able to improvise. It was obvious very quickly that he had no recollection
  of her, subsumed in his role as a Professional. Obvious too which urban
  myth the Professionals really were. The question had been how to use that
  knowledge to her advantage.
  Achieving this has pushed Anji to her limits in the past few days. She’s
  had goals of her own: understanding what happened on the Station, what
  it’s being used for, how she can help facilitate that process. But in trying to
  ﬁnd those answers, she’s had to keep the Doctor off the scent. She didn’t
  know him well, but she saw enough to know what he was capable of. Even
  buried under Earth Forces’ armour with his mind locked behind a face of
  stone, he was a threat.
  The Doctor slips the cable home and the defences hum back into life. He
  doesn’t think the enemy will be coming back, but it’s best to be prepared.
  There are things that need to be done and he doesn’t want interruptions.
  The survivors are clustered together, the Meridian a makeshift triage
  unit. He looks at them working for each other: washing wounds, tightening
  bandages, comforting the injured. There are still no dead, but half of them
  are injured, and a half-dozen of those have life-threatening wounds. And
  everyone touched by the enemy has the threat of madness looming over
  them.
  He glances at the blood work on the computer screen.
  Everyone except Anji, it appears.
  Easter approaches, wiping his hands.
  There’s a bandage wrapped
  around his head. The Doctor guesses he has a mild concussion and re-
  ally shouldn’t be practising medicine, but there’s no opportunity for bed
  rest.
  ‘It was Anji.’
  Easter says.
  ‘There’s something wrong with her, isn’t
  there?’
  208
  
  ‘Yes,’ the Doctor replies. ‘One small mistake can lead to the gravest of
  situations. And there’s been more than one mistake made here.’
  ‘What is that thing?’ Easter nods at the screen.
  ‘A virus. Something from Jupiter’s atmosphere, something that escaped
  on to the Station just before the Fall.’
  ‘It doesn’t look like any virus I’ve ever seen.’
  The Doctor looks at the screen, trying hard to put the pieces from the
  past few days together with ones from four years earlier. To join the dots.
  ‘I don’t think it’s a natural phenomenon,’ he says. ‘There’s a pattern to
  the behaviour, a level of resourcefulness that suggests this virus was built
  rather than evolved.’
  Anji can imagine the Doctor right now, sitting down, trying to ﬁgure things
  out.
  How long, she wonders, will it take him to know what she knows?
  It took years for the virus to work its way into her mind. Beyond deﬁn-
  ing her goals, the virus hasn’t delivered any level of awareness. You can
  feel a cold’s impact, but would never know what it’s thinking.
  Her theory goes like this. Whatever the virus encounters, it attempts to
  take over. Those ﬁrst humans it encountered – the squaddies who attacked
  her in the New Jupiter Caf´e – it tried to overwhelm with brute force. Only
  they were more resistant than expected. The resulting neurological conﬂict
  drove them mad.
  ‘Just like it drove the pilot of Pegasus mad,’ the Doctor says.
  ‘I still don’t see how any of this connects to Anji,’ Easter says.
  ‘She received a nasty cut in that ﬁght, the virus was passed on.’
  ‘So why isn’t she insane?’
  The Doctor points at the screen. ‘What are the deﬁning characteristics
  of this virus?’
  ‘Resourceful, adaptable.’
  ‘Exactly,’ the Doctor says. ‘Trying to force control over a human didn’t
  work, so it developed a softly-softly approach.’
  It’s only in retrospect that Anji is able to see how the virus worked its way
  into her system. She hasn’t aged, which suggests it operated in sympathy
  with her body, boosting its immune system, stealthily working its way into
  her genes.
  And as it did that, Anji’s perceptions of the world changed.
  It took four years, but the virus got its way in the end. Anji’s never been
  able to forget Jupiter, it’s part of the virus and so it’s part of her, and over
  209
  
  the past few weeks that memory has become a need. The virus generates
  instincts, not ideas, and she’s felt compelled to get to Jupiter, that there’s
  something here she’s missing, some purpose she’s supposed to ﬁll.
  The discovery of the Station’s continued existence crystallised that in-
  stinct in her head and provided her with the vehicle to interpret the virus’s
  goals. Looking for answers about the Doctor and Fitz allowed her to look
  for the answers to her own questions.
  What is it that’s drawn her here? What links the virus to this place?
  ‘What does it want?’ It’s Robertson approaching, a bandage on his shoulder.
  ‘Good question,’ the Doctor says. ‘One I couldn’t answer four years ago,
  one Anji’s been trying to stop us from asking. Why? There’s a purpose to
  its actions, so what does it want?’ He smiles. ‘I didn’t have all the evidence.
  Not until now.’
  ‘What evidence?’
  Walking the Station corridors, being with the survivors, searching the ﬁles.
  All these things have prompted more of those instinctive responses from
  the virus. Combine those feelings and senses with Anji’s own deductions,
  and she’s ﬁnally got a good idea of what’s happening, what it is that drives
  the virus and has, as a consequence, been driving her.
  Anji imagines David’s transformation is the clue the Doctor needs to
  work it out.
  Without the virus riding his system, he wouldn’t have recognised what
  she had realised about the substance covering the Station’s surfaces. He
  would have needed to see it in action before guessing its purpose.
  ‘When David touched the rust on the barricades, his hand burnt. That’s the
  evidence.’
  ‘You’re still talking in riddles,’ Robertson snaps. ‘And I’ve had enough of
  this.’
  ‘The rust,’ the Doctor says. ‘The rust that’s prevalent everywhere on this
  station except here. It’s a weapon.’
  The virus has one goal, Anji knows. Something that’s written into its being
  and, as such, it’s the motivation she’s been working under.
  Destruction.
  Not random carnage, though. This aggression is targeted.
  ‘We’ll call our virus Fear,’ the Doctor says. ‘And you need to understand its
  purpose to understand its actions. Like any suspect in a crime, you look for
  motive, means and opportunity. Its access to the computers four years ago
  210
  
  provided opportunity. The rust and this station are the means. Which just
  leaves motive.’
  ‘You said it was built,’ Easter replies. ‘That suggests it doesn’t have a
  motive of its own. It would be something it was programmed with.’
  ‘A weapon,’ Robertson says. ‘A biological weapon.’
  ‘Yes.’ The Doctor nods. ‘But what would the purpose of such a weapon
  be?’
  There’s a pause, then Easter says, ‘To destroy its enemy.’
  ‘And that,’ the Doctor breathes, ‘is what I was missing four years ago.’
  When Anji came to Jupiter she didn’t really know why. She recognised the
  trigger – those pictures of its weather patterns stirring recognition – but
  didn’t understand it. It took time in Greenwich Village to appreciate the
  virus’s goal, to ﬁgure out what it was that had made her skin crawl from
  the moment she woke in that cage.
  The virus controlling her has an opposite.
  ‘If our virus is called Fear,’ the Doctor says, ‘we’ll call its opponent Loathing.’
  ‘Another virus,’ Easter says. ‘In Jupiter’s atmosphere?’
  The Doctor nods.
  Easter shakes his head. ‘Too big a coincidence.’
  ‘It isn’t coincidence,’ the Doctor barks. He glares at Easter. ‘Humans.
  Too self-important and obsessed with your own history to think beyond it.
  You’re not the ﬁrst race to walk among the stars.’ He slams the palm of his
  hand against the terminal. ‘Why conduct weapons research in space? Why
  not Brasilia or Munich?’
  ‘There’s a danger to civilian populations if –’
  ‘Exactly,’ the Doctor snaps. ‘You’re not the ﬁrst species that ever wanted
  to protect itself. Not the ﬁrst that needed a safe place for research. The
  scientists here were in an arms race. Racing time, unknown enemies, each
  other.’ He breathes deeply, calming himself. ‘Think about Mars: one virus
  released in retaliation for another. Something similar happened on Jupiter
  thousands of years ago. Only here it was two weapons, both with very
  similar aims and abilities.’
  ‘Jupiter was a testing ground in an arms race.’
  ‘Or a last battleﬁeld,’ the Doctor says. ‘We’ll probably never know which.
  Either way, Fear and Loathing have been locked in a stalemate for millen-
  nia, just waiting for something to break the deadlock.’
  ‘Us,’ Easter says.
  The Doctor nods. ‘A virtual replica of Fear got loose on the Station,
  using everything it could ﬁnd to destroy Loathing. And it kept on looking
  211
  
  and testing until it found a way to win.’
  The rust, Anji knows, is a weapon. An advanced biological weapon whose
  reassuring touch can mean only one thing: it’s been engineered to kill off
  the opposite once and for all.
  The virus that’s controlling her likes to use things. To bend them to its
  purpose. Wherever they’ve come from, somehow the creatures behind her
  are in the same thrall as Anji herself. They all serve the same master: the
  virus. And so they all have the same enemy: the virus’s opposite.
  Anji is guessing these creatures, the survivors’ enemy, were responsible
  for sowing the seeds for the new biological attack against the opposite.
  That for the past four years the body of the Station has acted like a giant
  Petri dish, slowly being transformed into this weapon.
  ‘Fear used the Station computers to leapfrog the limits of its evolution. It
  worked out a formula for a new weapon that was advanced enough to
  eradicate Loathing. You only have to look at how the rust burnt David’s
  hand to see how effective it’s been.’
  Easter shakes his head. ‘No, that doesn’t make sense. How would David
  be vulnerable to –’
  ‘He’s been infected by Loathing.’ The Doctor looks at Robertson and
  Easter. ‘Every one of your group has.’ He gives them a moment to absorb
  this, then asks: ‘Do you remember the Pegasus?’
  Robertson nods.
  ‘On some level, when the pilot tried to destroy the ship in Jupiter’s
  atmosphere he was attempting to carry out the virus’s mission. He’d dived
  into a pocket of Loathing, some of which attached itself to the ship.’
  The Doctor pauses; remembers Valletti being called away from dinner
  for a sensor glitch in the docking bay, remembers Jason McCray washing
  down the ship’s hull, remembers the stain on Jason’s journal, his tests,
  feeding the results into the computer for analysis.
  ‘Fear detected Loathing on board. It blew the Pegasus up in an effort to
  destroy it, tried the same again when it found it in my quarters. It didn’t
  matter; enough survived the Pegasus’s destruction to infest this docking
  bay.’ The Doctor looks at them both. ‘Over the past four years, you’ve all
  been touched by it. The ReGene unit simply rebuilt David according to his
  mutated biology.’
  The Station, Anji has worked out, is a bomb.
  The changing weather patterns around them will deliver its yield all
  over Jupiter, decimating the opposite. The only thing that isn’t immediately
  evident is what constitutes the detonator.
  212
  
  However, the presence of the enemy, their ReGene unit, and the way
  they recognise and react to the virus she carries suggests a plan. The virus
  has no substantive physical presence; it can only use and inﬂuence what is
  around it. As it has with the rust, the survivors and the enemy.
  The detonator must be on board the Station. And there’s only one place
  it can be. With the enemy still following, Anji rounds a corner. The energy
  barrier shimmers in front of her.
  The Doctor shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘You’re not ﬁghting a war.
  You never have been. You’re just caught in the crossﬁre from someone else’s
  battle.’
  There’s a pause, then Easter says, ‘One thing. I understand, at least, I
  think I understand what you’re saying about this virus.’
  ‘Yes?’ the Doctor prompts.
  ‘The body, the one we found before the Fall, the one we thought was
  Jason. That was you?’
  ‘I’d been badly hurt,’ the Doctor nods. ‘My DNA was in ﬂux; a cursory
  scan would have found just enough to make a match.’
  ‘How is that possible?’
  There’s a long answer to that, the Doctor knows. One that involves his
  body’s regenerative qualities. When he’d been hurt, he’d felt something
  pushing through his blood. A chemical release that had ﬁnally purged Fear
  from his system. It felt like a precursor to a bigger event, like a caterpillar
  wrapping itself in a chrysalis. As if some physical change was coming.
  If his body were capable of that it would be a natural version of a Re-
  Gene unit, reaching out across the link, trying to ﬁnd a pattern to base
  the repairs on. But as soon as he’d noticed it happening, as soon as he’d
  thought about it, it had stopped. As if a shutter had come down across that
  part of his mind.
  This is the long answer. It’s not the one Easter is pushing him for.
  He looks at them, unﬂinching, and says, ‘Because I’m not human.’
  There’s a pause. ‘You need to decide whom you trust.’
  Anji has a plan. For now, all it involves is waiting.
  As she waits, the enemy cluster around her. They seem confused. At
  some level they recognise the virus within her; probably from when they
  tasted her blood during the ﬁght. It’s what drew them to mass against
  Greenwich Village, it’s why they’ve been following her like pets ever since.
  They seem uneasy just waiting.
  Anji wonders if they understand her. Says, ‘Sit down.’
  There’s a moment’s hesitation, then they follow the instruction.
  213
  
  Anji smiles.
  Easter and Robertson have gone, leaving the Doctor alone.
  It felt good to put the pieces together. It distracted him from the mem-
  ories.
  One hundred years ago he’d woken on a train, the sound of the engine
  in his ears, smoke and steam in his mouth. He had a name – Doctor – and
  a note leading him to a rendezvous a century distant, and that was all.
  He’d thought not knowing was the worst thing that could happen to a
  person. To be cut adrift from your past and left to ﬁnd your own way.
  Robertson and Easter have left him alone and he knows now there are
  worse things than not knowing. Because he remembers.
  He remembers talking to Fitz Kreiner four years ago. This ball bit is
  where the important people live, Fitz had said. Whereas out here is where you
  ﬁnd your minions. And never the twain shall meet. The Doctor had been im-
  pressed, but had somehow barely ventured out of the central hub, spending
  his time with command and the researchers. He’d barely been glimpsed by
  the people out here. One face in a crowd, seen for a moment in moments
  of chaos. Four years later it was no surprise they hadn’t recognised him.
  ‘There are worse things than not knowing,’ he whispers.
  The Professional is a construct, a personality implanted in his head by
  Earth Forces, his own mind buried by conditioning and drug therapy. The
  Professional, he knows, is not him. But everything the Professional has
  done, he remembers.
  His body learning unarmed combat at Marineris base. His hands strip-
  ping down a plasma riﬂe. His eyes absorbing mission brieﬁngs.
  He remembers looking at a purple sky and three silver moons. Explo-
  sions echoing down the valley, the distant scream of a dropship’s engines.
  The splash of movement as the insurgents wade through marshland to-
  wards him.
  He remembers a young man among them, arms and shoulders on ﬁre;
  the residue of magnesium charges that will never burn out. He remembers
  the sight resonating with something forgotten inside. He remembers the
  chill of medication pumping into his arm. And he remembers raising the
  plasma riﬂe as the young man nears.
  Another mercy killing.
  ‘This is not who I am,’ he whispers.
  It feels as if his whole body is sucked into those memories. His knees
  buckle and he stumbles, catching himself. And he stops then, breathing
  hard, looking at the thing he is holding on to. The crutch he has propped
  himself up against.
  214
  
  Has he come so far only to fall again?
  ‘This is not who I am,’ he says.
  He is dimly aware of noise in the background. There are shouts and
  raised voices over a constant murmur of conversation. Robertson, Easter,
  the rest of them, wondering where to go from here.
  The Doctor pushes up on the crutch. Slow steps, regaining his balance,
  turning to where the meeting is. He holds the crutch in one hand, looks
  down at it, then back to the survivors. The ﬁrst step is hesitant, the second
  stronger, the one after that stronger again.
  By the time they see him, those steps are a stride, infused with passion
  and purpose. His eyes are locked, unwavering, on the centre of their group
  and the survivors part before him, the noise and hubbub dropping away.
  He pauses, turns, lets everyone see him.
  They looked at him like this before, when he was the Professional. The
  same mix of uncertainty and wonder. Only last time those looks also held
  hope for the future. Hope now replaced by fear.
  This is not who I am.
  He takes the crutch in both hands, raises it high above his head. And,
  in a sudden snatch of movement, brings it down as he snaps his right leg
  up. The plasma riﬂe breaks over his knee, links popping, components shat-
  tering, trigger falling away. His hands open and the two halves fall to the
  ﬂoor, sputtering, sparking. Dying.
  ‘Everyone is getting out of here alive,’ he says. ‘Everyone.’
  The ﬁrst thing he does is repair the ReGene unit. Robertson watches the
  Doctor tear it open, furiously rewiring the innards. When he’s done, he
  mutters Sara Mukabi’s name and says, ‘Two can play at that game.’ Then
  he starts running a sample of David’s blood through the machine. Robert-
  son can’t follow what’s happening.
  According to Easter, he’s reﬁning it
  somehow.
  Robertson leaves them to it.
  He ﬁnds Caroline on their bunk, a blanket around her shoulders, a blank
  look of defeat on her face as she smiles at him.
  ‘I got it wrong, Robbie,’ she whispers. ‘I got it so wrong and it nearly
  cost us, it nearly cost us everyth–’
  ‘Hush,’ Robertson says as he sits down next to her. She ﬁngers the cut
  across his shoulder. He smiles. ‘It doesn’t hurt too much.’
  ‘This place.’ Caroline shakes her head. ‘It’s this place. It isn’t me, Robbie,
  it was never who I am.’
  And Robertson laughs. ‘I know. I know who you are, remember?’ He
  turns her face towards him, gently kisses her forehead. ‘I never forgot.
  215
  
  Neither did you. This place? It’s just a place, Caroline. It’s just a place.’
  Caroline says nothing, looking away as her lips tighten and her body
  stiffens. Robertson pulls her to him, wraps his arms around her as her head
  presses against his chest and her body shakes, shivering with cold and years
  of tiredness and exhaustion.
  Her body shakes with tears.
  They sit like that for a long time, holding on to each other, only breaking
  apart when they hear footsteps approaching.
  The Doctor raps on the door frame. ‘Sorry to intrude,’ he says, ‘but I
  need help. Someone to get the people here organised.’
  ‘For what?’ Robertson asks.
  ‘Escape,’ the Doctor answers. ‘There’s a lot to do and they need to be
  ready. Everyone needs to know the rendezvous point, everyone needs to
  take responsibility for getting at least one of the Wounded there.’
  Caroline wipes her tears. ‘The Wounded can’t travel. We don’t have the
  –’
  ‘You’ll have help. There’ll be medical teams here within the hour.’ He
  nods outside. ‘Easter’s going to be busy and –’
  ‘I’ll do it,’ Robertson says.
  The Doctor smiles. ‘You’re not the one I’m asking. It needs to be some-
  one everyone knows and respects.’ He pauses. ‘Not that they don’t respect
  you. It’s just that you’re coming with me.’
  They’re running down the corridors now. Robertson wears Anji’s spacesuit:
  the joints and seals expand enough to make it adaptable to each wearer,
  but it’s still a snug ﬁt. He’s taken enough radiation in the past couple of
  days so he doesn’t see how wearing it makes a difference, but the Doctor’s
  insistent.
  And it’s the Doctor who’s in the lead, pausing at a junction to get his
  bearings, then turning left, off the safe paths, in towards the central hub.
  ‘Anji’s smart,’ he explains. ‘She’s probably well aware of what’s hap-
  pened here. If we’re going to make it out alive, we need to regain the
  initiative.’
  ‘I don’t understand.’
  The Doctor runs his ﬁngers along the wall, lifting some of the rust. ‘This
  Station is a bomb waiting to be detonated. Fortunately the fuse hasn’t burnt
  down yet.’ He drops down through an open set of lift doors, beckoning
  Robertson after him.
  ‘Primarily because it’s safe behind that.’
  The energy barrier shimmers above them. The Doctor examines the
  sensor readings from his suit, nodding to himself. ‘Just as I thought. The
  216
  
  power’s dropped off a fraction over the past couple of days.’
  ‘Am I here just to ask questions?’ Robertson says.
  ‘No,’ the Doctor answers. ‘I need your help.’ He nods at the barrier. ‘Your
  energy barrier is actually a suspension of stasis ﬂuid. Very volatile and,
  given the right stimulation, the kind of liquid that will increase its volume
  exponentially. When Fear got the chance, it gave it just that stimulation.’
  ‘Exponentially?’ Robertson says. ‘How come it didn’t swallow the whole
  Station.’
  ‘The air pressure was adjusted, slowing the expansion long enough to
  run an electrical charge through the cloud. At just the right frequency to
  solidify it. That charge is wearing off. In a few weeks’ time the suspension
  would dissipate, releasing everyone and everything inside.’
  The Doctor
  leans over, begins adjusting controls on the suit Robertson is wearing. ‘We
  need to get into the central hub before Anji does.’
  ‘She’s going to light this fuse?’
  ‘That fuse has been burning down for four years; Anji just wants to stop
  me snufﬁng it out.’
  The Doctor ﬁnishes his alterations and unravels a lead from the suit’s
  wrist unit. He positions Robertson on one side of the lift shaft then crosses
  to the other and extends a lead of his own. ‘When I say, all I need you to
  do is insert the probe into the suspension.’
  ‘And what will that do?’
  ‘We’re releasing a countercurrent to the one holding the suspension in
  place. Ready? Now.’
  Robertson plunges the probe into the energy barrier. Nothing happens.
  He glances across at the Doctor, who’s studying the screen on his wrist.
  ‘The Mukabis’ lab is on level six,’ the Doctor says. ‘How far from there
  to the reactor controls?’
  Robertson shrugs. ‘Another half-dozen ﬂoors. Why?’
  ‘We’re not going to have much time.’ The Doctor nods at the energy
  barrier. ‘Get ready to take hold of my back.’
  Robertson can’t see it at ﬁrst. Then a ripple ﬂows across the black sur-
  face. And then the energy barrier shakes and begins to dissipate before his
  eyes, pockmarks appearing in its surface suddenly disguised by a gaseous
  haze. A suspension of stasis ﬂuid, the Doctor said. Now dissipating, re-
  treating back up the lift shaft.
  Anji still can’t guess what the energy barrier is, but she’s sure the Doctor
  knows. And if he knows, he’s likely to collapse it.
  Because he’ll have worked out what Anji’s worked out. The best deto-
  nators for this biological weapon are the Station’s fusion reactors. So Anji
  217
  
  has placed herself at the ready on level twelve, as close as she can get to
  reactor control.
  The enemy begin to shift uneasily. Anji looks over her shoulder.
  The energy barrier is vanishing.
  Noise echoes where there has only been silence, light ﬁlters down pre-
  viously dark corridors. People, machinery, the hum of electrics. Whatever
  the plan to overload the reactors is, the Doctor’s going to try to thwart it.
  She looks at the enemy, tells them: ‘The man I was with. Find him, kill
  him.’
  Movement catches Fitz’s eyes and then he sees him, a man of ﬁre, free-
  ing himself from a blazing backdrop, clothing alight, skin blistering and
  burning. Stumbling across the laboratory for some kind of safety. He falls,
  rolling across the ﬂoor, trying to put the ﬁre out, mostly succeeding. An-
  other explosion puckers the ﬂoor between them and Fitz can’t reach him,
  can only watch as he pulls himself away from the ﬂames, begins to stumble
  to his feet, to run.
  Fitz hears Valletti cry out, ‘No!’
  Only then does he see the danger. The Doctor is stumbling towards one
  of the doors that had opened as the 101st ﬂed the room. One that opens
  on to an empty lift shaft.
  ‘Stop him!’ Fitz cries. An ache is building in his ears, his breathing is
  getting heavy. It feels like he’s drowning. He can see Valletti, stranded in no
  man’s land, halfway between the Doctor and the comms panel. She turns,
  activates the intercom: ‘Defcon 1! Repeat: Defcon 1!’
  The Doctor reaches the lift door, teeters on the edge as the ﬂames lick
  his back, then pitches forward into darkness.
  ‘No!’ Fitz screams.
  As he screams, there are explosions all around him, glass cracking.
  There’s a moment of cold disorientation and Fitz shakes his head, blink-
  ing hard to clear a stinging from his eyes. Jason is ﬂailing against him.
  Through blurred vision Fitz sees Valletti by the comms panel, coughing;
  Sara Mukabi trying to ﬁnd a way through the ﬂames to her husband.
  Fitz should be looking for an escape route, but he can’t help himself.
  He skirts the ﬁre, edging towards the lift shaft. There’s a whistle of air
  and a thump as something hits the wall near his head and he stumbles
  backwards, falling over.
  ‘What the –’
  There’s an electric whine and two ﬁgures – one clinging on to the other
  – spring up over the lip of the shaft.
  There’s a click as the lead ﬁgure
  disconnects the grappling line from his spacesuit.
  218
  
  Fitz blinks through the smoke at one of the ﬁgures. ‘Robbie?’ he says.
  Then he takes a good look at the other man, looks past the shaven head
  and broken nose, and sees –
  ‘Isolate the reactors!’ the Doctor shouts.
  He walks through the ﬂames towards Valletti. ‘We’re short on time,
  Jennifer.
  If you want your crew to live, use your command codes and
  isolate those reactors now!’
  Valletti looks at him for a long moment, her mouth wide open. Then she
  sees something and a dark look crosses her face. Fitz thinks she’s only just
  recognised the Doctor, that she’s about to pull a gun or something. Instead,
  she turns and enters a code into the comms pad.
  The Doctor nods, satisﬁed. ‘Thank you.’ He looks at Valletti. ‘What
  made you trust me?’
  ‘The insignia,’ she says. ‘On your armour. Marineris base.’
  Robertson is working on a wall panel and seconds later sprinklers burst
  into life.
  The Doctor reaches down, grasps Fitz’s hand, hauls him to his feet. ‘How
  are you, Fitz?’ he asks.
  Fitz’s mouth opens silently as he studies the Doctor’s face. Then he notes
  the damp residue over the nearby surfaces and his own clothes and skin.
  A faint trace of electric-pink, just like. . . He turns, sees the stasis capsules
  smashed behind them and ﬁnally answers: ‘Suspended animation. You?’
  ‘Burnt to the brink of death, ejected, rescued, restored, mind-wiped and
  drafted into Earth Forces’ Special Ops.’
  Fitz sucks his teeth, nods authoritatively: ‘Same old, same old, then.’
  ‘If it hadn’t been for the last remnant of AuDoc trying to remind me who
  I am, I might still have been playing with guns.’ The Doctor turns to Valletti,
  contempt ﬂashing across his eyes. ‘The Professional programme at work.
  Brainwashing alien prisoners into thinking they’re human, press-ganging
  them into ﬁghting for Earth.
  You strip away every trace of personality,
  culture, who they are.’ He shakes his head. ‘As you said, a monstrous
  abomination.’
  Caroline Arquette feels the Station judder. Moments later the lights ﬂicker.
  She’s standing at the door of Greenwich Hospital, marshalling the rest of
  the survivors.
  ‘Robbie,’ she whispers. ‘What are you doing out there?’
  ‘Four years?’ Sara Mukabi scoffs.
  ‘He’s not talking to you,’ Fitz snaps. The Doctor smiles a ‘thank you’,
  then returns his attention to Valletti, who is taking damage reports from
  219
  
  her staff.
  ‘Tell them to check the computer systems for the reactors,’ the Doctor
  says. ‘There’ll be an overload routine buried in there somewhere, some-
  thing set to trigger as the stasis ﬁeld collapsed.’
  Valletti nods. ‘They’ve already found it.’ She looks at Terrance Mukabi.
  ‘What do your systems say?’
  ‘Same as C&C. We’re several thousand kilometres down in Jupiter’s at-
  mosphere with a disparity between the chronometers in the central hub
  and the outer rings.’ He looks at his wife. ‘A four-year disparity.’
  ‘Your stasis ﬂuid, pervasive enough to stop cellular decay and halt com-
  puter systems in their tracks. Another triumph of misjudgement.’ The Doc-
  tor looks at Valletti. ‘I can’t explain everything right now, but you have to
  trust me. If we’re going to get everyone off this station I need your help.’
  Valletti shakes her head. ‘It’s a lot to take in, Doctor. I can’t forget –’
  And then Fitz realises that the Doctor isn’t even looking at her any more.
  The door to the lift shaft is still open and there’s a sound echoing through
  it.
  The Doctor pulls Valletti aside as something huge appears in the open
  doorway. Fitz sees a confused blur of motion as Robertson raises his gun
  and ﬁres. The thing in the doorway leaps towards the Doctor, who takes
  hold of the creature as it ﬂies at him, pivots and tumbles, ﬂipping it over
  his head. He doesn’t let go as it rolls, but holds on, riding the movement,
  and as the creature lands on its front the Doctor is somehow on its back,
  reaching up into the chaos of the wreckage and snatching a cable.
  There’s a burst of electrics, blue ﬂashes strobe across the lab, then it’s
  over.
  Fitz looks over to the lift shaft, sees shadows moving. ‘There’s more of
  them.’
  ‘Have you got control yet?’ Valletti shouts at Terrance Mukabi.
  He nods. ‘I think so.’
  ‘Then shut the damn doors and activate the security nets.’
  As the Doctor pulls the ﬁzzing cable away from the creature’s head the
  lift doors slam shut. Beyond, Fitz can hear the familiar sound of pinpoint
  lasers.
  The Doctor looks at Valletti. ‘You wanted proof?’ he says. ‘Take a good
  look.’ He points to the creature’s limbs. ‘Remind you of anything? A sword
  and a scythe, perhaps?’
  Then he reaches down and pushes the spider-
  like head forward, revealing the blackened patch where he plunged in the
  electric cable. There’s a hint of silver in its centre. ‘Or how about that?’
  Jason McCray has been sitting curled up in a corner since Robertson
  treated his burns. He unfolds himself now and crosses to where the crea-
  220
  
  ture lies, frowning at it, reaching towards the metallic shape with one hand,
  touching the back of his head with the other.
  Fitz blinks. ‘That’s one of those implants, isn’t it?’
  ‘Because this is one of the 101st.’ The Doctor draws a lead from the
  wreckage, slides it home in the implant.
  He glares at Sara Mukabi. ‘I don’t think much of your safeguards. Each
  one downloaded with a set of simple instructions. Go here, do this and
  continue until told otherwise.’
  A computer screen ﬂickers with information.
  Chemical equations; a
  map of the Station, certain areas highlighted; a half-dozen sentences of
  text.
  ‘Design for the ReGene unit,’ the Doctor mutters to himself. ‘Formula for
  the rust and where to seed it. Indicators for the presence of the biological
  virus.’ He pulls the lead clear of the implant and turns to Valletti. ‘Take a
  look. The eyes, the skin, the joints, the way they move. Those familiarities
  that Earth Forces have worked so hard to create? The atmosphere ﬁlters,
  the bottles of wine? These creatures are intended to create the opposite
  reaction.’
  ‘Alienation,’ Valletti says.
  ‘I wonder whose ﬁles our virus got that idea from?’
  Fitz realises Robertson has been looking at the enemy body, thinking
  something through. ‘The ReGene unit,’ Robertson says. ‘The 101st used it
  to turn themselves into this?’
  The Doctor nods. ‘Fear needed you to keep the Station intact. It kept
  the reactors safe and the command staff neutralised behind the stasis ﬁeld.
  It left the rest of you outside to make sure the Station survived long enough
  to complete its transformation.’ He gestures to the prone creature. ‘Those
  men lacked the knowledge to do that. But a few commands downloaded
  into their implants were enough. A design to program into the ReGene
  unit, then orders to keep you ﬁghting for survival, stop you thinking too
  hard about what happened.’
  He pauses.
  ‘You’ve done well, but it’s no
  coincidence that all the people you needed were in the outer ring when the
  Station fell.’
  As the Doctor speaks Fitz realises exactly what the rogue video-screen
  he saw was. The Doctor’s virus, running simulation after simulation, un-
  til it found the right combination of events and personnel to achieve the
  outcome it was after.
  Valletti is staring impassively at the creature. Her eyes are ﬁxed on
  the shining metal of the implant.
  ‘Collective strength can be a terrible
  weakness,’ she says.
  ‘Yes.’
  221
  
  ‘You told me that.’
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘I didn’t believe you. I should have.’
  ‘There’s still time,’ the Doctor says. ‘Please, do as I asked.’
  Valletti looks up at him and nods. She activates the comms panel: ‘This
  is Commander Valletti. I am ordering the evacuation of this facility. Med-
  ical staff report to the docking bay with supplies of sedatives, and follow
  the orders of Lieutenant Easter and Technician Arquette.’ She glances at
  the Doctor, who nods. ‘All other personnel assemble in Recreation Hall
  One in the North Tower immediately. Standard procedures are voided. All
  personnel report to the North Tower for evacuation.’
  Valletti releases the switch, turns back to the Doctor. ‘What now?’
  ‘I need access to the Station’s transmitter,’ the Doctor says. ‘Beyond that,
  it’s up to you.’
  Valletti nods and draws her side arm. She looks down at the creature, a
  sword and a scythe in place of hands.
  ‘The best and the brightest.’ She shakes her head bitterly. ‘Now look at
  them.’
  She raises the gun, turning towards the Mukabis. ‘The Riley Act was
  passed for a reason. There’s people and there’s technology. And one’s got
  no place dictating the feelings of another.’
  Sara snarls, ‘This isn’t something you can –’
  Valletti looks at Terrance. ‘Get your wife out of here. Stop to collect any
  of your data and I’ll shoot you myself.’
  ‘You’ve no right to –’
  ‘This is my station, my command,’ Valletti barks.
  ‘You operate here
  under my authority, in my name. And I never should have agreed to this
  project.’
  She pushes Sara Mukabi out of the way and studies the console for a
  moment, one hand resting on the controls. Then she raises her weapon
  and ﬁres into the heart of the computer banks. ‘Project Avatar dies with
  this station.’
  Corridors silent for years resound with noise. There’s confusion – reports of
  alien creatures breaking from the lift shafts and a civilian pushing through
  the central hub – but purpose also.
  Some areas are unsafe, others blocked.
  The shock as systems four
  years out of synch attempt to reintegrate with dilapidated and jury-rigged
  equipment produces ﬁres and short-circuits. The network of controls and
  thrusters that the survivors have been using to control the Station’s position
  begin to misﬁre.
  222
  
  The Station shakes and bucks beneath them as the exodus begins.
  O’Connell is asleep at the shuttle’s controls when the signal sounds. Dream-
  ing of a bar he knew back in Marseilles, he jerks awake, an imaginary pres-
  sion at his lips. Three days of extended orbit with old sports and older
  movies, waiting for a call that’s never going to come. Except the signal he’s
  receiving now shows a unique tag. The Professional.
  O’Connell swears and opens the channel. The eyes are there, cold and
  unblinking.
  ‘Prepare for intercept,’ the Professional says.
  ‘What?’
  O’Connell manages, then looks at the co-ordinates on the
  screen. He shakes his head, checks the reading from the Charing Cross’s
  subspace buoy, then says, ‘There’s nothing there. You’re twenty clicks be-
  low that position. An escape capsule is never travelling that far in a straight
  line in this weather.’
  ‘That’s where I want your shuttle and I want it there in less than thirty
  minutes. On your way in, you’re going to vent the auxiliary fuel tanks, then
  ﬂush them and pump in clean air. You have your orders.’
  ‘There’s nothing there!’ O’Connell answers.
  There’s a pause as O’Connell realises what he’s just said. The Profes-
  sional looks out of the screen at him. ‘You know me, O’Connell. You know
  what I’m capable of. If you’re not at that rendezvous point, you won’t have
  to worry about Earth Forces discovering the bribe Kapoor gave you. You’ll
  have to worry about me.’
  The screen clicks off. For a moment O’Connell thinks about breaking
  orbit and burning the engines all the way back to Mars. He thinks about it.
  You’ll have to worry about me.
  Then he tips the nose down for atmospheric entry and starts purging
  the fuel tanks.
  Valletti insists on coming with them. This is how her people survived the
  past four years and she needs to know what happened. As they push on
  through the outer rings, she’s amazed at the Station’s condition beyond the
  central hub. As they close on the docking bay, they begin to pass survivors
  coming in the opposite direction.
  Some are faces she recognises.
  But just like when she caught sight
  of Robertson in the Mukabis’ lab, these are not the people she knew but
  phantom versions of them. It’s hard to take in, difﬁcult to meet their eyes.
  As they pass, she nods encouragement, tells them to keep moving.
  Further on, and they meet a chain of people carrying stretchers, shep-
  herding confused and half-naked men and women.
  223
  
  ‘Holy Mother,’ Valletti whispers.
  Caroline Arquette is there, directing the efforts as the medical teams
  subdue the insane and hand them over to those who are escorting them to
  the North Tower. It’s a dark and dirty life they’ve lived, and Valletti wonders
  how on earth they managed to survive in this place. Then she feels a hand
  on her arm and ﬁnds the Doctor at her side.
  ‘You trained them well,’ he says. ‘They survived this because you showed
  them how.’
  Another ghost face appears before them. Joshua Easter, dark shadows
  beneath his eyes, lines on his face. He’s pushing a trolley containing four
  glass canisters.
  ‘This is as much as I could get,’ he says to the Doctor. ‘The repairs burnt
  out halfway through the –’
  ‘This will be ﬁne,’ the Doctor assures him. He looks at Easter and then
  Robertson. ‘Are you ready?’
  They nod and he smiles at Valletti. ‘The quickest way to the defence
  bays, please?’
  Easter and the Doctor disappear around the corner, following Commander
  Valletti. Robertson knows the way, though, and can catch up. He pauses
  as he reaches the barricades. He knows what’s coming and he knows that,
  whatever happens, he’s never returning to this place.
  He looks up above the doors, to the unevenly painted letters marking
  this Greenwich Village. His ﬁefdom once upon a time, the community he
  helped build. It feels like he’s lived his entire life here.
  Across the compound, past the showers he helped to rig and the com-
  puter terminals they built and the habitats they scraped together, he can
  see his wife. She’s working hard, pointing and shouting at the orderlies,
  making sure everyone’s accounted for. And then there’s a moment when
  she suddenly ﬁnds herself with nothing to do and her head falls forward, a
  brief surrender to tiredness.
  Robertson remembers a girl with a wicked smile who would dance all
  night.
  The entrance to Greenwich Village is dark with shadow and he knows
  she can’t see him. He looks at her as she picks herself up and starts pointing
  again, and he smiles.
  ‘I love you,’ he whispers, then turns and starts after the others.
  The reactors throb, energy ﬂaring up one enormous tower and down an-
  other.
  224
  
  Fitz is standing on the gantry that runs around the edge of the room.
  Passing the last remaining technicians on the way in, he’d smiled and told
  them to contact Commander Valletti if they were worried about what he
  was doing there. He suspects they were too busy running for their lives to
  follow his advice.
  ‘Amateurs,’ he mutters, then takes another drag on his cigarette.
  The Doctor’s instructions were clear and easy to follow. He’d left Fitz
  with four things to do. One he accomplished on his way; the second he
  completed two minutes ago. Since then, he’s been standing there, leaning
  back against the reactor control console, waiting for the third thing on his
  list to turn up.
  When he hears her footsteps Fitz ﬂicks the cigarette away, watches it
  spiral into the darkness below. Then he looks up and smiles. ‘Hi, Anji.’
  ‘Oh, look,’ Anji says. ‘The comedy sidekick. No dumb blondes or beer
  down here.’ She doesn’t break stride, just continues walking around the
  gantry towards him. ‘Get out of my way.’
  According to the Doctor, both Anji and the 101st were infected by the
  same thing; only Anji got the real Fear virus while the 101st had its virtual
  version download itself into their heads. According to the Doctor, both Anji
  and the 101st have been working to destroy Fear’s enemy, the other virus,
  the one the Doctor called Loathing. According to the Doctor, Fitz shouldn’t
  worry about what he’s got to do because it’s not really Anji.
  All of which is very easy for the Doctor to say because he’s not the one
  who’s going to have to stop her.
  Fitz draws the pistol Valletti found for him. ‘You don’t need to do this,’
  he says.
  ‘Because somewhere deep inside part of me is still ﬁghting this? Deep
  down I just don’t want to do this? Well, let me tell you something –’
  ‘No,’ Fitz says, nodding at the console. ‘You don’t need to do this, be-
  cause I’ve already done it for you.’ He sees her eyes ﬂick to the controls,
  scanning the readouts. ‘The reactors should blow in about twenty minutes.’
  Anji continues walking towards him. A few more steps and she’ll be
  within touching distance.
  ‘And if you’re worried about this gun,’ Fitz says, ‘don’t be. It isn’t for
  you.’ He turns and ﬁres three times into the console, wrecking the controls.
  ‘I think you’ll ﬁnd that countdown is now pretty irreversible.’
  Anji stops walking, looks at the console in confusion, then turns back to
  Fitz as he takes a step forward and punches her in the head. The butt of
  the gun connects with her temple and she crumples to the ground.
  Fitz tucks the gun into his jacket, then bends over to hoist Anji up over
  his shoulder. With one hand holding her, he uses the other to place another
  225
  
  cigarette in his mouth.
  ‘Amateurs,’ Fitz says, shaking his head.
  O’Connell’s shuttle closes on the rendezvous point. The weather’s kicking
  him around the cockpit and he’s worried about his fuel levels. The Charing
  Cross can rendezvous when they make open space. But while the auxiliary
  tanks are clean enough to host a dinner party, they’re not going to help
  when the time comes to clear Jupiter’s gravity well. He can hold position
  for maybe ﬁfteen minutes, but that’s it. After that, even if the Professional
  does make it, there’s little chance of clearing Jupiter’s atmosphere.
  O’Connell checks his instruments. The Station is still twenty clicks be-
  low and there’s no indication of any incoming vessel.
  He shakes his head. ‘I should have run.’
  Robertson’s keeping watch down the long corridor that leads into the de-
  fence bays. Behind him the Doctor and Valletti are slotting the third of
  Easter’s glass canisters into a waiting torpedo. Robertson squints into the
  distance, then calls over his shoulder: ‘I think they’re coming.’
  ‘I love a dog with a good sense of smell,’ the Doctor says, snapping a
  cover into place. ‘Detonators set, safeties disengaged.’
  ‘Lock and load,’ Valletti mutters, sliding the torpedo home in a launch
  tube.
  The Doctor slams the cover behind it, raises his hand over the ﬁring
  controls. He looks at Robertson. ‘Ready?’
  Robertson nods and the Doctor presses the ﬁre button. The room shud-
  ders as the torpedoes launch.
  The Doctor counts down on his ﬁngers. ‘Five. Four. Thr–’
  ‘They’re here!’ Robertson shouts, backing across the room to the other
  exit.
  None of them hears the torpedoes detonate. The room is suddenly ﬁlled
  with noise as the enemy sweep into the chamber.
  Robertson stumbles, but the Doctor catches his arm, pulls him upright.
  Valletti is in front, reaches the exit ﬁrst. A claw scythes the air behind the
  Doctor and Robertson, and they throw themselves through the doorway.
  Valletti activates the locking mechanism and the door slams down behind
  them, the enemy battering against it.
  ‘Now!’ the Doctor says. Further up the corridor Easter is crouched next
  to a conduit, feeding the last remaining canister into the environmental
  controls. The purple liquid drains away, reappearing as gas inside the de-
  fence bay. The hammering on the door gets more and more intense.
  ‘What is that?’ Valletti asks.
  226
  
  ‘A concentrated dose of Loathing,’ the Doctor answers, ‘extracted from
  David Verger’s blood.’ He peers through the glass window, watching dis-
  passionately as the 101st thrash and fall. ‘I only hope the torpedoes are
  having a similar effect on the Fear living in the atmosphere.’
  O’Connell’s own deadline is getting closer and he’s still wondering what
  the hell the Professional’s playing at.
  Then the shuttle kicks with hard
  turbulence. O’Connell looks out of the cockpit and sees what’s happening.
  Jupiter is going crazy around him. He checks the sensor logs.
  Something detonated in the atmosphere thirty seconds ago and what-
  ever that something was, Jupiter really doesn’t like it.
  Beneath him an enormous storm is brewing up out of nowhere.
  A
  tremendous bubble of atmospheric pressure, building higher and higher;
  in ﬁve minutes’ time it’ll be enough to distort the planet’s silhouette.
  O’Connell is suddenly having to ﬁght to keep his shuttle in position, but
  he has a reason to ﬁght. Because the perimeter alarms are sounding now,
  as the turmoil raging below pushes the Station higher and higher in the
  atmosphere.
  ‘There’s only ten,’ Valletti says. They’re standing in the middle of the de-
  fence bay, the enemy unconscious around them. Along with Easter and
  Robertson she’s been loading their bodies on to the mag-trolleys that nor-
  mally carry munitions. The Doctor is crouched near the entrance, studying
  a gouge in the wall.
  ‘One of them escaped,’ he says. ‘I think it’s probably McCray.’
  ‘How can you tell?’ Easter asks.
  The Doctor points across to the far wall and ceiling: there are scratches
  and gouges along both surfaces. ‘The one that escaped climbed the wall
  and ﬂed across the ceiling the moment the gas started, indicating a level of
  tactical awareness. It was also the ﬁrst one in.’
  ‘McCray,’ Robertson nods.
  The Doctor checks his wrist. ‘Just over ten minutes.’ He points to the
  trolleys. ‘Get them to the North Tower, you’ll ﬁnd transport waiting. Count
  them in, Jennifer. Count every one. No one gets left behind.’ He begins to
  move, trotting away into the dark of the corridor. ‘I’m going after McCray.’
  ‘There isn’t time!’ Valletti calls after him.
  His answer echoes down the corridor: ‘No one gets left behind.’
  ‘Can you operate one of these?’ Robertson asks, indicating the mag-
  trolley.
  ‘Yes,’ Valletti answers.
  227
  
  ‘Good.’ Robertson pushes the trolley towards her. ‘Get it up to the North
  Tower, Commander. Get your people home safe.’
  ‘What are you doing?’ Easter cries as Robertson heads towards the en-
  trance.
  ‘He’s strong,’ Robertson replies, ‘but he’ll never be able to carry one of
  them on his own.’
  By the time he reaches the NorthTower Fitz realises that the smoking-while-
  carrying-Anji combination has done little for his cardiovascular system.
  Gasping for breath, he lays Anji down, then pushes through the heaving
  mass of people, working his way into the centre of the recreation hall.
  On the way, he glimpses someone he thinks is Caroline Arquette, her
  arm around one of the sedated women. There’s a hardness to her body
  now, a knife strapped to her thigh and a lost expression on her face. She
  doesn’t meet his eyes and Fitz doesn’t have time to talk.
  Reaching the middle of the hall, he pulls a metal object from his jacket
  pocket and, raising it above his head, thumbs the device into life.
  When the Doctor detached it from his spacesuit he said it was some kind
  of beacon. Looking through the glass ceiling, into the chaos of Jupiter, Fitz
  wonders who on earth is meant to be receiving it.
  And then a shape appears out of the haze.
  A snub-nosed ship, battered by the winds, slowly drops towards them.
  There’s a moment when it swings about, perilously close to the glass roof,
  and Fitz can see right into the cockpit. It’s impossible to hear the pilot’s
  words as he looks down and sees the Station personnel crowded in the
  hall, but there are certain phrases Fitz can lip-read a mile off. Sonofabitch
  is one of them.
  The ship swings around again, and returns with more purpose. Land-
  ing feet emerge from the undercarriage, the joints contorting to match the
  shape of the roof. As the ship drops, Fitz realises how delicate this opera-
  tion is. It looks incredibly stormy out there and one wrong move from the
  pilot is going to crack the ceiling and kill them all.
  Instead, the ship’s touch seems light as a feather and there’s a hiss as the
  feet secure against the glass. A fat tunnel extends from the underside of the
  craft, a blue light shining where it touches the ceiling. Fitz is awestruck,
  and only just gets out of the way as a twenty-foot wide circle of glass falls
  away and shatters on the dance ﬂoor.
  He ﬁnally gets a good look at the ship. The tunnel has formed a seal
  against the glass. In the centre of the circle it creates on the ship’s hull, a
  set of doors are now sliding open.
  228
  
  ‘Right,’ Fitz says, as a ramp unfolds through the hatch. ‘All aboard that’s
  coming aboard!’
  The Doctor can hear Robertson’s footsteps behind him.
  McCray may not have been overcome by the dose of Loathing, but he’s
  slowed down enough for the Doctor to be conﬁdent of catching him, speed-
  wise. Direction-wise is another matter.
  Reaching a junction, he pauses.
  ‘Which way?’ Robertson asks.
  ‘Good question,’ the Doctor replies. He raises his hand, listens intently.
  Any sound is lost to the creaking of the Station’s hull and the increasing
  throb from the reactors. ‘Outer rings or the central hub?’
  ‘He’s still McCray?’ Robertson asks. ‘Underneath all that stuff, inside,
  he’s still McCray?’
  ‘With a few key instructions hard-wired into his cerebellum, yes.’
  Robertson turns left. ‘The central hub.’
  ‘Why?’ the Doctor asks, following on behind.
  ‘Four years,’ Robertson replies, ‘and all everyone’s wanted is to get back
  the life we knew.’
  ‘Of course.’ The Doctor nods. ‘He’ll be looking for a place where he feels
  in control. The Avatar room.’
  Valletti watches as Easter pushes the second mag-trolley up the ramp and
  into the shuttle’s interior. The survivors have been giving the trolleys a
  wide berth, unaware exactly who their enemy has been.
  Fitz is standing with her at the base of the ramp. ‘The pilot’s opened
  the hatches into the empty fuel tanks. It’s a bit of a squeeze and it doesn’t
  smell that good –’
  ‘But there’s enough room for everyone,’ Valletti says. She watches as
  the last of the Wounded is guided up the ramp. ‘Exactly 226 accredited
  personnel, plus the half-dozen off the books, one child and your friend Anji.’
  Valletti looks anxiously at the Station interior; reactor noise is reverberating
  down the corridors. ‘Come on, Doctor.’
  ‘Robbie’s with him.’ Valletti turns. It’s Caroline Arquette, standing at
  the top of the ramp. Jason McCray is hovering at her side, his clothing
  charred, one side of his face puckered with burnt skin. ‘He’s with him,’
  Arquette repeats, ‘isn’t he?’
  Valletti nods.
  The Station judders. There’s an ominous creak from where the shuttle
  is perched on the ceiling and its engines rise in pitch. The pilot’s voice
  229
  
  crackles over the intercom: ‘We can’t wait. I’m burning too much fuel just
  holding position here.’
  Valletti smacks her ﬁst against the intercom. ‘This is Commander Val-
  letti. You hold as long as you have to, are we clear?’
  ‘I play the percentages,’ the pilot replies. ‘You’ve got one minute, then
  we’re leaving.’
  Valletti raises her hand over the intercom to reply, but the energy drains
  from her face. And she nods her head. ‘One more minute.’
  The intercom goes silent and Valletti turns to Fitz. ‘He’s right,’ she whis-
  pers. ‘He has a responsibility to these people. So do I.’
  Jason McCray is starting down the ramp towards them, brow furrowed
  with concentration, one hand reaching up to hold the back of his head.
  ‘Don’t worry,’ Fitz says. ‘They’ll make it.’
  The Station rocks and the ominous creak becomes a roar as the seal
  loses contact and Jupiter’s fog breaks through to swallow the ramp. Fitz
  doubles over, grabbing Valletti’s arm, and they blindly push back up the
  ramp towards the safety of the shuttle. Then the pilot makes an adjustment
  and the seal’s good again, and the fog begins to dissipate.
  Eyes blinking, Fitz looks around. He and Valletti are alone on the ramp.
  The lights are ﬂickering in the lab. The Doctor looks around at the chaos.
  The stasis tubes lie in pieces, the bodies they held scattered like discarded
  waste. He wanted to set them free. He knows he should stop, offer some
  words of remembrance and apology for not being able to help them, for
  not making their ﬁnal release any more digniﬁed.
  He kneels next to one body.
  A blue-skinned female, a hint of scales around the cheekbones, blown
  pupils in green eyes staring at nothing at all. The wound that consigned
  her to the stasis tube cuts across her chest. He looks at those eyes, then
  reaches down and draws the eyelids closed.
  He would like to do the same for all of them, but there’s simply no time.
  ‘He’s up in the cables,’ Robertson says.
  The Doctor looks up and a ﬂash of electricity catches McCray, his body
  hunched over, wedged in the darkness between machinery and burnt con-
  duit. The surging reactors are causing more and more overloads and the
  Station is shaking beneath them.
  There may be a little leeway in the Doctor’s countdown, but in around
  ﬁve minutes’ time the reactors will buckle, and the Station will be scattered
  on Jupiter’s winds. He doesn’t want to hurt McCray, but he’s running out
  of options.
  230
  
  O’Connell glances at the clock set in the shuttle’s cockpit.
  The extra minute he allowed has gone. When he reaches for the inter-
  com his message is going to be simple: whoever’s outside has ten seconds
  to get up the ramp or they’re left behind, whatever their rank.
  Except his hand never connects with the intercom. Because as O’Connell
  leans forward, an arm slips around from behind, something cold and sharp
  pressing the ﬂesh of his neck.
  ‘It’s quite, quite easy,’ the Knife whispers in his ear. ‘My husband is still
  on that Station. You can put your hands –’
  ‘The fuel levels,’ O’Connell says. ‘I’m carrying twice the maximum pay-
  load and it’s already touch-and-go on getting –’
  The blade twitches against O’Connell’s neck and he falls silent.
  ‘You can put your hands on the controls,’ the Knife repeats, ‘you can use
  them to keep this shuttle docked. But try and disengage before he is on
  board and I will slit your throat.’ A pause. ‘Nod if you understand me.’
  O’Connell nods. His eyes are ﬁxed on the fuel reading as the gauge
  drops into the red zone.
  The grapple lodges in the pressure tank to McCray’s right. The Doctor tests
  the line – a good hold – then activates the motor. There’s a tug of gravity,
  then he’s airborne, carried up through the lab’s air.
  A sharp twang and his momentum vanishes, and he tumbles backwards
  to land hard at Robertson’s feet, the grappling line snaking down around
  him. The Doctor looks at the frayed end. ‘He cut the line,’ he says, looking
  up to where McCray is retreating back into cover.
  ‘He doesn’t want to be saved easily, does he?’ Robertson says.
  A power lead ruptures in the roof and sparks cascade around McCray
  who cries in pain and confusion.
  ‘Three minutes,’ the Doctor says.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Robertson says, ‘but we’re out of options.’ He raises his gun,
  training the sights on the ceiling. Sensing what’s coming, McCray shrinks
  further back into the machinery.
  ‘Wait!’ the Doctor cries.
  ‘I’m only going to wing him,’ Robertson replies. He squints, begins to
  tighten his ﬁnger on the trigger.
  Then he feels a hand close on his and he turns.
  It isn’t the Doctor who takes the gun from his hands and tosses it away.
  Jason McCray is standing next to him, looking into his eyes.
  Jason smiles, shakes his head, then steps back into the centre of the
  room where his brother can see him clearly. He looks up to the rafters,
  231
  
  holding out a hand. His voice is clear and true. ‘Fighting’s over, John. Time
  to go home.’
  There’s a long moment of stillness, the four of them motionless as steam
  billows and ﬂames gutter and the Station aches around them.
  Then a tiny piece of plating tumbles from the ceiling, clattering on the
  ﬂoor next to the Doctor, dislodged as John McCray climbs free of his hiding
  place. He skitters down over the ﬁrst storey of machinery, then drops over
  the edge of a gantry to land on the ﬂoor next to his brother.
  McCray carefully extends an arm, the edge of his scythed hand softly
  connecting with Jason’s burnt cheek. His disﬁgured head, with its hard
  carapace and multifaceted eyes and distorted mouths, tilts to one side as
  Jason nods at him.
  There’s a hiss from deep inside the Station. The ﬂoor judders again and
  the hiss becomes a roar.
  ‘That’s the reactor containment wall,’ the Doctor says. ‘We need to run.’
  It’s been more than a minute, both Fitz and Valletti know that. They ex-
  change glances, neither saying a word. If the pilot’s giving them longer, so
  be it. But as the Station begins to tear itself apart they begin to wonder
  how much longer they can wait.
  Power surges at impossible levels through the cabling, scorching the
  carpet at their feet, tracing long lines of ﬂame over the wall. The room is
  ﬁlling with smoke and Fitz and Valletti retreat up the ramp towards safety.
  Then a violent movement throws them off their feet and there’s an ominous
  creak.
  Through the smoke Fitz can see a spidery crack spreading across the
  glass dome. ‘Oh, no,’ he whispers.
  Valletti pushes him in the small of his back, forcing him up the ramp.
  ‘Go!’ she barks. ‘We’re out of time.’
  Fitz pushes against her, turning to protest. As he does so, he sees them.
  Four shapes pushing through the smoke and ﬂames. ‘There!’ he shouts.
  Three men running; the twisted oversized form of McCray bounding
  forward.
  ‘Go!’ the Doctor shouts. ‘Go!’
  And as he nears, Fitz can see him mouthing something else: ‘Anji?’ And
  Fitz nods in reply: job done.
  Valletti hits the controls to retract the ramp, shouts into the intercom:
  ‘Get us out of here!’
  Fitz ducks out of the way as McCray’s monstrous form jumps, landing
  on the ramp and crowding the entranceway. The Doctor is next, the air
  hissing as the shuttle begins to lose its atmospheric seal. Fitz doesn’t know
  232
  
  what Jupiter tastes of, but it isn’t pleasant. McCray reaches down with a
  claw, dragging Jason up on to the ramp.
  Coming in last is Robertson.
  Too big, too slow, too tired from four years of hell to keep pace.
  O’Connell feels the Knife twitch at his throat as the big man comes into
  view through the cockpit window, and there’s suddenly no doubt who his
  captor’s husband is.
  The one coming in last.
  O’Connell’s already started to disengage the landing struts and the Knife
  hasn’t objected. Her husband is last but he’s going to make it.
  He switches the intercom to a view of the ramp. Jupiter is starting to
  creep in and fog the view. It’s cramped, but they both see her husband make
  the jump and clamber up on to the ramp. As the ramp retracts O’Connell
  hits the switch that will close the hatch beneath it, and turns the ship’s
  nose upwards, preparing for their one chance at getting out of here. Then
  something hits – hard wind shear or debris from the Station – and the
  shuttle jerks.
  And they both see it. The big bear of a man, the Knife’s husband, stum-
  bles and falls, back between the closing hatch doors.
  ‘Stop,’ the Knife says.
  O’Connell just clicks the viewscreen off.
  ‘Stop,’ the Knife says, but O’Connell carries on and activates the shuttle’s
  thrusters, pushing them up away from the Station.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘but it’s too late.’
  There’s a moment of silence. Then a clatter of metal on the ﬂoor, fol-
  lowed by clumsy, broken footsteps as the woman stumbles away.
  Then someone reaches down by the side of O’Connell’s chair, picks up
  the knife and places it safely on top of one of the consoles. The Professional.
  O’Connell wants to punch him. ‘We don’t have enough fuel to clear the
  gravity well.’ His hand reaches for the control to the shuttle’s main burn.
  ‘But if you’re going to go out, you may as well go out ﬁghting.’
  ‘Better not to “go out” at all.’ And the Professional’s hand closes over
  O’Connell’s before he can ﬁre the engines.
  ‘Patience, Mr O’Connell,’ he says. And then the Professional does some-
  thing extraordinary. He smiles. ‘If a plan works once,’ he continues, reach-
  ing past O’Connell, manipulating the controls, tilting the shuttle’s nose up-
  wards, ‘it’ll work twice.’
  ‘I don’t –’
  The shuttle rocks as the Station falls away beneath it, the bubble of
  pressure that’s been holding it up ﬁnally breaking.
  233
  
  There’s a long pause, then the sky in front of them ﬂares a brilliant
  white. The ﬂash of fusion reactors tearing themselves apart. Clouds bil-
  low and stream around them in the wake of the explosion and the shock
  wave catches the tail end of the shuttle, propelling it higher and higher.
  O’Connell just watches the Professional work the controls with one hand,
  balancing the shuttle, riding the wave, keeping the nose straight and true.
  It’s only as the momentum from the blast abates that the Professional
  releases his hold on O’Connell’s hand, says: ‘Punch it.’
  O’Connell doesn’t need telling twice. Everyone on board should feel
  the push of the engines and the pull of Jupiter’s immense gravity trying to
  drag them back down. There are going to be nervous looks throughout the
  shuttlecraft, O’Connell knows, but there aren’t any in the cockpit.
  O’Connell’s a seat-of-the-pants pilot. He knows his ship, knows what his
  controls tell him just by their touch; long before the canopy clears above
  and he can see the stars again, O’Connell knows.
  They’re going to make it.
  The shuttle’s interior is still cloudy, the ventilation systems still clearing
  Jupiter’s atmosphere.
  Caroline Arquette breathes it deep, doesn’t care,
  pushing past the Professional as she leaves the cockpit, heading back to-
  wards the hatch. She’s going to be too late. By the time she reaches the
  hatch, the pilot will have ﬁred the engines, and the Station and Robbie will
  be kilometres behind them.
  She’s going to be too late, but she can’t give up.
  Everyone’s coughing, the atmosphere thick around the hatch. Caroline
  leans against a bulkhead for support, coughs hard to clear her lungs, then
  tries to get her bearings through the mist. She can make out Fitz, pulling
  Commander Valletti to her feet. Jason McCray is in one corner, the mas-
  sive shape of one of the creatures crouched near by. A few of the Station
  personnel are crowded in the doorway opposite.
  And then she sees him. There, in the centre of the hatch, lying across
  the join between the doors, breathing hard, trying to push himself up on to
  his knees.
  ‘Robbie?’ she whispers.
  He rolls on to his back, reaches for his forearm to disconnect the line
  from the grapple that’s embedded in the ceiling. He sees her, forces a smile.
  ‘Neat trick,’ he coughs. ‘Doctor showed me.’
  And Caroline Arquette sinks to her knees next to her husband.
  His back arches as he coughs and he rolls over on the ﬂoor, looking
  straight down. And as he freezes, Caroline looks too. There’s a glass panel
  in the hatch beneath them. The storm below is blowing itself out. As the
  234
  
  shuttle tilts upwards they can see the Station, dropping away. As it falls
  back into the atmosphere, the pressures grow; the stresses of the past four
  years begin to show and pieces of hull plating fall clear, snatched by the
  wind.
  The Station still retains an elegance that Caroline remembers from
  when she arrived years ago. The interlocking bridges and spires, the long
  curves that give it the echo of a spherical shape, and, in the central hub,
  lights still burning bright.
  It’s only when she looks away that she realises Robertson’s eyes are still
  locked on to the sight.
  She places her hand on his, intertwining their ﬁngers.
  ‘It’s just a place,’ she whispers.
  His hand begins to shake beneath hers. Still he can’t pull himself away.
  Light shines through the glass panel, ﬂares across his face. It only lasts
  a moment and as their eyes readjust, they can see it. The Station is being
  torn apart by ﬁre. The explosions ripple out along its surface as it drops
  further and further away. Containment failure. Only moments are left.
  Then the Station is gone from sight, swallowed by the planet below.
  And suddenly the planet itself burns, the shock wave rippling out across
  the clouds. Caroline Arquette thinks of the rust that coated every inch of
  the Station’s outer ring, infused by radiation, scattered on the winds.
  Robertson’s eyes are locked, hollow and unseeing, on the destruction.
  Caroline pulls his face away from the panel, turning his head towards
  her. His whole body is shaking now, and as he looks around the shuttle it’s
  in disbelief, tears welling in his eyes. She kisses him, tells him, ‘It’s only a
  place, Robbie. It’s not who we are.’
  He nods and sinks back against the wall, and Caroline sits there, holding
  his hand as he coughs and cries and looks at her. They can both feel the
  pull of G-forces as the shock wave hits and the engines burn. Jupiter ﬂows
  over the outside of the window.
  ‘We’re going to be ﬁne, Robbie,’ Caroline says.
  ‘I know.’ He smiles, gasping and crying. ‘But I never told you, and I
  should have, and I never told you.’
  And Caroline can see it in his eyes, in the tears on his cheeks and the
  way his body can’t stay still. She takes his hand, brings it up to her cheek,
  lets him feel the cool of her skin.
  ‘Whatever it is, it’s all right,’ she says, ‘I love you.’
  ‘I know.’ He pauses, then looks at her and explains: ‘I saw a face once.’
  235
  
  HOME
  Six weeks later
  The lights are dim, but it doesn’t matter.
  He knows the corridors of
  Marineris base too well.
  It’s like a dream in my head. It was me, but another me that I don’t really
  remember. That’s what Anji said, lying in a hospital bed.
  What do you remember? he’d asked. A loaded question, so many differ-
  ent answers. What’s the last clear thing you remember?
  Anji had said nothing, but the Doctor saw it in her eyes. Dave Young
  incinerated by the planet hopper’s engines. Running for her life on Earth-
  world. A mezzanine caf´e on Mars.
  We were going to have coffee, Anji answered. There was some commotion.
  I looked around and then I was in a dream. This dream.
  The ReGene machines have been running a program he wrote on the
  journey back to Mars. They are slowly eroding every trace of the virus
  from Anji’s systems.
  He’s been able to piece together most of Anji’s past four years from
  public records. To her, those years are a dream fading fast. It’s one that will
  echo through her life, but for ever remain on the edge of her consciousness.
  If only it were that easy to rewrite the past.
  He has spent six weeks slipping through the cracks in the sensor nets on
  Mars. Smiling at cameras, vanishing from view like a stage magician. Mc-
  Namara is looking for him, has AI programs scouring the surveillance feeds
  for any trace. Unfortunately for McNamara, he trained his Professionals far
  too well. And the Doctor himself knows how to run silently.
  He places his hand on the sensor pad. The light ﬂashes green and the
  doors slide open. The chamber is dark, illuminated only by the screens sur-
  rounding the equipment. Although the sensor registered his handprint and
  allowed him access, the Doctor’s willing to bet it also alerted McNamara.
  A chime sounding in his ofﬁce, an urgent message ﬂashed on to his desk-
  top screen. Right now, the Doctor thinks, McNamara is probably signalling
  236
  
  every Professional on the base, telling them to rendezvous with him in the
  conditioning chamber.
  Being here leaves a sick taste in his mouth. His nose is thick with the
  scent of burning ﬂesh. The machine in front of him is crude, but still so-
  phisticated enough to capitalise on the fragile state of his mind after its link
  with Jason McCray.
  He accesses the personnel records, ﬁnds the audio tracks from the cham-
  ber. Just over four years ago. He hits play. McNamara’s voice ﬁlls the room,
  talking with one of the conditioning staff.
  – He’s very resistant.
  – You should have seen him. That body was burnt black. Unrecognisable.
  He’s come a long way in a couple of months. A cold laugh. Almost looks
  human again. The imprint’s always easier when they look human. Don’t have
  to condition them to see a different face every time they look in a mirror.
  – There’s nothing human about these neural pathways.
  – Can you break him?
  – There’s already plenty of holes to work from. Those butchers on Farside
  took care of that. We should be able to imprint the standard proﬁle without
  too much trouble.
  – There’s a ‘but’ there.
  – Almost all activity is being routed through the forebrain. The rest of it. . .
  It’s like there’s a part of his mind that’s walled off.
  – Break it down.
  – I don’t think we can. He can’t access it. The pathways are closed. He
  might be able to reopen them himself, but it’d take hard surgery before we
  could even begin to –
  – No, no. We don’t want to risk losing him to some vegetative state. Run
  the imprint. We’ll just have to keep an eye to make sure that nothing –
  The Doctor shuts the recording off, presses the delete key.
  Then he looks at the machines around him. The pathways are closed.
  He might be able to reopen them himself. Could he do it? If he used this
  equipment could he ﬁnish what they started on Earthworld?
  Could he
  remember?
  Except he already remembers.
  He remembers every minute of the last four years. Every step taken,
  every blow traded, every shot ﬁred.
  He can smell burnt ﬂesh, feel the
  calluses from his riﬂe still on his hand. Could he remember?
  He shakes his head.
  Don’t even think about it.
  There’s a hiss as the door opens behind him. The Doctor doesn’t turn.
  He knows what he would see.
  The squat form of a middle-aged man,
  237
  
  ﬂanked by mismatched shapes in armour.
  ‘Good evening.’ The Doctor smiles. ‘I’m so glad everyone could join me.
  We all need to have a little chat.’
  Anji has an awareness of what’s happening.
  The Doctor explained it to her.
  The human memory is based around activity in the synapses, the junc-
  tions between neuron cells in the brain.
  – Our most basic actions are governed by those synapses responding to
  the release of chemical transmitters, the Doctor told her. Fear made itself
  one of those transmitters. Every time you accessed your memory, from the
  simplest of things like boiling a kettle, to deep-seated memory like childhood,
  the experience was ﬁltered through the virus.
  – That was me, then? Playing those people off against each other?
  – It was you, in the sense that it was your intellect, your instincts making
  the decisions. But it was a you whose priorities were generated through a
  ﬁlter. And in that sense, not you at all.
  The ReGene program is clearing the infection from those chemical trans-
  mitters, ﬂushing the dendritic spine of the affected synapses. The machines
  will go back before the infection, ﬁnd the pattern of older memories, use
  them to ﬁll in the gap. The Doctor has warned her that some memories
  and feelings will be more intense as a result, but it’s the only sure way to
  eradicate the virus from her system.
  There is only one other issue remaining. The repair process will be
  completed in a few more days. If she is going to see him, she needs to do it
  now.
  In years to come, Anji Kapoor will remember him. Not directly, but in years
  to come Anji will be married. As her husband wipes the table or prepares
  dinner, she will think she sees in him someone she used to know. Someone
  she will never directly remember again, someone who will only ever be an
  echo to her.
  ‘Hello,’ Michael says.
  Anji smiles. ‘Hi.’
  There’s an awkward pause, then he gestures at the door. ‘I had to sign
  so much stuff to get in here. If I even breathe where you’re –’
  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Anji says.
  Another pause, then he settles down in a chair at her bedside. There
  are documents in his hand.
  ‘Are those the papers?’ Anji asks.
  238
  
  He looks at them, suddenly remembering they’re there. ‘Two sets,’ he
  says.
  ‘One set like you asked for, giving me everything.
  The other’s a
  standard decree nisi, splitting communal assets right down the –’
  So like him, part of her thinks, to be so clever and reasonable about it.
  ‘I don’t want any of it,’ she says.
  He shakes his head. ‘It wasn’t that bad, Anji, was it? We were in love
  once, weren’t we?’
  The memories are dim, every day eroded bit by bit, but there’s still
  enough there. Anji can still just remember.
  Chestnut hair against the sunset the ﬁrst time they met. The big case he
  was carrying across Boone Plaza when he recognised her. Taking the train
  to Jacksonville and dancing in a club built out of an old nest, bass beats
  running across her skin. The touch of his hand, ﬁngers gripping tight on
  bare shoulders. Pasta boiling on a stove. Laughing with Jenna and Clair
  and Otto on the staff picnic. Champagne in a restaurant as a dust storm
  builds outside. Plunging from the Martian sky to wrap herself in his arms.
  ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘we were in love.’
  He holds out the papers, his signature already on them. As she goes to
  take them he pulls them back, looks her in the eyes. ‘I don’t know what’s
  going on, Anji. I don’t know why you’re stuck in the middle of a bloody
  military hospital and I’m signing ofﬁcial secrets and everything. And I don’t
  care.’
  ‘Please don’t,’ Anji says.
  ‘We could try again,’ he says. ‘Whatever’s happened, we could try again.’
  What could she tell him? Any hint of the truth and he will dig and keep
  on digging until he learns everything that happened. Even if she listened
  to the part of her that wants to say yes, what would happen tomorrow or
  the day after when she wakes up and the memory of him is gone?
  He would be a stranger, the life they had shared less than a dream. And
  her father and mother and Rezaul and her sisters, everything that her life
  was, will only be weeks in the past. Dave will have been gone for less than
  a month.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anji whispers. ‘This isn’t my life.’
  Earth’s gravity tugs at Jennifer Valletti as the transport starts to break
  against the atmosphere. A blazing trail, miles long, chases them across
  the Atlantic and on towards Europe.
  The seat next to her has been empty all the way from Mars.
  Somehow it’s no surprise when he appears out of nowhere in the aisle,
  dropping down beside her. His hair has grown out again, three times as far
  239
  
  and as thick as it should have done in the weeks since Jupiter, while the
  nose has straightened itself out.
  ‘I’ve got a few questions,’ she says.
  ‘I thought you might,’ he replies.
  ‘Jupiter’s red spot. They tell me it’s no longer quite so bright. That it
  might even vanish completely.’
  ‘Oh, I doubt that,’ he answers. ‘It’s just a side-effect of that particular
  war coming to a close.’
  ‘The weather systems seem to be behaving like you thought they would.
  Orbital tracking suggests anything released into the atmosphere by the Sta-
  tion’s destruction is scattered across half the planet by now.’
  ‘The other half to be coated within the next six months. Fear did its
  sums well.’
  ‘But that weather isn’t a coincidence, is it?’
  ‘No,’ he replies. ‘Fear was obviously able to communicate the needs of
  its plan to its biological counterpart in the atmosphere.’
  ‘Orchestrating the weather required.’
  ‘Over that four-year period,’ he nods. ‘There are two possibilities for
  that communication. Either the virus had some kind of residual telepathic
  ability. . . ’
  ‘Or?’
  ‘Easter said warheads were ﬁred just before the Fall. They could have
  contained a chemical payload with the message encoded.’ He shrugs. ‘We’ll
  never know.’ He hands her a slip of paper. ‘You’ll need a marker buoy to
  keep Jupiter off-limits until the Station’s payload destroys Loathing. When
  that’s done, a dose of this formula should clear Fear too.’
  ‘Don’t want it getting loose again.’ Valletti nodded. She gives the paper
  a brief glance, then slips it into her jacket pocket. ‘Your friends are on
  board?’
  ‘Back in economy. And I’ve got some cargo in the hold.’
  ‘The woman, Anji, she doesn’t remember anything?’
  ‘No. Fitz doesn’t know the details of what happened, but I asked him
  not to say anything anyway.’
  Valletti nods, thinking about the faces of the people she passed in the
  corridors. The people she guided into hospitals on Mars. Tired and broken,
  struggling to come to terms with their lives again. They’re good people,
  though, and Valletti is sure they’ll adjust. But it’s going to be a struggle.
  ‘There are going to be hearings,’ she says. ‘They caught Archer on the
  Charing Cross, trying to upload data from an old storage device. He was
  signalling a defunct IMC transmitter on Titan.’
  ‘Your stolen ﬁles,’ the Doctor nods. ‘Industrial espionage, of course.’
  240
  
  ‘Meanwhile, the Mukabis want me court-martialled,’ she says. ‘Collu-
  sion with alien inﬁltrators, loss of research.’
  ‘The project was illegal, the research negligent at best. They’re not in a
  position to complain too hard. Besides,’ he says, ‘I was working for Earth
  Forces the whole time. And you’ve got the only surviving copy of their data
  on a chip in your jacket pocket. The chip no one else saw you take from
  their laboratory.’
  ‘Is that what you came for?’
  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Fitz and Anji thought a couple of hours’ sightseeing in
  Florence might be fun. I just came to say goodbye. You’re free to do what-
  ever you want.’ He smiles. ‘I should have trusted your judgement more on
  the Station. So I’m trusting it now.’
  Valletti pauses. ‘If I ask you something, will you answer it?’
  ‘If I can.’
  She switches on the seatscreen, calls up the item she saved two days
  ago. The news from just before they left Mars orbit. A man with unkempt
  brown hair addresses the camera. Behind him, a building in ﬂames.
  – not known exactly what caused the explosion.
  However, it is widely
  believed this area of Marineris base was the operational headquarters of an
  ´elite special-operations group –
  The picture changes to a shot of wild-eyed man in uniform being treated
  by paramedics.
  – would seem to be conﬁrmed by the presence of this man, Colonel Ben-
  jamin McNamara, head of the Professional response program. However; there
  are genuine concerns that the cause of this explosion may never be known –
  The screen is ﬁlled with a close-up of McNamara’s face, confused and
  terriﬁed.
  – Professionals themselves are notable by their absence from this scene,
  while Colonel McNamara claims to have no knowledge of what happened.
  According to sources, he is alleged to have no memory of any events prior to
  the explosion and cannot even remember his own name or –
  Valletti switches the screen off. She doesn’t ask the question. The an-
  swer is there in his eyes: steel, satisfaction and just a hint of sadness.
  ‘If you check the archives for that date,’ he says, ‘you’ll probably ﬁnd
  reports of several unidentiﬁed aliens being sighted.’
  ‘Most of them around the Shefﬁeld space elevator.’ Valletti nods. ‘Yes, I
  saw.’
  ‘The Professionals have been disbanded,’ the Doctor says. ‘Every mem-
  ber receiving an honourable discharge.’ He reaches down into the aisle.
  ‘I’ve got something for you.’
  241
  
  He lifts the case up on to the table between their seats. At ﬁrst Valletti
  thinks it’s a replacement for the violin lost in the Station’s destruction. As
  she ﬂips the catches and opens the case, she realises it’s no replacement.
  ‘I had Fitz make a detour en route to the reactors. One ﬁnal spot of
  breaking and entering.’ He smiles. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
  Valletti nods and quietly closes the case.
  She removes the chip from her jacket, turns it over in her hand. Sunlight
  shines through the window, catching on its edge. Below them, the steel blue
  of the Atlantic has been replaced by the glare of snow-topped mountains.
  The Pyrenees rather than the Dolomites or the Alps, but it’s not the cold of
  space or the swirling mass of Jupiter or the red dust of Mars.
  She’s that much closer to home.
  It’s cold in Florence, the sun obscured by a chill mist. Damp, early morning
  weather that seeps into your bones.
  She sees Fitz and Anji brieﬂy at the spaceport as the Doctor makes ar-
  rangements about where to meet them and where to deliver his cargo.
  Then his friends vanish into the subway and he returns to her side. With a
  smile, he picks up her case and they walk on into the city.
  It takes a couple of hours to reach the centre. Which is ﬁne; two hours
  makes the timing almost perfect. They walk through the Boboli Gardens,
  climbing the long hill up from the fountains as red squirrels jump between
  the trees on either side, then on through the courtyards of the Pitti Palace.
  A few hundred yards down the street is the Ponte Vecchio.
  ‘It’s the only bridge to have survived the Second World War,’ the Doctor
  explains. ‘The Nazis mined all the others as they retreated.’ He pauses,
  frowns. ‘But you probably knew that already.’
  She nods.
  The bridge’s span is crowded, shops and homes hanging
  chaotically over its sides, but in the centre buildings give way to a trio of
  arches that look out over the river. The sun is climbing higher now and the
  mist is beginning to burn off. Another hour and this will be a beautiful day.
  Valletti slows and stops, leaning against the railings. The computer chip
  is still in her jacket pocket.
  Out on the waters, a rowing crew glides out of the mist. The movement
  of their arms is strong, slow and graceful as they pull towards the bridge.
  Valletti thinks about the last thing she did before boarding the ﬂight.
  A visit to a military hospital, standing next to Jason McCray. In so many
  ways, the only good thing to come of the whole disaster. However much Ja-
  son had infected the Doctor’s mind, the Doctor had infected him in return;
  still nervous and unsure, but there was a semblance of sanity and order in
  242
  
  his mind again. The medics were conﬁdent some additional therapy would
  leave him capable of leading a normal existence.
  He had his life back once more.
  He hadn’t said much though. They’d both simply stood at a window,
  looking into a long isolation ward where his brother and old comrades lay.
  In theory, everything that had been done to their bodies had been done
  by a ReGene unit. In theory, what Earth technology had created, Earth
  technology could undo.
  The reality was human bodies weren’t meant to undergo that kind of
  radical reinvention. The carapaces were softening, the joints were reknit-
  ting themselves. Even the glands that had been primed to create doses
  of Nightmare, the thing that had kept the survivors at bay for almost four
  years, were now dissipating back into soft tissue.
  The Doctor is standing behind her, still holding her bag.
  She smiles at him. ‘Even if they can regain human form, the medics
  say they’ll suffer from nerve damage, arthritis, early onset of osteoporosis.
  They can’t even guess at what’s going to happen to their minds.’
  ‘John McCray recognised his own brother,’ the Doctor says. ‘He knew to
  trust him. There’s still hope.’
  ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘but that’s all it’s ever likely to be. Hope.’
  He smiles. ‘Only hope breaks a chain.’
  Valletti slips the chip from her pocket and drops it over the side of the
  bridge. The splash is lost in the stroke of the rowers’ oars. ‘I never liked
  that project. I don’t like turning men into machines. I won’t be a party to
  it.’
  As expected, the shop front is dark. Four years and her father hasn’t
  changed the locks. She opens the door, drops her case inside, then closes
  up again.
  They cross the bridge to the other side. Valletti would normally walk
  along the river bank, but at the Doctor’s insistence they continue through
  the Ufﬁzi Gallery and on past the Palazzo Vecchio; decades since the occu-
  pation and reconstruction work is still going on. Building dust mixes with
  the scent of freshly ground coffee from one of the caf´es. Then it’s a right
  turn and on through the narrow side streets – the Doctor talking about the
  city’s history the entire time – to emerge in front of the Basilica of Santa
  Croce.
  Only now does the Doctor pause. Valletti looks at him and realises this
  is as far as he’s coming.
  He takes her hand in his and bends down to plant a kiss on her wrist.
  ‘Make them listen to you,’ he says. ‘Make them see with eyes that are
  open.’
  243
  
  And then he releases her hand and walks away, back towards the river.
  His friends are waiting in a doorway, a tall blue box planted near by.
  Valletti doesn’t watch him go. Instead she turns and climbs the steps up
  to the basilica. It’s dark inside and it takes a few moments for her eyes to
  adjust.
  He is small and alone, seated at the front, his head bowed down. There’s
  a gallery of candles before him. One, she knows, will have been lit by him
  that very morning.
  Michelangelo is buried here, so is Galileo and, though his bones rest
  elsewhere, on the wall there is a monument to Dante. Valletti ignores them
  all as she walks down the aisle.
  He doesn’t turn around as her footsteps echo on the ﬂoor. He doesn’t
  lift his head as she slips on to the pew beside him. His eyes remain shut as
  he continues to mouth his prayers. Only when he has done this, does his
  head lift and turn towards her, the thin line of his mouth breaking into a
  smile years in the making.
  Valletti smiles back, takes his hand and says, ‘Hello, Papa. I’m home.’
  The Doctor watches as Anji smiles and disappears into the TARDIS’s inte-
  rior. ‘Off for a quick bath,’ she says. ‘I always feel grungy after a long
  ﬂight.’
  ‘Why we had to get on that ship, I’ll never know,’ Fitz murmurs.
  The Doctor ﬁxes him with a look. ‘I explained that. My control of the
  TARDIS isn’t what it should be. But we’re back on Earth now, which means
  all we need to get Anji home is a temporal journey rather than a spatial
  one. It should make things a lot simpler.’
  Fitz nods. ‘Next stop the other side of the universe, then.’
  The Doctor frowns, glances at the door Anji left through. ‘How is she?’
  he asks.
  ‘She doesn’t remember me punching her in the face,’ Fitz says. ‘She
  doesn’t remember much of it at all.’ He pauses, then says, ‘I hear there’s a
  lot of that going around.’
  The Doctor looks up from the controls. Fitz is staring at him and for a
  long time they say nothing at all. Then the Doctor looks away. ‘Memories
  aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.’
  ‘We were going to have a conversation,’ Fitz says.
  The Doctor stays still. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t see Fitz. He
  remembers a purple sky and three silver moons. Explosions echoing down
  the valley, the distant scream of a dropship’s engines. The splash of move-
  ment as the insurgents wade through marshland towards him.
  244
  
  He remembers a young man among them, arms and shoulders on ﬁre;
  the residue of magnesium charges that will never burn out. The sight res-
  onating with something forgotten inside. He remembers the chill of medi-
  cation pumping into his arm. And he remembers raising the plasma riﬂe as
  the young man nears.
  He remembers all this.
  He remembers the hundred years before as well. Boarding a space shut-
  tle. The smile on his daughter’s face. Alan Turing, unsteady on a bicycle.
  Another body, falling back into ﬂood waters. The rocking of a railway car-
  riage and soot on his tongue. He remembers all this, but nothing before
  it.
  It’s like there’s a part of his mind that’s walled off.
  Break it down.
  I don’t think we can. He can’t access it. The pathways are closed.
  He looks at Fitz. There’s something about his friend’s face, an urgency,
  as if he desperately needs to tell him whatever he knows. But there’s some-
  thing else there. An anxiety, that he’s afraid of what needs to be said.
  How bad could it be, the Doctor wonders.
  He remembers raising the plasma riﬂe as the young man nears.
  Don’t even think about it.
  ‘Another day, Fitz,’ the Doctor whispers. ‘It’ll wait for another day.’
  Fitz looks at him. The Doctor can feel his eyes on him, studying his
  tired head, the way his hands grip the edge of the console, the angle of his
  shoulders. And Fitz nods, reluctant. ‘Don’t leave it too long. Like I said,
  this forgetting-things lark?’ He taps his own head. ‘There’s a lot of it going
  around.’
  The Doctor hears Fitz’s footsteps, then a click as the interior door doses
  behind him.
  He doesn’t remember anything from before that railway carriage. But
  there are things that he knows anyway. That Fitz is his friend and he can
  trust him with his life.
  He also knows his ship.
  It’s as old as he is, possibly older. It knows him better than he knows
  himself. He felt that the moment he stepped through its doors. The long
  curve of the roundels set back into the walls. The dusty smell of the books
  on the shelves. The comforting hum of the engines. The texture of the
  console beneath his hands. The whispers of light that trace through the
  central column.
  What does he remember?
  He remembers this. He remembers the feel of those switches, the po-
  tential behind those controls, the ability to travel anywhere, to any time, to
  245
  
  any place. The wide open space of possibility before him.
  His hand closes on the dematerialisation switch.
  Next stop the other side of the universe, then.
  He looks up. The light of the central column plays across his face, un-
  limited power just waiting to be unleashed.
  The Doctor smiles and says, ‘Let’s go.’
  And he throws the switch.
  246
  
  Acknowledgements
  Thanks are due:
  My wife, whose copy-editing skills I never give the attention that’s owed.
  My friends and family, for the many years they’ve put up with me.
  Sarah Stokes, who showed me it could be done.
  Lance Parkin, for an advance look inside The Gallifrey Chronicles.
  Paul Cornell, for the ﬁrst small break, and Justin Richards, for the sec-
  ond big one.
  The cast and crew of TAPE (Consultancy) Ltd, the world’s ﬁnest perfor-
  mance piece on the Internet, for all the lessons on story-telling and assorted
  rantings.
  Terry Joynson, with whom this would have been a co-write once upon
  a time.
  Ian Gregory, Matt Kimpton, Bradley McGrath and Chris Payne for their
  comments on the original proposal.
  Simon A. Forward, Mags L. Halliday, Craig Hinton, Mark Michalowski,
  Kate Orman, Lloyd Rose and Paul Dale Smith for their comments on the
  manuscript and making me feel welcome.
  And, ﬁnally, my very own rogues’ gallery, whose criticism and advice
  have proven invaluable during the writing of this book: David Ball, Philip
  Craggs, Steven Kitson, John Seavey, and Geoffrey D. Wessel.
  We only learn from the dissenting voices.
  247
  
  About the author
  Nick Wallace is either: (a) deep undercover, inﬁltrating Afghan terror cells.
  Look for an anonymous star on the walls at MI6 soon; (b) down and out on
  the South Bank (if you’re accosted by a smelly man with a scruffy beard,
  give him a quid, cos he could use a drink); or (c) a happily married father
  of one, who has spent the past decade working for a company who offer
  analysis and advice on script development and programme acquisitions for
  broadcasters worldwide.
  Not one of these options is necessarily more likely than any other.
  248
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Vault2.0.-.Fiction-and-audiobooks/Books/Dr Who/73 - Fear Itself.pdf