'Yes, like any professional knows his character.'

'Oh, let him have a drink,' said Selto irritably.

'I do not require artificial aids to give a performance, either for myself or my audience, thank you.'

Hevist and Selto exchanged troubled glances, and then each took a step closer to Malf, who suddenly shrank back, regretting his words.

'Just what're you talking about, Malf?'

Malf rallied with an effort. 'I'm not a fool, I know what's been going on.'

'What do you mean?'

'The gas pentatholene. I've done my research. Did you think you could deceive an old stager for ever? And if you do not cease its use forthwith, I'll have to reconsider our agreement.'

Hevist loomed over him and raised a fist menacingly. 'You do and I'll '

'You'll do what?' said Malf, shivering inside with the thrill of defiance but standing his ground. 'Lay a finger on Admiral Dorling, hero of the Alliance? I only have to raise my voice and guards will come running. I'll say you were being grossly insubordinate and they'll clap you in the brig.'

'We'll tell them who you really are,' said Selto.

'Denounce me and you denounce yourselves. Would you destroy all the good work I've done? And would anyone here believe even the genuine article after that? I don't think so.'

Hevist uncertainly lowered his fist.

'That's better,' said Malf. 'I should have done this years ago. There are going to be changes around here, and the first is that you show your star performer a little more respect in future.'

Hevist and Selto said nothing, but from their expressions it was doubtful respect was uppermost in their minds.

The sudden urgent knocking on the outer door of the secure files room disturbed the rest of the two members of the nightshift currently on watch. The door was slid back cautiously to reveal the agitated person of Cara Tarron.

'Did you see it? Did it come in here?'

'Er, sorry, Academ Tarron what are you talking about?'

asked the first operator.

'The thing that's just slipped under the door of the conference room of course.'

'What thing?'

'Brown and furry, almost as large as my hand, like a flatworm with legs it moved very fast.'

'I've never seen anything like that in the City,' said the second operator.

'Neither have I,' Cara said truthfully, 'but it's always possible some sort of alien bug came in with a supply ship.'

'Anyway, nothing can slip under the conference room door the runner channel's too tight,' the first operator pointed out.

'Are you sure you weren't mistaken, Academ Tarron?'

'I know what I saw,' said Cara haughtily. 'But if you don't mind the council being bitten or stung by some unknown life form that you had already been warned about '

'Maybe you'd better take a look around, just to be sure,'

said the second operator to his colleague.

'Why don't you go?' said the first.

'For goodness' sake,' exclaimed Cara, 'why can't you both look? It'll take all three of us to catch it anyway.'

'Security, Academ Tarron. Can't leave this room unattended. Maybe we should call maintenance '

'There's no time, it might have scuttled off somewhere else by then. Why not lock the outer door and close this one so the thing can't escape this way, then everything will be perfectly safe. n.o.body's going to rifle the files in two minutes with you next door, are they?'

The operators exchanged glances, shrugged and nodded.

The second operator carefully locked off the consoles, then thoughtfully picked up a file folder and rolled it into a makeshift swatter. They slid open the communicating door to the conference room, turned on the lights and peered within cautiously.

'Come on,' said Cara boldly, 'what are you afraid of?' She stepped inside the long room and began looking under the table. 'Don't leave that door open. Come in and spread out.'

They came in and the tinted panel slid shut behind them.

Hesitantly the two operators began ducking their heads about and poking into corners. Cara heard the faintest trilling sound from the corridor. She surrept.i.tiously pulled something from her pocket, tossed it under the table, then shouted and pointed: 'There it is!'

The operators jerked about, just missing the entry of a shadowy figure into the file room, but in time to see a flat brown form shoot out from under the conference table and zigzag madly away towards the far corner of the room, weaving between the chairs in a flurry of many whirring legs and bobbing antennae. They leapt after it, knocking over chairs, colliding with each other, stamping and flailing wildly in an attempt to squash the strange intruder. But somehow the creature managed to evade every blow, causing the pursuers to redouble their efforts and Tarron to clamp her lips shut in an effort not to laugh aloud. Amid the noise and confusion, n.o.body noticed the shadowy figure in the file room suddenly disappear. Then the operators lost track of their elusive prey, and were down on their hands and knees scrabbling about.

Cara s.n.a.t.c.hed a glance at her watch and suddenly shouted, 'It's making for the door again!'

The two men saw nothing but by now were susceptible to suggestion and headed for the door anyway. As they did so Tarron pocketed the brown furry form that had come discreetly to rest beside her and followed them. The door was hauled open and they plunged out into the corridor, but there was no sign of the mysterious creature.

'Wait a minute,' Cara said sensibly. 'You mustn't leave your post. Call maintenance while I keep searching for it,' and she ran off down the corridor, head bent low to hide her face.

Around the corner she leant against the wall and allowed herself a fit of stifled laughter. Wiping her eyes she took the improbable bug from her pocket and turned the switch concealed in the fur of its underside. It was a mad thing to have taken part in, but she felt oddly elated. She hadn't done anything like that since her college days. She peered back round the corner but the corridor was empty. She frowned.

The Doctor had said he wanted two minutes undisturbed in the file room to prove his theory.

The room offered no place of concealment and as there had been no commotion she a.s.sumed he had left before the operators returned. But then why wasn't he waiting for her?

Perhaps he had turned the other way. She ran back down the corridor, past the file room and around the further corner.

Nothing.

It was as though the Doctor had vanished into thin air.

18.

Infiltration arah gradually became aware of sensations again. She Sseemed to be lying on a bed. Her chest ached and her throat was sore, but she was warm and could breathe easily. It felt wonderful.

'h.e.l.lo, old girl feeling a bit better now?' said a concerned but familiar voice.

She opened her eyes with a start. A pale blur hovering over her resolved itself into an even more familiar square-jawed face. 'Harry!' She jerked herself upright and hugged him in delight and relief, much to his evident embarra.s.sment.

'I say, steady on. Got to observe the proprieties of the doctor/patient relationship while you're under my care, you know.'

'Keep talking like that, Harry. I thought I'd never hear plain old-fashioned English again. It's wonderful.'

Harry immediately became tongue-tied and gently had to disentangle her arms and make her lie back once more. As he very professionally took her pulse she looked around at her new surroundings. 'Where is this another s.p.a.ceship?'

'That's right. The Oranos Oranos, late of the Landoran Navy.'

'You're working with the Landorans? I've heard about them.'

'Well, not quite. People called Jand, actually, but thoroughly good sorts all the same. Bit of a long story as to how we got here tell you when you feel stronger. But the essence is that we were following your freighter, though we had no idea you were on board of course, when we heard your emergency beacon start up. We wondered if it was some sort of trap and had to think it over for a bit before risking coming alongside and boarding you. Just in time as it turned out. I don't mind admitting you had me worried for a while, but luckily this ship has a well-stocked sickbay and I've had quite a bit of medical practice lately. All the same, it's pretty obvious you've been in the thick of it, old thing.'

'In the thick of it is about right most of it was awful.'

'I know. Your boyfriend has already told us your tale.'

'My boyfriend?'

'Max the synthoid. He's chatting to Dekkilander Ch.e.l.l'lak, that's the fellow in charge, at the moment; but Max was in here earlier and wouldn't leave until I a.s.sured him you were going to pull through.'

Sarah suddenly felt absurdly embarra.s.sed. 'He's just a machine he's not even a he he for that matter.' for that matter.'

Harry raised his eyebrows and looked at her quizzically.

'Rather an unusual machine, I'd say. He certainly seems to have a soft spot for you.'

'Harry!'

'Anyway, I said I'd let him know when you recovered.' He reached over to a wall intercom and spoke a few words, then turned back to her. 'A visit from a friend now is just what the doctor ordered,' he said with a smile.

'Doctor! Oh what about the Doctor?'

Harry shook his head. 'I've seen nothing of him since we lost touch in that hypers.p.a.ce vortex thing, I'm afraid. But don't worry. If we both made landfall safely, it's on the cards he did as well. I'm sure we'll catch up with him soon.'

The door opened and Max entered, almost filling the remaining s.p.a.ce in the compact sickbay. His glowing eyes immediately focused on Sarah. 'I see that you are functioning properly again, Sarah. Dr Sullivan has helped you repair yourself as he promised.'

'A couple of hours' rest and she'll be as right as rain,'

Harry said.

'h.e.l.lo, Max,' said Sarah. 'You look much better yourself.'

The scars of his battle damage had almost disappeared, and he seemed to move with more precision and a.s.surance than before.

'I have fully recharged my power cells and completed my self-repair programme. I suspect it is easier for a synthoid than a human.'

'My sort of patient,' said Harry. 'One you just plug in and let them get on with it.'

'My regeneration has not been perfect, however,' Max said.

'My replacement neural pathways have begun to generate feedback of an irrational nature, evidently the result of an error in my repair process. It has caused me to engage in speculation beyond my normal operational parameters.'

'What sort of speculation?' Harry asked.

'For example: in performing the purpose for which I was created, was I inadvertently causing similar discommodation to others through my actions? Should I be influenced by the potential collateral suffering my actions cause to a.s.sociated non-combatants? Could I have performed my function without such consequences? I must understand how to reconcile such conflicts in the future.'

'Max, I'm sure you'll be fine. If the way you're thinking doesn't match your original specifications, then you'll just have to write some new ones for yourself.'

'Then you will aid me by explaining how such feedback irrationalities may be negated?'

'The trouble is,' Sarah said, 'some things simply can't be negated just like that '

'This is all beginning to sound dangerously deep and philosophical,' Harry interjected, 'and I don't think Sarah's quite up to discussing it yet, Max. She must rest a bit longer.'

'We'll talk about it later,' Sarah promised Max, 'if you don't mind waiting.'

'I am a machine, I do not mind waiting. Though I am now more conscious of time pa.s.sing.'

'How do you mean?'

'Before my recent battle damage I held a perfect record of events solely for the purpose of factual reference. While I was on the freighter and you were unconscious, Sarah, I realized I had begun to originate random speculations about your chances of survival and add them to my memory record. I discovered this process makes time appear to pa.s.s at a variable rate; in that instance more slowly. The experience was...illogical.'

'Don't worry, Max, that's the sort of thing we do,' Harry said lightly.

'Is it?' Max said. 'That is a fact of which I had not previously been aware. I will consider the matter further until our next discussion. Meanwhile, I shall rejoin Dekkilander Ch.e.l.l'lak. We have plans to finalize.'

He left the room, and Harry and Sarah exchanged curious glances. 'An intelligent but troubled machine,' Harry observed. 'Do you know what he reminds me of?'

'I know: Kettlewell's robot. Except Max is inherently far more sophisticated, I think, and the process is happening in reverse. Max started out as a killing machine, but now he's having doubts.'

'But from what I gather it's only been a few days since he got damaged. And he only met you a few hours ago. Surely he can't have grown a, well, a conscience in that time?'

'I did an article called "The New Computer Generation Gap" once,' Sarah said thoughtfully. 'About the way not only ordinary people, but older computers themselves were becoming redundant at an increasing rate because new generation faster models were being turned out every few months: equivalent to twenty or thirty years for us. And the faster models could learn from their mistakes and help design still faster models in less time, and so on. Maybe the few days since he suffered the damage has been long enough for Max to evolve into a sort of unplanned new improved model.'

'Well, I'm just grateful he seems to be on our side,' said Harry with evident relief.

'But is he on our side because he wants to be, or because he's still following his programming? Either way we mustn't take him for granted and use him like he's just some clever tool. I think he's more than that.'