Sarah was clinging to the ladder halfway up the pipe, and could hear the whine of the sonic screwdriver from above, when alarm tones sounded from a wall speaker in the corridor they had just left.

' Emergency, emergency! Intruders suspected within the Emergency, emergency! Intruders suspected within the sub-complex levels. All personnel report to stations. Close all sub-complex levels. All personnel report to stations. Close all security doors and access covers. security doors and access covers. ' '

A thick horizontal curved plate slid out of the wall between a pair of rungs, caught Sarah in the stomach and pushed her away from the ladder until she lost her footing and dangled from her hands, pinned to the opposite side of the pipe. She gasped in pain as the force behind the plate increased, trying to close the last remaining inches of open shaft and to cut her in two.

Callon'mal, who was standing above her, reached down and tried to pull her free, but there was no room for her hips to pa.s.s through. Then Max, who was behind her on the ladder, reached up from below, caught the rim of the plate on either side of her waist, and pushed. She heard a motor whine as though under great strain and wasn't sure if it was from the hatch mechanism or Max. Then there was a grinding sound and a whirr of a spindle running free. Max forced the hatch back into its slot. She felt Harry, who had squeezed up beside Max, catch her ankles and guide them back to the rungs.

Trembling slightly she climbed on and out of the top of the shaft and found herself standing in a machine s.p.a.ce.

As she rubbed her bruised midriff she realized a different alarm tone was echoing about the upper levels with its own ominous set of announcements: ' Danger: alien intruders in City. All personnel to a.s.sembly Danger: alien intruders in City. All personnel to a.s.sembly points. All laboratories to be secured. Leave corridors clear points. All laboratories to be secured. Leave corridors clear for security force use. If aliens are encountered they are not to for security force use. If aliens are encountered they are not to be approached but terminated with lethal force. be approached but terminated with lethal force. ' '

'Setting nine,' Ch.e.l.l ordered, adjusting the intensity setting on his own energy weapon, which resembled a stubby machine-gun. 'Them or us no time for half measures.' His own men obeyed instantly. Sarah looked at Harry who nodded. She turned the dial on the side of her own pistol, aware of the Doctor looking on in disapproval.

'Remember Brant,' she said.

Without a word the Doctor turned and led them down the new corridor. Sarah noticed the decor was different from that below, and the floor was covered in some resilient rubberized material. Perhaps it was due to that and the still blaring alarm that Max did not give them any warning of the approaching danger.

Round the next corner they almost collided with a security squad jogging in the other direction. The Doctor just had time to punch the leader on the nose before lances of fire stabbed between the two groups. Orsang'tor fell clutching his thigh.

Sarah fired her own pistol and was surprised to see a guard fall backwards with a smoking hole in his chest. Had she done that? Then Max had waded into the melee, ignoring bolts of fire that blasted holes in his body sh.e.l.l. His great arms swung like scythes, sending the guards tumbling like skittles and crashing stunned against the walls. Then she saw the Doctor was half carrying Orsang'tor through the tangle of bodies shouting, 'It's just around the corner.'

They stumbled after him, rounded the corner, burst through a wide door into a store-room and slammed it shut behind them. Most of the room was taken up by racks of shelving, but resting on trestles in a cleared s.p.a.ce was an oblate spherical pod with a couple of small portals in it.

'Hold the door for just a minute,' the Doctor rapped out, handing Orsang'tor over to Harry. Max dragged a laden shelf stack across the door just as something thudded against the other side. The Doctor pulled the TARDIS key from his pocket, approached the pod and cautiously touched its side.

Its form blurred and the trestles toppled, and then a mid-twentieth-century police call box stood in the middle of the room.

'The TARDIS!' Sarah said in relief and surprise. 'But how '

The store-room door began to explode into fragments as holes were punched through it from outside. Max and the Jand grappled with another rack of shelving.

'Never mind how,' Harry said, s.n.a.t.c.hing a glance up from where he was tending Orsang'tor. 'Just get it open, Doctor.'

The Doctor thrust his key into the lock and tried to turn it.

Nothing happened. The Doctor looked blank. 'But it should work!'

The police box shape suddenly melted away into a plain dark grey cabinet, which in turn briefly metamorphosed into a mainframe computer module and then a rack of shelves mimicking the ones surrounding it.

'It's not my TARDIS!' the Doctor said indignantly.

Sarah was in no mood for petulance. 'Well, it must be a a TARDIS of some sort ' a heavy body crashed against the outside of the door and the barricade swayed ' surely you can do something with it?' TARDIS of some sort ' a heavy body crashed against the outside of the door and the barricade swayed ' surely you can do something with it?'

The Doctor's face lit up. 'Of course, a later model. Not key or touch-activated a pure mind lock.' He closed his eyes for a moment in concentration. The police box shape returned and its door opened smoothly.

The guards burst in. Their numbers had been augmented by a couple of synthoid troopers who led the way, brushing aside the remains of the barricade and raking the room with multiple bursts of fire, pockmarking the walls and cutting in half those shelves still standing. Then they stopped, paralysed by mechanical indecision at what their sensors detected.

There were no enemy aliens in sight, only an oddly detailed blue cabinet with a flashing light on top. It was standing in the centre of the room fading erratically in and out of visibility and accompanied by a breathless, wheezing, grinding sound.

The squad leader poked his head out from behind the troopers, gaped for a moment, then said, 'Blast it whatever it is!'

The beams tore through the ghostly box and shattered the opposite wall. When the smoke cleared no trace of the box remained.

Within the TARDIS the shaking and tortured groaning was gradually replaced by a steadier hum of power as the dematerialization pulse faded away. Sarah got to her feet and breathed a sigh of relief. 'It's all right,' she told their companions, 'we're safe in here.'

They were clearly not in the control room she was familiar with however. It had the same pearly white illumination, and recessed roundels still patterned the wall panels, but they were divided by hexagonal pillars and set at unfamiliar angles. The Doctor was muttering to himself impatiently as he studied the controls on a console of distinctly trimmer design than his familiar model.

The Jand looked about them in amazement, and even Orsang'tor seemed briefly to have forgotten his wound.

'The dimensions of this chamber exceed the external dimensions of the artifact in which it is contained,' Max observed.

'Yes, I noticed that at first,' said Harry, with practised English understatement. 'Try not to worry about it is my advice.' He helped Orsang'tor to his feet again. 'Soon have you fixed up, old lad. Doctor: do you suppose the sickbay is in the same place?'

'What? Oh, probably,' replied the Doctor vaguely. Harry took Orsang'tor through an archway into the interior of the ship, leaving further explanations to Sarah. 'You travel in this...craft?' Ch.e.l.l asked.

'Well, one very much like it. They move through time and s.p.a.ce you see. Of course ours is more ' she became aware of the Doctor glaring at her ' homely. This one hasn't got that lived-in-for-500-years feeling.' The Doctor smiled. 'Of course unlike ours it obviously does have a functioning chameleon circuit,' she added quickly.

'It is truly remarkable,' Ch.e.l.l said with a slight chuckle.

Now I understand why Harry'sullivan was reluctant to explain how he arrived on Jand.'

'It's remarkable all right,' Sarah agreed, 'but I don't understand how it got here. We were on our way back to our own TARDIS travelling by, uh, other means, when we got diverted. Doctor, what's going on?'

The Doctor looked up from the console moodily. 'The Time Lords are trying to buy me off with this flashy new model attuned to my pyschometric pattern.' He looked up, apparently talking to thin air. 'Well, it won't work, do you hear? You can keep your fancy gadgetry and advanced features. Why couldn't you have sent my own TARDIS instead?' There was no reply.

Sarah looked at the Jand. 'He gets like this at times,' she whispered, slightly embarra.s.sed by the Doctor's outburst.

Trying to mollify him she added, 'I must say it certainly didn't take off as smoothly as the old one, did it, Doctor?'

'Well, to be honest,' the Doctor admitted, calming slightly, 'that was probably due to interference from Deepcity's shields and abnormal gravity gradient.' He frowned. 'That might make precise materialization difficult when we return. If the s.p.a.ce-time hyperplane stress is too high...' He trailed off into silence, lost in thought.

'It's all right,' Sarah explained to the others, 'you probably couldn't understand him even if he was talking aloud. Oi, Doctor! We've got guests, remember?'

The Doctor blinked. 'Sorry what did you say?'

'This is all most diverting, Doctor,' Ch.e.l.l said, 'but I must continue with my mission. Is it possible for us to contact, or be returned to, our ship? It should be waiting for us somewhere in this system.'

'Oh, I should think so.' The Doctor turned back to the controls, his fingertips seeming to brush across the streamlined touch-sensitive contacts. Recessed screens lit up and he studied the results. 'There's a lot of activity at a point in s.p.a.ce on the edge of this system's second asteroid belt: interference from high intensity energy discharges, rapid ma.s.s displacement.' He looked up at Ch.e.l.l. 'I think there's a battle going on.'

The Oranos Oranos trembled as another vortex mine exploded against its shields. A moment after that its frame shivered again as a plasma bolt was discharged at the fleeing craft that had laid the mine spread. A fireball blossomed in s.p.a.ce. trembled as another vortex mine exploded against its shields. A moment after that its frame shivered again as a plasma bolt was discharged at the fleeing craft that had laid the mine spread. A fireball blossomed in s.p.a.ce.

'A hit!' somebody called, and there was a brief cheer. But Tramour'des knew the Oranos Oranos was still doomed. was still doomed.

He should have run the moment the enemy interference began, but he had hoped every second to re-establish contact with the Dekkilander's party. Now, if that call ever came, he would not be able to answer it. They were boxed in and unable to reach hypers.p.a.ce, a.s.sailed by twenty unmarked fast strike craft fighting in their own s.p.a.ce and unburdened by hyperdrive generators or bulky life-systems. He and his brave, overstretched, outnumbered crew were going to die but they were going to take as many of the enemy with them as they could.

A seeker missile flashed across the screens and struck somewhere aft. The concussion jarred him even in his braced and padded seat. The main power flickered and went out and the emergencies cut in. The drive faltered and died. The screen showed the enemy ships swinging about and converging for the final a.s.sault.

This was it.

'Discharge all missile tubes; remaining batteries on random firing sequence.'

And then came the strangest sound.

For a moment he thought the ship was breaking up, then he heard gasps from the bridge crew and twisted round in his chair. On the deck behind him a grey rectangular box solidified out of thin air. Then, even as he looked on in stupefied amazement, it blurred and became a curious blue cabinet with a flashing light on top. A door opened in its side and Dekkilander Ch.e.l.l'lak emerged. 'No time to explain evacuate the ship,' he ordered crisply.

Ninety seconds later the TARDIS vanished from the bridge even as the now crewless Oranos Oranos disintegrated around it. disintegrated around it.

Harry found his way to the TARDIS's poolroom, sank into a sun-lounger beside Ch.e.l.l, Tramour'des and the Doctor, and gratefully accepted the drink Sarah handed him.

'All your men have been checked over and found quarters, sir,' he reported to Ch.e.l.l. 'Minor injuries mostly nothing to worry about. A little rest and they'll be fine.'

'Good,' said Ch.e.l.l. 'They deserve it.' He looked about him uncertainly. 'Mind you, all this still doesn't seem quite right in the circ.u.mstances almost frivolous.'

The TARDIS's autotailor had cleaned and repaired their clothes, the food synthesizer had provided meals, and they now sat in comfort on a colonnaded terrace of pink-veined marble beside an olympic-sized swimming pool. Max stood watching on solemnly, no chair being strong enough to support him; he reminded Harry of a dignified head waiter.

'We are effectively in limbo ' the Doctor reminded Ch.e.l.l gently. 'No time pa.s.ses in your universe while we remain here. Regard it as a chance to plan and prepare calmly and to avoid rash action.' He looked at Harry and Sarah. 'And first, you're going to tell me every detail of what happened to you.

Especially anything to do with Averon and Landor.'

Harry inclined his head politely to Sarah.

'Well,' she began, 'the first thing I remember, after we got separated, was finding myself wandering about the highlands of a moon orbiting Averon...'

Four hours of ship's time pa.s.sed and they were still talking.

'It comes down to this,' said Ch.e.l.l, summarizing. 'No one will believe this incredible story of collusion between Deepcity and possibly other Landoran forces and Averon without convincing proof. The only such proof is Deepcity itself, but it is virtually impossible to infiltrate by the method we used previously, now they are on the alert, and you say even this remarkable machine cannot safely return there.'

'With that shielding and ma.s.s discontinuity we'd most likely materialize underground or miles up in the air,' agreed the Doctor. 'Not recommended.'

'And even if we could fight our way in with a sizeable force,' Ch.e.l.l continued, 'they would have time to mobilize their reserve synthonic weapons. We would also risk the lives of thousands of civilian workers and their families, who you say are quite innocent of the deception.'

'Yes; somehow we must get them on our side, or at least make them take a neutral stance,' the Doctor agreed.

'And this a.s.sumes Landor will even let you try to raise an army against them,' Sarah pointed out. 'Remember they've got the most powerful navy around here.'

'But surely their navy is not part of the conspiracy,'

Tramour'des said. 'I cannot say I like the Landorans, but I admire their courage and know they have also fought valiantly against the ships of Averon. I have seen some of their battles and know the losses they have suffered. Perhaps most are as innocent as the Deencitv workers and are also being deceived by this actor who masquerades as one of their admirals?'

'But what about the way we were nearly intercepted by those Averon fighters while following that freighter from Nethra.s.s?' said Harry. 'Unless it was sheer coincidence, who was in the best position to tip them off? If it hadn't been for that golden ship turning up out of the blue we'd have been sunk even if it did give me the nastiest turn I can remember.'

'They showed me some pictures of that ship in Deepcity,'

said the Doctor, 'and now I remember where I saw it before.

It's a private yacht from Tralsammavar.'

'And what would, er, Tralsammavarians be doing out here?'

'Not a lot,' admitted the Doctor, 'considering their entire race became extinct well over a million of your years ago.'

'Over a million oh, thank you, Doctor,' said Harry sarcastically, 'that helps no end.'

'Max, you've been very quiet,' Sarah said. 'What do you think?'

'I am still too inexperienced in judging the motivations of organic beings to offer an informed opinion, Sarah. But I am continuing to collate and a.n.a.lyse the data. I promise I will tell you when I reach a significant conclusion.'

'I see. Well, I'd still like to know why my freighter was crewed by robot Maarcheen,' Sarah reminded the others.

'We can't explain that or determine the correct course of action until we understand the true nature of this conspiracy, and something still does not tally,' said the Doctor. 'Is it really in the nature of the survivors of Landor to come to any "understanding" with Averon after what they did to their world, and would Averon accept such an arrangement in view of their known xenophobia?'

'I admit that puzzles me slightly,' said Ch.e.l.l. 'But it fits the known facts, incredible as they seem. There is collusion and deception between them on a ma.s.sive scale.' He snorted. 'No, collusion is too gentle a word treachery treachery is more suitable.' is more suitable.'

The Doctor scowled. 'Treachery I wonder? I deduced the collusion from various clues I picked up in Deepcity and reasoned backwards to a possible motive to explain them.

When I accused Kambril and Andez they didn't deny it, but they acted as though there was something I'd missed. Another layer: one so secret that Andez wouldn't reveal it to me even when he thought I was going to die within minutes. But what?'

He jumped to his feet and began to pace about, gesticulating as he spoke half to himself 'Layers of secrets, lies behind lies. This is an interstellar-scale conspiracy at the highest levels and they don't mind how many people die to preserve it. Yet Andez and Kambril both insisted they were loyal; in fact they were almost indignant that I should suggest otherwise.' His frown deepened. 'Tramour'des, you said the Oranos Oranos was poorly fitted out more like a converted merchantman?' was poorly fitted out more like a converted merchantman?'

'That's correct, Doctor. Is it important?'

'I'm not sure. Perhaps we're not thinking big enough. But what's bigger than what we already know? A lie too big to see.' He stopped dead, blinking slowly, eyes widening. His mouth shaped words soundlessly, as though testing them out before speaking. Finally he muttered, 'Oh no! It's almost too cruel.'

'What is, Doctor?' Sarah demanded.

'But it has to be. It makes sense of everything.'

'Doctor!'

He turned to look at them, his face full of grave purpose.

'We're going to get our proof.'

'To Deepcity?' Ch.e.l.l asked.

'No. Because the most important evidence isn't there at all.'