The ceremony mask was there, as ever, perched on its little wooden stand. The face of the creature in the dream, of course. Strange; the eight-year-old Sanjira in the dream never recognised the mask, even though old Sanjira woke up with it staring him in the face every day of his life. But then, Sanjira mused, I wouldn't have known what a ceremony mask looked like when I was eight. The family never showed its artefacts, its "fetishes", to the children. He'd been thirty-four when his own mask had been presented to him, when he'd risen from Little Brother to Cousin.

Sanjira crawled out of the bed, reached for his dayrobe, and folded it around his body, trying to ignore the sense of revulsion he felt when he saw his own bloodless, withered limbs slipping into the sleeves. Fifty years old, looking eighty, at least. The other members of the family at the Mission talked about that, behind his back. They said he'd made a pact with bad Spirits, and this was the price he'd paid.

He would have laughed, if he'd had the strength. The others were different. They were young, they'd been brought to Dronid from worlds as far apart as Lurma and Salostopus, but Sanjira had been born and raised here, and he knew the truth of it. There were things in the air on Dronid, things the locals never talked about. They took you apart, hour by hour, year by year. They bit chunks out of your life, ate away your skin and bones.

The legacy of the Time Lords, thought Sanjira. They'd done so much to this planet. So much damage.

'Cousin?'

Sanjira didn't bother to turn. He knew what he'd see. Little Sister Justine, wearing the same outfit, day in and day out. The black velvet dress she'd brought from Earth, when the family had recruited her. She'd be hovering in the doorway of Sanjira's room, her head bowed respectfully. He wondered if she'd spend the rest of her life like this. He imagined her as an old woman, worn to nothing by Dronid, her red hair turned grey, performing the same old duties decade after decade.

Sanjira mumbled the Earliest Prayer; Justine gave all the correct responses. She was only seventeen, Sanjira remembered. Still young enough to take the Spirits at face value.

'There's news, Cousin,' Justine said, once the formalities were over. 'Little Brother Kolman is back from the city. He's been watching the Corporation for us.'

Sanjira moved across to one of the windows, as he did every morning. It was a hole in the wall, nothing more; no weather on Dronid these days, no wind or rain, no need for gla.s.s. Outside, on the street behind the Mission, there was nothing but red dust and crumbling stonework. A handful of young men lurked among the ruins on the other side of the street, doing their best to look macho and dangerous whenever anybody wandered past. 'And?' Sanjira prompted.

'Kolman believes the Corporation has found a relic,' Justine went on. There was a touch of excitement in her voice, which she wasn't hiding quite well enough. 'Under the wreckage of the city centre. Hidden in an underground bunker, he says.'

Sanjira turned to her, at last. The Little Sister's head was still bowed. 'A relic? What sort of relic?'

'The Little Brother wasn't certain, Cousin. He described it as a coffin, though he couldn't examine it closely. Not without the Corporation noticing him. They say the bunker's been there since the Cataclysm.'

Sanjira coughed a chuckle out of his throat. "Cataclysm". So dramatic, the newbloods. The Time Lords had fought the first battle of their war on Dronid almost half a century ago. The natives never spoke of it, but the off-worlders liked to think of it as a War in Heaven, all h.e.l.lfire and thunder.

Of course, Sanjira knew better. It wasn't the battle that had destroyed the cities, it wasn't the battle that had sucked the life out of the planet. The Time Lords had done that after the battle had ended, in a desperate attempt to cover their tracks. Gallifrey liked to keep its secrets.

'It's a Time Lord artefact?' Sanjira queried.

Little Sister Justine wrinkled her nose. 'The Little Brother wasn't sure. He... acted rather rashly.'

'Explain.'

'He contacted some of the family's allies in the city. They agreed to attack the Corporation's stronghouse there.' Justine sniffed the air as she spoke. 'Kolman thought... he believed the relic might be of some importance, Cousin. A Time Lord weapon, perhaps. Left over from the Cataclysm.'

'The Little Brother should have consulted me first, as well he must know.' Sanjira tried to sound angry, but the effort made him feel very, very tired. 'Nevertheless. I should like to examine this item at first hand. And the smell that's troubling you, Little Sister, is my own urine. I've wet my bed. Does that bother you?'

Justine kept her eyes fixed on the floor. Her face was too pale to blush, though. 'No, Cousin Sanjira.'

'Good. We shouldn't let these small things worry us. Now. Leave me. I need to dress.'

It took them the best part of a day to reach the city from Smithmanstown. The family owned an automobile, one of the few that had survived the "Cataclysm", although its bodywork had been eaten away by the clockwork bacteria the Time Lords had introduced to the planet, and its engine pumped thick black smoke into the atmosphere wherever it went. There were no roads connecting the towns any more, so the machine trundled over the mounds of debris that had once been the suburbs, stopping in the shanty-towns whenever Justine became travel sick.

They pa.s.sed fewer and fewer people as they drove into the city centre. The place was poisonous, and everyone knew it; you just didn't live there, unless you could afford the alien medical equipment the Corporation peddled. The stronghouse, when they reached it, turned out to be a rotting three-storey building that had once been an administration office. Apt, Sanjira decided. The cults and the criminal groups were the only government Dronid had left. The Corporation made its home in the capital, while Faction Paradox was busy trying to rebuild its powerbase in the smaller towns around it.

Briefly, Sanjira wondered if the planet was really worth fighting over, but he put the thought out of his mind.

On the inside, the building wasn't much different to the Mission, all bleached walls and dirty cracks. Evidently, the attack on the stronghouse had finished some time ago. There were bodies in the foyer, fallen Corporation security guards, half a dozen or so arranged in a messy, blood-flecked heap by the doorway. Some of the family's city allies hovered in the shadows at the edges of the room, giggling among themselves and eyeing up Justine as she walked past them.

All men, Sanjira noted. Many of them had teeth sharpened to points. At least, Sanjira hoped they'd been sharpened, he certainly hadn't heard of the city atmosphere causing DNA mutations like that. Most were dressed in suits, the kind that had been popular among the upwardly-mobile undercla.s.ses before the Time Lords had arrived, with gold medallions dangling around their scrawny necks. The usual tribal identifiers, thought Sanjira. Their forefathers had probably belonged to the ghetto gangs, before the cities had fallen.

They'd all be dead by thirty. Still, if they made useful allies, so much the better. It was good to have disposable people on your side.

They found the relic in an office, which Sanjira a.s.sumed had belonged to the stronghouse's commander-in-chief, while he'd been alive. The room was, like all the others, white-walled and grubby, but there were no windows, the only light coming from a paraffin lamp nailed to the ceiling.

In the centre of the office was a desk, and perched on the desk, more than a little precariously, was a casket. It was metallic, with two symbols Sanjira didn't recognise etched into its lid, and it pulsed with a soft silver light, which the Cousin guessed would probably be hypnotic if you stared at it for long enough. One of the Faction's allies slouched in a chair by the desk, his squinty little eyes searching the room for something to rest his feet on. Two of his underlings hovered nearby, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

'Got your box,' the leader said, when Sanjira stepped forward. The man's face was long, his features were lumpy, and he dribbled when he spoke. Sanjira presumed some sort of genetic deformity was involved.

The Cousin moved to inspect the casket. The two thugs shuffled towards him, doing their best to look menacing. There was something not quite right about their eyes, Sanjira noticed. Possibly it was the drugs they were taking.

'Did I say you could touch it?' drooled their leader.

Sanjira attempted to look pious. 'Do I take it you're going to ask for remuneration?'

The leader sn.i.g.g.e.red like a moron. He probably was a moron, though, so the Cousin couldn't fault him for that. 'Cost us lots to get into this place. Guns. Ammo. Organisational costs. Follow?'

Frankly, Sanjira was amazed he could say words like "organisational" without s...o...b..ring. 'What do you want?' he asked.

'Want you to look into something. Want your help. Use those special bug-eyes you got.'

'Look into what, precisely?'

The man grinned a saw-toothed grin. 'Future. Our future. Corporation's starting to notice us, follow? Ambushes. Set-ups. They say, either you work with us, or you don't work. We want to know how they're tooled up. Where they're going to be moving in, when they're thinking of playing bad little tricks on us. Don't want to get snuck up on. Don't want to work for them. Don't want to work for anyone.'

'I think we can come to some arrangement,' Sanjira said. Justine looked horrified, but she didn't speak. 'Of course, I'll need to inspect the casket before I can agree to anything,' he added.

The leader glanced at his men. Then he shrugged, and got to his feet. 'You can look. Don't get too excited, heh?' And, with another nasty little gurgle, the man sauntered out of the office, his two lapdogs in tow.

Justine waited until they were out of earshot before she spoke. 'Cousin, you can't... that is, with respect...'

Sanjira approached the casket, and ran his fingers across the lid. Yes. As he'd thought. A coffin, Time Lord design. 'Is there a problem, Little Sister? Perhaps you don't think we should do deals with our allies?'

Justine bowed her head. 'Cousin, he wants us to use the techniques for his own benefit. The Spirits... such a thing would be disrespectful, surely?'

'It's wise to keep one's allies happy, Little Sister.'

'But the Spirits...'

'The Spirits are a convenience. Their prime function is to be useful, not to be worshipped. Which is the greater weapon? The Grandfather himself, or the awe the people have for him?'

'I... Cousin, forgive me. I don't understand.' Justine didn't seem to know where to look. Obviously, she decided her best option was to change the subject, because she asked: 'The relic. It's what you expected?'

'Yes. A body. Almost certainly a Time Lord.'

'Is his bioma.s.s useful?'

Sanjira patted the lid of the casket. 'We have all the Gallifreyan data we could possibly need. A corpse is of no value to us. We have no control over the dead, even if we have their biodata. That's the way of the Celestis, not the way of the family.'

Little Sister Justine looked puzzled. 'Forgive me, Cousin. If that's true, why do you want to bargain for the casket?'

'Because the dead must be given their due rites. Even the dead of Gallifrey. Besides which, I want to make our allies feel they're getting something for nothing. If they defect to the Corporation, Dronid will never be ours.'

He thought about that for a moment. 'What's left of Dronid will never be ours,' he corrected himself.

They performed the ritual back at the Mission, in the chambers of the family shrine. Cousin Sanjira let Justine speak the Parting Prayer. When the Spirits latched onto the casket, and pulled it away through the folds of s.p.a.ce-time, the Little Sister actually jumped. She'd never been responsible for a dematerialisation before, Sanjira remembered. He tried not to smile at the look on her face.

She'd performed the rite well, though. One day, when she realised the true significance of the Spirits, she'd make a good Cousin. Perhaps even a good Mother.

They watched the progress of the casket on one of the shrine's monitors, watched it tumbling away through the vortex, heading towards whatever destination the Spirits had chosen for it. Justine, as was traditional, prayed that the body might cause as much damage to causality as possible. Once the image had faded from the monitor, Sanjira tried to explain why it was so important to give even the enemies of the family the proper last rites. Ceremony was the key, he told her. When she understood that, she'd understand the Spirits.

He knew she'd get it one day.

The dream was different that night.

Cousin Sanjira was an old man, not a boy. He was wearing his family robes, stained with the spilt bioma.s.s of a dozen ceremonies, the mask over his face making him cough and wheeze. He moved through a building full of beds, a sleeping child tucked into each and every one. Alarmingly, there was a knife in his hand. He recognised it as the ceremonial blade from the Mission, the one he and Justine had used to draw the blood for the dematerialisation rite.

A silhouette slipped out of a darkened corner, and blocked the doorway ahead of Sanjira, a living wall of dried blood and black muscle. The apparition had one arm, although the shadow it cast had two. Sanjira tried to draw another breath, but the air turned to smoke in his lungs. The Grandfather had one arm, the family legends claimed. He'd cut off the other one himself, to remove the tattoo the Time Lords had branded him with. Could it really be...?

'I'm not the Grandfather,' the silhouette said. 'Only a messenger.'

Sanjira tried to speak. He felt like falling to his knees, like screaming, like running. He remembered what he'd said to Justine about the Spirits; heresy, even if it happened to be true. Please, he thought, please no. I meant no disrespect, but Justine is so young, she doesn't realise...

'That isn't the problem,' said the messenger. Its voice was smooth, but soft, no louder than a hiss. 'It's about the body.'

'The body?' Sanjira managed to rasp.

'Oh, yes. What did you do, Cousin? What did you throw away? The Spirits are distressed. The Grandfather is displeased.'

'I performed the proper rites,' Sanjira protested, wheezing with every syllable. He tried to prize off the mask, but it wouldn't budge. The silhouette laughed, and its shadow laughed with it.

'Oh, idiot boy! Through biodata, we become strong. This is our way. The Relic was handed to you on a plate, and you gave it up to the vortex. Its will is too strong for the Spirits to steer its pa.s.sage. The Relic is lost to us, now.'

'It was a dead body!' Sanjira coughed. 'Dead! Its biodata was of no use!'

'A legend never dies, Cousin. You should know that.'

'A legend?' Sanjira clawed at the mask, and felt one of his fingernails break against the bone. 'Then the body... who...?'

The one-armed shape leaned forward, and whispered in Cousin Sanjira's ear. It whispered the name of the dead Time Lord, told the Cousin the true nature of the body in the box. The whispers echoed inside the mask, until the whole world seemed to be made out of the words.

'No!' Sanjira howled.

The silhouette shrank back. 'Yes, Cousin, yes. You see? The Grandfather's pleasure was to possess the biodata, to grow from its strength. Yet you threw the body away, without looking beneath its skin. Is there any sin worse than this?'

'Then... there's to be a punishment?'

The Grandfather's messenger didn't speak. It moved aside, melding with the shadows around it, letting Sanjira pa.s.s.

The Cousin stepped forward, his legs moving of their own accord. The room ahead was his own room, in the orphanage. In front of him there was a bed, and in the bed lay an eight-year-old boy. Cousin Sanjira heard the humming of the shrine in his ears, and knew the Spirits had brought him here. For the briefest of moments, Sanjira saw himself as the boy saw him, a figure in a blood-tainted robe, his face the skull of a bat. The Cousin moved to the side of the bed, and raised the knife. A scar of silver, unfolding from his gown.

This was his punishment, then. Cousin Sanjira, aged fifty, stabbed the boy clean through the heart. Young Sanjira, aged eight, cried out once and died.

But if Young Sanjira died, then Cousin Sanjira had never existed. Which meant he Couldn't have killed the boy. Which meant he did exist. Which meant he could have killed the boy. Which meant he'd never existed. Which meant he couldn't have killed the boy. Which meant he did exist. Which meant...

Cousin Sanjira murdered the child, and was himself murdered, again and again and again. He felt his life being disa.s.sembled and rea.s.sembled, disa.s.sembled and rea.s.sembled, disa.s.sembled and rea.s.sembled, until his timeline swallowed its own tail, and there was nothing left of him but divine and perfect Paradox.

6.

THE BODYs.n.a.t.c.hERS [REPRISE].

The black ship re-entered normal s.p.a.ce about a thousand kilometres above the surface of the Earth, on the very fringes of the planet's ionosphere. Its arrival sent shockwaves through the psychic aurora of the entire eastern hemisphere, causing people across India and Malaysia to see disturbing patterns in the static of their TV sets, and forcing images of impossible machines into the minds of Asia's leading research scientists. For weeks afterwards, the continent's New Agers would experience visions of bizarre planets made entirely out of crystal, but put it all down to something in the water.

The ship's scanning mechanisms surveyed the island that had once been called Borneo, finding the expected tachyon disturbances at the heart of the bioengineered rainforest. In the control section of the vehicle, a two-p.r.o.nged hand began wiring an invite card into the navigational banks, the pincers moving with surprising grace and precision.

A few minutes later, the vessel was brought into phase with Qixotl's Brigadoon circuit, and the Unthinkable City became visible to the ship's single occupant. Nonorganic sensory systems monitored the buildings with a sensation that might, if the observer had been human, have been called excitement. The black s.p.a.ceship promptly dropped into Earth's gravity well.

Sam peered along the corridor, but the decor was the same as far as the eye could see. Skulls, skulls, more skulls. She looked over her shoulder. Behind her, in the main part of the shrine, Kathleen was wandering around the raised section of the floor, looking completely thrown by the whole thing. Sam wondered whether there was some kind of rea.s.surance she should have been giving the woman.