Then she remembered that Kathleen was about a decade older than she was. An officer in an international military organisation, for G.o.d's sake. Sam made a mental note to ask the Lieutenant what UNISYC stood for, the next time they had a moment to themselves.

She turned her attention back to the pa.s.sage around her. The Faction's ship was a lot like the TARDIS, but more "open plan". The TARDIS was designed as a vehicle, with all the rooms and corridors stuffed into one handy little box; but the shrine was more like a set of rooms, capable of sliding into other people's architecture as it saw fit, a location rather than an object. The pa.s.sage ahead was lined with blue lighting strips and dark ionic columns, the floor coated with muddy scratches and swirls.

Sam crouched down to inspect the markings. The darker lines looked like dried blood, but if it was real human bean-juice, a h.e.l.l of a lot had been spilled here. Maybe the ship ran on the stuff, like in the stories the Doctor had told her about the Great Vampires. Maybe the skulls were the remains of the people the shrine had consumed. Yeuch.

'h.e.l.l,' said Kathleen.

Sam turned, and stood. Back in the shrine, Kathleen was standing frozen by the dais, staring at a second figure near the entrance. Before she'd even identified the shape, Sam had thrown herself against the wall of the pa.s.sage, squeezing herself between two of the columns. There wasn't much light here, she reasoned, so she probably wasn't visible from the shrine.

She felt something press into her back, presumably the jawbone of one of the skulls. There was a vibration running through the skull, a humming of power. Sam held her breath. From the shrine, she could hear the sound of Kathleen's feet, skittering across the floor. And something else. Breathing. Heavy breathing. Whoever had arrived in the shrine, Sam concluded, he was wearing a mask.

'Don't touch me,' Kathleen said.

More skittering.

'I got lost, OK? Please. I'm sorry. I really, really don't want to be here.'

The breathing stopped. Sam guessed the mask had come off.

'I don't want to be here!' Kathleen yelled. Kathleen yelled.

Against Sam's back, the skulls hummed a little more loudly. As if they knew the ship was about to be fed.

The Doctor dragged Mr Qixotl along the corridor, his fingers twisted around the man's ear lobe. Qixotl's legs were a little on the short side, so he practically had to skip down the tunnel to keep up with the Doctor. As he bounced from leg to leg, he made the occasional grunt of protest, but so far he hadn't bothered resisting.

'Now ugh ugh let's try and be let's try and be nng nng reasonable about this, OK?' Qixotl gurgled, as the Doctor hauled him around the next corner. 'I can see you're reasonable about this, OK?' Qixotl gurgled, as the Doctor hauled him around the next corner. 'I can see you're ooh ooh upset, but, y'know, there's upset, but, y'know, there's ahg ahg no need to get nasty no need to get nasty rrp.' rrp.'

'Nasty?' The Doctor let go of the ear, then watched as Qixotl lost his balance, bounced off the wall, and fell onto his backside. 'You're selling off my own mortal remains, and you don't want me to get nasty?'

Qixotl rubbed the bruised parts of his anatomy, but didn't get up. 'Business is business,' he muttered.

The Doctor tried to remember the last time he'd been angry. Really, really angry. He couldn't. He'd been indignant, yes. And he'd often been a little snappish, since he'd acquired this body; the same way you could get a little snappish when you bought a new pair of shoes and found they didn't quite fit properly. But this was the first time he'd been angry angry angry in quite a while. Really, he was surprised how easy it seemed. Losing his temper seemed a much simpler process than it had done, say, half a decade ago. Another quirk of his new personality, he guessed. It was three-and-a-half years old, but he still hadn't looked in all the corners. So much in his head, these days, it could take him centuries to sort it all out. angry in quite a while. Really, he was surprised how easy it seemed. Losing his temper seemed a much simpler process than it had done, say, half a decade ago. Another quirk of his new personality, he guessed. It was three-and-a-half years old, but he still hadn't looked in all the corners. So much in his head, these days, it could take him centuries to sort it all out.

He took a deep breath. 'Why, Qixotl?' he said. 'Why?'

The man shrugged. 'It's a valuable piece of bioma.s.s. Listen, if it's any consolation, there was a rigorous screening programme, right? Lots of races only wanted your stiff... I mean, your, er, earthly remnants... so they could gloat a bit. Everyone wants your head on a stick. I only invited the ones who had, y'know, a special use for it.'

It wasn't much of a consolation, really. The Doctor was starting to feel like a can of dog food. 'Then it's true, what you told me before? The Time Lords want to use me as a weapon of some kind?'

'Oh, yeah. They're desperate. Now some of the Celestis are going over to the other side, the war's going to h.e.l.l in a handbasket '

'Shh! Shh!' The Doctor closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears. 'I don't want to hear it. I don't want to know anything about the future.'

But then, knowing about the future was inevitable, wasn't it? To some degree, anyway. They were talking about his body. Which meant his future was already here, lying in a coffin-box, somewhere in the ziggurat.

So. This was it. His wake. A bunch of back-stabbing fourdimensional parasites, all trying to get their hands on whatever was left of his flesh and blood. He remembered that time on Necros, when he'd stumbled across his own tombstone. It had been a fake, of course, an elaborate practical joke, but it had set him thinking. Wondering whose face he'd be wearing when he was lowered into the ground. Wondering whether he'd make it to the end of the twelfth regeneration.

He could look, if he wanted.

Oh, good grief, no.

He opened his eyes. 'Are you sure it's me?' he asked.

Down on the floor, Qixotl nodded. 'Yup. Listen, if it helps, you're not going to snuff it until after '

'Qixotl!'

'Sorry.'

'What I mean is, are you sure it isn't a forgery? A clone? A simulacrum?'

'You think I couldn't spot a clone, with all the biotech I've got around here? Anyhow, a clone wouldn't have the bits of biodata you've picked up over the years, it'd only have the inbuilt genetic stuff. Otherwise, I'd be selling a copy to everyone here. Sorry, Doc. Er, Doctor. My condolences and everything.'

'It's underneath us,' the Doctor murmered. 'Down in the catacombs under the ziggurat. The voice I heard. A telepathic trace. That's why it didn't want to talk to me, because it knew... because I I knew... I couldn't be allowed to communicate with myself. Not from beyond the grave.' A sudden thought struck him. 'Are you sure I'm dead?' knew... I couldn't be allowed to communicate with myself. Not from beyond the grave.' A sudden thought struck him. 'Are you sure I'm dead?'

Qixotl laughed, then realised it was in bad taste, and pretended he'd been clearing his throat. 'Yeah, pretty sure.'

'But I'm still telepathically active. I know, I know, Time Lords are supposed to be active after death, residual psychic power and so forth, but to be that good a transmitter... maybe I'm feigning death. Maybe it's something to do with my respiratory bypa.s.s system. I've done it before.'

'You're hyperactive even as a corpse, Doctor. That's why you're worth so much, yeah?'

Corpse. The Doctor shuddered, but not visibly. Did the man really have to use that word? Body, he could deal with. Cadaver, even. But corpse corpse...

'Where's the control centre of this City?' he growled.

Even he was amazed how threatening he sounded. Qixotl looked suitably startled. 'It's, er, on the next level down. But you can't go there.'

'The dead can go anywhere.' The Doctor raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'And I said I didn't believe in ghosts,' he said, addressing any major supernatural powers who might have been pa.s.sing by.

At least the man looked human. When he'd crept into the shrine, he'd been wearing the bat-skull over his face, but now the mask was off. He was, Bregman judged, even younger than Cousin Justine had been. His skin was rough, tanned, pockmarked, pulled so tightly across his face that he seemed almost as skeletal as his headgear. He had dark hair, tied into a ponytail at the back of his head, and there was a small scar across his forehead. Bregman guessed it was self-inflicted. She remembered the videocasts she'd seen of the urban tribes in Little So Paolo, on the west coast of the Canadian Fed. Drop-outs who identified each other by the scars they wore. The man... Little Brother something... looked just like one of the gang-runners, Brazilian features and all. Only his eyes didn't fit the stereotype. Pale blue. Aryan blue. Contacts, maybe.

The Little Brother kept moving forward. Bregman kept backing away. He was taller than she was, and probably combat-trained. His clothes weren't ideal for action he looked really, really uncomfortable in that suit but then, Bregman's body wasn't ideal for action, either.

'I don't want to be here!' she squawked. Then her heel caught against something on the floor behind her, and she tumbled backwards. she squawked. Then her heel caught against something on the floor behind her, and she tumbled backwards.

After a few moments, Bregman found herself staring up at the pitch-black ceiling of the shrine. Her backside ached more than her backbone, so at least it had been a good fall. There was a wet patch under her hand, as if she'd fallen into a puddle.

The face of the Faction cultist materialised above her head. A smile stretched itself across his lips. The smile made his mouth look like another ceremonial scar.

'You on the slab,' he drawled.

Bregman twisted her head to one side. She realised she was lying on the dais at the centre of the chamber. From here, she could make out the details of the rust patterns, geometric figures that looked as though they'd leaked straight out of someone's veins. She figured out why her hand was wet, at last.

'Blood,' she said.

'No blood,' the Little Brother told her, the smile-wound opening up a little. 'Bioma.s.s. We take that from one of the Corp'ration. Took a whole day, cutting that son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h open.'

'Oh, G.o.d,' Bregman croaked. The Time Lord, Homunculette, had said something about Faction Paradox being a voodoo cult. Voodoo was illegal in most parts of the world these days, after what had happened in Haiti in the '40s, and most of what Bregman knew came from the old schlock movies. Voodoo ritual involved the use of biological matter, everybody knew that. You used people's hair and toenail clippings to cast spells against them. You used blood to activate the magic.

That was it. The shrine was alive. Bregman had read the tech reports, she knew all about the "living technology" the aliens used, the organic ships of the Zygons, the thinker-weapons of the Selachians. The shrine was a ship with a mind of its own. If human beings had built a place like this, it would've been full of computer banks and navigational systems, but the Faction did things differently. The only way you could communicate with the shrine was through the blood rites, and Bregman was lying on top of the control panel. Sacrifice a chicken and you're on your way.

'I don't want to be here,' Bregman hollered. 'It was a mistake. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'

'You are are here, UNISYC b.i.t.c.h. This, s'our shrine. You don't come here. Just me, my Cousin, and the Spirits. Anyone else, that's sac-ree-lege.' He didn't sound like he was outraged by the blasphemy, though. He sounded like he thought it was all a big joke. here, UNISYC b.i.t.c.h. This, s'our shrine. You don't come here. Just me, my Cousin, and the Spirits. Anyone else, that's sac-ree-lege.' He didn't sound like he was outraged by the blasphemy, though. He sounded like he thought it was all a big joke.

Bregman decided to chance her arm. Oh, great. h.e.l.l of an expression to think of, at a time like this. 'What do you want?'

The Little Brother stopped smiling. He reached into the top pocket of his jacket. 'Satisfaction,' he said.

'You want to keep the Spirits happy, is that it?'

'Spirits. Huhuh. You think I'm gonna be like a witch-doctor, like Tarzan Tarzan? You think I'm gonna wave my unga-bunga stick at you, turn you into a dog? You already a dog. UNI-b.i.t.c.h.' He took his hand out of his pocket. Bregman saw there was something attached to it. It looked a lot like a knuckleduster, but much more intricate, the product of a higher technology. There was a tiny gla.s.s vial connected to each finger.

As Bregman watched, spines extended from the vials. Needles. Syringes, maybe. Four of them in all.

The Little Brother inspected the device, then turned to Bregman. 'Want something from you,' he said. 'Then I go let you run. Hokay?'

Colonel Joseph Armitage Kortez was getting close to Cloud Nine. He knew this for a fact, because he'd been careful to count the Clouds as he'd pa.s.sed them. The advantage of the military mind, he reasoned. Just because you were going to have an out-of-body experience, that was no excuse for sloppiness.

He'd been ascending the various levels of existence for about half an hour now, all the while meditating on the events of the auction. As he pa.s.sed through Cloud Seven, he was a.s.sailed by false angels, tiny white-winged goblins with faces stolen from the other representatives in the ziggurat. One of the creatures, adopting the features of the man in the green velvet jacket, twittered around the Colonel's head.

'Sergeant... Colonel Colonel Kortez!' he exclaimed. 'Still reading up on the Zen Buddhism?' Kortez!' he exclaimed. 'Still reading up on the Zen Buddhism?'

'I don't know you,' Kortez told him.

'Oh, I'm sure you do,' the man said. 'Don't you remember Saskatoon?'

'Kortez!' It was another of the angels. It looked like Mr Qixotl, but it sounded more like General Tchike. 'Don't you know your duty, Colonel? There's a traitor in our midst. A threat to the security of Earth. Deal with him at once.'

Two other angels, skeletal bats with doves' feathers stuck to their wings, fluttered past. 'The Spirits are with us,' one announced, joyously. 'But we had orders to capture those thermosystron bombs, not destroy them.'

'Si,' affirmed the other.

'The strange is truther than you think,' said Mr Homunculette. 'The schoolgirl is not what she seems.'

'But sometimes my arms bend back,' added one particularly angelic angel with an unfolding face.

'Who would live in a body like this?' asked the Doctor.

Doctor? Where had he come from?

Kortez decided the angels had probably been sent as a distraction by the Infernal Forces of Creation, so he was glad to find himself drifting out of their reach. But Cloud Eight was next, and if anything, it was going to be even worse. The realm of dreams, Kortez knew. Full of broken images, random a.s.sociations.

'There's something you have to know,' said the Doctor.

The spirit of Colonel Kortez uttered the strongest cursemantra he knew. The Doctor, again. The memory of the man had followed him up from Cloud Seven. The Doctor was different to the way the Colonel remembered him, taller and older. The details were unclear, though, as the Time Lord was wearing a shroud over his head.

'We are all of us living inside the bottle,' the Doctor explained, while the worms of the astral plane began eating away his flesh. 'And one day, the bottle will break. Then all worlds will be one world. The inside will meet the outside.'

'But what about the auction?' asked Kortez.

The Doctor considered this. 'I don't know. What have you got to offer?'

Kortez puffed out his chest, or at least, the part of his higher life-essence that was currently pretending to be his chest. 'I'm not concerned about my bid, Doctor. It's the other representatives I'm thinking of.'

The Doctor nodded. His shroud bobbed up and down. 'For the record, most of them will be offering information. Technical data. Weapons specifications.'

'Is that all?' Kortez felt a swelling of pride in his pseudo-chest. 'Then I have no reason for concern. What I have to offer Mr Qixotl is greater than any material reward.'

'Really? What's that?'

'What's up on Cloud Nine,' Kortez replied. He very nearly smiled when he said it.

After a while, Cousin Justine had grown tired of squinting at the cracks in the walls. So she'd searched the rooms of the ziggurat for a better medium of communication, finally finding the newspaper in the anteroom. She opened it at the TV page, which supplied her with a listing of tonight's programmes on the Bornean National Channel.

Television. She remembered that from Dronid. Fragmented pictures. Human faces, like her own. Bodies full of life, dancing to alien rhythms. Fabulous and incomprehensible.

20:00 News and weather.

20:10 The Week in Sport, inc. InterCam results service.

20:30 Evening movie. Harvey Harvey (1950), in ReMode 3D where available. Cla.s.sic comedy starring James Stewart. h.e.l.lo again, Cousin Justine. Are you well? You seem distracted. (1950), in ReMode 3D where available. Cla.s.sic comedy starring James Stewart. h.e.l.lo again, Cousin Justine. Are you well? You seem distracted.

Cousin Justine nodded formally. 'I'm perfectly fine, Mr Shift. Thank you.'

22:30 Culture shock?

Justine felt herself bite her lip. 'Is it really so obvious?'

22:45 Only to me, I should think.

'Good. Now. We were discussing the new arrival. You're concerned?'