'Then instead of arguing with him, why don't you just shoot him with one of the pellets from your umbrella? And tell him to change his mind. It's got to be easier.'

The Doctor stopped walking so suddenly that Ace almost walked into him.

'While it is true,' he said, 'that Teller is a very stubborn man, there is no way I would ever do anything like that to him.'

'Why not? You just did it to old Henbest.'

'Henbest was not a world-cla.s.s brain whose special abilities are poised to be deployed at one of the most critical moments in human history. I would never dream of interfering in such a fashion. With Teller I am going to limit myself to trying to convince him through mathematical argument. Anything else would be a very bad idea. In fact, I don't think it was a very good idea doing what I did to Henbest.'

'Then why did you do it?' They were near the pond now and Ace could smell the water. She tried to locate the place where they had been fired upon, where Rosalita had been killed, but found that in the dark everything looked very different.

'I was angry,' said the Doctor.

Ace giggled and looked at the shadowy figure beside her, swinging his umbrella. 'Were you? Because of what he did to me?'

'Yes. Of course I was.'

'Good,' said Ace. 'I'm glad you were angry. I'm glad you've stood up for me.

I've had a terrible day. I've been shot at, I've been drugged and interrogated, I had that awful Professor Apple write me that creepy note. . . '

'And you saw a dead rat.'

'Yeah, and that. So the way I see it, the least you can do is give me some straight answers.'

'Very well,' said the Doctor patiently.

'If changing Teller's mind about the chain reaction is one of our main objectives, then what are the others? The other objectives?'

'To keep a close eye on our friend Cosmic Ray. And I see that chiefly as your task. For the rest of our brief stay here I must devote most of my time to Teller.81.

You will have to look after Ray.'

'No way.'

'Ace, please.'

'Not unless I know more about him. I don't know whether to like him and trust him or hate him and fear him.'

'It's a complex universe,' said the Doctor, with a note of amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.

'Let's try and make it a little less complex, eh? Just tell me, is Ray one of the bad guys or what?'

'Ray is not one of the bad guys.'

'Good.'

'But Ray is in league in league with the bad guys.' with the bad guys.'

'Oh, what?'

The Doctor sighed. 'I said it was a complex universe. Ray does not mean anyone any harm. But he is being coerced by sinister forces who might just manipulate him into having a hand in an unimaginable catastrophe.'

'Coerced? Manipulate? So you think he's an innocent p.a.w.n in their game, kind of thing?'

'Precisely.' The Doctor reached the fork in the road that led to the Fuller Lodge, but he kept walking in the other direction.

'Where are you going?'

'To check on the aforementioned Ray.'

'But you said that was my job.'

'I thought you'd had a long day and were tired.'

'No,' said Ace, hurrying after him.

They found Ray sitting on the floor of his front room, fat bare thighs jutting from chequered black-and-white shorts, rotund torso shrouded in a red-and-black Hawaiian shirt depicting bamboo, a black beret on his head, which dipped and nodded in time to the music. On the floor he had pieces of paper on which he would occasionally jot a note. There was a deep blue stain under the pocket on his shirt, where he returned his fountain pen every time he stopped writing, only to retrieve it again a moment later.

It was a warm night and the windows were open. Ray, of course, was listening to a record, which he had put on just as they walked through the door of his apartment, apparently left open for the breeze. Ace recognised the sensual, sardonic voice of the singer on the record, even though she'd only heard it once before, and then briefly. 'Lady Silk,' she said. Ray looked up at her and the Doctor standing there. He didn't seem surprised to see them.

'Yeah, man,' he said. 'She's put new words to an old standard, and it's cool.

Baby, I got to say it's cool.'82.

'Major Bulldog would throw a fit if he knew we were listening to this,' said Ace.

Cosmic Ray chuckled and shook his head. 'Bulldog? I like that. But you know what the Major's problem is? Lack of soul. He couldn't dig this music in a million years.' The voice on the record rose and fell in seductive song, caressing the listener, toying with every syllable.

'You said she put new words to an old standard.'

'Yeah man.'

'What was that old standard?'

'It's called "Nagasaki".'

Ace and the Doctor looked at each other. The music came to an end and the needle hissed in the groove. Ray got up and went to the record player, lifting the tone arm and removing the record. 'I see,' said the Doctor. 'And what are these notes?' He indicated the papers lying on the floor, covered with Ray's blotchy sprawl in bright blue ink.

'Those, man?' Ray carefully returned the record to its sleeve. 'Notes I took while I was listening to the song. It's how they communicate with me.'

'Communicate with you?' said Ace.

'Yeah, they're sending me coded messages in the songs, baby.'

'You mean Butcher's crazy idea was right?'

'It made my blood run cold when he said it, man. The other day when he was here. Like he'd seen right into my soul. But he hadn't man. It was just a lucky guess.'

'I'm not so sure. The Major is more shrewd than you think.'

'The Major's just a fink, man. A big fink with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. A major fink.'

Ray smiled. 'Pardon me, cats.' He went into the bathroom and shut the door.

There was the sound of running water. The Doctor promptly squatted down and studied the papers on the floor.

'What does it mean?' said Ace.

'No idea,' said the Doctor. It's in code.' He began to gather up the papers, folding them and putting them in the pocket of his jacket. 'Ray isn't a very good spy,' he said. 'He's supposed to destroy the message after memorising it.'

'I still don't like the idea of us helping a spy.'

'Ray is much more than just a spy. Do you remember I told you I had a long discussion with him today about physics? Well, I made a startling discovery.'

'He's a c.r.a.p physicist.'

'He's a very good physicist. Much too good. Impossibly good. His knowledge is far too sophisticated for this period in history.'

'Uh-oh,' said Ace.

'In fact it's become clear to me that this Ray Morita is actually a particle physicist from the twenty-first century.'83.

'He's a time traveller?'

'No, a dimension traveller.'

'That's why you said "this Ray Morita" because there's more than one of him.'

'Exactly. Very good, Ace. Only one of him in this dimension. The Ray Morita from this dimension lived in the twentieth century and was a schoolteacher and a mediocre physicist.'

'And left-handed.'

'And left-handed, indeed. His right-handed counterpart from an alternate universe lived in the twenty-first century. He was brought here when they removed the original Ray Morita.'

'They?'

'He's not the only one from another dimension.' The Doctor went to the box of records where Ray had placed the Lady Silk disc. He picked it up and inspected it. Before Ace could ask him what he meant, the toilet flushed and Ray stepped out of the bathroom, adjusting his beret on his head and tugging at his shorts. Ace smelled the powerful nose-singeing aroma of his cheap cologne, which he'd clearly splashed on for her benefit. She stared at him, this anachronism, this intruder from another world.

Ray peered at her uneasily. 'What's wrong, man?' Before she could reply there was a sudden violent hammering at the door. Ray cursed and lumbered towards it. As he did so, the Doctor stepped suddenly towards the open window and, with a snap of the wrist, sent the Lady Silk record spinning out into the darkness. Ace thought she heard the crash of the sh.e.l.lac disc breaking against a nearby tree, but she couldn't be sure because at that moment Ray came back into the room with Major Butcher.

Butcher looked even more angry than usual. 'All right, what's going on here?' he said. The Doctor smiled at him blandly.

'A late night discussion about physics between myself and Dr Morita. My a.s.sistant Acacia was kind enough to agree to help us out with our calculations.'

'Yeah, that's right man, that's right, that's right,' said Ray, who was nervously circling the room, apparently searching for the incriminating papers and the Lady Silk record which the Doctor had disposed of. For a moment Ray looked bewildered, then he seemed to accept that some miracle had intervened on his behalf, and turned to Major Butcher with a tentative smile.

'So what brings you here, man?'

Butcher regarded him with contempt. 'You were pretty quick to get away from the pond today.'

'I was being shot at, man. And like I was telling these cats, I don't like to be shot at. That's not my scene. No Normandy landings for Cosmic Ray. No man. I serve my country in different ways. They also serve who stay at home 84and that's me, baby, that's me. Providing a vital part of a vital project here on the home front.'

'Is that so,' said Butcher. 'Is that what you're doing here?'

'd.a.m.n right. I didn't sign up to get shot at.'

'She wasn't shooting at you,' said Butcher. 'She was shooting at me.'

'No man, she was shooting at me,' said Ray.

'And me,' said Ace.

'She was shooting at all of us,' said the Doctor, in the tone of one placating a group of small children. The others turned to look at him with uniform affronted stares. 'I know a threat to our lives tends to personalise everything,'

said the Doctor. 'But we must be realistic.'

'If you're being realistic, then Rosalita wasn't shooting at him,' said Butcher, looking at Ray. 'In fact he went there to meet her. They were in collusion.'

'Oh, hey, that's just not true man,' said Ray, brushing nervously at his goatee.

'I was just there to meet with Private Dobbsy and score some cactus needles.

Speaking of which, that's my cue baby.' Ray went to the record player and proceeded to remove the needle from the arm and replace it with a new one.

Butcher stared at him, then turned to look at Ace and the Doctor. His eyes were cold. 'You don't fool me. None of you fool me. All of you are up to something.'

'You've had a long day, Major,' said the Doctor solicitously.

'Don't tell me what kind of a day I've had,' snapped Butcher. 'I've just come from Henbest.'

'Oh really? How is the Professor?'

'Working late. He said that you'd both been fully interviewed by him and had emerged with flying colours.'

'Excellent,' said the Doctor, smiling politely.

'He said that neither of you could possibly be any kind of a security risk, and that you're both very nice people.'

'How kind of him.'

Butcher grinned wolfishly. 'This is John Henbest we're talking about here, remember.'

'Perhaps he's turned over a new leaf.'

'He didn't turn over a new anything. You got to him.' He looked at the Doctor then at Ace, a slow, contemptuous glance. 'I don't know how you got to him, but you did.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Professor Henbest would say that you're being incipiently paranoid.'