'But you. You're not like that. You don't pry. You don't ask me what I'm building. It could be a bomb. A radio for talking to aliens. It could be anything.' He shrugged. 'The chances are it's a clever gadget with an unusual way of getting us out of the cell.'

'Uh huh.'

'But,' the Doctor began to work even faster - 'instead of asking what possible use several computer chips, a crystalline matter-integration and -transmission node, an African charm bracelet, a shoelace, a handful of chocolates and some Alka Seltzer powder could be in formulating a dramatic exit from captivity, you exercise the proper part of valour and simply leave me to my own devices. Some might say it shows defeatism, a submission to the inevitable. I prefer to think it shows maturity, restraint, respect. All excellent qualities, I'm sure you'll agree.'

Without waiting for a reply, the Doctor snapped the last component - a candle-style light bulb - into place and bound it with some fuse wire. He attached the fuse wire to three small batteries he'd removed from a tiny mechanical rabbit toy. He held the rather strange, bulky object up in front of him, turning it this way and that, seemingly checking not so much for mechanical defects as for artistic merit.

'There. Now all we need to do is -'

Something fell off the object. The light bulb. The Doctor made a hopeless grab for it but was far too late. It hit the floor and smashed. The Doctor looked stricken, bowed his head in defeat, then lifted his face again wearing a determined expression. 'I don't suppose you happen to have a light bulb about your person, do you? Nothing special, just any old pearl forty-watter will do.'

Conaway shook her head.

The Doctor frowned. "The bulb was to dissipate surplus energy, you see, radiating it as light and heat. It would have kept us alive if something had gone wrong.' He gestured to the object he held. 'You know, withthis ' He shrugged.'Well, it'll probably still work safely enough.'

He held the object up and aimed it at the door.

'Better close your eyes.' He took aim, then lowered the object. 'And cover your face.' He took aim again.

He counted slowly to three.

When he reached two and a half the door slid open and Major Smoot entered, flanked by three soldiers. The soldiers moved fast, flanking the Doctor and levelling guns at him. The Doctor smiled. The soldiers did not.

Smoot barked,'Lower the weapon!'

The Doctor did as he was told.

'Follow me!'

Smoot turned smartly and left the cell. The Doctor, surrendering the device he held to a puzzled soldier on the way, followed Smoot.

In the corridor, Conaway whispered,'What was that thing?' The Doctor grinned. 'An unexpected and dramatic way of getting out of our cell. Worked, too, didn't it?'

Behind the Doctor, the soldier who was examining the device aimed it curiously at a section of wall and gently pressed what appeared to be the trigger. He viewed with considerable suspicion the stream of foil-wrapped and, in the circ.u.mstances, arguably unexpected chocolates which shot dramatically from the business end.

Seeing this, the Doctor smiled. He grabbed one of the ricocheting chocolates and offered it to Smoot. 'Don't you just love soft centres? Me too.' Stripping the second sweet deftly of its foil, the Doctor popped it into his mouth and began to chew. 'Now, what was it you wanted to talk to us about?'

It was a planet. A swollen ball filling the void before them, a world where none had existed before.

Bare rock lathered with ice foam frozen into quicksilver shapes; a chimera landscape evaporating to form a thin layer of atmosphere as it cruised in-system towards the sun.

Conaway stared, her breath caught. The planet was small, but ma.s.sive enough as it moved towards them. Proper motion, its darkly glistening bulk eclipsing the stars. How could that be? What propelled it? Where had it come from?

The nervesphere of the corvette that was Smoot's flagship was a hum of quiet motion. Small pieces of paper flickered back and forth between hands. On this ship oral reports were reserved for matters of supreme importance. Smoot was receiving one now.

'Course change confirmed.'

'Then it's moving under its own power.'

"That would be the inference.'

'I see. Heading?'

'Still collating. First projection suggests near-solar orbit; maybe half an AU out.'

'That would put it inside the destruction zone. It would be torn to pieces at the next emission.'

'Confirmed, sir.'

'Then...' Smoot ground his teeth thoughtfully. 'Somehow ... it must know something about what's going on here that we do not.'

'Your suggestion would appear to be correct, sir.'

'Should we then infer, I wonder, that the solar disruption currendy taking place and the presence of this... body in the solar system are connected?'

'Unknown at this time, sir.'

'I see.'

Another piece of paper; a muted cough. 'Sir, we have new information.'

'Go ahead.'

'Two other bodies of planetary ma.s.s have been detected entering the system. All three are on a course which will bring them into close proximity in near-solar orbit.'

Smoot did not hesitate. "That's all I need to know. Get me Central. I am calling a Defence Level One emergency.'

'Sir.'

The Doctor, who had been listening intendy, suddenly stuck up his hand. 'Raise shields? Plot an intercept course? Stand by on phaser control? Major, I suggest you've been reading too many pulp novels.'

Smoot glared scathingly at the Doctor. "The only time I read is when I am required to read Eyes Only orders. Now if you will excuse me, I have a holding action to perform.'

Smoot turned to issue more orders. The Doctor planted himself squarely in the major's way, his eyes a bobbing annoyance in the major's own.'You asked us here, if you remember.'

Smoot frowned in irritation.

The Doctor said, 'And what are you planning to do about all those ships?'

A split second later the bridge officer added, 'Sir, I have a new report.'

'Proceed.'

'One hundred and forty-three civilian personal transports have entered orbit around the planet, sir. Intention unknown.'

'I see.' Smoot glanced at the Doctor.'AD right.You have clearance from my government. You are here. Perhaps you would care to give me your interpretation of the situation.'

The Doctor sighed, nodded, took a breath. 'Well... the truth of the matter is, well, I don't actually know. But,' he added helpfully, 'I am quite well qualified to make a number of what will probably turn out to be rather accurate guesses.'

Smoot snapped,'I'm not in the business of guessing.'

'Call it... intelligence gathering, then. Informed opinion with a weighted probability used to further develop a theory and suggest a course of action.'

Smoot considered. 'Give me your... best guess, then.'

The Doctor beamed.'I'd love to. But, do you know what, I think so much better on a nice hot cup of tea. You wouldn't happen to have any lying around, would you? I'm particularly fond of Broken Orange Pekoe - but anything will do.'

Smoot waited.

The Doctor's face fell. 'No tea? Oh well. Here's my theory anyway. These alien bodies obviously have an interest in your solar system because they wouldn't risk entering such a destructive environment otherwise. I would suggest dial they want to communicate with you - otherwise why send the empathic message that they did? It's nottheir fault no one can understand it. Now these ships approaching, that's obviously related. I suspect that they're crewed by people from some ecologically friendly group who want to strike up a dialogue with whatever people live on these planets and see if they can't figure out a way to fix whatever'* wrong with your sun.' The Doctor beamed. "There. Simple really.'

Smoot said, 'Not quite. You see, I have been given orders to prevent all contact with the alien worlds. All contact. No matter what the cost. People in high up places feel threatened by their arrival.'

The Doctor sighed. 'I must admit to being more than pa.s.sably familiar with this scenario. Let me guess what you'll do if those ships try to land.'

Smoot said, 'I will use any means necessary to prevent that, as per my orders.'

'Including lethal force?'

Smoot considered. 'Oh yes,' he said without a shred of humour. 'Without a shadow of a doubt.'

Blue, this moon.

Blue within deepest blue.

Cobalt surface. Cerulean light. Even the shadows were deepest ultramarine. No blacks could have produced more depth within the darknesses; no flame-white could have gilded the hard edges and crystalline spires with the brightness of nearby suns.

The surface was a geological freakshow. cyan gargoyles extruded from ice, frozen shreds grasping jaggedly towards the indigo of s.p.a.ce sprang sheer from a flat plain across which starlight slipped and glided in dazzling streaks. They might perhaps be considered life of a kind, these gargoyles. Their shapes were need, want, hurt, hate, love ; selfish shapes, greedy shapes; shapes that suckled on the darkness of shadows and spurned the warmth of distant sunlight. Shapes that competed aggressively for every sc.r.a.p of frozen moisture used to extend their multiple-knife-edged surfaces.

Endless, their mute blue violence took place between molecules, between states of energy; their troops were electrons and protons and their generals were strong atomic force.

To human eyes the only movement was the movement of stars, dream-slow, exploring the seams and fissures, the polished edges and sapphire blades. Ghosts of blond radiance played in the deep streaks of starlight smeared out across the gla.s.sy surface, buried in the motionless fluid that was the surface; light that seemed to fall through to the very heart of this remote world. Its cold, blue, warlike heart.

For the longest time there was nothing - just starlight, the pa.s.sing flicker of intelligence, quickly lost among the azure depths. The endless blue war.

Then movement. Alien movement, from above. Something falling, a jagged shape thrusting downward, an arrow with a heart of flame driving down, to puncture the skin, to shatter the screaming ice gargoyles and end their endless war, to mate with the liquid-blue interior of the blue-within-blue moon.

Then for some time, nothing more.

The skin healing, the wounds gla.s.sing over, the heat of its liquid dance cooling, molecular pa.s.sion lost to the chill inevitability of time.

Then came life.

It came as screams from the sky.

It emerged on to the surface as a woman.

Sam Jones emerged from the slush surrounding the shuttle, fought her way clear on to more solid ground. The heavily armoured starsuit she wore did not fit but that was just par for the course. It had been designed for someone six centimetres taller than she was and... well, it was just not designed for her. Ignoring the irritating sensation that the whole thing was going to just fall off at any minute, Sam concentrated on keeping her view through the optics as she plodded out on to the ice.

Socalm .

That was her first thought. All this ice, the muted colours -colour really: the iteration of blue. The way the light shone from every surface; the way you could see through solid objects - it was a fantasy in ice, serene, tranquil. She could not imagine any violence taking place here. It was like a fairy grotto... a cathedral... a church raised to the G.o.d Blue.

She smiled, feeling the tensions that bad gripped her in recent days begin to slip away.

Blue.

Blue was good.

She could get into blue.

Then she remembered why she was out there.

Saketh.

He waited for her some distance away. Sam wondered briefly how much, if she added up all the time he had spent waiting for her recently, it would amount to. Half the time? All? Nearly all? The puzzle was that she did not find it surprising. She didn't find it surprising in the same way as the Doctor had not been surprising - more like a slightly unfamiliar item of clothing, an old glove that you had never owned but was your size, which fitted perfectly when you pulled it on. Something you'd never known... as if, in a way,it was you that fitted perfectly into their lives... as if you were the object that had been found.

Sam plodded over to Saketh. He waited beneath a crystal gryphon, a jagged outslashing of ice which seemed, as the starlight struck its edges, to form the face of a tormented child. Sam shivered. The image was her own creation, pulled without a doubt from her own recent experience. But it was real enough nonetheless. Real enough to make her feel cold, alone, threatened. Real enough to make her wonder what Danny would feel like, in years, centuries, millennia to come, if what Saketh had said when he healed the child was true.

With Saketh were people. Several hundred people. The people Sam had heard screaming on the radio.

People who by all rights should be dead by now.

They waited, a restless tide on the ice beside her. She felt besieged by them, an island of normality in Saketh's weird world. They frightened her. Because they were so different? Or because they were so nearly the same? She could not tell.

So why had she come?

Because she had promised their own refugees she would find out if they could be saved? Or for some other reason? Her own reason?

Was she here for them or for herself?

Well, she knew the answer to that, all right, but she didn't want to say. Not even to herself.

Oh no. Not ready for that, Sam. Not ready to face that demon. Not quite yet.

She peered into the helmet visors of the suited figures around her. She was looking for eyes, looking into the windows of the soul. Were these still human? The environment indicators on the suits all read zero. These people should be dead. Cold, stiff things, propping up eternity with the sh.e.l.ls of their bodies.

Not these.

Alive.

She watched them move, holding hands in cold blue silence, kneeling, offering prayer, concerned, awed, frightened, loving, caring... seeing, feeling... all the things people are and people do, the language of the body and of the heart.