He said mournfully,'Ah. D'you know, there's nothing quite like the abrupt and violent juxtaposition of the open palm with thefacies bucca to facilitate a state of greater mental awareness.'

Conaway smiled. 'I can give you another slap round the face if you think it's necessary.'

The Doctor bounced upright, swaying and wearing the same distant, slightly bemused expression as a jack-in-the-box might. 'Oh no, thank you Surgeon Major, that won't be necessary. One of your slaps is more than ample.'

'Good.' Conaway got to her feet, and allowed more of her recent memories to surface. 'Because we have a problem, don't we? A problem even a good slap won't fix.'

The Doctor nodded. 'I'm afraid so. Save the alien embryo gestating within the sun and it destroys the sun, the solar system and everything in it -when it's born. Save the system - and the embryo is never born. The future of an entire species weighed against all other life in this solar system.'

'Talk about a rock and a hard place.'

'Hardly original. But apt.'

Conaway thought for a moment. 'We could attempt to communicate again. Maybe we could find out if the aliens themselves could help us.'

The Doctor frowned. He waved his arms around at the ma.s.sive web of organic matter in which they were both still tangled.

'These nerve cl.u.s.ters are as big as transatlantic telephone cables. I suspect that to an alien the size of a planet we probably don't even exist.'

Conaway nudged a nearby rope of flesh distractedly. 'But surely - there was a communication. We experienced part of its life. Mating. A birth.'

'Thefirst birth,'

Conaway continued, 'Surely there would be some exchange, some awareness. Of us, I mean.'

The Doctor considered.'If an ant you were standing beside tried to tell you not to step sideways so you wouldn't step on it by accident do you think you'd notice its attempts? And, if you did, do you think you'd understand them?'

Conaway let her hands fall idly back to her sides. 'I see your point. But if I did notice I could infer meaning. I'm not stupid.'

'Yes, but what about the aliens? Just because you're as big as a planet doesn't necessarily mean you're concurrently intelligent.' 'True enough.'

The Doctor continued, 'Merely on the physical scale I was talking about, it would be akin to your noticing that one of the molecules in your body wanted to have a friendly chat.'

Conaway found herself nodding.'It wouldn't be as if we'd have anything in common, right?' 'Precisely.'

Conaway tried to dispel the introspective mood her recent experience and current conversation were generating.'So your point is?'

The Doctor wriggled his eyebrows at one of the nerve cl.u.s.ters. It ignored him completely. 'Hm. Not Delphon then. Ah well. I suppose my point is that we'd better explain all this to Major Smoot and get him to cease hostilities and attempt to open lines of communication. Before something unfortunate happens.'

He turned to make his way carefully out of the cavern, then stopped. Conaway followed his gaze. Aellini was there. He was covering them with a gun. 'Something unfortunate has already happened,' he said quietly. 'I've recorded and uplinked your conversation to Major Smoot. He's not very happy about your collaboration with an enemy whose very life cycle depends on the destruction of this solar system. I'm afraid he's rerouted your gravity stabiliser satellites to high orbit, where if required they can be used to disrupt local gravity. They will make an excellent weapon. He believes - and I must say I agree with him - that any negotiations are better undertaken from a position of strength. He asked me to mention this only so you could pa.s.s it on to...' He smiled bleakly. 'To those who need to know.'

Sam dived for three kilometres into the Hoth before the increasing density of body ma.s.s finally caused the rescue ship to disintegrate.

By this time Denadi was experiencing something akin to religious euphoria brought about by the combination of sheer terror and unrelenting pain.

Angels. I can see angels, he thought. We are angels. We are demons too. Self-made in our own images, life imitates art. Oh. Mother. I want to play in the snow.

He felt a smile crease the distorted remains of his face.

I wonder if Sam can see green ham.

Sam had stopped singing by now. Denadi was glad. He liked the tune immensely but he wasn't sure he could listen to it for the rest of his life. A life that would last roughly for ever.

Part of the reason Sam had stopped singing was that the atmospheric pressure within the Hoth was high enough to crush most metals.

It was at this point Denadi found himself wondering how they could still be alive. He had no answer.

He also realised that he could not hear or see anything. It wasn't, he realised suddenly, that there was no light or sound to bring images to his mind - it was that his body no longer contained any functioning sense organs with which to receive these signals. With this came the odd realisation that he was no longer in pain. At least, if he was, he was no longer able to differentiate the pain from any other sensory input his mind was still capable of receiving. If in fact it was receiving anything and not simply spontaneously generating its own sensory ghosts through lack of any other stimulation.

He wondered how long they had been inside the Hoth.

He wondered if they would ever get out.

He wondered what his mother would have to say about this.

He wondered how he could be wondering anything at all.

He wondered silently if he would be forgiven for falling so far from the Endless Way.

He wondered how they were going to get out of the Hoth, how they were going to get out of the atmosphere, how long they had been here.

He realised the concept oftime was meaningless.

He had all the time in the world. All the time there ever was this such a bad thing mother if you could only see what I am now if you could only understand what I have what I.

want to play in the Hoth moved slowly upwards through the ocean of life towards the surface where it burst free from the restraints of gravity and moved away and folded s.p.a.ce and folded time and ***

Belannia VIII swam beneath her, a planet of light, a dazzling nimbus of radiant energy whose population had doubled in the last seven days, whose ecology and resources and systems of government were now stretched to bursting point, maintained by the thinnest of margins by a single orbiting device designed to protect the planet and keep its population and more than fifty billion refugees as safe as possible from a sun whose life was also in question.

That was whatSam saw.

Others saw Heaven.

For the life inside her this planet and every living thing on it was nothing more or less than G.o.d itself.

'Let me state the situation simply for the benefit of the hard of thinking, Major.'

The Doctor paced. He pursed his lips. He fairly shook. He was indignant, furious, despairing. How was it that humanity always managed to confound him like this? Did they think the universe was nothing more than a big sandpit for them to play in? To knock each other's little sand castles over in and trample on each other's creations?

'The planet we are in orbit around is in fact an alien life form. It's afacilitator , one-third of a mating triad, the other two being the so-called "planets" located at the major Trojan points along this same orbit. Now listen to me very carefully, Major. Ten million years ago these three mated and produced an offspring. The infant was deposited in the sun in order to complete its life cycle, which, under normal circ.u.mstances, would have taken something like another half a dozen million years to complete. Then your sun goes nova and the infant is born from the energy outrush. That's the theory anyway. Youchanged that when you began dumping waste into the sun. Five centuries , Major. That's all it took to alter the incubation cycle of a life form whose normal life span runs dose on the order of that of galaxies. Can you imagine that, Major? Your insignificant little species - the bat of an eyelid in cosmic terms - creating such changes?'

Smoot said nothing. He just listened. He looked at Conaway, though. She said nothing.

The Doctor continued, 'According to Captain Aellini you have removed from orbit around Belannia Vin satellites vital to the survival of every refugee in this solar system in order to threaten the life of yet another life form. Destroy these planets - kill this life - and all hope for the infant is gone.' The Doctor's voice lowered in pitch, took on the qualities of darkest night. 'Incubation of the embryo changed the life cycle of your sun once before, a long time ago. Stillbirth, Major, will undoubtedly result in your sun turning supernova. That means extinction for you and every other living thing in this system. Now do you understand me? Do you understand what you are trying to do?'

Smoot looked again at Conaway.'Yes, Doctor.' His face may have been unreadable but his voice made his meaning very clear. 'I know only too well.'

The Doctor noticed Conaway turn from Smoot's glance. He filed the movement for later consideration.

'Good. Because we have another problem. The aliens don't even know we're here. To them we're irrelevant - mayfly sparks on a summer evening, a brief flicker and gone. We're insignificant, Major. All they care about is their infant. But delivering their child means nova anyway - and death for this entire solar system.'

'Then, Doctor, the situation is very clear.' Smoot's expression left no doubt as to his meaning.'If the only way to save my people is at the expense of these aliens, then regrettably - but also clearly - it is my duty to destroy them and their infant by any means necessary. However -' He hesitated. The Doctor began to speak, but Smoot ruthlessly cut him off. 'In fairness, the responsibility is mine to bear alone. You may both leave if you wish.'

Chapter Nine.

Conflict was inevitable.Violence was inescapable.

When the word of what the Doctor had said spread beyond the confines of Smoot's flagship the fleet was divided. When four of the higher-ranking officers decided the Doctor was talking sense and approached the major with the intention of trying to convince him that an alternative to destruction might be possible they were imprisoned without an audience. The captains of their respective ships persuaded others to back them and the fleet was divided. Add to that the remains of the pacifist ships which Smoot had already tried to destroy and respectable number of ships were now in opposition to the bulk of the fleet. Although they were outnumbered almost three to one, the renegade fleet rallied around the corvette on which the Doctor and Conaway had been transferred from the personnel transport that had carried them from the major's flagship.

Now the Doctor found himself caught in the middle as a large military force laid plans to destroy one of the most unusual life forms he had ever encountered, and a slightly smaller, though no less dedicated, number of men and women laid their own plans to oppose their former commander - with their lives if necessary, it appeared.

The truth of the situation was an ironic cruelty he had no trouble at all understanding: he was as much a prisoner of the situation he thought he could solve as he had been aboard Smoot's flagship - and equally powerless.

Now he gazed out of the observation ports of the corvette gallery and shook his head sadly.

'They were right. Best intentions never excuse the mess you leave behind.'

Beside him, Conaway watched the ma.s.s of grey, block-shaped vessels take up a defensive formation.'Feeling sorry for yourself?'

The Doctor bit his lip. 'I once left a world because I disagreed with the philosophy of its Masters.'

'And now?'

'I still disagree with it. But... I have to agree, sometimes they're right. As soon as you interfere... things invariably get worse.'

'So you're just going to stand here and let it happen.'

The Doctor's voice snapped angrily. 'I caused it, Surgeon Major. I built the gravity generators. I put the sword in the barbarian's hands.'

Conaway sighed. 'And you told him where the enemy was sleeping.'

'Caught on the horns of my own dilemma. Even if I could warn the enemy it wouldn't mean anything. What do planets know of the violence of people?'

Conaway said quietly,'Tell that to the ecologists.'

The Doctor laced his fingers, unlaced them, pressed his hands against the window gla.s.s. One hand blotted out the entire planet. A fingertip obscured twelve ships. 'It's a matter of distance.' His voice was slow, dreamy and dark.'I can't keep the distance. I never have been able to. I sometimes wonder whether the universe has special designs on me. A catalyst. A shaper of destiny.'

Conaway moved closer. 'Don't be a sucker for your own depression,' she said gently. 'You made a mistake. OK, maybe you've made lots of mistakes. The thing is to figure out what can you do about it now.'

The Doctor made no attempt to move away. 'Spoken like a true lifesaver.'

'It's my job.'

"Then we appear to be opposite sides of life's two-headed Martian penny.'

Conaway laughed aloud. 'I figured you out, you know that? Man of mystery? Man of destiny? Nope. Man of b.l.o.o.d.y nonsense. Get off your a.r.s.e and do something. Do it now.' Her face bloomed in the sudden glow of missile fire. A moment later the first ship exploded. 'I've run out of bandages.'

Belannia XIII was not simply in the mess Sam had left it. It was a nightmare of demonic proportions. It was an eight-thousand-mile diameter Malthusian Event waiting to happen. Extinction was the word on everyone's lips. The refugees had overflowed from the s.p.a.ceports. Temporary camps had been set up in more rural areas. These had filled in a matter of days. Human life was a virus multiplying across the planet's surface in an unstoppable wave. More and more and more refugees touched down, ignoring s.p.a.ceguard warnings that there was no room and no way to provide food, straining the ecology even further. Fifty billion new arrivals landed on Belannia XHI in five days.

Then Major General Smoot took the gravity generators from three inhabited worlds and the number tripled overnight.

The chaos was indescribable. Fighting, already widespread, became virtually universal. Cities were looted, towns sacked. Human nature. The nature of the beast. It was unstoppable. Individual ident.i.ty no longer existed. Just ma.s.sive group ent.i.ties motivated by fear, by hunger and terror.

Into this seething h.e.l.l of people came a living being the size of a small country. It entered the atmosphere causing storms to rage throughout one entire hemisphere. When the Hoth landed in the largest ocean, the wave that resulted wrecked hundreds of miles of beach on several continents and killed thousands - a sacrifice necessary to ensure the Endless State of more than a hundred billion.

Sam had arrived.

Salvation had arrived.

'Eat of my flesh, drink of my blood,' she told the terrified survivors as the planet itself shook beneath a strain it could never take.'I can save you.'

Immortality spread like a disease.

The time of epiphany was very, very near.

The new worlds moved closer in towards the sun. Major Smoot's military machine moved with them, jockeying for the best position in which to orbit the commandeered gravity stabilisers.

Opposing them, the smaller fleet slowly lost ground, ships and lives.

From inside the corvette, the Doctor and Conaway watched helplessly.

'You have to help. There has to be something we can do.'

To say Conaway was angry was an understatement of epic proportions and the Doctor knew it. "There are many things we can do. But which is best? That's the question.'

'Stop prevaricating!'

'Actually, I'm more nearly philosophising. Choice, you see. It's all about choice. Do I have the right to make a choice that will affect others whose choice I will remove?'

Conaway flinched as a nearby ship split open, emptying its human contents into s.p.a.ce like so much trash. 'My first mission on medical rescue was to a plague zone. We had a choice. Either everyone died or... we allowed the infection to run its course in a chosen few so that a cure could be found in time to save others.'

'What was your choice?'

'Do you need to ask?'