'There's only one thing for it, declared the Doctor. 'Well wiretap the wiretapper.'

'You want us to bug Swan's phone?' said Bob.

'Waitaminute. You want me me to bug Swan's phone?' to bug Swan's phone?'

'I have every confidence in your ability,' said the Doctor smoothly.

We were standing around at a rest stop on the I-95, stretching our legs, halfway home from Baltimore. Peri got a grape soda from a vending machine. 'I love this stuff,' she confessed. 'And the places we visit, you usually can't get it.'

'My ability to get screwed by Swan when she finds out,'

grumbled Bob. 'I'm no phone phreak. I could use the test set to listen in through her bridging box, but that's kind of conspicuous. And she probably visits that box about as often as she visits the bathroom.'

'Do we even know her phone number?' said Peri. 'We'd need that, wouldn't we?'

'C'mon,' said Bob. 'She's not gonna be listed, is she?' He suddenly made a gesture as though turning his own head backwards. 'On the other hand, maybe she's that c.o.c.ky... hang on.' He got up and went to a payphone nearby.

Bob came back. 'She's ex-directory,' he said. 'So I did a CN/A on her. Couldn't believe it. First time lucky.' He showed us Swan's phone number, scribbled in ballpoint on his arm.

'You did what?' said Peri.

'I called up a Customer Name and Address operator and told her I was a linesman,' said Bob. He shook his head.

'Never done It before. But she was only too happy to give out Swan's address and phone number.'

Peri shuddered. 'Is there any way somebody can keep their private information private?'

Bob grimaced. 'Not when people are really determined.

Question is, what do we do now? I know there are ways of bugging someone from inside the telco, but I don't know how it's done.'

'Peri,' said the Doctor, 'why don't you and Bob go and get some lunch? I want to have a word with Mr Peters.' The kids wandered off to the kiosk to see if it was open.

'Peri doesn't seem too happy about tapping Swan's phone,' I ventured.

'Extreme situations call for extreme measures,' grumbled the Doctor. 'I don't think it's possible to appeal to Swan's better nature. The question is, can we appeal to her common sense? Her desire for self-preservation? Or will we have to simply bludgeon her into giving up?' He scowled. 'I never like to be reminded that simple rational argument, simple facts, are not enough to convince people.'

'If you learned something you could use to blackmail Swan, would you?'

'If it became necessary, yes I would. After all, we all have secrets we'd rather keep to ourselves.'

The little hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I usually only felt that just before I got into a fistfight with someone.

'Are you threatening me?' I said.

The Doctor stopped, surprised. 'Nothing was further from my mind.'

'Oh, boy.' I shrugged, trying to get my shoulder to unknot. 'Well, Swan could make some serious trouble for me.

She thinks I'm investigating you, helping her out. If she realises I'm just a neutral party '

'Are you a neutral party Mr Peters?' said the Doctor. 'Is it possible always to be a neutral party?' This was what he'd wanted to talk to me about.

'Call me Chick. Staying neutral is the journalist's job. We don't make the news, we just report it.'

'And yet, isn't there sometimes the temptation to interfere?'

I sat on the bonnet of the Pontiac. I thought of a story I'd been doing in Los Angeles about traffic safety. 'Well, you know. I wouldn't just stand there and let a kid get run over by a car, or something like that.' Even if it would make one h.e.l.l of a story.

The Doctor nodded. 'But what if the stakes were higher than that?'

'Higher than a child's life?'

'Much higher. The lives of every child, woman, and man on the planet.'

My secret for dealing with people who are either mean or crazy is to imagine them in their underwear. I tried to imagine the Doc in his underdaks, and failed. 'Right,' I said, uncertainly 'Because of the extraterrestrials.'

'If you prefer, imagine the device we found to be the product of a secret weapons laboratory, years ahead of other research.'

'So it is a weapon,' I said The d.a.m.n thing was in the trunk of the car. I slid off the bonnet.

'It could be used as one,' said the Doctor. 'By someone who penetrated its secrets.'

'But if it's so far advanced, wouldn't it be like a caveman trying to figure out how, I dunno, an electric toothbrush works?'

'A persistent enough caveman will eventually find the on-switch,' said the Doctor.

'OK,' I said. 'I can go along with that. So what's your angle?' He raised his eyebrows. 'You're working for the "Eridani", right?'

'Not in the sense you mean. They asked for my help, and I was more than happy to help clean up the mess they'd got themselves into.'

And the mess they've got our vulnerable little world into.'

'Indeed.'

'So, altruism.'

'If you like. Or think of it as involvement. My people most people simply sit back and watch the universe go by. I prefer to roll up my sleeves and plunge my hands in. Get them wet, or dirty. Whatever's required.'

I was grinning. 'I bet in school you were the kid who always ate the Playdough.'

'Something like that,' he said.

'I've got my hands plenty dirty,' I said, seriously 'I've done all the hard living I plan to. I've earned some time to sit back.'

'How old are you, Chick?' asked the Doctor.

'Thirty-three,' I said. 'Sometimes I feel about a thousand.'

'Hmmm.' He began the elaborate process of extracting a peanut b.u.t.ter cup from its wrapping. 'You and I have both seen more of life than either Bob or Peri. Their enthusiasm and idealism hasn't been worn down against the grindstone of time.' I wasn't so sure about Peri's enthusiasm, but I held my tongue. 'When you're young, it's hard to grasp the fact that other people can and will hurt you. It seems so unfair. We're both old enough to know that someone like Swan doesn't care about abstract ideas like fairness or privacy. When she wants to attack someone, nothing will stop her. If she gets hold of one of those devices, Mr Peters, I promise you that no-one's personal affairs will ever be private again.'

'Ah shoot now what?'

'I want you to give someone a little advice,' I told Mondy.

I heard him sigh at the other end of the phone. 'He doesn't know who you are, and he doesn't need to know. And I'm not going to ask you to do anything. I just want you to let him pick your brains for half an hour.'

'What if Swan's listening in?'

'I know you can find a safe place to talk somewhere In the bowels of Ma Bell. Come on, Mondy. You owe me one!'

'If Swan finds out I'm even talking to you,' said Mondy, 'I'm a dead man.'

'Well, I'd better hand you over then,' I said. I pa.s.sed the phone to Bob.

Three.

Our glorious return to the nation's capital: two rooms in a hotel slightly less c.r.a.ppy than the last one. Oh well, appreciate the advantages over home: room service, no housework, and a soda machine down the hall. If I'd had a spare shirt I've have sent it down to be laundered.

This time Peri b.u.t.ted in while Bob was talking to the receptionist, and insisted on having her own room. I think it just hadn't occurred to him or the Doctor that she might like a little privacy. After this morning's bathroom gymnastics I was tempted to get a room of my own as well, but I wanted to be able to eavesdrop.

Bob rented another car and buzzed off to see about tapping Swan's phones. I was torn between wanting to accompany him to see how it was done, and wanting to hang around the Doctor to see what he'd do next. In the end I decided to stick with him, if only to minimise the chances of being spotted by Swan.

Peri also insisted on having something to do. 'I might not be a computer expert, but I've got a brain,' she reminded the Doctor. 'There must be some way I can help. Anything's better than watching you guys play with that chunk of plastic.'

'Yes indeed there is, young Peri,' said the Doctor, brightening. We were sitting around in his room while he fiddled with the Apple II. 'I'm going to do a little investigating of my own into Miss Swan's affairs. That's going to mean sifting through quite a bit of information, but the results could be invaluable.' The Doctor gave the Apple a rea.s.suring pat.

'But first, I have an errand for you to run.'

Peri jumped up and saluted. 'What is it?'

He handed her a wodge of cash. 'Go and buy a printer for this thing,' he said. Peri stuck out her tongue, but she went.

And so began the hackers' version of legwork. I drove Peri to a computer shop and dropped in at my apartment for a change of clothes. By the time we got back, the Doctor had broken into Swan's credit card records. (He was more worried that Swan might notice than that the credit company would.) The Doctor printed out page after page of Swan's credit card transactions almost a year's worth. The printer chewed steadily through the paper we'd bought, until the last sheet fluttered out onto the floor.

'Oh well,' said the Doctor, 'that should be enough.' He gathered up the bundle of dead tree and handed it to Peri.

'Your job is to look for anything interesting, anything unusual.

Anything which might tell us something useful about Swan and her activities.'

Peri flipped through the first few pages of the ma.s.sive printout. 'Looks like she spends most of her money at computer stores.' She sat down, already absorbed in the thickly printed lines, twirling a highlighter pen around in her fingers.

And there we sat for the next few hours, while Peri muttered to herself and made the occasional mark on the page, and the Doctor stared into the Apple's screen and made little 'aha!' noises. I would have liked to borrow the machine, dial up my news service, and type up a report, but they'd have killed me.

The Doctor fooled around online for a little longer, then went back to fooling around with the Eridani's plastic ball. I took a nap. Only two things interrupted the boredom of the next few hours. One was a delivery of a dozen red roses, which the Doctor sent back as it wasn't for us. The other wasBob's triumphant return from the land of phone crime.

'How did you get on?' said the Doctor.

Bob gave him a thumbs-up. 'Mission accomplished. We can listen in to Swan's phone calls any time we like.'

Peri looked up from her pile of printouts. 'I hope we're doing the right thing.

Bob knew it was a bad idea, but he reckoned that with his sandy hair stuffed under a toque and in the rented car, he was pretty difficult to identify. So on his way back, he had driven past his house, just to take a look.

Everything looked just like it did any day. There were no police cars or crime scene tapes, no-one in the street. His house looked fine. Bob cruised past again, trying to see if anything inside had been touched.

He couldn't stand it. He had to know if they'd confiscated his computers. He especially couldn't stand the thought of losing that brand-new, five-grand IBM PC. The driveway was full of snow: he parked in the street and crept in through his back door.

The study was untouched. His notes and books and hardware had not been shoved into cardboard boxes and carried off by the Feds. Bob relaxed. n.o.body had been in here since their panicked run to Baltimore. At the time, bolting had seemed like one h.e.l.l of a good idea, especially after finding that tap. Bob gave his phone an evil look as he pa.s.sed it on the way to the kitchen.

Bob actually leapt backwards through the kitchen door in fright. Taped to the fridge was a huge occult symbol drawn in thick red and black marker.

He was gripped by several conflicting urges: tear the thing off the fridge door, run out of the house, run back into the study to check again everything was OK, run through the house to check there wasn't a dead snake in his bathtub or a live snake in his bed, grab the phone and call the Doctor (argh!

no!), or just stand there slack-jawed and try to a.n.a.lyse the symbol.

He pulled the paper off the fridge with shaking hands. The seal was drawn freehand, but extremely neatly. It was all contained in a circle; inside that, a ring of Greek writing; inside that, another circle, divided into four by arrows; inside each quarter, a square crammed with more symbols, aldsernical and astrological. It was d.a.m.ned complex. But talismans never were very elegant.

Bob stumbled into the study and grabbed some of his books. No, he was right it wasn't from the Goetia, or the Key of Solomon, or the Heptameron. But nor was it just a scribble by someone trying to be spooky it was too well-constructed, the work of someone who knew what they were doing.

Bob laid the symbol down on the kitchen table, carefully.

He didn't want it near the phone or the computer. He didn't want to bring it with him, either. He made a quills sketch of it on the back of some printer paper, folded it up, and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. Maybe the Doctor could work it out.

Before he left the house, he dug his Sixth Pentacle of Mars out of a bedroom drawer and slung the talisman around his neck on a leather thong. No sense in taking any chances.

Unfortunately, he'd already taken one. And blown it.

Swan had lived in her station wagon, parked down the street, waiting for Bob to return. She had popped caffeine pills to stay awake, making sure she didn't miss a moment of the nothing that was happening in the street. She'd read the Washington Post Washington Post from cover to cover by the time her prey showed up. from cover to cover by the time her prey showed up.

Swan waited while Bob went inside. She ate a cold, limp taco without taking her eyes off the house. Finally he emerged, looking nervous, and climbed back into his rent-a-wreck.

Swan followed, keeping well back. Bob never noticed her.

She hoped her little message had rattled his mind.

She spent a few minutes driving around, looking for a parking spot near the hotel. No need to hurry. She strode in through the front doors carrying her suitcase and went to the little florist's shop.