The Doctor wheeled again to face Sabbath. 'She killed Octave for you.'

'Of course.'

'Listen to me, you fool,' said the Doctor, pacing softly towards him. 'You've murdered our only lead.'

'I don't think you understand the situation,' said Sabbath, unperturbed. 'This isn't some mystery novel, with leads and clues. These anomalies incorporate the time disruptions in their very flesh. They have to be destroyed.'

'I don't think you understand,' said the Doctor in a voice like velvet. 'We're dealing with a time machine.'

Sabbath sat up. 'What?'

'The source and sustainer of these temporal peculiarities is a time machine.'

'None of the readings indicates the presence of anything that powerful.'

'It's a machine, you know. It can be turned off off.'

'How can you be certain?'

'Because I know know,' the Doctor said furiously. 'I recognise the technique.'

'What is it?'

The Doctor began to pace. 'You're familiar with optical interferometry, in which light waves are broken up and recombined for a clearer image.'

'Of course.'

'Temporal interferometry does the same thing with time.'

'You've seen this?'

'Somewhere,' said the Doctor bitterly, still pacing. 'At some time. The circumstances elude me, but I certainly know the technology. As a functional method of time travel, it proved to be a dead end.'

'That must be why I haven't heard of it.'

'No doubt,' said the Doctor drily. 'The basic idea was intriguing. Get a focus on a temporal co-ordinate in the past or future, break up the signals, and recombine them inside the machine.'

'Rather than travelling to the time period, you brought it to you.'

'And then just walked into it. Rather elegant, really.'

'And it worked?'

'It could could work. But the technique was very delicate and complicated a lot of moving parts, so to speak. Absurdly easy to get wrong. At the end of the day, impractical. Use it under less than precise physical circumstances the wrong gravity, for example and you had something that might run time through the equivalent of a meat grinder.' work. But the technique was very delicate and complicated a lot of moving parts, so to speak. Absurdly easy to get wrong. At the end of the day, impractical. Use it under less than precise physical circumstances the wrong gravity, for example and you had something that might run time through the equivalent of a meat grinder.'

'But the power,' said Sabbath softly. 'The reach reach of such an instrument.' of such an instrument.'

'Oh yes, extraordinary.' The Doctor took a turn around the desk. 'Powerful enough to collapse timelines together if you happened to have some sort of megalomaniacal interest in engineering on a cosmic scale. But if the purpose was to develop usable, reliable time travel, temporal interferometry... When it went wrong it could, at the worst, tear up time itself, and at the least '

' it might fracture the time traveller.'

'Exactly.'

'Octave had been in such a machine.'

'That's right.' The Doctor stopped pacing. 'Wouldn't it be nice if we could ask him about it? Especially as, any day now, it might get switched on again and chew up the continuum.'

Sabbath shrugged. 'I was working with the information I had at hand.'

'Well, you didn't have enough, did you?'

'As it turns out, no. Your being so emotional about it can't change anything.'

'I'm not emotional and by the way, I think the word you really want is "enraged" because of the stupid thing you have done. I'm anticipating all the stupid things you're going to do.'

Sabbath's eyes half shut, lazily. 'Be careful, Doctor.'

'Or what?' The Doctor leaned into Sabbath's face. 'You'll take, out my other heart?'

'Perhaps.'

'That's all you can do to your opponents, Sabbath: kill them. You can't persuade them to see the rightness of your ideas, because you don't have any ideas, just this housekeeping compulsion to tidy up the universe.'

'You're beginning to irritate me, Doctor.'

'Oh,' said the Doctor, 'you ain't seen nothing yet.' And, gripping Sabbath's hand, he changed into a seal.

At least, where the Doctor had been, there was a seal, poking its sleek black face up to Sabbath, nosing at his mouth. It was kissing him! Sabbath stood up, and the seal hit the floor with a thump and a reproachful 'Ork!'

Sabbath looked around. For an instant, he thought he was aboard the Jonah Jonah. Then he realised that this was a parody of his ship, arty and over designed, like a stage set. The copper walls were set with rows of round, non-functional rivets and hung with intricate but nonsensical gauges cased in shining brass. Wine-coloured velvet curtains framed mahogany shelves of leather-bound folios. There was a silly-looking, tinkling fountain and a dining table draped with a lace cloth.

'Puerile,' Sabbath said disdainfully.

He was answered by the boom of an organ that careened into a swirling frenzy of notes. With a long sigh, Sabbath crossed to a pair of double doors and pushed them open. The sound hit him like a wind: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The organ was an absurd construction with a fan of golden pipes and an oval mirror above the keyboard, in which the Doctor was smiling at him, though not very cheerfully. He stopped playing and turned on the bench.

'You know, one of the things I don't understand about you, Sabbath, is why, if you're from the eighteenth century and points earlier, you act like someone who read too much Jules Verne as a boy.'

'This isn't particularly clever,' said Sabbath, 'but it is impressive. How are you doing it?'

'Oh, that old devil biodata. I sort of surfed in on your nervous system.'

'And this was the best you could think up?'

'I'm not thinking it up, actually. I believe I'm dreaming. Or possibly remembering.' The Doctor examined their surroundings. 'Or perhaps this is a gloss, a sort of commentary on your style. A movie, wasn't it? Not that you resemble James Mason. Someone else, I can't quite get his name. Fat, pompous fellow who once had talent but ended up as a professional interviewee on talk shows. Oh,' the Doctor slid his legs around to the front of the bench, 'something else I've been meaning to ask: why is your ship called the Jonah Jonah? I mean, logically, shouldn't it be called the Whale? Then you could be inside the whale. Orwell. Much more interesting writer than Verne.'

Sabbath stepped forward. 'I want you out of my mind.'

'Should have thought of that before you moved my heart into your body. This connection wasn't my idea. In fact, I blocked it out for months. But now that I've realised it exists,' the Doctor smiled broadly, 'here I am.'

'Get out,' Sabbath said quietly.

'Shortly. I don't like it in here any more than you like having me here. It's a nasty place. And so small small.'

Sabbath took another step forward. The Doctor stood up, face set.

'No more killing, Sabbath.'

'Fine,' said Sabbath agreeably. Just one exception,' and he lunged for the Doctor. But in that moment, the ship lurched wildly, and he slid into the wall.

'Time squid astern!' cried the Doctor as he was thrown through the air.

'What?!'

'I mean Oof!' The Doctor hit the wall beside Sabbath. 'I mean, giant giant time squid astern.' time squid astern.'

'What the hell is a giant time squid!' Sabbath roared.

'A big one,' the Doctor assured him. 'Very, very big. Look.'

He pointed. A huge black tentacle writhed past a porthole. Sabbath groaned.

'Stop this!' he yelled in exasperation. 'You're embarrassing yourself!'

The ship lurched again and the two men rolled across the floor and hit the other wall. The Doctor landed on top. 'No I'm not, actually,' he panted. 'I feel fine.'

'Well, you shouldn't!' Sabbath flung him off. 'This is pathetic!'

'Surely not,' the Doctor objected. ' "Tacky" perhaps. What Fitz might describe as "wankerish" well, I suppose that means the same thing as pa'

Sabbath grabbed him by the throat. 'Shut up!'

The Doctor gazed up at him limpidly. 'It's only a dream,' he wheezed, then the ship lurched for a third time and threw them to opposite ends of the room. It also turned upside down.

'Tell me,' the Doctor gasped, untangling himself from the chandelier, 'isn't this situation so completely stupid that it's beyond beyond irony?' irony?'

'Yes,' said Sabbath grimly, tossing the organ bench off him.

'Then how do you plan to deal with it?'

Sabbath lay catching his breath. 'I suppose,' he said after a moment, 'that I can't actually kill you in this particular situation.'

'You can't kill me at all. As long as my heart is beating in your chest, I can't die. You've made me immortal. And without even writing a poem.'

'It was not my plan,' Sabbath said drily.

'The doctrine of unintended consequences,' said the Doctor. A gigantic squid tentacle crashed through the porthole. 'And there's another one.'

Water churned into the room as the tentacle thrashed wildly about. There was another tilt, and the Doctor and Sabbath again found themselves side by side.

Sabbath spit out water. 'Isn't it time for you to wake up?'

'Er,' said the Doctor apologetically, 'I mis-spoke earlier. It's not exactly a dream, really. More of what you might call an altered state.'

They were yelling over the crashing, water. The tentacle twisted and swiped towards them and they rolled away together into another heap. This time Sabbath landed on top, looking down at the soaked and dripping Doctor, into his depthless, alien eyes. 'I mean it,' the Doctor said, in a voice as cold as the water overwhelming them. 'No. More. Killing.' And with sudden, surprising strength, he thrust Sabbath away from him and into the coils of the monster.

Cold. Crushing. But mostly silent. Sabbath remembered that. He was struggling not to inhale water and to keep the coiling limb of the beast that had pulled him under from snapping his spine, but there was no sound. It made everything oddly peaceful. Deep, cold, infinite silence. And shadows. There was a little light, broken up near the surface of the water, not penetrating very far. Yes, he remembered that too, though he had been far deeper then, those centuries ago when other enemies had tried to drown him. And then, very slowly, he realised that he was was deeper. The light was dim and small, far away as a star. It was a star. It was the sun, on that brilliant English day of his first death by water. He was sinking not just through the water, but through the years. It was his past gripping him now, trying to strangle him with memory, with old panic, and terror, with the fear of death... deeper. The light was dim and small, far away as a star. It was a star. It was the sun, on that brilliant English day of his first death by water. He was sinking not just through the water, but through the years. It was his past gripping him now, trying to strangle him with memory, with old panic, and terror, with the fear of death...

Sabbath gasped. Cold filled his lungs. This was an illusion. He was not in water. He could not drown. The cold slid into his lungs. He choked. No! This could not could not not 'Wakey, wakey,' said the Doctor's voice in his ear. Sabbath flinched from its closeness. He opened his eyes. He was in his armchair. The Doctor was perched on the small chair opposite. They were both perfectly dry.

'Well done,' Sabbath said expressionlessly.

'Do you really think so? I thought it was a bit cheesy myself. But thank you. By the way, don't try it yourself. You haven't the brain. I don't mean the intelligence, I mean the brain. Yours isn't structured for the job.'

Sabbath stared at the beautiful, unreadable face. The Doctor looked back pleasantly, sitting up straight, his slender hands resting on his thighs. His eyes were once more like what Sabbath was used to, whatever that was. Was there anything human at all in there? Or was it just a case of splendid mimicry? 'Was that supposed to frighten me into doing things your, way?'

'No,' said the Doctor. 'I did it because... There's a twentieth-century American word, I don't know whether you're familiar with it. "Jerk." I did it because you're a jerk.'

'You are are taking things personally,' said Sabbath with a thin smile. 'Yes,' the Doctor acknowledged. 'Perhaps I am.' He stood up and started for the door. taking things personally,' said Sabbath with a thin smile. 'Yes,' the Doctor acknowledged. 'Perhaps I am.' He stood up and started for the door.

'I knew you wouldn't kill me.'

The Doctor turned. 'Oh,' he said softly, 'did you? Were you absolutely certain?'

For a moment they just looked at each other again. At last Sabbath said, 'Never trust anyone.'

'Good advice,' said the Doctor, and left.

Chapter Eleven.

Micah Scale did not consider himself a fortunate man. On the contrary, he spent most of his time in various states of self-pity, these being resentment, despair, maudlin sorrow, envy and viciousness. He blamed these states and any moral failings that might accompany them on the theft of his precious mirror-maze, though in reality he had been exactly the same before that catastrophe had given him an excuse for his character.

Scale's disgruntlement was aggravated by the irony of knowing who his malefactor was. This had not really been so hard to figure out, as the man had stood out from the other visitors a gentleman, educated, and he'd asked a lot of questions. So when the mirrors went missing, Scale was certain where they had gone. He hadn't any proof, though, and even if he had, he knew what his chances would be accusing a man on a so much higher social scale of such an absurd theft.

With more resource and courage than he usually showed in his dealings with life, Scale had traced and attempted to confront the thief. Humbly, to be sure, with much cringing and wheedling. After being turned from the door, he wrote grovelling letters. When they produced only silence, he wrote slightly sterner letters. Somewhat to his surprise, these resulted in an interview. The man denied everything, of course, and told Scale he was only dealing with him to stop his being a nuisance. He then handed over what even Scale admitted was a very fair sum of money and told him he wanted never to hear from him again. He had eyes like ice, and Scale understood the threat behind the remark. Any thoughts of trying to sell the mirror he still possessed vanished from his mind. He was certain the man didn't know one was missing it was almost impossible to count them properly when the maze was set up, reflecting each other as they did in such deceiving multiples and after that disturbing interview, he'd decided simply to take the money and keep quiet.

However, several weeks later when he'd drunk and gambled the payment away, he began to feel differently. His grievance returned. He brooded long over his single mirror and whatever scenes it chose to show him. He wept sentimentally and picked fights. He had been wronged by fate, he told himself over bottles of cheap gin. The gin frequently made him sick, and that was fate's fault too. Finally, one night, almost too drunk to walk, he had gone to the man's house again, only to discover it shut up. Peering through windows, he could just discern furniture the place wasn't deserted then. Before he could explore further, a dog started baying on the other side of the house and he decided that prudent withdrawal was perhaps the best plan.

A little inquiry in the village informed him that the man had gone up to his main residence in London. It was simple enough to find him there as he made no attempt to hide. At this point, however, Scale hit an impasse. What could he do? He had no bargaining card, no way either to get his mirrors back not very likely anyway, he admitted or wring more money from their present possessor.

Scale was cunning enough to have figured out that the mirrors' value to the man who had stolen them (he continued to characterise it this way to himself, in spite of having been paid) had nothing to do with their value as a carnival attraction but was linked somehow to the strange scenes they periodically showed. And he knew, because people who had been through the maze sometimes told him, that on occasion these were scenes from other times. This was enough to have made the maze talked about and a great attraction. (Who could say, if he still had it, what fortune he might not be making?) And now this nosy stranger had come asking him questions, the same sort of questions as the thief had. What did he know? And at this thought, Scale, who had been bending sullenly over a bottle, sat up a little how valuable would that knowledge be to the man who had the mirrors?

So Scale followed the stranger and his friends back to their flat and then hung around in the street, uncertain exactly what to do next. This was decided for him when the stranger rushed out of the flat again and hailed a cab. Scale followed him once more, and watched him enter a mansion in the park.