One door was standing open, and Lindgard motioned Fitz and Kerstin inside. They found themselves inside a laboratory. Lab benches ran along the middle, gla.s.s cabinets on the walls. Over the far side was a bank of equipment which looked vaguely medical. The place was a bustle of activity, people in white lab suits mingling with people in uniforms.

To the left, behind a gla.s.s part.i.tion, was a series of was it beds? No, it looked more like mortuary slabs. And on one of those slabs was a figure shrouded in a plastic sheet.

A cold sensation of dread washed over Fitz. He looked around for Kerstin but she was already walking stiffly across the room, oblivious to the bustle around her, shoving people aside.

Fitz stepped quickly after her, hoping against hope that the body on the slab wasn't the Doctor or Sam.

Kerstin's gloved hands were pressed on the gla.s.s mirroring her posture in the hospital yesterday her helmet resting against it in a gesture of resignation.

Fitz stood by her, not knowing what to do, staring at the body on the slab. It was Johan, his short dark hair immediately recognisable. His body, through the plastic sheeting, was snow-white, dotted with the purple blooms of bruises. There was frost on his face and on the hairs of his legs.

Fitz heard a low moan from Kerstin and she sagged against the gla.s.s. Fitz caught her, supporting her. He glanced over his shoulder. d.a.m.n people had noticed. Time for a clever and nifty lie. Trouble was, he couldn't think of one. 'She's feeling a little faint. I'll take her outside.'

Luckily, Lindgard was at the other end of the room, so Fitz bustled Kerstin across to the door, hoping that no one could hear her low sobbing. Fortunately everyone seemed to be busy packing things up. Fitz noticed dazedly that in the middle of the room were what looked like fish tanks containing the orange starfish-like things that had hatched from Johan. Anger washed over him, mixed with incomprehension. What were they doing here? Breeding the things?

Back out in the corridor, Fitz turned to Kerstin. He had no idea if she could hear him, but he didn't dare remove her helmet in case anyone followed them. 'We're getting out of here,' he said. 'Back to the woods, and to the police. This is way too big for us to deal with on our own.'

Kerstin's voice was husky with grief. 'If only we'd gone to them in the first place.'

'We wouldn't have found this place, would have no evidence,' argued Fitz. 'If only I had a camera.'

Kerstin took off her helmet. Her expression scared him. It was blank, the eyebrows raised slightly, the mouth slack.

'Put it back on!' hissed Fitz, looking back over his shoulder. 'Don't you want to get out of here?'

Kerstin shrugged.

Footsteps, behind them.

He grabbed her helmet and slid it back over her head. She did nothing to resist.

The footsteps came closer and Fitz turned round. His heart leapt into his throat. The footsteps belonged to two soldiers and their prisoner, marching along the corridor.

The prisoner was the Doctor.

Chapter Twelve.

Of Blight, Bane and Ruin The dirigible sailed or flew deeper into the sky-sea, a bright-green blister against the swirling pinkness. Inside, Sam sat in her leaflike seat, staring out of the slit-window. She'd just had a chat with Itharquell, and she felt tired, overwhelmed with new information.

Itharquell was of the dominant sentient race, the T'hiili. They called this place the Dominion, which implied some degree of control over their environment, lost apparently with the coming of the black, encroaching Blight.

Itharquell was quite proud of his dirigible, and had taken great pleasure in telling Sam all about it. He had grown it himself from a seed, fashioning its genetic code so that it grew into a comfortable, controllable vehicle. Its nearest Terran equivalent would probably be an airship, but, in the low gravity of the Dominion, much less propulsive power was needed. Inflatable sacs controlled their alt.i.tude, and velocity was controlled by pores on the skin of the dirigible sucking in air which was expelled through tubes at the rear. The whole thing was controlled by the manipulation of a rudimentary brain which floated in the centre of a spherical chamber in the nose of the dirigible. It looked like a large cauliflower, connected to the bowl-shaped floor by a gnarled trunk. Sam had felt slightly queasy, watching Itharquell manipulate the stems and shoots that protruded from the grey k.n.o.bbly ma.s.s. He had a.s.sured her the dirigible could feel no pain.

Itharquell came in from the control chamber and sat down opposite her.

'Who's flying this thing?'

Itharquell stroked his pale yellow hair.

The dirigible will scream if anything happens.

'Nice,' said Sam. 'Um, I've been meaning to ask you: why did you rescue me and not the other T'hiili?'

They didn't want to be rescued. Had I tried, I would have fallen to the Blight, too.

Sam remembered the T'hiili, prostrating themselves before the Blight. Suicide. Why?

Before she could ask, Itharquell's voice whispered in her mind.

I rescued you because I am curious. I have not seen a creature like you in any cavern of the Dominion, or any sky-sea. You are similar to T'hiili in many ways same number of limbs and sensory organs, similar digestive system as far as I can tell. You confirm a theory I have about the Dominion.

She learned that Itharquell was a cataloguer of races. Other T'hiili found his inquiring and a.n.a.lytical mind rather disturbing. The T'hiili were, on the whole, a simple, superst.i.tious race, and thinkers like Itharquell were rare. Most of the T'hiili believed, for example, that the Dominion was the calcified body of the first T'hiili Queen, and that the sky-seas were made up of the spirits of dead T'hiili. Itharquell, virtually alone among his race, thought this was nonsense, and it was his life's ambition to disprove it. His theory was that somewhere within the Dominion lived other advanced life forms, similar to the T'hiili. And the presence of Sam seemed to have proved his hypothesis.

Sam pointed out the flaw in this. 'I hate to blow a nice theory out of the water, but I'm not actually from the Dominion.'

There is nothing outside the Dominion. You must come from a distant, undiscovered cavern.

'Cavern?' Sam frowned. He must mean 'planet'. 'I'm from the planet Earth,' she said. 'You know, Terra? In the Sol system? The Milky Way?'

He pouted, a strange expression, his lips forming the shape of a flower.

What is a planet?

Sam felt exasperated. 'You know, outer s.p.a.ce? Stars?'

Further blank looks.

So she wasn't inside an asteroid or a planet. She was somewhere else entirely. A separate universe, made of rock? Was that possible? No, they must must he inside a huge planet, and Itharquell, even though he was a thinker, simply had not realised it yet. But she decided not to argue the point any more there was something else she needed to know, something more urgent. he inside a huge planet, and Itharquell, even though he was a thinker, simply had not realised it yet. But she decided not to argue the point any more there was something else she needed to know, something more urgent.

'Itharquell, you said the Blight was going to destroy the Dominion. How do you know?'

I do not know. But it shows no sign of relenting. Soon it will consume all.

Sam was thinking furiously. Perhaps it had something to do with how she'd got here.

Something else was bothering her. 'Why are the T'hiili throwing themselves into it?'

They think they can appease the Blight with sacrifice. I disagreed, and had to leave the Nest.

Sam was stunned. Ma.s.s suicide, the extinction of an entire race? It was hard to comprehend. Sam's philosophy had always been, if there's life there's hope if there's life there's hope. 'Surely,' she said, 'there must be a way of stopping the Blight.'

It is beyond even my comprehension. Nothing that goes in ever comes back out. And it is growing like a cancer, eating its way through the Dominion. In a way, I almost agree with the majority. There is no hope. Even if the Blight could be stopped, we as a race are all doomed.

Sam frowned. 'Why is that?'

One of the early patches of Blight appeared inside the Queen's chamber. The Queen is was unable to move, so she was consumed. And with no Queen, we cannot reproduce.

'Hang on,' said Sam. 'Are you're saying there are no male and female T'hiili?'

Itharquell stroked his blond feathery hair.

Those terms have no meaning. There are T'hiili, and T'vorha warriors who tend the Queen and guard us against attack and the Queen, who rules us and produces our young.

Sam remembered the T'hiili children. They must have been the last born.

Some say that before she died the old Queen produced a last batch of eggs. Inside one of them would be a new, young Queen. I have been searching for her for days and days. Now I think, what's the use? Even if I do find her, and fertilise her, we are all going to die soon anyway.

Itharquell's calm fatalism was beginning to get on Sam's nerves. 'Tell me more about the Queen. Just how do you fertilise her?'

Itharquell extruded something from his mouth, a slender white tube with a flower-like opening at the end.

As I said, our salivary glands can be adapted for many purposes.

He retracted the tube and c.o.c.ked his head on one side, a characteristic gesture Sam was beginning to recognise.

How do your kind reproduce?

'Well,' began Sam. 'There are two genders male and female. They get together and, erm, the male impregnates the female with his seed.'

Itharquell sat back, mouth open in disbelief.

You mean, half your race are Queens?

Sam stifled a giggle. 'Well, if you put it like that.'

And which are you male or female?

'I'm a woman. All female.'

Then you are a Queen of your race, an egg-layer, O most powerful Sam!

'It's not like that where I come from,' said Sam quickly. 'We're equal, male and female.'

A sudden screaming noise made Sam jump. She followed Itharquell to the control chamber. On the far side of the chamber was an oval screen. It showed a view of the sky-sea, and something black, nebulous, spreading like ink through water, smoky tendrils reaching towards them.

Itharquell floated over to the brain. The blackness was advancing rapidly, filling the whole screen.

The Blight.

Sam stepped into the control chamber, floating over beside Itharquell. 'Don't just stand there: take evasive action or something!' yelled Sam.

His autumnal voice whispered inside her mind.

We may as well accept it.

'Whatever you believe, I came from outside the Dominion. That means there's a way out. That means there's something to hope for and I'm not b.l.o.o.d.y well giving up!' She grabbed two stemlike extrusions and gave them a twist. The chamber lurched around her and she careered into Itharquell.

His voice whispered in her mind: Are you sure there is a way out?

'Yes!' But was there? There was no guarantee that the whirlpool thing that had brought her here would appear again, but the Doctor would almost certainly be looking for her. 'I have friends who will be searching for me. They'll find a way. All we have to do is avoid the Blight.'

After an agonising pause, Itharquell nodded, and grabbed the control stems.

Sam watched the screen, fascinated. The Blight seemed to be spreading more quickly through the sky-sea. It was billowing towards them like a thundercloud. Perhaps a sky-sea was easier to consume than rock. Itharquell was silent beside her, the only sound the faint hissing of his breath. Perhaps he was right, and there was no escape.

At least then she would find out what it was. Whether it was a way home, or certain death.

But at last they seemed to be putting some distance between themselves and the Blight.

Presently, they emerged into a cavern of bluish rock, with tunnels leading off in various directions. Itharquell became agitated upon seeing where they were.

'What is it?' asked Sam. 'We've escaped the Blight, haven't we? All we have to do is keep running...' Her voice tailed off. She didn't want to finish the sentence. Keep running until there was nowhere left to run.

Itharquell had taken the dirigible close to the cavern wall, dangerously close, Sam thought, and was skirting around to the mouth of the nearest tunnel.

'What is it?' hissed Sam.

We have just entered a Ruin nest.

Sam looked at the screen. In the centre of the cavern, arranged in a rough spindle-like formation, were hundreds of creatures, like giant spiders, with orange hourgla.s.s-shaped bodies.

'What are they?'

They are our greatest enemy. They lay their eggs within our bodies. And, with the Dominion shrinking, we are being forced into greater confrontations with them.

Sam was beginning to realise why the T'hiili were favouring suicide as a way out.

They were at the tunnel mouth now and Itharquell swung a sharp left. Soon they were barrelling away down a tunnel that hardly seemed wide enough to accommodate them.

'Any other nasties lurking around you might want to tell me about?'

There are also the Bane savage predators, mindless things, who exist merely to feed.

Sam shuddered. 'Well, I haven't seen any of those.'

Neither have I, for days.

'Maybe they've all sacrificed themselves to the Blight,' said Sam.

The Ruin and the Bane are primitive creatures, with a strong instinct for survival. Only the T'hiili, cursed with intelligence, would decide on a course of self-destruction.

'Then maybe they found a way out,' said Sam.