'You'll have to to take it up with him if you've got a complaint.' take it up with him if you've got a complaint.'

Silas Cadwell walked into the lab complex. He spared only the briefest glance at Oldeman and Nyssa, then went through to the next chamber to find Captain Lawrence. Lawrence was poking around in the scientific junk on one of the workbenches, obviously bored. He looked up and Cadwell acknowledged him with a curt nod of his shaven head.

'Crook's just reported in, sir. He thinks they've found and killed the creature.'

'Thinks?' repeated Lawrence.

'They haven't recovered the body yet. I'm sure it's only a matter of time.'

'Excellent, Cadwell. Fast work. Any casualties?'

'No sir. At least, none of our men.'

'Very good.'

At this point Jyl Stoker marched into the room looking furious. Both Lawrence and Cadwell looked up. If If they noticed the fire in her eyes, neither reacted. 'This has gone far enough,' she told Lawrence angrily. they noticed the fire in her eyes, neither reacted. 'This has gone far enough,' she told Lawrence angrily.

'I'm sorry?'

'You will be.' Stoker pointed back the way she had come.

'Your men are dismantling my comms unit up there!'

Cadwell nodded. 'You won't be needing it. We're in charge here now.'

'Like h.e.l.l you are!'

'Wait a moment, Cadwell,' said Lawrence smoothly. He introduced his 2IC and Stoker curled her lip at him. 'Is there a problem, Jyl?' She gaped. 'That's my comms unit! What d'you think you're doing?'

'My men have orders to tidy up,' Lawrence said, sounding almost apologetic. 'If it's inconvenient, then you're welcome to use the comms station on board the Adamantium. Adamantium. Do you need to contact someone?' Do you need to contact someone?'

'A good lawyer, perhaps,' suggested Cadwell.

Stoker looked at him. 'I always knew the Consortium recruited slime, but it must have really been sc.r.a.ping the bottom of the barrel when it took you on.'

A humourless smile developed on Cadwell's skull-like face. 'Well, if I'm I'm slime, Ms Stoker, what does that make you and your band of....riff-raff?' slime, Ms Stoker, what does that make you and your band of....riff-raff?'

Stoker looked from Cadwell to Lawrence. 'Is he allowed to talk to me like that?'

'You insulted him,' Lawrence said.

'I'll punch his lights out next time.'

This seemed to amuse Lawrence, although he was careful not to let his smile reach Cadwell's attention. 'I'm not here to indulge in your pa.s.sion for brawling,' he said, 'and neither is my 2IC. For your information, Cadwell has just reported that your little problem here has been eliminated.

Without, I might add, any further casualties.'

Stoker pressed her lips into a thin line. She was determined not to thank him.

Lawrence drew in a breath. 'All right, you can go, Cadwell. Keep me informed.'

'Sir.' Cadwell almost snapped to attention, and then left, knocking Stoker's shoulder slightly as he pushed past.

Lawrence watched him leave and then sighed. 'You really have to pity Cadwell, you know.'

Stoker said, 'Oh yeah. It can't be easy looking like a skeleton in a uniform.'

'He's very dedicated,' Lawrence explained.

'Perfect Consortium material.'

Lawrence pursed his lips, still looking thoughtfully at the door.

'Maybe.'

Stoker was intrigued, despite herself. She hadn't expected a c.h.i.n.k in the Consortium armour. 'What do you mean?'

'I'm not really sure,' Lawrence admitted. 'Cadwell's everything one could want in a 2IC: very professional, extremely competent. Reliable, perhaps.'

'Perhaps?'

Lawrence shrugged. 'He's relatively new to the Adamantium Adamantium crew I haven't known him for very long. He was posted to the crew I haven't known him for very long. He was posted to the Adamantium Adamantium for this trip, in fact. We've been surveying the outer rim for the last three months.' for this trip, in fact. We've been surveying the outer rim for the last three months.'

Stoker considered what he had said very carefully. 'You don't trust him?'

The captain's head snapped round to look at her with cold blue eyes. 'I didn't say that.'

'You didn't have to.'

The door to the lab hummed open and the Doctor and Tegan bustled in with Bunny Cheung and a couple of Adamantium Adamantium crewmen. Stoker's jaw dropped the moment she saw how awful Bunny looked. 'What the h.e.l.l happened?' crewmen. Stoker's jaw dropped the moment she saw how awful Bunny looked. 'What the h.e.l.l happened?'

The Bloodhunter caught him,' Tegan said. They all helped Bunny slump into a seat, where he looked up at Stoker with a weary smile. The blood had dried into dark crusts on his face and beard, making him look like some kind of caveman.

'Don't worry' he said, 'I'm 'armless.' He twisted in his seat to show her the stump of electronics in his shoulder.

Stoker felt a wave of nausea in her gut. It wasn't the sight of bionics, which made some people feel queasy. This was the simple, thudding realisation that everything was really going wrong.

To look at, Bunny was a giant - big, tall and hairy But he had none of the natural arrogance of the physically powerful.

Stoker knew the real Bunny Cheung - the gentle, easy-going man trapped inside a thug's body. Bunny had worked for her all over the sector for many years, chasing fortune and glory, until a faulty micrex detonator tore his right arm off at the shoulder and landed him in intensive care for three long months on Earth. Stoker had saved his life and paid for top-of-the-range bionic surgery, but Bunny emerged from hospital a different man: quieter, almost subdued, and married to a nurse.

Bunny had stayed on Earth. It wasn't until the birth of his daughter, after many years' trying for a family, that something of the old Bunny showed up again: an exuberant, enveloping good humour that had been such a good foil for Stoker's grumpiness. But little Rosie was the light of Bunny's new life.

He was truly happy. And utterly broke.

Stoker had called on him at just the wrong moment with just the right offer: the chance of one last grab for fortune and glory in the Akoshemon system. It had almost broken his heart to leave his wife and kid, but Bunny just couldn't afford not to go.

Stoker felt guilty as h.e.l.l about it.

And what made it worse now wasn't just the sight of the machinery hanging out of his shoulder. That could be replaced. No, it was the new look in Bunny's eyes - something alien to the normal, jovial spark: a tiny flame of anger, flickering deep inside where he was scared.

Stoker swore. 'h.e.l.l's teeth, Bunny, that arm cost a fortune! What the h.e.l.l happened?'

Bunny tried to hide the anxiety. 'b.l.o.o.d.y creature took it for a souvenir, didn't it?'

Lawrence was watching all this with an expression of real concern.

Stoker sneered at him. 'No casualties?' she spat.

One of the Consortium crewmen had produced a first aid kit, and the Doctor was already busy with the contents.

Bunny said, 'You'll need a set of spanners and a screwdriver, not antiseptic wipes.

'Sit still and don't talk,' the Doctor said. 'The shock hasn't hit you yet, but this might soften the effects.' He pressed a dermal drug patch onto Bunny's forehead. 'The damage to your shoulder joint isn't too bad, but we might have to tidy up the control linkages and power lines.'

'Never mind that,' Stoker said as the Doctor started to fiddle with the machinery poking out of Bunny's torn sleeve.

'What about the arm?

Where is it?'

'I dunno,' Bunny said. 'It's gone'

'Gone?'

'It was either the arm or me, Jyl.'

'That's supposed to make me feel better?' Stoker glared at him. 'Trust you to get too close to the d.a.m.n thing, you big ape.'

'Ouch!' cried the Doctor as something sparked. He blew on his fingers. 'I think I've located the power lines... Luckily the energy cell must still be in the arm, or you could've been fried.'

'Oh, blast,' said Bunny suddenly. 'My ring! The holograph ring - it was on the finger of my bionic hand!'

Tegan realised instantly what he meant. 'Your little girl's hologram.'

Bunny cursed loudly, and then more loudly as another circuit sparked in his stump. 'Sorry!' called the Doctor.

'Oh this is just terrific,' terrific,' Bunny wailed. 'What have I done to deserve this?' Bunny wailed. 'What have I done to deserve this?'

Stoker shot a murderous look at Captain Lawrence and then turned back to Bunny. Her eyes were full of fire. 'You tell me,' she said through gritted teeth.

Nyssa was sitting alone in the darkness when the Doctor found her a little later. He wandered into the lab with a puzzled frown. 'Nyssa? You've turned the lights down.'

'It's more comfortable like this,' she told him. 'The bright light was hurting my eyes. How is Professor Oldeman?'

'As well as can be expected,' replied the Doctor. 'The neurolectrin treatment has to be carefully monitored. I've referred him to Captain Lawrence's medical officer for the time being.' He bent down to examine Nyssa more closely.

'Actually, you don't look very well yourself; Nyssa.'

'I'm fine,' she lied.

The Doctor sat down with a look of concern. 'Are you sure? Ever since Vega Jaal was killed, I've sensed an increase in mental pressure I'm sure you must have, too.' He took her hand and felt gently for her pulse. His fingers were hot against her wrist.

She shook her head. 'I don't think so. But I... I've been thinking about Traken a great deal.'

The Doctor said, 'That's only to be expected, I suppose.

It's your subconscious that will be under the greatest pressure here.'

'Why?'

'Well, that's what I'm trying to find out. There's something here. Nyssa, an enemy that we have to root out and deal with. I'll need you to help me with that.

Nyssa frowned. 'I - I don't understand. Can't Tegan help you?'

'Oh, yes.'

The Doctor gave a little smile. In her own way, of course.

But you're more... sensitive... to what's going on here.'

Nyssa reflected on this for a long moment. She knew that the Doctor was right, but she didn't want him to be. She wanted him to take her far, far away from this place. She wanted to be back in the TARDIS, or better still, back on Traken. Safe and protected.

But that that was impossible. was impossible.

And the Doctor did need her help. She had to remain focussed, to ignore the cold panic that was rising within her, lapping at her resolve and her intellect. Eroding her.

Your blood will run black with me Nyssa couldn't tell the Doctor about the voice, of course.

She was hoping that she had simply imagined that cold voice in the blackness, that it was merely part of some terrible dream or fever. The Doctor had, after all, postulated that some variety of psionic field was interfering with their thought processes. It seemed a little trite to Nyssa, but she had learned to trust the Doctor's wild theorising. The voice she had heard - thought thought she had heard - could just be a result of telepathic interference. she had heard - could just be a result of telepathic interference.

Besides which, on a purely practical level, if she admitted to the Doctor that she had heard the darkness speaking to her, then he might think she was becoming too too affected, too affected, too unbalanced unbalanced to be of any help at all. Also, and rather more chillingly, the very act of admitting that she had heard the voice of the darkness would make it somehow more real. And she did not want that. to be of any help at all. Also, and rather more chillingly, the very act of admitting that she had heard the voice of the darkness would make it somehow more real. And she did not want that.

Eventually, she said, 'Doctor, when the Consortium men killed the creature... I sensed sensed it. I felt it when the creature died.' it. I felt it when the creature died.'