'No,' she concluded. 'Anyway, it's nothing to worry about,' she said. 'Come on, let's find somewhere to sleep.'

The Tractite base was big, but, worse than that, it was ugly. It smelled bad.

Kitig was afraid of it.

Most of it was hidden in a narrow valley where the river that fed the lake had cut through the land. Kitig saw black domes flickering with red and amber lights. Ramps, tunnels vanishing into the grey rock, and felled trees around them.

Crude drilling and earth-moving machinery. Gleaming vehicles, the painful semi-audible whine of antigravs. The polished barrels of the guns. In the middle of it all, strung out along the riverside, were about a dozen Tractis-native trees, their orange leaves rippling in the breeze.

As he got closer Kitig could smell the metallic pheromonal buzz of alien nanomachines: they tickled his skin, invaded his nostrils. Complex subliminal patterns of light flickered against his eyes, superimposing right-angled geometries on the landscape.

'You're wasting your time,' commented the Doctor from his undignified position slung over the back of one of the leading Tractites. 'My retinal patterns won't make any sense to you at all.'

Kitig noticed that not one but two of the big guns were tracking them as they entered the settlement.

There were roads roads here. Black, heavy, smelling of new tar and alien plastic. here. Black, heavy, smelling of new tar and alien plastic.

The party marched along one of the new roads to the largest of the black domes. The gates smelled of metal: the air inside smelled of disinfectant, as if it had been scrubbed clean before anybody was allowed to breathe it.

There were illuminated pictures on the walls, stylised bas-reliefs of armoured Tractites in battle with armoured bipeds, of spaceships falling from the sky, of cities in flames. Metallic colours crawled across their surfaces: flames flickered, blood flowed.

'This is more than a military base,' said the Doctor, as the Tractite carrying him set him down on the polished plastic blocks of the floor.

'Yes,' said Mauvril. 'We're planning to live here for the rest of our lives. We've sacrificed our own futures to the cause of Tractite freedom.'

'You've sacrificed everybody else's future, too,' said the Doctor gloomily. 'And the Tractite freedom you're talking about is very much an illusion, I'm afraid.'

'So you say,' said Mauvril. 'I want to find out more about this. I hope you will help me willingly you don't sound unreasonable. But I warn you, I have no liking for humans or ' she turned to Kitig ' human sympathisers. If I decide that you're lying, your lives will be short.'

Kitig felt a sudden glimmer of hope. For all the armour, all the weaponry, all the horror stories on the walls, Mauvril was still a Tractite. Now that she had calmed down, there was still a possibility that she could be reached by reason.

The Doctor had evidently come to a similar conclusion, and was already talking. 'Let me show you the future you've created. I can use my ship, the TARDIS, to '

Mauvril shook her head. 'We're not letting you near your machine, you can forget that. And at the moment I want to speak to Kitig in private.' She gestured at the guards, who started to hustle the Doctor away along the passageway.

'You can't stop all this,' said the Doctor, pointing at the bas-reliefs on the walls. 'Whatever you do, you can't stop stop anything!' anything!'

'We'll see about that,' said Mauvril. She turned to Kitig. 'Were you a farmer?'

Kitig shook his head. 'I was brought up in sub-arctic swampland. I'm a museum curator.'

Mauvril started walking along the passageway. Kitig noticed that the Doctor's scent had already dispersed in the scrubbed-clean air.

'I was brought up on Tractis,' the armoured Tractite began. 'Not the Tractis you know, of course. A backward, horsy little world in a human universe.' A pause. 'I don't suppose you can imagine that. I don't suppose you can imagine what it was like ' She broke off. They had reached an open space in what Kitig felt was the centre of the dome. This was more like home: the lights were diffuse, and soft organics wafted soothing scents into the air.

But in the middle of the space, under a harsh electric light, was a three-dimensional image of a Tractite, so sharp and clear that for one horrified moment Kitig thought it was real.

He was on one knee, blood frothing from his nostrils, more blood streaming down his sides. Excrement, mixed with more blood, dribbled down his back legs. All four eyes were open, full of terror, and slowly clouding with death.

Mauvril turned to Kitig. 'This is what it was like will will be like if you don't help me, and the Doctor succeeds in whatever it is he's trying to do. This isn't a sculpture: it's a hologram. A human technique. We stole this from their files.' be like if you don't help me, and the Doctor succeeds in whatever it is he's trying to do. This isn't a sculpture: it's a hologram. A human technique. We stole this from their files.'

'I've heard of holograms,' said Kitig, still staring at the image. 'And there were stories of things like this in the Book of Book of Keeping Keeping. I know about this.'

'Yes, but you haven't lived through it. You haven't stood on the road, helpless, while Imperial troops humans, like your friend the Doctor disembowel your friends.

'I wish I hadn't, Kitig. I wish I'd been killed back there, so that it was all over. I wish I'd died on the farm did you know they burnt all the farms? They were trying to starve us out. Because we didn't agree with the might of the Empire. Because we wanted to live our own life on our own planet. But no, they had mineral rights to worry about. Xantium. Cardinium.

We'd have let them mine the stuff for nothing it was useless to us but they wanted our farmlands, our race parks, everything. They wanted to grow their drugs coffee, pixirin, opium. Then they sold them back to us, at prices three hundred times what they paid us for the raw crop. Our people became weak, addicted, exploited, slaves slaves. And this ' she gestured at the hologram ' this was the end of it. Death. Death for every Tractite. Because a few of us stood up and said no.'

Kitig became aware that there was a line of foam around Mauvril's lips. The room was full of the stink of her fear and pain. Kitig's own heart was thudding.

Perhaps they were all the same. Violent apes. Perhaps Mauvril was right to try to kill them all.

No, not kill. Prevent. Prevent. There was a difference. There was a difference.

After a while, Mauvril seemed to calm down, and the scrubbed air took over, wafting back the soothing smells of Tractite plants. The armoured Tractite opened her eyes again and looked at Kitig.

'Now,' she said. 'I want you to tell me about the Book of Keeping Book of Keeping you refer to. It had occurred to me to prepare a record of what we have done, so that our...' She hesitated. 'So that when Tractites come to Earth, they will find out what happened. you refer to. It had occurred to me to prepare a record of what we have done, so that our...' She hesitated. 'So that when Tractites come to Earth, they will find out what happened.

You said that the Doctor is mentioned in this book?'

'He is referred to as the Uncreator,' said Kitig carefully. 'But yes, I believe the Uncreator and the Doctor to be the same person.'

Mauvril blinked her night eyes. 'Good. I want you to tell me exactly what the book says about the Uncreator, so that we can ensure that the correct situation arises in your time and the Doctor does not succeed.'

Kitig remembered swearing his oath, that bizarre ceremony in the gold-and-red Chamber of Keeping, with the book open in front of him: 'I will defend the right of the Tractites over the Uncreator and the aliens who would destroy us...'

He hadn't taken it seriously then. Now, he realised that it was serious.

Deadly serious.

He could keep his oath and save his species. Save Narunil. Critil. Jontil and Mritig. The vast, peaceful, Tractite-run galaxy that he knew.

Or he could lie to Mauvril, as the Doctor had told him to, and perhaps save the humans.

Kitig looked into the eyes of his fellow Tractite, saw and smelled the suffering there, the pain under the hard eyes, and knew that he had only one choice.

Sam felt the hand on her shoulder and practically jumped out of her skin.

A giggle. Jacob.

Why did he giggle? she wondered. It didn't seem very military.

'Sorry to wake you. But I think we ought to give it another go. While they're asleep.'

'What, injecting them with that stuff? It won't work.' She gestured at Axeman, sitting upright only a few feet away, wide awake. She was sure he was watching them as they talked.

'Perhaps if you tell them it will do some good...'

'Me?'

'You're with the Doctor. They might believe you more.'

Sam frowned. 'What exactly did the Doctor say about this stuff?'

'I don't know. My CO was the one with the detailed instructions. He...' A pause. 'He didn't make it over.'

Sam felt a faint breath of wind. Somewhere below them in the settlement a habiline grunted. She looked up at the moon, wondered if there would ever be any human bases on it in this universe, any wide, green, terraformed forests under the lunar seas. If the Doctor was right there would be no humans to 'We've got to save them!'

Jacob's excitable voice woke Sam from her thoughts. She sat up, extended a hand. 'Give me the hypo,' she said. 'I'll see what I can do.'

With the syringe, she walked up to Axeman.

'Danger,' she told him. 'Disease.'

The shadowy form of the habiline moved slightly. Hands touched hers.

Of course. Sign language in the dark.

Axeman's fingers moved. 'No disease.'

'There will be,' said Sam. 'I need to protect you. That's why we're here.'

'I protect you,' Axeman informed her stoutly.

'Yes. But if you're ill, you can't protect anyone, can you?'

'Not ill.'

'You will be ill tomorrow.'

'After sunrise? Ill?' She could feel the tension, the confusion, in the habiline's hands. The future was obviously a difficult concept for him, unless a specific event was involved.

'You'll be ill after sunrise unless I protect you.' She raised the syringe, tapped it. 'Protect.'

'No.' Axeman pushed her away. 'Not protect. Dangerous.'

Sam sighed with exasperation. She heard Jacob walking up behind her And then something cannoned into her body, and for a moment she thought Axeman had attacked her. Then she saw Jacob snatch the syringe and plunge it into Axeman's arm.

The habiline screamed aloud and cuffed Jacob.

Jacob yelled, then danced back. The habiline was standing now, making warning grunts which were being echoed around the settlement.

'Push the plunger in!' he yelled at Sam. 'We've got to get him!'

Sam caught hold of Axeman's arm.

'It was an accident,' she said, trying to calm the habiline down, trying to keep him still keep him still. 'He wasn't attacking you.'

Axeman hurled her back. She could still see the syringe, attached to his arm. She reached out, grabbed it, pushed in the plunger, then pulled it out.

'Got him!'

Axeman whirled on her, roaring. 'It's OK,' said Sam, her voice shaking. 'Jacob. Tell him it's OK. Tell him we've protected him.'

But Jacob only laughed.

Axeman roared again. Terrible, strong hands grabbed her shoulders, pushed her down against the rock.

'Jacob!' yelled Sam.

But there was only laughter, and retreating footsteps.

Jacob was running away.

Sam felt her head banged against the rock, and screamed with pain and fear and fury, 'I haven't hurt you!' 'I haven't hurt you!'

But Axeman didn't believe her.

CHAPTER 18.

The air was acrid with sulphur, so much so that Kitig was sure that even the Doctor would have been able to smell it, if Mauvril hadn't been keeping him locked up in the air-scrubbed dome.

'Is this the best place to build your base?' asked Kitig, indicating the column of ash and smoke rising from the dark cone of the volcano.

'Definitely. The mountain isn't that near. And the regular ash fall keeps the soil fertile. We'll be able to grow crops. We can survive for decades here.'

'Do you want to? After what you've done to the humans?'

Mauvril stopped walking, looked out over the rippling surface of the lake. The ash cloud was making the sunlight hazy, and a hot wind was blowing across the plain.