'The s.p.a.ce*time continuum has eleven dimensions,' Legion replied, 'although four of them are inaccessible.'

'So, what's it like then, living in seven dimensions?'

She took another bite of fruit. Legion did not reply.

'Legion?'

'Indescribable.'

'Nice one!'

'But imagine, if you are able, watching small creatures floating on the surface of a pond. Imagine that these creatures cannot look up or down, but only across the water itself. They are not aware of the air, or the depths. Their world is flat.'

As it talked, Legion's voice changed. The various elements combined until it seemed to Ace that a choir was whispering to her.

'You reach down from your exalted position, beyond their understanding, and put your the things on the ends of your forelimbs...'

'Fingers.'

'...fingers into the water. What do these creatures see?'

After a few seconds, Ace realized that this was not a rhetorical question. 'Er... My fingers?'

'No, because your fingers exist in three dimensions, and they can only perceive two. They see...' It paused. 'How many fingers do you possess?'

Ace held up a hand.

'And is that normal for your species?' Legion asked.

'You don't pay much attention to your staff, do you?'

'I have more important considerations.'

'Yes. Five fingers on each hand, if you include the thumbs.'

'Thumbs?'

'Never mind.'

'Then these creatures see five discs suddenly appear in the water. As far as they are concerned, these discs are five separate ent.i.ties. Why should they a.s.sociate them with each other? But if you plunge your hand deeper into the water, up to the the hinge section...'

'The wrist.'

'Up to the wrist, then the creatures who inhabit the surface of the water will see the five discs suddenly merge into one large ellipse. Do you understand?'

Ace had actually understood some time ago, but if there was one lesson that she would take away gladly from her time with the Doctor, it was that it was better to have people underestimate your abilities than overestimate them.

'I think so,' she said cautiously.

'And if you pick one of these creatures up and place it a little distance away on the surface of the water, all its fellows will see is that it vanished, and reappeared elsewhere. Neither they, nor it, can see the air through which it moved. Do you understand?'

'Uh*huh.'

'What you see of me,' and the hairy, three*legged blob standing at the front of the table stretched like hot toffee and broke apart into fifteen warty blue spheres which bounced, very slowly, between the floor and the ceiling, 'is merely a three*dimensional cross*section of a seven*dimensional shape. As my body moves in and out of your perception, you see different aspects of it. Your three*dimensional brain is not capable of appreciating the beauty beauty of my true body.' of my true body.'

Ace was fascinated. 'So all I can see are your fingers, your toes and your naughty bits?'

The spheres coalesced into a black and vaguely hairy shape that threatened to develop three thin and multi*jointed legs. Ace was beginning to get the message.

'I apologize, Captain,' she said formally. Best to get on its good side. 'And so when our conversation was out of sync before '

'What you call time is a dimension, like any other,' Legion said casually. 'I tend to drift around in it, if I am not concentrating. Sometimes I answer questions that you will ask in a while, sometimes I respond to queries from moments ago.

'Well wicked!' Ace said. 'But what are you doing working for IMC? You could wipe the floor with them.'

'My race has no interest in power,' Legion replied haughtily. 'A mere three dimensions is nothing. I may as well offer you complete control over the direction east.'

'But why bother working for a scurvy Earth company, then?'

'You ask a lot of questions.'

'You're not wrong.'

'I am under contract. Our respective worlds have only recently met. We have certain technologies that humanity lacks, but we in turn lack protection. IMC have offered us weapons in return for specialist help. I am that specialist.'

'But what do you need the protection from?'

A shudder seemed to run through the various sections of Legion's disconnected bulk. 'There are dark forces in the universe before whom we are powerless. I can say no more.'

Ace thought for a moment. 'Okay then, what is IMC doing in the Lucifer system?'

'Ah,' said Legion, 'you humans and your obsession with business affairs. We have come across other species like you the Cimliss, the Usurians, the Okk. Always worrying about the indefinable moment. To put it simply: your Earth Government has declared bankruptcy. Its affairs, its goods and its chattels have been put in the hands of the receivers.'

Ace pushed aside a feeling of dread. 'And who are these receivers?' she asked.

'Something called the Earth Alliance of Corporations; a collection of the most powerful companies and conglomerates which trade off*Earth. You may know it better as the Holding Company.'

'And IMC?' She already knew the answer.

'We get the mineral rights,' Legion said, almost happily, 'of all subcontracted colonies. Like Eden.'

The medlab on the IMCV Insider Trading Insider Trading was large, high*tech and as soulless as a plaster saint. Legion led Ace into it with a certain swagger, if a green balloon trailing pink strands could be said to swagger. A medical orderly bustled towards them. He gestured towards the first of a long row of recuperation pods, where Christine LaFayette's face was visible through a clear plastic window. She looked to Ace like a frozen corpse. was large, high*tech and as soulless as a plaster saint. Legion led Ace into it with a certain swagger, if a green balloon trailing pink strands could be said to swagger. A medical orderly bustled towards them. He gestured towards the first of a long row of recuperation pods, where Christine LaFayette's face was visible through a clear plastic window. She looked to Ace like a frozen corpse.

'Trauma and some tissue damage,' he said, snapping to attention as Ace peered into the pod. Ace absentmindedly returned a sketchy salute.

Old habits die hard, she thought.

'Cost?' Captain Legion asked in a host of voices.

'With immediate treatment, plus physiotherapy, psychotherapy and prosthetics, the estimate is thirty thousand adjusted ergs, Captain.'

'Charge it to my account,' Legion said.

Ace moved to the next pod, anxious to find her friends from Moloch. She recognized the face of one of her attackers beneath a layer of blue gel. His face was burned right down to the bone in places, and one eye had curdled into a white lump.

'Faulty weapon discharge, Ma'am,' the orderly explained. He had obviously mistaken Ace for one of the regular crew, and she did not bother to correct him. 'Third*degree burns over most of the face and neck. Seventy per cent flesh reduction on hands and arms. Left radius and ulna suffered heat recrystallization and a.s.sociated brittleness.'

'Cost?' Legion asked from behind them.

'The reconstructive surgery is fairly basic. If standard EB Corporation ocular replacements are used instead of cloned organs the estimate is only nineteen thousand adjusted ergs.'

There was a pause.

'Too much,' Legion said. 'Terminate treatment.'

Ace stepped towards the next pod.

'No time for that,' Legion barked, and its tone made Ace automatically stop and stand to attention. Part of her was appalled at the ease with which she had slotted straight back into the military lifestyle; part of her welcomed the safety of knowing exactly where she fitted in and what she was supposed to do.

'You can visit them later,' Legion said. 'For now, attend me.' It moved towards the door, aspect changing moment by moment.

Ace followed, casting a last glance back over her shoulder into the medlab.

When it was clear that IMC's newest recruit would not turn back, a grossly fat woman stepped from a side room. 'For an alien, Legion certainly knows which b.u.t.tons to push.'

The orderly shrugged as he went about his task of switching off Company Shock Trooper (Third Cla.s.s) Jason Curtis Dommer's life support machine. 'Have you heard the scuttlebut about her? Apparently, she typed a message into the Belial Base neural net, right where the viruses that Legion's agent planted there would find it and transmit it back here.'

'A message?' the woman asked, jowls quivering.

'Just Legion's name, and the words: "We must meet".'

'Very cryptic.'

'Yeah. Trouble is, Legion's agent spotted it, thought she'd been rumbled, knocked the girl senseless and deleted the message.'

'So she knew Legion was here?'

The orderly glanced up, his face underlit by the row of tell*tales along Dommer's pod. 'Yeah, but the word is that she didn't realize IMC sent a whole fleet. She thought Legion was working alone. When Dommer and the others burst in, she freaked. Lucky she's still alive.'

He flicked a last switch, and Jason Dommer slid unknowingly from life into death.

'Aren't we all?' Bronwen ap Bryn said, as she stroked her tattooed scalp thoughtfully and turned to leave the sick*bay.

Chapter Thirteen.

Piper O'Rourke used her hand to shield the beam of her torch as she crept along the darkened corridors of Belial Base towards the main airlock. The cold light silhouetted the bones of her hand like an X-ray. Part of her wanted to stop and stare, entranced by the sight: the rest of her screamed silently in the darkness. She was losing it. She was losing it. She was losing it.

She stopped and rested her forehead against the cold metal walls of the corridor. Keep it together, Piper, and you might still get out of this alive. She lifted a hand to her face and wiped away a greasy sheen of sweat. Although it was cold and the air was running out, she was burning up.

Burning up.

Paula.

Oh, Christ.

Sucking in a lungful of cold air, Piper moved once more down the corridor. She only had to make it to the airlock, seal the inner door behind her and wait...

Wait as Paula had waited, as Earth was waiting...

For IMC to help.

Piper stopped, suddenly, twenty metres short of the airlock. Sounds echoed out of the darkness towards her.

Voices.

'You don't understand... He's trying to kill himself!'

'Then who's responsible for all this?'

'...b.l.o.o.d.y Piper. She brained me when I tried to reboot the neural net!'

More voices, speaking in hurried whispers.

Bannen, whom she'd left in the Operations Room, supposedly wracked with grief over the abrupt crash of the simularity of his son. d.a.m.n his thick skull: she should have splashed his brains across the wall. Bishop. Teal. Bernice.

The Doctor.

But that was impossible! She'd killed killed him. him.

Piper groaned inwardly.

They knew. They'd tricked her, and they knew. She'd even given them the evidence herself.

Fool!

Piper ran a hand through her hair. Her torch flickered across the wall and she switched it off, holding her breath in case someone had noticed the distant gleam of light.

Nothing. The pitch of the voices did not change. They didn't know she was there. There might still be a chance of escape.