'Shut up!'

'What are you doing, Ace? Don't you know what sort of a creature Legion is?'

'Well, you should know.'

'Well, there's nothing more to say, is there?' Piper took a deep but shaky breath. 'Are you going to get on with it, or what?'

'Or what,' Ace said, and fired.

Chapter Fifteen.

While the IMC troopers escorted small groups of the Project Eden team to various rooms all over Belial Base, Alex Bannen prattled excitedly to five swirling nodes of flesh which hung unsupported in the air beside him.

'We don't actually need that much technology, it's just that the production facilities on the base are so out of date. There are a few micro*components, some control circuitry but mostly we just need that dwarf*star alloy derivative IMC marketed last year. With that and a bit of thought we could design a starpod that could penetrate the atmosphere and the zelanite ocean and go all the way to the core.' Bannen drew a breath. 'What do you say, Legion? Cooperation could bring us both a fortune in marketable designs and accomplish the mission to find new stable heavy elements for Earth.'

Legion's voice trumpeted from each fleshy node in turn. 'The suggestion merits attention. Prepare your list.'

'And I'll need some of the Project Eden technicians released to help me. I can't do it all alone, and your people haven't had the five years of experience we have.'

'Piper O'Rourke provided us with a list of potential rebels amongst the staff,' Legion chorused. 'You may have access to anybody not on the list. In the meantime ' a multi*jointed limb extended towards an IMC technician manning one of the neural net stations ' if you would be so kind...'

'Of course, Legion.' The technician operated controls. There was a delicate glimmer of light in the centre of the room. A small figure formed out of the centre of the glow.

'Dad!'

'Mark! You remember me! I was afraid the systems crash would have...' The physicist stumbled to a halt, choked with emotion. 'I was just so scared you might have... might have...'

Mark grinned. 'Come off it, Dad.'

Legion spoke again. 'All memory systems were recovered intact. I return your simulated male offspring to you, Trau Bannen, in antic.i.p.ation of a fruitful working relationship.'

Bannen gazed in turn at each of the hovering shapes. 'I don't know what to... Thank you. Thank you!'

Bannen took his son to one side and began to talk in a low, earnest voice. As he did so, Ace, who had been waiting for an opportunity to speak, stepped forward.

'Piper O'Rourke is dead, Legion. What are your orders?'

Legion answered in chorus, 'Corporate a.s.sessors are preparing to re*initialize Project Eden. a.s.sessment and a.s.similation should take no more than three hours. I will travel to Moloch to oversee the second stage of the operation.'

Ace glanced across to where the physicist was fawning over his son. She lowered her voice. 'You'll be supplying Alex Bannen with the equipment he needs, then?'

'Naturally not.' Somehow Legion managed to convey surprise that Ace could ever have been in doubt of its intentions. 'IMC operations take precedence here. Redundant personnel are a fiscal burden on IMC operations. Alex Bannen must believe that we need him, otherwise he might become a problem. That means we must at least pretend to go along with his ludicrously primitive plan.'

'Understood. I'll supervise the takeover personally.'

'That will not be necessary. Executive staff have been fully briefed to a.s.sume control of the base; non*redundant personnel will a.s.sist as required. Take the executive transporter and join me in the flagship in one hour.'

As she hesitated, Legion's body extruded rose*hued filaments which formed complex symbols in the air. 'The message you delivered gives you certain powers,' it whispered. 'But remember, you still work for me.'

Legion vanished like the fabled Cheshire Cat a piece at a time. Ace let herself relax slightly when she was sure that her line officer had gone. She wished the sick feeling in her stomach had gone with it.

Miles Engado sat on the floor in his office, his knees drawn up to his chin, his back pressed firmly into the ribbed panels which formed one corner of the room. His gaze was blank and uncomprehending, despite all attempts to get him to speak.

'Oh, this is ridiculous!' Teal Green stormed as he paced impatiently along one short wall of the Administrator's office. 'He's been out into s.p.a.ce and been brought back by an Angel. He's talked to them for chrissakes! He may have the key to getting us out of here and kicking IMC the h.e.l.l back into s.p.a.ce, and what does he do? Formulate a plan? Tell us what happened? Oh no!' Teal rushed towards Miles and thrust his face aggressively into the Administrator's. 'First of all he signs away the rest of our lives with a casual ident, and then he just sits in the corner as if he were a b.l.o.o.d.y corpse himself.' Miles showed absolutely no reaction to Teal's aggression. His face was placid, the pupils fixed. Teal turned away in disgust. 'I had a stuffed toy once that spoke more than him.'

'Violence isn't the way, Teal,' Julie Ndobe said quietly.

'It's IMC's way, Julie.'

'Miles is sick.'

'Unless we do something, he'll be worse than sick, he'll be dead, and the rest of us along with him! How the h.e.l.l does that grab you?'

Julie threw up her hands. 'What do you want me to say? Ever since they locked us in here you've done nothing but mouth off. So why don't you shut up while those of us that can, try to think of a way out of this?'

Teal was about to respond angrily when a third voice interjected, 'Ladies and gentlemen: all the time we're fighting amongst ourselves, we're not fighting IMC.'

The Doctor looked up from his place at Miles's desk. 'Not that I expect the simple truth of that statement to ameliorate your argument in the slightest.'

Teal rounded angrily on the Doctor. 'Do you think we're too stupid to recognize a sensible course of action when we hear it?'

'What I think doesn't matter. What do you think, Trau Green?'

Uncharacteristically, Teal was silent.

Julie said softly, 'What, then?'

The Doctor reached out to press a switch on Miles's desk. The interior lights came up as the office lights dimmed.

Julie and Teal both moved closer. Julie reached out to touch the gla.s.s shielding the disc of polished wood, the pieces of stone, sc.r.a.ps of cloth, feathers. 'It's beautiful.'

'It's a Tewa medicine wheel. And, incidentally, the key to the whole situation.'

Teal frowned. 'I don't see how '

There was a sound beyond the office door. The Doctor placed one hand on his lips in a 'shushing' gesture as he flipped the switch to alter the room lighting back to normal.

The door opened and a figure was pushed inside.

'Cheryl! You okay?' Teal asked.

Cheryl just looked at Teal with no life in her eyes. A uniformed figure filled the doorway behind her. 'Ndobe, Coordinator Bannen wants you in the Operations Room.'

'Go and stick your pointy head up a '

The Doctor shook his head almost imperceptibly. Julie subsided.

'Okay. Fine. I'm coming. Catch you later, guys.'

The door locked behind her.

Cheryl stood in the middle of the room until Teal guided her to a seat.

'Cheryl?' the Doctor said softly. 'Cheryl? What's happening out there?' When she didn't respond, he knelt down in front of her and, taking her head between his hands, stared deep into her eyes.

'a.n.u.shkia and Filo Julee are being forced to help as well,' she said finally. 'They didn't need me; support services are no longer required, the neural net has been disinfected and most systems are up and running again.' She shook her head, and for the first time some life appeared in her expression. 'Even the corridor twelve toilet is working for the first time in five years. They're taking over.' She frowned at the Doctor. 'But what are we going to do about it?'

The Doctor grinned as Teal answered for him: 'I think the Doctor may have that angle covered.'

'I might have guessed.'

The Doctor doffed his hat politely. 'Bernice should be along any time now to get us out of here. In the meantime, I think a little dialogue with The Man Who Knows would be in order.' He crossed to where Miles was scrunched into a corner, staring blankly into thin air, and crouched beside him.

'Miles? Listen to me, Miles.' He began to speak in a language which had been dead on Earth for more than two centuries.

The null*gray units on the food machine packed in halfway down the main corridor. Bernice had a moment to direct the machine into a side*tunnel before it crashed to the floor and she cracked her head painfully against the interior casing. She kicked her way clear of the device, rubbing life back into her bruised shoulders and knees. 'Time to diet,' she muttered to herself ruefully, peering around and trying to orient herself in the dim, night*lit corridor. As she did so, there was a series of heavy clicks and the lights came back on. Great. That was all she needed.

Footsteps echoed loudly from the direction of the main corridor. Military footsteps. Quickly, Bernice looked around for somewhere to hide. She'd be no good to the Doctor if she were recaptured almost straight away. Besides, it would be embarra.s.sing.

Running silently to a nearby doorway, Bernice thumbed the lock and slipped into the darkened room beyond. She held the door open a centimetre as the footsteps approached, and peered through the gap.

It was Ace.

Bernice pulled distractedly at her dreadlocks, trying to be angry at the girl, trying to feel betrayed. But her own childhood was still too close for the effort to be effective.

She looked around. She was standing in some kind of cable run: wires of all thicknesses and colours pa.s.sed through collars in the ceiling, crept down the walls and exited the room through collars bolted into the floor. There was, needless to say, no other way out.

Oh well. Only one thing for it.

She inched the door open a little more and peered in both directions. Apart from Ace and the wrecked food machine, the pa.s.sage was empty.

'Ace,' she hissed. 'Ace, it's me, Benny.'

Ace stopped in her tracks. She turned quickly, flattening against the corridor wall in automatic antic.i.p.ation of hostile fire. Bernice opened the door fully and stepped into the corridor.

Ace was looking at her with wide eyes.

Bernice swallowed. 'It's okay, there's no one else here. We can talk now.'

Ace's arm was a blur of motion. Bernice instinctively jerked backwards. When she refocused on Ace, there was a gun clutched in the girl's fist. The barrel was pointing straight between Bernice's eyes.

Oops.

'On the other hand, maybe I'll just shut up.'

Ace's cold expression was answer enough.

Getting into an unfamiliar starsuit one*handed hadn't been easy, but Christine had persevered with the same determination which had brought her to Eden in the first place. Now she was inside and sealed tight, the hollow, ringing thump and the vibrations of the executive transporter grapples were much reduced. Also reduced were the cries of disgust from technicians as some new crushed atrocity was found glued to the outer hull or smeared across the wall of the executive transporter bay. She had been lucky: more lucky than she had deserved. The troopers who had been outside the executive transporter with her had been so thoroughly pulped that it was impossible to tell the bodies apart, and that meant there was a fair chance her body would be a.s.sumed to be one of them. Thankfully, n.o.body had considered that she might have managed to get inside the transporter.

With a great effort of will, Christine put all thoughts of her narrow escape from her mind. A new objective had presented itself, and she intended to carry it out thoroughly. Fate had placed her in a position to find out what the h.e.l.l was going on. If there was one thing Christine had learned over the years spent at her mother's side, it was never to waste an opportunity, whatever the consequences.

'Starsuit... uh... starsuit ten. Engage linkage for mainframe hookup and systems update.'

'Mainframe link engaged. Specify whether auto or manual update required.'

'Manual.'

'List systems to be updated or other command.'

'Other command. Interface primary data structure. Locate...' Christine hesitated. What exactly was she looking for? 'Locate files containing references to the following keywords: Lucifer; Eden; Angel or Angels; Christine LaFayette.'

'One file located. Access restricted. Security clearance required. Please state security clearance and authorization.'

Christine swore.

She thought for a long time. 'IMC zero zero one.'

'Clearance not recognized. Please restate security clearance and authorization.'

She thought again. 'Security clearance by authorization of Madrigal LaFayette.'

'Clearance not recognized. Please restate security clearance and authorization.'

Christine swore. That should have been it! Her mother was responsible for the mission, so it was logical that hang on. Christine half smiled. 'Johann LaFayette,' she said.

'Code clearance valid. File Lucifer: High Level Briefing is now open. Menu as follows: Overview, Special Orders, Methodology.'

Christine shook her head sadly. 'Oh Dad,' she whispered, 'she uses all of us in the end. Even you.'

'Access Overview,' she continued after a few moments.

'Sub*file open.'

A virtual screen opened in front of her eyes, obscuring the head*up displays. The screen showed a living colour portrait of her mother. Christine flinched involuntarily at the stern expression, the iron*grey hair, before remembering that, life*like as it was, the file was just a simulation, a recording.

She whispered, 'Activate.'