Mark nodded solemnly. 'He's locked himself in. He won't tell me why. Have I done something wrong?'

The Doctor smiled. 'I very much doubt it.'

Legion moved closer. 'What does the physicist Bannen hope to gain from this action?'

The Doctor looked up sharply. 'Don't you know?'

'Sergeant!'

Ace snapped to attention, grasping Legion's intent immediately. 'Kreig. Ardamal. Let's check it out.'

The doors had no sooner closed behind the three troopers and Bannen's simulated son than the Base Tannoy crackled to life.

'This is Alex Bannen here. I have something important to say, so you'd all better listen really carefully.'

'Executive transporter three. Calculate escape vector and initiate maximum thrust,' Bernice said.

Bernice and Christine were pushed back into their acceleration couches as the executive transporter's engines began to fire at full power, straining to keep them free of the black hole's gravitational well. Bernice swallowed hard as the thrust, conflicting with the pull of the collapsar and the executive transporter's own internal artificial gravity field, churned her stomach into knots.

Her sick feeling increased as an alarm buzzed and the computer spoke. 'Reserve power source at minimum. Fuel exhaustion imminent.'

'Reserve power? Who said anything about reserve power?' Bernice punched the arm of her couch in frustration. 'What's the matter with these IMC cretins? Don't they have maintenance contracts?' power? Who said anything about reserve power?' Bernice punched the arm of her couch in frustration. 'What's the matter with these IMC cretins? Don't they have maintenance contracts?'

The computer made an enquiring noise; she attempted to think up more specific commands.

From her pilot's couch, Christine strained to speak. 'Don't take this the wrong way, Bernice, but... I really don't think there's... anything more you can do.'

Bernice grimaced. 'I'm... crushed.'

'Ah... sarcasm... a typical... defence reaction.'

'To tell you the... truth... I'm scared... s.h.i.tless.' Bernice squeezed out a half*hearted laugh. 'I've... never done this... before.'

The rumble and comforting pressure of the engines stopped.

'Reserve power is now exhausted. Systems will shut down as per standard maintenance schedule.'

The lights went out.

Powerless, the executive transporter began to spiral closer in towards the black hole.

Bernice's laugh turned into an agonized scream as she felt the pull of the black hole's immense, uncontestable gravity.

Ace led Kreig and Ardamal along the main access corridor to the Mushroom Farm at a dead run, Alex Bannen's words still pounding in her ears.

'I am accessing the original operating centre of the Lucifer system. There will be power for Earth. Power beyond your ability to imagine. There will be room to live. Air to breathe. There will be gra.s.s again, and trees. And fish... and... and cats... and...'

Ace unslung her weapon, and ran towards the double doors which opened on to the Mushroom Farm. They were locked shut from the inside.

'...there will be... peace.'

'Burn the door down!'

'All I ask is that I be remembered as... saviour of the Earth.'

Three beams of energy lashed out at the door.

The creaks and groans of the executive transporter's overstressed plates suddenly ceased. Bernice took an experimental breath, expecting nothing but vacuum. She could breathe. More than that, she hurt. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

'What happened?' came Christine's muzzy voice from the copilot's seat. 'Did we pa.s.s through the black hole and out into some anti*matter universe the other side?'

'Don't be absurd,' Bernice said, overawed by the sight outside the executive transporter's viewscreen. 'It's much stranger than that.'

Bannen's last words echoed and re*echoed in Cheryl's mind. What was the idiot playing at now? If he could have done what he claimed, why hadn't he done it already? Her attention was drawn to the Doctor, standing quite still with a look of tremendous concentration on his normally quizzical face. 'He has no idea what he's doing,' the Doctor whispered. 'No idea.'

Legion unravelled towards the Time Lord. 'If physicist Bannen can do what he says, perhaps we should let him. My brief is to provide a power source for Earth. Why should I squander IMC resources and money if I can fulfil my part of the contract without it?'

The Doctor turned to Legion with a snarl. 'I take it that question was rhetorical? Legion, tell me, is it true IMC troopers have been burning the forests of Moloch?'

'To facilitate exploration and a.n.a.lysis of the interior structure of the moon. Excess vegetation is of no importance.'

The Doctor thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead. 'You narrow*minded fool! That vegetation was the negative feedback control for the entire Lucifer system. The trees, the gra.s.ses, even the undulants, they were all a vital part of the mechanism, just like the Bridge and the Lift. And you've destroyed them!'

Amazingly, the pod began to slow. The tremendous battering it was receiving began to abate. With an effort, Piper tore her eyes away from the glowing nimbus of energy surrounding the medicine wheel and restarted the real*time simularity. Lucifer leapt into sharp relief around her.

Stretched out before the hull of the starpod were its mechanical arms. Cradled in them was a tiny glowing bundle all that was left of Paula. Piper was reminded of a mother holding her newborn infant, except, of course, that Paula's life was ending, not beginning.

New tears began to course down dry tracks on her cheeks as Miles's voice whispered in her ears, 'Paula...'

Did the object seem to glow a little brighter for a moment, as Miles brought it nearer the pod? Did the heat on her arms and face from the medicine wheel grow just a fraction hotter?

'Dad...'

Piper strained forward to catch the words, which drifted past as if they were no more than a part of the cloudscape through which the pod was moving.

'We can't keep... meeting like this...'

Miles began to shake. Piper got the impression the glowing bundle on the pod's arms was smiling, and then Paula died.

Again.

Piper reached out for Miles. Quietly, he took her hand. She took off his eyepiece and saw that his eyes were bloodshot from crying. He was shivering.

'Cold...'

'I know, I know.'

Quickly, Piper reached across Miles and unlocked the second pilot's board. She set the pod computer to pick a course upwards through the churning atmosphere, then returned her attention to Miles.

He was staring blankly at the glowing medicine wheel. 'Why?'

'I think how how would be a much better question to answer.' Piper reached out for his hand a second time. 'But we can worry about that later.' would be a much better question to answer.' Piper reached out for his hand a second time. 'But we can worry about that later.'

Miles was silent for a moment. Then, 'We have to bury her Piper, break her bowl...'

'We will, Miles. We will.'

'Her soul must be released.'

Almost without realizing what he was doing, Miles reached for a control. The manipulating arms released their hold of his daughter's body and it began to fall away from the starpod for the last time. Piper placed her hand on his shoulder. She suddenly became aware that the cabin was growing darker. She glanced towards the medicine wheel. The powerful glow was fading. She cast her eyes frantically over the starpod's control console. The podbrain was still faithfully recording the scene, breaking it down into numbers and graphs and presenting the information to an, until now, uninterested audience.

'Miles,' she whispered excitedly, 'I think I know why '

Before Piper could finish her thought, the pod began to shake again, gently at first, then with increasing violence. Leaving Miles for a moment, she returned to the simularity. What she saw made her throat tighten in an involuntary gasp.

For hundreds of kilometres in every direction, the roiling cloudscape was being ripped into plasma and sucked upwards into an area of blazing radiation containing a tiny, dark, heart.

She checked instruments, and a cold knot of fear began to grow in her stomach.

The starpod was being swallowed along with the clouds.

Piper turned her attention back to the scene outside. The starpod began to shudder as the gravitational flux*lines converged. The thermometer climbed as the molecules that scoured the starpod's skin raised the temperature. Beads of sweat sprang from Piper's forehead and floated like tiny moons around the interior of the pod.

And then...

The plume of dying matter spiralling into the black hole seemed to suddenly unfold. The collapsar blossomed like a flower, vomiting out the gases that it had swallowed in a spray of fundamental particles, which buffeted and spun the starpod, leaving behind it...

...leaving behind it...

...an impossibility. Piper tried to find any words, any concepts to express what she was seeing, but the closest she could come was a rip the size of the universe through which she could see things which her mind rejected as inconceivable this side of madness. It was a singularity; the heart of a black hole; the point where all the laws of physics are suspended, all bets are off, and both s.p.a.ce and time cease to exist.

And, arrayed around it in concentric circles, were the Angels. All apart from one of them were singing. One of them was heading straight for the starpod.

Ace re*entered the Operations Room. 'We have been unable to gain access to the Mushroom Farm. I've left Troopers Ardamal and Kreig down there, still trying.'

Legion began to shiver. Cheryl was now certain this was a sign of agitation. Something was going terribly wrong, she was sure of it. Why else would the IMC Captain spend so much of its time here?

The Doctor spoke up. 'Trau Bannen must be stopped. He is meddling with things he does not fully understand.'

'I do not agree,' Legion said, its multiplicity of voices drawing together to form a chorus. 'We must observe the results of the physicist Bannen's actions and correlate them with the existing objective.'

'Correlating anything will be impossible if he is allowed to proceed. Everyone here will be dead!' the Doctor said furiously.

'How do you know this?'

The Doctor studied Legion carefully. 'By keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut.'

'You know nothing! You are unimportant!' A ropelike tentacle lashed out towards Bryn. 'All non*essential personnel are to be moved out of the Base confines immediately. Further interference will only create inefficiency in executing contractual obligations.'

'You can't do that! We have no means of survival on the surface. When the air in our starsuits runs out, we'll suffocate,' Cheryl said.

'Bryn; expedite my command immediately.'

Bryn lifted her gun.

Bishop slammed a clenched fist into Bryn's meaty forearm, twisting the gun from her grasp with a practised motion. He stared at her in contempt. 'This isn't justice. This isn't a contractual obligation. This is murder, plain and simple.' He turned to Legion and began to speak again. 'IMC Officer Legion, I arrest you on charges of '

With a speed Cheryl would have thought impossible from a woman her size, Bryn pulled a tiny pistol from beneath her robes. The gun was almost swallowed up in her huge hand. In a second, the muzzle was resting against the back of Bishop's head.

The Doctor, who had begun to move towards Bishop, froze. 'I don't think that's a very good idea,' he said softly.

Bryn ignored him completely. 'I see you made your decision, then, Adjudicator Adjudicator,' she rumbled to the back of Bishop's head. 'A shame. I could have used you on my side.'

She squeezed the trigger.

Ace shot first.

As Bronwen ap Bryn's ma.s.sive body crashed to the floor, Legion sent a tentacle lashing towards the girl. 'Sergeant, place yourself on report and under arrest. Return to the Insider Trading Insider Trading immediately.' immediately.'

Ace's face was twisted with indecision.

'No...' she said finally. 'I'm sick and tired of being told what to do. What you're doing here is wrong. I went along with it because I had a job to do, but I can't blindly follow orders any longer.'

Legion began to gather itself quietly into thin air.

Bishop gestured with Bryn's gun. 'If gambling were not against Earth Central's edicts,' he said casually to the IMC Officer, 'I would have to say I bet I can squeeze off at least one shot before you can do your vanishing act.'

Legion appeared to consider Bishop's words.

'Now I don't know how much damage destroying this part of you would cause,' the Adjudicator continued, 'but since you haven't already vanished, I imagine it would be rather more than an extradimensional flesh wound.'

Legion began to shrink and expand, apparently in some agitation. Bishop smiled, thinly.

Cheryl switched her attention back to the Doctor and Ace. The Doctor was frowning; you could almost see the thoughts whirling through his brain. Eventually, his expression cleared.

'Oh, Ace. I think I see it all. It's IMC, isn't it? IMC from the twenty*sixth century, three hundred years in the future. They've sent you back on an intelligence mission. That would explain why you stole Bannen's notes, why you were trying to tie into the neural net...' The Doctor lifted one hand to his brow. An expression of immense tiredness seemed to settle on his face. 'Is that it, Ace? Have you used me to affect the outcome of future events? Events like the Dalek Wars?'