'Now, I gather that this K9 K9 machine of yours original y belonged to the former President, hereafter known as the Doctor.' machine of yours original y belonged to the former President, hereafter known as the Doctor.'

'No,' she said. 'It originally belonged to Professor Marius.'

'Another un-Gal ifreyan?' When she made no response, he added, 'I take that as a "yes". At some time the aforementioned machine must have pa.s.sed to the Doctor. And thence on to you.'

'It is not your business,' Leela insisted. 'I demand to see the Castellan!'

60.He tutted irritably. 'I have told you that Castellan Andred has no jurisdiction in this matter.'

'Andred and I are bonded! If I have endangered his position, then I must see him.'

The Time Lord frowned. 'Difficult. His interest in this case would be purely personal.'

'Of course, it would. Andred loves me.'

His mouth twitched and his face coloured noticeably. 'That is not a consideration.'

'What do you mean?' she said. 'How can it not be a consideration?'

'Are you implicating him in this also?'

That shocked her. 'Of course not! He did not know. I care for him and chose to be with him. Don't you have feelings?'

He stared fixedly at her as he fingered the edge of his carved desk. 'The Castellan's pedestrian duties extend only to the security within the Capitol. The crime you have committed is not within his aegis. It affects the whole security of Gallifrey in its relation to the causal nexus of the Cosmos. And that is our concern.'

'Then you are answerable to President Romana.'

'Another friend of yours, of course.' He smiled his serpent smile again. 'Yes, she makes an admirable figurehead.

But she does not command the overwhelming support that she likes to imagine.'

'Take away this barrier. Or are you afraid to be in the same s.p.a.ce as an unGallifreyan savage?'

He rose from his chair and came to the edge of where she guessed the barrier to be. 'Why were you trying to contact the Doctor today?'

'He is my friend, too.'

'Yes?'

'Yes. But I do not use him as you do.'

'Explain that accusation.'

'You use the Doctor whenever you have something you don't want to blunt your own knives on.'

'Does it occur to you that he might be our friend also?'

'No,' she said. 'I learned that the Time Lords were all-powerful, but you have no honour in your dead rituals.'

His smooth indifference seemed to crack a little. 'Madam, as an other-worlder with scarcely a history of your own, you know nothing of our provenance. The planet Gallifrey was powerful when the flower of the Universe was barely unfolding. Our society is steeped in the traditions of a thousand millennia. It is our greatest duty to revere and maintain our past.'

'In my world, the old are revered for their counsel. But if the old vines cling too tightly, we cut them back to let the young growth through.'

'Barbaric,' he said. 'You know nothing.'

'I know that if I ever do see Andred again, I wil have forgotten this meeting. But I will fight you for my memories.'

He laughed. 'You are unhappy,' he said. 'Just answer one more question, madam. You say that the Doctor is your friend. You certainly have travelled with him, so I would guess that you know him better than most. Perhaps almost as well as the President knows him. But can you say who he is?'

61.'What?' she said.

'The Doctor's ident.i.ty?'

She was mystified. 'He is the Doctor. He is a Time Lord. And he has... he had had a Family at the House...' a Family at the House...'

'I know what you were searching for on the panotropic network,' he said. 'But what about the Doctor? Who is he really?'

She shook her head. 'He's a wise man. A shaman. No, he is more than that.' For a moment, she was uncertain. In her memories, there was an excitement and wonderment, a sense of danger that the thought of the Doctor always aroused. But she had always accepted him; never questioned his ident.i.ty. Finally, she knew her answer. She understood the Doctor's secret. He could not and must never be tied down, pinpointed or categorized.

'He is a mystery,' she said with the utmost reverence.

From somewhere close in the Capitol, there came the deep boom of an explosion. The office shook and the sky went black.

62.

Chapter Twelve.

Uninvited Hosts

'Going somewhere?'

The voice brought Innocet up short. 'Cousin Rynde,' she whispered as she saw him slide out from behind an arras.

'You startled me.'

'You're out late,' he said. 'Or is it so late that it's early now?' Even in the gloom, his face was grubby and had an oily sheen. His eyes bulged like the pale eyes of a lantern fish. He looked uncommonly well fed.

Innocet knew that Rynde hoped she was engaged on il icit business. She pulled her cloak around her. It barely fitted over the heavy coil of hair on her back. 'I'm surprised to see you in this part of the House,' she said.

He edged up close to her and growled, 'Someone's been thieving from my shrew traps.'

'Your traps?' She pulled away as politely as possible. 'I thought that Cousin Maljamin caught the tafelshrews for the Drudges.'

'He used to.'

'What's happened to him?' said Innocet warily. The prophecy of the rogue card cast a shadow across her thoughts. Anything erring from that usual wearisome burden of candleday-to-candleday life in the House now filled her with foreboding.

'Gone. He's gone away,' said Rynde.

'What? Like the others?'

'Don't know about that. He just took to sitting in his chair and losing interest. Wouldn't talk. Wouldn't eat. Wouldn't even give me a game of Drat. That's when I knew things were real y turning windy. Twice I found him in the corner of his room trying to dig a hole. I think he thought he was a shrew as well. And then he disappeared. That's all.'

Still facing her with a grin, he ambled backward along the pa.s.sage.

Innocet felt the weight on her shoulders. Sometimes her burden was unbearable. It was still growing. Against her better judgement, she set off after Rynde. 'You should have restrained him,' she called. 'You should have known he might go away.'

Rynde had reached the staircase leading down to the disused phrontisteries. He spat down the stairwel . 'Why should I?' he said. 'Maljamin wouldn't have stopped me. We do things differently in the North-by-North-East wing.

Not the same as you grand galleriers. He just went the same as the others. No fuss. Anyhow, he might be happier as a shrew.'

'You should have told me,' she scolded. 'You know I keep the tal y. You must be the last one left in your wing of the House. Soon there'll be no one left at all.'

He scratched his head through his oily hair. He had dirty fingernails. She couldn't abide dirty fingernails. She seemed to remember that he had once worked as some sort of food technician to the Time Lord gentry at the Capitol.

'You're just worried there'll be no more dinner,' he sneered and started down the stairs.

'Be careful, Cousin. Something dangerous is happening,' she cal ed after him. 'There was an omen in the cards.

And you must have heard the clock.'

'Superst.i.tion!' said Rynde. 'I'm more worried about my traps.'

63.She started down the stairs, struggling with her robe on the big steps. 'Have you seen Owis and Arkhew?' she called.

'Together? Owis doesn't count, does he?'

She reached the landing, quite out of breath. 'Of course, he counts.'

'Oh well, in that case I defer to your superior wisdom, Cousin. I saw both of them three candledays ago in the funguretum. Glospin was with them too. They were gambling for something. When I asked what, they just laughed and said the highest stakes.' He shrugged. 'Why? What have they done to you?'

'I'm worried that they may have pa.s.sed on, gone away like Maljamin.'

Rynde gave a rasping guffaw. 'Arkhew might. He's always been on the edge. But you won't get rid of Owis. Not if there's still food about.'

'I must find them,' she said. 'I know something dreadful is going to happen.'

'Don't jump at your own reflection, Cousin. It might only be Satthralope leering out at you.' He laughed again and held up a something furry and dead. 'Feeling peckish? Anything to offer in exchange?'

'Certainly not,' said Innocet, pulling her coat around her.

Rynde leered and stuffed the animal in one of his many pouches. 'I'll tell them if I see them.' He sauntered off down the pa.s.sage, a knotted string of dead shrews dangling and dancing down his back.

Chris kicked at the stove with his boot. The metal rang with the blow and the stove snapped its lid aggressively.

But the latch stayed jammed.

At least it shut Glospin up for a minute.

While Chris tried to force the metal door, there had been a barrage of questions. Who was he? Who had sent him? How did he get in? He ignored most of them and was non-committal over the rest. This man cal ed Glospin, doing solitary inside a stove, was an ID/unD: undeciphered. He could be a different Gallifreyan with the same name. Or that same evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a Gallifreyan he'd encountered in his dream, only with a different body on: a total body bepple. The Doctor could regenerate, Chris knew that. His body just seemed to be something he went about in. So maybe the process came naturally to the rest of his race as wel . De rigeur De rigeur, as the simpering select cla.s.s of the Overcity would say.

'Are you some sort of guard?' began Glospin again. His eye was squinting sideways through the grating.

Chris snorted. 'You could say that.'

'Thought so. The clothes don't fool me.'

'I'm off duty,' said Chris.

'How did you get in? Down the chimney?'

'Hardly.' Chris had found a rusty pan handle and was trying to jam it into the door.

'Which Chapterhouse? You can't be Prydonian - your face is too honest.' He gasped in sudden pain.

'What is it?' said Chris.

'My legs! No circulation. I can't move in this thing. Get me out of here!'

64.The pan handle buckled in Chris's hands and tore one of his fingernails. He yelped in pain and stuck the finger in his mouth.

'Get me out now!' Glospin snarled.

Chris stood back from the stove. He didn't like that tone. His immediate concern had knocked something vital to the back of his mind. 'Better tell me why you've been locked up in there,' he said.

He saw the eye shift past him to stare along the pa.s.sage. There was new light coming in from somewhere.

'Chris, you're making enough noise to wake the House itself,' said the Doctor.

He came scuttling out of a different pa.s.sage. He carried a lamp in one hand, his trousers were soaking wet and grey powder was streaked over his jacket. 'Time to move. The natives are getting -, He was shaking out his dusty hat, when he apparently realized that they were not alone.

He gave an oily smile and gestured the lamp towards the ceiling. 'Of course, there may be a few problems with damp, but the general structure is sound and it is, you will agree, a most advantageously appointed property with a delightful aspect overlooking the val ey.'

He met the stare of the eye at the grating.

'You!' whispered Glospin.

The Doctor blew the flame of the lamp out.