'Doesn't look much, does it? But Downstairs Downstairs always have an eye on it.' always have an eye on it.'

'You mean the High Council?'

'Among others... The place must have some strategic significance, but I've never worked out what.'

Jomdek's face suddenly lit up with proud realization. 'And that's where the transduction beam is directed!'

14.On its pad, the cube turned blue.

'That'll be the beam now,' said Hofwinter. 'It seeks out the cerebral ident.i.ty of the subject on the sealed orders.

Rather like looking for a lynchet in a thatchpile, but it can needle out one brain pattern in a population of several billion.'

Concern was starting to cloud Jomdek's face again, or it could have just been stupidity. 'But the orders are secret.'

'It may be cla.s.sified,' complained Hofwinter, 'but who'll get the blame if it goes wrong, eh? I first kept tabs on cla.s.sified accessions in this bureau when Mazwen the Last was in office. Only four more years in this post and I get my millennial service boon. And in all that time nothing has ever gone amiss.'

He looked for something brittle to break for luck, but found only reinforced carbon, silicon and mica dust.

An alarm rattled the confines of the office. The cube turned flame red. Hofwinter swallowed hard on a suddenly dry throat. The G.o.d of Fate has to be tempted. Like the fish in the icy rivers of Gallifrey, it takes only the juiciest of bait.

'What's happened?' said the captain. 'Have we been found out?'

Hofwinter began to flick the instruments on the port. 'It's gone,' he croaked.

'What's gone?'

'The beam. Something's cut across it. Cut it off. We've lost the subject.'

Jomdek was confused. 'So what do we do?'

'Nothing!' snapped Hofwinter. 'We merely initiated the sealed orders as instructed. We do nothing and know nothing!'

Where are you going?

'Home. I'm going home,' she thought.

Dorothee was drifting without sense of touch or inner feeling. Just her thoughts cut loose. She had to hang on to them or they'd unravel off into the darkness. The same way her body and her bike had gone.

Where's home? came the other voice. came the other voice.

'Earth. England. No, now it's France. Paris.'

Better make up your mind, hadn't you?

'Paris,' she insisted.

You reckon you'll see that again?

The interrogator's voice was hard and mocking. Another woman's voice locked inside her own thoughts. It was turning her thoughts over and trashing them. They were al she had. 'What do you want?' she thought.

You tel me.

'I want to go home!'

And that's Paris, is it?

'Yes!'

15.Liar!

'No one calls me that.'

No one calls you anything.

'You just called me liar.'

Must be your name then.

There's no chance to think when someone's already in your thoughts. 'Fine. Cal me Liar,' protested Dorothee .

'What about you? What do you call yourself?'

Don't you know?

Dorothee could feel the grin in the voice. A childish laugh, cruel the way only kids can be. It both frightened her and was comfortingly familiar.

I'm your worst enemy. I'm just behind you, it sneered. it sneered.

'Where? Who are you?'

Tell me who you want me to be.

'What I want is to go home!'

Tough!

'Jesus crukking Christ!'

Dorothee sat on the low bed. The white room was empty and cold. Six blank wal s. No windows or doors.

A noise behind her. She turned round.

The girl was in black, a plain black bodysuit and boots. So black, the light found no surface on it. In the shadowless room, the girl's face was lost in dark obscurity. It appeared formless, unfinished or undecided.

Then the shadow lifted and a face slid out from under it. The young woman had long, tangled brown hair and large brown eyes that returned Dorothee's stare. She'd seen them earlier. Cold and accusing.

She'd always reckoned, in the vast photofit lottery of the Universe, that anyone could look like anything. But not that. Not just like that.

'Crawl back in the mirror,' she said flatly.

'Mirrors don't answer back,' answered the girl.

She stepped up nearer the bed. 'I'm... Ace.'

'Like h.e.l.l,' said Dorothee.

'It's true.'

'Prove it.'

Ace raised the sleek black carbine that was slung over her shoulder and shot Dorothee at point-blank range.

16.

Chapter Two

A Long Shadow

The Castel an's office, from which al security matters in the Capitol were controlled, was spa.r.s.ely furnished; an impartial place with no views or windows of its own. It sat at the heart of the great Citadel, wedged like an afterthought into the ancient masonry of that august and sprawling edifice.

Castellan Andred sat at his desk, irritably tapping one finger on a stack of pending reports. The confirmation of a top-security visitor to the Capitol was overdue and at present there was nothing he could do about any of it.

Andred had been elevated to his post over a year ago, but still he felt like a novice. The shadow of his predecessor had a long reach.

There seemed to be an army of elderly Time Lords, largely indolent high-benchers, who gravitated in to see him with such regularity that he was growing suspicious that they had worked out a rota. Could he attend to a faulty service lift in Tower 3? How long before the Panopticon antechambers were refurbished? Standards in Chancel ery Guard full-dress uniforms had become very lax - webbing scruffy, honours arrayed in the wrong precedence. None of this would have happened in Spandrel 's day.

Most of these friendly friendly observations were nothing to do with security at al . Andred was sure that the Brotherhood of Kithriarchs was keeping a more than wary eye on the new boy. observations were nothing to do with security at al . Andred was sure that the Brotherhood of Kithriarchs was keeping a more than wary eye on the new boy.

At the moment, he was deeply uneasy as to why the latest in this parade, the venerable Almoner Crest Yeux, had chosen such a particularly awkward time to pay him a cordial visit.

'I tried only this morning to see the President,' droned Yeux, 'and I was told she was unavailable until further notice. They tried to fob me off with that dreadful Chancel or Theorasdavoramilonithene woman, but I wasn't having any of that. I mean, it's all women on the Inner Council now. They seem to be taking over.'

'I'm on the Inner Council,' said Andred curtly.

'Yes, but forgive me for saying this, but you're the token ordinal, aren't you?'

Andred bit back any discourteous retort. He had been trying to remember what the Almoner Crest's function actually was. The t.i.tle was probably too steeped in heraldic tradition for anyone to recal . 'The President does have an immensely busy schedule,' he said.

'Oh, that's as maybe.' Yeux shifted bulkily in his seat. 'But I ran into Cardinal Perundeen immediately afterwards in the Causal Archive Record Office and he had exactly the same experience three days ago. And he stil hasn't seen the President. She wasn't even at the reception for the Chelonian envoy. I mean, n.o.body knows what she's up to.'

To his relief, Andred saw a small light flicker on his desk. He rose from his seat. 'I'm sorry, Almoner, but I do have some pressing business of my own.'

Yeux eyed him with no apparent intention of moving. 'I mean, you of all people must know her whereabouts, Castellan. Otherwise there'd be no point in you running security at all.'

The door slid open, affording a view of the outer office where a young guard was waiting with a tall lady in a dark green robe.

Andred's hearts sank. The one person he most wanted to see was the last person he could entertain at the moment.

'Come in, Captain,' cal ed Andred. He turned back to Yeux to find that he was already up. The Almoner Crest was staring at the lady who had followed Jomdek into the room. The captain was carrying a gla.s.s cube in front of him as if it was one of the ceremonial relics from the Panopticon museum.

'The transduction order, sir, as you instructed,' he announced with a sideways glance at the onlooker.

17.'Thank you, Jomdek!' Andred s.n.a.t.c.hed the cube out of his gloved hand.

Yeux, a smug grin on his face, nodded to Andred. 'Thank you for your time, Castellan. I'll leave you to your pressing business.' He gave the lady a cold stare and departed.

Captain Jomdek stayed standing to attention, his face a pool of deep embarra.s.sment.

Andred snapped, 'I a.s.sume everything was in order at the Accessions Bureau.'

'I delivered the item. Yes, sir.'

The Castel an dabbled a finger on the communicator link and then thought better of it. 'Thank you, Jomdek.

Dismissed.'

Jomdek tried to come to attention, found that he was already there, nodded his head awkwardly and left.

The Lady Leela watched the door slide shut. She was tall and proud; her red-brown hair was braided and woven up around-her head. Today she had threaded two sorts of coloured beading into the plaits that Andred had never seen before - red and dark blue.

'The captain had magenta juice all down his tunic,' she said. As always, she managed to invest the most ba.n.a.l events with an inherent wonder all of her own. It always floored him.

'Shoddy discipline,' Andred grumbled weakly. He allowed himself a tiny smile. 'It isn't funny. And I told you not to come here when I'm working.'

She sat on the edge of his desk and flicked at a stack of reports. 'You do nothing else but work when you are here.'

He reached for her hand. She leant across the desk and kissed the frown on his forehead. 'You are troubled,' she observed.

'You know I can't tell you about it.'

'I know. The headman carries the secrets of his tribe on his shoulders.'

He grinned and squeezed her hand. 'If you say so.'

'Don't laugh.'

'Laughing's good for me.'