'Yes, Chance?' an older well-groomed man in a private spacer uniform replied after a few moments.

'I think I got you your new galley assistant. How much is he worth to you?'

'A thousand?'

Jack thought about this. 'Make it two.'

'Two?' Kallas echoed. 'Is he worth two?'

'No,' Jack admitted, 'but he's going to be working for free.

You can pay me two grand for services rendered, or pay him four as a wage - the choice is yours.' Jack liked the idea of making a total of four thousand off this deal. It was symmetrical somehow; he arranged a new worker, but collected the full wage himself. The guy was a civil servant after all, so it would serve him right.

Kallas nodded. 'OK, two it is.'

'Glad to hear it. Bring your cash round tonight, and I'll introduce you.'

'I'll be there.' The screen went dead. Jack grinned cockily, not caring that nobody saw it. It wasn't as if he needed the money, but it was fun to put one over on somebody. He liked that sort of challenge.

A few buildings had moved around during the afternoon, jostling for the best weather. Smooth crystal walls encased the assorted themed sections of Jack's Cafe Terrestriale.

Residents of numerous planets thronged the main piazza.

Most of them were humans from various GalSec planets, though the occasional alien could be seen as well. It was an eclectic mixture to say the least.

'It's a bit on the garish side,' the Doctor opined. 'Definitely not very tasteful. Now, if they were to redecorate with something a little more stolid and imposing, this complex could be a real architec-'

The others exchanged glances, and Glitz wondered if he was starting to develop hearing problems; surely the Doctor hadn't just said what he thought he'd just said? 'You feeling OK, Doc?' Frobisher asked in a low voice. 'Not feeling giddy or anything?'

The Doctor stopped. 'What do you mean by that?'

Frobisher coughed. 'Er, nothing, Doc. Just... Just thought you looked a bit peaky there.'

'Peaky?' The Doctor frowned at him, then tapped his chest.

'Perfect health, Frobisher. I have never never felt "peaky". Now, where are we likely to find this friend of yours?' he asked Glitz. felt "peaky". Now, where are we likely to find this friend of yours?' he asked Glitz.

Glitz pointed up at an inverted dome suspended from the roof. 'He'll probably be in there.'

'He always liked his comfort, Mr Glitz,' Dibber agreed.

'Don't we all, lad,' Glitz agreed, with what sounded to Frobisher like a wistful tone. Frobisher certainly couldn't disagree with him there. He still wasn't sure exactly whether Glitz was on the side of the angels or not, but either way, it was nice to meet someone who just wanted to be comfortably-off rather than run the universe.

There was a polite 'Ahem' from behind them, and the group turned to find the Cafe's Maitre d' waiting with an infernal air of polite superiority. Frobisher thought he looked awfully like David Niven. In fact, he realised slowly, it was was David Niven. David Niven.

Or at least some kind of replica. A clone or android perhaps.

The Doctor looked the Maitre d' up and down. 'Haven't we met somewhere before?'

'I don't think so, sir, and I'm sure I would have remembered.'

'Ah.' The Doctor smiled. 'Remember all your customers, do you?'

'Every one, sir, with perfect clarity. Now, how many in your party?'

'We're not here to eat, I'm afraid. One meal a day is quite sufficient for most humanoid lifeforms.' There was a faint groan from Dibber. 'Actually we'd rather like to see the owner of this establishment. A Mr Chance?' the Doctor finished hopefully.

The Maitre d' nodded understandingly. 'Mr Chance is very busy, I'm afraid. But if you'd like to make an appointment for tomorrow...'

Frobisher nudged the Doctor. 'Is that who I think it is?'

'Not exactly. Did you notice how his skin and clothes blend together just inside the cuffs? He's some kind of computer-generated projection. I imagine that when he said he remembers all the customers, he means that the program which runs him maintains a constant database.' The Doctor stopped, facing the hologram bullishly. 'And I personally am not going to take no for an answer from a mere collection of photons and personality algorithms.'

The Maitre d' also halted. 'Sir, this is hardly the proper -'

'All you have to do, hologram, is summon the owner of this establishment. Until you do, we are going to do our best to attract his attention ourselves.'

Liang grinned suddenly, and flicked his wrist. A silver dart with a cord attached speared an orange on a neighbouring table. To the astonishment of the middle-income family sitting there, Liang brought the orange into his own hand with a twitch.

'What are you doing? Chat demanded, looking almost as shocked as the family.

'Getting Chance's attention.' He lashed out with another dart, sending a new fruit sailing towards her. She caught it neatly.

'This is childish.'

Glitz and Dibber grinned and rose. 'Excuse me, madam,'

Glitz said to the mother of the neighbouring family. 'The service here is a little slow, so my friend here and I would like to share your meal.' He picked up a piece of meat and flicked gravy back on the plate. 'In fact, we might even pay our share too,' he added generously.

The father rose. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'

'Eating,' Dibber told him bluntly. Frobisher wondered if it would be worth shifting into something inconspicuous and leaving.

'This is a restaurant, after all,' Glitz said, 'what else would we be doing?'

'We could be robbing them,' Dibber responded.

Glitz silenced him with a look. 'But this is our lunch hour, Dibber. That makes us simple diners, just like these good people here.'

'Oh, yeah.'

The Doctor turned away from their antics. 'Well?' he asked the Maitre d'.

Jemson handed the viewer to Kala. 'Makes you think, doesn't it?' They were both sitting in a police flier parked on a roof overlooking Jack Chance's office.

She looked through, finding the Doctor's distinctive coat easily. 'I knew it,' she muttered with relish. 'I knew he must be one of Chance's friends.'

'So you said. And said. And said.'

Kala looked at him. 'Have I been that overboard about it?'

'It does tend to feature fairly regularly in your conversation,' Jemson admitted. He shrugged. 'It's OK, though.'

'No, it isn't.' Kala hated the idea of harping on too much about the same thing. That tended to annoy people. 'If I've been going too far with it...'

'Not yet.' Jemson shrugged. 'We all have our little drives, right? Anyway, seeing as how you're right, I don't think you have to worry about it. At least, you're right about this bunch all meeting up. As for what they're actually doing together...'

Kala shook her head. 'We've got Glitz, Dibber, Chance, Monty, Chat and Liang. Just about the whole gang. I can't believe they're only having a drink for old times' sake, can you?'

'Not realty, no.' Jemson scratched his cheek. 'There's still Oskar, but he's dead... You reckon the Doctor's his replacement?'

Kala thought about this. The Doctor was a bit too conspicuous to be their disguise expert, but several vastly different faces had shown up in the records last night when she searched for him. 'Maybe. I don't know, though. There's something about him that doesn't fit with the rest of them.'

'Apart from the others at least having some fashion sense?'

'That goes without saying.'

Jemson nodded slowly. 'So, what d'you want to do next?'

To be honest, Kala wanted to go home and let Nic give her a back rub, but work had to come first. 'We should bring them in. Even if we can't hold them on anything, we might at least scare up something on what they're doing. If nothing else it'll throw a spanner in whatever they're planning.' She started tying up her hair even tighter, not wanting to leave any of it loose enough to be grabbed by a fugitive. 'Call Tac and have them send along a team.' Jemson looked doubtful; such manpower requisitions usually took some time. 'I put in a request for possible support yesterday,' she added. 'Just in case.'

Chapter Ten.

Ingrid Bergman materialised beside Jack, much to the distress of the girls he was with. 'What?!' he demanded irritably, over their protestations. He wanted to stop to tell the pair that this was a projection, but if it had self-activated, then something important must be going on.

'I said that there's a disturbance in the main suite.'

Jack grimaced, as he heard his companions bolt out the door. Not that this would make much difference to his reputation. 'Disturbance? What, a dissatisfied diner? A riot?

What?'

'You'd best look for yourself, Jack,' the hologram responded.

Sighing, Jack stepped over to the one-way glass, where the hologram indicated. It took him a moment, but then he picked out the source of the trouble. Below, at one of the sumptuous tables, two people were tossing not just food, but cutlery, to each other. Somehow they were slicing up fruits in mid air and not missing a beat. Meanwhile, a pair of disreputable ruffians - who looked vaguely familiar - were talking to a horrified-looking family at the next table. A man in a Technicolor coat was talking to an older man, using cutlery and pieces of other people's dinners to build some sort of model, and the Maitre d' was arguing with a penguin.

This sight somehow managed to sidle around Jack's higher brain functions. He was seeing it, but the information wasn't registering yet because it was impossible. He couldn't be seeing something impossible, because the impossible couldn't happen; that was why they called called it impossible. it impossible.

'Tell me that's not Glitz. Tell me that's not Sabalom Glitz...'

Dibber would be with him. And the two acrobats would be Chat and Liang; the older man Monty... but who were the big guy in the coat and the penguin?

Jack felt the blood drain from his body, leaving only a sense of empty horror. He was perfectly happy with his girl-attracting, wallet-stuffing lifestyle as it was thank you very much, and the last thing he wanted was his past to catch up with him.

The slab-sided freighter had now been drawn fully inside the Speculator, Speculator, where it hung in a zero-gravity area over the factory floor. Chains and automated asteroid mining equipment laced it, pulling chunks apart. where it hung in a zero-gravity area over the factory floor. Chains and automated asteroid mining equipment laced it, pulling chunks apart.

Gorrak almost wished he could take the ship back outside and fly off in it, away from the stresses of leading the clan.

But he was their headman, and was responsible for them. He still sometimes wished he had more rock in his heart.

Some of his clan were busy dismantling the freighter, cutting it apart so that the hull plating could be used to patch holes in their own adopted home. Borrk was supervising, occasionally using a kick to drum up some speed from a lowlier Ogron. 'Borrk?'

'Boss?'

'Keep working. I go to flight deck.'