'Exactly, but one hour away in the planet's orbit and rotation. Which is precisely where Jack and Dibber are with the Nosferatu. Nosferatu. Now we just have to meet up with them again.' Now we just have to meet up with them again.'

They bolted down the central stairwell, knowing that the lifts would be immobilised when the alarms went off.

'This way,' the Doctor said, leading the group down a set of narrow corridors. A few people passed them, milling around, but no one would stop the SID director, and the security recordings hadn't been checked yet.

Monty started the shuttle's engines even before taking his seat, while the others followed him across the docking bay.

Liang knew this was the dangerous part. It didn't matter whether the guards or staff knew what had happened yet, but they would certainly try to stop anyone from leaving, on the general principle that any saboteur or thief would be trying to get away.

He was right: four guards ran into in the docking bay, taking cover behind the scattered crates. Monty opened fire from the shuttle's hatch, the rounds punching through the crates. The Doctor had known better than to prohibit the use of guns, but he had extracted promises from everyone that they would be set on stun only. A returned shot caught his side, and he fell back into the airlock, the blaster dropping from his hand, and landing on a bench near Liang.

Liang gave covering fire as the Doctor, heedless of the shots buzzing around him, dashed up the staircase to the hatch, and dragged Monty into the ship, Chat following behind.

Liang's gun ran dry, and he realised that he didn't even know how long it been since he recharged it. Liang leapt for the bench, shots singing through the air, and landed on the nearest end. The bench tilted like a seesaw, the far end rising and tossing the blaster into the air towards him. He caught it one-handed as he rolled behind the bench, and fired at the nearest guard.

The powerful energy bolt passed through the crate with little resistance, and blew the man across the floor. If he screamed in pain, it was muffled by a feint tinkling sound behind Liang. Something bit hard into Liang's back, and he was pitched forward, the stink of his own scorched flesh stinging the air. He started to turn, firing at another guard.

The guard was caught in the shoulder and blown sideways.

The Doctor swung himself round the flight console as Monty collapsed into a chair and Chat hovered nervously behind them. Monty raised his right arm slightly, and winced. A charred trough had been gouged from his side, and a sliver of white rib showed at the deepest part. The wound had self-cauterised, however, and the rib was clearly still intact.

'You'll be all right, there's no bleeding.'

'It's bleedin' painful, though,' Monty said through gritted teeth. The Doctor had grabbed a medical kit from the small bay at the back of the flight deck, and gave him a hefty dose of painkillers. Monty trusted him to get the right mixture - you didn't live long in their chosen line of work without learning something about patching up the inevitable wounds that came with the job.

'My brother!' Chat turned back for the hatch, and the Doctor grabbed her before she could get there.

'Woah!' Liang yelled involuntarily, as he tumbled in through the airlock. The hatch bumped his ankle as it closed.

The Doctor shoved the throttle to full without even sitting down, and the shuttle leapt free of the asteroid.

Mandell's lunch was interrupted by Wei's call. Bloody typical, he thought. 'It's happened,' Wei said excitedly.

'The theft?'

'It's gone. Somehow they did it.'

Mandell slapped a fist into his palm. 'Wonderful! Get the ship ready.'

'Yes, sifu! sifu! Mandell changed the frequencies happily, and put a call through unofficial channels to the Veltrochni Dragon Mandell changed the frequencies happily, and put a call through unofficial channels to the Veltrochni Dragon Zathakb. Zathakb. Brokhal's fierce features appeared almost at once, with little of the usual formal delays. 'Yes Brokhal's fierce features appeared almost at once, with little of the usual formal delays. 'Yes Iirdmon?' Iirdmon?'

'Madam Ambassador,' he said smoothly. 'I'm pleased to inform you that your property will be returned to you by dawn. If you'll meet the operatives on Elchur, they'll deliver it personally.'

'My ship cannot reach Elchur by dawn. However, I will despatch the Thazrafch Thazrafch to meet you. You will return our property to Pack-Leader Hyskanth.' to meet you. You will return our property to Pack-Leader Hyskanth.'

Whatever, Mandell thought. 'As you wish, Madam Ambassador.'

The shuttle and the Nosferatu Nosferatu touched down next to each other in a grain field far from the city. Once they had retrieved the real - and highly indignant - Professor Hoffman from his cell and deposited him safely in the shuttle, everyone boarded the touched down next to each other in a grain field far from the city. Once they had retrieved the real - and highly indignant - Professor Hoffman from his cell and deposited him safely in the shuttle, everyone boarded the Nosferatu. Nosferatu. It blasted off, watched only by some apparently uninterested farmers. It blasted off, watched only by some apparently uninterested farmers.

Jack, Dibber; Liang, Chat and Monty all hugged each other in turn, exchanging stories of their part in the proceedings.

'I don't know how you did it, Doc,' Jack began, 'but it almost made up for the damage to my place. Almost,' he repeated, just in case anybody thought he was getting mushy on them. 'Now we just have to decide what to do with this thing.'

'We do exactly what we set out to do,' the Doctor told him bluntly. 'Return it to the Veltrochni.'

'Are you out of your skull, Doc?' Jack protested. 'If this thing's valuable enough for the Veltrochni to go to war over, it must be worth... I can't even imagine how much it must be worth on the open market. But we've got to find out.'

'No, Chance,' the Doctor snapped. 'That cylinder is the only thing that can keep this war from breaking out. I don't believe that even you would put mere profit above the lives of millions of people.'

Chance started to contradict him; money was money. It couldn't buy happiness, but Jack had found that he could sure as hell rent it for a while. Even so... 'Not millions, no.'

The Doctor took the cylinder gently. 'We'll go to Elchur and hand this over, exactly as Mandell said.'

Chat frowned. 'But what about Glitz and Frobisher?

Shouldn't we try to get them away from those bounty hunters?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Those two are after me. So long as I'm still free, Glitz and Frobisher are perfectly safe.

They can't kill them, or else what would they have to draw me in with? At least this way they're also safe from the police, and whatever scheme Mandell is planning.'

'What makes you think he's planning a scheme?' Liang asked.

'Wouldn't you be if you were him?'

Chapter Fifteen.

Elchur had been abandoned for centuries. If life had ever attempted to crawl out from the murky depths, it had long since returned to the small equatorial ocean. The land was mostly weathered rock, scoured by dust storms.

The planet used to be an agrarian colony until biochemical weapons in some ancient war or other had sterilised the surface. Some of the original thick prefab blockhouses still remained, empty shells clinging to the foothills in the rocky desert.

Most of the buildings were thick-walled utilitarian bunkers, whitewashed against the heat. At one end of the street, a two-storey building was garbed in long-dead neon signs.

The hot dry wind scraped Mandell's face, but he ignored it, because he felt like a man who had just stepped out on to the beach of a new holiday resort: tired from the flight, but looking forward to the great joys this place would bring.

Word of the theft had been put out on the police frequencies, but with no details other than that the suspects had fled in a government shuttle. Luckily, one of the farmers had the sense to report the unusual landings, and now Kala and Jemson stood by as an outraged Professor vented his spleen on anyone around.

'They're madmen,' he raged. 'Sociopaths!'

Kala had had enough of this. 'Professor, were any of these people among them?' She handed him pictures of Chance, the Doctor, Glitz, Monty, Liang, Chat and Dibber.

'Yes, dammit! That's what. I've been telling you! It was them. All of them!' That was all Kala really needed to know, and she tuned out the rest of the Professor's tirade as they walked back to the police flier. 'Call the station house and tell them I want a ship ready to take us. The farmer says they left in a freighter, and I want to be able to follow them as soon as we get a trace on the registry. We can't let them get out of our territory.'

It would take several hours to reach Elchur, even through the convoluted short-cut of hyperspace. Meanwhile, the Doctor was turning the cylinder over in his hands, peering at it closely. 'Now this is interesting,' he breathed. 'When you first stole it, were you told anything about it?'

Jack shook his head. 'Just a valuable relic. Some sort of art form, we thought.' He frowned. 'D'you know what it is?'

'It's some sort of software-definable crystalline structure.'

'Software-definable? You mean it's a piece of technology?'

'Mmm. And very advanced too.' He seemed quite taken with the thing. 'I'd love to know what it's for. It certainly isn't Veltrochni in origin.' He compared it to the circuit he'd taken from the time dams. 'And it's not from the same source as this either.'

'You mean it's something from before their civilisation? Or they stole it from someone else?'

'That is what I must know myself.'

'Must?'

'That's what knowledge is for: to be uncovered and held up to the light. If there's something here that I don't know about, and I know that I don't know it, then I must find out. You know, there's something awfully familiar about it. I'm certain I've seen this type of technology somewhere before. Of course, that's not much help, given that I've seen just about every type of technology somewhere before.'

A Veltrochni Mage-Dragon was already in orbit with wings fully spread when Mandell's private cruiser arrived. Mandell hadn't expected any different, of course; the Veltrochni determination to get the job done made their actions rather predictable to his intelligence analysts. The ship was impressive, he had to admit; its wings were beautiful. They shimmered like the iridescent scales of a fine fish... In a barrel, he thought, cracking his knuckles.

He hailed the Veltrochni ship. 'I see you arrived before me,'

he lied. 'If you'd care to join me on the surface...'

'No,' a male Veltrochni replied. 'We will await the arrival of these thieves.' Mandell was quite impressed by the amount of venom and revulsion that the alien put into that last word.

He resolved to try that himself sometime.

'As you wish. Their ship is old, so it may be some hours yet.'

'Not that long,' the Doctor's voice broke in over the open channel. 'We're just here. I presume there's a landing area somewhere down there?'

Mandell was ecstatic. He must really be on form today...

'I'm sending the coordinates now.'

Jack squinted at the bright sunlight, and wished he'd brought a hat of some kind. He didn't really feel comfortable in this sort of climate. He was a temperate-zone man all the way, ever since he was a boy.

The Nosferatu Nosferatu had touched down at one end of the small ruined town, and her crew now waited amidst the bleached tumbledown walls. had touched down at one end of the small ruined town, and her crew now waited amidst the bleached tumbledown walls.

Mandell arrived next, his lander coming down off to one side, in what used to be some sort of arena. The thieves watched him distrustfully as he approached. He found that vaguely hurtful, even though they were absolutely right. 'I gather you didn't disappoint me?'

'And I hope you're not going to disappoint me. I want my TARDIS back.'

'Naturally. It's in my lander. The Core?'

'The what?' The Doctor was momentarily thrown, but then recovered. 'Oh, this.' He held up the cylinder. 'Core, eh? For what?'

Mandell cursed himself. Not that it mattered; the word could mean nothing to the Doctor. 'For something, I imagine.

Please?' He held out his hands.

'I'll give it to the Veltrochni directly,' the Doctor reminded him stubbornly.

'As you wish.' Mandell was feeling generous now that things were going so well. 'Here comes their Pack-Leader now.' He pointed, and the others looked up into the painfully bright blue sky.

A squat and hunched shuttle was descending. Curved pincer-like legs unfolded from it as it settled on to the dust at the other end of town. A ramp opened, and five Veltrochni in full powered armour emerged. The armour enhanced their already powerful build, and made them look positively lethal.

Even Mandell was tempted to flinch as their leader reached the middle of the old town's main street. His bodyguards looked around suspiciously.

'You have our property?' Hyskanth said, without preamble.

'Yes.' Mandell waved the Doctor forward, and the Time Lord handed the Core to the Veltrochni.

'Good afternoon, Pack-Leader. I am known as the Doctor, perhaps your people remember me?' Hyskanth merely looked blank. 'You have a kinsman named Karthakh, I understand?'