Karthakh spoke up. 'We initiated contact to ensure that we have your wishes correct. For a small extra fee, we can deliver the Doctor to you alive, for you to dispose of as you see fit.'

The voice laughed. 'An appealing idea. We will send a ship to meet you and deliver your payment. Be in the Katana system in twenty-four hours. Only then will I know he is truly dead, and that we can rest assured he will never trouble any of us again.'

'Consider it done,' Sha'ol said. He and Karthakh then filed out past Frobisher, totally ignoring him once more. After all, he was only an Ogron.

Wei had saved his own skin by finding Cronan at the spaceport, and it looked like Cronan knew it. He was shaking from head to foot as he huddled in the least comfortable chair in Mandell's office.

Mandell quivered with rage, or caffeine withdrawal, he wasn't sure which. Either way, he was in a most unpleasant mood. 'This,' he said angrily, 'really offends me, Cronan.' He clamped his hands on to the edge of the desk to stop them bunching into fists of their own accord.

'It was business,' Cronan protested. 'They're only thieves; what did you expect me to do?'

Mandell drew a blaster, and leaned across the desk to shove the muzzle into Cronan's mouth. He heard a tooth break as it went in. 'I expect you to use your godsdammed head. I expect you to check with your betters before you screw up all our lives!' Cronan's eyes were almost popping out of his head in terror. 'Give me one reason why I shouldn't vape your empty head right now,' Mandell snarled. He wished he could allow himself to do what he threatened, because it looked like being a pretty good catharsis. He wasn't so stupid, of course, but there was no sense in letting Cronan know that.

'The Doctor,' Cronan mumbled.

Mandell ripped the gun out, with another tooth. 'What?'

'The Doctor; the one you're after. This Zimmerman is sending me to collect his body.'

Since this merely confirmed what he already suspected, Mandell's rage evaporated, or so he made it look. Such vast mood swings always scared prisoners. On Earth there used to be a saying that one should never ask a question to which one didn't already know the answer, and Mandell liked to stick by that proverb as much as possible 'Ah. In that case, you're about as much use here as a vet in an abattoir.'

Cronan looked even more hunted. 'What?'

'I said you can go. Go on, get out!' To emphasise the point, Wei grabbed Cronan, and physically threw him out the door.

'Nice move.'

'Thank you, Mandell lo lo. The homing nanobots should transmit for several days.'

'Good.' Using the enemy was always somehow more satisfying than using one's friends. Mandell relaxed somewhat. It was nearly time to head home for an evening snuggled up with Kala. There was something he wanted to check first. This Zimmerman wanted the Doctor dead, did he? It amused him to think that by hearing that, he had actually - albeit inadvertently - fulfilled his part of his bargain with the Doctor.

He tapped into the computer system, and searched for 'Zimmerman'. There were several dozen people with that name, and Mandell felt despondent once more - until he caught the word 'Chronodyne' out of the corner of his eye. He scrolled back up. There was a Zimmerman listed as a Director of Chronodyne Industries. No picture on file, but he knew where the VP office of the company was anyway.

Mandell pondered this for a moment, then made a decision.

'Get the flier, Wei. We're going visiting.'

Frobisher returned to the navigation room, but there were too many Ogrons around for him to try altering the ship's course as he had hoped. He supposed he might at least discover something about what they were doing on the ship at all, though the idea of learning anything from an Ogron was something of an oxymoron.

Frobisher started when Gorrak suddenly stamped his foot.

Rather than shout with some sort of rage, however, Gorrak continued stamping. Other Ogrons joined in, pounding the consoles with free hands, and from deeper in the ship, Frobisher could hear the constant hammering adopt the implacable cadence that Gorrak was beating out.

'Born of rock', Gorrak rumbled, with what by Ogron standards was probably grace. Gorrak rumbled, with what by Ogron standards was probably grace. 'With heart of stone,' 'With heart of stone,' he continued. By this time, some of the others were also growling out the words, and Frobisher realised with a touch of culture shock that they were - in their own gravelly way - he continued. By this time, some of the others were also growling out the words, and Frobisher realised with a touch of culture shock that they were - in their own gravelly way - singing. Frobisher had never thought Ogrons could even grasp the concept of song, and could only mouth a rough approximation of the words, hoping that nobody would notice.

'From mothering land And mountain home Ogrons we born Ogrons we die From rock and stone Our souls will fly'

The pounding continued as Frobisher recovered himself.

'A gift of stone Is every breath To please our masters With life and death Ogrons we born Ogrons we die In rocks and stones Our souls will lie.'

The Speculator Speculator lumbered off into the stars. lumbered off into the stars.

Karthakh could feel the ship's deck plates vibrate to the stamping of feet, and his ears swivelled to pick up the simple words being growled out throughout the ship. Perhaps these primitive dirt-grubbing creatures were not so stupid as they had appeared. The Veltrochni warrior made a mental note of that possibility, but allowed himself to be carried along by the raw tide of sound. In a way, it reminded him of the toast-songs that greeted the end of a duty shift on a Dragon.

The words were overly simplistic, though, and didn't stir any sense of pride or joy in Karthakh's heart. That realisation saddened him a little. These were only Ogrons, he reminded himself; an anomaly of the spaceways who by rights should be building stone huts and fighting with spears back on Orestes, or Braah, as the creatures themselves called the planet.

At least they knew the value of song, he decided. That helped make them warriors, in his eyes, because song came from a strong heart.

In the navigation room, Sha'ol tuned out the Ogrons'

chanting, as it was an irrelevance. He expected it would distract them from their duty, but this didn't seem to be the case. Perhaps he would compose a minuet once they had delivered the Doctor's head; something truly touching and wistful. He would wait until the job was done, though; that was how things should be done.

Their course was set, and Sha'ol now found himself free to examine the Core. He recognised it immediately as a Data Core from S'Arl. He thought of the planet as his homeworld, even though some part of him knew he had never been there.

He had memories of it, though. Ancestors' memories, to be sure, but memories nonetheless.

They were encoded in RNA passed down to Sha'ol, and any other survivors there might be. There were a few, Sha'ol supposed, since the statistical probabilities were against the total elimination of every member of such a widely distributed species. He had never met one, though, and he told himself that he had long been used to being, in all practical terms, the last of his people.

Once it had almost driven him insane. He had been unreasoning for several decades, until the madness simply burnt itself out. Like so many kinds of pain, there eventually came a point where one ceased to register it.

Many members of many species liked to consider themselves unique, but they had no conception of what that truly meant. But Sha'ol knew. It meant always being alone. It meant always being the outsider. It meant knowing that you were a living epitaph to all of the dead. Worst of all, it meant that you belonged to the dead - and were one of them.

Chapter Seventeen.

Some over-friendly Ogrons had shoved some rancid meat into Frobisher's fist and dragged him down to the factory floor.

There, the evening meal was being served to those Ogrons who weren't on duty manning the ship's controls. After seeing the uncooked cadavers and half-cooked leftovers that they ate, Frobisher wondered if he would ever be able to keep down a chocolate pilchard again.

He slipped away from the Ogron party with great relief. It didn't take long for most of the Nest to get drunk on highly acidic ale, and he had no difficulty in finding his way back to the navigation room.

He had hoped it would be empty, but of course the old matriarch had her little nest there. She and her family were sleeping in a heap in the captain's duty cabin, though, and snoring fit to wake the dead. Sha'ol was also there, but his eyes were closed, and he too seemed asleep.

It wasn't an ideal situation, Frobisher knew, but he might never get another chance to alter the ship's course. Moving with a silence that would be impossible for a true Ogron, Frobisher approached the navigation console. Working quickly, he disengaged the current course, and plotted a new course, back to Vandor Prime. Once that was set, he erased all records of the change in the computer.

'What are you doing?' It was Sha'ol's voice.

'Boss?' Frobisher asked, hoping he could bluff it out.

Sha'ol looked past him at the console, but the disruptor he held didn't waver from Frobisher's chest. 'Gorrak and Karthakh, report to the navigation room. For an Ogron you have done remarkably well,' Sha'ol said slowly, and Frobisher could tell that the Tzun hadn't quite worked out what he was dealing with yet.

There was a growling and snorting from the captain's duty cabin, as the matriarch and her daughters woke. 'What happening?' the matriarch demanded. Sha'ol ignored her, but turned just a hair when the door opened to admit Gorrak and Karthakh. Frobisher acted instantly, puffing himself up into a ruddy reptilian form that oozed with acidic blubber.

Every Ogron in the room screamed in terror, and tried to hide in the nearest cubbyhole, while the matriarch gasped hoarsely and pitched backwards.

Before either of the more intelligent bounty hunters could react, Frobisher had lanced forward, changing into a cheetah as he went. He hurtled out of the still open door, narrowly avoiding a hasty disruptor shot from Sha'ol.

Gorrak checked the matriarch while Karthakh cursed vehemently in his own tongue. The Ogron leader straightened with a dreamy smile. 'Not all bad,' he began. 'She dead. Scare to death by monster.'

Sha'ol didn't curse like Karthakh did. This development simply necessitated an alteration to strategy. 'A mesomoiph,'

he stated simply. 'A shapeshifter.'

'A Rutan?' Karthakh asked with a hiss.

'Unlikely. There has been no disruption to onboard electrical systems. Also it did not return to its natural state between forms. A Rutan would.' He considered, rifling through generations' worth of memories for any encounters with shapechanging species. There were very few, since such species were rare in the galaxy. 'The most likely culprit is the Xenon mesomoiph -'

'A Whifferdill,' Karthakh snarled. If there is a Whifferdill on board, it could get into anything.' That was true, Sha'ol was well aware. However, the Whifferdills were intelligent, and this one was clearly on some kind of intelligence-gathering work. That meant it was developing a strategy, and Sha'ol was an expert at strategy. 'We must hunt it down,' Karthakh added.

'Tactically unsound,' Sha'ol snapped. 'We do not have the necessary equipment to scan for a Xenon mesomorph, therefore it is unlikely that we would find it. A search would simply make it easier for him to impersonate the searchers and move among us. To affect our intentions, he will have to attack specific areas of the ship: this centre, life support, the engines, or weapons systems.'

'Or the crew,' Karthakh added.

'Correct. From this time forward, no one will move about the ship alone. Travel in pairs or groups only. Any lone beings are to be shot on sight.' He turned to Gorrak. 'No matter what they look like,' he emphasised heavily, as one had to with Ogrons.

'Even you?' Gorrak rumbled, sounding surprised.

'Especially us.' Sha'ol's unblinking black eyes remained fixed on Gorrak for a long moment. 'Gorrak, set your weapons for stun. It will be to our advantage to interrogate the mesomorph, should he be located.' It was also likely that some mistaken identifications would be made by the Ogrons, and their forces were thin enough already.

'I understand. These good lads, they find mexomuff.' Sha'ol didn't bother to correct him.

Gorrak hurried back down to the main hall of the Nest.

Most of his men were there, and some of them could even still stand. Those, he gathered together. 'New orders from mas-partners,' he said importantly. 'There is shapeshifter on board. Partners say no one to travel alone in ship. Now I tell you; stun any creature who is alone.'

It didn't occur to him that he had walked into the hall alone, until seven different stun blasts hit him.

When he woke up, he knew that at least his men had understood their instructions.

The Doctor had been scouring the room for a ventilation shaft or inspection panel through which he or one of the others could slip out. Without tools, it had taken them some time to unscrew a panel using Jack's belt-buckle.

The Doctor took off his coat. 'If my memory serves me as well as it usually does, this shaft must lead to the auxiliary engineering deck on this type of ship.'

Monty shook his head. 'But this ship's a thousand years old...'

'So will I be fairly soon,' the Doctor reminded him. 'I have been on these things before, you know. Now, from there I should be able to override the door control, or at least make up a key to fit any mechanical lock the Ogrons might be us-'

He broke off at the sound of a scraping from the door.

Everyone hurriedly sat down, expecting to be discovered at any moment. The Doctor stood a moment longer, hanging his coat over the open vent. It wasn't exactly a convincing camouflage, but Ogrons weren't noted for their observational skills anyway.

Only the food slot in the door opened, however, and a hairy Ogron hand shoved a tray through. Four covered plates were on it, and a pitcher, which smoked slightly. The Doctor and Jack exchanged glances with each other, and the pitcher.