For a long moment she felt dizzy, disorientated. The doctor took a solicitous step forward, but she steadied herself and took another breath. Lightheaded, she saw little pinp.r.i.c.ks of light around the edges of her vision.

'Come downstairs and I'll get Bernard to make you a cuppa.

We'll have another chat, and then you can come back up and see your mother again, maybe tell her the good news if she's woken up.'

Gently, he led her down the stairs. And for the first time in years, she realised how beautiful the smell of roses and talc could be.

Ace pressed her ear to the door to the TARDIS console room, and heard the faint but unmistakeable sound of the Doctor's voice. He was talking to someone. She held her breath and listened to him, muttering to someone in the sort of reasonable tones you adopt when speaking to loonies. She heard the sound of another voice, protesting, but the words remained frustratingly out of reach all she could pick up on was a general sense of urgency, a high, wheedling tone of voice that she didn't like the sound of. She wasn't even sure if it was a man or a woman. Her heart beat faster: there was a stranger in the TARDIS. An invader. Had the Doctor let someone in? Had someone actually broken broken in? Where had the Doctor landed the TARDIS and why had he taken off again so quickly? With these questions rushing around in her head, Ace gave the door an almighty kick, and though it shook ever so slightly on its hinges, it refused to give way. in? Where had the Doctor landed the TARDIS and why had he taken off again so quickly? With these questions rushing around in her head, Ace gave the door an almighty kick, and though it shook ever so slightly on its hinges, it refused to give way.

'Ace! Stop it!' She heard the Doctor's voice, clearer now. He was right on the other side of the door.

'What's going on? Who's in there?'

'Just give me a few minutes, Ace.' His voice was anxious, almost pleading.

'No, I want to know. What's happening?'

'I can't tell you now. I'm sorry. Please... just a few minutes.'

'Are you OK? Doctor!'

He didn't answer her, but the mutterings resumed. She kicked at the door once more before realising the futility of it, then pressed her ear against it again, trying to hear what was being said. The floor beneath her jolted slightly as she felt the ship land; and moments later the TARDIS engines started up again. They were off. Again. What was going on? Ace heard the sound of something being dragged away from the door, and it opened to reveal the Doctor, looking very intense, very concerned and, to Ace's chagrin, not the least bit apologetic.

'So?'

'Ace, please, there really isn't time for this.'

'You've got time to land the TARDIS, let some stranger in, have a secret little heart-to-heart and then drop him off somewhere, and you haven't got time to tell me what's going on?' 'It's not that I don't want to tell you. I can't can't.' His face looked genuinely pained, but Ace was too angry to take any notice of his distress.

'Are you being threatened? Is that it?' She looked around the room, as if expecting to find someone crouched behind the control console, pointing a gun at him. But there was no one there. She looked at him carefully, wondering whether he'd been possessed by some alien force, or replaced with a bodys.n.a.t.c.her-type replica. But he was the same little man that she'd just returned from the future with.

'Of course not,' he snapped. 'It was just an errand I had to do.' 'If it's "just an errand",' she persisted, 'why can't you tell me what it was, eh?'

He turned sharply to her and took a deep breath. 'Because it's about something that hasn't happened yet. That's what.'

She raised a querulous eyebrow. 'To do with those letters?'

'Something like that, yes. Oh Ace, don't look like that. I'll explain one day.'

'That'll be a first. So aren't you even going to give me a clue?'

He busied himself at the controls, pointedly ignoring her.

She stared at him, arms folded, for a few moments and then gave a snort.

'Fine,' she said. 'Have it your way. I'll be in my room when you can be bothered to let me know what's going on.' And in sullen silence, she flounced out.

The lawns spread away from Graystairs, neat and razor sharp, dipping down to the lake where a couple of ducks were raucously squawking at each other. On the flagstones that bordered it, an elderly lady in a wheelchair, tartan rug across her knees, was breaking up a few stale crusts to throw to them.

'She's your type,' said Harry, elbowing his companion.

The two of them sat on a mossy stone bench at the top of the lawn, enjoying the spring sunshine and watching Graystairs'

other residents.

'Who?' asked George, thrown by this sudden lurch in the conversation. A moment ago, they'd been talking about the hoo-hah that Eddie's disappearance had caused, and they'd been placing bets on which member of the staff would be made to carry the can for it.

'Enid. There. Down by the lake.'

George fumbled with a handkerchief and polished his gla.s.ses.

'Are you sure it's not Sydney? Enid hasn't got that much hair.'

'She's wearing a hat. She's a good-looker, though,' Harry added with a hint of wistfulness in his voice.

'Enid? She's alright but she's not all there, you know.' He tapped the side of his head.

'George, none none of us is all there.' of us is all there.'

'Speak for yourself. Still, she can't be more annoying than Doris Wesley and her knitting needles.' He shook his head at the memory of the klakk-klakk-klakking klakk-klakk-klakking that was, day in, day out, driving Harry more and more insane. It wasn't even as if she had anything to show for it: she'd knit an eight-inch square in dark green, and then unravel the whole lot, rolling the wool up into an increasingly frizzy ball, before starting over again. There were times when George knew Harry would quite happily have skewered Doris's hands together with the needles, just to give everyone a bit of peace. that was, day in, day out, driving Harry more and more insane. It wasn't even as if she had anything to show for it: she'd knit an eight-inch square in dark green, and then unravel the whole lot, rolling the wool up into an increasingly frizzy ball, before starting over again. There were times when George knew Harry would quite happily have skewered Doris's hands together with the needles, just to give everyone a bit of peace.

In silence, they watched Enid and the ducks, and breathed in the sweet, fresh air. It made a welcome change, thought George.

Bedpan Alley, that's what they called Graystairs. Very nice if you liked that sort of thing. Which George didn't. He wasn't quite sure what it was that he'd prefer, but he knew it wasn't doilies and the smell of pot pourri hanging over everything, trying to mask the smells of age and infirmity and disinfectant.

'Anyway, what would someone like Enid want with a raddled old git like you?'

'I was a bit of a looker when I was young,' George said indignantly. 'During the war, I could have had anyone I liked.'

'And you did,' Harry grinned back.

They both chortled at the remembrance of those long gone days but, if they'd been honest, they'd have admitted that their memories were as much wishful thinking as genuine recollection, although Harry remembered seeing a doc.u.mentary on memory-loss in old age, and felt sure that it should have been recent events that were all fuzzy, not the distant past. Or was it the other way round after all?

They lapsed into warm, contemplative silence, listening to the quacking of the ducks. George polished his gla.s.ses again, oblivious to the fact that he'd only just cleaned them.

'It's a shame, really...' George suddenly said.

'What is?'

'That we can't actually remember what what it is we did during the war.' ' it is we did during the war.' ' I I can remember perfectly.' can remember perfectly.'

'No you can't.'

'I remember shooting people.'

'Who?'

'The enemy of course.'

'And who were were the enemy exactly?' the enemy exactly?'

Harry didn't reply.

'See, I told you you couldn't remember.' George settled back smugly, reached for his handkerchief, and decided not to bother.

Harry snorted. 'Well, with a bit of luck we soon will.'

George nodded hopefully, and watched Enid and her hat as she finished throwing her sc.r.a.ps of bread to the ducks.

As the cold metal terminals touched his temples they expanded, living webs of quicksilver spreading out over his skin to form a network of shiny veins. He gasped sharply as time froze around him, and he sank, a stone in an ocean of numbers and symbols.

With a numb, glacial slowness, he realized that he couldn't remember his own name.

Things swam past him; bizarre shoals of figures, letters, mathematical equations. An icy gale screamed through his body, bleaching out all sensation, submerging him in a white-water river of maths, more complicated than anything he'd ever studied at school. He'd never experienced anything like it before, and it took his breath away. There was no sense of up or down, no direction: everything was simultaneous. A vast matrix stretched into impossible dimensions, and he was just an element in that matrix, interlinked to all the others, yet independent. His perceptions were constrained but spread throughout the whole.

The contradictions inherent in this didn't even register with him: such awareness was fading as the electrodes probed their way through his frontal and prefrontal cortices, seeking out the appropriate neuronal cl.u.s.ters to interface with.

As his consciousness closed down completely, his last sensation was that of cold water, drip-drip-dripping onto his skin.

Chapter Two.

The dome loomed up out of the darkness, suddenly just there there like a sleeping whale, discovered amongst the kelp and weeds. John had expected something, but not this. The sonar in one of its brief, functioning moments had given a clean, sharp pulse, something incredibly dense and suspiciously big. Something forty yards below the boat, where, by rights, nothing like it should have been. As he swung the lamp across it, the beam glimmered back; muted and tinted greeny brown by the silt and the algae in the water, the reflected light flashed across him, as if someone inside was as curious about him as he was about it. like a sleeping whale, discovered amongst the kelp and weeds. John had expected something, but not this. The sonar in one of its brief, functioning moments had given a clean, sharp pulse, something incredibly dense and suspiciously big. Something forty yards below the boat, where, by rights, nothing like it should have been. As he swung the lamp across it, the beam glimmered back; muted and tinted greeny brown by the silt and the algae in the water, the reflected light flashed across him, as if someone inside was as curious about him as he was about it.

He angled the lamp downwards and manoeuvred himself closer to the behemoth. As he reached out to touch it, he felt an odd tingle in his arm, like a tiny electrical current not painful, but disconcerting. What was even more disconcerting was the matching arm that reached out of the depths of the thing, a mirror image of his own. As he drew closer, the arm likewise reached out for him, until their fingertips touched at the surface.

The thing was slippery... no, not slippery. Skiddy Skiddy. If there was such a word. As though the chromed surface was pushing him away, reluctant to be touched. It was a sensation he'd never experienced before. Like a kitten in front of its first mirror, John moved from side to side, watching his own dimmed reflection, slightly stretched out like a comedy face in the back of a spoon.

He craned his head back, restrained by the helmet, and pointed the lamp up. The curve of the object faded a way into distant darkness in all directions.

He moved back, sensing the water tingling around him, silently seething with forces and energies that scared him.

Perhaps it was these energies that were making him feel nervous, edgy; not the fact that, buried in the seabed off the Orkney islands was a huge, mirrored hemisphere; not the fact that, as he stared into its gla.s.sy depths, it almost seemed to be looking right back at him.

He shuddered, realising how cold he was, and checked his watch about eight minutes of air left. Just time for a quick swim around the thing. He pushed away from the seabed, the water thickening even more with the flurry of sand, and began to move around it. It was very disorientating: even as he knew he was moving, the featureless surface of the dome gave the impression that he was standing still. Only the odd floating clump of weed or other debris, caught in the beam from his lamp, convinced him that he was actually moving.

Five minutes later, he was on the point of giving up and returning to the surface: he could only get a vague impression of the dome's size, judging by its curvature. But for all he knew, he could have circ.u.mnavigated it totally, and be back where he started. But then he saw something on its surface that he hadn't seen before.

A couple of feet up from where the dome (it only then occurred to him that he'd been a.s.suming it was a dome for all he knew, it could be a sphere, half buried in the seabed) met the sand was a dark, starfish shape, the size of a spreadeagled man.

He swung the light over it, noticing the dull, reflective glint of metal under the thick accretion of barnacles and weed. It looked like a five-legged metallic spider, hugging the surface of the sphere. At the centre where the thick arms came together was a lump, protruding a few inches.

Tentatively, he touched it, poking through the acc.u.mulation of marine life on its surface. There was a gentle, tingling vibration, a more intense version of what he could feel in the water all around him. He gave an experimental tug and floundered backwards in surprise as it came away in his hand: a fist-sized lump, roughly circular, like a large pewter doughnut with a cricket ball embedded in the hole. Seaweed trailed from it like matted hair, streaming out in the water, and he couldn't help but be reminded of a shrunken human head.With flailing arms and legs, he steadied himself, clouds of silt puffing up around him. He brought the object closer, examining it in the spotlight.

Remembering his air levels, he decided to save the examination until he'd got to the surface. With one last, disbelieving look at the kraken in front of him, John kicked out and headed upwards, into the light.

When the Doctor knocked gently on Ace's door, she was sorely tempted to tell him where to go. But she remained face down on the bed, silently reading some rubbishy teen magazine that she'd found at the back of a cupboard. In the white s.p.a.ces on the advert pages, a childish hand had scrawled naive copies of some of the simpler words in black marker pen. Ace flicked desultorily through it, trying to find something that related to her own teen life. Not surprisingly, there were no letters from Disenchanted and Disenchanted and hacked off from Perivale hacked off from Perivale complaining about timetravelling old men. complaining about timetravelling old men.

Just the usual boy-obsessed dorks: Dear Annie, My mother hates my Annie, My mother hates my boyfriend, but I really love him and be says he loves me. What shall I do? boyfriend, but I really love him and be says he loves me. What shall I do?

Debbie, age 14.

Get a life, thought Ace. 'Ditch the boyfriend and go travelling through s.p.a.ce and time with a weird codger who doesn't tell you a thing he's thinking.'

There was another tap on the door.

'Ace? Mind if I come in?'

'I don't suppose it'd make any difference if I did, would it?'

she muttered.

She was right; it didn't.

Ace felt the gentle pressure of the Doctor sitting at the foot of her bed. She glanced over her shoulder and saw his sad, puppydog expression.

'Don't start that,' she warned. She wasn't going to let him win her over.

'Ace...'

'You're not going to tell me, are you?'

'Ace, I've told you '

'And stop putting my name at the start of all your sentences.

I hate hate that! You sound like a teacher.' that! You sound like a teacher.'

'Sorry It's just that there are some things I just can't tell you.

Not yet. Not till they've happened.'

Ace sat up, flinging the magazine across the room. It fluttered like a frantic bird and joined the pile of clothes, boots and a.s.sorted rubbish against the far wall. 'And what would be the point of telling me then, then?'

He gave a little shrug and she shook her head.