It was by no means certain that she was going to survive.

Physically she was comfortable enough. Her room in the inner part of the Temple was much like her room at the University.

Three times a day a university servant brought her simple nourishing food, with unlimited fresh water and fruit juice to wash it down. No alcohol of course. Her requests for a bottle of Eridanean brandy had simply been ignored.

Bernice Summerfield had never felt so disgustingly fit and healthy in her life. She hated it.

The trouble was that imprisonment, however comfortable, was still imprisonment.

At first Bernice had thought that the Lord Chancellor himself was condemning her to death. 'You can never leave here alive,' he had said. Then she realized that, as so often with the Sentarrii, his words were to be taken absolutely literally.

Here in the Temple she was safe. If she left, she was dead.

It was a sentence of life imprisonment with no remission.

Once she realized what he really meant, Bernice had pleaded with the Lord Chancellor to let her go. She had sworn perpetual secrecy, she had reminded him of his friendship with the Doctor, she had appealed to every moral principle in the cosmos, from common decency to the inalienable rights of sentient life-forms.

The Lord Chancellor had been polite, courteous and implacable.

'No doubt there is much in what you say, Domina, but the facts cannot be altered. By entering the Temple you have incurred the sentence of death. I could not lift that sentence, even if I wished to do so. All I can do is what I have done. For the Doctor's sake, and yours, I commanded the Harrubtii that blood may not be spilled in the sacred temple precincts. I think they will obey my authority in that but in that alone. If you leave the Temple, they will kill you. Even if you succeed in evading them here and escape from the Temple they will follow you and kill you anywhere on the planet. Even if you manage to leave Sentarion, their emissaries will follow you and track you down. Only one place in the cosmos is safe for you and that is here.'

And the Harrubtii, Bernice soon realized, were all around, watching and waiting. She caught glimpses of their shining carapaces in the gardens around the Temple. She felt their fierce black eyes following her every movement.

Day followed day, until she began to feel herself losing track of time. She saw herself growing old here, going mad from boredom and finally fading away.

Of course, the Doctor would eventually turn up to look for her. No doubt they would have a cover story ready to explain her disappearance, just as they had with poor old Lazio. There would be a faked message for the Doctor saying she'd had no luck with her researches and had gone off to another university on some distant planet. The Doctor would be disappointed.

When she didn't reappear he'd a.s.sume she'd just got bored or chickened out. Never very reliable, poor old Benny. No doubt he'd miss her for a while.

No, she told herself fiercely. The Doctor trusted her. He wouldn't be fobbed off, he'd know they were lying. He'd come looking for her. Determinedly, she hung on to the thought. At the moment it appeared to be her only hope.

Meanwhile, she did the only other thing she could. In her pocket was a silver sphere with an inset b.u.t.ton. It was called a SPATAB. A Spatio-Temporal Alarm Beacon otherwise known as a Panic b.u.t.ton. It would tell the Doctor she was in trouble and guide him to her when he came to find her.

She took it out of her pocket, and pressed the b.u.t.ton.

Meanwhile, so as to have something to tell him when he arrived and to help pa.s.s the endless hours, Bernice carried on with her researches. She studied the murals and frescos in the Temple itself and scanned its archives. She began forming a theory about the beginnings of Sentarrii civilization.

Luckily for Bernice, she wasn't entirely confined to the interior of the Temple. On the far side was a huge formal garden. It was filled with beds of exotic alien plants, fountains and ornamental pools, and overgrown with lush green vegetation. At its centre was a huge statue of a shapeless, shrouded form, before which myriad different insectoid life-forms bowed down in worship.

The Lord Chancellor had a.s.sured Bernice that the Inner Garden was sacred, a part of the Temple itself. Here too she was safe at least, so she thought.

She was strolling past a bank of flowering bushes, brooding over her theory, when dark shapes sprang out at her, bearing her to the ground. A filthy cloth was jammed over her face, covering her nose and mouth. Within seconds she was fighting for breath.

Bernice struggled wildly, thrashing about with her arms and legs. With a desperate heave she managed to break free of her attackers and scramble to her feet. She found herself surrounded by a circle of Harrubtii, several of them clutching cloaks.

'What do you think you're doing?' gasped Bernice. 'This garden is part of the Temple. Don't you obey your Chancellor any more?'

'We do not disobey,' hissed one of the Harrubtii.

'You were told it was forbidden to spill blood.'

'We spill no blood,' said another Harrubti. 'We mean only to stop your breath.'

'It's the same thing,' yelled Bernice indignantly. 'I'll be just as dead, won't I?'

'We spill no blood,' repeated the Harrubti obstinately and the circle closed in on her.

Bernice struggled to break free of the grasping claws. She was helped by the fact that the Harrubtii could not use their blood-sucking spikes, but she was still badly outnumbered.

The Harrubtii bore her to the ground by sheer weight of numbers and soon the choking cloth was over her face once more.

Weakened by lack of oxygen, Bernice felt her struggles becoming feebler. There was a roaring in her ears, a red mist before her eyes...

'Stop!'

The deep voice penetrated the roaring. Suddenly the pressure was released, the cloth fell away. Bernice drew in great sobbing gasps of the warm scented air.

Gasping, she struggled to her feet and saw the tall robed form of the Lord Chancellor towering over the Harrubtii, his entourage hovering around him.

He looked sternly down at the Harrubtii.

'Did I not command you to spill no blood here?'

'We spill no blood, Lord. We seek only to stop the blasphemer's breath.'

Bernice expected the argument to be dismissed at once. But to her horror, she heard the Lord Chancellor say, 'The point is an interesting one. I must consider.'

The tall insectoid form was frozen in thought. The Harrubtii gathered round, waiting eagerly for a decision. The more optimistic ones were already folding their cloaks into pads.

'Hang on,' yelled Bernice. 'I refuse to be murdered on a technicality.'

The Lord Chancellor's great head with its glowing eyes swung round to face her. 'You wish to contribute to this debate, Domina?'

Suddenly Bernice realized she was talking for her life. It's not easy to be calm when the question under discussion is whether or not you are to be killed. Nevertheless, she forced herself to speak calmly, as if discussing some abstract point of philosophical jurisprudence.

'Surely, Lord Chancellor, your ruling was expressed metaphorically? You spoke of blood to the Harrubtii because they deal in blood. The true meaning of your order was that I I was not to be killed in the precincts of the Temple was not to be killed in the precincts of the Temple. That meaning must not be evaded by trickery. Laws must be obeyed in spirit as well as in letter.'

There was another long silence. Then the Lord Chancellor's voice boomed, 'Such was my meaning. The Domina Bernice has attained sanctuary in the Temple. Within its precincts, she may not be harmed in any way!'

Disappointed, the Harrubtii moved away, disappearing into the bushes. The Lord Chancellor turned to Bernice.

'You argue well, Domina. It was an interesting point of doctrine, was it not?'

'Fascinating,' said Bernice. 'Glad we got it cleared up.'

They began strolling through the gardens, his entourage following at a respectful distance.

The Lord Chancellor's regular visits were one of the high spots of Bernice's captivity. Having condemned her to spend the rest of her life as his unwilling guest, he seemed to feel a responsibility for her. Despite the rather strange nature of their relationship, a curious kind of friendship had grown up between them.

Bernice felt faintly ashamed of the fact that she was abusing it. There were still some Sentarrii secrets known only to the Lord Chancellor himself.

'Lord Chancellor,' she began, 'we were talking on your last visit of the Sacred Texts. I asked if I might see them.'

'I fear it is not possible, Domina. Doctrine states that only the eyes of the Sentarrii may behold them.'

'Does it say anything about their hearing hearing them?' them?'

'I do not understand.'

'I'm sure you know the Sacred Texts well, Lord Chancellor. Suppose you were to tell tell me what's in them me what's in them recite them to me would that be forbidden?'

By now they had come to the statue in the centre of the gardens. The Lord Chancellor bowed his head, considering.

'Nowhere is it written that this is forbidden.'

'To hear you recite the Sacred Texts would be a great honour, Lord Chancellor,' said Bernice, blessing the literal nature of the Sentarrii mind.

The Lord Chancellor began to speak in a low, chanting voice.

'In the dark time the Sentarrii, the Harrubtii and all the other species that dwelt upon Sentarion were as savage beasts, thinking only of war and slaughter...'

There followed a long recital of generations of Sentarrii warfare, of soldiers slaughtered and nests destroyed. Bernice could feel her head nodding, but she made herself listen with an air of keen attention. Then, at last, came the bit she'd been waiting for.

'But then, upon the Sacred Day of Revelation, the sky darkened above the Holy Place. The vessels of the Shining Ones appeared, great glistening nests in which burned sacred fires. The ships landed and the Shining Ones emerged. They were shapeless yet they were all shapes, they were formless yet masters of every form.

'The Shining Ones dwelt amongst the Sentarrii for a time, altering their bodies and their minds, and giving them great knowledge. The cruel and ferocious Harrubtii they changed also, and from this time the Harrubtii became the fiercest and most loyal of their servants, the appointed Guardians of the Faith.

'But it came to pa.s.s that the work of the Shining Ones was done, and they returned to their own place. Before they left they made the Great Compact with the Sentarrii. If the Compact is upheld, a day will come when the Shining Ones return, bringing all power and all knowledge to their servants, the Sentarrii. And the Temple was built upon this holy place, against that day.'

As the chant concluded, Bernice was thinking furiously. It was just as Lazio had said, the cla.s.sic myth found on so many planets.

The G.o.ds came from the stars, conferred great benefits on their humble worshippers, and then went back to whatever heaven they had come from usually promising to return some day if their worshippers kept the faith.

They left behind them a group of fanatical devotees, waiting for the great day, fiercely intolerant of anyone who questioned the faith.

Some scientists had come up with the theory that the G.o.ds of these curiously common myths were in fact s.p.a.ce travelling aliens, landing upon still primitive planets and accelerating the development of native species, possibly by genetic manipulation. The hypothesis had originated long ago on Old Earth, where it was sometimes known as the Von Daniken Myth, or the Quaterma.s.s theory, after the long-forgotten scholars who had originated it.

Bernice remembered Lazlo's words in the tavern, just before the Harrubtii had killed him.

'Suppose it really happened, right here on Sentarion?

Suppose it's still going on? There's a secret temple, somewhere in the city...' There's a secret temple, somewhere in the city...'

Lazio had been brutally murdered just for expressing such thoughts in public. She herself had been almost killed, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, for investigating the Temple. She was well aware that the Lord Chancellor was speaking so freely only because of his certainty that she could never pa.s.s on her knowledge.

The Doctor had been right after all, decided Bernice. Some great secret was hidden here and it wasn't just the story of Sentarion's old-time religion.

'This Great Compact the scrolls speak of,' she began and broke off when she saw that the Lord Chancellor was staring upwards. She followed his gaze and saw a winged shape high in the sky overhead.

'That is very strange,' said the Lord Chancellor.

'What is?'

'n.o.body on Sentarion would fly an ornithopter above the Temple. The area of sky directly above is called the Gateway of the G.o.ds. It is fully as sacred as the Temple itself.'

'Some stranger, like me, who doesn't know the rules?'

suggested Bernice.

'It is forbidden for anyone not native to the planet to fly an ornithopter,' said the Lord Chancellor. 'If he lands here, the Harrubtii will certainly kill him. Unless I save him as I saved you. It may be that you will have a companion in exile.'

Perhaps it's the Doctor, thought Bernice, flying in on some mad rescue mission. Will I lose my immunity if I try to leave?

If he lands will we survive to take off together?

Bernice and the Lord Chancellor watched intently as the ornithopter circled downwards.

The service staff of the s.p.a.ce liner Hyperion Hyperion were very worried about their young colleague Rye. Since the stopover on Station Beta he simply hadn't been himself at all. were very worried about their young colleague Rye. Since the stopover on Station Beta he simply hadn't been himself at all.

Usually cheerful, bustling and efficient, he had become vague and hopeless, scarcely able to carry out the simplest of his duties. The general opinion was that he must be ill.