'That's more like it,' said Bernice, wiping her lips. 'Lots of mind-blurring alcohol and lovely cholesterol. Where next?'

Next was a long, low underground bar. It was much favoured by students in term-time, said Zemar, though few students were up at the moment. They sat in a wooden booth and a squat beetle-like waiter came to take their order. Bernice asked Zemar's advice, and he stroked his beard judiciously.

'Well, you've tried the beer it's wet and warm and there's not much more to be said for it. They've got two kinds of wine, red or white. The red tastes like vinegar, the white like battery acid. If I were you, I'd stick to rekkar rekkar with a beer chaser.' with a beer chaser.'

Rekkar turned out to be that basic form of booze available in most cultures on most planets distilled white spirit, tasteless, colourless with a kick like a Soggorian swamp-elephant. It was served in small thick gla.s.ses. You banged them on the table to make them fizz, swallowed the contents straight down with a ritual cry of 'Hey!' and grabbed for your beer to stop the back of your throat burning out. Bernice soon got the hang of it. Several 'Heys!' later, she was feeling no pain, and she and Zemar were the best of friends. turned out to be that basic form of booze available in most cultures on most planets distilled white spirit, tasteless, colourless with a kick like a Soggorian swamp-elephant. It was served in small thick gla.s.ses. You banged them on the table to make them fizz, swallowed the contents straight down with a ritual cry of 'Hey!' and grabbed for your beer to stop the back of your throat burning out. Bernice soon got the hang of it. Several 'Heys!' later, she was feeling no pain, and she and Zemar were the best of friends.

But the feeling of benevolence didn't seem to be universal.

At a nearby table shiny-backed worker beetles tossed back straight rekkar rekkar with no visible effect at all. Suddenly a fight broke out. It spread with amazing speed, until they were surrounded by jostling shiny-backed figures, chittering shrilly and locked in some mysterious struggle. with no visible effect at all. Suddenly a fight broke out. It spread with amazing speed, until they were surrounded by jostling shiny-backed figures, chittering shrilly and locked in some mysterious struggle.

Bernice grabbed Lazlo's arm. 'What are they fighting about?'

'Some minor point of religious lore, probably,' said Zemar.

'They take their religion very seriously on Sentarion. We'd better get out of here.'

Lumbering to his feet he shoved a path through the battling crowd, like a tugboat through stormy seas. Bernice followed in his wake, still clutching her half-full beer mug.

Suddenly a voice behind her hissed, 'Your time has come. I shall drink your life!'

Bernice whirled round. There close behind her was a black figure, not one of the squat worker beetles but one of the desert Harrubtii, wrapped in a swirling black cloak.

Its killing-spike flashed out and it lunged towards her.

Without hesitation, Bernice smashed the heavy stone beer-mug down on its head. It shrieked and dropped to the floor, to be immediately trampled by the legs of the fighting insects.

Zemar was still forging ahead, apparently quite oblivious of what had happened. Dropping the shattered remains of the mug, Bernice hurried after him.

'Sorry about that,' he said, once they were outside. 'Bit of a tough joint actually, no place to take a lady.'

Not unless you want to get her killed, thought Bernice. It was perfect for that. It had been a cla.s.sic set-up. Brawl breaks out in low bar and rash tourist, who shouldn't have been there anyway, gets accidentally killed.

Zemar had made her acquaintance in the Great Hall, and Zemar had taken her to that particular bar.

On the other hand she'd chosen to sit at his table in Hall, she'd asked to go on a bar crawl and there were only a handful of joints for them to visit.

Hapiir all over again, thought Benny. All she could do was to keep an eye on them and on everyone else.

One consolation, she thought, since someone's so keen to kill me, I must be getting somewhere and I haven't even started yet!

They moved on to a smoky club where a centipede harpist played strange alien harmonies.

As a drinking companion, Zemar turned out to be something of a disappointment. Cheerful and amusing to begin with, he became, like so many drinkers, both gloomier and more garrulous as the evening wore on. He told Bernice how he'd never been appreciated, how his a.s.sistant at his home university plotted against him, and how the only girl he had ever loved had left him for a curly-haired s.p.a.ce pilot on the Mars-Venus run.

'All teeth and curls he was,' he said gloomily. 'Can't see what she saw in him.'

Bernice, who had a much harder head, and was pacing herself by now, listened abstractedly to his ramblings, and made the appropriate sympathetic noises from time to time.

They ended up on the terrace of a restaurant at the edge of town, eating a savoury pile of stir-fried chopped-up meat and vegetables, washed down with chilled flagons of a distinctly superior beer.

From the terrace they looked out over the desert, its crystalline rocks catching the light of a faintly glimmering moon.

By now Zemar's mood had turned from gloomy to vainglorious. He began hinting about some great discovery he'd made, or was on the verge of making. Something that would make all those people who'd scorned and neglected him realize how wrong they'd been. 'I'll be famous,' he boasted.

'The best-known xenosociologist in the galaxy. The one who solved the mystery of the Sentarrii.' He leaned forward across the table, planting an elbow in his supper. 'Remember what I was telling you earlier, at University, over supper? 'Bout Sentarrii an' Great Leap Forward?'

Bernice nodded, wondering how she was going to get him back to the University. She stared out over the desert. Was something moving, out there in the shadows?

'Norralorra people know this,' said Zemar. 'Marrerrafac, n.o.body n.o.body knows but me!' knows but me!'

'Knows what?'

'It's all tied up,' whispered Zemar. 'Conversion to peace and scholarship, technological breakthrough, all tied up with religion religion. n.o.body thought Sentarrii had a religion. Supreme rationalists of the cosmos, right? Religion just for the lower cla.s.ses, worker beetles, officials and so on. But I knew better.

Every culture gorra have a religion!'

'Seems an odd mixture,' said Bernice, her interest aroused.

'All right, it would explain the pacifism. But religion tends to hold hack science more often than not.'

'Aha!' said Zemar mysteriously. 'Worrabout "Chariots of the G.o.ds" syndrome?'

'Come again?'

'Folk myth on every planet,' said Zemar. 'Even had it on Old Earth. Aliens come from the stars, bringing peace and wisdom.'

'An advanced alien civilization, interfering with a primitive culture, accelerating its development? You hear stories, but I've never seen any proof.'

'Precishely! But suppose it really happened, right here on Sentarion?' His voice rose excitedly. ' Suppose it's still going Suppose it's still going on? on? There's a secret temple, somewhere in the heart of the city. At certain times, the Sentarrii go there, to worship the Shining Ones ' There's a secret temple, somewhere in the heart of the city. At certain times, the Sentarrii go there, to worship the Shining Ones '

The desert darkness became solid and flowed over the railing that bordered the terrace, knocking over their table and hurling both Zemar and Bernice to the ground.

The darkness divided itself into several shapes, dreadful shiny-backed black shapes that cl.u.s.tered around Zemar's body. He let out one terrible choking scream that died quickly away. It was succeeded by a ghastly sucking sound.

Bernice scrambled to her feet and hurled her flagon at the nearest shape. The crystal shattered on the armoured carapace.

The creature swung round and glared at her red-eyed. It was a Harrubti, like the one that had just tried to kill her. The same long spike projected from its proboscis. This time the spike was dripping blood.

Shouts and screams were coming from within the restaurant. Suddenly all the Harrubtii flowed back over the terrace rail, disappearing into the darkness of the desert.

They left behind the crumpled shape that had been Lazio Zeman. The embroidered shirt had been ripped open and there were great blood-filled holes, puncture wounds, on his neck and on his torso. The body looked hollow, unreal, like a grotesque model made of papier mache. It was as though not only the blood but the very life-essence had been sucked from the body.

Bernice turned and saw a fearful group huddled by the doorway between restaurant and terrace. She recognized the beetle-waiter who'd served them, and beckoned him forward.

Reluctantly he advanced.

'One of your customers has been murdered,' she said.

'Hadn't you better tell someone?'

'There is nothing to be done,' whispered the waiter. 'He blasphemed, and the Harrubtii came for him. They have drunk his life!'

5.

Meetings It was a sea of ice, glittering under bright, fierce moonlight.

The sea was not frozen solid, but made up of myriad jagged, free-floating ice fragments. White mists floated eerily above the constantly moving ice-field.

Here and there great ice floes arose like islands. On one of them, larger and flatter than the others, something strange occurred. With a weird, wheezing, groaning sound, a blue box materialized out of the thin, cold air.

It sat there on the ice floe for several minutes, the light on its top flashing on and off. The light stopped flashing, the door opened, and something very like a Yeti in a battered hat emerged and stood shivering on the ice floe.

Huddled inside his huge fur coat, the Doctor stood surveying the bleak beauty of the icescape. He wondered how long it would take his unwilling hosts to realize that they had a visitor.

Not very long, he thought.

He would have to do some fast effective talking to succeed in his mission or even to stay alive.

After a brief, cold wait, the Doctor became aware of a disturbance in the frozen sea just ahead of him. A huge glowing sphere rose out of the icy depths, not floating but hovering just above the ice-pack.

It hung there like a huge gla.s.s nest, fiery veins of electricity flickering beneath the opaque surface.

It looked like some incredible, mythic sea beast, and it was, thought the Doctor, quite beautiful.

He stood quietly waiting.

After a moment an aperture opened in the side of the ship and it extruded part of itself to form a ramp. A glowing sphere, trailing glowing tentacles, floated down the ramp and came to rest before him.

A cold, faintly burbling voice said, 'Why are you here?'

The Doctor drew a deep breath. 'I come to help you. I come as your friend.'

'You are not our friend, Doctor. You killed us, long ago, on a place called Fang Rock on a primitive planet called Earth.'

(A bad start, Doctor.) 'I was responsible for the destruction of a Rutan,' admitted the Doctor. 'A Rutan who was trying to kill my companion and myself. I regret the necessity, but I plead self-defence.'

'We are Rutan, we are one,' said the cold, unearthly voice.

'To harm one is to harm all.'

(Think fast, Doctor.) 'Regrettable as it was, it was an isolated incident,' said the Doctor. 'I have clashed far more frequently with your old enemies, the Sontarans. I have fought them and defeated them many times.'

'What is that to us?'

'There is a saying on Earth "My enemy's enemy is my friend." '

There was a long pause as the Rutan digested the data.

Then they said again, 'Why are you here?'

'On a matter that concerns Rutan security a threat from the Sontaran Empire.'

'What is this threat?'

'It's rather a long story.'

Silence.

Deciding that the chances of being invited on board for a nice cup of tea or a drink were minimal, the Doctor launched into his narrative.

'Some time ago I became interested in the affairs of a planet called Jekkar, on the far edge of Sontaran s.p.a.ce. The planet was first colonized by humans, and later invaded by the Sontarans. I worked with the native resistance movement that eventually drove the Sontarans from the planet.'

More silence.

'When the Sontarans finally left the planet, they destroyed and abandoned their command post,' the Doctor went on. 'The intelligence data-banks had been blown up, but I was able to reconstruct traces of a secret correspondence with Sontaran Command HQ. It concerned some great Rutan secret.'