'There,' said the Doctor, 'it was.'

Ace shone her torch and read the notice aloud. 'This case contained the Bow of Nemesis, property of the Crown, which disappeared mysteriously in 1788. Legend has it that unless a place is kept for the bow in the castle, the entire silver statue will return to destroy the world.'

The Doctor gazed dejectedly at the empty case. 'For once, legend is entirely correct. It has just come back.'

For a second time, the already dim electric lights flickered noticeably for a moment, then returned to normal. 'And now this,' he added bitterly.

'It's just the electricity,' said Ace. 'It does that sometimes, even in 1988. What I want to know is, how can a statue destroy the world?'

The Doctor, however, was already hurrying towards the TARDIS. Ace followed. 'No time?' she asked.

The Doctor activated the door, which opened obediently. 'I'll tell you three hundred and fifty years ago,'

he promised.

The candles were almost burnt out now and the already dark room was even more gloomy. The remains of the fire provided such light as there was. The TARDIS materialized just outside the pentacle. The Doctor and Ace crept into the room.

'Ssh,' whispered the Doctor. 'We don't know who's at home.'

Ace whispered back firmly. 'We've got a deal, Professor,'

she reminded him.

'We're in Windsor, of course,' whispered the Doctor impatiently. 'A few hundred yards from the castle.' He was already busy, searching among the shadows of the room.

Ace looked around nervously and shuddered involuntarily.

There was an atmosphere of evil about the room and, she decided, about the house as a whole. She followed the Doctor.

'And it really is 1638?' she asked.

'It certainly is,' replied the Doctor briskly. 'And furthermore... don't move don't move!'

Ace froze. She peered through the darkness, straining to see what had so shocked the Doctor. 'Don't come any nearer,' he hissed, before she could ask.

He moved forward. Behind a chair, the elderly mathematician's body lay in a wide puddle of congealing blood. The whites of his eyes stared dully up at them. Ace caught her breath.

'Whose house is this?' she heard herself ask.

The Doctor was kneeling to examine the body. 'A lady's,' he replied grimly.

'She's got funny ideas about home furnishing,' said Ace in disgust. She turned away and opened the window. The night was a velvet curtain and the air was the freshest she had ever breathed. She felt a little better.

'Lady Peinforte's nothing if not original,' continued the Doctor. He picked up a scroll of calculation and examined it carefully. 'But I'm afraid this poor man was employed for his useful rather than ornamental qualities. He was a scholar.' Pulling out his abacus, he made a rapid series of calculations, checking the figures on the scroll against his own conclusions. He returned the abacus to his pocket thoughtfully. 'He's done remarkably well too,' he added.

'In a matter of months since I left here, he's worked out the exact date and time when the meteor known as the Nemesis will return. November the twenty-third...'

'1988,' supplied Ace.

'And Lady Peinforte has rewarded him with her usual generosity.' The Doctor covered the mathematician's face with a cloth and stood up.

'So the bow belonged to her?'

'To a statue of her. She had it made from some silver metal which fell from the sky into the meadow out there.'

There was a sudden creak from the corner of the room.

Ace jumped. The Doctor smiled bitterly. 'It's all right.

There's no one here now apart from our late friend. Lady Peinforte will be in Windsor all right, but three hundred and fifty years in the future.'

Ace was surprised. 'How can she get to 1988?'

It was clear that the Doctor's mind was occupied with distant problems. He spoke absently, staring at the fire.

'She'll have used the arrow, of course. She had certain rudimentary ideas about time travel black magic mostly as well as what might be called a nose for secrets.'

'So it wasn't silver, this stuff that fell out of the sky?'

The Doctor snorted with something that was almost laughter. 'Unfortunately, Lady Peinforte discovered it was something rather more unusual: the living metal validium.'

Ace looked blank.

'The most dangerous substance in existence.'

Three hundred and fifty years in the future, although, as the Doctor rightly surmised, only a few hundred yards away, the arrow glowed dully in Lady Peinforte's hand as she wrapped it in a towel from behind the counter of the Princess of Wales Burger Bar. Richard struggled with the baffling complexity of the Yale lock on the door. Latches had evidently grown more complex since his time, he thought. Lady Peinforte was, as usual, impatient.

'Now we have but to take the statue,' she said. 'The peasants will be much excited and we can pa.s.s among them unnoticed and find our opportunity to seize it. Hurry, there's no time to lose.'

The door, however, refused to yield. Outside there was another of the roars which had disturbed Richard previously. He watched in wonder as a police car sped past, its blue light flashing on the roof. Sensing its purpose, Lady Peinforte could wait no longer. 'Hurry!' she yelled.

'The rogue will have the Nemesis.'

The lock, however, still refused to move. 'I have not seen the like of it, my lady,' Richard admitted nervously.

Lady Peinforte gave a screech of frustration. 'Am I to be a prisoner in my own house while world dominion waits beyond the door?' she screamed. 'I'd have got married if I'd wanted that.'

Richard was secretly not altogether unhappy that they were, at least temporarily, forced to remain in the relative safety of the building. Who could tell how many more of the roaring carriages there were outside? 'Such light without fire,' he breathed. 'And the noise. We must take care, my lady.'

'Fie!' Lady Peinforte picked up a plastic child's chair and hurled it through the window, shattering the garish lettering which read 'Come right in!' Immediately the continuous electric bell of the burglar alarm tore into the quiet of the night. Lady Peinforte and Richard stared at each other open-mouthed. Lady Peinforte was the first to recover. She leapt through the shattered window into the street outside. Terrified, Richard followed.

Down the strange-scented street they ran, headlong into the twentieth century. Rounding a corner they saw the police car, now motionless, and a man standing-next to it looking through a wire fence into what seemed to be a partly completed metal building. Lady Peinforte and Richard ducked into a doorway and watched the man carefully. He had not seen them.

'What means yon blue fellow?' whispered Richard.

'Why speaks he to his hand?'

Lady Peinforte was again instinctive about the activities of the police. 'He summons guards,' she said angrily. 'Oh, this cannot be.' There was silence for a moment, disturbed only by the distant crackle of traffic on the policeman's radio as his call was answered.

'Why so upset, my lady?' said Richard.

Lady Peinforte flared. 'Must I always be surrounded by fools?' she cried, loudly enough to give Richard palpitations. 'Because, fool, they will protect the Nemesis, and we know not their strength and weapons.'

'But, my lady,' Richard spoke gently, 'they know not what the comet is. And without the arrow it is nothing. We have but to watch and wait our chance to seize it.'

There was a pause as this sank in. Lady Peinforte turned to him, considering. 'Thou art not in all wise so useless, Richard.'

Richard bowed. 'My lady is too kind.'

Lady Peinforte became decisive once again. 'We'll go outside the town and hide until morning.'

Crossing in front of the statue of Queen Victoria, they made their way past the railway station and towards open country.

In a street on the opposite side of the building site in which the meteor had come to ground, the van was stationary outside a multi-storey car park. In the pa.s.senger seat, the glowing bow illuminated the outside of the flight case, even though it was locked inside. De Flores gazed raptly at the site. 'In the new era,' his voice trembled with emotion, 'this place will be a shrine.'

Karl waited diplomatically, but presumed to speak when no more was forthcoming. 'We await only your order,' he said politely. De Flores smiled gently at him.

'Good!' he replied. He settled back comfortably. 'Then let us drive to the best hotel and enjoy a good night's sleep.'

Behind him the young paramilitaries looked at each other in astonishment. De Flores glanced round, and smiled indulgently. 'You young people,' he admonished.

'Always in such a hurry. Well, we were the same. The statue is inside a meteor which has just travelled through s.p.a.ce. Have you any idea how hot it will be? How can we handle it yet? Because the British Government is completely unaware of its power, I am sure we can rely on the police force to guard it safely until morning, when it will be ready for us to collect. I have every confidence in them.' He turned forward again, and snapped his fingers.

'The hotel.'

Lady Peinforte and Richard were less comfortably accommodated among some bushes in the park, although Richard alone seemed aware of the rumble of approaching thunder: her ladyship was absorbed in more important thoughts. Richard slowly turned the rabbit he was roasting over the fire. 'I am in a nightmare,' he said to himself, 'or mad.'

Lady Peinforte was jolted into reality by his voice. 'This is no madness. It is England. Pull yourself together,' she snapped.

'But the noise, my lady. The foul air...' A further look from Lady Peinforte was enough. Richard subsided unhappily. 'Yes, my lady.' There was a silence. Richard searched his imagination for some means of placating her.

'What will my lady do when you possess the Nemesis?'

For the first time, something akin to warmth crossed Lady Peinforte's face. 'Do?' she said. 'Why, have revenge, first and last. First on that predictable little man who thought he could thwart me. He will soon arrive, Richard.'

Richard stared at her in disbelief. Not for the first time, her ladyship's foreknowledge startled him. Lady Peinforte smiled, enjoying the effect. 'Oh yes,' she continued. 'I expect him. And this time there'll be a reckoning with the nameless Doctor whose power is so secret. For I have found For I have found out his secret. out his secret. ' Her voice was rising uncontrollably. There was a sudden flash of lightning, illuminating her face in sudden and brilliant silver light. A great rolling crash of thunder seemed to split the sky in two, releasing a torrential downpour. Lady Peinforte continued unheeding, her entire being animated by hatred. 'In good time I shall speak it. I shall be his downfall.' ' Her voice was rising uncontrollably. There was a sudden flash of lightning, illuminating her face in sudden and brilliant silver light. A great rolling crash of thunder seemed to split the sky in two, releasing a torrential downpour. Lady Peinforte continued unheeding, her entire being animated by hatred. 'In good time I shall speak it. I shall be his downfall.'

The three policemen who climbed from their car to investigate and guard the crashed meteor, as De Flores rightly predicted, had approached it without great interest.

It was only when the first, shining his torch on the smoking lump of rock now embedded into the ground near the half-completed building, had called several times to the other two in the car that a second got out to take a look. In the light of both their torches, and in mounting disbelief, they confirmed what the first thought he had seen. A woman's face, cast in silver, was clearly visible through a gla.s.s panel set in the rock. It stared back at them blankly through the rain.

It was at this moment that the car's engine, which had been left running, suddenly cut out with a strange grinding sound. It was as if the battery had suddenly and completely lost all its power. The driver, still in his seat, tried to restart the car, but discovered it was completely dead. He released the bonnet and, climbing out, opened it and began without success to try to identify the fault.

The first policeman reached for his radio and had given his call sign before he noticed that it, too, was completely inoperative. Its power had apparently evaporated instantly.

He shook it and tried again. His companion discovered that his radio was in precisely the same condition.

Occupied as they now all were by these mysterious failures, they did not notice the group of thin silver pipes which rose from the ground near them. Even had they done so, the gas that the pipes began to release into the air was invisible. The policemen immediately fell unconscious.

The silver face stared dimly out through its gla.s.s panel into the rain and the now silent darkness.

3.

There was an outburst of clicks and whirrs from the cameras of the enthusiastic party of j.a.panese tourists on the North Terrace of Windsor Castle. The guide stood back smiling and glanced surrept.i.tiously at her watch as the private after-dinner walk of Elizabeth the First was devoured by the cameras, which then turned equal attention to the magnificent view beyond. The roof of Eton College Chapel glowed gold even at quarter to ten in the grey morning.

Such was the visitors' interest that the materialization of the TARDIS a few yards away pa.s.sed unnoticed. The Doctor and Ace stepped out. Ace sniffed the damp air as she looked around.

'I've been here before,' she announced.

'Deja vu?' enquired the Doctor, interested. He had never been able to decide whether he considered it a phenomenon or an illusion.

'No,' said Ace, 'with the school.'

The Doctor was cheered by this. 'Oh good,' he said, 'I've not been since they were building the place. You'll be able to remember the way round.'

'Not really.' Ace looked worried. 'Windsor Castle is a big place.'

'Quite right,' agreed the Doctor. 'What we need is a guide. Come on.'

The tour guide had by now marshalled the party, and led the way into the castle building, where the last of them were disappearing. The Doctor and Ace joined the back of the group and looked up with interest, as the rest were doing, at the ceiling as they pa.s.sed into the building.

Their inability to speak j.a.panese, coupled with the guide's soft vocal delivery, hindered the pair's enjoyment of the finer points of the tour. The disappointment, however, was short-lived: within a minute the Doctor was tugging at Ace's sleeve. 'This way,' he muttered. He nodded towards a door marked 'No Entry'. Before Ace could react he was trying the handle: the door opened. The party began moving towards the next point of interest. Ace followed the Doctor through the door, which he closed softly behind them.

They found themselves in a dark corridor. The Doctor was already hurrying ahead. Catching up with him, Ace decided to voice her misgivings. 'I really don't think we should be doing this,' she tried. It was without effect. They reached a crossroads between three corridors. The Doctor paused and looked about, clearly trying to get his bearings.

'What do you think,' he asked at his normal forth-right volume. 'This way?'