'What?' Terrin frowned.

'Do you remember anything like that happening last week? No, of course you don't. Because it didn't.' The Doctor sat bolt upright, and Terrin was unnerved by the compelling light in those eyes of... what colour? 'You're part of your own history. What we're doing now already happened. Do you understand?'

Terrin switched off the holoscreen with a wave of his hand. 'Are you saying we can't prevent whatever attacked will attack this station from doing so?'

'I'm saying nothing of the sort. Time has been disrupted, Captain. I feel the ripples as you would feel a change in... the oxygen level, for example. Somewhere along the line there will be a critical point, a moment where Time diverges from its line of least resistance.'

The Doctor was pacing the room now, and Terrin supposed he was thinking aloud.

'Whatever brought us back here, Doctor,' said Terrin, 'is the same force that we saw... that did those terrible things.'

'Yes,' said the Doctor.

'That means it knows what we're doing,' said the captain.

The Doctor turned slowly to look at him, and it occurred to Terrin that he somehow appeared much older. It was as if an ancient thought, a darkness of knowledge, had settled on his features, shadowing them with foreboding. Or remembrance.

'I wondered how long it would take you to realize,' said the Doctor. He tapped his teeth once or twice with his fingernail. Then he approached Terrin and leaned on the arm of his chair, looking unblinkingly at him. 'Captain,' he said, 'why would you want to contact your ship anyway?'

Terrin shrugged. 'To tell myself what I know now? But you just said it wouldn't...'

'Captain Terrin,' whispered the Doctor, 'you're a genius!' He clapped the unsuspecting captain on the shoulder and resumed his agitated pacing. 'Of course! How could I have been so stupid? We have to get to a communications unit. And that means I must convince Vaiq once and for all.'

'Do you have the proof that you need?'

'I've had it all along,' said the Doctor.

Terrin was astonished. 'Then why haven't you used it?'

'Because,' answered the Doctor, 'I haven't dared.' He fished in the pocket of his jacket and found the object that had been there all along, and which he had surreptitiously removed from Station Q4 when he had first been exploring with Ace.

Terrin took it. The object was of plastic and metal, about the size of a credit-card, but warped as if left in the sun. It bore the cracked, faded imprint of a Corporation logo and an embossed name.

After a moment's silence, Terrin looked up at the Doctor in horror. 'Where did you get this?'

'From Ballantyne's skeleton,' he answered. 'It's his I.D. plaque. Captain, how would you you tell a man that you know he's going to die?' tell a man that you know he's going to die?'

The ghosts of the Time Soldiers appeared more real now, Cheynor had noticed, although still suffused with the same eerie light. The tallest soldier was standing, feet planted firmly apart, in front of him, with its blaster levelled at Cheynor's eyes. Cheynor was wishing something would happen. He glanced down at Quallem and could hardly believe it when he saw how calm she looked.

'It's good,' she whispered.

Cheynor did not know if he dared speak. 'What?' he hissed.

'You had me fooled. We've got to tell them on Lightbase, it's the best one. When did we last have a hijack drill? Years. Years ago.'

Her eyes, he saw, were wide and full of the clarity of madness. He felt no hatred for her now, only pity, and he wanted to reach out and touch her smooth, suede-clad shoulder, to comfort her as he would a child. He wondered if the leader of the boarding party would shoot him if he did.

Prepare, said the voice. said the voice.

A low throbbing was echoing through the bridge now. Against a far wall, air seemed to twist and fragment.

Prepare for the coming of the Garvond.

A disc of blackness had formed against the white of the wall. It began to grow, like a hole burning into celluloid.

The rushing wind began to ruffle the humans' hair and clothes, and the flood of twittering voices cascaded through the opening like a river from Hell. Only the Time Soldiers remained unaffected, silently watching.

It expanded, blotting out the bridge. The darkness somehow seemed more dazzling than light would have been.

And then the Garvond came.

Like a howl of anguish across the emptiness of space. Like the screams of the dying in the trenches of mud, in fire and in ice. A pinprick of white, like a single star, flickered against the globe of ultra-darkness and then grew.

Cheynor watched in horrified fascination. The white light was the size of his hand now, and he could make out details. Within a matter of seconds, he could see a huge throne outlined in blazing fire, growing now to fill the black circle like a negative image. The creature seated on the throne gave a scream of triumph that sounded like the rending of metal and chilled the air itself. Amid the fire, Cheynor could see two clawed hands clutching the shimmering throne, and the outline of a massive, skeletal head.

For a moment there was silence as the Garvond seemed to swing its skull from one side of the bridge to the other. The fiery outline was like that of a humanoid skeleton, but swathed in a cloak of darkness. The head, if one could call it that, swivelled on a crackling neck of bare bone, and night itself lurked in its hollow eyes.

The eyes which, slowly and inexorably, came to fix their deathly stare on Darius Cheynor.

The central column of the President's TARDIS rose and fell. Around it, a wreath of red and green lights glowed, pulsing in harmony with the ship. To the side of the console, Amanda stood, waiting.

One corner of the console room was a darkened alcove, barred by three blue beams of light, and sitting on the floor within it was Professor Bernice Summerfield. She had recovered from the effects of the gas, which she had considered a markedly crude method of abduction. She had been captured far more stylishly in the past, and was somewhat disappointed in the President. Now she was watching the President and Amanda with cool indifference. She had already observed the marked differences between this console room and the Doctor's the colour scheme, for example, was predominantly burgundy-red, with lighting to match. The console was the shape of an upturned cone, flat-topped, with a spiralling central column and smooth touch-sensitive controls. The wall roundels were more compact and closer together. Altogether, the room breathed efficiency and menace.

The President looked up from the console.

'Union,' he said with quiet satisfaction.

He strode to the other side of the control room and descended a small flight of steps to the monitor unit. His hands flickered over the controls for a second. The light in the console room flickered and changed shape as Bernice watched, and suddenly two columns of blue light stabbed from the ceiling. Each held a figure, imbued with the blueness of the light and frozen immobile like a basrelief in a cathedral. One, to Bernice's surprise, was Tom Cheynor. The other was James Rafferty.

The President opened the communications channel.

'I just wanted to let you know,' he said, 'that you'll come to no harm if you do exactly as I say.'

Tom tried to move his mouth. The President watched with glee as the young man's jaw moved up and down with agonizing slowness.

'Where... are we?'

'Now, don't you worry about that. My TARDIS carries a number of spare dimensions, you see. Invaluable. I've trapped you in a stasis field, that's all. A lot less bother than a locked door.'

Rafferty was breathing deeply, trying to gather the right combination of muscles for the vowels and consonants he wanted.

'What... do you... want with us?'

'Oh, heavens,' said the President with a chuckle. 'I'd forgotten you're such a connoisseur of adventure fiction, Professor. You think that this is where I tell you all the details of my plan, so that when you escape you know exactly how to defeat me. Really.' He tut-tutted, then his voice lost its joviality. 'I have decided to spare you for the moment, that is all. The Garvond will draw strength from your fertile minds when we meet him... very soon.'

The President switched off the screen. He turned around, and smiled at Bernice. She was still sitting in her unperturbed pose, hands clasped around her knees. She was determined not to show that the sight of the imprisoned Professor and Tom had upset her.

'I suppose it's equally trite,' she ventured, 'to tell you that you'd better not harm them?'

The President chuckled as he re-entered the main part of the room, and swaggered over towards Bernice's prison. 'Trite indeed, my dear, but I should have been most disappointed had you not said it.'

'Oh, good. I'm glad we've got that out of the way. Can we clear something else up?' The President, engrossed in the console, did not seem to be paying her any attention, but she carried on anyway. 'I'm not your dear, nor anyone's, as it happens. Terms of endearment cut very little ice with me.'

The President tried to raise an eyebrow, failed, and settled for raising both instead. 'Really, my Well, you must have been spending too much time with the Doctor.'

'And what is that supposed to mean?'

Strolling past the immobile Amanda, the President approached Bernice's cage and leered down at her. 'He doesn't make close friendships, does he? Most conspicuous by their absence, in his file. Although I dare say you've noticed, attractive girl like you. No, there's only one lady the Doctor has any time for, as far as I can tell, and that's his creaky old Type Forty. Which I am going to find!'

'The Doctor's terribly resourceful,' said Bernice apologetically. 'It can be quite embarrassing at times. You know never uses a simple solution where a tricky one will do. Although you look like the sort of chap who'd cheat at Patience, given half a chance.'

'I hope your sense of humour holds out, Miss Summerfield, until you meet the Garvond.'

'Yes, now, you mentioned him. Your boss, is he? Or maybe your agent? Mister ten per cent?'

The President straightened up and nodded quietly to himself. 'Before long,' he said, 'you will know the Garvond very well indeed.'

'I hope this works,' murmured Strakk.

'It had better,' Ace said. 'I don't know about you, but I'm not quite ready for breast-feeding.'

Strakk took a last look at the peaceful form of the five-day-old Ferris Mostrell, whom he had just placed in the soft hollow of an incubator in the ship's medical unit. He checked that all the tubes were attached correctly, while Ace watched the door, and then he closed the cover of the incubator over the new infant. 'Sweet dreams,' he said quietly. 'If you're lucky, we'll be back for you.'

Ace checked the corridor. 'Clear,' she said. 'Most of the spooks must be on the bridge.'

'That would have been their target,' Strakk agreed grimly. 'All right. Let's see about getting off this ship.'

They kept close in to the dark bulkheads, Strakk first, then Ace covering the rear.

'You sure the brat's going to be okay?' she muttered.

Strakk grinned over his shoulder. 'You sound almost concerned. Don't worry, I know about babies.'

'Yeah?' Ace was interested.

Strakk paused at a junction and seemed uncertain. He listened. No sound. Not even the engines. The ship was dying.

'Yeah,' he said. He looked at Ace, briefly, and waved a hand as if it were unimportant. 'There was a girl from the Academy,' he said. 'She had a kid. Mine. We were hoping I'd get a cushy station job on one of the Colonies, so we could set up home together.'

'What happened?'

He shrugged. She couldn't see his eyes. 'They died,' he said. 'In a skimmer crash. One of those things. It was three years ago.'

'I'm sorry. I didn't know.'

He took the left-hand junction, and answered her, keeping his voice flat and emotionless. 'Most people don't.' Suddenly, his arm shot out and pushed her back against the wall. 'Hellfire. We've got one.'

Ace looked out of the corner of her eyes. The Time Soldier was emerging from the floor about twenty metres ahead of them.

'Back,' she said.

From behind them, a primal screech let them know that the creature had picked up their trace. They ran for the nearest door. Shimmering through Time, the soldier did not need to follow them. It began to re-form just a few metres from them, in a blaze of green.

'The door,' Strakk yelled. 'The rec-room.'

Ace slammed her fist on the door control.

Strakk knew the Derenna would do no good, but his training triggered reflexes. He unleashed three pulses of energy. The soldier howled. In triumph, not in agony.

'Come on, Strakk!' Ace shouted, and grabbed him. She pulled him through the opening door as a beam of accelerated Time pulverized the wall where he had been.

And sliced into his hand.

The skin was blasted and withered like an autumn leaf. He screamed, doubling up as the door slammed down behind them again.

Ace was controlling her panic. She assessed the room. There were silvery, reflective tables set up for chess and backgammon, and a number of inert computer and VR terminals. No one was off duty today.

The door was wobbling.

Strakk's agonized face met hers. His hand was wrapped in his jacket and he didn't dare look. Ace pulled him further into the room, none too gently. He slumped against one of the leather sofas, breathing heavily.

'It can come through walls,' he said in desperation. 'All it has to do is flick out of phase I'm right, aren't I?'

Chess pieces were scattered from one of the tables in a shower of luminescence. The Time Soldier, feet first, was beginning to rematerialize in the centre of the recroom.

Ace took his hand carefully. It was crooked, arthritic. The skin was speckled with liver-spots and the fingernails were brittle.

'Does it hurt?'

'It's numb. The muscles don't work. Ace '

'I know. Keep still. Remember? It may be able to skim back and forth like nobody's business, but that's its flaw but that's its flaw. It's like trying to locate one air-molecule.'

The Time Soldier was stepping forward, its flickering arms spread out in front of it.

'We can't escape it,' Strakk hissed. 'It's going to find us before long.'

Faster than thought, a time-ray smashed into the sofa, which hit the wall in a shower of ragged leather and foam.

Ace and Strakk ran. The shriek of the Time Soldier seemed right on top of them. In desperation, Ace kicked over the backgammon table and pulled Strakk behind it, just as the soldier channelled its next beam of particles.

The accelerated Time smashed into the mirrored table and charred it.