She heard Cheynor speak.

'This is unnecessary. You're murderers. Barbarians '

The Garvond's voice was almost visible, a black cloud hovering in their minds. A primitive human idea. We have evolved beyond any form of barbarism. Humans resent those who are superior. And in the end, they realise that there can be no opposition. A primitive human idea. We have evolved beyond any form of barbarism. Humans resent those who are superior. And in the end, they realise that there can be no opposition.

Ace could not move her head, but from its forced angle she could see Strakk, similarly held by a Time Soldier, the creature's gun jammed tight against his cheekbone.

The code, Captain. Or these two humans are next.

There was a horrible, crisp silence.

She could also see Quallem's shattered head, where it had fallen. The jaw forever caught in a scream of agony. Something ridiculous came unbidden into Ace's mind, a song she'd heard on one of her visits to the Sixties, about dying before you got old. She closed her eyes.

You have three seconds, Captain.

She could hear the ragged breathing of the creatures, like the flapping of enormous leathery wings. The sound marked time. She could not see Cheynor. She felt the Time Soldier's cold blaster tightening against her jawbone.

Two seconds.

Numbness. Blackness. She wished she could have been with the Doctor and Benny, here and now, at this pointless end. And still there was no sound from Cheynor.

One.

Ace's eyes snapped open. She fixed her stare on the smashed skull.

Skulls. Death. Ending.

'For Christ's sake, Cheynor!' It was Strakk.

Time seemed to hang like an executioner's blade. And then, unbelievably, she heard Cheynor.

'It's my I.D. number.'

The Garvond exhaled with deep satisfaction.

Something made Ace realize that the pressure had gone from her back. Slowly, life began to seep back into her cramped limbs. She sat up, unbelieving. She was alive.

Cheynor's plaque was ripped from his uniform by the Time Soldier, who crossed, as if already knowing what to do, to the first officer's console.

'So much for double-bluffing,' murmured Cheynor.

Ace, dizzily, looked at Strakk. 'What does he mean?'

'It was supposed to be too obvious,' Strakk answered bleakly, clutching his withered hand. 'Something as easy as one of their I.D. numbers.' The disgust in his voice was evident.

Someone had slipped to Ace's side as she watched the Time Soldier entering the code at the terminal. She looked around. The young operator would have been pretty but for her exceptionally hollow cheeks and tight, starved-looking skin. She looked as if she hadn't eaten a decent meal in days. Her I.D. plaque gave her name as McCarran, R.

'Are you all right?' she asked gently. 'What happened to you and Strakk?'

'It's a long story. What's the cabaret all about?' She nodded at the skeletal intruder.

'It calls itself the Garvond '

Before McCarran could continue, the lights flickered once again, and then blazed with fresh, orange light. Every terminal on the bridge came back into chattering action. And beneath it all, there was the sound of the engines. Roaring, deep in the heart of the ship.

'The warp,' said Strakk. 'They've got it.'

Through the Bridge echoed the cavernous laughter of the Garvond.

A light was winking on and off on the console of the President's TARDIS. Amanda spotted it first. Her whitish-silver finger stabbed at a control, checking the readout, as the President held a glass of claret up to the light.

'The Garvond has achieved warp power,' she reported in her flattest tones. 'The ship is entering the Vortex.'

The President smiled, and took a sip from his glass. 'Oh, splendid. Cheers!' he added, in the direction of Bernice.

She, leaning against her alcove, looked away from him. 'I hope your liver's enjoying this too,' she answered.

'And now?' Amanda asked. Benny could have sworn she saw irony and contempt in the android's face.

'Well, now,' he said, and beamed at her across his florid countenance. 'It's time for the Doctor. Over to you, I think, my precious.'

The Vortex howled with tangible energy. Through a corridor of light, the Icarus Icarus streamed, blazing with unearthly power like a metal phoenix. streamed, blazing with unearthly power like a metal phoenix.

The ravaging of Time had begun.

Chapter 17.

Come as You Are Many of the gigantic crates brought into Q4's loading bays went straight down antigrav elevators to the food stores. Here, in the refrigeration section, thermal-suited crew members worked a rota, constantly supervising the stacking of new containers and the removal of empties.

Storage Monitor (First Grade) Emmi Dasselle had been dispatched to check an apparent weight imbalance in Hold B. As Dasselle patrolled the gangways between the towering food silos, she shivered slightly, and wondered at the sheer amount that could be consumed in a short space of time by an outpost with a permanent crew of two thousand and a constant flux of traders, ambassadors and others.

Dasselle flipped out her catalogue and read the LCD. With a sinking heart, she realized that the imbalance could not be pinpointed, and she was going to have to check the thermal readings on every attack.

She made her way through to Hold B's second hangar, her footsteps loud as gunshots.

I'm twenty-eight, she thought with mounting resentment. I've worked hard, been promoted twice. So why do I still get the shit jobs?

She blinked at the LCD readings.

They had changed in the last minute.

Emmi Dasselle had a very bad feeling when she found the freezer. It looked like one of theirs, certainly a cube of about ten metres, featureless except for the serial number and thermal monitor on the side but there was something wrong.

She clipped her hand into her gauntlet, and touched the surface of the freezer. Even through the thick PVC, there was a perceptible tingle tingle.

She'd seen enough. Emmi opened her communicator and sent a call signal.

A gentle humming cut into the silence of the hold. Dasselle's pistol was out and ready in a second. From the side of the freezer, a red light was spilling, as the access portal opened of its own accord.

The intruder, Dasselle saw, was a female humanoid. Tall, dark-haired, with mirrorshades on her eyes. It might have been the light, but her skin seemed shiny, like that of a metallic fish.

The dark-haired girl had a pistol slung in a silver belt on her dress. Dasselle had fired a warning shot as soon as she saw the hand move. It glanced off the girl's elbow. Dasselle backed off, panic rising in her stomach.

Casually, Amanda shot her down. Dasselle jerked, smashed against the crate on the opposite side of the silo and slid to the floor.

Amanda, ignoring the body, strode over to the elevator and programmed the floor she wanted.

As the lift ascended, she adjusted her belt-buckle, and in response her skin faded to grey, then white enough to pass for humanoid, before acquiring a healthy pinkish tinge.

The President's other accessories were more primitive. Like black-plastic tailor's dummies, they were identical, and their movements lacked grace and, often co-ordination. They could, however, perform routine tasks, like bringing Professor Rafferty and Tom Cheynor through the dimensional corridor to the console room.

Three of the black androids guarded the prisoners now. Rafferty, Tom and Bernice stood in a line as the President walked up and down past them, savouring his power.

'You know, I never trusted him, Bernice,' said Rafferty, as if the President were not there. 'Not since the day he served plonk in a 1967 Sauternes bottle at High Table.'

'Sixty-seven?' Bernice glared at the President's jowls with renewed hatred. 'Have you no shame?'

The President, with his hands clasped behind his back, appeared to consider the question as a serious one. 'No,' he answered eventually, with a smile.

'And we all wondered why we never saw you,' Tom muttered. Bernice glanced at the young man. His hair was tousled and he was looking rather pale and haggard obviously he was less used to unusual experiences than either herself or Rafferty. She rather wanted to give him a quick hug, but she was unsure how James would take it.

'Do you know,' the President said suddenly, 'how tricky it is to exploit a TARDIS in the wine-trade? I mean, antiques, fair enough. But there's no point getting good claret from the Twenties and bringing it back to sell to the Oxford Wine Company at inflated prices. I mean, when it's only just been laid down, it might as well have come from yesterday!' He beamed, as if they should all find this fascinating. 'Anyway,' he said, and the smile was suddenly switched off, 'it's nearly time for you to meet your new master.'

'And what's his conversation like?' Tom snapped irritably.

The President narrowed his eyes. 'Engrossing, Mr Cheynor. Positively unmissable!'

Coloured swirls cascaded on to the main monitor on the bridge. Ace knew what they were attempts to depict the impossible, the ship's sensors' interpretation of the Vortex. They were travelling in Time.

The soldiers were glowing with new energy, flickering agitatedly as they stabilized. The Garvond's huge eye-sockets were fixed on the screen and the bridge was filled with the creature's rhythmic breathing. All in all, thought Ace, it was quite chillingly impressive, but she wondered why they had not actually done anything else yet.

She looked at the faces that were bathed in the unnatural hues. The tense, drawn faces of an exhausted spacecraft crew: Cheynor, Strakk, McCarran and the others. She wondered if here, now, after all that she had lived through to get here, these were the people with whom she was finally destined to die. Shattered into atoms in the Time Vortex. She realized that she really had no idea exactly what the Garvond intended to do with them all. Her gaze fell on the close-fitting helmet of the nearest Time Soldier, on the red eyes burning behind its visor. She wondered what the creature looked like. If it had been properly alive, once. She shuddered. It didn't do to think about these things too much.

'It's gaining power,' Strakk murmured, breaking the silence among the humans. He was looking intently at the Garvond, squinting slightly at the unnatural whiteness of the creature's bones. 'Every second. As if it's feeding off the time travel itself.'

Ace realized he was right. 'It must have to reach a certain point. Gain enough power to break out. And their attention's taken up...'

Rosabeth McCarran looked at Ace with something akin to admiration. 'If you're talking about fighting these things,' she murmured, 'I'm with you. They killed my brother.'

The girl was young, intelligent, but her lean and hungry look made Ace uncomfortable. Ace paused perhaps a second too long before she turned towards Lieutenant Strakk. 'What about you, boy wonder? Got the strength back?'

'Count me in. I'm itching for a fight.'

Cheynor unfolded his arms and turned on her with evident concern in his face. 'Now, wait a minute. You saw what these things did to Listrelle '

Strakk met Ace's eyes. The two of them had built up a kind of rapport since their escape from the lab, and he was following her thoughts. 'What've you got in mind, Ace?'

'The bonehead needs the warp engines to give it juice, right? Without them, it can flit in and out of time, but never aim for any particular point and break out.'

'That's just speculation,' Cheynor hissed.

'Informed speculation, Major Tom,' Ace reported. 'So where are these engines, anyway?' speculation, Major Tom,' Ace reported. 'So where are these engines, anyway?'

'Level A-zero,' Cheynor said. 'This is beginning to sound dangerous.'

'It's not exactly been a tea-party so far, has it?' Ace snapped. 'What else do you suggest we do?'

Cheynor met three accusing stares. He did not know what he should say. His memory was still full of the horror of the first boarding, and of what the Time Soldier had made him see. The wasteland; the death and destruction; his brother, sinking slowly into the mud. His eyes, haunted and confused, came up to meet Ace's.

'We have to try,' he said.

A week earlier in real time, and not far away in space, Amanda was counting the seconds. She knew where she was headed.

She met no one as she marched along the sweeping white corridors of Q4's accommodation block. And when she found the door she wanted, she swivelled to face it with mechanical efficiency.

'According to the legend,' said the Doctor broodingly, 'the Garvond is a gestalt, a mental composite.' He was pacing up and down in the plush lounge, and not looking at either Terrin or Vaiq, who were both doing best to follow his logic.

'And that,' Terrin asked slowly, 'is how it gains its power?'

'No, no. Power is something entirely different from lifeforce. The creature is made up made up of mental energy the intellects it fed off in the Time Lord Matrix.' He looked up, and there was a hint of slight amusement in his face. 'Including the paradox. The woodlouse in the woodpile. The one I thought I had erased,' he said. ' of mental energy the intellects it fed off in the Time Lord Matrix.' He looked up, and there was a hint of slight amusement in his face. 'Including the paradox. The woodlouse in the woodpile. The one I thought I had erased,' he said. 'My own.'

Terrin and Vaiq exchanged glances.

'Your... mind?' Vaiq asked slowly.

'Well, influence. A print. A poor copy, if you like oh, don't worry.' The Doctor waved a hand airily and resumed his pacing of the room. 'It's a little like having one share out of millions in a corporation. But it did help in one respect,' he added, leaning over Terrin and looking him intently in the eye.

The Captain found the Doctor's direct gaze a little disconcerting. 'Really?'

'Yes. It was focusing on that part of the entity although I had no definite idea what it was at the time that allowed me to travel through it unscathed. To use it, rather than be used by it. And that, Romulus, was why you and I ended up transported back here and not consumed like those other poor devils. I communed with the entity.'