'Doctor,' said Vaiq bemusedly, 'I'm very glad you didn't try and tell me all this when you first arrived.'

The Doctor straightened up and gazed into the fruit-bowl, remembering. 'I was sure I'd felt something, a telepathic tug. I'm quite familiar with a number of mental techniques that came in useful. And it gave me a suspicion as to what we might be dealing with.'

'But what about me, Doctor?' Terrin asked. 'I came through the vortex, or whatever it was, after after you.' you.'

'Yes,' said the Doctor thoughtfully. 'That disturbed me for a while, so I was wary of you. You have to imagine that I opened a tunnel, so to speak, and it hadn't closed before '

A thump at the door interrupted the Doctor and he whirled round. They were all staring at the door when the second punch came. And it split the thick metal of the door right down the middle as if it were made of nothing stronger than wood.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. Terrin and Vaiq were flanking him. The co-ordinator had her gun levelled before Amanda had even stepped over the threshold, but the Doctor held up a hand to stay her.

'No, Helina! Not this time. Keep back.'

Metal shards cascaded into the room. The android advanced at a steady pace, her eyes fixed unmistakably on the Doctor.

'Who are you?' Vaiq yelled. 'What do you want?'

Amanda, as she had been programmed, ignored the other humanoids and addressed herself solely to the Time Lord.

'How pleasant to meet you, Doctor.' The voice was steely but seductive. 'We're taking a little trip, you and I. And the captain may like to join us.'

One thought was making itself rise above the others in Helina Vaiq's sharp mind. The Doctor, the one man who had any idea of what was going to happen to Station Q4 and the thousands of people on it, was about to be forcibly removed. Somehow, the girl had to be stopped.

'I'll come,' said the Doctor. His face betrayed tightly controlled anger. 'If it's me you want or your master wants then I'm here. Leave these people alone, let them get on with their lives.'

The Doctor was not to know how effective his words to Amanda would have been. Vaiq's well-aimed kick, fast as it was, could not overtake Amanda's reflexes. The coordinator's booted foot was grabbed by the android, who hurled Vaiq against the table, sending glass and crystal crashing to the floor. Her head hit the corner of the holoconsole.

The Doctor and Terrin were very aware of Amanda's raised gun.

'Follow me,' the android ordered. 'Now.'

Vaiq was groggily trying to sit up.

The Doctor nodded to Terrin. 'Let's do as the lady suggests, Romulus,' he said, and raised his hands.

Terrin, with a despairing glance at the dazed Vaiq, followed suit. Amanda marched them from the room.

The shattered door wobbled in front of Helina Vaiq, and she realized she was not going to make it, let along get a clear shot at the intruder. She got as far as the communications panel on the wall, and slammed her hand against the emergency alarm.

The computer read her palm-print and activated the klaxon. Within milliseconds, it was echoing through every deck of the station.

Chapter 18.

Focus The President grinned across his brick-red face as the prisoners were marched into his TARDIS.

'Captain Romulus Terrin,' he said, shaking his hand of the bemused captain. 'Well, I am pleased to see you.' He stopped pumping Terrin's hand up and down and turned slowly to look down at the other silent prisoner, whose face was impassive beneath his white fedora. 'And... the Doctor? My goodness me the Doctor!'

Aware that he was being mocked, the Doctor looked past the President's shoulder, across the reddish-hued console room of the Type 102, and raised his eyebrows at those in the room whom he knew. 'Hello, James,' he said. 'Hello, Benny.'

Bernice had turned pale when the Doctor had entered, and still had not recovered herself sufficiently to greet him properly.

'Quite a little gathering you have here,' said the Doctor, looking up at the President. 'Dr Styles, isn't it?' The President opened his mouth. 'Yes,' sneered the Doctor, 'at least I suppose that's what you choose to call yourself here on Earth. Who are you really?'

'I am Epsilon Delta of Gallifrey. Furthermore, I am the President of St Matthew's College, Oxford, one of the most respected academics in the world.' He nodded to Amanda, who led the Doctor and Terrin over to stand with the others.

'Doctor,' said Rafferty politely, trying to ignore the dark android whose hand was still clasped to his elbow, 'wonderful to see you again, old fellow. I don't suppose you'd tell us what's happening? You're always so good at that sort of thing,' he added a little lamely.

'Why don't I leave that to our friend here?' suggested the Doctor, who had been watching Epsilon Delta very carefully ever since he had mentioned the name of Gallifrey.

The President smiled benignly. 'All will become clear soon enough, Doctor,' he said.

'I should have known there were other Time Lords lurking in those ancient colleges. What a perfect place to hide away. What kind of President did you make, I wonder?'

'He wouldn't allow parties after 10 p.m.' volunteered Tom Cheynor in a thin voice.

The Doctor's brow clouded as his gaze fell on the exhausted-looking young man for the first time.

'This is Tom, Doctor,' said Bernice helpfully, although still without quite meeting the Doctor's eye. 'He helped me out in Oxford.'

Amanda was at the console. 'We are headed for Earth,' she announced flatly. 'Arrival imminent.'

The President smiled as he walked past his little row of five prisoners, surveying them, enjoying the power. 'We have some minutes in hand. Splendid. Let me entertain you. Are you impressed by my androids, Doctor?'

The Doctor wrinkled his nose. 'Technology is a means to an end,' he said, with an audible steeliness. 'Whether it impresses one or not depends on the use to which it is put.'

Bernice raised her eyebrows. 'Fifteen-love,' she whispered in amused admiration.

'Very concise, Doctor.' said Epsilon Delta. 'Very gnomic. I see I have not been mistaken in looking forward to meeting you.'

'I'd imagine that for you, as a common or garden megalomaniac, the most important uses are threats, killing, other brutality. All the menial tasks which you find too tedious to carry out yourself.'

'Thirty-love?' Rafferty wondered aloud.

'He's quite deranged,' offered Bernice as an aside. 'There ought to be a club for them, really,' she added, more to herself. 'A society, you know. Where chaps like him can go along to play Conquer-A-Planet and shoot people. Would spare an awful lot of antagonism.'

'But then, I suspect it already it a game to him,' said the Doctor, scowling up at the President. 'Wouldn't you think? Playing with lives. Experimenting. All for fun.'

'A lot of it about,' murmured Bernice, not quite low enough under her breath. If the Doctor recognized her allusion to recent events on a parallel Earth, he did not let it show.

'So, what's it to be?' he said, looking challengingly up at 'President' Epsilon Delta. 'My time is valuable, you know.'

'You've got to hand it to him,' Terrin muttered to the others. 'I think he knows what he's doing.'

Bernice gave the captain a withering look. 'Known the Doctor long, have you?'

'Less than a day.'

'I wish I had your proselytic faith.'

'Time, Doctor?' Epsilon Delta was saying, with an ironic smile. 'Time indeed. You see, you are a key element in a vast and beautiful plan. Amanda over there,' he nodded to the android, who was impassive at the console, 'started it all off for me. She rather spectacularly assassinated or should I say, will have assassinated a prominent member of Earth's current government. An event which sent ripples of unimaginable power out through the substrata of crystallized Time, and into the Vortex.'

'That kind of disruption,' the Doctor muttered, 'would create anomalies. Warps in Time.'

His adversary smiled. 'Do go on, Doctor.'

'Breakthroughs from an alternative universe where what you wanted to happen happened happened. Small things. Like dates changing their days. Like phantom newspaper headlines. But Time springs back into its natural natural shape, releasing huge amounts of energy. Something I saw happen in other circumstances, not that long ago. How am I doing?' The Doctor's voice held simmering anger. 'And creating a considerable source of shape, releasing huge amounts of energy. Something I saw happen in other circumstances, not that long ago. How am I doing?' The Doctor's voice held simmering anger. 'And creating a considerable source of power power for anyone with the means to exploit it.' for anyone with the means to exploit it.'

Bernice updated her running total. Match point...

'Excellent, Doctor, excellent!' Epsilon Delta clapped his hands with a sound like the kneading of dough. 'Why do I surround myself with fools, when you and I could have such a stimulating discussion?'

Whoops, thought Bernice. Forty-fifteen.

The Doctor smiled. 'I really don't know. But I imagine the company of androids is reassuring when you have the difficult task of finding companions with less imagination than yourself.'

And that's style, added Bernice to herself in satisfaction. Serving an ace to win the game.

Epsilon Delta turned away from the Doctor and strode over to the console. When he looked up from the readings, his face was triumphant.

'We have arrived, Doctor. And now you will see the culmination of our plan.'

The Doctor was far from surprised when he saw that the androids had silently taken the forms of twentieth-century human police officers.

'Oh,' the President said with a sudden smile, 'you may wonder, Doctor, how one stabilizes a time-break of this magnitude.'

'The thought had crossed my mind.'

It's very simple. One needs a lens, so to speak. Time passes through a focus when it's being concentrated, just as light does. The focus has to be something or someone with a link to both time-zones.' He smiled. 'I chose mine very carefully.'

The Doctor did not need to follow the President's self-satisfied gaze. He already knew that it was directed towards the young man called Tom.

'All right, Vaiq. This had better be good!'

A medical attendant was massaging Helina Vaiq's bruised forehead with a cell-rebuilder. She had been lifted on to the sofa in the guest quarters, and her headache would have been gently abating, were it not for the fact that Ballantyne was pacing the carpet in front of her and shouting very loudly.

'A woman took them,' she said quietly, each syllable sending flashes of colour through her aching brain. 'Looked human. Couldn't have been.'

'What do you mean?'

'Strength,' Vaiq muttered, closing her eyes. 'Strength of ten.'

'And I don't suppose you've any idea where they might have gone?' asked the supervisor with heavy sarcasm.

'Off the station.' She waved the medic away and sat up, slowly and carefully. 'Sir go to full defence alert. Send a message to P4 for back-up.' She risked opening her eyes for a second and focused on the blurred figure of Ballantyne. She kept thinking of the cracked I.D. plaque that was sitting in her jacket pocket. 'It's going to happen.'

'You think I've been idle, Helina?' Ballantyne barked. He shook his head, sighed. His voice became momentarily softer, kinder. 'I've already beamed requests for assistance to P4 and Q3. It'll be hours before they reach them, you know that. And I've got all security units on stand-by. We still don't know what killed Pagett, I haven't forgotten. And furthermore, Dasselle's been found dead in Hold B. The work of our intruder, it seems.' He paused. 'What more can we do?'

Vaiq slumped back into the cushions. 'All right,' she said. 'I need a drink.'

The warp engine had reached a thunderous pitch. The Garvond was swollen now to twice its former size and breathing with lustful anticipation.

Cheynor wondered how much more the Icarus Icarus could take, but he knew McCarran was waiting for his signal. could take, but he knew McCarran was waiting for his signal.

He nodded.

Rosabeth McCarran doubled up with an agonized scream, clutching at her abdomen. Strakk and Ace each took one of her shoulders, and Cheynor met the blank stares of the two Time Soldiers who were turning to face the little scene.

'Please,' he said, 'this woman needs to be helped.'

McCarran was pale, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Ace exchanged a look with Strakk. They were both wondering the same.

Cheynor extended a hand towards the Time Soldier. 'Please. Let us take her to the medical centre.'

What affliction has this human?

Cheynor rounded on Strakk, whose mouth worked soundlessly. Don't look at me, said his face.

'Can't you bloody understand anything about us?' Ace yelled. 'You need us all alive, right? She's got multiple contusions of the of the placental arteries. It's the first symptom.'

The Time Soldier's head bent slightly. It was watching McCarran. The woman let out a scream and redoubled her agonized gasps.

'For God's sake!' Strakk was joining in now. 'That means she's YXY antibody deficient. The disease is contagious in oxygen-rich environments. If we don't get her out in two minutes, she'll infect the whole crew.'

You cunning bastard, thought Ace admiringly. thought Ace admiringly.

The Time Soldier flickered with inlaid messages from the Garvond. It seemed to waver, then turned away from the humans with sublime indifference.

Is that it? thought Ace, her heart leaping with thoughts of revolt. thought Ace, her heart leaping with thoughts of revolt. Maybe we're so unimportant that they just don't care any more. Maybe we're so unimportant that they just don't care any more.

'The lift,' said Cheynor.

Ace's heart was thumping. They carried McCarran over to the elevator door she was horribly light and Ace felt the tingle up her spine. She remembered Quallem. The broken skull. She could hardly believe it when they got inside the capsule. For one moment she thought that the Garvond was going to have them all killed there, in that tiny space. The creature, though, was shaking among its tendrils of black and white, its entire concentration seemingly given over to communing with the computers of the Icarus Icarus.

They were going to get lucky.

The door slammed shut and the elevator began to descend.

In a spontaneous, uncharacteristic moment, Cheynor thumped the wall and let out a yelp of delight. 'Well done, everyone. Good stuff!'