'But Doctor '

'Give me your computer!' he shouted, and hurled the homing device over into the void.

'What?'

'It's the only way to locate the library. If you give me your wrist-computer I can home in on the TARDIS circuits and get some order into this mess. Come on, Ace!'

His fingers shook with impatience. Above them, the Garvond/Time Focus was rearing up to pounce.

Ace realized this was no time to argue. She unclipped the computer from her arm and practically hurled it at the Doctor.

Ballantyne, Vaiq and Rafferty were all watching the same blip on a massive three-dimensional grid.

Behind it, dominating the control centre, was the huge and shimmering slab of the Icarus Icarus, the picture which the blip represented.

Rafferty was chewing at the inside of his lip. Doctor, he thought, this time you may just have taken too many chances.

Bernice Summerfield had been talking in a low, urgent voice to Lieutenant Strakk.

'Inverted the energy?' she whispered in fascination. 'And it was totally destroyed?'

Strakk shrugged. 'As I say. The beam got reflected.'

'Like judo,' Benny murmured. 'Turning your enemy's own strength against him...'

Strakk glanced over her shoulder at the vigilant crew of Time Soldiers. 'It's not a trick. I'd like to try pulling off a second time. We were lucky to get away with it once.'

Benny thumped a fist angrily on the bridge floor. 'If only we could have told the Doctor.'

'I tried,' said Strakk helplessly. He rubbed his crooked hand, wincing as another stab of rheumatism cut into him. 'So what are we going to do?'

'We have to get a message to Q4!' Cheynor was suddenly filled with one of his intermittent bursts of zeal. 'Tell them that these creatures can be destroyed.'

'What are they meant to do?' Strakk asked. Fear made his tone sharper than he would normally have dared. 'Get the windows at the right angle to set up the Galaxy's biggest heliograph?'

Bernice looked at the huddle of TechnOps, whose expressions ranged from fixed terror to uncaring exhaustion. They weren't going to get much help there. Then she swivelled to take in the shimmering Time Soldiers, each in a crew position, all working in harmony. All, if she had understood correctly, formed a giant entity with the ship and the Garvond. And were concentrating so hard that they had let Ace go... They could try sending a message. But what would it say? Think big, Bernice said to herself. She remembered the adrenalin rush of a fulfilled ambition. Think big and you get there. And suddenly, as if a curtain had been raised, a mad idea, inspired by a half-remembered article, took a bow inside her mind.

Bernice grabbed Strakk's arm. 'Lieutenant. Space stations can operate simple molecular deflection for asteroids, space debris and so on, can't they?'

Realization dawned on Albion Strakk. 'You know, she's right, sir.'

Cheynor had already started to shake his head. 'Impossible. To enclose the whole structure to deflect a beam of accelerated particles I'm no physicist, but the energy required would be phenomenal.'

'They can only try!' insisted Bernice. 'But we have to send a message to them without this lot ' she jerked her thumb towards the Time Soldiers, 'getting an earful of it! I don't know about you chaps, but I've got very little desire to be turned into Miss Havisham for my pains.'

'There is a way...' Strakk murmured. He grinned suddenly, like lightning in a grey sky. His tired eyes were alight with their former fighting spirit. 'What the hell,' he whispered, flexing the fingers of his seventy-three-year-old hand. 'Who wants to live forever?'

There was a door hurtling towards Ace, like a train on invisible tracks. An old, oaken door with metal hinges. She grabbed it as it floated past.

'Doctor!' she yelled.

He whirled round on his step, still punching calculations into the computer. His eyebrows lifted. High above them, the Garvond roared.

'The library,' he said. 'It worked!'

'So are you coming, or what?' Ace wrenched the door from its frame and reached for the Doctor's arm.

They both vanished inside.

The Time Focus gathered itself and with a screech of triumph, leaped across the chasm.

The Doctor and Ace were hurrying between high banks of shelves. Ace was not especially surprised to hear the ghostly wind flutter the pages of the books, but she hadn't expected snow. The flakes fizzed and melted on the hot surface of her combat suit. Unbelieving, she looked down and saw that her boots were churning through at least twenty centimetres of crunchy whiteness. The thick spines of the books, within touching distance, were covered with a uniform, crisp layer of rime. So were the gravity pads, which floated just above the snow.

The Doctor, readjusting his tie, swivelled in a full circle. A book caught his eye on the shelf, and he pulled it out with a frown, rubbing the frost off the dust-jacket. 'I had no idea this was here.' It was called 200 Poems on The Transit System 200 Poems on The Transit System. He threw it aside. 'This way,' he said, indicating an endless tunnel of bookshelves. 'Mark my footsteps!'

Ace nudged up the bodytemp regulator on her belt. Kicking up snow as she followed behind, she covered their rear with the Derenna pistol. Like Strakk before her, she thought there would be no harm in trying. And if old zombie-features showed his skull, Ace was going to be ready.

'Where are we going? And why?' It was as good a time as any to ask.

'The focal point,' said the Doctor, advancing slowly. 'The eye of the dimensional hurricane. The Garvond's like a vulture lured by fresh meat, only what it wants to peck at is the power of the TARDIS, tied in with the Icarus Icarus, that would make it invincible.'

Ace, sweeping her gun in a wide arc, was finding it hard to keep her footing. Snow was covering her head and shoulders. 'Yeah,' she said. 'That's one thing that got me. If the bonehead can travel through time '

'Yes.'

'And use Time as a weapon?'

'Yes.' The Doctor stopped and ran his hand along a row of frozen books.

'Then why,' Ace asked, coming to a halt, 'did it need to hijack the Icarus Icarus? It doesn't need a ship to travel in.'

'No. But it needs a circuit to complete.' The Doctor was studying readouts on the LCD screen of Ace's computer. He looked up at her through the snowflakes. 'The Icarus Icarus arrived in direct response to the situation on Q4. Now the Garvond's using it to create that situation. It's the kind of paradox that appeals to its twisted sensibilities.' The computer bleeped. 'Ah!' arrived in direct response to the situation on Q4. Now the Garvond's using it to create that situation. It's the kind of paradox that appeals to its twisted sensibilities.' The computer bleeped. 'Ah!'

A section of bookshelf swung out, and books scattered on the snow. One of them fell on Ace's foot, and as she picked it up she saw the title clearly: Communications Networks and Temporal Rectification Communications Networks and Temporal Rectification by Prydonian Chancellor Parjtesa-Kalayethzor Rodan. by Prydonian Chancellor Parjtesa-Kalayethzor Rodan.

Junk had followed the books balls of string, papers...

And, slowly toppling, a rusty pushbike.

The Doctor shook his head sadly. 'Entropy.' He turned and, for a moment, fixed Ace with a deep and compelling gaze. 'I never worry too much about it, you know. Dissipation produces a complex system of conflicting motions. Eventually the behaviour of many dimensions is reduced to one.'

'Is that good or bad?' Ace was edgy, still covering their tracks with the Derenna, and trying not to look at the fallen bicycle. She knew only too well what it brought back.

The Doctor blinked.

'Come on,' he said, and stepped into the opening.

The Time Soldiers' excitement was mounting. Their leader, seated now in what had been Terrin's chair, received messages from the others and from the Garvond. Its visor glowed with blood-lust.

The target is almost in range.

Bernice and Cheynor heard the voice clearly in their minds.

Cheynor shut his eyes for a second. Bernice did not know it, but there, momentarily, he had glimpsed the hand of his brother sinking into the mud once more.

Beside them, Strakk, in as casual a manner as possible, was repeatedly tapping the call button on his communicator. If any of the Time Soldiers had detected him, they would probably not have known what to make of the pattern of short and long strokes that he was sending out on the standard frequency.

The oaken door of the TARDIS library shook to the impact of a blow, then shattered into a million shards of light.

The creature that lumbered into the snowy alcoves was neither fully human nor fully alien. Its body was a larger version of Tom Cheynor, but the eyes burned with the deathly light of the Garvond, and the skin glowed as if putrid. Also, its hair was a brilliant white to match the snow on the bookshelves.

Within Tom, the Garvond could sense its source of power growing closer. Its link with the Icarus Icarus throbbed within it, sensing ripples in the software, meters crashing over into the red as the ship of Time swooped down closer to its target. throbbed within it, sensing ripples in the software, meters crashing over into the red as the ship of Time swooped down closer to its target.

Something was tapping at the back of the Garvond's sinuous mind. A pattern of long and short clicks, in repeated sequence. It thought it should recognize the system, from long ago. But the Garvond had more pressing matters to attend to.

At one junction, it found the book of poems lying face-down in the snow, and a toothy leer spread across its face.

The hybrid began to advance through the snow, following the tracks left by Ace and the Doctor.

It knew it was only a matter of Time.

Chapter 24.

Undiscovered Country 'West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must go,Where the fleet of stars is anchored and the young star-captains glow.'James Elroy Flecker, Golden Journey to Samarkand Golden Journey to Samarkand

'Picking up a message from Icarus Icarus, Supervisor.'

Ballantyne was at the young operator's side in a second. 'Coded?'

'Yes, sir.' The young man's face was incredulous. 'Sir, it's Morse.'

'Well, decipher it, man!'

The operator was shamefaced. 'I'm afraid it's not one of my codes, Supervisor.'

Terrin cleared his throat. 'I did once do a course on archaic ciphers,' he said. 'Only a day, though.' He turned, looked up in hope at Rafferty. 'James?'

The Oxford Professor of Extra-Terrestrial Studies rubbed his hands together with a slight squeaking sound which set Terrin's teeth on edge.

'I can see,' said Rafferty, 'that you chaps still have a few uses for the skills of pre-technological Man.' He held out his hand for the TechnOp's headphones. 'Let's have a bash, then, young fellow. Can't do any harm.'

On the screen, the Icarus Icarus continued to advance. continued to advance.

The Doctor stopped.

Ace skidded and almost fell on the snow.

'Now what?' she snapped.

Behind them, the heavy footfall and roars of anger were growing louder.

'Here,' said the Doctor. 'Look.'

She peered over his shoulder. The floor fell away, becoming stone-covered steps. Warmth gushed upwards, hitting her full in the face, and she heard the sound of trickling water. She saw it now. Light was fragmented in the ornamental fountain at the foot of the steps, and reflected in the pinkish marble of the flagstones. Ivy and other indistinguishable plants hung from the stonework.

'The reconfigured cloisters,' said the Doctor grimly. 'Come on. Let's get this over with.'

He ran to the edge of the water, followed by Ace. The marble echoed as if with the first footsteps in Time.

The Doctor stared impassively into the fountain. 'All right,' he said. 'We've found the source.'

Ace became aware of several things happening almost at once.

First, a noise behind her. She whirled round, ready to face the Time Focus with her blaster, but she found herself looking up the steps into the exhausted face of Tom Cheynor. The real Tom, with unlined skin, his hair its normal brown, his eyes devoid of the alien glare. He was leaning against the marble pillar confused and nearly unable to support himself, but human once again.

She then felt herself grabbed with both hands, and found the Doctor's eyes looking urgently into hers. After a second his grip relaxed and his face lost its panic. Adrenalin turned to cramp in Ace's legs. She had just realized what the Doctor had instantly been looking for.

'Not in you,' he whispered, and his relief was genuine. 'So where...?'

And they heard the fountain change its note.

The water, glistening blood-red and emerald green, the colours of death on the battlefield, was being sucked into the centre of the fountain, as if Time were running in reverse. Around them, the cloisters darkened. Ace felt the marble throbbing beneath her feet. And then the water exploded from the nozzle, in a new shape.

'Oh no,' she murmured.