He drew breath.

'Goodbye, Doctor,' he murmured. 'I wish I could come back to tell you what I find there.'

He slammed the connectors home.

Time can always be measured. There is a gap between a cause and an effect, no matter how small, even if no instrument in existence can measure it. But for Romulus Terrin, the effect could just as well have been truly instantaneous.

The white-hot burst tore the flesh from him, erupting outwards like an exploding sun. Black bones fountained up and cascaded in the glare, like nuclear ash. The walls of the auxiliary control room burned brilliant white.

And at the heart of the field generator, immense power coursed for one vital, inescapable second through the circuits.

The Time Soldier channelled everything everything that came pouring through its link with the Garvond. that came pouring through its link with the Garvond.

Unstoppable, ripping Time apart in a beam of mutated molecules, the power flowed straight through into the weaponry subsystems.

Bernice, picking herself up from where she had fallen, saw the station in space on the Icarus Icarus monitor screen. And then, in the blink of an eye, she saw the beam. monitor screen. And then, in the blink of an eye, she saw the beam.

It hit Station Q4's hub with an impact that should have ripped Time from its bonded steel, torn its infrastructure with the power of accelerated years.

Instead, the angry snake of Time-energy surrounded the station, picking it out for a millisecond in sharp relief like a great castle in a flash of lightning.

And then the power the Garvond's energy of hatred, the blood of the Vortex, sent hurtling into space from its parasitic lair deep in the TARDIS came screaming back came screaming back.

Its point of impact was exactly the same as its point of origin.

The laser turret of the Icarus Icarus.

Benny, Strakk, Cheynor and the others grabbed onto whatever they could find when the shock slammed in.

Waves, torrents of green and red energy thundered through the bridge, moving at a tangent to real time, phasing by only a fragment of eternity.

Just like the Time Soldiers.

Benny was to remember afterwards that the discord of thrashing and screaming seemed to last forever.

Caught in the wash of their own inverted energy, the creatures were dismembered by jets of bright fire, by knives of light. The soldier at the weaponry console was first. Bernice saw it lifted high, almost to the ceiling of the bridge, screeching like a sacrificial animal. And then the time-winds whipped around it, slashing it to shreds, swallowing it.

The soldier nearest to Strakk opened its snout in a silent scream as Time-energy poured in. The creature's visored head exploded in what looked to Benny like a mixture of flesh and steel. And then the shower of shreds flipped into a two-dimensional plane, burning in a circle of red fire, and twisted away into infinity, falling like a stone cast into a bottomless pit.

The shrieks were pounding into Bernice's mind, battering her eardrums as they ascended towards the ultrasonic. In the haze of red and green, she saw Strakk trying to crawl towards her. He was holding one hand with the other. His mouth and eyes were open wide, she saw now, and he was screaming something about his hand.

All around the bridge, Time Soldiers were swept up in their inverted vortex, and consumed in spirals of phase-shifting fire.

'Well?' Ballantyne snapped.

Every system seemed to have gone down. The holograms were scrambled, like small storms of light in the control centre. Rafferty stood alone amidst the chaos, chewing on his index finger.

'We had power, sir,' called one of the TechnOps. 'It couldn't be sustained.'

'Was it long enough?'

The answer came from another operator. 'Energy source just relocated, Supervisor. Back to the survey ship.'

'Relocated,' muttered Professor Rafferty to himself. He wondered if that had other overtones, in the jargon of this alien century.

Another message came through. 'Major burn-out in auxiliary control. Dispatching fire drones to contain, sir.'

Ballantyne, from across the vastness of the Centre, dared to meet Rafferty's eye.

'They did it,' the supervisor said.

The Garvond bellowed in pain.

Ace gripped the Doctor's shoulders, trying to pull him back from the towering creature. He was pale, she saw. Maybe he really thought she'd done for him back there in the Garvond's virtual reality.

It dwindled now like a guttering flame. Its shrieks of anger were incoherent, a cacophony of tongues in many keys and at all levels of sound.

Energy seemed to rush in from all around Ace and Tom, passing them, uninterested, drawn instead to the vast magnet in the centre of the cloisters. A target. Bombarded with unremitting waves of its own energy, every burst of hate, the death of every Time Soldier crashing into it now with the power of ancient lime. And in the flickering tongues of light, it happened. The Garvond, its dragon-jaws forced apart in inaudible agony, whirled and shrank in its own typhoon.

The Doctor was struggling to stand. Ace saw that he was holding something out.

'What's he doing now?' Tom shouted. 'He'll get himself killed!'

Ace had no more idea than Tom. But she held him back, stopped him from pulling the Doctor aside.

She knew why. The Doctor knew what he was doing now. And what made Ace confident was one small thing that she thought she had lost.

Trust.

The Garvond, no more than a spinning globule of light, came to rest in the centre of the book that the Doctor held outstretched. Like a genie sucked back inside its own bottle, the Garvond vanished.

The Doctor snapped the book shut.

There was silence in the cloisters, except for the gentle splashing of the fountain and the drip, drip of water from the marble walls and the plants.

Ace and Tom climbed slowly to their feet. The young man pushed his soaking-wet hair back. He was wondering to himself if he would be able to get a decent hot bath in the very near future.

'Up the stairs,' said the Doctor with a smile, as he turned to face them. 'Second left, third right. Door marked with a small yellow duck.'

'Oh,' said Tom faintly. 'Right.'

'Doctor.' Ace's voice was low and urgent. She had taken her sunglasses off and was rubbing the splashes of water from them, but with her spare hand she pointed at the small red book he was holding.

'Oh, don't worry,' said the Doctor, as if suddenly realizing what she meant. 'He's back where he came from.'

Her mouth opened. She was wondering which question was the best one to put first.

'That's all you need to know!' the Doctor growled, and with a sudden burst of anger he turned and hurled the book into the fountain.

It was swallowed with an audible plop. But Ace knew it had not hit the water.

'Dimensional traps,' the Doctor muttered. He fished his hat out of his pocket and jammed it back on to his head. 'Nasty things. Lucky I never did take that book back to Gallifrey, though.'

Ace stepped forward, peered into the fountain. 'You mean the Garvond's '

'These,' said the Doctor, 'are not the cloisters.' He sighed. 'Only I couldn't let you know that, or the Garvond would have read it in your mind.' He shook his head. 'It'll stay there now. Unless someone does something very very stupid with the reconfiguration circuits.' He turned, and splashed back up the steps. Halfway up, he turned back to Ace and Tom. stupid with the reconfiguration circuits.' He turned, and splashed back up the steps. Halfway up, he turned back to Ace and Tom.

'Well, come on,' he said. 'Unless you want to be stuck here for eternity too.' He took out his pocket watch, and his eyebrows shot up. 'Especially as it's almost time for a cup of strong tea and some almond slices.'

The bridge was like a granite shore after a storm, washed by the calamity, but unbroken.

There was a spontaneous burst of cheering as the Doctor and Ace emerged from the TARDIS: he had told Tom to stay in the console room. Benny, standing in front of the crew with her arms folded, just raised an eyebrow. The Doctor took it all in his stride, as usual. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ace's hand meet Strakk's high in the air, in a thump of victorious unity.

Cheynor stepped forward. He looked exhausted. Keeping a respectful distance from the Doctor, he folded his hands behind his back.

'What exactly happened, Doctor?'

'It would take far too long to explain the details,' said the Doctor quietly, leaning on his umbrella. 'I suggest you give Q4 a call. Captain,' he added, apologetically.

'Before that,' Ace put in, striding up to Cheynor, 'there's something I've been meaning to get you to do.' She held up her arm, showing him the limiter bracelet. 'Code-word?'

Cheynor reached out, rather awkwardly, and took her hand. 'Excuse me,' he said, and cleared his throat. 'Benedictus,' he intoned.

The bracelet snapped open and clattered to the floor.

Bernice had strolled over to the Doctor. 'Feedback,' she suggested to him.

'More or less.' The Doctor's expression didn't change.

'Why didn't it affect us?'

'You're temporally stable. Most of the time. The Time Soldiers' waves were oscillating on their dimensional frequency. Hoisted by their own petard.'

Ace dropped into the Captain's chair, and put her feet up on his console. 'Zapped into infinity. Like our friend in the rec-room. Yeah?'

The Doctor nodded. His face half in shadow, he seemed to smile. 'Good,' he said.

Bernice's fringe was over her eyes, so the Doctor could not see them.

No, she was thinking. Not good.

Chapter 25.

Reflections They stood on a high platform above a cavern. Far below them, perched on a launch turntable, squatted the grey shape, battered but intact, of the Survey Ship Icarus Icarus.

'Hides all sorts of things away, doesn't he?' said Benny. 'Fancy having one of these things in your cupboard-under-the-stairs.'

Ace was resting her chin on one hand, and with the other she was bouncing the yo-yo over the edge of the observation platform. She'd found the toy in one of the TARDIS's rooms of junk, and the Doctor didn't seem especially interested in it, so she had adopted it.

'Yeah,' she said. 'Pretty useful for the Survey Corps, having the Doctor help out. Being stuck a week behind yourself can't be much fun.'

When Cheynor and Ballantyne had exchanged official messages, it had not taken long before the embarrassing conclusion was reached that the Icarus Icarus, thanks to its temporary occupants, was now in entirely the wrong timezone. The Doctor, with only a minimum of fuss, had offered to arrange it. He'd said the TARDIS ought to be used to these short hops by now. The difficult part, he'd confided to Ace, had been materializing the TARDIS around the Icarus Icarus so that the Survey Ship ended up in somewhere that could accommodate it, rather than the swimming pool or the library, or skewered between walls. so that the Survey Ship ended up in somewhere that could accommodate it, rather than the swimming pool or the library, or skewered between walls.

'I suppose there must have been hundreds of casualties,' Benny ventured after a while.

'Everyone except the bridge crew,' said Ace quietly. 'And they lost three there as well. The Garvond wasn't joking.'

'And...' Bernice realised she was going to have to ask. 'Your friend?'

'No go.'

'No go? Come on, Ace, remember what the Doctor said. He's still got some time. A lot of time. And he's been promoted.'

'No, Benny. I mean I've spoken to him, and I'm not staying.'

Ace remembered.

He had sauntered over to her as they cleared up the mess on the bridge. There were more streaks of grey in his blond hair, while his bad arm was crooked and studded with med-implants.

With the other, he was holding a portable, suitcase-sized incubator. Under the perspex hood, baby Mostrell slept peacefully.

She acknowledged him with a grin.

'So,' he said, 'I'm condemned.'

Ace shrugged. 'You're one of the lucky ones.'

Strakk smiled. The same grey, bleak smile that she'd grown used to. 'Your friend seems to be a Doctor of everything. He gave me a look-over. Seems to think my body's ageing at twice normal rate at the moment, but that'll get faster. I might have...' He shrugged. 'Ten years in real time. At most.'

Ace was rubbing at an irritating itch under the sleeve of her combat suit. 'Yeah,' she muttered.