Strakk cupped his hand to his earphone, but was not looking hopeful. 'It's going, sir. I think it was only programmed to beam once. And judging by the state of the equipment back there...'

Darius Cheynor's tanned face was lined with worry as he paced the shadows of the bridge. 'A pre-recorded message, programmed to beam into space at a set time...' He strode to Ace's chair and spun her around to face him, meeting her implacable gaze. 'What does your friend know about all this, I wonder?'

'Don't raise your hopes,' she said. 'He doesn't even tell me, most of the time.'

We have made contact. We are ready for union.

In the void beyond Time, they stood ready. An army of ghosts, shimmering grey and white, crimson eyes glowing behind their masks. They were never still. Ripples, susurrations ran through them, and in the darkness there echoed a muttering like the incantations of prophets. At the flanks and the rear, new spectres were joining the hideous crew at each moment. Although moments meant nothing here. They came with a fluttering, leathery sound like the flapping of bats' wings, and stood, jittery and expectant, with their comrades. Each soldier was armed with a wide-barrelled blaster that somehow seemed part of the arm.

Prepare for transfer.

The voice, in each of their minds, was like the crashing of granite into oceans, like lightning splitting trees, like other terrors of beauty that some of the Time Soldiers half remembered.

From long ago.

Soon, said the voice, said the voice, we shall be in the Time Vortex. Prepare to ride into it, my friends. Time is almost ours. we shall be in the Time Vortex. Prepare to ride into it, my friends. Time is almost ours.

'Rumpelstiltskin?' said Terrin.

'No,' said the little man opposite him.

'Tiberius?'

'No.'

Terrin had been astonished to discover that he was not dead. He had woken up in a featureless room to find himself being watched by a pixie-like man with a wise, friendly face and twentieth-century clothes, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. When he had sat up, rubbing his cramped limbs, the little man had explained to the captain that they were both, for the moment, prisoners, and that this was presumably the detention centre. The man had added that he was pleased to have some company, and he supposed the newcomer was from the Survey Corps?

Terrin had first looked in vain for a door to the cell, so that he could hammer on it and demand his release. That sort of thing never did any good, but he had an idea that etiquette somehow demanded it. Only then had he grudgingly admitted where he was from. As his mistrust of the little man mellowed, he agreed for want of any better suggestion that they should pass the time by guessing one another's names.

'Then I give up. Mine's Romulus. Romulus Terrin.'

'Ah. Do you have a brother?'

Terrin frowned. 'No.'

'Never mind. Well, I'm usually known as the Doctor.'

'I see. You don't have another name?'

'Only on special occasions. You can call me John Smith if you like, but it would just be for convenience.'

Terrin had met many reasonable people who, for one reason or another, preferred pseudonyms, so he didn't press the point. He sighed and continued pacing. 'So, Doctor whoever, are you going to give me your theory of where we are and how we got here?'

'You were on Q4. Like me. Somehow we were brought here, presumably by whatever attacked the crew, and your men.'

Light dawned on Terrin. 'You're the intruder. The one Quallem was talking about. I should arrest you,' he added, half-heartedly.

'There's little point,' said the Doctor, 'and besides, they've taken away your gun. Pontoon?' he added, shuffling a pack of cards that he had produced.

'What?'

'Time is my business, Captain Terrin. The date on the guard's wristwatch said March 22nd. Now, what do you make of that?' The Doctor dealt the cards solemnly.

'One week ago,' said the Captain, puzzled. 'His watch was wrong? Probably picked it up from a tax-free on one of the outposts.'

The Doctor gave the captain one of his rare smiles. 'How very quaint. You see, my interpretation is that we've travelled in Time, but not in space. This is still Station Q4, Captain as it was, one week ago.'

'I find that very hard to believe, Doctor, and I'm a broad-minded man. When we left Earth, Professor Xoster's tachyon experiments were at a very primitive '

'Ha! Call yourself broad-minded?' The Doctor was derisive. 'Twist,' he added and took another card.

Terrin looked suitably chastened. 'I think I might have a headache coming on,' he confessed. 'I feel like one of Robert Silverberg's characters. Or maybe Isaac Asimov. I've studied the literature and culture of the twentieth century, you see, Doctor. And I can't help noticing your own attire...' He shrugged. 'Are you sticking?'

'Yes.'

'Me too. I declare eighteen.' Terrin put down the ten of diamonds and the eight of clubs. 'Doctor if I were to talk to the supervisor of the station let him know who I am '

'You can try,' said the Doctor, putting down his seven of hearts and eight and six of diamonds. 'But you won't get very far.'

'What do you mean?'

'Where was your ship last week?'

'Colony Franost. We were collecting samples to check for contamination and...' Terrin stopped. 'Oh,' he said, feeling rather stupid for the second time in five minutes.

'I'm afraid,' said the Doctor, 'you would be denounced as a pure and simple imposter. Another game?'

Terrin was doing his best to adjust to the new concept. 'Good lord. If I went there I might meet myself.'

'Take it from me,' said the Doctor as he dealt again, 'that can be profoundly embarrassing.'

The Icarus Icarus had now been cruising for thirty minutes, judging by Ace's watch, which automatically adjusted to the time-zone of her location. Strakk had told her that the had now been cruising for thirty minutes, judging by Ace's watch, which automatically adjusted to the time-zone of her location. Strakk had told her that the Icarus Icarus ran on Central European Time, because that suited the majority of the crew, and its days and nights would ebb and flow in accordance with a link transmitter in Hamburg. ran on Central European Time, because that suited the majority of the crew, and its days and nights would ebb and flow in accordance with a link transmitter in Hamburg.

The stern face of Dr Mostrell appeared on the first officer's monitor. Cheynor had never had a field promotion, and it took him a few seconds before he realized that he was supposed to answer.

'Cheynor here.'

'Darius, those bone samples. I'm having some interesting results. I don't suppose you could come and have a look?'

Cheynor was unsure. He was not needed, but one look at the brightness of the new captain's eyes and the way she was clutching the arms of her chair, knuckles white, made it clear to him that someone was going to have to keep an eye on things up on the bridge.

'I'm indisposed, Doctor. I can send...' His eye roved round the bridge, till he found the ideal all-purpose candidate. The ship's professional mug, in fact, was how the choice had once described himself to a tall Draconian girl he was trying to impress. 'I can send Strakk.' Cheynor called him over. 'You're wanted, Lieutenant.'

Strakk ambled over, rubbing his eyes as if he'd just got out of bed. 'On six planets, sir,' he said, 'but don't tell the captain.' He did not expect much more than the stony expression he got from Cheynor as the reassignment card was pressed into his hand. Strakk often bemoaned the fact mostly to women, after several glasses of Voxnic that he was the only officer on board with a sense of humour.

A thought occurred to him at the elevator door. 'Shall I take her?' he asked, indicating the sullen Ace.

'She's a prisoner, Lieutenant.' Quallem's reproach was razor-edged.

'Yeah, I know. I just thought she could make herself useful.' He shrugged. 'I'll be responsible. We can tag her.'

Quallem was strolling among the TechnOps, checking readouts. She waved a hand, absently.

Cheynor looked from Strakk to Quallem and back again, then gave the three-fingered authorization signal. 'Limit her to the first ten sectors,' he said.

Strakk pressed a catch on the back of the chair and the metal bonds sprang open. 'You have to wear this,' he said, clipping a metallic bracelet to her. It felt tighter than any watch she had ever worn. 'If you go off-limits,' he said, 'the shuttle bay for example, the laser will slice your hand off at the wrist. It's nasty, but it works. So behave.'

'And if I try and take it off?'

'Something in the same vein,' Strakk quipped, as he called the elevator. He saluted to Quallem as they entered. 'Leaving the bridge, Captain.'

Dear Diary, wrote Bernice. wrote Bernice.

Professor Rafferty has wired his study with microphones, hidden a video-camera in his desk and meshed the room in beams of light, any one of which, when broken, sets off his pager. He wants to be seen to act on our story, I suppose. But at the same time, he wants to get to know me a little better, which is fine by me. And James Rafferty seems to be a man who takes his pleasure as seriously as his work. So Tom has been dispatched to the Bodleian, to look up everything he can find about reports of temporal disturbances while I have been invited to dinner at High Table.

In the Senior Common Room, Benny slipped the book into her breast pocket as the Professor handed her a second glass of sherry.

'Thank you. Should I have dressed up?'

'Oh, no... what you're wearing will be fine. I, on the other hand, have to parade in this.' He smiled, and tugged at his academic gown.

'It's very distinguished,' Bernice reassured him, as they strolled over to the window. She looked out at the floodlit domes and spires in the rain. Their natural honey-brown was enhanced by the yellowish light, making them look wise and watchful. Silent now, but awaiting the buzzing activity of the next day.

Rafferty had waited until Tom had gone before telling Bernice about his visit from Amanda. He did not know why. Maybe, he thought, it was inculcated into him not to discuss strange occurrences in front of students until it became necessary. Otherwise as he had found in the past, especially with his hot-headed young postgrads they tended to dash off and do a bit of detective work on their own that was often a hindrance. He knew Bernice would be a little more composed than that.

'I'd have said she was a reporter,' Rafferty mused, 'if it weren't for the fact that she knew.... things several levels above top secret.'

'I won't ask,' said Benny, and she smiled up at him before straightening his bow-tie. She sighed. 'You know, I seem to attract trouble, even when the Doctor's not around.'

'Yes,' Rafferty said, as if it had suddenly struck him. 'Where is is the Doctor, anyhow?' the Doctor, anyhow?'

'No idea. I imagine that without me around, he's having the time of his life.'

The Doctor's face contorted as the muscle-bound guard pulled his hair back until the light was dazzling him.

'The name,' said Ballantyne threateningly, as he leaned over the Doctor. 'The name of your organization.'

The Doctor had been disappointed. He had built up quite a resistance to lie-detectors and instruments of mental torture over the years, and he had been preparing himself in the cell. When the interrogation had finally come, though, it had turned out to be simply the traditional cold steel room with a light shining in his face and a continual barrage of identical questions. He found it rather sad that the human race had need of this sort of thing at all, but not to have progressed in a third of a millennium was surely indicative of a lack of imagination. He had tried to point this out at the start, and had been rewarded with a cuff from the guard.

'I don't have an organization. I was in one once, it made me disorganized. Supervisor, if you don't listen to me, you and all your personnel will be dead within one week! I don't know how long we have. It may only be a matter of hours.'

'So you keep saying,' said Ballantyne, crossing his long legs as he sat down opposite the Doctor. 'Quite a prophet of doom, aren't you, Doctor?'

'They warned me at the Academy about talking to the dead. It seems they may have been right.'

The slim, dark-skinned woman at Ballantyne's side had been quiet up until now, but at the Doctor's last comment she moved into the blue light. She had enormous brown eyes and a high-boned face beneath cropped hair, and she wore a uniform similar in style to the supervisor's. Helina Vaiq, the station co-ordinator, was unsettled by the little man, and she knew Ballantyne was too.

'Supervisor,' she said. 'A word?'

In the corner, where the Doctor could not hear them, the supervisor and the co-ordinator conferred.

'I hate to tell you this, Septimus, but I don't think he's totally crazy.'

'You don't,' said Ballantyne evenly.

'His colleague might have been suffering from parapsychotic dementia. I thought I detected a neo-primal guilt urge too... But this one... unless what we've got here is a severe case of pseudologica fantastica pseudologica fantastica... I think he must be the genuine article.'

Ballantyne looked affronted, then horrified. 'You mean all the time he's been telling the truth?'

Septimus Ballantyne, before his elevation to station supervisor, had been a major-general in the Terran Defence Corps, and he had interrogated many life-forms on suspicion of being alien spies. There had even been a joke doing the rounds of the Institute of Interplanetary Linguists and Non-Verbal Communicators that Major-General Ballantyne kept their interpreters in business. There had been one unfortunate incident where the subject of interrogation was a member of the Institute himself, a ferret-faced alien called a Bojihan who was accused of taking illicit holograms of station security zones. The accused was conversant in three of the Morestran dialects, but unfortunately knew no English. No one from Earth had ever mastered any of the fourteen main Bojihan languages, as they depended not only on pronunciation, stress and inflexion, but also on several thousand different types of squeals and grunts, a few hundred of which lay beyond the range of human hearing. Therefore the only reputable interpreters the Institute could offer in this case were other Bojihans from the same continent of the prisoner's planet. Ballantyne would have none of it, arguing that the possibilities for being conned were endless, and the Bojihan was eventually let off the hook as the charge could not be brought.

Helina Vaiq was aware of the supervisor's zeal, and this was partly why she was keen to continue the Doctor's interview (she disliked the word 'interrogation') on her own. 'Give me some time with him,' Vaiq offered. 'I need to do a proper analysis of his blink and pulse rate, but I should be able to give you a definite answer within the hour.'

Ballantyne nodded. 'And the other one?'

'I'll put someone on to him. Find out where he got the Survey Corps I.D., that sort of thing. You never know, he might be genuine too.'

'Did you ask him who he was?'

'Yes. He said I'd never believe him.'

Ballantyne heaved a sigh. 'There seems to be a lot of it about at this time of year. All right, Helina, carry on.'

Rain danced in the headlights on Broad Street. At this time of the evening, Oxford's streets were quiet, but flanked with pockets of noise. A Mazda, cobalt blue, turned the corner from South Parks Road into the Broad, past the stone heads of the Philosophers and the colourful window of the Paperback Shop. The car slowed, tyres swishing on the wet road, its engine lower than a purr. It cast in front of it a cone of light that was definitely reddish in colour. The driver was looking for something.

A figure in a denim jacket hurried along the Broad, cursing the weather and pushing his soaking hair out of his eyes. Even before today, Tom had not had a good couple of weeks. The computer system containing all the results of his tachyonics experiments had crashed, taking everything with it, and a virus had corrupted most of his floppies. The only hope now was that a lot of it was still stored on the Winchester drive that Rafferty owned. He had forgotten to ask the Professor earlier. Then he had had an argument with one of the girls he was currently interested in, about her intention to go to the Hertford College ball with another man, and this had prompted her to slam out of his life. On top of that, his motorbike had been stolen. The police at St Aldate's had been helpful, but they had found nothing matching the description of his machine. All he wanted now was to get back to the college bar and have a game of table football. The Bodleian, the Professor and Bernice could all wait.

He was wondering why the car with the funny headlights seemed to be tailing him.

He paused. Through the haze of the rain, he saw the car stop too, waiting like a predatory red-eyed beast.

Tom stepped out to cross the street, just opposite Trinity gates, and in a sudden, sickening moment he heard the rush of water and the roar of the engine. He jumped aside in panic, but the car had already screeched to a halt.

The window began to wind down. A choice profanity was just forming on Tom's lips when he saw the driver. She was young, about twenty, he supposed, with dark hair that curled at the shoulder. His own bedraggled face was reflected twice in her mirror-lenses.

'You look very wet. Can I give you a lift?'