'It's started,' whispered Eperdu.

'We'll just have to sit it out.'

A technician pa.s.sed a datachip to Eperdu. She shook her head. 'Sir, that's not an option. There are still a couple of hundred Anthaurk on board pitched battles are breaking out everywhere.'

Enemies within, enemies without. The President felt a thrill of fear and excitement run through him. 'Then we fight,' he said. 'Order all troopers to attack and kill the Anthaurk on sight' He grabbed a blaster from a rack on the wall.

Eperdu was staring at him as if he was mad. 'What are you doing?'

The captain going down with his ship? Not giving up without a fight? Trying to prove himself?

Throwing his life away because without Arielle nothing mattered any more?

'Trying to save lives.'

'President Vargeld,' said Eperdu, 'with respect, the only way to save lives is to surrender to the Anthaurk. We may be able to negotiate terms with them.'

'Never,' said the President, and, without looking back, he ran from the command centre.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

'Child of the universe'

Fitz followed Compa.s.sion through the corridors of Aloysius Station, a feeling of hopelessness welling up inside him. Yquatine had fallen, Arielle was dead, the Doctor was dead, the station was under attack and they couldn't dematerialise for fear of being trapped in the s.p.a.ce-time vortex.

The outlook wasn't good.

The blaring alarms weren't helping, either, hurting his ears, preventing him from thinking, and helping along the bubbling feeling of panic that threatened to erupt from within.

They were trying to make their way back to the s.p.a.cedock to find a ship. They had found their way barred by troops, and so they were trying for a s.p.a.cedock on the other side of the station. This involved crossing the crowded central section of the station, full of mourners and refugees, all milling in panic.

They entered a large communal area. The place was full of people and beings trying to sleep or waking up, slowly realising that they were under attack.

There was an explosion from somewhere below and the floor shook beneath their feet.

Fitz clung on to Compa.s.sion. 'Can't we land anywhere that isn't about to be totally marmalised by evil aliens?'

No reply.

Her face had the look of a predator. Fitz followed the line of her stare.

A man with thinning auburn hair and chubby features was scrambling to his feet. He was wearing a spangly silver shirt.

Lou Lombardo, the pie vendor. The man he'd dreaded b.u.mping into in his month on Yquatine. It was all right now, though Fitz had pa.s.sed the point in time when he'd first met Lombardo. 'Hey!' cried Fitz, waving frantically.

The sound of blaster fire. Tall, helmeted figures ran into the far end of the hall. They were wide at the shoulder, narrow at the waist, and sported big boots and big guns.

'Oh, nuts,' muttered Fitz.

They began to fire indiscriminately into the crowd.

Fitz found himself being dragged away from Compa.s.sion. He fought to stay with her, but the pressure of the crowd was too great. The last he saw of her was her red-haired head as she pushed through the crowds towards Lombardo, who was scrambling as frantically as everyone else for the exits.

'Compa.s.sion!' yelled Fitz.

She paid no heed. A bolt of blaster fire sizzled over his head. making a big hole in the wall. The woman in front of him screamed and started to claw the Adamantean in front of her in panic, staining the alien's stone skin with her own blood.

Sod Compa.s.sion. She might be immune to blaster fire but Fitz certainly wasn't. So he did what he was best at. He ran or rather pushed, shoved and scrambled for his life.

Compa.s.sion batted the screaming humans aside as if they were flies. She didn't take her eyes from her target. He was blissfully unaware of what was approaching him. Inside her, gears and cables started to churn and flail.

The fat man cannoned into her, sucking in great gulps of air. She held him by the arms, ignoring his screams of pain and fear.

Yes. It was definitely him. The one from whom the Doctor had obtained the Randomiser.

Something whizzed past her ear. She raised her head. A line of Anthaurk commandos were picking their way across a carpet of dead bodies towards her. Casually, she took the screaming Lombardo inside herself and ran out of the hall. a part of herself looking inwards towards the cowering man.

Lou Lombardo stood on the metal floor of the console chamber, staring about himself with a look of dawning realisation.

'You you're the Doctor's new TARDIS, aren't you?'

The Doctor had been foolish to be so free with such information. They were supposed to be fugitives, after all.

Compa.s.sion spoke, making her voice as loud and sinister as she could. 'I am.'

He bent at the knees, arms going up to cover his head. 'N nice to meet you,' he stammered.

'You know what I have brought you here for.' Lombardo shook his head. 'Look at the console. The black box. You recognise it.' It wasn't a question.

He walked over to the console, one hand picking at the other nervously. She saw him examine the Randomiser, muttering under his breath.

'Thanks to you, I am damaged. I cannot perform properly with that thing embedded within me. You must remove it!'

He looked up the at the console. 'I I can't! I'm no engineer, I'm just a salesman!'

Compa.s.sion swooped her internal viewpoint right down into his face, around his body. Who was he? Was he even human? The Doctor had never mentioned him before. She scanned him. He was human. A physical coward, like Fitz, but she could detect reserves of cunning and resilience. A con man, an entrepreneur, but certainly no Time Lord agent.

Compa.s.sion sent cables snaking down from the ceiling, wrapping around Lombardo's podgy body.

'Tell me how you obtained the Randomiser. Tell me!'

Lombardo's jowls shook as he struggled against his bonds. 'I bought it from a fence, honest. I don't know his name. In my line of business it doesn't pay to ask too many questions.' He strained against the cables. 'Let me go!'

'No.' Rage surged through Compa.s.sion. She felt herself losing control, felt the TARDIS taking over. Like an animal in pain it was lashing out. She squeezed harder, harder, watching as Lombardo clawed at the cables around his chest and neck. She was going to punish him for what he'd allowed the Doctor to do to her.

She was going to kill kill him? As she'd tried to kill Fitz? him? As she'd tried to kill Fitz?

What had she become?

Compa.s.sion was suddenly afraid. Was she going mad? Was her new self developing a dual personality half the old Compa.s.sion, half the new TARDIS being? Had the Randomiser cleaved her in two? She looked outside herself. She was curled up in a dark, cramped s.p.a.ce behind a wall panel. She could hear the distant sounds of battle. Fitz. She should be helping him. She closed her external eyes.

Lombardo. He was still alive. She wanted to let him go. She was the universe's newest creation, and stomping about killing things was not her style.

She marshalled her energies, fought down her rage. The cables went slack and retracted, like snakes skulking back to their lairs. Lombardo slumped to the grating.

She stared at his body for a while as he gasped for air, marvelling at its fragility, and the obstinacy of the mind within that could go on living, knowing that there were hundreds of things that could go wrong with the body.

She supposed that was what being human was all about. Going on, despite the odds, despite the facts, despite the total insignificance of one life in relation to the universal scheme of things.

But Compa.s.sion wasn't human any more. She was the first of a new breed. She was significant. She mattered. The universe was going to have to take notice of her.

'I'm a child of the universe,' she whispered. 'I'm special. so special, I got to have some of your attention, so give it to me.'

Lombardo gasped and wheezed. 'What was that?'

'Nothing,' said Compa.s.sion. 'Nothing of interest to you.'

Then she let him go.

Lou Lombardo found himself on his hands and knees on the cold floor of Aloysius Station, facing a crack in the wall. He shook his head, and peered into the crack.

Eyes gleamed at him. The eyes of the Doctor's creature.

His mind a whirl of terror and confusion, Lou Lombardo scrambled to his feet. He ran one way up the corridor, skidding to a halt as the sound of blaster fire broke out ahead.

Turning on his heel, he ran back the other way, giving the crack in the wall a wide berth.

He vowed that he would never, ever, have anything to do with time-travel technology again. From now on if he survived the Anthaurk onslaught it was back to pies, pasties, sausage rolls, samosas, cream cakes and soft drinks for Lou Lombardo.

Compa.s.sion watched him go, and emerged from her hiding place. There was the distant boom of an explosion. A quick scan revealed that Aloysius Station was sustaining extensive damage: its shield capacity was down by 40 per cent and the superstructure was being hit by concentrated bursts of plasma fire from the Anthaurk ships. Inside, several squads of Anthaurk commandos were murdering their way through the station's mostly civilian population.

Aloysius wouldn't survive much longer. It was time somebody did something about it.

Compa.s.sion smiled to herself. Maybe she was that somebody.

She set off down the corridor, a plan forming in her mind.

Fitz was lost, afraid, and fully expected to be blasted to bits any second. He had to find Compa.s.sion, had to get out of this place. But it was beginning to feel as if he'd been running for a long time now. Surety his luck had run out, and it was going to end here, in pain, in fire, in He skidded round a corner and hit something hard. Something that dragged him into cover behind a bulkhead door. Hot breath hissing into his ear. 'What the h.e.l.l are you doing?'

It was a soldier human, thank G.o.d young, blonde-haired. She reminded Fitz a little of Sam. Only Sam didn't have a scar across her cheek and would never wear a uniform or carry a blaster.

She grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back the way he came. 'Get the h.e.l.l out of here!'

'Where "the h.e.l.l" can I go? I've just come from an area swarming with Anthaurk. I'm afraid to say we're losing, baby.'

That didn't seem to be news to her. 'Yeah, well they caught us napping.' She looked him up and down, a cool, appraising glance. 'Can you use one of these?'

Fitz grabbed at the blaster she tossed to him, fumbling it and almost dropping it. 'Yeah, sure.' He smiled at her.

She didn't smile back. Instead she dragged Fitz over to a nearby section of collapsed wall. Every now and then the floor beneath him shook. How long before Aloysius burst open and let the coldness of s.p.a.ce in? He felt dazed, as if this was a dream.

'You saw our situation?' said the trooper earnestly.

In the dash for cover Fitz had caught a wild glimpse of a wreckage-strewn open area crisscrossed with walkways. There were about a dozen troopers, ranged in a ragged formation under the cover of various bits of collapsed infrastructure. They were laying down covering fire to suppress a squad of Anthaurk who were sheltering behind a mobile shield thing. Between the two forces was a doorway in the wall, from which the occasional blaster bolt streaked out towards the Anthaurk.

'Yeah. I saw,' he shouted over the incessant sizzle of blaster fire.

'We gotta take out that Anthaurk unit. Watch me.'

Fitz's guts were churning and he felt the urgent need to visit the lavatory. He crouched as close to the floor as he could get as the trooper flung herself upwards and over the collapsed wall, loosed off a round of blaster fire and ducked back down, face flushed, blue eyes fixing him with a stare of expectation.

She clearly expected him to do the same. 'What's your name?' he asked.

A minute frown. 'Trooper Jones.'

Fitz boggled. 'Not not Samantha by any chance?'

'Is this relevant?' She shoved him. 'Get up and fire that d.a.m.n blaster.'

Fitz dosed his eyes, breathed in as far as he could, and with one panicky lunge threw himself upwards, both hands around the heavy blaster, arms swinging across the charred nibble. He pressed the trigger, feeling it throb and pulse as beams of energy shot from the business end. Then he threw himself back into cover, and opened his eyes.

'Did you hit anything?'

Fitz shook his head. 'Didn't see.'

She was in his face in an instant, spittle flecking his skin. 'This isn't a game. The President's in there.'

'The President?' Fitz had a.s.sumed he'd died on Yquatine along with Il-Eruk and everyone else. So he was still alive. He'd almost got Fitz killed. Fitz ached to get his hands on him. Did he know what had happened to Arielle?

Trooper Jones was talking. 'We can't let the Anthaurk get to him. They've already killed Fandel. If the President goes, the whole System will fall to the Anthaurk.'

There was a lull in the shooting. Fitz peered over the rubble.