"That's not the Doctor's style,' said Sam.

'He'll have to lump it. He's just a pa.s.senger.'

'You're very fond of him, aren't you?'

'Who, me? Fond of the Doctor?' Iris grinned broadly. 'Do you realise how rarely I see him? Almost every time I do, he's become someone else.

That's a lot of wasted time, Sam. Hundreds of years.' She gave her a sidelong glance.'Take the wheel a second, will you? I want to take my cardy off.'

Underneath she was wearing a sheer silver blouse with incredibly wide collars. She flattened these and fluffed up her hair before taking the wheel back. "Thank you, my dear. Now, pop upstairs and ask the Doctor what he'd like to do about dinner tonight.!'

'Is it my turn at the wheel?' the Doctor asked. He was sitting on the long front seat at the very top of the bus. That had always been Sam's favourite place in buses. Especially coming back from school, or from town on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. The Doctor had his feet up on the rail in front and was watching the endless desert unscroll around them.

'I just came up to say h.e.l.lo, really. Are you reading thatAja'ib thing again?'

'Oh, just flicking, really. My mind's all over the place. It keeps going on about these awful automata made of bronze and steel, and how they run around possessed by spirits, killing everyone they come across. Now they've found some way of making themselves invisible, on a planet where the natives are naturally invisible, and can only tell where each other is by wearing immense purple fur coats.' He chuckled and shut the book. 'It's ludicrous.'

'Iris was telling me about when you met Oscar Wilde.'

'was she? She's got a memory like a... like an elephant. That's right, isn't it?'

Sam nodded. 'What do you want to do for dinner, she wants to know.'

'Anything, I suppose. Is Gila behaving himself?'

'He's OK.'

'Did she tell you who we're looking for next? "The Doctor unrolled his sleeves.'Angela the Bearded Lady. She's got the strength of ten men and she flies the trapeze, apparently. I feel like I've joined the circus.' He looked out of the window. There was a low-roofed wooden building coming towards them. It stood in the middle of nowhere. 'An oasis!' he said, and pinged the bell. 'Let's see if she'll let us out for a bit.'

'Why build a cafe like this in the middle of the desert?' asked Sam. She expected somewhere rougher, more down at heel. Here they had gingham tablecloths, tomato-shaped bottles for tomato sauce, and a wine cooler.

'They were used to lots of quests coming through this way from Hyspero,' said Iris. 'At one time that highroad was chock-a-block with parties seeking their fortunes. They were more adventurous times.' She chose a table for four by the plate-gla.s.s windows, so she could watch over her bus. It looked dusty and forlorn without them, Sam thought. Iris was going to have to do something about that broken window.

'It's busier than you'd expect,' said the Doctor, sliding into his seat.

Sam looked round, and it was true: quite a few tables were occupied.

There was even a couple playing pool. Behind the counter lurched the unprepossessing proprietor, a vast woman with a hostile stare, and folds of leathery skin like a bulldog. A Steigertrude,' the surprised Doctor informed her with a nudge;'look at her little tusks'. Then, as Gila wearily read out the menu, he started to tell her about what the Steigertrudes had once done with android replicates.

'I think we have to go up and order,' said Gila, seeming wary of the woman's stare. Iris took herself off to order.

Gila tried to make polite conversation. 'I still don't know where you two come from.'

'Here and there,' said the Doctor, vaguely.

'South London,' said Sam. She saw that their arrival had gathered a certain amount of attention. But no one bothered them, their food arrived which, to their relief, didn't consist of the various locusts-boiled-in-honey and offal-related dishes that the menu promised. Iris had managed to coax the Steigertrude owner into serving them marvellous warmed salmon salads, with black olives and soft white bread.

'But where do they get these things out here?' asked Sam.

'Matter transmitter,' said the Doctor, tweezing an olive stone from between his teeth.

As if on cue, the s.p.a.ce of air between them, the counter and the door turned blue and filled with heat haze. Four tall figures were materialising.

Everyone stared at the jumbled opalescence in the gangway and held their breath.

The other clientele seemed to melt into the background. The Steigertrude woman slipped back into her kitchen. They must be used to trouble here, Sam thought. Gila had produced a vicious-looking knife from somewhere, and was on his feet before the figures had formed themselves. Iris was fumbling in her handbag, no doubt for the blaster.

Sam had seen her put it in there earlier.

'Um, h.e.l.lo,' said the Doctor, sliding straight into his usual diplomacy.

Four soldiers in ceremonial robes stood before them. Each was tattooed from head to foot in shades of blue and green. Patchwork, piecemeal, bricolaged designs covered even their faces and bald heads. Each was distinct, and comprehensively ill.u.s.trated with the flora and fauna of the planet Hyspero. As they took in their new surroundings they bowed deeply, as one, at the four travellers.

How immaculate they look, next to the four of us, thought Iris. She reminded herself sadly how hard it is to look chic on a quest.

For all their courtly bowing, each of the scarlet-liveried soldiers clutched a gleaming scimitar.

'Who are they?' hissed Sam.

'The personal guards of the Empress,' the Doctor said. 'I think we've been rumbled.'

Chapter Seven.

n.o.body Thinks Nothing

Iris is being filmed by Sam again. Her silver blouse glints in the sunlight.

She shields her eyes.

'I love a good sc.r.a.p; ***

They were taken outside to stand against the bus and the day seemed hotter than ever. A stiff wind had picked up, like the blast on opening an oven door, whirling loose bits of scrub gra.s.s and hard patters of sand into their faces. They could feel the eyes of everyone in the roadside cafe on them, as well as the pink albino eyes of the guards of the Scarlet Empress. They were herded and prodded and told brusquely to be quiet.

They had been quickly overpowered. Iris's blaster proved less than useless - broken inside her bag and leaking fuel into the lining. Gila had been forced to surrender his knife. Iris tried to say that she demanded the meaning of this, but she was silenced with one curt glance from the leader of the tattooed men.

Here they were forced to stand in the baking heat. The minutes ticked and trickled by. The Doctor looked at Sam.'We've left the cafe without paying our bill,' he said. "That's a bargain.'

He was promptly hit in the mouth and, as he slipped to the ground, Sam flung herself at the offending guard. She flattened him with surprise and Iris and Gila took their cues, Iris careering spectacularly into her own specially adapted Venusian aikido.

The Doctor struggled to his feet amid the pandemonium, in time to see the apparent leader of this mission raise his scimitar into a whirling, blinding arc of gold. He prepared to bring it slashing into the exposed back of Gila, who was busy laying into another of the guards. With a great shout, the Doctor leapt into the fray, coat tails flying.

They were embroiled in what seemed to Iris - even as she fought like a rampant tigress - the most disgracefully inelegant sc.r.a.p.

And then the hot air cracked with the deadly sound of round after round of machine-gun fire.Which brought the rumpus to a sudden end.

'n.o.body move,' came a hoa.r.s.e, unfamiliar voice. They stilled themselves in the clouds of rank dust they had managed to kick up. Gila took advantage of the hiatus to disarm his opponent, cracking the tattooed man's wrist in the process. There was a wounded yelp.

One more burst of gunfire.'Shut it!'

The bulky, grey-skinned waitress was wedged in the doorway of her establishment, squinting in the harsh light of day, with the ancient, smoking weapon slung expertly at her vast hip. She bellowed at the scarlet-robed guards, 'We've never put up with your sort here. The Empress holds no sway with the likes of us.'

Three of the guards promptly melted away like illusions.

'They soon gave in,' said Sam.

"They're sworn to protect their beautiful painted hides,' said Iris, picking herself up. "The Empress goes to immense expense to have them walking round like the living embodiment of exquisite, aestheticised pain, and she doesn't want them damaged.'

Gila kicked his own remaining, overpowered guard. 'What about this one?'

The Doctor said,'His little T-mat thing isn't working.'

The panic-stricken guard was using his unbroken wrist to click a switch in his belt buckle. His eyes were wild and pink.

The Doctor went striding towards the gun-toting Steigertrude, holding out both hands affably. 'Madam, you are a saviour...'

The woman growled low in her quivering, dewlapped throat. 'Just count yourself lucky,' she sneered.

'We do, we do,' he smiled.

'I think you should go now,' she grunted, and slipped the safety catch back on. "That'll be seventy dirnars. Service not included.'

The Doctor laughed.'And what service!' He turned to Iris.'Well, pay the woman!'

Within minutes they were back on the road, with Sam at the wheel - refusing to let the Doctor argue her out of it - and their prisoner was trussed up on the fold-out sofa.

'Why did you come after me?' Iris shouted, over the engine noise. 'What is that Empress of yours after now? Doesn't she trust me? Doesn't she think I'll go through with this? What kind of treachery has she dreamed up in that withered, pestilential old head of hers?'

Gila nudged her 'Let him get a word in edgeways.'

'Shut up,' said Iris, now well into her interrogative stride.'What's going on?'

The guard stared balefully. He licked his lips - patterned, the Doctor suddenly realised, with the neatly curling, emerald fronds of some kind of indigenous orchid - and said, 'Her majesty was suspicious, yes. She wanted to keep an eye on your progress.'

'She's very impatient,' said the Doctor.

'She is seething,' the guard said. He looked at Gila. 'Is this one of the mutant freaks?'

Gila hissed.

Iris nodded.

'Is he the one?'

She shook her head quickly.

'Is he the one, what?' Gila demanded.

Iris said,'So we have to go on and seek out the rest. Unhampered and unimpeded by you scabby lot.'

'Who's that one?' The guard nodded feebly at the Doctor.

'A friend,' said Iris.'He's just helping out.'

'The Empress swore you to secrecy.'

'Oh, shut up,' said Iris impatiently. 'Look. When I've got news, I'll let you know. She knows that. And she knows how experienced I am in this kind of business. I'll get the goods. When there's something to report, sh.e.l.l be hearing from me. And not before. Now I think it's time you left us, don't you?'

The guard just glared at her hatefully.

They left him by the roadside in what could only be described as the middle of nowhere. The Doctor went to the galley at the back of the bus to put some coffee on to brew. He watched through the back window as the vivid blue and red of the soldier vanished into the whiteness of the bleak landscape and the heat haze, receding quickly as Sam drove them recklessly down the open road.

Iris leaned over the Doctor's shoulder.'Do you know what her private guard call her?'

He spooned fresh coffee into the pot.'Hmm?'

"The Queen of Jam. The Gla.s.s Sultan. Because she sits inside a great gla.s.s cylinder, swimming forever in translucent, life-preserving unguents and never comes out. She's lost most of her faculties, protecting and preserving herself from the world.'

'I've never met her,' said the Doctor. 'I've never had the honour.'

Iris said simply,'She's a monster.'

The Doctor asked, 'What is it we're looking for? What did you mean when you said Gila isn't the one?'

'Oh, Doctor,' she smiled. 'Don't worry your pretty little head.'

He turned on her angrily.'I'm being extraordinarily patient with you, Iris.'

She patted his arm. 'I know you are, my dear. And I appreciate it. And I know how you hate being even one step behind anyone else. But trust me, hmm? I'm slightly embarra.s.sed by all of this. By being found colluding with a tyrant.Yet it's all very necessary. It'll all come out right in the end.'

He watched the road unspool behind them.Tll trust you, Iris,' he said.

'Only because I suspect you've got yourself into something very deep.