'He's here. And so are we.'

Peri didn't see the sense of the Time Lord's observation, but bit her tongue, determined not to comment.

'I can see from your expression that you don't agree.'

'Not at all.' She sounded phoney and unconvincing.

'You're right to criticise. What I have just said contradicts my own methods. But when the villain of this particularly nasty piece of work could be anywhere in the universe, it sometimes pays to use one's intuition. Therefore, I suggest we start by checking t.i.tan Three.'

Peri smiled, delighted to hear that the Doctor was once more making sense.

'And there we are!' he shouted excitedly, the index finger of his right hand, ridged and commanding, as it pointed at the screen.

Peri turned to look but could see nothing but the dust covered surface of the planet.

'There!' he shouted. 'That hump!'

Quickly, the Doctor operated the zoom and the area of interest was enlarged.

'Use your eyes,' he commanded. 'Look at that hump's symetry.

That's no part of nature's handiwork.'

Peri moved closer to the screen. He was right. Its shape was far too regular to have been created by the elements.

'Come on,' insisted the Doctor, as he opened the main door. 'That's where we're going!'

And without another word he was gone. Peri reluctantly followed, wondering why they were walking when they had the TARDIS.

But if she were to play his foil, his Watson, then she would have to learn to repress her own doubts and forebodings.

She only hoped she wouldn't live, or worse still, die regretting it.

Their test completed, Romulus and Remus had been taken to an area in the safe house where they could rest.

Lounging on comfortable couches, they examined the small, black spots created when Azmael had taken possession of their memories.

Although the drug had loosened its grip even further, there were still enormous gaps in their ability to remember, and it frightened the twins.

But what had frightened them even more was the appearance of Mestor. Never in the whole of their short lives had they seen anything quite so grotesque.

Mestor the Magnificent was nearly two metres tall. Everything about him was ugly even to other gastropods. Unlike the slugs found on Earth, Mestor stood upright, using his tail as a large foot.

To aid his balance, he had grown two small, spindly legs, so that when he walked it was necessary for him to gyrate his body from side to side.

The sight wasn't a beautiful one.

Such were the large rolls of fat that covered his body that everything wobbled as he moved. So instead of a neat, mincing gait, he appeared to undulate, like a large beached walrus, desperately struggling to regain the sea.

Apart from his legs, he had also grown two tiny arms and hands which resembled the forequarters of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. And as with that particular dinosaur, they served no useful function, except when he spoke. Then he would gesticulate with them, prodding the air to emphasis a special point.

His face, what there was of it, was humanoid in form. As he did not have a neck, head or shoulders, the features had grown where what would have been the underside of a normal slug's jaw. As though to add to the peculiarity of a gastropod with a human face, the features were covered in a thin membrane.

When Romulus and Remus had first caught sight of him, they thought he had swallowed someone and that the face of the victim was protruding through the skin covering his gullet.

For all we know, they could have been right.

If Mestor had simply been an enormous slug, content to nibble at the vegetation around him, then he would have proved to be nothing more than a curiosity capable of devouring forests.

But there was a little more to him than that.

Not only did he possess an intelligence that would have put to shame the finest brains on Earth, but also a desire to dominate those around him. And like all dictators, he was none too concerned how he achieved it.

Therefore he had kidnapped the twins.

Romulus and Remus Sylvest sat on their couches and contemplated on whether they had a future. If they were to stay alive, they reasoned, they would have to continue to cooperate, as it was only a matter of time before they were rescued.

At least, that's what they hoped.

The boys fell into silence as Drak entered the room carrying a tray of food. Gratefully they accepted the simple meal, devouring it greedily. They had forgotten how hungry they were.

If Archie and Nimo Sylvest had been present, they would not have believed the twins were their children. Gone were the arrogance and the overbearing desire to be the constant centre of attention.

They had even eaten their food without comment, unlike at home, when mealtimes became grotesque compet.i.tions about who could be the fastest or messiest eater.

Fear may not be the best regime to form and mould children's characters, but in the short time they had been Azmael's prisoners, Romulus and Remus Sylvest had grown up a great deal.

The only question was, would they remain alive to enjoy the benefit of that development?

Azmael yawned and stretched. For him, it too had been a hard day, but unlike the twins, he could not afford the luxury of sleep.

Instead he would have to be content with a brief sojourn in the revitalising modulator.

This is a machine not unlike a matter transporter, in as much as it breaks down the molecular structure of the body. Instead of then transporting it to a pre-set destination, the modulator bombards the atoms of the body with Ferrail rays. This induces a feeling of well being and contentment. Although no subst.i.tute for natural sleep, it does allow a person without time for sleep to continue working at maximum efficiency for a short period of time. Abuse of the machine can, of course, also induce death, as Professor Zarn, its inventor, found out.

Professor James Zarn enjoyed life very much. Although he was a gifted molecular engineer, his main interest was going to parties.

Inevitably on such occasions, he drank too much Voxnic, and as he went to parties seven nights a week, he lived with a permanent, mind-splitting hangover.

Awakening one morning and feeling particularly wretched, he decided it was time to do something about it. A man of his ability, he concluded, should be able to find a cure for the common hangover. Several weeks later he had built the first working revitalising modulator.

Much to his delight the machine not only ma.s.saged away his hangovers, but also revitalised him, allowing him to increase his party going. As he no longer lived by day with the permanent side-effects of Voxnic poisoning, his performance at work had also risen to new heights.

In the year 2310 AD he won the coveted Astral-Freed award for his contribution towards the eradication of s.p.a.ce plague. s.p.a.ce plague was a particularly nasty disease carried by a tiny flea which lived exclusively in the hold of intergalactic balk freighters. It could leap, vertically, exactly one metre ninety, which by that year was the eye level of the average humanoid male.

No-one knew why it had evolved to leap that precise height, as no-one knew why it would then spit a fine, sticky substance into the eye of the chosen host.

But it did. And the effect was devastating.

As the flea's spittle entered the blood-stream, the victim would become relaxed, friendly and agreeable. He would stop arguing with his fellow crew members, preferring to co-exist affably.

Worse still, he would become indifferent to his bonus - the only reason anyone undertook the mind-numbing work in the first place - preferring to coast along at his own relaxed pace.

Even worse than that, an infected person was unable to lie.

Therefore when his ship docked, he would willingly declare any illegal cargo being carried. Point out the deliberate errors in the manifest. Report the captain for any illegal moves or shortcuts he had taken that might have endangered life or his ship. In fact, tell the precise, literal truth.

As every established and developing planet depended upon intergalactic trade to survive, the 'truth tellers', or s.p.a.ce plague victims, became more and more embarra.s.sing to the authorities.

No-one wanted the enquiries the s.p.a.ce plague victims provoked.

On the other hand, the authorities, if they were to maintain their own credibility, couldn't ignore reported illegal activity, and were forced to investigate every allegation. This often necessitated impounding the ship until the enquiry had finished.

It was not long before a sizeable portion of the balk freighter fleet was out of action.

Even those who had managed to keep flying found it difficult to crew their ships. No-one wanted the work unless they could engage in a little smuggling. Their desire wasn't to make a vast fortune, but simply to add a little excitement to the voyage. It was also a game every crew member and custom officer enjoyed.

Then along came Professor Zarn and his team. By developing a flea that could jump three metres, then releasing it aboard the infested freighters, he immediately solved the problem. As the super fleas bred with the ordinary ones, they produced offspring that naturally jumped higher. Those that didn't brain themselves on the ceiling were able to spit to their hearts' content at nothing in particular, being a good half metre above the head of the average humanoid. The plague was soon over and everything could return to how it was before.

As stated, Professor Zarn won the Atral-Freed award for his efforts. Not only did he gain a great deal of prestige, but also a lot of money, which the foolish man insisted on spending on even bigger, longer and more outrageous parties.

One night, while more than usually under the influence of Voxnic, Zarn decided to freshen himself up a little with a session in his revitalising modulator.

Unfortunately, he took into the machine a bottle of Voxnic.

Nowadays the principles governing the modulator are fully understood, but at that time it wasn't known that two things act rather strangely under the influence of Ferrail rays.

The first is Voxnic; the second is gla.s.s.

When Zarn had finished his session in the machine, the door opened automatically. But instead of the revitalised Professor, there was nothing to be seen but an enormous bottle of Voxnic.

What had happened was this. When the Professor and Voxnic had been atomised, the Ferrail rays had caused the molecules of the alcoholic beverage to become hostile. Each Voxnic mole'cule had lined up with one of the Professor's, absorbed it and then used the sudden intake of energy to reproduce an exact copy of itself.

Therefore, when the process was completed, there was a great deal of cloned Voxnic and no Zarn.

The bottle had enlarged itself in a similar way.

The saddest thing of all was that the bottle was discovered by a particularly drunken group of the Professor's guests, who drank it dry without a second thought.

This, of course, wouldn't happen to Azmael, partly because he knew about Zarn's unfortunate accident, but mainly because there wasn't any Voxnic in the safe house.

Cautiously, the elderly Time Lord entered the revitalising modulator, sealed the door behind him and set the control for sterilisation. It was vital that the atmosphere in the modulator was free of all foreign bodies, as the presence of an insect, for instance, could prove more devastating than Professor Zarn's liquid experience. To be drunk by your friends is bad enough, but to be ostracised by your social peers because you had suddenly the head and habits of a veedle fly (see Masters and Johnson's Social and s.e.xual Life of the Veedle Fly for the disgusting details of its behaviour pattern) would be too much.

With the cleansing process complete, Azmael set the timer to four minutes, switched on the master control and listened as the machine purred into life. Then slowly, very slowly, his body began to dissolve into a billion spheres of dancing red and white lights which glittered and sparkled as they swirled around the modulator.

The master control clicked automatically and the bombardment of Ferrail rays began. The relief of Azmael's tired molecules was instant. Although reduced to his component parts, Azmael's conscious mind remained active, allowing him to enjoy the refreshing experience as it occurred.

As the Ferrail rays continued their relaxing work, the elderly Time Lord considered staying in the modulator forever. There were worse ways, he reckoned, of spending life than being gently pummelled and ma.s.saged into an oblivion of ecstasy. Outside the machine was only heartache, frustration, anger and disappointment. Why not leave it there? he thought. Inside the modulator he was safe, happy secure.

But he was wrong.

At first he paid no attention to the minute deviation in the purr of the machine. He had no reason to. It had done it many times before. After all, it was quite old and in need of servicing.

Even when he became aware of a strong smell, not unlike that of rotting vegetation, he still paid little attention. It wasn't until the odour had developed into a near stench that he began to worry.

But then it was too late.

Unable to leave the modulator until the timer had run its course, Azmael concentrated with all his effort to eradicate the nauseating sensation. But the harder he tried, the more powerful the presence became.

Then as suddenly as the smell had arrived, it was gone. Slowly, Azmael allowed himself to relax. As he did, he began to feel a familiar but unpleasant sensation - the presence of another consciousness in his own mind.

It was Mestor!

Poor Azmael. The only place he ever felt safe and alone had been violated by the thing he hated most.

'I know you're here,' said the Time Lord nervously.

There was a loud harsh intake of breath and the sickly, sibilant voice of Mestor began to bombard his mind.

The gastropod was, as always, angry. He had expected an all out attack by the Earth authorities, which had not materialised. This delay had meant a waste of vital time and Mestor wanted Azmael to suffer as it was his carelessness that had first led the now destroyed starfighters to t.i.tan Three.

Even though the gastropod now knew that the Earth authorities had been horrified by the sudden loss of six of their finest and deadliest warships, and that they had recalled all their patrols in antic.i.p.ation of an attack on the planet, he still had to exercise his revenge.

The attack continued until Azmael felt he was about to die.

But Mestor was not a fool. He still needed Azmael in one piece. As he sensed the Time Lord's mind crumbling, he withdrew, leaving what felt like a screaming silence in the old man's head. This was, for a moment, almost as painful as the verbal onslaught.

As the modulator came to the end of its timed cycle. the automatic control clicked once more and the door of the machine slid silently open. Azmael, looking and feeling more wretched than when he had entered, staggered out.

As he lowered himself into an easy chair, Noma and Drak entered.

'We are to return to Jaconda,' he said, trying to hide the strain in his voice.

Noma and Drak exchanged a furtive glance.

'Orders of Mestor. We are to leave at once.'