61.Trix felt a moment's flush of fierce relief. They hadn't been trailing the fish-thing after all. Peering into some kind of control room, white and unfussy as everything else, she could see only a man in grey coveralls, his back to the door, crouched over a control panel busy with tiny bubblescreens. He had a large pink bald spot in his grey hair with a hairy mole at its centre; it looked like a big, hungover eye in the back of his head.

The Doctor cleared his throat, and the man spun round in surprise. He was maybe mid-forties, had a gaunt, determined face, his high forehead half-hidden by spidery grey hair. He yanked a metal tube awkwardly from his belt holster and waved it uncertainly between them.

'It's all right,' said the Doctor quickly, 'we're friendly. I'm the Doctor, this is Trix.'

'Where did you come from?' the man hissed. 'Everyone's dead.'

The Doctor nodded at the metal tube. 'That's a sub-s.p.a.ce distress flare, isn't it? You're really not supposed to use those things indoors.' The Doctor was holding very, very still. 'You could blow up half the base.'

'Why are you here?' demanded the man, undeterred. The loose overalls he wore gave his name as 'Chief Supervisor Torvin, we're glad we've found you,' said Trix officiously.

Torvin narrowed his dark eyes and pointed the tube directly at her. It looked like a light sabre might shoot out from it any second. 'Who are are you people?' you people?'

'We're investigators,' she told him. 'Investigating the accidental demolition of Carme.'

'Accidental?' snorted Torvin. 'That was no accident. Falsh Industries sent explicit orders for the total vaporisation of that whole moon.'

Trix eyed the Doctor slyly. 'Do you have papers that prove this?'

Torvin frowned at them from beneath neatly tapering eyebrows. 'Papers?'

'Doc.u.ments, then.'

His hand tightened on the tube. 'Perhaps I could see your identification?'

'Perhaps we could see yours,' Trix retorted.

Torvin clearly didn't trust either of them a millimetre. But finally he sat back down and lowered his blasting pack. Trix was slightly unsettled by the intensity of relief on the Doctor's face.

'I don't suppose it matters who you are,' Torvin muttered. His overalls hung about him loosely, lending him a wizened appearance, though he could only be in his fifties. 'Not after this.'

The Doctor crouched down beside him. 'What happened?'

'That thing came and started. . . ' Torvin shrugged, kept his eyes down on the floor. 'I don't know what it was after. I was hiding.'

'Weren't you meant to be supervising?' asked Trix bluntly.

62.'Mining operations, yes, or ensuring the crew are at their stations, but when that thing thing appeared here. . . ' appeared here. . . '

'You left them to it and got the h.e.l.l out?'

The Doctor gave her a warning look and patted Torvin sympathetically on the shoulder. 'Question is, where is that alien now?' said the Doctor. He glanced around the equipment jammed into the room, and his eyes lit up at one particular piece of bric-a-brac. After a spot of tinkering, a section of the white wall slid back into the ceiling to reveal either a large scanner or a window overlooking the landing pad. Silently, the silver arrowhead was making its way skyward.

'Gone,' said the Doctor, stroking his chin. 'Not very thorough, is it?'

'Maybe you wounded it worse than we thought,' said Trix. 'Hope so.'

'Another mystery. . . ' The Doctor's nose had started twitching. 'And another.

What's that smell? Putrefaction?'

Torvin looked shifty. 'So now you know where I was hiding. The waste chute.'

'Listen, Torvin,' said Trix. 'I mentioned the possible existence of certain doc.u.ments earlier '

'All in the system files here, eh?' The Doctor was grinning through a huge bubblescreen he'd conjured up.

Torvin shrugged. 'The capabilities are there, but the crew didn't always bother.'

'As chief supervisor, isn't it down to you to be sure they did bother?' asked Trix.

'Might I have a word, Investigator Investigator?' The Doctor looked forbiddingly at her as she approached, and lowered his voice. 'Perhaps we could tread a little more softly? Friend Torvin is more than likely in a state of shock, he's probably feeling somewhat guilty about letting his crew die while he hid in the rubbish, and he happens to be holding a very large explosive indeed.'

'I take your point,' said Trix meekly.

'Why are you so bothered about Carme, anyway?' Torvin called over. 'Who are you investigating for?'

'We have reason to believe that Robart Falsh is involved in a high-reaching conspiracy,' said Trix, crossing to join him at the bank of controls. 'We think that there was valuable evidence on Carme he wanted destroyed.'

Torvin looked up at her, a steely keenness in his eyes. 'Falsh?'

'Falsh.' She held out her hand like a stern schoolma'am for the blasting pack. 'The same man who sends aliens to kill every possible witness.'

Torvin stared at her hand doubtfully. Then he duly handed over the silver tube. 'You think he he sent that monster?' sent that monster?'

'It makes sense,' said Trix.

63.'Who's ordered this investigation into Falsh?'

'We're not at liberty to say.'

'Then why should I '

'Torvin, is this the last datascan Falsh Industries sent to you?' The Doctor was looking intently at an image on the bubblescreen.

'When's it dated?'

'Two days ago. I can't find anything else recent, only. . . ' The Doctor turned to look at him sympathetically. I'm sorry, but would you mind having a look?'

Torvin got up and ambled over. 'That's Carme all right. Those figures there, see? Right ma.s.s, retrograde orbit. And that's Falsh's. . . ' He trailed off, looking at the screen.

'Falsh's what?' Trix prompted.

'Call up another Falsh scan. Should be in the same folder.'

The Doctor touched an icon and it spilled its virtual contents into the haze.

'There. You see the idents?' Torvin gestured. 'They all match because they were put through the proper channels. Some computer clerk in contracts, probably. But the Carme notice comes from a different router.'

'You can bet your life it's from some sleazy exec's desk back on the Falsh station,' said Trix, clapping her hands excitedly. 'More evidence!'

Torvin gave her a funny look.

'Trix loves her job,' the Doctor explained. 'Tell me, Torvin, what's this?'

He was pointing to something northward on the bubblescreen's image of Carme, which was somewhere between a schematic and an X-ray. It looked like a filled tooth, a big carbuncle on the little moon's surface, extending blocky roots down beneath the crust.

Torvin stared at it, blankly. 'Abandoned business park.'

'That's what the scan says, I know. But did any of your team check that for certain before the demolition?'

'Why would they do that?' snapped Torvin.

'Well, if you're going to be vaporising an entire moon, surely they'd scout it out first and '

'You think profit margins stretch to checking out every target we're given?'

Torvin looked at him derisively. 'The boys were given a job and they did it.

That's all. Now they're all dead, so if you're finished, I'm getting out of here.

While I still can.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'We'd rather you stayed. We still think you can help us in our enquiries.'

'Look,' shouted Torvin. 'How long do you think it will be before that alien thing comes back here with some friends to finish us off?'

'I don't think it is is coming back,' the Doctor shouted back in sudden temper. coming back,' the Doctor shouted back in sudden temper.

'It's done enough or had had enough, perhaps.' He closed his eyes and pressed 64 enough, perhaps.' He closed his eyes and pressed 64 his palms together as if trying to calm himself. 'I'm sorry to shout. I know you've just come through a terrible ordeal. But we would value your help.'

' I I value my life. I don't know how big this thing is,' said Torvin. 'Can't risk going to the authorities. . . But I've got friends in Joves.p.a.ce. They'll take care of me.' value my life. I don't know how big this thing is,' said Torvin. 'Can't risk going to the authorities. . . But I've got friends in Joves.p.a.ce. They'll take care of me.'

'Er, Torvin,' called the Doctor.

He turned, shaking his head. 'What is it now?'

'Did you oversee the demolition of Carme?'

'No.'

'Did you view back the probe cams covering Carme's demolition?'

He folded his arms. 'That would be a waste of time.'

The Doctor gave him a puzzled smile. 'You know, I don't mean to be rude, but as chief supervisor, what is it you actually do do supervise chiefly?' supervise chiefly?'

Apart from your own welfare, thought Trix. Not that she could blame him for that. thought Trix. Not that she could blame him for that.

'I wasn't on shift when Carme came under the hammer,' Torvin said calmly.

'Well, come here and enjoy the rerun. It'll help take your mind off things.

Mysteries are like that, aren't they? Marvellous distractions.'

He waved an arm and the bubblescreen grew bigger, so Trix could see it clearly from across the room. 'Textbook stuff, it really is right up until the point that the abandoned business park takes off into s.p.a.ce.'

Torvin suddenly stiffened. 'What?'

'See for yourself.' The film of the demolition progressed frame by frame.

'The heat spikes go in wham! Wham! Fifty of them all different depths and lat.i.tudes, melting the ice, weakening the rock, readying Carme for vaporisation.' He jabbed a bony finger at the screen, freezing the action. 'But look here, at the base of this installation. Three small plumes of incandescence.'

Torvin shrugged. 'The start of the vaporising reaction.'

'No. That doesn't kick in for several seconds.'

Trix wandered over. 'Then what are they?'

The Doctor looked at Torvin. 'I think they're propulsion units. This business park of yours took flight like a startled pigeon, out into s.p.a.ce.'

'That's ridiculous, said Torvin.

'"Wonderfully absurd" would be my choice of words.' The Doctor waved at the area around the business park. 'Look. This whole section of the crust and mantle fragments away. . . '

Trix, like Torvin, wasn't entirely convinced at first. It all happened so fast yes, there was a flare-up of some sort beneath the building but to her untrained eye it looked like simply the hors d'oeuvre to a particularly big blowout. She flinched as the rest of Carme lit up from within, and shattered, all in the s.p.a.ce of a second. By the time the luminance had faded, there was 65 nothing left of the little world but a light show, thousands of sparkling, dancing filaments of light slowly dying away into the void. You could see why people were coming in to get a good view. It was a staggering thought, to think that something so big, so solid, had been reduced to absolutely nothing, just like that.

Torvin was unmoved. 'The moon was demolished as ordered, its cells annihilated in a controlled, anti-matter particulate reaction.'

'Oh, indeed, it has ceased to be,' the Doctor agreed, 'it is an ex-moon.' He lowered his voice to a confidential level. 'But look.' He ran the footage again, paused it just as the shattering light exploded, and traced a circle around a small blob of matter in the screen. 'Enlarge by fifty.'

The blob resolved itself into a blocky building. 'There, you see? Those propulsion units allowed it to break away at a velocity high enough to clear the main ma.s.s of the moon before your clever little reaction could take hold of it.'

'It's just debris thrown clear,' Torvin insisted.

'Why would anyone do that?' asked Trix quietly. 'How many buildings, or complexes or whatever, have rockets built underneath them?'

'The incredibly important ones! The incredibly well-prepared ones!' The Doctor threw up his arms in despair. 'What's the matter with you both? Obviously Falsh is trying to destroy something truly extraordinary, something so threatening or significant it warrants going to all this trouble. It stands to reason that there will be those who are willing to go to equal lengths to preserve it.'

'Preserve it for how long?' said Torvin dourly. 'If that chunk did somehow survive destruction, it'll be spinning through s.p.a.ce on some random trajectory.

Sunwards, or out towards the outer planets or more likely flying into Jupiter.'

'Let's see.' The Doctor started riffling his fingers through the screen, turning pages of soft light. 'We must be able to track the fragment from here, you have systems that are '

'This place is finished,' said Torvin flatly. 'I'm taking a ship and making for an unfinished FILOC-P outside the orbit of Pasithee.'