He found himself genuinely curious to know what was going on.

At least Sook's earlier weirdo behaviour made sense now. There was him thinking she had either a soft spot or the hots for him, when really she'd simply a.s.sumed him to be another Gaws or Mildrid.

'Falsh thought I was an agitator, as well,' mused Fitz, not sure quite how to take this typecasting.

'And now Halcyon thinks you're a genius.' Sook looked at him, her sharp features caught somewhere between incredulity and real admiration. 'His mind's still recovering from the projections. He said the computational basis of those rooms you came up with was like nothing he'd ever experienced, not in any of his studies of any of the schools.'

'Schools, schmools,' said Fitz. 'I just copied places I've been and squished them into the template.'

'You can't fake those kinds of equations,' Sook a.s.sured Gaws and Mildrid, who both wore polite ' oh really? oh really? ' expressions. She glanced back at Fitz. ' expressions. She glanced back at Fitz.

'Unless you've got a computer standing in for your brain.'

OmiG.o.d, thought Fitz, grinning weakly. The TARDIS. . . when recreating him, she'd modelled him on the Fitz she remembered through her telepathic circuits but at the end of the day she wasn't truly alive, not in the way he was. So some stuff she'd guessed at; some stuff she'd probably improved without even meaning to. His dreams all made sense for one thing. Plus he almost never forgot what he'd come into a room to fetch, which back on Earth had used to drive him crazy. thought Fitz, grinning weakly. The TARDIS. . . when recreating him, she'd modelled him on the Fitz she remembered through her telepathic circuits but at the end of the day she wasn't truly alive, not in the way he was. So some stuff she'd guessed at; some stuff she'd probably improved without even meaning to. His dreams all made sense for one thing. Plus he almost never forgot what he'd come into a room to fetch, which back on Earth had used to drive him crazy.

And clearly, unbeknown to him, his thoughts now had a deeper structural underpinning which machines like a PadPad could recognise and appreciate.

The grin became a little more concrete. He'd always resisted change, but sometimes. . . he guessed it could be good.

'So you're well in favour with Halcyon,' said Gaws. 'That must suit your own purposes very well, Kreiner.'

'Well, it is what you came here to do,' said Mildrid brightly, 'isn't it?'

Sook was watching him closely. 'But on whose authority? Are you a Falsh agent? Sent to keep tabs on us?'

'Would I admit it if I was?' Fitz pointed out. 'Not that I am, obviously.'

'Then who do do you work for?' asked Gaws. you work for?' asked Gaws.

Everyone was watching him like he'd just come out of a coma, waiting eagerly to hear his first words. Certainly, now they knew Fitz was in favour, Gaws and Mildrid were taking an altogether friendlier interest in him. They thought he could be of use to them, he supposed. Well, he'd just play it cool and consider his options.

80.'Enough about me,' he said airily. 'How are you planning to get at Halcyon and Falsh, then?'

'Halcyon is asleep now, isn't he, dear?' said Mildrid worriedly.

Sook nodded. 'He won't rise till seven.'

'We're going to stage a stunt,' said Gaws. 'Cause maximum disruption. Blow his vidcast out of the water.'

Fitz looked curiously at Sook. 'You're letting this happen?'

'We couldn't do it without her,' said Mildrid. 'Sook's been leaking information to us about his activities for over a year now, allowed us to get protesters to key spots, send out newsblasts. . . '

Gaws puffed out his measly chest. 'Do you realise we ferried eight thousand agitators out by cargo thruster to save the Oort Cloud?'

'The what?'

'Big bunch of rocks at the edge of the solar system,' said Sook distantly.

'Where long-term comets come from.'

'And did you save this cloud?'

'Well, no,' Mildrid admitted.

'Halcyon and Falsh had arranged tow fleets,' said Gaws bitterly. 'Captured each rock in a gravity field and dragged them out to the frontiers. Sold Sold them! them!

To the Kilomons, Draconians, pretty much anyone.'

'Who kept the cash?' wondered Fitz.

'After deduction of operational expenses and a nominal fee for both Falsh and Halcyon, EarthCentral pocketed the lot,' said Sook. 'Helped fund expansion.'

'Pieces of Earth's heritage, flogged off to her rivals, her enemies. . . ' Gaws took a disconsolate swig of coffee. 'Not right. Not right at all.'

Fitz supposed it was like j.a.panese millionaires buying up old English castles and shipping them out stone by stone. 'But will anyone miss this cloud? I mean, if it's full of rocks. . . '

'Like your head!' Mildrid chided. 'The Oort Cloud was once pure conjecture, a holy grail of science and astronomy. Then it was discovered. . . Then the probes went. . . Then the humans humans went. . . ' went. . . '

'Yes, they went there all right.' Gaws took up the tirade, which was probably a set text in the old preserver handbook. 'First they mined it out. Then the first colonists used it as a stopping-off point on the long way out to the stars.

When the long-haul ion drives came in, its strategic value was ended.'

'And it became a hazard to traffic,' Sook added. Gaws glared at her. 'Well, it did!'

'It's senseless, pointless destruction,' said Gaws, his face turning meaner and greyer. 'But it's so trendy, isn't it? Halcyon is the President's darling, so of course everything he does is lapped up and feted and celebrated all over 81 the Empire. They'll be tuning in in their billions to see him strip Jupiter bare, rushing out to buy the holovids. . . ' By now his moustache was bristling like it was about to take off from his face. 'It's purely about egos!'

'And being trendy,' Fitz reminded him.

'Halcyon showing the Empire what a big man he is,' Gaws railed on, 'demonstrating his mastery over the elements!'

Sook sighed, an I-wish-I-could-let-this-lie-but-you're-so-wrong-I-can't sort of sigh. 'None of the sites are of cultural importance,' she said wearily. 'The demolition notices were posted on every satellite relay '

'How could you debase your craft this way, Sook?' said Mildrid, tutting like a Christian to a fallen woman.

'And so we come to the point of my being here.' Sook gave Fitz a sour look.

'I used to be one of Halcyon's teachers in Feng Shui.'

Fitz gave her a puzzled smile. 'You taught taught him?' him?'

'Yes.' She rubbed her eyes like she was tired. 'I taught him corrective, constructive and predictive formula in the Xuan Kong, the Xuan Kong Fey Xing, the sixty-four hexagons method. . . '

'Those disciplines are thousands of years old,' chimed Mildrid.

'So how'd you become the hired help?' Fitz asked.

'Come on,' said Sook. 'I don't have to spell it out to you, do I?'

'The money,' said Gaws bitterly.

'No, it wasn't wasn't just the money.' She glared at him like a rebellious daughter. just the money.' She glared at him like a rebellious daughter.

'It was the opportunity. I agreed to work with him because of what I knew I could achieve through him.' She turned back to Fitz. 'Halcyon popularised Feng Shui, if you like. He brought his own interpretation to the philosophy, adapted it and created a new spin which caught the public imagination.'

'New spin, indeed.' Mildrid turned up her nose like there was a t.u.r.d on her lip. Fitz imagined the word 'new' was one she found generally upsetting.

'But Feng Shui concerns the rearrangement of rooms or buildings,' Gaws protested, 'even conurbations at a push. But to rearrange the solar system solar system? To treat its priceless jewels as mere ornaments, furniture!'

'Halcyon has worked to widen the scope of the equations for the celestial environment,' said Sook. 'He believes in what he's doing!'

'That devil took your teachings and twisted them round and about!' Gaws insisted. 'The very celestial objects that influenced the cla.s.sical architects of the KanYu are being. . .

tampered with. Reworked. Altered.' He leaned towards her, his weasly face even uglier in the throes of his pa.s.sion. 'He has betrayed your beloved philosophy.'

'He should have stuck to making novelty paint,' muttered Mildrid, lemon-lipped.

Sook said nothing, eyes downcast.

82.'And that's why you're helping the Old Preservers?' asked Fitz quietly.

She nodded.

A disconsolate silence settled over the tea party.

'Well, in any case,' Gaws added, 'we're saying no more about our plans until you, Kreiner, tell us about yours.'

'Mine?'

The moustachioed agitator nodded. 'You've gone to great lengths to get close to Halcyon. Why?'

'And you practically begged me to take you back to Falsh,' added Sook.

'Why? You implied that Falsh had deliberately destroyed Carme.'

'It wasn't an accident?' gasped Mildrid.

'It was covering up something dirty.' Fitz straightened in his chair, drained the dregs of his coffee. 'I'm a private investigator, see. Part of a triad working on the Falsh-Halcyon case. My friends and me, we infiltrated Falsh's HQ. . . '

Gaws and Mildrid gave a mutual gasp of admiration.

'So that was how you found your way here,' breathed Sook. 'From the station!'

'We were uncovering some pretty shocking stuff, but '

' How How did you infiltrate Falsh's HQ?' Sook wanted to know. 'Wait, I get it. . . ' did you infiltrate Falsh's HQ?' Sook wanted to know. 'Wait, I get it. . . '

She looked at him, keenly. 'You knew Falsh was shipping all these valuables to his station. You also knew he doesn't know the first thing about art. So somehow you managed to get your blue box on board Falsh's cargo thruster with the other antiques, and you all hid inside it.'

Gaws smiled appreciatively. 'Getting yourselves safe pa.s.sage direct to a loading bay. And knowing you'd have safe pa.s.sage out again once you were loaded on to Halcyon's ship.'

'I see you've found me out,' said Fitz. He was enjoying this.

'Clever, Kreiner,' said Sook. 'I'll give you that. Except things went wrong, didn't they?'

Fitz sighed. 'Things kind of blew up in our faces. I had to leave my buddies stranded there. I've got got to get back to them.' to get back to them.'

Mildrid was checking her watch, a red digital affair. 'And we must get back to the sudship, Gaws. The rinse cycle will be finishing shortly.' She looked at Sook. 'You'll pay our usual fee for the cleaning?'

Sook sighed. 'How else could I maintain my cover?'

Gaws sighed too. 'And how else could Old Preservers cover their adminis-tration costs?'

But Mildrid perhaps self-conscious about her sighs was ignoring them both and frowning at Fitz. 'This "shocking stuff" you uncovered. Do you and your friends know what was hidden on Carme? What Falsh was so desperate to keep hidden?'

83.Fitz turned a brave smile on her. 'If I know my buddies, wherever they are they're working on it.'

84.

Chapter Eleven.

'I sense a pattern developing,' said Trix, as she surveyed the corpses.

The Doctor had steered their stolen ship to intercept the fabled Lost Chunk of Carme. It was a surreal sight; just as soil clings to an uprooted weed, red-brown rock hung beneath the bulk of the business park. There was barely enough s.p.a.ce to land there, and no helpful docking tube this time. They had to wear s.p.a.cesuits, thick and bulky, generating their own magnetic field; there were four on board for emergency use, but none of them really fitted Trix. She looked rumpled and crumpled, a Michelin Man gone to seed.

There had to be an easier way to get the TARDIS back.

She would never forget the journey across to this high-tech castle, with bright black s.p.a.ce spread behind her and the terrifying ma.s.s of Jupiter dead ahead. The industrial park itself was a vast trelliswork of red metal and white plastic, and although just a stone's throw away, it took an age, to get there.

The suit was walking by itself, shuffling her along with minute steps.

'No centre of gravity on this tiny chunk,' said the Doctor, 'and indeed, very little gravity at all. Take a single step forwards, you could land up half a mile to your left.'

'There is is no half a mile to my left.' no half a mile to my left.'

'That's why the suit computes the walking.'

Put that way, she supposed it made sense. She endured the ride, vertigo clawing at her senses, desperate to get inside the place so she could shut out the insane horizon of pastel stripes and stars.

And of course, once inside and back in control of her s.p.a.cesuit, she wished she was right back out on the minuscule surface again; such was the trade-off between weak gravity and weak stomach. The moment the Doctor had got them through the airlock and into the dark main building, they'd found the corpses.

The powerful torches in their suit helmets picked out the bodies in uneasy glimpses. Ripped and b.l.o.o.d.y uniforms. Gashed flesh rimed with frost. Some of the corpses were piled up against the main doors, like they'd been trying to get out. Others were lying at their feet as if trying to pull them back.