Big business would lead the way, and smaller commerce would drag along in its wake.

The President would probably give him a medal for services to the Empire.

He'd always wanted to get a medal.

He reached the double doors to the main conference room. Smiling to himself, Falsh went through.

The woman was in the doorway, and he almost fell over her. The agitator.

Her friend was sprawled on the ground beside the flickering, pulsating wall.

But they would keep; the Agent was his first priority. It was standing; twitching as if itching to move, dried blood caking its broad, white face, eyes dark and dull.

'Greetings, schmuck,' said Falsh casually. 'I want you to listen carefully to what I'm going to say. You're going to leave in your ship and go back to your people. You're going to tell them that Robart Falsh has been keeping nothing from them. You will exonerate me from any and all blame. You will believe all I have told you previously, and will actually recall evidence I have shown you that backs it up. . . '

He went on into the details. The Agent stared blankly at him, twitching a little now and again.

'Your departure time is thirty minutes from now. You shall remember meeting me here, and seeing the evidence I have described. You shall accept my offer of generous compensation for your lost investment.' He smiled. 'We shan't meet again.'

Now he turned his attention to the Doctor, lying unconscious on the floor.

He prodded him with his-foot. 'Who are you?'

The agitator's voice was high and ghostly: 'I am the Doctor.'

'Who do you work for?'

'The League. . . '

'League? What league?'

'The League. . . Against. . . Will-Sapping Nanotechnology.'

Falsh was just processing that when the Doctor sprang into life. He grabbed Falsh by both shoulders and shoved him over. By the time Falsh had scrambled 139 back up, the Doctor was training the Agent's gun on him.

No! he wanted to yell. he wanted to yell.

'Give me that gun,' Falsh hissed.

The Doctor seemed to consider this. Then he shook his head. 'No, I don't think so.'

'How did you resist the paint?'

'Perhaps I'm more of a wallpaper man. Or maybe it's just that I can't see violet.' The Doctor shrugged. 'But enough of me. We've been hearing so much about you! We've learned all sorts of fascinating things about the Inst.i.tute, your weapons research, the mining facility on Thebe. . . '

'Who are are you?' Falsh hissed. you?' Falsh hissed.

'Blackmailers in training. We want our friend Fitz Kreiner back. You remember Fitz, of course?'

Falsh said nothing.

'Last seen hiding under one of those.' The Doctor fired the gun at the table.

A huge scorch tore through the teak.

Falsh spluttered on a thick squall of black woodsmoke. 'I don't know where he is.'

'Are you sure? We've got enough evidence to bury you, Falsh.' He smiled.

'Although since you're here, and I have the gun, we could always try it for real.' He fired the gun again, this time scorching the floor at Falsh's feet. 'So I repeat: where is he?'

'I'm telling you, I don't know!' Falsh snapped. 'I thought he left the station with you.'

The Doctor looked stern, apparently considering. Then he sighed, deflated.

'All right. Well, I only hope Aristotle Halcyon will prove more helpful.'

'Halcyon?'

'He took away my TARDIS. Large blue box, about so big. . . ' He gestured wildly with the gun, and Falsh did his level best not to wince. 'You've not seen it? Ah, well. Perhaps you could arrange an audience for us so I could ask him myself. Some mercury would be nice too.'

'Perhaps you you could go to h.e.l.l.' could go to h.e.l.l.'

'If h.e.l.l is other people, I've a suspicion I'm already there.'

'Sartre also said that man was condemned to be free.' Falsh nodded to the gun meaningfully.

'Some of us are more free than others.' The Doctor smiled. 'Now that you've done what you came here to do, I suggest we leave for your ship and continue the conversation there. Once I've woken my friend from the influence of your clever colour scheme. Halcytone, isn't it? With one or two improvements made to the basic design by the distributors, I should imagine. . . '

'How did did you break its hold?' Falsh demanded. you break its hold?' Falsh demanded.

140.

'With difficulty.' the Doctor confessed. 'That's quite a powerful weapon you have there. Developed at the Inst.i.tute, I take it?'

'I'm telling you nothing.'

'What, nothing at all? Even though I've got a gun?'

Falsh righted an overturned chair and sat down in it.

'All right. I'll just take your ship myself, and leave you locked in here with your Icthal friend.' The Doctor backed away to the door, still covering Falsh with the gun. He stooped and picked up the girl with his free arm. 'I think you told it to leave in thirty minutes, didn't you? I wonder if its seeing you here will make any difference to those posthypnotic suggestions you made. . . '

The door opened, and he ducked back through it. Once it slid smoothly back across, a high-pitched whirr sounded from the other side.

'That was just me fusing the door controls,' the Doctor called. 'I'll pop back later to see if you've changed your mind. . . '

Shaking with rage, Falsh sat down again. Behind him the Agent loomed like some malevolent statue; a memorial statue, perhaps, to Arnauld Klimt.

'Klimt, you son of a b.i.t.c.h b.i.t.c.h,' Falsh cursed, and he went on cursing as the minutes ticked away.

141.

Chapter Eighteen.

Tinya was walking across town to the industrial park, drying off slowly in the warmth of the fake sunshine.

Tourists swarmed the sidewalks, spilling in and out of diners and galleries and holoshows and arcades. Music blared, parents yelled, kids screamed. The roadways were seemingly solid with vehicles; their antigravs thrummed in Tinya's ears, blew hot air about her ankles. Bars and restaurants, rushed into opening for just this reason, were full to overflowing. Security squads kept watchful eyes as they fended off requests for directions and occasional aggro from pa.s.sers-by.

This was probably the most people Callisto had seen in over a century, and the city was barely coping. Tinya decided she could feel justifiably proud of herself. She'd promoted this event well. It had caught the public's imagination in a way few things did these days; nothing had caused such a stir since Halcytone. She was responsible, in her own small way, for restoring the wonder.

Of course, there were always people poised to hijack an event like this; opportunists setting up stalls on unguarded corners, flogging endless cash-in c.r.a.p. She noted now that moonrock and Halcyon pennants had been sub-sumed by hastily prepared cuddly s.p.a.ce slugs, T-shirts and jackets, scarves and stickers and ceramics stupid souvenirs sold to stupid people. There was no shortage of volunteers to buy; disorderly queues were springing up practically everywhere you looked.

She made slow but steady progress, but the crowds didn't relent. Self-appointed experts hotly disputed the sense of a s.p.a.ce slug in pavement cafes.

Some suspected Halcyon had arranged the slugs himself as a joke on the Old Preservers. The OPs themselves were out in force; Tinya soon found out that the traffic was being disrupted by a march of protestors through the city, holoplacards screaming neon slogans in the air STOP SENSELESS DESTRUCTION. . . FOUR BILLION YEARS OF HERITAGE. . . Fathers eyed their stadium tickets nervously and a.s.sured their families the show would go ahead tonight, whatever happened.

She supposed everything would just keep on building towards the big moment tonight.

Halcyon was obviously hedging his bets. He was up to something, and 143 it had something to do with the mysterious big blue box; from what she'd overheard in the dressing rooms, it was supposedly bigger on the inside than on the outside, as well as being able to form itself out of thin air. He'd had it all the time, the sly b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and the agitator, Fitz, hadn't seemed happy about it. . .

There was a sudden furore as a crowd of people tumbled out of a restaurant, exchanging angry words with the manager. Something about a couple of chiggocks escaping the kitchen and running out into the dining area, knocking over chairs and tables. . . Onlookers started joking about the state of Callisto's kitchens if even the chiggocks wanted out. Apparently there was a place over on so-and-so street that had the same problem. Was that the diner on wherever? No, that was somewhere else, said a tanned old tourist sagely, but they'd had a chiggock escape there too at lunchtime. . .

Tinya moved on, shaking her head. Once she'd dealt with her current, pressing business, she would have to give that blue box some serious thought.

It might present some extremely interesting opportunities.

Trix saw the light some way off. She knew she was supposed to make for it.

The voice in her head was telling her.

It was the Doctor's voice.

What the h.e.l.l was he doing in her head?

She started to peg it like billy-o for the light. She wasn't having him poking about in there. She needed to get him back on the outside where he belonged, soonest. The light was near now, and it was white, almost textured, glowing softly, and now she was there, she It was like rising up out of a bath when you've been holding your head under, submerged in weird echoey silence a rush of sound and sensation.

Happily she wasn't naked. Unhappily this wasn't her bathroom.

The image of the alien swirled round her head like thick, scalding water.

'Get it away from me!' she shouted.

'It's all right, it's taken care of.'

She stared around, momentarily panicked. The Doctor was kneeling on the floor in front of her, holding her up. Her head was pounding, stale blood souring the back of her throat.

'What happened?' she hissed, batting away the Doctor's hands from her shoulders.

'I've brought you back round. Finally.' He looked at her, concerned. 'You were put into a state of sensory torpor. Made malleable and primed for hypnotic suggestion.'

'Why?'

'Because that's what this Halcytone paint can do.'

144.

'Why?'

'Don't ask me.'

She paused. 'Why?'

'Because I've got Falsh locked up in there; you can ask him him.'

'Wow. That should improve the quality of our evidence.' Her head felt like it was splitting open, and she closed her eyes. 'Have you found out about Fitz?'

He grimaced. 'Falsh isn't being terribly talkative. And we need answers to a good many questions. Here.' She opened her eyes as he pressed the alien's gun into her hand. 'You'll probably be more convincing with this than I am.'

'You're very trusting,' said Trix. 'After what we've been put through I might be tempted to use it on him.'

'That's not the way,' he said firmly. 'Especially not here. Kill Falsh and we lose our access to Halcyon, NewSystem Deconstruction '

' and Fitz and the TARDIS, I know, I know.' She sighed. 'I wasn't thinking of killing him, for G.o.d's sake. . . Maybe just a flesh wound or two.'

'Come on. Let's go and see if he's feeling more co-operative. I've got him locked up with our alien friend, and I'd rather we were gone before it wakes up. I have a feeling it's going to be in a very funny mood. . . '

Fitz and Sook made their way through the hordes thronging the Callisto streets.

'It's like a carnival!' laughed Fitz. 'All these people, so happy. . . and all because they think a load of rocks are going to be blown sky high!'

'Nothing like a bit of carnage to make people perk up,' said Sook drily. 'Jeez.

Just four hours to go.'

'And here we are sneaking off!' He looked at her hopefully. 'So what's so secret you couldn't talk to me about it in the stadium? News from Halcyon?'

'No,' she said. 'Halcyon's been trying to get hold of Falsh, but he doesn't answer.'

'And no sign of Tinya?'

'None. But keep your eyes peeled for Roddle. He's taken that stupid flyer of his out for a spin around Callisto City.'