'Sook, what are are we doing here?' we doing here?'

'Ask them,' she said, gesturing to the cafe opposite.

Gaws and Mildrid were sat beneath a plastic parasol, sipping from bright beakers, smug smiles on their faces.

'You didn't need me me, you needed an escort,' Fitz complained. But she just smiled at him in a way that said, it ain't necessarily so it ain't necessarily so, and he let it pa.s.s.

'My dears!' said Mildrid merrily when she saw them. 'Haven't we done well!' She got up and pulled out a chair for Fitz to sit next to her, while Gaws did the same for Sook.

145.

'It's just an endless round of press for me,' said Gaws brightly.

'For the OPs,' Mildrid reminded him.

'Sixteen news-cats want interviews,' he laughed. 'I'm famous!'

' We We couldn't have asked for a better platform, could couldn't have asked for a better platform, could we we,' said Mildrid, fixing him with a stern look. 'Will you be having some food, dears?' She pa.s.sed round some menus. 'Apparently the chiggock's off.'

Fitz looked grimly at Sook. 'If it wasn't, I soon would be.'

They ordered some drinks from a hara.s.sed-looking waiter, then Sook dived straight in.

'So you got the slugs to Leda ahead of schedule. Make my life easy, why don't you?'

'Our source gave me the green light sooner than expected,' said Gaws, un-apologetically. 'And it took less time than I thought to run the blockade.'

'You were awfully brave, Gaws,' said Mildrid thoughtfully. 'Perhaps I should do your interviews with you, I could tell them that!'

'They know know that, Mildrid.' that, Mildrid.'

Sook interrupted. 'The plan was that the news should break just just before the vidcast. So we'd be taken off and that would have been that!' before the vidcast. So we'd be taken off and that would have been that!'

'I had to signal the news-sats at once before NewSystem could move me on,' said Gaws. 'Come on, Sook that aside, it's worked like a dream! The demolition's off!'

'Where did these slugs come from, anyway?' Fitz asked.

Gaws finished the last of his tea. 'I can't reveal my sources, Kreiner. Now, tell me, Sook, how is Halcyon planning to fill his vidcast now?'

'Nothing you need worry about,' said Sook with only the briefest of glances at Fitz. 'Nothing destructive.'

'We'll trust you on that,' Mildrid muttered into her tea. 'And you'll be able to get Gaws into the stadium as unexpected star guest?'

'I'll arrange for an access door in the hangar to be opened,' Sook said. 'Num-ber seven. The rest is down to you.'

Mildrid nodded. 'Fair enough.'

'Look!' cried Gaws, pointing into the street. 'That little girl's T-shirt. G.o.d G.o.d save our s.p.a.ce slugs save our s.p.a.ce slugs! She was brought here to witness destruction, now she's telling others to preserve life!'

'Amazing how quickly you can change a mind, isn't it?' said Sook quietly.

'And every one of those moons could be a viable slug habitat,' chortled Gaws. 'The Trust will have legal grounds to sequester the lot.'

'Provided the slugs pa.s.s the life-test,' Mildrid pointed out. 'And provided we can get the funding.'

'Of course we'll get the funding! I'll launch an appeal in my interviews!'

146.

'Excuse me.' Looking slightly sick, Sook disappeared off inside the bustling restaurant.

Using the loos, Fitz supposed. He smiled around a little self-consciously at Gaws and Mildrid.

'How's your investigation going, Kreiner?' asked Mildrid.

'I'm ready to confront Falsh any time now,' he said.

'You know a lot about us,' Gaws noted. 'None of which will make it into your finished report, I trust.'

''Course not,' said Fitz. 'We're all on the same side, aren't we?'

'It wouldn't be the first time Falsh has bribed people into switching.'

'Oh, use your eyes, Gaws,' said Mildrid. 'He likes the girl! He must know we can land her in hot water anytime we choose.'

Fitz frowned. 'Wanna bet? Halcyon thinks she's indispensable,' he said defensively. 'I don't reckon you could change that.'

'Perhaps we could if he ever found out how Sook turned over her parents to the lawmakers for trying to evade a senility termination order,' suggested Mildrid.

Fitz's throat dried up.

'Her academy was an Empire Trust building on Nereid,' added Gaws confidentially. 'She invited her parents to her graduation from the Eight Mansions school. The authorities were waiting for them.'

'An account of the whole business was kept in the archives. We found it, and presto.' Mildrid smiled benignly. 'Another drink?'

'No thanks,' said Fitz.

Sook came out again after a short while and took her seat. No one was saying a word. Fitz couldn't look at her.

'Who died?' she said.

I wish I didn't know, he thought. he thought.

Trix jabbed the gun in Falsh's back to propel him forwards as they reached the c.o.c.kpit of his flyer, the Polar Aurora Polar Aurora. It was more or less identical to the Polar Polar Lights Lights, and its stylish interior was a welcome change from the bare white of the unfinished podule.

'Now then,' said the Doctor, plonking himself in the pilot's seat. 'I imagine you'll have priority clearance through to Callisto. They've probably saved you a parking spot right next to your decoratiste decoratiste diva, Mr Halcyon.' diva, Mr Halcyon.'

Falsh said nothing. He'd stuck to silence since they'd let him out of the conference room, after a brief and fruitless attempt at bribery.

'Hey! What's this?' The Doctor held up some kind of weird visor perched on top of a small computer unit. 'There wasn't one of these on the Polar Lights Polar Lights.'

Falsh looked away in silence.

147.

'Course already computed, is it?' The Doctor put down the visor set and examined the computer. 'It's such a bore, hacking through the command protocols. Are you going to instruct the computer to get us moving?'

Still, Falsh said nothing.

Trix placed the gun to his head. 'Pretty please?'

Falsh exhaled heavily. 'Online. Commence programmed journey.'

The computer seemed to sigh in sympathy as the ship's engines fired up.

'Message received from Research and Development Unit on Callisto. Would you like me to play it?'

'Play it, Falsh,' suggested the Doctor. 'If she can stand it, I can.'

'Play it,' Trix agreed. 'Then we'll round up the usual suspects.' She nudged the oily gun barrel against Falsh's temple.

'All right,' said Falsh, each syllable said with unconscionable suffering.

A keen-looking, heavy-set woman in her forties appeared in a large bubblescreen, her wild red hair clipped up in a tangled ponytail.

'Falsh, it's Phaedra.' She spoke with a slight American accent, easy and a.s.sured. 'We've taken the slug apart, it is is artificial. Klimt's work all right artificial. Klimt's work all right same genetic styling you have on file.'

'Klimt's?' echoed Trix, but the Doctor shushed her furiously.

'Trouble is. . . ' A stray red lock fell over one green eye, and Phaedra blew it away. 'The d.a.m.ned thing meets all criteria needed to be cla.s.sed as a genuine new species, even if it was created artificially. Legally it's ent.i.tled to its own biosphere and Leda becomes the natural choice by default because that's where it was found. But OP lawyers could argue that every other moon in the sky's just as viable this thing can live anywhere.' She shrugged. 'Klimt did a good job. Maybe we can fake some pseudolife evidence to fool Pent Cent short term and get nuking, but it's looking unlikely.' A young bloke showed her some kind of readout. 'Right,' she told him. 'Falsh that capsule you sent from the podule. . . The authorisation codes are going through Pent Cent now.

They'll let us know if and when we can land it. You've got some nerve, we're only just tolerated on their turf as it is. What are you springing on us now?

We need to talk, so call me, check? Phaedra out.'

The bubble popped. Falsh's head sank forward into his chest.

'Looks like Torvin's coming their way,' Trix observed. 'His friends have missed their chance.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Could be embarra.s.sing for you, Falsh; him being Blazar's chief supervisor and all.'

Falsh looked up at him sharply.

'Yeah,' said Trix. 'You didn't kill all of them.'

'He'll have quite a story to tell the authorities,' the Doctor observed. 'But right now it's your friend Phaedra's story I find interesting.'

148.

'Yeah. So Klimt made made those slug things?' said Trix uneasily. 'That means they're weapons, right?' those slug things?' said Trix uneasily. 'That means they're weapons, right?'

'What do you say, Falsh?' the Doctor enquired.

He smiled mirthlessly. 'I say, d.a.m.n Klimt to h.e.l.l.'

'Are they weapons? How do they work?'

Falsh didn't answer. Trix dug the gun barrel a little harder against his temple.

'Did you know what you were getting? How does the paint fit in?' The Doctor lifted the visor set. 'I think this allows you to use it as a spying device.

And we witnessed for ourselves the way it can be used as a powerful hypnotic device.'

'But how does that square with s.p.a.ce slugs, Falsh?' asked Trix. 'That paint is a tool, not a weapon, but how '

'It's the only useful G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing Klimt ever produced,' shouted Falsh.

'Billions and billions of dollars poured into that inst.i.tute. . . and for what?'

The Doctor advanced on him. 'What do those slugs do?'

Falsh said nothing. He was sweating badly. The tip of the gun was making a bright point in his dark skin.

'Put that thing away, Trix,' said the Doctor curtly. 'Falsh, I'm not going to threaten you any longer. I really can't be bothered. And something tells me you want want to talk about this.' to talk about this.'

Falsh didn't react.

'Not easy, keeping the big, nasty secrets, is it?' the Doctor went on. 'The ones that eat a little of you away each day. The ones that nag and '

'All right, I'll talk,' snapped Falsh. 'Anything rather than listen to this head-shrinking c.r.a.p!'

The Doctor blinked, a little affronted. Trix smothered a smile.

'I'll talk on one condition. You let me put a call through to Phaedra.'

'I'll think about it,' said the Doctor.

'No call. No talk.'

'I've thought about it.' He rubbed his hands together like a gourmand before the feast. 'You're on.'

'You want to know what the slugs do?' Falsh gave a short, savage laugh.

'They do jack. They do nothing.' He laughed again, a savage, joyless sound.

'Absolutely nothing at all.'

Tinya breathed a sigh of relief as finally the crowds began to thin a little.