Fitz turned and grimaced. A truly obese man was now scattered over most of the windows and the floor.

'As things worked out, my own personal airbag. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Is Boko OK?'

Fitz could see a sprawled pile of limbs beneath the crushed console, lying twisted and still. He cleared his throat. 'Let's check you over first.' He licked a finger and rubbed it tentatively against her cheek. To his relief the blood came away to reveal the pale skin beneath. 'I think a lot of this was this other guy's. You can't be as bad as I thought.'

'Can't I?' She coughed. 'Gaws and Mildrid had you thinking I was pretty bad.'

'Forget all that, it doesn't matter.'

'Yeah, it does.' She tried to rise up. Fitz had to manoeuvre backwards to accommodate the movement. She settled her head in his lap just as he realised he was kneeling in a lump of the big man's stomach.

'I want you to know, Kreiner. . . about my parents.'

'Uhhh. . . I don't care about that,' he said. It was tough being tender when you could feel someone's blood soaking through your trousers. 'Come on, let me try to carry you '

'No, wait,' she insisted. 'I need to tell you this.'

'You do?' he said weakly, his own guts threatening to flip as his knees squelched on a gristly bit.

'It wasn't like the OPs told it '

'Forget it, you were a kid, you didn't know '

'Will you just listen?' She looked up at him. 'I did sell my parents. I sold them to graduate from Eight Mansions.'

Squish, scrunch. 'There'll be plenty of ' 'There'll be plenty of '

'The Dean found out about my parents, and he was gonna flunk me. Never mind that I was good. Really good. He thought if word got out it would look bad on the school.'

'You honestly don't need to. . . ' Fitz shut his mouth and resolved to suffer in silence. Maybe he didn't need to hear. But she needed to tell him.

'It felt like I was losing everything,' she croaked. 'So I signalled Dad, the emergency code. Begged him and Mum to give themselves up. Said I'd kill myself if they didn't.'

Fitz felt his legs start to cramp, and he was threatening a coughing fit from the smoke. 'Go on,' he spluttered. 'I'm listening.'

'They said they'd sort things out. Next thing I know, the Dean's telling me I could graduate. Big of him, huh.'

Fitz nodded, holding his breath.

182.

'They came to my graduation,' she whispered, a tear trailing down her cheek, 'just so they could see me one last time. They knew the Dean had called the authorities. But they still came.'

'Right.'

Fitz tried to shift position slightly, but it made such an awful squelching noise he had to stop.

'So you see, when it came down to it. . . I just couldn't sell out Halcyon in the same way.'

'Mmm,' he gasped.

'Are you even listening to me, Kreiner?'

'I am!' he protested, fighting a coughing fit. 'Of course I am. That's. . . You poor thing, it's. . . '

Her grey eyes stared up accusingly.

'Well, it's. . . '

He bent forward and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She blinked. 'You think it's. . . ?'

Then she kissed him back.

'OK,' she said.

'Good.' He let out a hacking cough. 'Isn't this romantic? I never kissed someone with my b.u.m parked in a pile of small intestine before. Can you walk?'

'Sure.' She propped herself up. 'I'm fooling you. I just wanted to get you back for being such a prat before.'

Fitz was taken in for a few seconds. Until he saw the dark wounds tapering down her side, and the way she could hardly move her legs.

We're in trouble, he thought. he thought.

'Come on, Fitz,' said the Doctor worriedly. He was lousy at playing the waiting game.

'And what happens when he does come back?' Trix fretted. 'What the h.e.l.l are we going to do? I don't suppose there's a possibility that your charming theory is wrong, and that the slugs aren't causing this?'

'It's possible. But I imagine the weapon has been designed to capitalise on that uncertainty. Even with one of those slugs for study, it could take many days to find a correlation.'

'By which time everyone's dead.'

'Horrible thought, isn't it? Invisible waves of energy, slowly sweeping away the clutter of experience and rationality. . . '

'How long will it take? Are we already infected and just don't know it?'

'Actual infection infection's unlikely, of course, since '

'You know what I mean, Doctor,' she snapped.

183.

He held up his hands in apology. 'I imagine the slug signals work through a c.u.mulative effect on the brain. Resistance will vary from person to person.'

'So what we need to do is jam those signals.'

'Yes, somehow,' the Doctor agreed. 'But I've no idea if the damage already caused to the brain would be reversible.'

Trix felt sick. 'But the slugs are animals!' she protested. 'Why aren't they killing each other and putting an end to it themselves?'

'They're designed to survive in any environment, however extreme. Unkil-lable, even if we could find them all; always a.s.suming death negates their powers. If the signals are powered at a cellular level '

'All right, all right.' She looked up at the TARDIS, still suspended and hopelessly out of reach. 'Can't you get that down for us?'

'She can't fly without mercury, remember? And we could still be suscepti-ble. . . '

'My head is killing me already.' muttered Trix. She reached in her appropriated jacket for the headache pills. Nothing there. They must have fallen out when she fell back on the podule. She felt like crying. 'And now I've lost your tablets too. The end of a perfect day.'

'It's not over yet,' said the Doctor, staring out into the speckling yellow of the forcefield. 'We'll think of something. We must must.'

Tinya was watching Klimt with barely concealed unease. One minute he seemed fine, collected and in control, every bit the accomplished genius she'd been so swept up by; the man she'd trusted to pull this off. But the next he would seem to withdraw into himself, just staring into s.p.a.ce or else launch into some belligerent spiel, railing against how he'd spent his life fighting against fools.

Tinya had stepped in the last time, suggesting that the bidders remove their presence from Callisto until the test moved into the next phase. There was plenty of hard evidence to pore over, after all. And soon the next stage would begin. After that, there would be no doubt that Klimt's claims were truthful.

That the weapon he could deliver was worth the price.

And such such a price. Tinya nearly weed herself each time she thought of it. a price. Tinya nearly weed herself each time she thought of it.

Klimt didn't seem to be thinking of much. He was sat in a chair, staring at the corpses she'd clumsily hidden beneath a piece of tarpaulin.

'I hate the waiting,' he said, for about the hundredth time. 'I think I'd better take something.'

'Is that wise? What if the bidders '

'I'm tired.' He looked at her, his grey eyes sunken in his face. 'You're the PR queen, you can cope, can't you?'

'Yes,' she said. 'I can always cope.'

184.

He grunted and crossed to the back of the shed where he'd left his gear.

'It will will work, won't it?' she called after him. work, won't it?' she called after him.

'Of course it will,' he snapped. 'You've seen our bidders, affecting desperate disinterest when really '

'Not the auction.' She swallowed. 'The stuff we're taking to stay immune.'

He stopped, but didn't turn around. 'Yes,' he said. 'It'll work.'

'Halcyon!'

The cry of distress tore through Trix. She turned to find a thin man in torn black clothes with a mop of ratty blond hair, sliding forward on his knees, disco-style, across the stage. He carefully cradled Halcyon's punt face in his hands. Is he all right?'

'He had a b.u.mp on the head,' the Doctor told him. 'Who are you?'

'Roddle. Artistic Advisor. Halcyon's my mentor.' He looked up at them. He had an eye as black as his tunic and a fat lip. There was something about his glazed expression and the slight slur to his voice that reminded Trix of Torvin.

'Where's Sook?'

'We, um, don't know.'

Roddle looked at her blankly. 'Is everything better now? I saw what was happening. . . couldn't believe it. . . Then some madman burst into my room!'

He shuddered at the memory. 'This awful cleaner just threw himself at me!

Tried to kill me! It was all I could do to get out of the room. . . '

The Doctor crouched beside him. 'Uncontrolled violence?'

'I met some soldiers back there. They've come here to put things right. . .

They said there have been a few cases. Put it down to hysteria after after what's happened here. . . '

Trix shot a look at the Doctor. 'Looks like it's starting.'

'One theory proved,' he sighed. 'Resistance does does vary from person to person.' vary from person to person.'

'Hey, who are you, anyway?' said Roddle, his eyes focusing a little more. 'I never saw you at rehearsals.'

'We're friends of Fitz Kreiner,' said the Doctor confidentially.

'Kreiner?' Roddle grinned. 'I like ole Kreiner. He's kind of weird, but. . .

Where is he, anyway?'

'He. . . He went looking for Sook,' sighed the Doctor.

'We need to find Sook,' Roddle agreed. 'She'll take charge. She'll sort things out.'

'I wish to G.o.d she would.' Trix folded her arms. 'In the meantime, can we get back to the slugs? OK, so they can't be killed. But surely they can be controlled in some way?'

185.

'A more promising angle,' the Doctor agreed. He chewed on the stub of Klimt's pencil. 'After all, it might not be so convenient to kill absolutely everyone. You might want to force an unconditional surrender.'

'Or to spare a few slaves to clear up all the mess,' murmured Trix. She found herself staring at the Halcytoned walls, grateful for the soothing fluctuating colours.

'What are you guys talking about?' said Roddle, frowning. 'Slugs?'

'We need to get one of these creatures for study. The military must have some,' the Doctor went on, ignoring him. 'Falsh's Phaedra has one, of course '

'Paint,' Trix said suddenly. 'Like I said back on Falsh's ship slugs and paint, they don't really go together, do they? So how would this super-hypnotic Halcytone stuff just "arise" out of Klimt's slug research?'

The Doctor stared at her, thunderstruck. 'You think the two are linked?'

'Well, I don't know '