32.'Until we hit something?'

'More probably, until Falsh's security forces pick us up,' said the Doctor, sitting up straight. 'And that would be a pity. Because I want to meet this guy, Halcyon. Does he honestly think he's enhancing human heritage, making over the solar system like this? Or is it just a publicity stunt he's doing for cash?'

'Duh?' Trix stared at him, appalled. 'You mean you seriously have to ask ask?'

'They've stolen the Polar Lights Polar Lights, Mr Falsh.'

Falsh stared at the cringing security chief on the bubblescreen. He drummed his fingers on the desk. 'You let them get away.'

'You'd left the ship primed and ready, sir,' protested the chief.

'Oh, so it's my my fault?' fault?'

'The agitators broke through the immobilisers and had it away before the sentinels could '

'All right, all right.' Falsh waved aside the explanation, his mind racing.

These people were making a mockery of him. How could they be so well organised? 'I want a second battalion of sentinels on patrol here. You are are sending ships after them, I take it?' sending ships after them, I take it?'

The chief stiffened. 'The agitators performed a fuel burn. The G-jump might have placed them anywhere within a two-hundred-million-mile radius. But the sentinels are sensor sweeping and Empirewide alerts.'

'I want those agitators dead,' said Falsh curtly. 'The Polar Lights Polar Lights isn't important. It must be destroyed on sight. In the meantime, get me another ship. isn't important. It must be destroyed on sight. In the meantime, get me another ship.

Primed. Ready to go at once.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And, Chief? Report to the Personnelbots at the end of your shift.'

He stiffened. 'Yes, sir.'

Falsh p.r.i.c.ked the bubble and spun around in his chair. He looked out over his corner of the System, at Saturn and her little worlds keeping pace.

But not for long. He couldn't think straight with all those bald, accusing eyes looking in at him. And while the stars were cold and clear and static, Falsh kept thinking he glimpsed movement out there. Sentinels maybe, or sudships. Or maybe something else.

Something that could wave security aside with the codes Falsh had given it.

Something coming to call from out of the endless night. Coming for him.

33.

Chapter Five.

Fitz woke up with no idea where he was or how he'd got there.

He was looking up at a flawless white ceiling in a room entirely free of clutter. Some oversized oriental symbols had been daubed in black on the white walls like posh equations. There was just one piece of furniture in the room an ancient chaise longue, upon which he was sprawled like some raffish buck.

A raffish buck with a luminous hand.

Panic clutched at his guts and squeezed. Now he remembered. He was still sick. He must have staggered out of the glowing room looking for help, come in here and dozed off. How could he fall asleep at a time like this? He was obviously dying. The end couldn't be far off now. . .

Suddenly Fitz could hear footsteps, hard heels clipping and clopping as if across marble. He sighed wistfully. Your oriental types, when they karked it their ancestors came to visit them, ready to guide them off to a happy-ever-afterlife. Maybe his old mum, kind and restored, was coming out to meet him.

It would be so good to see her again. . .

But the clopping of the cruel heels suddenly shattered his poppy-pipe dreams. He sat up straight. Mum hated heels, she'd always stuck to her slippers. And this wasn't some celestial waiting room he was trespa.s.sing on someone's s.p.a.ceship.

He found the gun, shoved down the waistband of his maroon trousers, and his mind panicked with the awful possibilities of any sudden moves. Then he remembered it didn't work anyway. He pulled it out and hid it in his jacket pocket. He He ought to hide. No, he should ask whoever it was for help. No, they would only gloat and laugh at him for falling into their trap, he had no one to blame but himself for ought to hide. No, he should ask whoever it was for help. No, they would only gloat and laugh at him for falling into their trap, he had no one to blame but himself for 'What the ' The woman with the heels noticed him as she pa.s.sed by the doorway and jumped in the air. She had red bobbed hair and sharp, hard features even in her surprise she held a dour and gloomy air. 'Who the h.e.l.l are you? Where did you spring from, how '

Fitz waved his arms in feeble protest at the onslaught of questions. This prompted one more: 'And why did you put your hand in that wet Halcytone?'

'Halcytone?'

35.'That paint!' An embarra.s.sing penny dropped in Fitz's mind. He cleared his throat. 'Th. . . Let's take your questions in order.'

'No, wait.' She sighed, put her hands on her hips and looked very, very depressed. 'I get it. That's all we need. Another b.l.o.o.d.y art student.'

Fitz frowned at her. 'Eh?'

'When'd you sneak on board then? The convention on Umbriel?'

'Uh. . . Maybe.' He paused, studied his hand. 'Paint, huh. So I'm not going to die, then.'

'Oh, I wouldn't say that,' said the woman briskly. 'Depends on what mood Halcyon's in. The last thing he needs right now is some desperate groupie stowing away in a pathetic attempt to foist himself upon his staff.'

'I don't want to go anywhere near his staff, thanks,' muttered Fitz. 'Anyway, you're taking this very calmly, aren't you? I could be a dangerous saboteur, a deadly a.s.sa.s.sin. . . an old preserver, even!'

She gave him a look sharp enough to pop balloons. 'What's your name?'

'Fitz. Fitz Kreiner. Perhaps you've heard of me?'

'No. Where are you from?'

He shrugged. 'Around.'

'You can't have been on board Falsh's station. . . ?'

'Can't I?'

' Were Were you?' you?'

Fitz could feel the conversational undercurrents dragging him out of his depth but swam on bravely. 'Perhaps you underestimate me,' he said. He had to play for time Trix might be around somewhere, just raring to come to his rescue.

'Sook?' A hushed, oddly fragile voice sounded from outside.

The woman reacted almost as violently as when she'd first noticed Fitz. 'I'm in here, Halcyon.'

Fitz heard a new set of footsteps approaching, slow, soft and steady, punctuated with the swaggering dandy tap of a cane.

Fitz bit his lip. 'What are you going to do to me?'

'It's no good, Kreiner. You're just going to have to confess.' She advanced on him, raising her voice. 'It's hopeless pretending. There's art student written all over you.' The woman's face softened in a smile. 'And for G.o.d's sake mind out with that hand. If you get paint on Halcyon's Louis Quinze Louis Quinze he'll have you shot. he'll have you shot.

Fitz looked rueful. 'Not quite the reception I was hoping for, Miss. . . Sook?'

'Salsa Sook. Halcyon's private a.s.sistant.'

Fitz did his best to look jealous. 'You have my dream job.'

'Dreams are romantic notions, Kreiner.' Sook's grey eyes were fixed on his own. 'You see an opportunity, you take it.'

36.'I'm a fantastic opportunity,' Fitz declared. 'Take me.'

A man appeared in the doorway. He had a scalp full of glitter, dark gla.s.ses, a gold-topped cane and was dressed like the campest of Ali Baba's forty thieves.

Fitz bit his lip and hid his glowing hand swiftly behind his back, but Halcyon regarded him quite calmly. 'Explain the situation to me, Sook,' he said, in a voice like posh chocolates unwrapping.

'Your latest would-be acolyte,' Sook informed him. 'Fitz Kreiner. Art student. Seems he bought his way backstage at Umbriel and on board the Rapier Rapier.'

Halcyon looked mildly revolted. 'Sook, this sort of thing really does happen with dreary monotony. He's been skulking around all this time?' He brought down his cane on the marble floor, and Fitz winced at the racket. 'I've warned you about security matters before. Must I take up that oaf Falsh on his offer of round-the-clock bodyguards?'

'I don't want to hurt anyone,' Fitz said quickly. I'm not here to make trouble either. I. . . ' Sook was looking at him, urging him on. Finally he capitulated, head bowed with shame. 'I am an art student.'

'The route he has taken to meet you is unorthodox,' added Sook stiffly. 'But he showed me his vitaechip and I believe he could be of interest to you.'

Fitz looked at her worriedly. 'My what?' he mouthed.

She shook her head with a not now not now expression. expression.

'Speak, then, Kreiner,' said Halcyon softly. 'How did you come aboard?'

Fitz surveyed his audience with a worldly air. 'Everyone has their price, you know.'

Sook looked at him thoughtfully. 'It was Anaseed, wasn't it?'

Halcyon glanced at her. 'The maid who displeased you?'

'I knew she was unhappy with the terms of her severance, but. . . '

'Oh, she was unhappy all right,' said Fitz, grabbing gratefully at this unexpected lifeline. 'And bitter! I should coco. Barely had to bung her a thing. But you know, despite her animosity, once she'd seen my vitaechip, she. . . well, she felt it only right to let me see you.' He paused, getting caught up in the story. 'You must, she told me. For the sake of art.'

'Listen to him, Sook,' said Halcyon, a smile spreading over his vaguely East-ern features. 'His voice is so deliciously rough! His manner so arcane.' He walked up to Fitz and placed a hand against his stubbly cheek. 'No run-of-the-mill wannabe here.' He inhaled deeply. 'Smell him! Smell him! He reeks of iconoclasm.'

'It's Old Spice, actually.' Fitz blushed and took a step backwards. 'The mark of a man.'

'There is something base and wilful and fresh about him,' Halcyon declared.

'What school are you a student of, Kreiner?'

37.Fitz was thrown for a few seconds. 'St Augustine's of Archway,' he said honestly, 'since you ask.'

Halcyon's disapproval was obvious in the scowl he showed Sook. 'One of these abstruse hybrid schools, I suppose, b.a.s.t.a.r.dising the cla.s.sic philosophies. . . '

'Well, the path less travelled and all that. . . ' said Fitz gamely, utterly bewildered and with hope fading fast.

'Should I test him, Sook?' he asked. 'I fear he may disappoint me.'

Sook seemed a little uneasy. 'You know how the most primitive notions can yield the highest perfections.'

'True,' said Halcyon. 'How long before we reach Callisto?'

Sook was calculating. 'If we stay in cruise mode '

'Which we shall. I find fast travel so unsettling.'

'Quite. It should take us about seventeen hours.'

' Stay Stay in cruise mode?' Fitz gave a small whimper. 'We're in flight?' Sook looked at him, puzzled. in cruise mode?' Fitz gave a small whimper. 'We're in flight?' Sook looked at him, puzzled.

'Have been for an hour.'

'Oh. . . That's just fab,' he muttered.

'Seventeen hours.' Halcyon seemed to make up his mind. 'Very well. It appears I have a small window.'

'I'll try not to break it,' said Fitz weakly.

'You're familiar with PadPad, of course?'

'How could I not be?'

'Well, as Sook says, since you are here, you may as well show us what you can do.' He smiled, a creepy kind of smile. Fitz had the unsettling notion that Halcyon was looking straight through him. 'I'll compile a template at once and give it to Roddle to implant. Sook, stay with Kreiner throughout the exercise and deliver the chip to me personally. I wish to experience his vision no later than eight in my cubicle.'

'Just as you wish, Halcyon,' she told him.

'Then you may set out Falsh's latest gifts in the level one gallery, laid out according to the six principles. I shall peruse them later.'

Fitz noticed Sook pull a face. 'Of course.'

'Trinkets and baubles to appease me. . . ' Halcyon clasped his hands tightly together. 'I'm tense, Sook. Whatever Falsh says, we'll have the preservers out in force now Carme's gone. . . ' He shook his glittering head despairingly. 'I shall have to entrust the computers to recalculate the chi equations. So little time. . . ' He turned and walked through the wide doorway with a parting shot: 'Do try not to disappoint me, Kreiner. Discoursing with the Callisto authorities will be a dreary and unrewarding pastime. And I should hate to take Sook to task for her bad judgement as well as her laxity in letting you aboard. . . '

38.Fitz and Sook were left alone, watching each other. Fitz had the impression that something significant was being said by their silence, but had no clue what it might be. Maybe she just fancied him she was only female, after all. His mind was racing. Every second was taking him further away from the Doctor, he had no idea where Trix might be and he was locked out of the TARDIS. And to add insult to injury, he was now stuck pretending to be a student student. An art art student! student!