'Of course,' agreed the Doctor.

Hawken turned around with a huge bottle in one hand and two goblets in the other. 'Here we are, vintage champagne from Copernicus Two, just arrived!' He popped the cork with an enormous thumb, filled both goblets with the foaming wine and handed one to the Doctor. 'Your health, sir!' He drained his goblet, refilled it, poured a splash more into the Doctor's still untouched gla.s.s and lowered himself into an outsize armchair facing the Doctor.

The Doctor sat back in his chair, sipping his champagne, feeling somewhat bemused by the torrent of hospitality. If this was the soft approach, he'd never seen it carried so far before.

Maybe they were saving the rubber truncheons until later.

'Now,' said Hawken, taking another swig of champagne and wiping his lips. 'If you wouldn't mind, just one or two simple questions.' He raised his voice slightly. 'Computer record.'

'Recording.'

'You don't mind, do you?' asked Hawken. 'Just for my records.'

'Not at all,' said the Doctor politely. He knew that the question was no more than a polite formality. The room was almost certainly bugged, and all conversations would be recorded automatically.

'To begin with,' said Hawken, 'your name?'

The Doctor sighed. 'Here we go again,' he thought. 'Who are you and where do you come from? Why are you wearing those funny clothes and what's inside that blue box?'

Sometimes, of course, it could be avoided, if the trip was well planned so that you landed un.o.bserved and arrived wearing clothes suitable for the time and planet.

But in emergencies like this one you just had to go through the old routine.

'Name?' said Hawken again.

'Smith,' said the Doctor firmly. 'Doc-' He broke off. Better not say anything that might stick in anyone's memory like Doctor. 'Just plain John Smith.'

'And the name of your wounded companion?'

'Perpugilliam Brown.'

'Smith and Brown,' said Hawken. 'I see.'

The Doctor sighed, wishing he'd chosen some other alias.

'That's right,' he said. 'Two very numerous families...'

Chapter Four.

Interrogation Reverend Mother Maren stood at the entrance of the mountain cave that led to the Temple of the Flame, gazing out into Karn's ever-stormy skies. Thunder rumbled about the mountain tops, storm winds howled around the jagged peaks, and streaks of lightning zigzagged across the night sky. A typical night on Karn.

Maren stared into and through the storm clouds, as if looking into s.p.a.ce and time itself.

Ohica, her chief acolyte, emerged from the cave to stand beside her. Unlike Maren, she had joined the Sisterhood of the Flame as a young woman. Now, thanks to the Elixir of Life, she was frozen eternally in her youth and beauty, just as Maren was crystallised in her old age.

'You are troubled, Reverend Mother,' said Ohica.

'A storm is coming.'

Ohica looked puzzled. 'There are always storms on Karn.'

'Not this,' said Maren contemptuously, waving a skinny claw at the stormy night. 'This is nothing. It is maya maya, illusion, the flux of being. I speak of a disturbance in the affairs of the galaxy, a storm in the history of worlds.'

'What gives you this feeling, Reverend Mother?'

'A stranger came today, to the Hospice,' said Maren slowly.

'He demanded my aid. He spoke the Words of Power.'

'A Time Lord?'

'Who else would know those words? But this I do know. His arrival is an omen, linked in some way to the storm of worlds which is to come. It plays about his head as the lightning plays about those peaks.'

In Hawken's office the Doctor's interrogation wasn't going too well. Politely, Hawken asked his questions. Even more politely, the Doctor evaded them.

'Look at it from my point of view,' pleaded Hawken. 'You arrive here unexpectedly, mysteriously, bypa.s.sing one of the most sophisticated security systems in the galaxy. How did you manage it?'

'Why does a Hospice, a place of healing, need a sophisticated security system?' wondered the Doctor, countering one question with another.

'Because we are not only a hospital but a semi-military establishment,' said Hawken. 'Some of our finance comes from private patients, true. Most comes from the planetary governments who employ us to look after wounded troops.'

'Patching them up so they can go and fight again?'

'We are an oasis of peace in a warring galaxy,' said Hawken.

'Many of our client planets are deadly enemies. Here they meet on neutral ground. The political position here is always delicate.

We walk a tightrope between opposing sides, and we are in constant danger.'

'Danger from whom?'

'From everybody,' said Hawken simply. 'There's not a ruler in the galaxy doesn't covet the Hospice of Karn from petty warlords to mighty emperors.'

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. 'I can see why. Whoever controlled it could weaken his enemies by denying them its use or charge them a fortune for the privilege. Do you have any troops of your own?'

'There's a token defence force. Enough to hold off a preliminary attack and buy time to evacuate the medical staff and some of the patients. But we couldn't stand up to a determined a.s.sault.'

The Doctor wondered why Commander Hawken was being so frank with him. Perhaps all this information was common knowledge. Or perhaps it was because, unless he could satisfy Hawken that he wasn't dangerous, he would never leave Karn alive.

'You're in a tricky situation,' he acknowledged. 'So why doesn't doesn't someone try to take you over?' someone try to take you over?'

'Mutual suspicion,' said Hawken. 'Anybody who tried would face attack from all the others. That and the fact that Karn is the home of the Sisterhood of the Flame.'

'Is it really?'

'Don't pretend you don't know about the Sisterhood. Their influence is enormous. They're seers, prophetesses and, some say, witches.' Hawken smiled wryly. 'I myself have the privilege of an Adviser from the Sisterhood!'

'That formidable old lady I met when I arrived?'

'Reverend Mother Maren, Head of the Order who seems to know you. She used her influence to get the Surgeon-General to see you. Where did you meet?'

'We met for the first time here, in your reception area.'

Not quite true, thought the Doctor. He had had met Maren before in his past and her future but she was meeting him for the first time. Still, this was no time to go into the paradoxes of time travel. met Maren before in his past and her future but she was meeting him for the first time. Still, this was no time to go into the paradoxes of time travel.

'So why did you appeal to her?' persisted Hawken.

'I was desperate and she looked like someone important.'

'And why did she help you?'

'Natural compa.s.sion?' suggested the Doctor hopefully.

Hawken grunted. 'Reverend Mother Maren is about as compa.s.sionate as a Drashig! She's cunning, ruthless and incredibly devious. She cares only for one thing the survival of the Sisterhood.'

Commander Hawken suddenly became aware that he was answering more questions than he was asking. There was something very engaging about Smith. Hawken realised that he was beginning to like him which wouldn't do at all. Liking people was unprofessional.

'We seem to be wandering from the subject,' he said sternly.

'Which is?'

'You! We've no real fear of a direct attack, for reasons I've explained. What we do fear is spies. People who come here in the guise of patients, doctors or delegates of some kind, hoping to find some weakness their employers can exploit.'

'You think I might be a spy?'

'Precisely. You turn up out of nowhere, bringing with you a wounded girl and, I am told, a mysterious blue box, which no one has been able to open.'

'Is the blue box safe?'

'Safe in my custody like you. To continue you have some mysterious influence with Reverend Mother Maren which she refuses to explain. And you yourself refuse to explain anything!'

'Because I'm not a spy and there's nothing to explain. And remember the girl. Do you really think I'd mutilate my best friend just to help my cover story?'

'I've known spies to mutilate themselves themselves just to get inside the Hospice,' Hawken paused. 'Don't force me to use methods which would be distasteful to me and, if I may say so, even more distasteful to you.' just to get inside the Hospice,' Hawken paused. 'Don't force me to use methods which would be distasteful to me and, if I may say so, even more distasteful to you.'

'Here it comes,' thought the Doctor. 'The hard line after the soft approach.'

'The rack and the thumbscrew?' he suggested. 'The Iron Maiden?'

'The implements are all available,' admitted Hawken.

'Though only in the Castle museum. But certain members of my staff are experienced in methods almost equally crude. And if they fail well, the Medical Research Section people are always looking for subjects for their experiments. You know how keen these doctors are. A limb here, an organ there. Let them get hold of a prisoner for a while and he comes back with half of him missing. It's extremely distressing.'

'Pretty distressing for the prisoner, I should think.'

'Quite so. So please be reasonable. Tell me who you are and why you're here.'

The Doctor sat back in his chair. 'I'd like to help you, Commander Hawken, I really would. But I've already told you all I can. I'm a simple traveller. I came here because my companion was severely wounded and I believed that Doctor Solon was the only man who could save her. All I ask is to be allowed to remain here until she has recovered. Give me my companion restored to health, and my blue box, and I'll disappear and trouble you no more.' He paused. 'If it's a matter of costs, I am not without resources. I'll gladly pay for Peri's treatment, and my accommodation, in any galactic currency you care to mention.

Or if you prefer gold, or jewels. .'

Hawken considered for a moment. He could always turn this man over to the electroclubs of Altos and his colleagues -or to the even more gruesome methods of the Medical Research Section. But Hawken sensed a core of steel in Smith. Some men would die before they'd talk. Besides, there were Maren's mysterious hints that Smith might be someone of importance.

He came to a decision. 'I'm going to do something n.o.body in my business should ever do, Mr Smith. I'm going to trust you.

Give me your parole, promise you won't try to escape, or do anything against the interests of the Hospice, and you can stay here as my guest until your friend has recovered.'

'You can have my parole by all means. Besides, nothing would persuade me to leave here until Peri's better.'

'That's settled then. I'll have you taken to one of our guest suites you'll find it considerably more comfortable than a cell.

Tomorrow, as soon as Doctor Solon gives permission, you can see your friend.' He smiled. 'By the time she's better, I'll know if I have to shoot you or not.'

Commander Hawken summoned an aide, and the Doctor was led away.

As soon as he had gone, Hawken said, 'Computer! Full background security check on an individual using the name of John Smith... Details as follows...'

Peri awoke from a long nightmare. A nightmare of swooping savage beasts, of masked white-robed figures staring down at her. A nightmare of strange machinery and stabbing needles, of drugs flooding through her system and overwhelming her consciousness.

She awoke to find the Doctor by her bedside, eating grapes.

'Hey,' she said weakly. 'Aren't those supposed to be for me?'

'It's traditional,' the Doctor a.s.sured her. 'You bring the patient grapes and then eat them all yourself. I don't mind sharing, though.'

He popped a grape into her mouth and she bit into it gratefully, the sweet tang of the juice relieving the dryness of her parched throat.

'More!'

The Doctor fed her several more grapes, until Peri waved him away. 'Water!'