'Kerbe's dead. Fraulein Thorsuun got bored of him.'

'Charming.'

The Cat-People's leader walked over and looked him up and down. 'Is this human of any value to either of you?'

Thorsuun shook her head and turned back to her screen, watching a drawing of Earth slowly turning. Ben saw 123 multicoloured lines crisscrossing it. The Doctor, however, nodded at the leader. 'Queen Aysha, I would suggest keeping Ben alive. He makes a useful hostage and will keep me in check. If I annoy you, just threaten to kill him and I'll be as good as gold.'

'If you annoy us, I'll threaten to kill you,' said the tatty tabby.

'No, Lotuss,' said Aysha. 'The Doctor isn't stupid.

Threatening to kill him wouldn't work - he doesn't fear death like the humans do. Keep this new one alive. For now,' she added, looking at the Doctor. He beamed happily.

'Oh, goody. Now, Ben, you sit there - ' he pointed to the navigation chair next to his - 'and agree to be good. OK?'

'OK, squire, whatever you say.'

Aysha waved over the white cat with the grey spot.

'Jayde, return to the Grange. Find this Atimkos and eradicate him. Bring the female back here - and the kittens. . . What do you humans call your young?'

'Children,' said the Doctor. 'But they'd prefer to be known as students.'

'What are they studying?'

'They think they're ghost-hunting. I suspect they're really being used to find a nexus point into hyper reality. Is that right, Fraulein Thorsuun?'

'Spot on, Doctor,' she said without looking away from her monitor.

Aysha motioned to the door. 'Bring these students as well, Jayde. If there is any resistance, slaughter one of them. That ought to bring the rest into line.'

Jayde saluted, paw across breast. 'Your Majesty,' she said, opening the hatchway, and left.

As the hatchway slid shut Ben nodded towards Thorsuun.

'She's looking for her ley lines then?'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. 'Your friend Tim seems to have filled you in.'

'Yeah, but there's something funny about him, too. Polly trusts him but I'm not so sure.'

124.

'Polly trusts everyone until she's learned otherwise, Ben.

That's her only real fault. But I suspect it's in Tim's interest to keep her safe. My hope is that Simon isn't silly enough to let him know about the book I gave them. The RTC. If Tim is after what I think he's after, him having possession of that could be very dangerous.'

Ben nodded. 'Ah, well. That Aussie seemed to be sensible enough.'

'I hope so, Ben,' said the Doctor. 'I hope so.'

'What's the book doing exactly?' Polly asked. Tim did not reply.

'Time flows backwards and forwards over it,' said Simon.

'It's coated in reverse tachyon-chronons.'

'What does that mean exactly?'

'He doesn't know,' smiled Carfrae, hugging Simon's arm and pulling him just a little further away from Polly than he wanted to be. 'But he likes to pretend he does.'

Simon felt himself go red - partially in embarra.s.sment because Carfrae was right and partially in annoyance at her action. He pulled himself away from her. 'Thanks, Miss Morgan.'

'Quiet!' shouted Tim, contradicting himself. 'We're getting somewhere.' He turned away from the book and pointed at Peter. 'Could you turn the field off, please, Peter Moore.

Thank you.'

With a shrug Peter did as he was asked and the room realigned itself to reality. Polly gasped. The others just stared. 'What's happened?'

Tim looked up. The pale-painted and chipped walls and stained wooden door frame had gone. They were in a wood-panelled room and the door was back in place, but with a wrought-iron door handle instead of the bolt Peter had pointlessly screwed on.

'We're in the same place about a hundred years ago. Shall we explore?' Without waiting for an answer he opened the door and walked out. Simon was the last to leave, casting an eye over the incongruous twentieth-century equipment that 125 had been transported with them. Then he wandered into the hallway.

There were plants at the foot of the carpeted stairs, green drapes hung around the windows and huge front door and where he had expected to see the kitchen door was another wood-panelled wall. He wandered over to a ma.s.sive mirror by the door where a letter was lying on a silver platter. He held it up to the others. 'Richmond Dent, The Grange, Meckerbet, near Whitehaven, c.u.mbria. Guess he owned the place. Owns it,' he corrected himself.

There was a noise from the top of the stairs and as one they turned. Standing there, dressed in a severe black dress and cap, carrying a candle was a woman. She was staring at them in surprise.

'My G.o.d,' breathed Peter. 'She's who I saw when I fell.'

The woman took a cautious step or two down the stairs and held the candle out further until it cast across the a.s.sembled group. With a shriek she dropped the candle and tripped backwards.

'Yes! That's what happened!' Peter was excited.

Tim stepped forward to the bottom of the stairs. 'Yes, drop the amateur dramatics.'

'I doesn't know what you be meaning, good sir,' said the woman timidly.

'Oh, just turn the ruddy lights on!' he snapped.

There was a pause and then the woman got up.

'Spoilsport. I hope none of the locals can see this.' She whistled shrilly for a second and the hallway was bathed in bright light. 'So you got here then. What year?'

'1994.'.

'What, a hundred-odd years? I knew this was a waste but he was so sure you'd get here by 1875.'

Tim sighed. 'Yeah, well, he was wrong wasn't he?'

' "Yeah, well," ' the woman mimicked. 'Oh, we have adopted the vernacular. In Victorian times we speak properly. The Queen's English, good sir. And as housekeeper, nurse and local busybody, I have to keep up the pretence.'

126.

'So what name have we adopted? Mrs Dent perhaps?'

'Merciful heavens, no! That sort of thing is frowned upon in this era. I'm Mrs Wilding, widowed housekeeper to Richmond Dent.'

'And where is he? Udentkista, I mean.'

Mrs Wilding suddenly looked very serious. 'In bed. Forty thousand years on this planet have done him irreparable damage. And she didn't help matters.'

'G.o.dwanna?' offered Polly, determined not to be left out.

'Oh, tell the world who we are, why don't you, Atimkos.'

'Yes, and I've missed you too. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Polly and these youngsters. They found the books. That was a clumsy way to get to us by the way.

RTCs are lethal in the wrong hands. Especially two so close together. I take it the heavy boring one I saw back in 1994 is Udentkista's?'

Mrs Wilding shrugged. 'So. The humans of your time cannot be that advanced.'

No, they're not, but other aliens are. Thorgarsuunela's flipped.'

'Flipped?'

'Like Udentkista, her mind is not what it was. She's sold the planet out to a race of mercenaries who want to slice it open. You know, like we used to. Trouble is, she's more than happy for the rest of us to stay here and go with it.' Tim wandered up the stairs. 'Get Udentkista up - we need a conference. And I need to get back to '94 to stop her.'

Mrs Wilding shrugged. 'I cannot vouch for his lucidity.

She threw us out shortly after you left. Literally. His legs were . . . damaged and I didn't possess the skills to repair them.' She looked at her own feet for a moment, then back at Tim. 'We lived amongst the locals for a few dozen centuries - I lost count very quickly - and then began moving around. I've been nursing him, pushing him ever since. He also has "flipped" but he's not dangerous, just eccentric.'

Simon suddenly spoke up, much to his own surprise.

'Look, it's obvious you know each other, and Miss 127 Thorsuun, but would you mind explaining things to us poor "youngsters". It's our lives as well, you know.'

Mrs Wilding looked at him in shock. 'You're from the landing site?'

Simon did not understand this but Tim nodded. 'Yes, he's Australian.'

'Good to know they made something out of that awful country then. Intelligent, inquisitive humans are rare on this planet.' She looked directly at Simon. 'Nurture it, boy, but when the time is right. Which is not now.' With that she wandered away.

Thorsuun hammered on the door. No reply. 'The shuttle.

They must still be in the shuttle. Of course.' She turned and ran towards the Gatehouse.

Moments later she saw Jayde striding towards her and hid behind a tree. 'Of course - Aysha sent her to kill Atimkos.

Which means I'm too late - any second now he's going to do it!' She dashed out of the trees towards Jayde. 'Hey, Jayde, it's me! Thorgarsuunela!'

Jayde stopped, clearly astonished. 'I . . . I don't understand.'

Thorsuun nodded. 'No, I'm not surprised. I've spent two lifetimes doing this now. Two lifetimes trying to survive.

We've got to stop the Doctor. He's going to trick us.'

Jayde put her head on one side and then the other in bemus.e.m.e.nt. 'How did you get out of the shuttle ahead of me?'

'I didn't, you stupid fleabag! I'm still in there, plotting my own future. Badly as it happens. Listen, forget Atimkos in the house - there's nothing we can do about that, but we have to stop me making a mistake.'

Jayde shifted the weight of her rifle-blaster. 'You are making no sense, alien. Why have you followed me out?'

'I haven't, d.a.m.n you. I'm still in there. Twice I've done this now. Twice I've lived on this dreadful planet. Twice I've watched them make a mess of it. Have you any idea what that's like? Two eternities - one plotting to use you to 128 get away, the other plotting revenge on him for letting me.

He used us. Is using you! Don't you understand?'

Jayde was clearly getting irritated - Thorsuun dimly remembered her saying something about doing target practice with Lotuss as live bait. It was such a long time ago. Or maybe it had not happened yet? 'Oh, I don't understand any of this. All I know is I have to stop Queen Aysha somehow, and I can't even alert myself. You see, if I try to talk to or touch my other self - the one in that shuttle - there would be a ma.s.sive temporal feedback which would -'

Thorsuun felt a ma.s.sive pain in her stomach and found herself going weak at the knees. As the roaring started in her ears all she could see was Jayde lowering her rifle-blaster. She tried to speak. 'Two d.a.m.ned lifetimes . . . for this . . . it's not fair . . .'

Blackness swelled around her, engulfed her and - Jayde stared at the corpse at her feet. A ma.s.sive photon-blasted hole had evaporated most of Thorgarsuunela's midsection. With a furtive glance back towards the shuttle making sure she had not been seen - if Queen Aysha had sent the alien, well, she would report that she never saw anyone - Jayde fired twice more, completely destroying the body.

Wretched aliens.

Polly stared at Richmond Dent, or Udentkista as his real name appeared to be. He was huddled in a wheelchair, a rug covering his withered legs and a blue velvet smoking jacket was wrapped tightly around him to keep out the cold.

Mrs Wilding was seated to one side and Tim was pacing around. 'So you've been trying to follow us throughout time?' he was saying. He made it sound so . . . so casual.

Like trying to catch someone on a train. Mrs Wilding was nodding.

129.

'We needed to warn you about G.o.dwanna. She's created herself a hyper reality nexus but blocked off the nexus-access points that any of us would know about.'

'But you've been back and forth?'

'No - not for a while. I remember being there a lot when we lived as Aborigines but I can't remember the entrance.

There's one certainly where we crashed, on the mountain.

And there's one near here but I think it's in your time-line not this one.' She pointed at Simon. 'A friend of yours was there.'

Carfrae spoke up. 'Professor Bridgeman?'

'Probably. He was safe anyway. But that, I think, is in your time - I knew about these youngsters from listening to him. I try to get through to you regularly but this house blocks me. I can move through time but not s.p.a.ce. Saw this Bridgeman chap at one point in the village even, and I saw you,' she pointed at Peter, 'just now. Then you all arrived en en ma.s.se ma.s.se in reality and surprised me.' in reality and surprised me.'

'Wow,' was Peter's reaction. 'It all fits.'

Polly nodded. 'OK, but how is this going to stop the Cat-People or Thorsuun?'