Jack leaned close to her.

Agnes continued to stare at the beach. 'Don't try to be consoling,' she muttered. 'If you do, I shall scream.'

Jack placed a free hand awkwardly around her shoulder. 'You are full of surprises, Agnes Havisham. In all the years I knew you, I never ever dreamed you could be deceived.'

Agnes looked at him, startled. 'Really?'

'Nope.' Jack pulled a face. 'You always seemed ruthlessly efficient.'

Agnes sniffed bravely. 'It was all an act, I a.s.sure you.'

'It was a very good act.'

'Thank you.' Agnes folded her hands as best as she could. 'Well, it'll soon be dawn,' she said simply.

Ianto tried to shrug, but his bonds wouldn't let him. 'We're tied to trees. We're surrounded. If we try and summon help, these things will kill us. They're about to invade the Earth and there's no way of stopping them. What are we going to do?' he asked.

Jack and Agnes looked at each other and then back at Ianto. Agnes managed a brave smile.

'We are open to suggestions, Mr Jones. But I fully intend to enjoy the view.'

With only mild difficulty she reached into her m.u.f.fler, and drew out Little Dorrit Little Dorrit.

'Not that book!' Jack groaned. 'Everywhere you go, that d.a.m.ned book comes too.'

Agnes opened it up and smoothed out the first page, reading the bookplate there fondly. 'It is a familiar and valued thing,' she said. 'And pray tell if you can think of a better way to spend our last hours.' She turned over a page.

'But surely by now, you'd have finished the d.a.m.ned thing.'

'Ah,' said Agnes, with a little smile. 'I'm afraid that's more of a challenge than you'd think.'

She flicked to the back of the book, reached into the last hundred pages and drew out a small flask. 'Tot of rum?' she said.

And so Torchwood stood on a beach, tied to trees, watching the sun rise on the last day of Earth, pa.s.sing a flask of rum between each other.

XVI.

THE STORMING OF THE.

CASTLE IN THE AIR.

In which Mr Jones's intoxication is sadly regretted in the sober light of day Gwen yawned and looked out at planet Earth.

'The sun'll soon rise over Wales,' said George Herbert, 'and then I get to find out if I'm wrong about the xXltttxtolxtol. I sincerely hope they're just the misgivings of a natural worrier.' He looked out of the window glumly. 'Do you think she has has met someone else?' met someone else?'

Gwen smiled. 'No,' she said.

'Ah well, that's good.'

'Look,' she said carefully. 'Surely there's something we can do. Maybe you can fix my phone? I'd like to speak to my husband.'

She pa.s.sed it to him, and George Herbert looked at it, curiously, before addressing the computer. 'Is there anything you can do with this, Bramwell?' he asked. 'It's a portable telephonic device.'

There was a drawn-out sigh of electrical consideration. 'There are a considerable number of communications satellites sharing our orbit. It is possible, sir, that I could perhaps run a signal through one of them to link with Mrs Cooper's network. Would you enjoy another pot of tea while I try to establish a link?'

'No, thank you,' said George Herbert quickly. He crossed over to a writing desk, and pulled some wires out, cradling Gwen's phone in a mesh. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'that will help.'

Gwen stood up, and stared down at the Earth. 'Good morning, world,' she said. 'It looks so quiet.'

The xXltttxtolxtol had arranged some of the coffins into a complicated archway, churning the beach up into a gritty mixture of sand and Vam.

'You know what,' said a slightly tipsy Agnes, sagging a little in her bonds, 'I bet that's a portal.'

'Cla.s.sic portal,' murmured a sleepy Ianto. His head drooped forward, resting on her shoulder. The rest of his bodyweight was carried by the tree he was bound to. Agnes gently nudged him away and he began to snore quietly.

Jack winked at her, a lazy smile on his face.

'So,' he said, 'Torchwood are powerless, one of our agents is missing, and the Rift is about to be hijacked to allow a wholesale invasion of the Earth. How would you say the a.s.sessment is going?'

Agnes chuckled darkly, 'Not so well, not so well.' She threw the empty flask out to sea. 'But you can't win everything.'

'No,' sighed Jack. 'You can't.' He belched, contentedly, and tried to reach an itch on his back.

'On the other hand,' said Agnes, pointing up at a fast-moving star in the sky, 'that, up there,' and she giggled conspiratorially, 'is a rocket ship.'

'Is it?' laughed Jack.

'Oh yes,' she said solemnly. 'And on it is George Herbert Sanderson.'

'Never!' Jack rubbed his hands together. 'So he came back to you in the end! Pleased for you. I've always found long-distance relationships a little tricky myself.'

'Well. . .' Agnes considered carefully. 'He has put on a little weight. His computer overfeeds him dreadfully.'

'Ah yes,' said Jack portentously. 'But that makes it harder for them to run away.'

'And,' Agnes held up a finger with a sssh, 'I've a surprise for you up on the ship is your Mrs Cooper.'

'Gwen!' Jack was delighted. 'You hid her away, did you? You naughty thing.'

Agnes tapped the side of her nose. 'That girl is too good for you, Jack. Stick to tea boys.'

Jack watched Ianto fondly as he dribbled slightly in his sleep. 'I intend to.'

zZxgbtl of the xXltttxtolxtol dragged himself past, then stopped, waving his big gun.

'Soon, humans, soon our portal will be established and, after your ultimate despair, you will suffer the death fit for the betrayers of your own species. You will remain strapped to these xXltttxtolxtol, who will wear you till you die.'

'Ah, nailed to a tree,' smirked Jack. 'I love a symbolic death.'

'It is a very painful way to go,' said the xXltttxtolxtol.

'Ohhh, I'm sure, but it won't work, you know,' giggled Agnes.

'What?'

'I've been trying to kill him for years. Dropped him off buildings, shot him. . . Nothing worked.'

'Don't forget the bomb,' put in Jack.

'Lordie! How could I forget the bomb!' hooted Agnes. 'Ears were ringing for days.'

The xXltttxtolxtol hopped closer. 'Are you. . .' it asked, leaning as much as a s.p.a.ce tree could. 'Are you intoxicated?'

Jack and Agnes laughed.

'Absolutely smashed.'

Ianto stirred in his sleep, snored loudly, and opened an eye. 'Missed anything?' he asked blearily.

'Nope,' said Jack, managing to ruffle his hair. 'Civilisation is still as we know it.'

The xXltttxtolxtol considered them, carefully. 'Now that the portal is established, we no longer need your relay ship,' it said.

Agnes straightened up. 'What do you mean?' she demanded, suddenly sober.

'Your sapling is surplus to requirements,' it said cruelly. It laughed, the laughter like a clattering of branches.

And then it raised its big gun, and pointed it at the sky. And fired.

A few seconds later, the star in the sky flared brightly and went out.

Agnes screamed, and Jack grasped her hand.

The xXltttxtolxtol turned back to them. 'Now, I think, you take me seriously.'

Gwen tried dialling the phone, but still nothing. She looked at it with frustration.

'My apologies, ma'am,' said Bramwell, 'but this is proving a complicated mechanism.'

George Herbert looked at Gwen's phone. 'It is a marvellous thing. Why, in my day, even the Torchwood Inst.i.tute only had a single telephone. To think that you carry this around with you in a pocket. The uses must be endless.'

Gwen shrugged. 'Mostly I just tell my husband I'm working late.'

'Excuse me,' coughed Bramwell. 'Incoming.'

'Are you getting a message, old chap?'

'No sir,' stated Bramwell. 'I regret that there is incoming ordnance. It will impact the craft in-'

Gwen saw something hurtling towards them from the Earth and then a blinding, blinding light and the tearing of metal.

Agnes, Jack and Ianto stood on the beach, slumped in their bonds. They were very quiet and cold. zZxgbtl of the xXltttxtolxtol towered over them, heedless of the tide coming in and washing around his feet. If a tree could be said to gloat, he was gloating.

'Now we will open the portal and destroy your world.'

XVII.

THE CHIEF BUTLER RESIGNS.

THE SEALS OF OFFICE.

In which calling occupants of interplanetary craft becomes necessary Gwen woke up to find she was lying on top of the Earth. It was spinning. Somehow, the rocket ship had listed alarmingly, and she was sprawled face down on the Observatory window, watching the planet rush up. She could hear the drilling of alarm bells and the crackling of flames.

Trying not to pa.s.s out from sheer vertigo, she rolled over, and hauled herself to where George Herbert lay, folded over a chair bolted to the floor. Which was now the wall.

All around her the craft shook alarmingly. We are falling, she thought. We are falling out of the sky. She wondered when it would be OK to panic. And told herself, no. Not yet.

George Herbert looked at her. There was a cut down one cheek. He used a word that Gwen thought had only been invented in the 1980s.

'They fired on us!' he cried. 'We are in a lot of trouble.'

'I'd gathered that,' said Gwen.

'There's no need to shout,' said George Herbert.

Gwen realised she had shouted. OK, OK, she thought. she thought. I have started panicking. I have started panicking.

'Bramwell!' snapped George Herbert. 'How are you?'

'I am fine, thank you for asking, sir. I regret to inform you, however, that our engines have been destroyed and we will impact with the planet's surface in under five minutes.'

'Fine?' Gwen mouthed at George Herbert.

He shrugged. 'Any good news?'

'Ah yes.' The machine sounded as though it was manfully ignoring pain. 'Now that we are considerably closer to the planet's surface, I have obtained a signal on Mrs Cooper's telephone. Reception is, you will be pleased to hear, getting better every second.'

Gwen had already s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone out of its cradle and was dialling.

With a little effort and a hefty scratch to the wrist, Jack pulled the ringing phone from his pocket. The xXltttxtolxtol he was strapped to twitched menacingly.

'Prayer stick,' said Jack, quickly. 'I'm communing with the dead.'

Mollified, the xXltttxtolxtol grunted.