Concerned that an instrumentation failure might have occurred, he broke into the transmission frequency to check the reading. The voices of Spiggot and Charlie Nisbett came through clearly.

'You claim to know the ident.i.ty of Sentinel?' Charlie was asking.

'Oh, better than that, Charlie, my mate,' Spiggot replied. 'I know where you can find him.'

Pyerpoint leapt up.

The sound of the conversation had carried from the gallery to the room below. Xais looked up, deep frown lines forming on the forehead of the mask.

And then she smiled.

'Where?' Charlie barked into his communicator link. 'Where can I find him?' He shuddered with emotion. 'You'd better not be messing me around, copper.'

Spiggot said confidently, 'I wouldn't mess your sort about.

No, I've got Sentinel right here, Charlie. You'd know him better as High Archon Pyerpoint.'

Stokes looked on anxiously as Spiggot made his revelation. He whispered to K9, 'I'm not altogether sure about this.

Something about this message makes me feel extremely uneasy.' He took another look at Spiggot. 'An uneasiness that probably has something to do with the fact that the person sending the message is a total and absolute idiot.'

'I am not programmed to express critical opinions,' said K9.

'Pyerpoint!' Charlie clamped his hands on the arm of his chair, his knuckles whitening. 'Pyerpoint! But he but he '

His mind filled up with an explosive mixture of feelings. The first raid on the firm's premises. The lads being led away. Him and Eddie fleeing to Gh.e.l.luris. Reading in the papers about the executions of his oldest mates.

'But I've had him next to me,' he spluttered. 'All this flaming time.' He spat. 'No wonder that filthy cow Xais wanted to keep him alive. It wouldn't surprise me if they were all in it together. Pyerpoint, Xais, the Doctor.' He turned back to the communicator. 'You say he's with you, Spiggot?'

'At his secret mine. Why not come and get him? I bet you've got plenty to talk about.'

Spiggot broke off the call.

'There we go,' Spiggot said confidently, turning to face his colleagues. 'Now we can just pop back into the TARDIS over there, and wait for the brothers Nisbett to deal with our problem for us.'

Stokes shrugged. 'I suppose it sounds reasonable enough.'

The communicator bleeped. Surprised, Spiggot reopened the channel. 'h.e.l.lo, Mr Nisbett? Any details you want clearing up?'

'Spiggot,' said the Doctor's voice. 'You are a total and absolute idiot!'

Xais chuckled. 'Well, "Sentinel"? What is your plan now?'

She smirked up through the gla.s.s at Pyerpoint, who was pacing the gallery in agitation.

'It doesn't matter,' he said. 'Even if their ship was able to make a landing here, which I doubt, it doesn't possess the weapons necessary to break in. This mine is protected by neutron cannon. I am secure.'

Charlie Nisbett's voice crackled over the communicator link. 'Pyerpoint,' he thundered. 'This is Nisbett.'

'I have nothing to say to you,' said Pyerpoint.

'Sc.u.m!' Charlie's voice broke with emotion.

'You're behind all of this. I wish I was there to bust you open with my own hands. I want you to suffer like my family suffered. It's too bad it's going to have to end this way.'

Pyerpoint stiffened. 'What do you mean? You cannot reach me here. Go away.'

'You're wrong on that score. See, the survey base is wired up to blow when I give the word. There's enough hermite stored there to crack open the reactor core.' He paused. 'And when that goes, the planet goes.'

'I do not believe you,' said Pyerpoint.

'You know what? Of all the people I've ever met, I hate you most of all.'

The transmission ceased.

Charlie's warning had been overheard on the open channel by Spiggot. 'Oh d.a.m.n!' he said. 'Can he really blow up the planet like that? He can't, can he?'

'I'm afraid he can,' said the Doctor from the base. 'And as I happen to be sitting directly on top of the bomb, I'm not too happy about it.' He tutted. 'Really, Spiggot, I was just about to win Nisbett over. Couldn't you use just a little intelligence?'

'How was I to know?' the detective protested. He flinched under the accusing glare of Stokes. 'Well, at least the galaxy will be a better place without Xais and Pyerpoint, anyway.'

Stokes slapped him and turned his back.

K9's head dropped and he trundled away.

'If the reactor at the McConnochie base blows, you will die,'

Xais called up to Pyerpoint. 'The base is built on the junction of faultlines that will bring the Jilharro mountains down on this place. You are finished.'

Pyerpoint drummed his fingers on the console before him.

'You will die with me.'

Xais shook her head. 'No. The mask will resist the explosion. And besides, you have gathered the helicon here.

When it is released, I shall activate it and my plan will succeed. Only you will have failed, a victim of your own cunning.' She waited, and then added, 'There is an alternative, of course.'

He stood up and stared down at her. 'What?'

'Release me,' she said, gesturing to the clamps securing her wrists and ankles. 'Free me and I will save you. I can use the helicon you have gathered to protect you. I will activate it, and transfer your consciousness, in minutes. We will both become immortal. Or would you prefer to die?'

'Why should you want me alive?' Pyerpoint asked her.

'You'll never know until you release me,' Xais pleaded.

'You must release me.'

Pyerpoint, unsure but aware of the desperate nature of his predicament, leant forward and pressed a b.u.t.ton. The hum of the radiation probe stopped, and the lighting in the room below returned to normal. The clamps on the platform clicked open.

Xais sat upright.

A beam shot from her forehead. It shattered the gla.s.s of the gallery. Pyerpoint, taken by surprise, threw himself back, his left arm raised to protect himself from the blast. He fell forward over the console, his body shattered.

Xais laughed cruelly and stepped from the platform. The long blonde hair of Romana cascaded down her back as she put her hands on her hips in a characteristically arrogant pose.

She looked up.

'Goodbye, Nisbett,' she said.

Flarkk lifted his head from the flight position. 'We are ready to make warp jump, sir.'

Charlie gripped the detonator box in his hand. He looked up at the picture hanging above the bridge. 'This one's for you,'

he told its subject. A tear trickled down one pudgy cheek.

'This one's for the firm. Rev down for warp, Flarkk.'

The Ogron nodded and flicked over a series of switches.

The ship's engine noise altered in pitch to a protesting grumble. Flarkk c.o.c.ked his head. 'Something is wrong,' he said. Smoke started to waft from the panel in front of him.

'I will check the computer.' He consulted the ship's fault tracer diagnostic system. A long list of faulty components flashed up. At the top a string of numbers flashed in red.

Flarkk gasped. 'What? Computer is not working right. Engines are not working. Rockets won't stop.'

Charlie leapt up from his chair. 'Close 'em down! If we try going into warp with rockets still active, we'll be '

The program set by Xais activated the moment the ship's warp engines were primed. A command tripped the safety checks on the rocket motors.

The explosion ripped through the Ogron ship in less than a second, as the warp stress tore open the active rocket fuel. The ship's black, skeletal frame was revealed in the moment before the fireball blossomed, sending the now unrecognizable ma.s.s of twisted metal hurtling back down through the atmosphere of Planet Eleven.

Gravity delivered it to the grasping gas clouds, which burst around it and consumed it with sky-splitting fury.

14.

Activation.

The energy flare from the explosion of the Ogron ship sent needles kicking crazily across their scales on the consoles in the survey room. The Doctor, still uncomfortably attached to his chair, took a look at the base computer's diagnostic reports as the readings settled. It looked as if Charlie and his servants had met with an unpleasant end. The Doctor would have taken his hat off to mark his respect, but it was still in his pocket, and it would have been too much trouble to take it out, put it on, and then take it off again, particularly in his current circ.u.mstances.

He flipped open the communicator channel. 'Spiggot,' he called. 'Spiggot, can you hear me? It's the Doctor.'

The static-coated atmosphere of the planet had been further tainted by the explosion, and the reply frequency was blocked by a quivering sonic howl.

'What to do, what to do?' The Doctor looked about him.

Firstly, he could have a go at disarming the bomb. The signal would never be sent, but the thing had an antique appearance to it that was deeply unsettling. It might go off at any moment.

He hopped over to it, whipped out his sonic screwdriver, and set to work.

Xais sensed the destruction of the ship. She looked up at the gallery. Pyerpoint's body was slumped over the console. He was covered in his own blood. The injuries must have been fatal.

Xais took a deep breath. At last the situation was back under her control. The Nisbetts and Pyerpoint were dead, and the latter had been foolish enough both to free her and to provide her with the helicon, ready-mined and ripe for activation.

'Now,' she whispered. Her eyes snapped open. The glow had already started to form. 'Time to begin.'

A mental image came to her. She saw herself standing in the middle of a burning city. Coppertown, perhaps. The air was rich with the satisfying odour of charred corpses. Death was all around her. The Normals were burning in their own filth. She had sterilized the area.

Soon.

Xais left the room where she had been imprisoned, and walked briskly along the corridor outside. She could feel the helicon, gathered and waiting, calling for her. Her flesh tingled.

Stokes tapped the door of the TARDIS. 'We appear to have evaded death once again,' he said. 'If this unlikely contraption can do half of what you claim for it, Spiggot, I suggest we make ourselves scarce.'

'Hang on a moment.' Spiggot peered through the entrance of the repair bay. 'She's coming this way.' He readied his revolver as the sound of hurried footsteps came closer.

K9 motored forward eagerly. 'That is the Mistress.'

'Don't, K9,' Spiggot warned. 'You've got to forget about Romana. There's nothing much we can do for her now.' He raised his blaster. 'This way may be the kindest.'

K9's laser shot the weapon from Spiggot's hand. Without a word, the automaton shot past the startled policeman and into the corridor outside.

Xais stopped at the sight of him. 'Ah,' she crowed, 'the dog. Your mistress is very fond of you. So stupid, the obsession of Normals with inanimate objects.'

K9 growled. The venomous features of the mask contrasted oddly with Romana's flowing blonde hair and stylish outfit.

'Release my Mistress, Xais.'

'Get out of my way,' Xais said. She opened her eyes wide and prepared to deliver the burst of energy that would crush the small machine into a smoking heap of sticky components.

Something stopped her. She gasped and clutched her stomach. Her head jerked back at an odd angle. The voice of Romana shouted out suddenly, 'K9! Find the Doctor! Find him! ' She doubled up.

Xais rea.s.serted herself and Romana's body straightened.

She pushed past K9 with an angry scream and ran down the corridor.