He's very changeable. Happy endings!"

Her smile wiped away now, Ace looked at him. "What about the rest of them, then?" "Enkidu? He's going to die shortly of some wasting disease, which is what prompts Gilgamesh's bad behaviour, but doesn't excuse it.

Avram -well, he's going to go into Gilgamesh's employ as the court musician. He's going to write down his version of this adventure - and it'll become the oldest known story in your world. Of course, no one will remember that he wrote it, but you could pick up a copy of it in a good bookshop in Perivale." He smiled. "If there are any good bookshops in Perivale. Mind you, since Gilgamesh is paying him for it, I'll give you three guesses who ends up the hero."

"It figures," Ace said glumly. "And what about Avram and En-Gula?"

"History doesn't say. In the grand scheme of things, a musician and his wife aren't considered very important. You can imagine a happy ending there, if you like."

"Thanks a lot." She surveyed the horizon again. "Well, I guess we should be going."

"Bored so soon?"

"Not exactly. I just want a more varied diet. I'm getting really sick of baked pheasant. And that barley beer makes me want to puke."

The Doctor smiled again. "Back to the TARDIS and the food machine, eh?"

He looked back at the conversing kings. "I think it's high time we slipped away, too. Off we go."

To Ace's disappointment n.o.body seemed to notice their departure. She had rather enjoyed the attention that she'd been getting during the past few days. Still, the Kis.h.i.tes had a lot of cleaning up to do, so she couldn't blame them. She and the Doctor briskly strode back across the fields towards the oasis where the TARDIS waited. They were almost there when something occurred to her.

"Of, Professor. What about this Timewyrm thingy? We've not seen hide nor hair of it."

"Yes, I'd wondered about that myself. The only thing I can conclude is that the message I triggered was for some other time. When I was fiddling about with the telepathic circuits I must have started it up early."

Ace shrugged. "It makes as much sense as anything else about you."

"Cheeky!" The Doctor unlocked the TARDIS and ushered her in. "I've a good mind to leave you here, you ungrateful wretch."

"But then who'd tell you how brilliant you are?" she said. "And speaking of having a good mind, are you back to normal now? When you were your old self, you kept getting things muddled."

"It's hardly surprising," he replied, crossing to the time controls. As he began to set the coordinates, he added: "There are physical aspects of personality too, you know. My third persona was a bit annoyed at what he was stuck with for an exterior. I was always very vain back then. It must have caused him some grief. But now I'm whole and complete again. He's back in the closets of my mind where he belongs, and I'm the captain of my own mind once more."

"Which reminds me," Ace said. "I don't remember that you ever apologized to me for mucking about with my memories. I still haven't forgiven you for that, you know."

He regarded her through the gla.s.s column of the time rotor. A puckish grin twitched at the corners of his mouth. "Ah, but how do you know that I didn't apologize, and that you've just forgotten about it?"

"Don't start that," she begged. "My memories are important to me, you know." She shuddered. "It was horrible, when I woke up and didn't know who I was."

"Yes," he agreed. "Memories are a very important part of ourselves.

Without them, we're just flotsam and jetsam in the seas of time." He seemed haunted by his thoughts, and patted the console. "I sometimes wonder if it's a good idea to ever wipe out my old memories. I lose enough when I regenerate as it is." He eyed her again. "I'd advise you never to take up that business. The price you pay for it is perhaps a shade too high for most beings. It might have been difficult for you to maintain a sense of your own ident.i.ty without your memories, but think for a moment how I must feel - when the only memories I have really belonged to some other, distinct personality who once shared this body with me."

"A bit rough, eh?"

"But endurable," he added. "Still, with great power comes great responsibility."

Ace grinned. "Is that from that Hegel bloke again?"

"No. Marvel Comics, I think." He smiled, impishly. "I don't quite remember."

Ace laughed. It was impossible to stay angry with him for long. His quixotic nature was too infectious. Besides, as she had told Enkidu, the Doctor was one of the few people she'd ever met whose purposes she almost fully agreed with. When he bothered to share them with her. "So," she asked, "now where are we off to?"

His fingers began to dance across the controls. "Oh, I thought we deserved a little vacation after all of that. I was thinking of - " He broke off, and looked at her. "No. You did a good job back there, Ace. You choose. Any where, any time."

She thought for a moment. "Well, there is one place... But you'd probably find it boring."

"Never!" he replied. "There's always something fascinating to see and do."

"Well, I've always had this dream of travelling in a paddle boat on the Mississippi River." She sighed.

"With all of the gamblers, and the ladies in their posh dresses, and the fella at the honky-tonk piano, playing "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee?" he suggested, eyes twinkling. "Well, why not?" He finished setting the destination. "I've always wanted to try a mint julep myself." With a flourish, he set the time rotor in motion. Accompanied by the usual cacophony, the TARDIS slipped out of phase with the Earth and back into the maelstrom of the Vortex.

"Well, that's a relief." Ace frowned, and pointed. "Hey, your pocket's bleeping."

The Doctor stared down at the pocket in question. "Odd. I wonder why it's doing that?" He stuck in his hand, and pulled out a small device. A red light on it was flashing in time with the electronic noises. "The time path indicator. . ."

Ace had virtually forgotten about his little device. "Didn't you say that it only registered when there was something moving through time straight at us?" "Yes." He began feverishly connecting it back into the main console.

"Then it has to be the Timewyrm, doesn't it?"

He nodded, and she could see an excited gleam in his eye. "At last!"

23: TIMEWYRM!.

The bleeping sound from the time path indicator was getting louder and higher in pitch. The red light was flashing like a strobe at a disco, hurting Ace's eyes. Glancing away, she asked: "Presumably we're in trouble?"

"I should think that's a fair guess, yes." He completed the work of rewiring the device back into the main controls. "Right, let's see what we can find out about this beastie, shall we?" Without waiting for an answer, he began to manipulate the controls. The time path indicator continued to register, however, and the Doctor frowned. "That's very odd."

"Now what's wrong?"

The Doctor bit his lower lip thoughtfully. "Well, taking off from the Earth should have gained us a bit of time. But this Timewyrm thingy -or whatever it is - seems to have compensated for the move almost instantaneously.

Which is theoretically impossible." Then he grinned. "Still, you know how unreliable theories can be."

"I know how unreliable your theories can be," Ace agreed. "So we're still in dead lumber then?"

"You have a colourful way of phrasing it, but you're essentially correct." He began scanning the signal he was picking up. "It's most perplexing. This reading says that it's the TARDIS coming towards us."

Ace tried to work that one out. "You mean it's another Time Lord after us?

The Master, maybe?"

"Ace," the Doctor said, exasperated, "I didn't say another TARDIS - I said the TARDIS. This one."

"But that doesn't make sense, Professor. Does it?"

"Everything makes sense when you have enough information. I just don't have enough information, that's all." He tapped at the readings, but they refused to change. "Maybe it's something time-reflective, bouncing our own signal back to us?"

"Or maybe it's on the fritz, and is tracking itself?"

He glared hard at her. "I can tell the difference between an internal fault and an external puzzle. This is definitely the latter. But we should find out what it is in about sixteen seconds."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because," he replied, smugly, "the other TARDIS is going to materialize then."

"Wait a minute," Ace said. "1 thought we had a force field about the ship to stop that sort of thing from happening."

"We do," the Doctor agreed. "But in this case it will do us no good at all.

The other object is moving on precisely our own frequency. It can slip through the field like a hot knife through b.u.t.ter."

None of this sounded at all rea.s.suring to Ace. "So what can we do?"

"Wait!"

Within seconds, they could hear the same off-key wailing, crashing sound that the TARDIS itself made on materializations. Between the console and the door, something began to take shape. Something seven feet tall, metallic, and vaguely female in form.

"Ishtar!" yelled Ace. "It's Ishtar! I thought you'd destroyed her!"

"So did I," the Doctor agreed, showing as little surprise as he could. It never helped if the enemy saw you looking uncertain.

With a final curl of her lips in contempt, Ishtar's form was complete.

Delightedly, she threw back her head and laughed. Then she looked down at them both. "So," she purred, inching towards them, "you thought that you had destroyed me, didn't you?"

"That idea had crossed my mind, yes," the Doctor agreed. "But I must admit you appear to be very fit for a corpse."

"I am fit, Doctor!" Ishtar slithered closer to them, her red eyes burning down on them both. "I've never felt better in my lives. You thought you'd trapped me when you cast me off into the Vortex, didn't you? That I would be torn apart by the forces there?"

"So - why weren't you, sc.u.mbag?" Ace growled.

"Because I am infinitely adaptable. And now, I have become virtually infinite in power, also." She smiled down at them, confident that they could not escape her. "When I was in the Vortex, I could hear voices speaking to me. It is not some great, raging inferno of chaos out there, Doctor! It may seem like that to your narrow, petty minds, but there is order, and there is a grim beauty in the time winds. And there are creatures that live there. I could hear them feeding."

"The Chronovores," the Doctor murmured, mostly to himself. Seeing Ace's look of bafflement, he explained: "They are creatures that live outside time and s.p.a.ce as we know it. Somehow, they devour time, growing stronger.

Rather like the Third Law of Thermodynamics incarnate. I met one once."

He shuddered at the memory. "And I hope never to meet them again.

They're very strange, very mysterious and very powerful beings."

"And very logical, in their own way, Doctor," Ishtar informed him. "I, too, being mostly mechanical, am very logical. When I could feel the forces of the time winds ripping at my fabric, I applied my mind to adapting to the forces within the Vortex. Thanks to the portions of the TARDIS that you cast off with me, I could begin to control the fluxes. And, ironically, that old fool Utnapishtim even helped me. That computer virus he attempted to destroy me with proved to be flexible and adaptable. Instead of it destroying me, I merged with it."

"Ishtar -" the Doctor began, but she cut him short with a slice of her hand through the air.

"No, Doctor - I am Ishtar no longer. Just as I was once Qataka and then grew to become Ishtar, now I have gone beyond the ent.i.ty that was once Ishtar. Now I am more than humanoid, more than computer programme - more, even, than the elemental forces of the Vortex itself. I heard the Chronovores whispering in the time-winds. They gave me a new name.

Timewyrm."

Ace tried to grin. "Bit late, aren't you?" she joked. "We've been waiting for you since we first arrived on the Earth."

"Indeed?" That interested her. "And how did you know of my becoming?"

"I warned myself along time in advance," the Doctor replied. "Now I know why. Because in my meddling, I've created you, haven't I?"

"You, Doctor?" The Timewyrm laughed. "No, you merely created my possibility. The Vortex made me. I am no longer restricted to one small segment of time and s.p.a.ce. Now I can roam wherever I please, and act as I wish. There is no one in all of creation who is powerful enough to stop my will from becoming reality."

"You do go on, don't you?" the Doctor complained. "Why don't you just tell us what you're here for, and then shut up?" If he was hoping to irritate hr, it failed. The Timewyrm smiled that slow, infuriating grin again. "Doctor, surely you have not forgotten? I promised to devour you, and so I shall. All that you have done to me has not destroyed me. It has made me stronger.

Now, when I taste all of those thoughts within your mind, I shall know all that you know, absorb all that you are." She licked her metal lips in antic.i.p.ation. "You should be happy, Doctor. You will become a part of what I am - though a very small part."

"No thanks," he answered, skipping back behind the console, keeping it between them. "I've other things to do with my life. I don't intend to end as an hors d'oeuvre for a jumped-up tin G.o.ddess." He began to reset the controls as quickly as he could.

"Doctor, do something," Ace hissed, edging around to join him without taking her eyes off the Timewyrm for a second. "Is she really as dangerous as she thinks?"

"No," he replied, working feverishly. "She's probably far worse than she even knows herself. So - forgive me for what I have to do. It's been nice knowing you - most of the time, anyway."

Suspecting the worst Ace tried to turn to face him, but at that moment the Timewyrm made her move. Fading slightly until almost transparent, the shimmering snakewoman shot into the s.p.a.ce occupied by the rotor. She extended her ghostly right arm; the hand disappeared into Ace's chest. Ace felt needles of ice pa.s.sing into her skin, and gave a cry of shock and fear.

"I am not tied to the dimensions you are chained by," the Timewyrm gloated. "I can be incorporeal - or dangerously solid . . . " As she spoke her arm began to regain colour and body. Pain grew within Ace's chest as she felt the fingers of ice becoming fingers of steel. The agony expanded, flowers of flame bursting within her. She tried to scream, but nothing would come. It felt as if her chest was being torn out from the inside.

It stopped. The Timewyrm screamed, fading almost completely to a barely-visible spectre. Ace collapsed on the floor, sobbing. Her chest heaved as she sucked breath after welcome breath into her tortured lungs. The Doctor, a look as pale as death on his haggard face, pressed the final b.u.t.tons in the pattern.

From somewhere deep within the TARDIS the cloister bell began to sound a death knell. Boom ... Booom ... Boooom ...

"What is happening?" the shadowy Timewyrm screamed, clutching at her head in agony.

"Time ram," the Doctor said, with finality. "You chose the weapons, Timewyrm. You've incorporated parts of the TARDIS within you to give you your powers. Now you will experience the peril of playing with time. I've set my TARDIS to materialize in exactly the same coordinates that you have chosen. As the power builds up, the dimensions will overlap exactly. And then - BOOM!" He clapped his hands together. "Mutual annihilation." He looked down at Ace. "I'm sorry, but there's no other way. I created this abomination, and it's the only way to destroy it."

Ace managed to drag herself onto one elbow. She stared at the snakewoman. "As long as it takes her with us, Professor, it'll be worth it."

The walls seemed to be losing their shapes, flowing and melting into that of the Timewyrm. Ace could no longer hear the tolling of the cloister bell. The whine from the central console was far too loud. It seemed to be getting very warm, too. Or was that just her imagination? The floor began to buckle as the TARDIS moved on its inexorable pathway to destruction.

"No!" the Timewyrm screamed. "No, I cannot be destroyed like that. I can't!

Not by a feeble little creature like yourself. I am the Timewyrm...." The sinuous shape and hissing voice faded simultaneously into nothingness.

Suddenly, everything returned to normal. The TARDIS was whole again.

Ace breathed a sigh of relief, but the Doctor leapt to the controls.