Thirteen.

'Is Peri dead?' the Doctor's question was directed to the Valeyard.

'That is difficult to answer precisely.'

'Then what was the point of showing that sequence?'

the Inquisitor asked with a sharp edge to her question.

'Simply as further evidence of the Doctor's interference.'

'I thought it gratuitous.'

'And highly prejudicial! You won't convict me by using shock tactics.' The Doctor, feeling the Inquisitor to be favouring his case for once, tried to score as many points as possible.

The Valeyard remained unruffled. 'I require nothing so crude, my dear Doctor, all that will prove necessary is the plain, literal truth.'

'Then tell it!' the Doctor challenged.

'Enough of this bickering!' the Inquisitor said testily.

The Valeyard bowed in acquiescence. 'May we proceed with the evidence?'

'Indeed, Sagacity, we must.'

All heads turned to the screen where Frax was picking his way among the bodies of Peri, Yrcanos, Tuza and the Lukoser.

Yrcanos was the first to stir as the effects of the stunning force bolts began to wear off.

'Uhooh... uh! My head feels as if it's been trampled by the seven-legged chargers of Corojaam,' Yrcanos groaned.

Peri was the next to stir. 'My legs, my arms...'

'You are fortunate to be alive,' Frax said, looking down as the quartet regained consciousness.

Tuza stared up at the officer. 'So the Mentors can experiment with us?'

'Think of it as a community service, my dear Tuza.'

Yrcanos climbed to his feet flexing his legs painfully.

'You are a fool to leave us alive. I wouldn't have set the phasers to stun. Only kill. Kill.'

'That is because you are a barbarian.'

Peri tried to clear the painful throb of pain that was making a circular tour of her skull. 'You're some angel of mercy, huh, Frax?'

The officer became bored with the conversation. 'Get up. All of you!'

As they obeyed the order Peri asked, 'How did you know where we were?'

Frax shrugged. 'We have always known about the arms dump.'

'Liar!' Tuza accused the officer vehemently. 'You would have acted before now if you had!'

Frax regarded the group before him. His look shifted beyond them to the abject band of Alphan prisoners.

'Weapons are only as good as the training of the men that use them. You are no warrior, Tuza...' Frax then turned a thumb to indicate Yrcanos. 'But him now he's just enough in love with death to inspire rabble like yours into action. And we were right... now move.'

Surrounded by guards who seemed anxious to practise their expertise with phaser weapons, there was nothing any of the rebels could do but to move off a dispirited band following a king whose eyes streamed with tears of humiliation at the dishonour of being made a prisoner.

'The sea... the sea... strong, strong, strong, too much... too...

sting, sting, strike!'

Worriedly Crozier followed a scan of the mind of Lord Kiv. The Mentor leader continued to ramble incoherently as he lay under the examining lights that beamed down from above the operating table.

Sil was becoming more and more agitated. 'Why is the Lord Kiv talking of such things. He hates sea water.'

Crozier shook his head worriedly.

The Doctor walked across from behind the bank of computer heads and paused to look down at the babbling, feverish, Kiv. 'The body you transplanted Kiv's brain into, whose was it?'

'Just a body,' Crozier said.

'Bit casual that, isn't it?'

'I had no choice, Doctor, there are hardly any suitable donors.'

The Doctor moved to Crozier and viewed the scramble of erratic fines on the brain scan chart. 'Might have been better if you'd waited.'

'There wasn't time.'

The Doctor traced a random line of the VDU. 'Look at that the host brain cells are trying to influence Kiv's implanted cortex. Attempting to alter and distort his memory.'

'A few must have escaped the laserisation.'

Unnoticed, Sil had been carried within earshot by his bearers. 'You have blundered, Crozier, you have reduced the greatest business brain in the universe to a mere catcher of sea snakes!'

The Doctor became thoughtful, unmoved by Sil's bl.u.s.ter. 'Perhaps the trauma of the donor's death lingers and is infecting Kiv's brain.'

'I must try and rectify it Matrona, increase the severin.

Inject to four micro-sentiles.'

While the Matrona bent to make the adjustment to Kiv's life support system, Sil voiced his worries. 'There is an imminent summit meeting over which the Lord Kiv must preside. Our business partner from Sondlex might find it fishy should Lord Kiv be missing, gone insane.'

At the sound of his name Kiv opened his eyes. 'Have my briefing tapes and expansion strategy options been baited?'

'Er, not yet Magnificence.'

'Do it, or you shall be the first to sample the power of my new sting, Sil... I'm told... told...' Kiv's yellow eyes began to dose. 'Told even a touch can... kill.'

'One micro-sentile more,' Crozier ordered.

The Matrona added a small increase of the life-giving fluid that alone was sustaining the existence of Kiv and everyone in the lab. The Mentor's edict that all should perish should he die still stood as an instruction to the armed guards who watched the rise and fali of Kiv's chest and gills as intently as those whose survival depended on keeping Kiv alive.

Sil addressed Crozier and his helpers. 'The Lord Kiv must not only be present at the meeting with our business partners but also be able to make sane decisions. If he cannot, you will all suffer.'

Crozier nodded with a show of confidence. 'He'll be there. Though whose body he will inhabit isn't yet certain.

We must transfer Kiv's brain to someone else without delay.'

'Whose body?' Sil asked. There was no answer, though Crozier's eyes flickered in the direction of the Doctor for a brief moment.

The corridor that contained the punishment cells rang with the opening and closing of the iron grilles.

Gradually all the Alphan prisoners were confined, leaving only Yrcanos, Peri, Tuza and the Lukoser to be marched towards a cell that was double-barred.

'My head still aches,' Tuza remarked to no one in particular.

'Be grateful you still have a head,' Frax said from just behind.

A guard pulled the door open. It took three others to subdue Yrcanos but eventually he was thrust inside. Peri and the Lukoser could not see the point of resisting, as the corridor was by now full of guards. They stepped into the cell to join the King who glared with hatred at his captors through the bars of the cell.

'Scrrsongebrate!' he threatened.

As Tuza was about to enter the cell Frax tapped the Alphan on the shoulder. 'Not you.'

Before Tuza could ask why, he was hurried away under guard with Frax striding along behind. As Tuza was hustled along past the other cells cries of defiance began to be heard.

'Silence!' Frax yelled but the hubbub continued until a couple of guards set their phasers to stun and sent force bolts streaming into the crowded cells.

In the end cell Peri tried to squint down the corridor in an attempt to see what was happening. 'Why do they want Tuza?'

'Execution,' Yrcanos said, his tone was grim. 'One at a time, that's how it will be.'

'Oh.' Peri turned and leaned against the bars. She made a forlorn figure. Sensing her mood of dejection the Lukoser began to whine in sympathy which brought a swift kick from Yrcanos. The Lukoser yowled and rubbed his ribs before crouching down.

'What is it, my lady?' the King asked.

'Oh, it's just ever since we came to Thoros-Beta I've been homesick, not so much for a place, but a time. I want to be back in my own time with people I love.'

'What is that? Love?'

Peri considered. 'When you care for something or someone more than yourself, I guess.'

The Lukoser lifted his head from where it was resting on his paws.

'M... more than yourself?'

'I know it sounds silly but sometimes more than life.'

'I care nothing for mine,' Yrcanos said.

'How can you say that, you're crazy as a loon!'

'I do not know what a loon is. On my planet of Krontep, if we die well our spirit is returned to life by being born into a more n.o.ble warrior.'

Peri could not follow the logic in the King's philosophy.

'Until what? Where are you going to end after all your brave deaths?'

'You become me a King!' Yrcanos thumped his breastplate. 'After my next death, I will join the other Kings on Verduna, home of the G.o.ds.'

'To do what?'

'Why, fight, what else?'

Peri began to laugh. 'That figures.' Then the laughter turned to tears.

Under the laboratory lights Tuza tried to remain calm.

Steel restraining bands were fitted to his neck and forehead. The Doctor placed measuring calipers to various parts of Tuza's skull while the Matrona attached sensors to his templos.

Crozier looked at the resultant readings on the persona printout. 'These Alphan neural patterns are most unsuitable for Lord Kiv,' he said crossly.

The Doctor straightened, after completing his examination with the calipers, and said, 'The skull capacity is too great.'

Their disappointment was obvious to Frax who had been watching the various tests with interest.