'Who did this?' he demanded, outraged, knowing full well who'd d.a.m.n well done it.

Finding Foley now attaching restraints to the girl's wrists, he stomped over and pushed her out of the way.

'What d'you think you're doing?'

'Securing the prisoners,' Foley informed him in a matter-of-fact way that tried to make him look stupid.

'They're patients patients, not prisoners.'

'Until we get ID they're military captives,' Foley argued.

' I I apply the restraints in this department, Captain Foley,' Pryce seethed. apply the restraints in this department, Captain Foley,' Pryce seethed.

'Would you please remember that you're not in Military One now: you're in my my medicare unit.' medicare unit.'

He saw Foley's jaw clench and the beginning of a snarl was only just kept from manifesting itself on her face. She stiffened as if to attention, then she caught Peron's eye and the temper pa.s.sed.

'Yes, Dr Pryce,' she conceded, but there were distinct undercurrents of dissent.

Bristling with rage, Pryce set to the task of examining the girl. She was younger than the man. Trim and pretty, but again not excessively so. Pryce guessed that she was probably unenhanced, possibly a completely natural twenty-something. Foley was talking, pointing at the monitor.

'This one's strange as well,' Foley said. She managed to sound a little contrite, but he wasn't going to be taken in by that. 'Physically, no problems, but there's something extraordinary happening inside her brain.'

Bending over to examine the girl's eyes, which seemed to be locked open but entirely blind, Pryce could see clearly that there was substantial trauma to the eye-surfaces, presumably caused by the storm and her inability to blink or close her eyes. Removing a pack of treatments from the monitor's dispenser, Pryce 48set to work applying a layer of clear gel to the girl's open eyes before fixing tiny wires into the gel from the monitor.

While he worked, he saw Peron come over behind him to examine the ECG.

Nudging the controls on the monitor, she projected a hologram into the air above them, a magnified map of the synaptic activity in the girl's brain. The areas were automatically colour-coded for rapid recognition, and Peron was able to delete levels of data to look at only selected zones. She moved slowly down into the image, cancelling chunks as she went and expanding other areas to get a better view.

'Ever seen anything like this in the deep mid-brain?' Peron asked.

Pryce shook his head. 'It's going crazy. I've never seen so much activity in any area of any brain. Have you?'

Peron nodded. 'I once saw the effects of a mind probe. A military recording.

The probe was turned up full blast and the man's brain was being literally fried.

Thoughts and memories and nightmares sparking all over the place.'

Pryce was genuinely disgusted, and he failed to hide the fact in his expression.

'I didn't make make it,' she said in her defence. 'I just watched it.' Pryce hated these games they played. Peron seemed to derive a distorted amus.e.m.e.nt from teasing him with hints of just how ruthless the military could be. it,' she said in her defence. 'I just watched it.' Pryce hated these games they played. Peron seemed to derive a distorted amus.e.m.e.nt from teasing him with hints of just how ruthless the military could be.

'That's sick,' he told her.

'It was part of a course on cerebral dysfunction.'

'How to incinerate minds in one easy lesson,' Pryce said hollowly.

But Peron wasn't listening. She was gazing again into the colour patterns in the air above them. The image looked like a 3-D star chart, a chaos of swirling sparks of light. She began to think aloud.

'I wonder if this activity could be jamming up the other signals in the cerebral cortex. Overloading the nervous system.'

'Hijacking the motor functions. . . ' Pryce chipped in.

'The question is, what's causing it?' Peron asked.

'Cranial trauma?' Pryce suggested.

'Never seen anybody act like this from a b.u.mp on the head before, have you?'

Pryce hadn't. n.o.body had. The girl was a mystery, and one he thought they might explore a little easier once they'd tidied up her physical wounds.

He glanced begrudgingly at Foley. 'Where did you pick them up?'

'Direct path central.'

Pryce looked up sharply.

'Don't ask,' Foley said, shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders.

49.'Any papers?' queried Peron. 'Any ID?'

'Not a jot. Both a complete blank.'

'No incoming expected?' Peron asked.

'Only Domecq. But we haven't had his entry signature from the portal yet, so he's going to be a day or so away at least.'

'Come off it, Captain,' Pryce interceded. 'There's so much atmospheric turbulence these days that we don't get the signatures any more. Perhaps Dr Domecq has already arrived. I think it's altogether possible he crash-landed tonight right on our doorstep.'

Peron looked over to the man on the bed. 'Don't jump to conclusions,' she warned Pryce simply.

'So who the h.e.l.l else could they be?' Pryce demanded. He hated the closed mindset of the military. No docs no go. There was something just too d.a.m.n automatic about their reasoning. He'd never understood why they needed people to fulfil that particular function anyway. Remote-droids could do a much better job, and they'd cost cost a whole lot less in the long run. a whole lot less in the long run.

'Compet.i.tion employees?' Foley suggested. 'Agents provocateurs? There's a limitless universe of possibilities, Dr Pryce.'

He perceived an overtone of patronisation that was barely disguised. He'd had run-ins aplenty with Foley, and he guessed she was a woman to nurture a grudge. Unless it was just a charming twist of personality that made her obsessively confrontational with everybody.

'Thank you for your input, Captain Foley' he snapped. 'I'm sure we can manage from here.'

'I think I'll hang around,' Foley said, 'if you don't mind.'

Pryce felt his blood begin to boil.

'I think I'll have to insist that you leave,' he told her levelly.

'These people are under close military supervision,' she responded like a whiplash.

'These people are receiving emergency medical attention,' Pryce hissed. 'And you are in grave danger of overstepping your jurisdiction, Captain Foley.'

Foley watched him with undisguised hostility. Then he caught another hint of nonverbal communication between her and Peron. Foley backed down reluctantly, but her eyes were still burning with frustration.

'You will, of course, inform me as soon as either of these people awake,' she growled at Pryce.

'I'll let you know,' Pryce said, doing his utmost to keep his voice even.

50.

Foley left her eyes on his for a good few moments too long. He felt uncomfortable under her intense, unflinching stare. At last she nodded curtly and marched from the room.

The door swished shut behind her and Pryce felt a rush of relief. He found Peron gazing at him from over the room with a detached, unreadable expression, and felt a fresh surge of animosity at their intrusion into his department.

The military had arrived two months ago with the creatures, and since then he'd felt his authority here crumbling steadily. Foley's challenges were becoming ever more arrogant and blatant. And the support he'd received in the early days from Peron was fast turning into antipathy.

'I think I'll begin my reports,' he announced, making for the door after Foley.

'Yes,' Peron's voice followed him. 'You do that.'

At the door he turned on her.

'You'd be as well to remember who runs this department, Dr Peron,' he told her hotly. 'Military One might well be a powerful arm of WorldCorp, but there are far more powerful forces in the universe, believe me.'

She allowed a laconic smile into her lips.

'Oh, I know where the power lies, Dr Pryce,' she a.s.sured him, staring at him evenly until he had to turn away.

He stalked from the room, heard the door swish shut behind him, and felt ashamed at the fresh wave of relief that washed through him.

The dirt was a fairground ride. When Fitz awoke the adrenaline was already pumping, burning him up like a raging fire. There was pain and confusion, but through it all he knew he just had to run.

Throwing the cover of vegetation off, he thought he must have fallen into a television channel that was off air for the night. There was only meaningless static and a hissing, howling, rumbling sound that could well have been the Devil coming up to swallow him whole.

The ground churning and boiling around him, Fitz did his utmost to scrabble to his feet. But his legs were less than useless. He achieved a short-lived verticality before everything south of his belt decided to go AWOL and he collapsed back to the dirt with a thud. He tried to rise again but it was impossible.

There were lights in the storm. Little yellow dots that came and went in the winds and swirling sand. Fitz yelled for help but his voice was whisked up by the storm and torn to useless shreds like ribbons that spiralled, then were gone.

There was thunder and chaos and apocalypse. There were very probably four mounted hors.e.m.e.n on a nearby hill overlooking his doom, nodding sagely to 51.one another as the ground below Fitz opened up and he plummeted to a place he didn't want even to think about Having tossed and turned for half the night, Danyal Bains lay awake at 4 a.m.

feeling more than a little disgruntled. He dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom to find a man in the mirror who was obviously suffering from severe sleep deprivation. He gazed into the reflected eyes, and for a long moment didn't recognise himself at all. The last four weeks had seen his determination eroded by the continual battle against petty bureaucracy. His meeting last night with the top man himself, Gaskill Tyran, had finally proved to him that he was never going to see his dig again. WorldCorp were absolutely single-minded in their pursuit of this planet, and last night's meeting with Tyran had only driven home the futility of his fight.

They were less than forty-eight hours now from Grid 1123. Less than two days from annihilating a past civilisation and all its invaluable knowledge.

There might well be plenty of other significant finds left undiscovered beneath the surface, but, after all his efforts and Tyran's determination to destroy his work, he doubted very much if he'd be allowed to reveal them to anybody. If news got out to the right people in Earth Central, he was confident that works would be stopped, at least in this sector. What were a few square kilometres of dirt in an entire world? It was a potential delay to all all ops on Ceres Alpha for perhaps as long as two or three years. And that was what terrified the likes of Gaskill Tyran. ops on Ceres Alpha for perhaps as long as two or three years. And that was what terrified the likes of Gaskill Tyran.

Splashing cold water over his face, Bains heaved a giant sigh and turned from the sorry image in the mirror. He made his way back through his apartment and began to clamber into his work gear. If diplomatic channels had failed, he thought, then there was only direct action left. He'd been a prisoner for over a month and he'd managed to squander a lot of valuable time by his inertia. If he didn't make a stand now, today, then he knew he'd regret it for the rest of his life.

Fixing his com unit over his shoulders, Bains ran through the system checks with a casual familiarity while he slumped on the edge of the sofa to put on his boots. The unit rewarded him with a series of green lights, and he opened the door and poked his head out into the corridor.

Empty. Good start. Now all he had to do was get to chopper pad 26 without being seen, and that was only forty levels up and nearly a kilometre away. No problem.

52.

Mij Peron was nodding off when Pryce returned. She'd spent the last few hours squatting on an uncomfortable chair in med ops, trying and failing quite spectacularly to make herself comfortable while the patients slept and the accelerators worked their small miracles.

'You look tired,' Pryce commented.

'I'm fine,' she lied, trying to straighten herself into an upright position, while her bones and sinews refused point-blank to cooperate.

Pryce leaned over the girl, carefully peeling away the eye gel.

'Healed nicely,' he said.

He poked and prodded the monitor, running through the total-body checks one at a time with a distracted fluidity, nodding all the while.

'Those internal lesions have healed OK,' Peron said.

'That cerebral activity's still all over the place, though,' he pointed out.

'Well hopefully we can make some sense of it all when she's physically recovered.'

Pryce examined the girl's face, his fingertips plying the skin of her cheeks, pressing tenderly to explore the bone structure beneath.

'Those zygomatic fractures have repaired nicely,' he noted. 'She'll thank us for that when she wakes up.'

A sudden furore behind them snapped their attention to the man. He sat bolt upright on the bed, staring at the wrist restraints that Foley had attached. His eyes were wide and incredulous, pale blue and gawking.

Then he glared at Pryce and Peron.

'How long have I been here?' he asked. The words tumbled out of him almost faster than Peron could recognise them. She watched Pryce dash over and grasp the man's shoulders.

'Easy,' he soothed. 'You're in Medicare Central. You're going to be fine.'

But the man's eyes were wild, glancing from Pryce to Peron to the girl and around the room with frantic motions of his head. His monitor readouts were everywhere at once, dancing a most strange and alien jig. A whole clutch of red warnings flashed in a frenzied fury on the screen.

'How long?' he demanded. He had a commanding voice that Pryce was compelled to answer.

'About five hours.'

'Fitz!' the man said. There was genuine pain in his eyes now. Realising there were sensors attached to his face, he swiped his head from side to side until they were all dislodged, lying useless on the bed. The med unit flatlined abruptly, and the air squealed with its shrill warning cry.

53.Pryce switched off the unit and pressed his hands on the man's shoulders.

'Calm down,' he said. 'Fitz is OK. She's right over there. She's going to be fine.'

'That's not Fitz,' the man yelled. Peron thought he looked about to burst into tears. He was yanking at the restraints. 'How do I get outside?'

'You have another colleague?' Pryce was asking.