'Move aside!'

'I will not.'

Scowling, Bishop leapt forward and grabbed Tiw around the waist with one hand. Without holstering his gun, or taking his eyes off the glimmering phenomenon, Bishop dragged the little man from the chamber and threw him bodily into the Pit. The light grew closer. Without even pausing to catch his breath, an ever more difficult prospect in the thinning atmosphere, Bishop dived in after him.

Christine stared down at the executive transporter bay from an observation gallery thirty metres above the floor. Below her, technicians were preparing a long*range executive transporter for launch. Across the far side of the bay, a shimmering window of electric blue in the wall looked like an upended lake.

'What is that?' she asked.

Beside her hovered Legion, in a multiplicity of bodies, all of which somehow gave the impression of looking directly at her.

'An osmotic field,' it replied, ba.s.so and treble in harmony. 'It keeps the air in and the vacuum out. I'm told that humans prefer it that way.'

'And IMC market it? I'm impressed. Technology has moved on since we left Earth.'

'IMC want to market it,' Legion corrected. 'My people lease the rights to IMC for a substantial sum. One of the many dimensional technologies that IMC court us for.'

Christine's gaze travelled downwards to where the slab*sided long*range executive transporter was being refitted and refuelled.

'There's no way I'm going anywhere in that shuttle. If my mother wants me off the Project, she can d.a.m.n well go through channels and see how far it gets her.'

'But, Krau LaFayette, your female progenitor has gone through channels. With Earth in receivership, control of Project Eden transfers to the Earth Alliance of Corporations. Being head of the Board of Directors, as well as a major stockholder in said company, your female progenitor has complete control over mission profile and personnel.'

'I don't believe it. We've been out here too long and risked too much for Earth Central to give up on us now.'

'Earth Central no longer exists. My brief is to reorganize the Project along more efficient and profitable lines. Prompt action is required to salvage what might otherwise turn into a most embarra.s.sing financial debacle.'

'Action? What action? And what about the people?'

There was a momentary pause.

'In light of the current financial situation, all employment contracts have been terminated.'

'What about the Project? You can't ship us all home now!'

'You are correct. Sufficient funding for transport of non*essential personnel does not exist.'

Christine gaped. 'What do you '

'Please excuse me. There are things I must attend to.'

A uniformed officer walked along the gallery towards them. His face was pocked with scars from one of the many auto*immune diseases that were still rife on Earth.

'Staff Officer Atrimonides will make sure every comfort is provided for your journey home.'

Legion wrapped itself into five separate knots and shrank to nothing.

Piper O'Rourke sank to the floor, her chest heaving, unable to draw breath. The air. The air was going. That was it, then. It had all been for nothing; the fear, the guilt, the deaths... All for nothing. She slipped sideways and felt a familiar coaming beneath her hand. The airlock! She had come full circle.

Dragging herself to her feet, Piper stumbled across the threshold of the chamber. All she had to do now was 'Piper O'Rourke. I know you're in there.'

The Doctor.

'You can stop running now. I'm nine hundred and forty*three, and that's far too old to be chasing around like a S'ss'arian gyeet.'

'What!' Despite herself, Piper yelped with surprise. 'You're never ' She stopped, abruptly aware that the Doctor was trying to gain her confidence.

The Doctor's face appeared from the darkness, smiling. 'Do you mind if I sit down? Ahh. That's better.' He shook his head. 'Why did you do it, Piper?'

Piper fought to get her breathing under control. She looked into the Doctor's eyes, noticing that they glowed faintly, as if gathering and enhancing the available light.

'Why should I tell you anything? Bishop's going to kill me anyway.'

'I'm not here to judge you, Piper. But can you tell me a reason why everyone else on the Base must die to protect your secret?'

'No. n.o.body should have died. n.o.body!'

She took a deep breath and began to speak.

Christine watched as flight technicians finished preparing the executive transporter for launch. Atrimonides gestured with his gun, indicating that she should precede him from the gallery.

'What if I don't want to go?'

'As it happens, Ma'am, you do have a choice. You can either walk, or we can freeze you where you stand and ship you back in a refrigerator.'

'Charming.'

'Efficient.'

Christine glared at the man. She opened the pressure door and moved into the executive transporter bay control room, a semicircular chamber filled with operations and monitoring equipment.

Christine looked around. IMC employees risk a.n.a.lysts and financial a.s.sessors like clones in their sharp plastic business suits and laced necklines moved busily from one station to another, checking systems as the time for launch approached. One balanced a beaker of steaming coffee on a nearby terminal before moving on bearing a full tray.

Christine acted without thinking.

Scooping the cup from the workstation with her good hand, she whirled around and flung its contents into Atrimonides' face. He screamed and clawed at his eyes. Christine made a grab for his gun as it spun away, but only succeeded in pushing it into a console, where its trigger caught on the corner. A searing beam of high*energy protons blistered the air. Something on the other side of the room exploded, and kept on exploding.

Christine didn't wait to see what damage she'd caused. She headed for the door at a dead run, her new arm thumping uselessly against various items of furniture.

Teal saw torch beams bobbing towards him from a side corridor and grabbed Bernice's arm. Seconds later, Bishop and Tiw Heimdall came into view.

'Picks me up! Like a piece of luggage, he picks me up and throws me throws me, he does, throws me down the Pit!' Teal and Bernice exchanged grins. 'Teal, you tell him. I'm important, me. I should not be thrown around like luggage!'

'Okay, Bishop. What have you been doing with Tiw?'

The Adjudicator did not smile. 'I saw it again. We both did. The light. He He wanted to stay.' wanted to stay.'

Teal's smile faded. Are you sure?'

Bishop crossed his arms. 'As an Adjudicator, I am a trained, completely impartial, observer.'

'Yes, and I'm a Martian Queen,' Bernice snorted. 'We'd better get back to the Operations Room.' Spinning on her heel, she led the way back along the corridor.

Christine ran.

Somewhere behind her, Atrimonides was screaming in pain above a babble of voices.

' this mess cleared '

' wait a minute, can you smell '

' Earth Mother preserve us! We've got a fire '

' an extinguisher! Somebody get '

' no good, I can't hold them '

' what? How many systems? b.l.o.o.d.y '

Christine slapped her palm against the lockplate of the door. Behind her, Atrimonides lurched clear of a rising pall of smoke. She dashed clear of the control room and on to the second half of the observation gallery, thirty metres above the main executive transporter bay. Sirens blared across the chamber. Technicians dropped their tools and ran for the interior of the ship.

The control room door slammed shut behind Atrimonides as he ran on to the gallery and hurled himself at Christine. His face was blistered from the hot coffee and one eye was closed. The other glared malevolently. Christine turned to run, but there was a m.u.f.fled thud in the control room. The observation windows blew out in a shower of gla.s.s. The shock rocked the gallery and sent her sprawling back into Atrimonides.

There was another concussion. Atrimonides snarled. Christine fought for her balance as he grasped her with hooked fingers. The guard rail twisted beneath her hands, and they fell backwards into empty s.p.a.ce.

Cheryl moved towards the airlock. She stood at the door, the Doctor's name poised on her lips, but just before she called out, something made her hesitate. There were soft voices coming from inside. The Doctor... and Piper! She crept closer, straining to hear what was being said.

' and the Project had been going for so long, you see. So long, with no results. The situation on Earth was desperate, we all knew that. We had to succeed.'

The Doctor's voice said, 'And so you infected the starsuits with a software virus.'

'That's right.' Was that a note of desperation in Piper's voice? 'Earth needed results and we couldn't get them. IMC could, but there was no legal way to transfer information so they gave me a virus and I implanted it into the starsuits. The virus travelled into the neural net during a regular systems update and began to transmit information to IMC. To facilitate their takeover.'

The Doctor sighed. 'But the virus was cheap. Cheap and nasty, like everything about IMC. It caused system malfunctions. Suit malfunctions.'

Cheryl felt a cold fist clench around her heart.

'Like the one that killed Paula.'

'Yes. But I '

'You b.i.t.c.h! It was you all the time. You killed her!' Cheryl ran into the airlock chamber and grabbed Piper by the throat, jerking the woman harshly to her feet.

The Doctor stood as well. 'Cheryl, please, I hardly think this is the right moment for '

'Shut up!' Her eyes narrowed and she drew back her fist. 'I'm going to kill her!'

She slammed her clenched fist into Piper's face.

Time seemed to slow down as Christine fell into the executive transporter bay. She could see a row of tiny faces gaping from the balcony before being engulfed by a huge sheet of flame. The smell of Atrimonides' burning face and hair was thick in her nostrils. She gagged. And then the floor of the bay was rushing up towards them.

Atrimonides was grabbing wildly at her, desperately flailing his hands and feet, and Cheryl realized he was trying to use her as a reaction ma.s.s to slow his own fall. Unaware that she was screaming, Christine reached towards his face with her one good arm and hooked her fingers into the burns which crusted his cheek. He screamed and jerked. Christine whirled out of control.

There was another explosion. Christine felt her stomach lurch as the executive transporter bay gravity generator fluctuated, flinging her and Atrimonides into a spiralling loop, then failed completely, leaving her weightless. Foam began to spread through the air as the fire*fighting systems reacted automatically to the emergency. Half blinded by the foam, Christine scrambled for something to grab on to to break her fall.

Bernice, Bishop and Tiw Heimdall entered the Operations Room. Julie Ndobe, Shmuel Zehavi and Teal Green were talking in low voices. Craig Richards was standing alone, some distance away. a.n.u.shkia Smyslov had bandaged Alex Bannen's head, and the physicist was propped in a sitting position against a workstation.

He looked up eagerly as Bernice walked over to him. 'How are you feeling?'

'Well enough to reboot this pile of rust.'

a.n.u.shkia said, 'I've told you, Alex. Not until the Doctor says. We still don't know why Piper crashed the system. Until we do, it would be foolhardy to even consider '

She stopped.

'Did anyone hear '

There was an explosion of light.

Someone was yelling, but Christine couldn't make out the words. The executive transporter bay was a chaos of foam And whirling shapes which might or might not have been armed troopers. A fist lashed out at her from the whiteness. Christine gasped. Her lungs burned as she inhaled foam; she vomited.

Small*arms fire scorched a web of gaps through the foam.

'Who's the idiot still firing? Huang? If that executive transporter goes up, I'll personally eat your kidneys, capishe? capishe? Now get her!' Now get her!'

Atrimonides.

Something huge and black loomed out of the mist of foam. Christine slammed shoulders first into one of the slab*like metal sides of a long*range executive transporter. She gasped. Her head banged against the surface. Momentum carried her down the hull into the deads.p.a.ce between the executive transporter and the bay wall.

She shook her head to clear it. The foam was not so dense down here, and the recyclers were beginning to suck away what little there was.