'You do realize that damaging Earth Central property is an offence?'

Bernice froze, startled. A small man dressed in high*collared, floor*length black robes stood over her, 'Don't do that!' she snapped.

'Sorry,' he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. 'May I sit down?' He pulled out a chair and sat without waiting for her reply.

'No,' she said, just for the h.e.l.l of it.

'Thank you.' He smiled as if they'd known each other for years. 'My name is Bishop, but then you probably already know that.'

'I saw you arrive yesterday in that bijou little ship of yours. You're the Adjudicator, aren't you?'

'Yes, I am. And your name is Bernice, isn't it? Bernice Summerfield.'

'And it only took you a day to find out. I'm impressed.'

'I work fast, Krau Summerfield.'

Bernice looked at Bishop more closely. He was a small man. Small and una.s.suming. He could have been a bank manager on some outback planet, or perhaps a priest. His face was notable for its anonymity. She doubted that she would recognize him in a crowd.

'It comes in very useful,' he said.

She jerked guiltily. 'What does?'

'Looking ordinary. Nondescript.'

She rapidly reviewed everything she had been thinking, just in case.

'It's all right,' he said, and smiled again. 'I can't read your mind. It's just that everybody thinks that when they first see me. Some of my closest friends don't recognize me at parties.'

Bernice wondered exactly what kind of parties a man like Bishop might attend.

'Fancy dress?' she asked, straight*faced.

He looked down ruefully at his flowing ebony robes. 'They come with the job, I'm afraid.'

She smiled. 'Not much use in a fight.'

'You'd be surprised what you can hide under here.' His face smoothed over, and she suddenly realized how flat and grey his eyes were. 'Who are you?' he asked quietly.

'Like you said, I'm Bernice Summerfield.' Her voice wasn't as calm as she would have liked.

'Yes, but who are are you? You don't appear in the personnel records. You didn't arrive on any of the robot ships that drop supplies off here. You don't exist. Who you? You don't appear in the personnel records. You didn't arrive on any of the robot ships that drop supplies off here. You don't exist. Who are are you?' you?'

'I told you once. If you don't like the answer, you can whistle for another one.'

'Let me help.' He reached into his robes and pulled out a small blue object which he held out to her. 'Recognize it?'

'No,' she lied.

'Let me refresh your memory. It's a drone camera one of a number which keep a permanent record of what goes on in this base.' He indicated a corner of the room, and Bernice noticed for the first time a tiny hovering shape that watched her without eyes. 'A permanent record,' he continued, 'which I've been watching since yesterday.'

He looked down at the object in his hand as if he had suddenly realized what it was himself. 'This one won't be doing much more recording '

'Spying!'

' for some time.' He leaned forward, his face absolutely blank. 'You, your friend the Doctor, and the woman Ace, appeared in the middle of a corridor in one of the newly*opened areas of Belial Base. I don't know how you've managed it, but in the intervening time you've got the entire Base staff eating out of your hands. They seem to think that you've always been here. I know differently. Since you arrived, the security has become subject to an increasing number of corrupt files, and a member of the team has died. You destroyed one of the recording drones, at a cost of some thirty thousand adjusted ergs. Earth cannot afford thirty thousand adjusted ergs. Earth cannot afford you running around on this base like a deranged cybernetic waiter.'

Bernice favoured the Adjudicator with her coldest stare. 'Let me explain. I came in here for some peace, some quiet and, most especially, for a drink. I've got a lot on my plate at the moment. What I don't need is some jumped*up civil servant waving his inferiority complex in my face.'

Bishop leaned back in his chair. His face split in a totally humourless smile. 'Thank you, Krau Summerfield, for that little gem of advice. You've been most helpful.'

Bernice struggled to focus her anger. She couldn't seem to get a handle on Bishop. The Adjudicator was like an egg: seamless, smooth, unfathomable. The only way in was to smash through, but Bernice wasn't sure she wanted to go quite that far yet. What was he thinking? Did he really believe that she, Ace and the Doctor could be responsible for Paula's death? She debated whether to confide in him about her own observations. But would he believe her? Or would he simply regard it as an attempt to deflect attention away from herself? Come to think about it, was she really that certain of her own theory?

Bishop was still smiling. He shook his head. Bernice couldn't tell whether he was answering her unspoken questions or not, but then she supposed that was the whole point. His whole manner seemed geared towards well inscrutability. He wasn't giving anything away.

'Let's get back to the point, shall we?' Once more Bishop a.s.sumed the offensive. 'What are you doing on this base?'

'Does the Base Coordinator know you're annoying everyone like this?'

'He requested my presence here. Please don't avoid the question. I repeat: what are you doing here?'

'Why should you a.s.sume that we're doing anything here?' an ironic voice interjected. Behind Bishop, the Doctor seemed to sway gently on his feet like a modestly*proportioned punchbag. Behind him, Ace slammed the door to the refectory and walked over to sit beside Bernice, crossing her feet on the table and leaning back with her arms folded behind her head.

'Hmph.' The Doctor gently slid Ace's crossed feet a short distance across the table and took a seat. 'My dear Adjudicator, I'm so very pleased to meet you at long last!'

The Adjudicator frowned. 'As I recall, our meeting is not scheduled until twenty*one hundred hours tomorrow.'

'I didn't come here to meet you. I came here to meet Bernice.' The Doctor thrust his head forward rather like an aggressive turtle. 'Privately,' he added pointedly.

'To what end?' Bishop obviously wasn't going to give up so easily.

The Doctor tapped the side of his nose. 'Would you believe a hot toddy?'

Casually, the Doctor beckoned to the food dispenser that had been hovering around waiting for an opportunity to serve them. As it slid up to him, he pressed a b.u.t.ton and offered Bishop one of the two drinks which fell into his waiting hands. When Bishop refused, the Doctor produced two straws from an inside pocket and began simultaneously to drink from both containers.

'Hmm,' he murmured with raised eyebrows. 'Strawberry and oxtail. My favourites.' He took another appreciative gulp. 'You think there's something suspicious about us, don't you, Trau Bishop?'

Bishop just kept smiling the same enigmatic smile.

'It's all right,' the Doctor continued rea.s.suringly, 'I can't read your thoughts. It's just that everybody thinks that when they first see us.'

Cheryl Russell moved with steamroller efficiency across the bleak, charcoal surface of Belial. Behind her came Sam, slightly shorter than her two*metres*one*with*starsuit, and struggling to keep up with her power*a.s.sisted strides.

'Hang about,' mumbled Sam between wheezing breaths. 'I'm not half as young as I used to be.'

Cheryl tried to put a smile into her voice. 'But you look twice your age, so on average you're okay.'

Shift over, the married couple had taken leave of one of Bannen's domes and were moving purposefully back towards Belial Base's main airlock a.s.sembly. Bannen had put in a requisition for a pressurized tunnel four years before, and had renewed it at regular intervals, but Moshe*Rabaan had vetoed it every time. Miles might have been in charge of the project, but it was Moshe*Rabaan who allocated the energy to carry out his instructions. Some considered the cool, distant woman to be the real voice of Eden.

In the time since Paula Engado's death, tension had skyrocketed. Tempers had stretched to breaking point on any number of occasions, even between Sam and Cheryl. They had been married on the trip out from Earth, and until now Project Eden had been nothing more or less than a prolonged honeymoon for them. On Earth, with living s.p.a.ce at an unprecedented premium, their records would have been stapled together in a memory bank somewhere and their living arrangements would have felt exactly the same as before: even married, their living s.p.a.ce allocation would have consisted of only two rooms; there wouldn't have been s.p.a.ce enough to swing a cat. Now here they were, two hundred and eighty light years from Earth, in orbit around a planet so big it made you dizzy just thinking about it. Okay so it was dark, cold and airless, the hours stank and so did the plumbing, but it was home now. A better home than Earth had ever been to them. Perhaps a better home than Earth could ever be, even if Project Eden were successful.

Sam shivered a little and adjusted the thermostat on his life*functions regulator. Sometimes the dark and the cold got to you out here. The Ring of Lucifer encircling the horizon didn't help either. The d.a.m.n planet was too well named. Nowhere on Belial even there, on the dark side of the moon could you escape its fiery gaze. Anywhere you went, reflections from the planet's atmosphere overwhelmed the clear light of even the brightest stars. He was glad to have Cheryl. She was, after all, the reason he was there.

The Doctor and Bishop were head to head across the refectory table. By now, other members of the crew who'd come off shift had drifted in; the galley staff were up and running at full steam and the food dispensers were rushed off their null*gray units. Ace had become used to food machines and ration packs, and was finding it strangely hard to readjust. Her years in s.p.a.cefleet had affected her more than she had thought. The clatter of cutlery and the noisy munching of the off*duty roster were enough to put any thoughts of sensible conversation in an early grave. Ace wondered how the two could hear themselves talk over the din.

At the moment, Bishop was still trying to sound the Doctor out. Like many people before him, the Adjudicator wasn't really having a whole lot of luck. 'A chemical a.n.a.lysis of the blue paint used to disable security monitor five shows a high degree of magnetic alignment.'

'Yes, that's right,' said the Doctor, like a kid with a beetle in a box. 'It's a clever little c.o.c.ktail of my own invention: a universally compatible software encoded on magnetically aligned molecules of paint. Atomization gives instant access to any hardware which isn't hermetically sealed. The program acts autonomously; all its controls are built in. It's even colour*coded for easy reference. Rather neat, don't you think? And such a pretty colour!'

Bishop's bemused expression cleared. 'That would explain how the other security file blackouts have occurred. Software contagion can be dealt with. What cannot be so easily explained is why the contagion was introduced in the first place.' Bishop leaned even further towards the Doctor, until their noses were only centimetres apart. 'Just what was it you didn't want anyone to see you do down there, Doctor?'

Now it was the Doctor's turn to look puzzled. He blinked rapidly as Bishop leaned back confidently in his chair. 'Other security file blackouts? On no. No, no, no, no, no. I took special care over mixing that batch. It was my favourite colour. And it was definitely non*viral.'

'The facts seem to indicate otherwise, Doctor,' Bishop said with some satisfaction. 'For example, you casually walked into Miles Engado's meeting and announced that his daughter had been killed by a suit malfunction that, you claimed, could only have been caused by a deliberately*induced software infection.'

'Hmm,' the Doctor mused, 'I can see how you could leap unerringly to the wrong conclusion two and two making five, and all that. Still, it must have occurred to you that I wouldn't wander around incriminating myself unless I was a complete fool.'

'The thought had occurred,' Bishop said.

The Doctor leaned back in his chair. 'Two simple alternatives spring to mind, Adjudicator. Either your facts are wrong, or they are incomplete.'

Bishop rose to leave the table. 'Since evidence against you is still not conclusive, I will allow you the benefit of the doubt.'

The Doctor's expression was carefully neutral. 'But you'd appreciate us not leaving the star system without notifying you first, hmm?'

Bishop refused the bait. 'Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your cooperation.'

The Doctor doffed his hat and smiled. 'You're very welcome,' he stated formally.

With a barely audible swish of ebony material, the Adjudicator left the refectory. Ace exchanged glances with the Doctor. 'Who pushed his b.u.t.ton, then?'

'Trau Bishop is just doing his job, Ace.'

'Yeah, right. His job is obviously to upset everyone.'

'The Guild of Adjudicators has a long and interesting history. You should respect it.'

'We called them "ravens" in my time.'

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. 'My time?' he asked. time?' he asked.

Ace looked away. 'The twenty*fifth century.'

'What happens to them all?' Bernice asked. 'I wrote a couple of papers on Guild history. I'd love to know how it all comes out.'

The Doctor sighed, and gazed down at the table.

'A sad story,' he said. 'As Earth went through Empire and Federation, the fortunes of the Guild waxed and waned. Eventually, they became unnecessary. A thousand forms of local justice had sprung up. Every planet had its own laws, and its own police. The universe had pa.s.sed them by. The Guild of Adjudicators had nothing to adjudicate. They degenerated into a reclusive order of a.s.sa.s.sins known as the Knights of the Grand Order of Oberon, dreaming of past glories and crusades for truth.' He smiled bitterly. 'I went looking for them once, to return something that was theirs. I couldn't find them.'

The Doctor glanced over at Bernice to check her reaction, but she didn't seem to have been listening. She gave the appearance of having furled all sails and battened down the hatches.

'You're upset about Paula's death,' the Time Lord observed casually. 'You were good friends, weren't you?'

Bernice looked the Doctor full in the face. There was so much in that face, she thought. So many layers of motivation, experience, understanding. Why did she see nothing in there for herself any more? Eyes that had beheld the birth and death of the universe met her gaze with steady recognition. Had he done what she thought he'd done? Or was she being melodramatic?

'Yes,' she said finally, bitterly. 'I was a real friend.'

Cheryl Russell heard nothing as the outer airlock hatch glided into its fairing, but the air movement as the lock pressurized and the inner portal dilated rocked her starsuit on its gyros. Have to get that sorted, she thought, and soon. All they needed to complete the worst*case scenario was a scrubbed 'lock a.s.sembly.

Ambling noisily into the antechamber, Sam echoed her thought. 'No more parties till the 'lock's seen to, eh?'

Cheryl nodded as she released the seals on her starsuit's helmet. 'Could be messy if you wanted to step outside and puke, that's for sure.'

Cheryl disengaged her helmet and lowered it to the bench. 'Voice command: inner airlock door close, please.'

Sam removed his helmet and dumped it alongside Cheryl's. Condensation run*off from the starsuits was already collecting in the troughs in the flooring. It was always cold in the 'lock. Cold and wet.

'I dunno why you bother to say please. It's only a neural network.'

'Someday machines may have minds too. If the scurvy thing suddenly becomes spontaneously aware, I want it to remember I was nice to it.' She pitched her voice slightly higher for the neural net's benefit. 'Voice command: starsuit nine. Unseal please. Engage neural network linkage for systems check.'

Cheryl's s.p.a.cesuit parted down the chest and back, splitting like a walnut sh.e.l.l along predetermined paths. Sam watched appreciatively as Cheryl stepped out from the suit. Her pleasantly rounded face lit up in a cheerful grin as the disembodied voice of starsuit nine's brain stated: 'Command acknowledged. Thank you for using this unit. Have a nice day.' The wall hatch opened to receive it like an advanced exercise in origami. As it walked back into the suit holding area for its usual systems check, Sam could see the ranks of other starsuits gleaming in the shadows, along with a rack of flimsy emergency s.p.a.cesuits.

Cheryl swept back a matted wad of copper hair with an absent gesture. The necklace of diopals growing from the skin of her neck glinted in the bright, sterilizing light. 'There you are see?'

'Programmed inanities installed at the whim of a matrix generator guilty of watching too many bad simularities.' Sam dismissed the humanizing details of the machinery's software with a sweeping gesture. 'Voice command: starsuit seventeen. Unzip. Besides,' he continued, waiting for his suit to follow Cheryl's into the wall, 'neural networks might mimic human thought processes, but that doesn't mean they suddenly have to come alive to perform at optimum.'

Cheryl walked through into the ultrasound shower, and Sam became aware that he was still waiting for the suit to open. 'Voice command: starsuit seventeen. Unzip!'

He could hear Cheryl laugh as the suit replied: 'Please redefine command instruction. This unit is no longer programmed to receive colloquially*worded instructions.'

Sam sighed with frustration. It had been a long shift; one way or another he was determined it wouldn't be prolonged by some recalcitrant hunk of s.p.a.ce*junk. 'Voice command: starsuit seventeen and before I take a can opener to you unseal! Please,' he added, as a concession to Cheryl's theory.

'Command acknowledged.'

Above the faint buzz of the ultrasound shower, Cheryl howled with laughter.

Sam continued, trying desperately to hold his temper in check. 'Thank you. Now engage neural network linkage for systems check and software update.'

'Command acknowledged.'

The suit unfolded. Sam stepped out, naked and shivering.