'Told you it pays to be polite.' Shower over, Cheryl opened her locker and began to dress in her indoor clothes. Pulling on the smoothly*flowing material and fastening the ornate webbing, she added, 'You know, there's something odd '

'About the starsuit?' Sam's eyes narrowed as he watched suit number seventeen retract into the wall.

'Yeah,' she mused thoughtfully. 'What did it say? "No longer programmed..." I thought all these suits were fitted with personality matrices capable of acting upon colloquial language instructions.'

Sam took Cheryl's place in the shower. 'So did I,' he said.

Cheryl continued, 'Voice command: starsuit seventeen. Detail: self*diagnostic check. Detail: run all*systems comparison algorithm. Parameter limits: from suit activation date to current date, inclusive. Purpose: collate information and report incidence of last programming update.'

The starsuit replied: 'Command acknowledged. Program running... Program complete. No parameter update recorded.'

'So we were wrong.'

Sam poked his head out of the shower. 'Unless whatever has affected the instructions*input subroutine has also affected the self*diagnostics and other systems, in which case '

'In which case we've got a big problem.'

Sam and Cheryl exchanged alarmed glances. Cheryl had definitely not understated the case. A software bug in an environment as hostile as Belial could mean severe danger for everyone on the base. The neural net controlled every aspect of their environment. It kept them all alive. If it crashed... Well, to say the s.h.i.t would hit the fan would be a prize*winning understatement.

'Sam. Have you got time to get the suit unhooked before your shift on Moloch? I think I'd better report this to Piper straight away.'

'Sure. According to Tiw the Lift isn't due in for another half hour.' Sam left the shower and began talking to the wall as Cheryl left the antechamber. 'Voice command: starsuit seventeen. Unlink and prepare for excursion.'

The wall remained blank and smooth. There was no reply from the a.s.sociated software.

Sam swore softly to himself. The starsuits, like everything of a mechanical nature on the base, were extremely expensive and impossible to replace from Earth. Something as fundamental as a suitbrain couldn't be whipped up from old bits of cardboard and tofu. Sam had more than a vague idea of who'd be for the high jump if this suit were found to be inoperable and the cause pinned on negligence in the Technical Section. He'd probably find himself floating home on the next pigeon*post message pod. Minus starsuit.

As Sam was trying to decide what to do next, he saw a tall shadow sweep across the wall in front of him.

'Hi Cheryl. Jealous of the machinery, huh? Bet you just couldn't bear to leave me alone down here, could you?'

There was no reply, just the faint whisper of the recycling vents and the buzz of the ultrasound. The shadow stood poised behind him, unmoving.

Sam turned, a devastating line poised for delivery. The joke never came. Instead his eyes bulged in shock and a yell of alarm was trapped in his throat.

He tried to run or yell out, but found he could no longer move.

In the complete and utter silence only achieved by very large, complex items of machinery, the shadow approached.

Only then, far too late to do himself any good, did Sam find the strength to scream.

But not for long.

Chapter Four.

The man in the business suit stepped carefully across the dismembered body of a soldier and looked up dispa.s.sionately.

Behind him, the mist crawled across the churned ground like some huge, sluggish animal. Multi*legged scavengers, no bigger than a clenched fist, skittered along the tread*marks of heavy battle vehicles and into the craters left by sub*orbital laser bursts and tactical Z-bombs. The pale light of sunrise spilled over twisted bodies and broken weapons. In the violet sky, a wide swathe of debris, all that remained of the planet's moon, refracted the sunrise back in splintered rainbows. The heavier fragments were already beginning to re*enter the atmosphere in long shallow arcs of flame. The ground still shook violently in the grip of vast tectonic convulsions, but the man in the business suit did not flinch.

'No race or alliance has yet claimed responsibility for the ma.s.sacre, which has left a billion settlers dead. Sifranos is the fifth planet to be devastated in the Arcturus sector since the beginning of the year. As usual, no clue remains to the ident.i.ty of the attackers.'

A muted thudding seemed to swell behind his words like a slow heartbeat. As the sound grew louder the mist drew back, revealing more devastation, more death.

'Rumours that an unidentified alien fleet is ma.s.sing around Epsilon Eridani are strongly denied by the President. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," she said, during a speech at the Earth Central Complex in Damascus today. Meanwhile, the Earth Alliance of Corporations rejected a call for the planet to be put on a war footing. "War is bad for business," said their Chairperson, Madrigal LaFayette. "And what's bad for business is bad for Earth."'

Behind the man the mist had retreated to form a circle, pushed back by some invisible force. A scarred metal object began to descend into the clearing. The red crescent on its side stood out like spilled blood.

'Meanwhile, on Sifranos, the long task of burying the dead has only just begun.' The landscape behind the man faded, leaving him standing in a pastel*coloured room. 'That simularity was prepared earlier today from recordings supplied by the Interstellar Red Crescent,' he continued in the same level tones. 'And now a report on the opening of the Earth Emba.s.sy on Alpha Centauri Five '

'News off,' Piper said as she walked over to the table where the Doctor and his friends were conversing quietly. The simularity in the centre of the refectory flickered and died. n.o.body else in the crowded refectory seemed to notice; after all, they had seen it four or five times already. Piper thanked G.o.d that Federique Moshe*Rabaan wasn't around. She would have had a field day going on about energy being expended for no reason, even if the news and entertainment crystals sent out on the monthly robot supply*ships from Earth were the only link most of the crew had with home.

'You weren't watching, were you?' she asked as she sat down. Ace pointedly looked out of the window. Bernice was observing something on the far side of the refectory with cat*like intensity, and only the Doctor seemed to hear her words.

'History is always interesting,' he said with a soft burr in his voice. 'But never as interesting as good conversation.'

'History?' Piper couldn't help asking.

'Everything is history,' the Doctor replied, his eyes twinkling, 'if you look at it from the right perspective.'

'Excuse me,' Bernice said. 'I think I see a friend in need.' She uncoiled from her seat and walked off. Piper tried to make out who she was heading for, but all she could see was Christine LaFayette making rapidly for the door.

'From any perspective it's nothing but bad news,' Piper said, dragging her attention back to the Doctor. 'It's almost enough to make you want to stay here on Belial.'

'And do you?' the Doctor asked.

Piper looked at him. He was sitting bolt upright, arms folded and resting on his new umbrella, looking for all the world as if her answer was the most important thing in his life. With dawning amazement, she realized that he wasn't part of the Belial Base complement, and even as she did so she knew that it wasn't the first time she had remembered that. She tried to recall how he came to be there, but the memories were soft and fuzzy, and her mind didn't want to focus upon them. She couldn't seem to look away from his eyes. It was as if he and his friends had always been there. Had always always been there. been there.

Ace suddenly stood up. 'Got to go,' she said tautly. The Doctor looked away from Piper and watched Ace sadly as she walked towards the door.

Piper shook her head and frowned. She had been thinking about something, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what. She looked over at the Doctor, but he was still watching Ace as she picked her way between tables and barged past the people coming in. Had he asked her a question? Yes... About Earth, and whether she ever wanted to go back. She gazed around the refectory as she considered her answer. Most of the tables were full now, and the sounds of argument, conversation and clinking cutlery filled the air: B and C Shifts, just knocked off from work, looking for food, fun and frolics. Her Her crews. Her friends. crews. Her friends.

'What is there for me back on Earth?' she asked rhetorically. 'You can't breathe the air without a mask, you can't stand in the sunlight without a hat, you can't turn on a light without permission from the Energy Police.' She smiled bitterly. 'Funny, I didn't use to notice the half of it. I used to think life was okay for Ben and me. He had a good job with one of the corporations, and I used to write for a living. Then Ben... Well, Ben died and I discovered that all those savings that I thought we had were gone, spent by Ben on keeping me wrapped up in my warm little coc.o.o.n. And I had to fend for myself.' Her voice was calm, almost dispa.s.sionate, but on the table her fingers were twining and untwining like a ball of worms.

'What happened to Ben?' the Doctor asked gently.

'He was an engineer for Inters.p.a.ce Incorporated,' Piper replied. 'Six months out in one of their exploration ships, six months back on Earth. It was the only way we could manage to live in a room that small him being away half the time. Ever hear of the Hydrax Hydrax?'

'I think I may have done.'

'It was a scientific vessel out on an exploratory mission to Beta Two. It vanished, like some of them do. Crew of two hundred and forty*three. Including Ben.'

'I'm very sorry.'

She shook her head. 'Don't be. It was thirty years ago. I'm a different person now.'

'But the scars never heal, do they?'

She looked for tears, but found nothing. Nothing but emptiness. 'No,' she said. 'No, they don't.'

'What happened after that?'

'Inters.p.a.ce refused to pay out on Ben's pension. They claimed that he might still be alive, somewhere. I couldn't afford to fight them, so I had to find myself a decent job. None of the corporations would touch me. No training, you see. There's d.a.m.n*all use for a writer of kids' books in a world with a childbirth quota. So I retrained and took a position with the only people who were desperate enough to have me Earth Central. The same goes for most of the people here. We're all rejects from the companies.'

'Speak for yourself,' a voice whined behind her. 'I relished the challenge. Company men do what they're told. I do what I want.'

Piper winced. 'You naturally gravitated towards the only employers who would put up with your arrogance, Alex,' she snapped. 'Any company would pay you four times as much as Earth Government does, and give you more challenging work. Do you expect us to believe that you wouldn't be prepared to kowtow to the bosses for that?'

'Believe what you want,' Bannen sniffed. 'I didn't come here to debate motivations with you. I get enough of that from Christine. I came to find the Doctor.'

There was a sudden clatter as the Doctor's umbrella skidded sideways from beneath his folded arms. The Doctor didn't move for a moment his arms suspended like a Cossack dancer's then he bounded to his feet decisively. One moment his umbrella was clattering across the floor, the next it was clutched in his hands. Piper blinked. She hadn't seen him move.

'I've broken one already whilst I've been here,' he said apologetically, looking at her. 'I don't intend making the same mistake twice.' He turned to Bannen. 'What have you found?'

'C Shift have discovered some sort of control room in the deads.p.a.ces. Looks important. I've worked out most of the functions of the equipment, of course, but I would be interested in your opinion.'

The Doctor turned to Piper. 'Excuse me,' he said politely.

Piper stood up. 'It's all right,' she said. 'I'm supposed to be at a meeting with Miles in five minutes, and all my notes are in my room. You go on.'

The Doctor turned to Bannen and pointed his umbrella at the door. 'Lay on, MacDuff,' he said.

Two storeys high and hemispherical, buried deep in the centre of Belial Base, the Operations Room was the combined heart and brain of the Project. The members of Piper's team who cl.u.s.tered around the MultiCray Neural Net at its centre looked to Ace like worshippers at the feet of some bulky pagan G.o.d, deciphering its p.r.o.nouncements and interpreting its moods; the flickering banks of equipment around the walls which monitored the state of the air, the water, the people and the Lift could have been taken for high*tech altars. The room made her uneasy. She detoured quickly around it, trying to avoid the eyes of the operators, until she found the ramp that was a short cut to the Pit and the deads.p.a.ces.

As she stepped out on to the circular landing that surrounded the Pit, she paused and listened. All around she could make out the constant background hum of the air purifiers, the babble of voices talking far off and the rhythmic pulse of machines. Nearer, there was nothing.

She relaxed slightly.

That'll make things easier, she thought.

She walked to the edge of the Pit and looked downwards. The circular chasm dropped away from her feet, dwindling dizzyingly to a point far below, and further still, to the far side of the moon and the Bridge terminal. Around its rim a white path corkscrewed downwards.

The Pit marked the boundary between what the Project Eden team had found when they arrived in the Lucifer system and what they had built since then. From what she'd managed to get out of people during conversations, Ace knew that this end of the hole through the middle of the planet had been discovered in the middle of a terrace of cracked and jumbled rocks. Miles and his team had built the Base on top of it, and had gradually plumbed its depths. It hadn't taken them long to find the other end, hanging above Belial's smaller sister Moloch, but the maze of tunnels and shafts, known generically as the deads.p.a.ces, that led off the Pit, were still being opened up. The Base team, chronically short of s.p.a.ce, was already using the closest sections for living quarters, storage and laboratories.

Soon after she had arrived, Ace had made it a priority to explore the Base, learning all of its little nooks and crannies, mapping out short cuts, escape routes and bolt holes. Up until recently, her life had depended upon such information, and she didn't intend letting the habit slip. Every time she was in the refectory she surrept.i.tiously studied the simularity of the Base, and every day she went for a long walk to test her knowledge. She knew precisely where she was going. And, more importantly, what she was doing.

Ace took another step. The toes of her combat boots hung over the void. She waited for a long moment, until her racing heart had steadied, then stepped back.

Yeah, she'd do.

She walked around the rim until she came to the beginning of the white path. It seemed to glitter slightly. She took a step forward, waiting for the bite as her body engaged with the path's gravity field. Her feet seemed to slide away from her but her body followed on, perfectly stable. She smiled involuntarily as childhood memories washed over her: walking down Horsenden Hill back in Perivale on an icy day; letting her feet slip along the frozen ridges of mud; holding her arms out to steady herself; falling over; her books flying as she screamed and giggled. The top of the Pit was a receding circle of light above her now. The path field kept her body steady and her stomach in place. Dark openings slipped past. As the fifth one headed towards her, she turned her body slightly. The field, responding to the movement, slowed her down. She stepped off, her body flipping through a right angle into the new pa.s.sageway.

The corridor she was now in was triangular in cross section; the walls smooth to the eye but rough to the fingers, as if they had been etched by acid. Coloured striations ran along them. Power and neural network cables had been stapled along the ceiling by Piper's staff. The walls narrowed then widened out every few metres for no reason that anybody had been able to determine. Strange shapes protruded from the walls at random intervals. Theories abounded as to what they were power boxes, monitors, artwork. Second Scientist Craig Richards was even running a sweepstake on it. The floor was steeply concave; engineers had laid metal grilles over the dip to make it easier to walk on.

Ace turned left at the first junction she came to, entering the living quarters of the Belial crew. Everybody had a suite of rooms down there, except for herself. Bernice had accepted a sleeping room in the main living quarters some weeks ago, and had transferred some of her things there. The Doctor seemed not to want to sleep anywhere. As for herself, she only felt comfortable sleeping in the TARDIS, despite its one careful owner.

She found the door she wanted. She checked the name plate to be sure.

Paula Engado Psychology.

The door was locked but, with her natural talent for breaking and entering, Ace had it open within seconds.

'Mind if I come in?' Bernice said from the doorway.

Christine LaFayette didn't look up from her desk.

'I was just pa.s.sing,' she continued, 'and I thought I'd drop in.'

'a.s.seyez vous.'

'I saw you leave the refectory just now.'

Christine wouldn't meet Bernice's gaze. 'I'd finished my meal.'

'You seemed to be in a rush.'

'I had some work to get back to.'

'You haven't even switched your terminal on.'

Christine looked up. Her eyes were red and puffy, and a badly*wiped tear glistened across her cheek. 'I'm...' She couldn't finish. The words seemed to catch on something in her throat. She shook her head.

Within a second Bernice was kneeling beside Christine, resting one hand on her knee and another on her shoulder. 'What happened?'

Christine turned a sob into a laugh. 'Hey,' she said, 'I'm the one who gets paid to comfort people and listen to their problems, remember?'

'Yes,' Bernice replied, 'but I'm a talented amateur. What happened?'

'With all my qualifications you'd have thought I could sort my own problems out.'

'It's like a universal law of nature: the best priests are alcoholics, the best marriage counsellors are divorced, the best psychiatrists come from broken homes.'

Christine flinched.

'Sorry,' Bernice said. 'That was meant as a joke.'

Christine wiped a hand across her eyes. 'Did you see the news simularity from Earth?'

'Wasn't watching.'