'You wouldn't.'

He wasn't going to explain any further. Rachel had sat in the same spot for hours. But it was cold, and she needed the bathroom. She stood, very carefully, in case she made a sound and attracted the monsters.

'What do you think is going to happen?'

Marnal finished writing a sentence before replying. 'We may survive.'

'We. . . the human race?' she asked, hopefully.

'You and I, personally, may survive. I hope to, and I will do what I can for you. After that, I don't know. The Terran biosphere may have collapsed.'

'The what?'

'Earth may no longer be able to sustain life.'

'Because the monsters will have killed everyone.'

'The people don't matter so much as the plants. If enough plant life is destroyed, it will affect the atmosphere.'

'Like the greenhouse effect?'

'Yes, but much more rapid.'

He returned to his diary.

'Who are you writing that for?'

Marnal shrugged. 'Possibly just for posterity.'

One of the Vore was moving outside, Rachel could hear it dragging something heavy. She tried to imagine what it could be, but couldn't think of anything but a dead body. She'd watched a couple of them devouring an Alsatian yesterday from an upstairs window.

Rachel decided to stay where she was, just for a little longer.

Many American surveillance satellites had been destroyed or disrupted. The scientists were saying it was because of the disruptions to gravity caused by the presence of the second moon, rather than direct enemy action. The Vore had apparently not noticed, or weren't worried about, the International s.p.a.ce Station.

The surveillance network had been designed to function even if a substantial number of satellites were put out of action. It needed a lot of retasking, but within a day the Pentagon had good coverage. They concentrated on the main Vore swarm, which was following the computer models for it, keeping to the light and sweeping across the world. Contingency plans were being drawn up for this by the British and Chinese. The swarm wasn't bothering the American cities, it was sticking to the plains the red states although this was presumably a coincidence. Planners didn't want to provoke the Vore on American soil for fear they'd target one of the big cities in retaliation.

173.

There was no nuclear option. They'd thought about bombing the swarm over the Atlantic or Pacific, but there would be nuclear fallout and plans were shelved when someone wondered aloud if it might set off a tsunami. There was no delivery system capable of getting nuclear weapons to the second moon.

Enemy numbers were stable. Estimates had it that there was one Vore for every two people on Earth this ratio was continually changing in the enemy's favour, but this wasn't because there were new monsters arriving. Six out of seven of the Vore were in the main swarm, 90 per cent of human casualties were caught in the swarm.

The situation, then, was settling into a predictable pattern. The Vore were in control, systematically taking the human race apart, but now it was possible to see how they would do it, and there was plenty of time to get people evacuated or into shelters. Some people even started talking about things being 'manageable'. None of them, when asked, was able to explain how the swarm could be stopped or even slowed down, but governments around the world were beginning to feel the worst was over.

Then an a.n.a.lyst saw something, right on the edge of one of the African satellite images. And, once she'd worked out what it was, she panicked.

The Doctor had read all the books he'd brought with him. He knew a little more about his home planet now, but what he knew was hardly comprehensive. If he'd grabbed an armful of random novels from a London library, would he have a full understanding of the history and culture of Earth? He'd have to try it some time as an exercise.

For now, he'd got something else to do. The back wall.

The Doctor had found a cutting torch in one of the store-rooms. He had gone to the back wall and was burning his way through it. He'd cut a line up from the floor to the ceiling, now he began cutting a horizontal line. Even though the wall was damaged it was slow work, but it gave him time to think about what he'd read. Gallifrey was a contradiction. A world of futuristic control rooms manned by dusty old men in ornate collars. Monks walking on stone floors underneath which sat a black hole. Although Marnal's narration revelled in the ritual, the repet.i.tion, the routine, the Doctor found himself unmoved. It was no way to live a life.

He moved the cutting beam down. Finally, he reached a long crack in the floor.

The rough oblong he'd cut in the wall hung there for a moment, until the Doctor pushed it over. Through the new doorway was. . . more corridor.

It was with a distinct sense of anticlimax that the Doctor stepped over the 174 threshold into the uncharted regions of his TARDIS. Fifty yards down the corridor, and his mood hadn't improved.

'There's nothing here,' he complained.

But he'd heard scratching at the wall many times. So this couldn't be true.

The Doctor knelt down and examined the floor. Nothing.

At the far end of the corridor, round the first corner, he heard a whirring noise, like servo motors. It was heading this way. The Doctor stood, ready for the new arrival.

It was a robot. It moved smoothly, hovering a little off the ground. It was battleship grey, with what looked like a gun and some sort of sucker cup. It watched him with a single electronic eye.

'You are the Doctor,' it said in a metallic voice.

'Yes. Delighted to meet you,' he replied.

The machine considered its response.

'I must kill the Doctor,' it concluded.

The gun flared with light, and the Doctor dived out of the way. The beam shot past him and was absorbed harmlessly by the wall. He'd been half-expecting a response like that. The Doctor was on his feet, running back to the hole he'd cut.

'Kill the Doctor,' the robot repeated, rolling after him.

The Doctor ducked left, and an energy bolt whizzed past him. As he raced back into the part of the TARDIS he knew, the Doctor had one thought: why on earth would anyone build a robot in the shape of a dog?

The trick was to move quickly, and to know where you were going. The Vore swarm was in the Low Countries at the moment, but would be over the English Channel within two hours.

Trix did what she could over the phone, calling the police not saying who she was, of course and gradually piecing together the Doctor's movements.

He'd traced the truck to an address in north London, and a few hours later the police had mounted an armed siege there, one that had been called off when the second moon arrived. The police had been busy with other things since then.

That was the best she was going to do. Spending several hours in the hotel's dining room the only place with mobile reception got her out of her bedroom, and stopped her thinking about Fitz. In theory.

Trix went back up to her room. She'd left the shower on. For a moment, she thought Fitz was going to pull a Bobby Ewing, she was going to find him in the bathroom wondering why she looked so surprised. When she got into the bathroom, though, there was an odd red stain on the mirror. It looked like melted lipstick, or possibly crayon. There was also the faint whiff of fly spray.

175.

She packed her bag. It took far longer than she thought it would to find her car keys, twenty minutes, and they only showed themselves when she broke down crying with the frustration of it all. Then she cleaned herself up and went downstairs. The receptionist wondered if she'd be back tonight. Trix couldn't tell her. She'd been the only guest last night, so was confident she'd get a room if she needed one.

A couple of Vore flew overhead as she threw her bag on the back seat of the car. They were hundreds of feet up and didn't react to her. There were so many around, and their rules of engagement were apparently so arbitrary, that all you could do was hope you didn't catch their eye. They were ugly things, and ungainly, but when they were individuals the wary could survive contact with them. When the swarm descended the rules would change. Were these Vore scouts? What were they scouting for? Nothing on television or the Net suggested there was any sense of purpose to the attacks. Wherever the Doctor was, once he'd saved any lives he could save, he'd try to determine what the Vores' purpose was before he did anything else.

She sat in the driver's seat of her BMW for a moment, trying hard not to cry.

There would be time for that later. Or she'd be dead too.

The sky was dark and grey, but it wasn't raining here yet. Her hotel was at the top of a hill, off a side road. There was gunfire from the town below.

Trix decided to follow it. She wanted to see whether there was any effective resistance. The car was handling in a funny way again. It had been the same since she'd got it the suspension was off, or there was something wrong with a wheel bearing. It wasn't a big deal. She drove the car down the hill, with the radio turned down so she could hear what was going on outside.

A couple of big army trucks were parked in what was usually a market square. Soldiers were sitting around, rifles at their sides, taking the chance to swig some drink or read the paper. There was a big pile of dead insects by the war memorial.

The lads looked pleased to see Trix as she got out of the car, and she duly did her best to flash them smiles and look impressed. She asked a squaddie carrying a petrol can where she could find his commanding officer, and he pointed out the lieutenant in charge.

'My name's Beatrice Macmillan,' Trix told him.

'Are you all right, miss?'

Not a pleasantry, a genuine question. Trix wasn't sure what she was doing that made him ask this.

'You're secret service, aren't you?' he said. 'You can always tell.'

Go with the flow, Trix thought. 'Normally, of course, I wouldn't admit it.

How have you got on here?'

'Got all the bugs, didn't lose anyone.'

176.

Trix nodded. 'Good. Lieutenant, if I said "the Doctor", what would you say?'

He shrugged. 'I would guess you don't mean you need a medic.'

'What are your orders?'

'Shoot bugs, burn the bodies. The smell keeps them away.'

Trix was looking around. She couldn't see any human bodies. The towns-people had either fled or found good hiding places. This was the second morning after the Vores had arrived. Already, the survivors would have ways of coping, new patterns of behaviour.

'You're not saving any for scientific research?'

'There's no shortage of them. Word is they've got dozens of live specimens, and I'm sure they've got more dead ones than they know what to do with.'

'Any idea where?'

Normally, an army officer wouldn't say anything. Loose lips sink ships and all that, but Trix clearly wasn't a Vore spy.

'Who knows? Probably all sorts of places.'

'Have you got any sense of their tactics?'

The lieutenant laughed at this. 'They're eating crops and livestock. They seem to like pigs the most, then sheep.'

'They can travel in s.p.a.ce,' Trix said aloud. 'Probably interstellar s.p.a.ce or hypers.p.a.ce. We can't do that.'

He frowned, and Trix realised she must have sounded like a Star Trek Star Trek character to him. She'd have to watch that. character to him. She'd have to watch that.

'No we can't, ma'am. But they don't carry weapons or tools, they don't have vehicles. They don't even have clothing. The lads and I were talking about this before, and the best we can manage is they've come an awfully long way to eat pork.'

'There's got to be a better reason than that,' Trix told him.

The lieutenant shrugged. 'We'll leave all that stuff to you lot.

'They go down easy enough you just tell us where to turn up.'

Trix saluted him. 'As you were,' she said, heading back to the car.

The robot dog was pursuing the Doctor down the TARDIS, corridors, firing a pencil-thin beam of energy every time it got a clear shot at him. It wasn't hard to outrun the machine, but it clearly had some sort of detector that allowed it to home in or him. It also seemed familiar with the layout of the TARDIS the Doctor had realised that it was herding him back to the control room. Perhaps it was some sort of sheepdog.

The control room was cavernous, but one thing it didn't offer any more was effective cover. There were a handful of alcoves, like the one the kitchen had been in. Once he was in there the robot would have him.

177.

So, halfway down the last corridor, the Doctor stopped, turned and waited for the robot.

It trundled round the corner, then stopped, antic.i.p.ating a trap.

'Why are you trying to kill me?' the Doctor asked.

Its ears waggled before it answered: 'I am following direct instructions issued by the Four Hundred and Thirteenth President of the High Council of Time Lords, keeper of the legacy of Ra.s.silon, defender of the laws of time, protector of Gallifrey.' The voice was clipped, a little prissy.

'Really? Why?'

'Answer one: affirmative. Answer two: because my programming is to obey the mistress.'

'No, I meant ' This was a very literal-minded robot, the Doctor thought.

'Why was the order given?'

'The mistress Romana instructed me to execute you to prevent the fall of Gallifrey. A transmat beam delivered me to the Edifice, your TARDIS. My orders were clear. Your future self was responsible for the attack. I was to a.s.sa.s.sinate any of your temporal iterations I encountered.'

The Doctor hesitated. 'I see.'

'I have been obstructed from carrying out these instructions for one hundred and fourteen years, nine months, three days and six point three hours. I will now, however reluctantly, carry out those instructions '

However reluctantly?

'Wait!' the Doctor called, holding out his hand. 'Wait. . . wait. Sit. Stay. Did she order you not to talk to me first?'

The ears waggled again. 'Negative.'