'Would you leave us, Lucy?' asked Lizzy, worry in her voice.

'I'd never leave you,' she promised. 'Never. We belong to each other now. We're a family. All we have are each other.

We have to all look out for one another.'

'Good,' said Vicki, satisfied again.

'Do you think the Guards will punish you for what you did?' Simon rarely spoke, but he couldn't stay quiet now. 'I won't let them hurt you. I'd sooner die!'

'I don't think they will.' Lucy ran her webbed fingers through his curly hair. 'And I know you'd defend me. But I don't think they really noticed what I did.'

'And,' added Joshua with a laugh, 'they're too busy burying the dead Guard and panicking. There's only three of them now. There are twenty of us.' He grinned. 'I'll bet we could take them out if we tried.'

Lucy didn't like that kind of talk. 'There may only be three Guards left,' she cautioned him, 'but they're faster and much stronger than we are.'

'Are you scared to fight them?' challenged Joshua.

'Of course I am!' Lucy snapped. She flicked her tail at him contemptuously. 'Calm down, Joshua. We may be twenty, but most of us are very young. If we try and attack the Guards, some of the younger children are bound to be killed. I won't endanger their lives.'

Joshua was still too new to understand fully. 'You'd rather stay here, cooped up like hens?' he exclaimed angrily.

'Doing what Ross tells us to do and waiting until the Guards get mad enough to kill us, like they killed Tim?'

'No,' Lucy replied. 'We all want to get away. But we need to pick the right time to do it. We need some advantage, some way to win. What we have to do is to keep our eyes open and watch for that chance.'

'We could be waiting forever,' grumbled Joshua, but he did seem to be getting the idea.

Lucy swam over to him and touched him on the shoulder. 'Joshua, we won't be here forever, I promise. Haven't you noticed that the past few days the Guards have been very distracted by something? And today one of them was killed.

They're not invincible, and even Ross can't foresee everything. I think that somebody Topside is on his trail. With a little luck, that may give us our chance. So, please, try and be patient for a little longer. You've only been here a short while. I've been here almost a year now. I hope none of us will have to endure this slavery for very much longer.' Lucy smiled at the younger ones. 'Now, it's time to get some rest.'

'Aw,' complained Lizzy, 'you promised to tell us the rest of your story.'

'It's very late,' Lucy replied. 'And the same thing happened to all of you. You already know the rest of it.'

'You promised!' complained Vicki.

Lucy could see that this was an argument she wasn't likely to win. 'All right,' she agreed. 'But it's going to be very short.'

'That's okay,' Lizzy answered. 'We just like the way you tell it.'

Lucy couldn't help smiling. 'Well, I was captured and knocked out by Raintree and Brogan. When I awoke, I was in a strange room with all kinds of machines and stuff. It was some kind of scientific laboratory, I suppose, but you've all been there. You've seen it. I didn't know what all the gla.s.s things were called, or the liquids and stuff bubbling away. I was on a sort of table, strapped down so that I couldn't move. And I didn't have any clothes on at all.'

'Were you scared?' asked Lizzy.

'I was absolutely terrified,' admitted Lucy, smiling. 'I didn't know where I was, or what was happening to me. All I knew was that Cherry was dead, but I wasn't free at all. If anything, I was worse off than before. I remembered rat-faced Raintree and the nasty Brogan, but they weren't around at least. I was afraid they'd brought me to this place just to kill me.

Or, since they'd taken all my clothes, maybe other things first.

'Then Ross came in. He's quite good-looking, but I could tell that he wasn't a nice man. If he had been, he'd have set me free. Instead he came over and smiled down at me . . .'

'You're a very lucky young lady,' Ross said, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with excitement.

'Please,' I begged him, 'let me go. I won't tell anyone anything. I promise!'

'Let you go?' He laughed cruelly. 'I can't do that. You have a wonderful destiny in front of you. You're about to become the first member of a new species.'

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I could tell he was going to do something to me. And he wasn't going to let me go, that was clear. 'What's a species?' I asked, hoping I could keep him talking long enough to escape from the straps. I was cold and scared, but he didn't care.

'A species, child,' he told me, 'is a distinct order of animals that can only interbreed with themselves and not with other creatures. A species is something distinct, with special adaptations that other creatures don't possess. A human being, for example, can breed with other human beings, but not with oh, cats, shall we say? And cats are a species, which can't breed with dogs.'

'I don't understand you,' I told him. 'What are you going to do to me to make me different?'

Ross smiled, and I shuddered at the look on his face. He didn't see me as a person at all, just as some kind of experiment. 'Well, right now you're nothing,' he told me. 'Some dirty little girl who barely manages to survive on her wits. There are thousands like you, filthy creatures who'd be better off dead. And if it were not for me, I suppose Raintree or Brogan would have snapped your scrawny little neck or something. But you have been selected by destiny to become the forerunner of a new race, a new species. By the time I'm through with you, you will no longer be a dirty little girl. You'll be the s.h.i.+ning star of a new kind of creature.'

'Don't hurt me!' I begged him. 'Please, let me go.'

'Stop whining,' he snapped, annoyed that I didn't seem to share his vision. 'You're on the verge of a wonderful experience. You are about to extend the threshold of science and become the first member of a new race.'

'What kind of race?' I asked him, still struggling with the straps. If he saw what I was doing, it didn't bother him. I don't think he saw me, really. He was so lost in his mad ideas.

'Have you heard stories about mermaids?' he asked me.

'Of course I have,' I replied. 'I've heard lots of stories.'

'Do you like the ones about mermaids?' Ross asked.

'Yes,' I said. 'I don't believe there really are such things, though.'

'There aren't,' he agreed. 'Not yet, anyway. But there will be, because you're going to be one.'

I couldn't believe what he was saying. 'That's stupid!' I cried. 'It's impossible! n.o.body can do that, even with magic.'

'Magic?' Ross laughed at me. 'You stupid little girl, science is much more powerful than magic! I can do what I say and turn you into a mermaid.'

'I don't want to be half a fis.h.!.+' I told him, crying at the thought. 'Don't cut me in half!' I thought that what he was going to do was to chop off my legs and sew on a fish's tail, and you can imagine how scared that made me feel.

'Stop that weeping,' he ordered, 'or I'll give you something to cry about.' He glared at me angrily. 'I'm not going to do anything like that. You're not going to be any part of a fish.'

'But isn't that what a mermaid is?'

'In stories, yes,' he agreed. 'But you can't mix people and fishes. They're completely incompatible. People are mammals, a separate cla.s.s from fish. There's no common ground there.'

'Then what are you going to do to me?' I asked him. He wasn't making much sense, even for a lunatic.

'There are mammals that live in the sea,' he told me. 'Dolphins, seals and whales. What I am going to do with you is to change you into a hybrid creature, half-girl, half-dolphin.'

I didn't know then what a dolphin was, of course, but I still didn't like the sound of it. 'You can't do that!' I screamed.

He didn't understand what I meant. 'n.o.body else can,' he told me. 'But I can do it.' He pointed to this big vat in the centre of the room. 'Look at that.'

I could see that it held a sort of thick, white jelly. It was a bit like ointment, I suppose, but that was all I could make out.

'What is it?' I asked.

'That's my transmogrifying fluid,' he replied. 'It enables me to combine two sorts of animal cultures, blending them into a single, viable whole.'

I still didn't know what he meant. 'You can't,' I protested again.

'I've already done it once, by accident,' he told me. 'When I discovered the fluid, I didn't know what it was, except it was some kind of medicine. Then a boy who'd been bitten by a rabid dog was brought to me. I could see he was going to die anyway, so I decided to try the fluid on him. It was incredible! Instead of dying, the boy began to change. He started to get hairy, and grow teeth and eventually he changed into a hybrid half-boy, half-dog. It was fascinating. Then I realized that this fluid enables two different forms of cells to join and become one, as long as they're of the same order both mammals, for example. When I saw my boy-dog, I started to think about other possibilities. And you're my next experiment.'

He was really scaring me now, but I couldn't get free. All I could do was try to be brave. I wouldn't let him see me scream any more. 'You're going to use that stuff on me?' I asked.

'Yes,' he replied. 'And I'm going to mix into you some dolphin extracts. With luck, you should become a real live mermaid.' He shrugged. 'There's a chance you won't survive, true, but sometimes we have to make sacrifices for science.'

'I don't want to be a sacrifice for anything!' I yelled. I could see he was really much madder than I had thought. He didn't care if I died or not. I was just an experiment.

'Oh, shut up,' he told me. He pulled on a pair of gloves. Then he picked up a large, sharp knife.

'You said you weren't going to cut me in half!' I sobbed.

'I'm not,' he said impatiently. 'But I have to mix the fluid and extracts within your body. So I'm going to make a small incision, that's all. Stop whining, or I'll gag you.' Then he cut my arm open, just below the elbow. It started to bleed, and he put his hand into the vat and rubbed some of the fluid into the cut. After that, he picked up a bottle of some greyish liquid and poured that over the wound, too.

It hurt me terribly, like there was a fire burning inside my body. I wanted to be brave, but I couldn't stop myself from screaming. I could feel whatever the liquid was doing to me, like it was ripping me apart. Finally the pain was too much, and I couldn't take it any longer. I was knocked out.

When I woke up, I was still in the laboratory, but not on the table. I was inside a huge gla.s.s cylinder. I felt sick, but not as bad as I had before. I groaned, and then looked down at the cut on my arm. It was completely healed, and I couldn't believe it.

Then I realized what had happened to me. I stared down at where my legs had been. Now I didn't have legs I had a tail! Ross had done what he'd said he could do. He'd made me into a mermaid. I had a tail, but not like a fish's. It was smooth and grey. I could move it and it seemed just like I'd always had it.

Then I saw that I was actually underwater, but I felt fine. I should have been drowning, but I wasn't. I felt perfectly normal. Ross was crazy and horrible, but he was right. I had been changed, made into something very new. I wasn't a normal person any more. I was the first mermaid.

Lucy looked around at the younger ones. 'And that's what he's done to you all,' she told them. 'You've all been through his laboratory and tank. You've all been given the powers to live and breathe and work underwater. We're all something new now. We're not human beings any longer. We're merpeople, something that's never existed before. I know Ross wants us to stay his slaves forever, but we'll get free some day. Then we can start a life for ourselves. Then we won't have to worry about being beaten, or hurt again. We can go somewhere where people will never find us, and we'll start a life together. We all love one another, and we'll take care of each other. One day, we'll be free. One day. I promise.'

She stared at them all, trusting and believing in her. Even Joshua accepted what she said. And she was determined to make this promise of hers come true. One day they would be free, and they'd take care of one another.

Even if she didn't know how they could do it.

7.

Grave Events...o...b.. perfectly frank, Doctor,' Fulbright declared, 'your story sounds utterly preposterous and like something that 'Tover-imaginative French author Jules Verne might have invented.'

'This is beyond anything that Verne might have imagined,' the Doctor snapped. 'Pa.s.s the kippers please, Doyle.'

Doyle complied, helping himself to more bacon. He was enjoying breakfast after the activities of the previous night. For one thing, he was glad to be still alive. 'I agree, Sir Edward,' he offered as he munched, 'it is a trifle difficult to accept, but '

'A trifle?' Fulbright gave a sharp bark. 'It's completely impossible, man! Mermaids!'

'Did I mention that word?' asked the Doctor, annoyed. 'I simply said that there was a humanoid, sentient creature under the water last night. Plus, of course, the seal-like killers. I don't care what you want to call the creatures, but don't simply dismiss them out of hand.'

'After all, Sir Edward,' Doyle added, 'there's that poor boy-turned-hound in the shed out back. How difficult is it to accept a girl-turned-fish after that?'

'I only have the a.s.sertions of the Doctor and yourself that that monster was once a boy,' growled Fulbright. 'And frankly, at the moment I'd be inclined to doubt the pair of you if you told me the sun was going to rise again tomorrow morning.'

The Doctor glared at him, then speared his kipper. 'At least I know where we stand, then,' he commented. 'I take it that you are not willing to help me any longer.'

'I didn't say that,' Fulbright protested. 'But try and keep your requests rational.'

'Ah,' said the Doctor grimly, 'I should have known it: another rational man.' He made it sound like a swearword.

There came a gentle knock at the dining room door, and one of the maids came in. 'Begging your pardon, Sir Edward,'

she said meekly. 'I've been given a message for the Doctor.'

Fulbright grimaced. 'Then deliver it, Nan, and stop cluttering up the room.'

She curtsied. 'Miss Alice said to tell you that Miss Smith is awake and would like to see you at your convenience.'

The Doctor grinned. 'I see, Nan. And would those have been Miss Smith's words as well?'

Nan coloured. 'Umm . . . Not precisely, sir.'

'I imagine not,' the Doctor commented cheerfully. He nudged Doyle. 'Stop making such a pig of yourself and let's go and see Sarah, shall we?'

Doyle bolted the last of his bacon and took a quick swig of tea. 'By all means,' he agreed, patting his lips with the nap-kin. 'If you'll excuse us, Sir Edward?'

Fulbright waved dismissively. 'Out, out,' he growled. 'I've got some thinking to do.'

'Very wise,' the Doctor approved. He strode out of the dining room and followed Nan up the stairs to Sarah's room without pausing to check if Doyle was following. The maid tapped on the door, then opened it to let the men pa.s.s.

Sarah was sitting up in bed, her hand bandaged and her face scowling. It was clear that she didn't want to be there. Alice sat at the bedside, a grim expression on her face.

'Doctor,' Sarah started, but Alice broke in.

'Doctor, tell your friend that she must stay in bed and rest. She won't listen to me.'