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fizzed there like an aspirin dissolving in water. Your mind is richer than that of
these beings. Who are you? Where are you from?
 I m not prepared to tell you that, yet. But I m the one who intercepted the
distress call. The same signal from two sources at once  fascinating. I had to
follow it up. The Doctor swallowed.  Who exactly did you take with you in
the vortex and drop off in the twenty-fourth century?
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There was a rippling of the strange environment, a pulsing in the Doctor s
head, and the Sensopath s voice struggled to maintain its level tone. It was
almost as if something were trying to break through.
You are mistaken. It was I who was abandoned in this barren place. Shanstra s
powers were the greatest, and she was able to direct Jirenal and myself according
to her will. To scatter us where she pleased.
 Shanstra? Jirenal? There are three of you? The Doctor s hearts were
racing. He could feel reality surging in and had the strangest feeling that he
was about to wake up. It was imperative, then, to get information while the
link was still strong.
Yes. We are three.
 Kelzen  is Shanstra dangerous? Is it her, in the twenty-fourth century?
The answer began, like the sound of rain rustling against a sheet of glass.
It ended in the helpless, breath-giving screech of a new-born child.
The Doctor s last thought before he awoke was of Bernice, and of how he
had been stupid enough to send her into the greatest of danger.
Cheynor sat alone in his briefing room. His beard had grown slightly thicker
over the past 48 hours, and it gave his face an even more intensely brooding
aspect than before. Leibniz and Hogarth, arguing about something as usual,
had reported back within the last hour. All they had to do now was wait
for the comsat to attain its optimum position. In the meantime, Cheynor
was following up a hunch. It was the kind of analysis  looking beyond the
obvious  that his old captain, Turin, had taught him.
 Computer, he said.
 Internal systems only on-line, the computer reminded him, in the soothing,
adrogynous voice he had selected for his terminal.
 I know, I know. Access history files: Gadrell Major.
 Information processing. Information accessed.
 Cross-check with Dalek war, Cyberwars, porizium deposits. And give me a
hard copy of all the major conflicts centring around, or related to, the mineral
porizium.
 Processing.
Cheynor drummed his fingers on the table while he waited for his hard
copy. He had a feeling it was going to be a very decisive document indeed.
It was like a great, thundering tide of metal pursuing them down the street.
Bernice had seen tanks before, but this one seemed to be almost alive, to
slither over rough terrain like a hunting animal. She and the boy Trinket ran
through the back streets of the near deserted city, their feet pounding the
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muddy ground, gunfire echoing distantly, and the rumble of the great metal
tank growing behind them with every second.
Bernice s lungs were burning. Mud splashed up on either side of her, great
fountains of it. She kept running, and hoped that Trinket knew where he was
going.
 Here! The boy grabbed her arm and pulled her into the rickety entrance of
a warehouse.
Darkness descended in front of Benny s eyes. She moved forward, confused.
There was the sound of a metal covering of some sort being opened, and then
a light briefly smudged the darkness. She saw the shadowy form of Trinket,
lit dimly from beneath, which confused her further still for a moment, until
she realized he had opened a metal hatchway and she was expected to climb
in after him.
 Service tunnels, Trinket said briefly from beneath her.
Benny made the briefest of sounds to show that she understood. She could
smell metal and oil as she lowered herself on to the ladder, and pulled the
hatchway down behind her. It clanged shut.
She heard the rumble of the Phracton machine as it hurtled past on ground
level, and felt the vibration in her fingertips.
After a climb down of about twenty metres, she found herself in a space
large enough to stand up. She rubbed her rust-smeared hands on her trousers,
thankful that she d been practical enough to change.
Trinket was leaning against a curved metal wall, under one of the dim pan-
els that illuminated the passageway.  It could have got us, you know, he said,
looking at Bernice through his tangled fringe.
 I d gathered that much. I presume you don t call them flamers for their
sparkling conversation.
 They fire a combustible gas and ignite it. It can trash anything up to about
fifty metres. Trinket took a deep breath and shook his head.  The Phracs are
playing with us. It s as if they only want us dead in certain parts of the city,
and at certain times.
Bernice squatted down, rummaging in her satchel.  That sounds like the
beginnings of a theory, Trinket.
The boy shook his head, again with an almost twitchy response. Even in
the dimness, Bernice could tell there was something not quite right with his
eyes  as if he were suffering from some kind of delayed shock, maybe.
She found her chocolate, broke it, offered half to Trinket. At first he backed
off. Not used to being offered something for nothing, Benny reasoned. She bit
off a chunk of her own half, offered again. This time he took it, with a brief
smile of gratitude.
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 You see, Trinket said,  I dunno what s going on here any more. Not since
that woman. I think I ve seen someone else more dangerous than the Phracs.
Bernice stopped chewing. Her eyes widened and she swallowed hastily.
 Trinket, she said,  tell me everything you know about this woman.
Darius Cheynor believed in clutching at straws. Whether this was brave or
stupid he didn t really care as, for once, it had worked. Minimal communica-
tions and monitoring facilities had returned to the Phoenix.
He stood at the table of his briefing room, with Jocassta Hogarth and Horst
Leibniz once more at his side.
He nodded. Hogarth operated a sequence of controls on the panel in front
of her, and a crackling holovid began to form on the table in front of them.
Within about five seconds, they were looking into the glittering web of the
Phracton communications network.
Cheynor stared into the heart of the web.
 This is Captain Darius Cheynor of the Spacefleet vessel Phoenix. I request
an audience with the Phracton Commandant. The network of glittering blue
whirled and crackled. Fractal images formed into a giant, pulsing eye which
could have been that of a Phracton itself, or simply the computer s represen-
tation of an interface portal.
 What message do you wish to convey?
Cheynor took a deep breath. Leibniz raised his eyebrows. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]