Lights flashed along the walls and an alarm blared. Barkhoff stood to his feet as Kreshner rushed by, grabbing his arm. "What's going on?"

"Wha—you're still here, sir?"

"Yes, I'm still here, of course I'm still here, does it look like I'm somewhere else? What's going on? Is it an outbreak?"

"No, it's nothing you have to worry about—"

"Kreshner, if you lie to me one more time I will bury you."

Kreshner felt Barkhoff's hand tighten around his arm and resisted the urge to chin the chancellor right then and there. Instead, he gave in. "There's been a security breach. Someone made it into the lab downstairs."

"What? Get rid of them, then!"

"We don't know yet if they're with an agency."

"Then all the worse if they get away!"

"And all the likelier that they'll be missed." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "Please don't expect me to handle this myself, you hired me for my surgical skills, not my experience in the security of minor conspiracies. . . And, as a surgeon, I'll need to use that arm later."

Barkhoff narrowed his eyes and finally released Kreshner, whose hand had gone cold and purple. One day the chancellor would demand preemptive treatment. The doctor found himself half-hoping to be the one at the table when that happened. Realistically, though, the best revenge would come from leaching the man of his money.

"Thank you," he said, rubbing warmth back into his arm. "I've sent some people down to investigate—along with a former PR man to do damage control if need be."

"Good. What about the cure?"

Ahhh, yes; Barkhoff liked to labor under the delusion that progress was accelerated by intimidation. "We're all a bit busy at the moment, sir."

"I thought you were close. I thought you had brought in more Hecatians. I'm not paying you to spin your wheels."

"No, you're not. But the Hecatians happen to be downstairs in the lab, so we'll be a bit short on results till we sort this out."

"It was through work, actually. They're always asking for . . . I dunno, experts or whatever, on geology and terraforming and the like. I needed work so I followed up on an advert."

"You're a geologist, then?" asked the Doctor.

"No, I'm in agriculture. Anything to do with the ground, that's all they need. One of my friends who came down is in coal mining. They say they need to compare notes with Hecatians 'cause they think the rhixis is summat to do with the planet itself. Maybe even how it was terraformed?"

The Doctor screwed his face. "How it was terraformed? And it's taken this long for the problem to surface?"

"Well, I dunno much about it, I've only just got here."

"You haven't had an interview yet?" asked Camelia.

"No, nothing! Just rang them up and asked if they still needed people."

"Rang who up?"

"Some blokes on the counsel."

"What, here in Ilythia?"

"Yeah . . . You're not saying the Ilythia counsel is on in this, are you?"

"It's a possibility." The Doctor rubbed his chin.

"Who did you think was behind it if not the government?" asked Camelia.

"Oh . . . I dunno."

"Hey, wait a minute," she said suddenly. "Who were those other people in the room, though? The infected? They weren't . . . Hecatians, surely?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, I think they were."

"How? What makes you say that? Didn't you say the Hecatians never got sick? Or were you just making things up?"

"No, no!" said Braden quickly. "Hecatians don't get sick. We don't have any rhixis on Hecate."

She was aghast. "Then . . . then it is to do with the planet! . . . Isn't it?"

The Doctor frowned. ". . . I don't know . . ." If rhixis was a symptom of geological conditions, then why make passage from the moon easy and passage back so difficult? It didn't make any sense. Unless Ilythian officials just really hated people from Hecate. "And you haven't heard anything about this?" he asked Camelia.

"About what?"

"About this, about any kind of . . . geological research to do with the disease? Doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would be kept quiet. You'd think after twenty years they'd like some good publicity. Give people back their faith in medical science." He frowned. "Have you heard of any of this?"

"Well, no, I haven't, but . . . I'm not exactly the type to keep up with the Surveyor."

"Your key, can you use it to access the sphere?"

"Of course I can." She lifted her wrist and tapped on the display. "You want me to check his story?"

"If you don't mind."

She did a quick search. "Nothing. At least, no immediate results that look like anything more than conspiracy theories."

Braden fell back into frenzy. "What? But I'm telling you the truth, there were advertisements everywhere!"

The Doctor tried to calm him down. "Yes, listen, we believe you, we just need to understand. Did you learn about this research through the sphere or did the information come from somewhere else?"

"Um . . . no, not from the sphere, I don't think so. There were flyers around . . . and seminars. I listened to an Ilythian representative ask for volunteers at my work."

Camelia scoffed. "And you never even checked the sphere?"

"Not as crazy as you might think," the Doctor chided. "I told you, they don't even have wrist keys on Hecate. It's a simpler world."

"What do you use, then?" she exclaimed. "For . . . anything? Do you just wait till you can find a computer before you phone anyone?"

"Well . . . sometimes we take our computers with us," said Braden slowly, confused.

"What?! Your computers are mobile?"

"Alright, both of you, just stop," the Doctor ordered. "We need to know what's going on here and now."

"You mean pool our resources and investigate."

"Exactly."

"Good idea!" She turned and headed for the exit.

"Hey, where're you going?"

"Not far."

"Camelia!" He followed her out into the bare reception room to find she'd gone into the tiny office and sat down at the desk. "You can't get in, that's deadlocked, remem—"

Beep! "Identification confirmed. Welcome, Audrian Medley."

The Doctor paused, mouth still open in mid-sentence, frowning.

She waved a wristband in the air. "Compliments of Nurse Medley. My sponsors didn't send me to school for my looks, you know." She tacked away at the keyboard.

Braden, shadowing the Doctor, looked at him and mouthed, "Sponsor?" Irritated, the Doctor could only shrug.

"Okay, what am I looking for?" Camelia asked aloud.

"Recently opened files."

She sifted through material and looked down at the controls, scanning the buttons carefully for the characters she wanted. Tack. Tick, tack.

Tick tack tack.

Clearly the keyboard was not a major part of her generation. The Doctor pulled out the screwdriver and buzzed open a string of file windows.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, do you mind?"

She sighed and removed herself from the chair.

"Thank you," he said, sitting down.

"And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

"Keep an eye on the door. And on Medley."

"How did they get in?"

"It looks like they may have just used a stolen key—look, it's showing Medley's signature opening the door at 1100 hours."

Captain Warsaw frowned. "But didn't Medley report them there five minutes later?"

"Someone else must have opened the door for her."

"No—look at the chart!"

"Sorry, sir." The officer peered at it. "This is saying Medley's ID was used, the door was closed, and then it was opened again with the same key. From the outside. Like they had a duplicate."

The captain sighed and rolled his eyes. "This is why we're going tagged."

"No, sir, please—this isn't possible. Multiple signatures aren't tolerated in the sphere; they would both become invalid and the ID automatically reported to the government for evaluation."

The captain's eyes flashed. "What?!"

"It's been that way for at least ten years. No one's managed to break the system since it was first established."

"Until now, you mean." He opened his own key and tapped in a note to pass on to their superiors. If there was no record of similar ID duplication, this kind of security breach could indicate a new and unimaginably dangerous offensive. He didn't care who found out what he was doing for Barkhoff, this had to be reported.